A Night of Hell

My Grandson showed me this site, told me it was full of stories that would creep me out Ha! Stories of video game characters bleeding digital blood, child killers with bleached faces and ear to ear grins I've read scarier things on the back of cereal boxes. I'll tell you a truly scary story, scary because it's true though I don't imagine you're going to believe me but at my age I don't really give a crap.

My name is Kurt Cartson and in the year 1945 I was the head Security Guard at the Sedgwick County Hospital in Wichita Kansas, I was a whopping 19 years old. 1945 might seem like a long time ago to some of you youngsters out there but believe me it's not and I remember it like it was yesterday. The old county Tuberculosis Ward had just closed down and we where in the middle of transporting patients to the temporary Ward at our hospital. It was late in fall about 2 weeks before Thanksgiving and the weather had started turning cold and foul and on that day it was suppose to storm and ooh boy storm it did.

I was working the late shift 6pm to 6am in the Emergency Ward the night she came in. I knew right away something was amiss by the way they were bringing the old Packard (for you young folk that was a car company that made Ambulances back then) into the bay, damn near at full speed. I stepped out into the bay to offer assistance bringing in the patient, the sky was dark with clouds and the first few drops of rain from the storm to come was dropping lightly from the sky. The Medic jumped out of the back of the wagon, his face was pale and drawn glancing over at me he motioned for my assistance so I joined him at the back of the wagon.

“What we got tonight Rick?” I asked arriving at the rear. Rick was older than me, maybe 25 or 26 but he didn't look any older. He was wearing his white on white Medic uniform with large red crosses on the shoulders with the initials EMS embroidered under them. I can still remember the look of concern on his face when he spoke to me “Goddamn Kurt you're not gonna believe this one.” He pulled the gurney from the back of the wagon and I set eyes on her for the first time. She was a small girl maybe 5' 2”- 5'3” and a buck twenty at the most. Her red hair was dark and matted to her forehead and she appeared to be soaked from head to toe, much too wet for the light drizzle that was coming from the sky. She was strapped to the gurney with wide leather straps that were usually reserved for larger patients that were acting out. I turned to Rick about to ask what the hell was going on when she suddenly lunged forward, breaking the strap on her left arm as if it was a shoe string. She swung her free hand at my face open palmed using her nails as if they were the claws of some wild cat, I pulled back within mere moments of loosing an eye.

“Jesus Christ!!”, I shouted as I instinctively stepped back away from the flailing claw. “Jesus can't help you now, you're mine you son-of-a-bitch all mine” the woman growled at me, her voice sounded hoarse and gravely like she has been screaming for days and there were only a few working vocal cords left. Jack who had been driving the wagon stepped from behind me and grabbed her loose arm trying to force it back to the side of the gurney. Jack was a young man about my age and built a lot like me too about 6' tall and around 220 lbs, and what I saw is hard for me to believe to this day even though I saw it with my own eyes. That little woman picked Jack up in all his mass with her one arm and slung him to the ground as if he was nothing more than a sack of potatoes.

I was stunned, over come with fear and confusion, the rain hammering down now in a torrent as Rick was shouting for me to grab her F*&^ing arm before she did more damage but I could barely hear him over the beating of my heart. I shook off the initial shock and grabbed a hold of her free arm as she tried another swipe at my face, using all my 235 lbs I tried to force the arm down to the side of the gurney so Rick could fasten another leather strap but if felt more like I was holding on to Wild Red Berry's arm then some diminutive female patient. After what seemed like an hour of struggling trying to gain control of her arm Jack re-appeared with several nurses and Doctor Hemmerman, apparently he had gone inside the Hospital and gotten more help. Nurse Brown helped me hold the patients free arm while Doctor H. tried injecting Phenobarbital into the arm that was still restrained by the leather strap. Despite the combined weight of Nurse Brown and myself the patient was still bucking wildly thrashing back and forth and lifting me off my feet in several instances, the bucking made the injection difficult and when Doctor H. pulled the needle from the patients arm blood ran freely down her shoulder, “That should calm her down, but it may take a few minutes before it kicks in lets get that arm strapped back down” Doctor H. shouted over the incoherent shouts and obscenity that had continually streamed from the patient. With Jack, Nurse Brown, Doctor H and myself we managed to hold her free arm long enough for Rick to fasten another thick leather restraint around her wrist and to the bottom rail of the Gurney.

