Abandoned Buildings

“Yeah, yeah, I just got to the place… Sheesh, you weren’t kidding it is a dump.” I grumbled, listening to my bosses screeching voice in my ear. The building wasn’t too shabby in itself, but it was surrounded by burnt debris from the collapsed upper two floors, leaving five floors to inspect.

Being a building condemner wasn’t a bad job, except for the occasional hoarder who needed a wake-up call, but the pay was good for the amount of work involved. I ended the call when my boss was done rambling and picked my way through the rubble to get to the entrance of the building. I pulled out my LED flashlight and shone it around the first room.

There wasn’t anything in the building, and there were plenty of windows, but the dirt and grime caused only filtered light to come in, making the building seem a lot darker. My steel toed boots thumped across the concrete floor as I shone the light down the halway to the big building.

Boss said it used to be a hospital. Not sure what kind of hospital, but a place of death nonetheless. I went down the first hallway and peered into the many rooms, finding each one to have only a few mutilated hospital beds or completely empty. The building seemed quite sound to me, I had no idea why it was up for condemning. Going back to the main room, I took the stairs up, ignoring the elevator knowing it wouldn’t work.

The second and third floors were clear just as the first one, but as I began to ascend the stairs to the fourth and final floor, I heard something…. Odd. Metal clinging together and scraping on concrete. It was faint at first, only getting fainter as I stood there quiet, listening. When the noise stopped completely I went up the stairs, noting the broken pieces of the roof in this floor, being the last complete floor I would have to check.

My flashlight uncovered nothing of real importance until I checked behind the desk of this floor. Behind the half circle desk were three metresses pushed together and several boxes of canned food. There was also a hot plate and a backpack full of clothes. People were living here!

“Hello?” I called, looking around. “Is anyone here?” Still nothing. “This building is going to be torn down. If you can hear me I suggest you leave soon!” At this the whole building got cold, the very air turning frigid. I shivered and looked around. The sun was still out and shining, so why did the building get cold like that?

I looked around in a big circle before walking down the hallway to check the rooms. The first three rooms had beds devoid of their mattresses and the other rooms…. Were difficult to explain.

Bones. Lots of bones. I was unsure if they were animal or human bones, but I didn’t want to check. Whatever was leaving these was apparently eating whatever creature they belonged to, the bones were riddled with teeth and bite marks, almost as if a dog had been gnawing on them for too long.

I swallowed thickly and turned into the last room, expecting to see more bones, but froze. In the corner there was a person. Concealed by baggy dark brown cargo pants, black boots, and a thick black hoody with the hood up, I couldn’t see the person’s face or if they were even alive. I opened my mouth to see if it was okay when it jerked it’s head u to look at me. Wild green eyes with slitted pupils stared up at me, the rest of this… I wanted to say woman’s face was covered by a plaid purple and black scarf. She didn’t move, but I could tell she was poised. Coiled. Ready to strike out at any second. Like a cornered beast, or an angered animal.

I opened my mouth to speak again, only to be shocked and frightened… Again. A blood-chilling growl, not one of those fake growls people do to imitate an animal, but a literal angry animal growl peeled through the air, making my hairs stand on end.

I backed up a few steps as the woman rolled onto the balls of her feet and rested her weight on the tips of her fingers. Her eyes never left me, watching carefully and her head tilting directions as if to get a better look at me. When she froze I took another step back and then she lunged. I was by no means slow, even less now that I was filled with adrenaline, but as I turned and bolted for the stairs, I could hear this woman running behind me the entire time.

I rounded the stairwell to get to the third floor when, and I was very shocked at this, that woman jumped over the railing and landed several stairs infront of me. That jump was at least twelve feet down and she didn’t even flinch as she turned to stare at me again. I backed up onto the landing as she advanced towards me slowly. I steeled myself now. It was just some crazy lady, she probably isn’t even that strong. I can take her.

When the woman lunged up the stairs again, I was ready to meet her. She certainly did pack a first punch! Her weight made me stagger and her claw-like fingernails dug into the skin on my neck. After staggering, I grabbed ahold of her shoulders and shoved her roughly away from me. I could see the wild green eyes widen in a bit of shock as she ended upstumbling and falling down the flight of stairs, hitting the old metal railing, which broke under the force of her hit. As she fell off the landing I stared in shock.

I ran down the the broken landing railing and looked down. Two stoyes below, the woman lay unmoving and facedown. I didn’t know whether she was hurt or dead, but I certainly wasn’t going to check. I raced down the stairs and out of the building, running to my service truck. I reched for my keys and… My keys! I patted all my pockets and looked in the windows of my truck, not seeing my keys anywhere. I remembered hearing them as I was running away from that woman, but…

I looked back at the building and gulped. I tried to call my bos to explain what had happened, but my phone had died while I was in the building, searching for a signal. I sat outside the building for hours, trying to convince myself it was okay to go back inside. That the woman was dead and I had no reason to fear. But deep in my gut, I knew that that building wasn’t safe, but I really needed my keys to leave. I could break into the truck, but not my house, or my safe, or the extra keys for my kids diaries….

