Aguirre Hospital

Winter break!

Finally, I was going back home to my home island of Puerto Rico, and spend some time with my family. This semester was pretty tough on me, but a good vacation was what I needed. However, this time I wanted to take a road trip to the town of my birth: Salinas. I was born in a hospital in a little community called Aguirre, but I had never personally seen it (not that I can remember anyway). From what I read, the hospital was abandoned, but still standing. My mom didn’t want me to go, but she didn’t tell me why. I didn’t care though. You know how moms are. They worry about every little thing.

The ride took around an hour. Aguirre was pretty well hidden in the back roads of the town. But eventually, I was able to find it perched on a small hill.

The hospital had two stories, and a good amount of foliage blocked the stairs to the main entrance. It actually looked like the building didn’t want me there. Surprisingly enough, there wasn’t a lot of graffiti. Usually, buildings like these are covered in graffiti. I could only make out one word of what little there was: “muerte”; which means death in Spanish; but it was cut off at the t. The surroundings were also completely abandoned. I could see houses and a small park nearby, but it looked like nobody had been there in ages.

A gust of wind suddenly blew, and it caught my attention because it went through the foliage that covered the main entrance. I swore somebody was asking me to go inside. The steps weren’t all that difficult to go up. When I got to the top of the stairs, I went through the main entrance. The place was a mess. Linoleum tiles littered the floor. There was dust everywhere, and I felt like I was breathing large amounts of it with every breath. I didn’t see any medical equipment either, or beds. The only thing there, were old dried up toilets. But the one thing that did catch my eye was a small trail of dry blood drops leading from one room to another. I checked the room closest to me and saw a huge blotch of dried blood on the floor. The blood drops seemed to start there, as if that was the first “drop” of blood. From there the drops continued into the room across it, and stopped just in front of the window. Smaller droplets, as if sprayed the window’s frame. I thought of a doctor throwing a body part out the window, or something. I would’ve lied to myself if I said the whole image in my head wasn’t a bit comical, however grotesque.

A shuffling noise suddenly came from my right, and I briefly saw a small shadow bolt down the corridor. I ran after it. The corridor turned a left, and then a right where it became into a larger hallway with more doors to its sides and a large exit that allowed light to flood in. Sadly, I didn’t see anything. However, I saw small plumes of smoke still dancing in the air, so something was definitely in there. I scanned my surroundings and noticed another trail of blood. This one however, snaked from the corridor I had just come from, and down the large hallway to the exit at the end of it. It was also a solid line, rather than small drops of blood. Notice that I didn’t say it was a trail of dried blood.

What really scared me was the whisper that suddenly shot out from behind me. “Hermano” it said with pitch similar to a baby’s. That means brother in Spanish. I immediately looked behind me, and I saw the same small shadow from earlier go down the corridor I just came from. Again, I ran after it. When I got to the hospital’s entrance I lost the shadow again. But then, I heard the same whispering voice. “Come down here” it said to me in Spanish. I looked to my right where the sound came from, and I saw a staircase leading down to the hospital’s first story. I couldn’t see the bottom of the stairs too well, seeing how the first floor was not as well lit as the second one, probably from all the foliage growing at the bottom. But, for some weird reason, I went downstairs.

When I got to the very bottom, I saw the same line of blood coming from a hole in the ceiling, down the wall, and through a corridor behind me. It led to a large room, which was probably a lobby back in the day. The ceiling was all cracked, and falling to pieces, and I could see the rotten wooden beams that formed the foundation of the building. But then, the noises started to happen again.

A heard a mess of scuttles moving from one side of the room to the other. Dust shifted in the air quickly, which only confirmed that there was something in there with me. Even the wooden beams creaked a bit from time to time. The scuttles were one thing though. I also heard the same whispers again. Even though they clearly sounded Spanish, it wasn’t as understandable as it was earlier. I swear the voices were having a conversation between themselves. But then, their attention turned to me. “Why have you come, brother?” The voice asked me in Spanish, of course. “Tell me who you are first.” I answered back in Spanish myself. The whispers began to rise again, as if consulting their answer, and then a silence dropped. After waiting for a couple of seconds, they finally answered me. “Our mothers did not want us. Our fathers were eager to get rid of us. To this hospital they came to undo us. Like trash we were thrown out into the scorching sun. But our survival was hardly their choice. We stayed in this world, just as you chose to stay.” I was completely confused by their words. I didn’t have that much time to think, though.

Suddenly, a door creaked open next to me. I saw it. A baby crawled from that room. Its legs were malformed and its body was drenched in blood. Bile oozed from its mouth, and I swore it was trying to form a smile. With every drag of the body, it left a trail of blood. A rustling behind me was enough to snap me from my shock. When I turned, there were more of them crawling up to me. And up in the wooden beams, I saw them climb their way down with incredible speed.

My mind couldn’t handle it. I ran past the first one, up the stairs and out of the hospital. Just as I was getting into the car, I heard their whispers “Come back to us brother!”