We managed to move the patient into the hospital proper getting her into room 1 (the closest to the bay doors) and still she bucked and spat and screamed, sometimes just pure obscenity sometimes in what sounded like a foreign language but it never ceased. Several times she had thrust her tongue out until it seemed it would tear from her mouth and fall to the floor, during this time the storm had reached a tempest and lighting brought the windows to brilliant white flashes while thunder rocked the walls of the building. “You will all roast in the fires of Hell, and be the damned whores of Satan” echoed though the halls of the hospital as the patient continued her barrage of insane laughter. I was in the room with her, trying my best to keep calm, out in the hall I over heard Doctor H. asking Rick what her story was.

“The call originally was of someone drowning in the Arkansas River” Rick was saying, his voice trembled slightly as he retold the story. “When we arrived she was standing in the River up to her waist in what had to be freezing water and thats when we noticed the child” “Child! What child??” interrupted Doctor H. “There was a child with her Sir, about 5 maybe 6 years old and she was dunking the child's head into the river over and over again, We asked her what the hell she was doing and she yelled that she was baptizing her daughter in the name of Satan” “My God! Where is the child now?” “Down at the Orphanage Sir, she was unharmed other than being cold to the bone” Rick finished his story with a shudder that shook his entire body.

Rick and Jack left the hospital, Doctor H. and I stayed with the patient. The Doc looked troubled, it had been over 30 minutes since the Phenobarbital had been administered and the patient was still thrashing and shouting blasphemies and obscenities, add to that the fierce storm raging outside and the flickering of the hospital lights that eerily seemed to sync with the pitch of the patients screams and let me tell you the shorts I was wearing that day were not fit to ever be used again.

Finally the Doc seemed to come to a conclusion, he requested a nurse to bring him Phenothiazene and the patients chart. Again Nurse Brown and myself held the patient by the shoulders using all our weight to try to steady the patient as Doctor H. gave the shot. He then grabbed up the patients chart wrote something hastily and stood starring at what he had wrote as if he was second guessing himself. Finally he resigned let out a heavy sigh and tossed the chart on the counter where it landed opened. The Doc then turned to me and said “She needs to be moved, out back to the Treatment Center we can't have her disturbing the other patients.” His face was nearly white, I must have had a shocked look on my face because he placed his hand on my shoulder and said “I know, but under the circumstances...” he looked at the patient again who was still thrashing about “Just do it ok?”

The treatment center the Doc had referred to was an old brick style one story building that sat in the back of the Hospital, it was originally used when the Hospital had been the Kansas Sanitarium back in 1926 for less than convention forms of medicine like electro shock therapy and Light Baths. It was just an empty building now the last time it was used was to store rabbit food when that swindler Rajah convinced a bunch of people that Rabbit fur coats was going to be the next big thing and had turned the Sanitarium into a damn Rabbit farm.

The Doc left the room informing me that he would send Brown back in as well as a couple of other duty Nurses to help transport the patient back to the Treatment Center. After he left I went straight for the patients chart, I just had to know what the Doc had written that had bothered him so badly. Oh how I wish I hadn't looked, though I guess now it wouldn't have change things if I hadn't. I glanced through the chart that was mostly blank as no identification or vitals had been obtained till I saw the diagnosis line, written there was two words that sent a bolt of ice cold fear right down my spine, it simply said “Demonic Possession”.