The building was quiet, a bit darker since the sun had started setting, but I waved my flashlight around looking for any sign of my dropped keys. I pointed the flashlight towards the stairs and paled. The woman’s body wasn’t there anymore.

“Ah, shit….” I breathed, looking around for any trace of her. None. I froze as I heard chains rattling together again, closer than they were before, but they quickly stopped. I was on my way towards the stairs when a subtle dinging got my attention. The elevator…. It’s door opening and the light on inside of it. There on the floor of the elevator sat my keys.

Some part of me knew it was a trap, and I tried to find some object I could use to reach in and get my keys with, but to no avail. I would have to get them myself, and endure whatever torment would befall me.

I walked to the elevator, it’s doors patiently waiting to accept me with open arms. I slowly and quietly entered the red carpeted elevator. The second I touched my keys the doors began to shut, and like a fool I tried to out pace them, only to have my first two fingers of my left hand shut in the doors. I yelled out in pain as I felt the bones crack and break, possibly shattering, almost drowning out the noise of the elevator moving up. How this thing was working I had no idea, the shaft was damaged in the fire, this thing should have been in the basement, broken into pieces.

I groaned as the elevator lurched to a stop and the light went out. For several moments I was enveloped in cold darkness. My hand throbbed, sending aching pain up my arm and into my shoulder as I stood there with my hand clamped in the vice of elevator doors. After a few more moments of the dark I pulled out my flashlight and turned it on.

Oh God, this woman… Dressed in all white from her head to her feet, the woman stared. Her eyes were all black except for a thin white slit, which I suppose was her pupil. Her skin, bleach white. Her clothes, bleach white. Her hair… Oh God, her hair. I could tell that the roots of the woman’s hair were also bleach white… But God… Her hair, was completely and utterly soaked in wet crimson blood. I could hear it dripping, forming puddles on the elevator floor. For some reason, I didn’t question why, the blood didn’t stick to her skin or clothes. Just her hair.

I stared at her appearance, utterly shocked by what I saw. Her blood soaked hair was logn and went down to her waist, and chains hung off of her jacket and pants, giving her a very weighed down look. Under her right eye, there was a tattoo of the number 15 and if I looked closer, I saw that I could just make out the detailed of the wall behind her. She was transparent! Like a ghost!

The light turned back on suddenly and to doors began to open, releasing my hand. As the doors opened wide enough for me to get out, the bloodied woman shrieked and flew at me. I fell to the side and scrambled away from her, the woman disappearing as fast as she came. I was on the fifth floor, or the roof now. As the elevator doors shut, it fell, I heard the metallic crunching noises and it hit the basement floor. I looked around and held my broken finers. It was dakr now. I had been in that elevator longer than I thought. I managed to stand up and stagger a few steps, my limb shaking from being frightened by that girl’s appearance. I turned my flashlight on and looked around the roof, freezing as I saw the black hoodie-clad woman again. She was standing, seemingly unhurt. She looked at me, green eyes full of rage as she slowly paced her way to me.

I stumbled back, falling onto my backside as I tripped over… A chain? The crimson haired woman rose from the roof underneath me, my feet trapped in a couple of the chains she weilded. I struggled, but to no avail. The animal-like woman kneeled over me, grabbing my up by the collar and lifted my torso with amazing strength. She stared me in the face for several seconds, and I’m sure I was almost as white as her bloody companion, who stood there watching silently.

The hidden face of the green eyed woman was revealed as she pulled her scarf down, a strange looking nose and mouth on a small muzzle of sorts was hidden underneath. She peeled her lips back, showing the fangs of a wolf and growled menacingly again. I’m pretty sure I had pissed myself, but I didn’t get the chance to realize it because she was biting my throat, twisting and tearing the flesh until it ripped free from my body. I emitted a few gurgling noises before I passed out, bleeding to death shortly after.

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The woman drove up in her Mercedes, grumbling about foolish men. Jimmy had gone missing a week ago, last heard from at this property. She saw his truck when she stopped at the building and stepped out of her car. The truck held nothing special, but the building caught her attention. Written above the door in what looked like blood was: DONT COME BACK*. The second stroke of the K trailing up into an arrow that pointed at…

The woman screamed loudly and ran to her still running car, trailing dust and gravel as she raced away from the scene. The bloodied woman watched from the roof before fading in through the floor to the small sanctuary they had made from the old abandoned hospital. The wolf-woman lay curled under the desk on a pile of blankets as they hid from the world. Two outcasts, protecting what had become theirs.

Jimmy? Well, the arrow was pointing at him. He was hung from the roof by a chain that held his wrists together, done by the bloodied woman, or as they called her Poltergeist, putting on display the half-eaten body of the man who intruded and threatened their place. His throat was torn out of course, you remember that. The wolf-woman, or as she liked to be called Animal, had ripped out his entrailed, leaving some hanging. She had stripped the majority of the skin and muscle off of his torso, leaving bloodied ribs to bleach in the sun.

Well the authorities arrived later, they couldn’t find any trace of Animal or Poltergeist. They took Jimmy’s body and a week later the case was closed cold, having no evidence or clues of what had happened.