Acid Rain by R.D Rhodes (ebook reader txt) 📕

realised it was a streetlamp, its little head shining pathetically on top of a rustic, concrete body that looked about fifty years old. Its bleak light only added to the weird, silent atmosphere that was pervading the air. We passed by a couple more, then ahead, through a clearing in the trees on the left, I thought I saw it- an old building of grey faded sandstone, two-storeys high with several chimneys poking up through the shingled roof. The road skirted along the building’s front. I looked up at the weeds that choked its gutters and sprawled out over the moss-smothered slates. Most of the chimneys were cracked, and crows had made homes in the funnels.  All the windows were boarded up with nailed in cardboard, and below glass shards lay scattered along the tarmac, glinting in the orange lamplight. There were a few windows that had yet to be covered, and beyond each of them deep blackness lay in waiting. I stared into them, wondering what those rooms used to be.

Mack crawled the car forward at ten miles an hour. She was looking at the state of it too. Then she turned her head and caught my eye, “It gets better,” she said softly. She looked back out, “These are just the out-buildings. Don’t worry.”

“How long ago were you here?” I asked.

She faced the windscreen and tightly held the wheel. “Oh, a while ago now, honey. About four or five years ago.”

“Was it this derelict then?”

“No, but trust me the main building is a lot better. They just don’t have a use for all this land anymore. Costs too much to maintain. Wait till you’re in there. You’ll like it. Look! It’s not so bad.”

I peered opposite, at the grounds that those windows looked onto. I couldn’t see much of it through the fog but the grounds there were a lot neater, almost spotless actually, and the grass was all mowed and dotted with tall planted trees. It ran downhill on a series of inclines between level fields, like a Chinese rice plantation. The grass kept running down, I couldn’t see all the way- but just then a patch of fog drifted on and I could see that it was indeed the boundary, and that dense woodland seemed to surround the hospital on all sides. When the fog cleared long enough I gazed amongst the distance of treetops but I couldn’t see another light, road, house or sign of human habitation anywhere.

The road narrowed again, leading us towards a long wall of hedge. There was a gap in its centre and Mack drove through, and on the other side the huge main building stretched out before us. The size of it took me aback. It stood vast and omniscient at the very top of the hill, like a huge old mansion house, arching high at the roof with decadent gothic turrets and columns of large chimneys that were all silhouetted in the darkness of the deepening night. The out-building we past before was two storeys but this was at least three- four actually- as I counted the rows of bright, orange-lit windows from the bottom up. Those many windows were stretched out on all sides, windows everywhere, and they were all gleaming brightly through the haze. The building’s main block was flanked on both sides by giant protruding separate wings, everything parallel in appearance. It all looked more like a castle fort than a modern medical institution.

And all this I could see from a distance as Mack drove nearer. She steered past an old brown signpost on our left that held a map of the grounds beneath a series of directions and arrows- Ward 2, 3, 4, and 8-right. Kitchen area-left. Ward 7,9, and 10- left. Main reception. Occupational therapy. Psychiatry.

The road split two ways- straight, through the grounds towards the distant trees, and right, where Mack went, up the hill towards the hospital. A number of derelict greenhouses stood before the hedge, all smashed to bits. Clusters of brambles rose up through the open roofs and poked out through the sides. A crow hopped along what remained of one of the steel roof structures. My eyes followed it but it was too dark and I soon lost sight as Mack drew up to the large car park. There were very few other cars though. I counted eleven, which seemed odd, given the size of the place. But then again it is nighttime, I thought.

Mack drove into a space, slowed down, stopped, and killed the engine. I looked straight through the windscreen at the large windows of the first floor, but I couldn’t see any movement, just a long sweeping corridor with no-one in it.

An eerie silence hung in the air. I expected to hear something- a car starting up, a shout, the chatter of nurses leaving the hospital- but nothing.

Mack waited patiently. She had a long look out before her, then faced me again. “You want a few minutes?”

I nodded.

“Mind if I smoke?”

I shook my head. She reached into her cardigan pocket and pulled out a pack and pulled one loose. She rolled down the window, produced a lighter and sparked up.

I looked at the clock. 8.40.

I wanted to go back. I wanted to be anywhere but there. I glanced around at the other cars-Fords and Renaults and a beat-up old Astra parked four spaces away, then I peered out the back window. I couldn’t see the greenhouses anymore, or much else, but I made out the row of trees siding the lamp-lit path that ran down the center of the lawn. They stood motionless. There wasn’t a breath of wind. Everything was so quiet.

I turned back and sat there facing the hospital. Mack was sucking up the fag with deep intakes of breath. I thought about asking for one, but I knew the nausea within me wouldn’t have been