Brown and several other duty Nurses came into the room and I quickly set the chart down, Brown had informed me they had moved the patients out of the east hall of the E.R. So we could move the patient through without disturbing too many patients and hopefully without any interruptions. The plan worked well we moved quickly though the hall and out the back side of the hospital and out into the storm. Lightening flashed through the sky lighting the rear of the hospital to almost day light illumination while thunder blasted us hard enough to even drown out the screams and manic laughter of the patient till at last we arrived inside the Treatment Center.

The Center was dimly lit and still smelled of rotting rabbit food and dung even though those items hadn't been in the area for almost a decade. We wheeled the patient into one of the specialty treatment rooms that luckily had a thick wooden door that could close. Brown turned to me, “Doctor Hemmerman wants you to stay here with the patient, he has arranged for an, uh counselor of sorts to come see her you'll know when he gets here. You are to let him in and close the door and do not leave until he is finished understand?” I nodded noticing a sudden panic rising from my stomach threatening to make me bolt out of that building and straight for home.

It was an hour before anyone arrived at the Treatment Center during which time the patient never ceased yelling obscenities and speaking in that strange language that made me feel sick inside when I heard it. When he arrived I recognized him instantly as a Catholic Priest, I couldn't believe it I had known Doc H. since well before I worked for the hospital and he never struck me as a religious man so I was shocked enough at his diagnosis but to send a Priest? I nodded towards the Priest as he walked to me and simply said “Father”, I've never been a religious man myself so I wasn't sure if there was anything else I should say or not so I stood there feeling uncomfortable about the whole situation.

The priest spoke to me “Son, what is to happen here tonight must never be spoken of. Doctor Hemmerman has told me that I could trust that of you is that so?” “Yes Father, but what..” that was as far as I got before he walked past me into the room and firmly shut the door. At first everything was quiet for the first time that night, all I could hear was the tapping of the rain against the metal roof of the center, the thunder seemed to have calmed and if the patient was still making noise it did not penetrate through the thick wooden door.

<p style="margin-bottom: 0in">Then I heard it, barely audible at first but it was defiantly there it was the sound of chanting. I guessed it to be Latin based only on the knowledge that the Catholics often did their prayers in Latin and soon after I heard the chanting I began to hear the patient again, her high pitched voice echoed inside the room before spilling out into the hall through the door giving it an even more demonic tone than before. What she was saying I could not tell you, for again it was in that strange language. It wasn't the same language the priest was chanting what ever it was. The priests voice rose, chanting louder and more intense, the patients voice rose to match switching from the unknown language back to English and the things she was saying, the blasphemies, to this day I cannot repeat not even in type and at the time they made me break into tears and I found myself apologizing to God for even hearing such things.

<p style="margin-bottom: 0in">The lightening and Thunder came back with a vengeance, the strikes coming with such intensity and consistency it was as if one continues burst of electricity filled the air 'till suddenly a scream shattered through the center driving me to my knees. The scream was from nothing that ever walked this Earth and it shook me to the very core of my being, and then there was silence. I sat on my knees on the floor for a good 3 minutes before I finally stood, the storm had seemed to have gone there was no thunder or sound of rain on the roof, there was no chanting and no sound of the patient so I stood staring at the wooden door wondering if I should open it and check or just leave it alone.

<p style="margin-bottom: 0in">After about 5 minutes the door finally opened, the Priest stood in the door way his grey face looked like it had been molded from wax, blood dripped down the side I think coming from his ear. Behind him lay the patient, a sight I will remember 'till my death. Her skin was a pale green color, her jaw looked like it had been nearly torn from her face leaving her mouth agape in a strange way that made me think that something large had crawled its way out of her corpse. Her tongue was lolled outside of her mouth laying on her cheek and her eyes had rolled into her head leaving nothing showing but the whites, there wasn't any doubt that she was dead.

<p style="margin-bottom: 0in">I quit the hospital that night, after swearing to the Doc and the priest again that I would never speak of the incident. A promise I guess I have broken not that it matters, all the people who were there are either my age or dead now. Nothing ever came up in any of the papers, the hospital closed and was torn down in 53, theres nothing left now but a broken side walk and a barren field but that night did happen and let me tell you it changed my life.