Some say...

Some say that it was cursed before the first “resident” arrived. There was talk of an ancient indian burial ground beneath and of several men dying during the construction of the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum. It was all just hearsay, so far as Sarah Duncan knew, a bit creepy, but she really needed the job.

A couple months before, Sarah’s mother had died and left her a house, but also a stack of bills. A job as part of the nightly cleaning team at the asylum was all she had been able to find when she moved back to West Virginia.

It was 1993 and there were rumors that the asylum would soon be closing, but Sarah hoped she would have a better job long before then.

On her drive to work, Sarah saw what she wasn’t sure was a large shadow or a large man with bat wings. She figured it was just a shadow, but had she known of Mothman and his warnings of danger she might have turned around, but then again, probably not because she did not believe in such things.

As she arrived for her first night of work she reached the employee entrances she once again thought she saw the shadow of a large creature flying overhead and very much felt like turning and running in the other direction. She reminded herself how badly she need the job. Besides, such tales were ridiculous and so she continued on.

She met her supervisor, Glen, and the other janitors and was then given a cart of cleaning supplies, a mop bucket and a mop. She was assigned a certain hallway, pointed in the direction and went on her way. A few seconds later Glen caught up with her.

“I just wanted to give you a warning.” He said.

“A warning?” Sarah asked.

“Yes. Whatever you may see or hear, just ignored it. Horrible things have happened here. They can’t hurt you if you are not willing to pay attention to them, but if you do pay attention they can cause you a lot of trouble.”

Sarah started to ask him what kind of trouble, but he was already heading away from her. He must believe the tales, she thought and she laughed to herself. Then she thought it was probably some sort of new employee hazing and they would all try to scare her later in the night. “Let them try,” she said partly out loud, she wasn’t going to let them scare her.

She reached the hallway where she was suppose to clean. It was very long and very dark even though the light was already on.

“Oh, so you give me the super creepy hallway? You can’t scare me that easily!” She said to the empty corridor.

Just then, ever so briefly, she thought she saw a little girl run across the hallway. Not really a little girl, it was more like a shadow of a little girl. Some sort of trick? She wondered. Or maybe she was just seeing things because she was expecting a trick? It had to be one or the other because Sarah absolutely did not believe in ghosts. After she had assured herself there was really nothing to fear she started her work.

The floor seemed to mostly hold storage rooms, along with a few offices. She was very happy that she had not been given part of the building with “residents” to clean. That is what she was told to call them when she was hired, “residents,” like it was some sort of assisted living facility and not a nuthouse. People that had no grip on reality, even if they weren’t violent, totally freaked Sarah out. Well, and everyone knew that most of the people housed in this asylum were violent criminals, or so the stories went.

The rooms in this hallway were filthy. It was like nobody had bothered to clean them in years. Probably another part of new employee hazing, she thought.

As she had first entered the hallway she had noticed a slight smell, but as she had continued down the hallway with her cleaning and was now in the middle the smell was overwhelming. It was the most horrible smell she could ever remember smelling. Like everything bad she had ever smelled combined into some sort of smelly bomb. She followed that smell and it led her a couple doors from where she was cleaning. The door had a small window in it and she took a flashlight from her cart and shined it is there. Much to her surprise there was nothing. The room was totally empty and looked completely clean and like it had been recently painted. She saw no closet or anywhere something that smelly could be hiding. She decided to go in and make sure, as she started to turn the door knob she heard a voice that sounded very much like a little girl say “you don’t want to go in there.” She spun around and looked up and down the hallway, but there was nobody there.

Just part of the hazing. Just a trick. Sarah told herself. She then looked up and down the hallway for some sort of speaker that could be broadcasting a voice. There was nothing of the sort. The hallway was completely white and aside from her cart there was nothing in it. “The cart!” She said to herself. She searched it up and down for something that could be broadcasting and again found nothing. Perhaps it was built into the cart itself? Yes, it seemed a bit overdone for a childish prank, but it was better than believing the hallway was haunted or that she was hearing things.

She continued on down the hall. She was cleaning the right side and would do the left on the way back. Eventually she was back in the middle and the smell was once again overwhelming. This time she literally thought she was going to be sick. She peered into the room again and once again she started to turn the knob and heard a voice say “DON’T!” She didn’t turn that time, she was tired of this game, prank or whatever they thought it was. She opened the door and looked in, before she could locate the light switch something pushed her into the room and the door slammed shut. She reached for the door knob and turned it, but it was locked. She was locked inside! She had also dropped her flashlight outside when she was pushed in, so she did her best to remain calm and felt along the wall for a light switch. She found one and flipped it, but no light came on.

“Very funny!” She shouted. “Now let me out of here!” She shouted other things to her tormenting co-workers, not all of them polite, but there was complete silence. She sat on the floor and waited, determined not to cry. Finally the little girl voice spoke again and it sounded very sad, “I told you not to open the door.” Across the room in the darkness Sarah seemed to be able to make out the shape of a small girl.

“Whatever they are paying you to help with this prank, I will pay you more if you just open the door.” Sarah told the child.

“I can’t open doors.” Said the child.

She got up and walked to the child. She would make her open the door. She reached for her, but grabbed nothing more than air. Then the male voice came.

“She can’t help you.” It said in a very menacing sounding tone.

“I don’t find this at all funny!” Sarah said and just as she did so the light flashed on for a brief few seconds and just across the room from here were two men that she had never seen before. One was holding a knife.

“Leave her alone!” The little girl shouted from somewhere.

“Get out of here Lily! Don’t you remember what happened last time you interfered?” Said one of the men.

Sarah then heard a bit of a scuffle, the little girl screamed and then there was the sound of someone running down the hall. A few seconds later Sarah felt someone choking her and fight as she might, she could not break free. It was about that time that Glen came along to check on Sarah. He never returned to his work, though it still took the other employees a few hours to notice he was missing. They found him dead, in a pool of blood next to an unconscious Sarah.

Years before the two men known as Jerry and Ike had been handymen at the facility. The child Lily had seen them kill a male patient that had angered them somehow, making it look like a suicide. To keep her from talking they killed her too and walled her up in a room they were working on in a part of the building used only for storage. The facility never reported her missing, they figured she had somehow escaped and they didn’t need any bad publicity. At that time there was also a patient known as Silent Seth, he was not considered at all dangerous and was often sent to help the handymen with various jobs. A couple weeks after Lily’s disappearance Jerry and Ike were found dead, their throats cut. Nobody was sure how Silent Seth had managed to kill both men or why and since he never spoke they never found out. Jerry and Ike had wanted revenge for years, but never got it. They had tried attacking Seth many times after their deaths, but he didn’t even notice they were there or if he did he never acted like it. Ike was more surprised than Glen when he realized his knife was actually killing a living person. By the time the other employees arrived and found Glen and Sarah whatever brief powers they had been granted that night had disappeared and nobody even noticed them.

Physically, Sarah recovered, but she never could explain what happened in that room. In fact, nobody could even get near her without her being strapped down, she would lash out at anyone who tried and babble nonsense. The police tried hard to get answers from her because they had never found the knife that gave Glen his many stab wounds, but never got anything out of her other than “ask Lily.” Sarah became one of the “residents” of Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum, she often spent her days jabbering away to her imaginary friend that she called Lily.

The asylum closed in 1994 and Sarah was moved to better, more modern facility. Her friend Lily stayed at Trans-Allegheny and Sarah never again spoke to anyone and became known as Silent Sarah.

The new facility is more efficient and modern, but some say it was cursed even before the first resident arrived...