Bellevue

Chapter 25

Thursday, July 4, 4:32 a.m.

Mitt was waiting on the first floor when Lashonda got off the elevator. She was carrying a relatively large, nondescript brown paper bag. She motioned for Mitt to follow her. As befitting the city that never sleeps, the first floor of the Bellevue Hospital was more crowded than he expected, which he imagined had mostly to do with the emergency room. Even the outpatient pharmacy was open although no one was currently at its counter.

“Just follow me,” Lashonda said as she waved over her shoulder before heading first west, then north. To keep up, Mitt had to pick up speed.

“You are motivated,” Mitt said once they were on their own in an otherwise empty corridor.

“I want to get this over with well before the shift change,” she said without slowing her pace. “And as fast as possible because either one of us could get called at any minute.”

Mitt nodded to acknowledge she was correct. Although there was a possibility he could be called, he felt justified in doing what he was doing because he wasn’t leaving the hospital grounds, and it was hospital business in a way. Besides, he trusted that if there was a real emergency and not something like a falling-out-of-bed episode, Madison would be called.

They passed through the laundry building and then out into the night. Once again, Mitt was mildly taken aback by the warm sultriness of the night air after spending nearly twenty-four hours in the hospital air-conditioning. But he wasn’t surprised, knowing full well that New York City acted like an enormous heat sink composed of millions upon millions of tons of concrete and macadam that absorbed all the summer sunlight energy during the day and then gave it off continuously during the night.

They crossed a hospital service road that at one time in the distant past had been part of East 28th Street and skirted another mostly dark building. “What’s in the bag?” Mitt called ahead toward Lashonda. He was curious and had been meaning to ask, but she was not slowing to make it easy. “Flashlights?”

“Yes,” she said without slowing. “There are security cameras all over the entire first floor of the hospital, including the outpatient atrium, that are watched day and night by the Security people. I didn’t want to advertise that we were heading someplace where we’d need flashlights.”

“Good point,” Mitt said. A moment later, upon reaching the 29th Street extension, the old Bellevue Psychiatric Hospital loomed ahead, soaring up into the night sky like a totally dark, forgotten landmark from the past. From this vantage point, it was strikingly huge. The sight of it caused Mitt to catch his breath, especially since the instant its ten stories came into view, he simultaneously experienced a particularly strong flash of the same paresthesias he’d felt early that Monday morning when he’d passed the structure on his way to start his residency and again when he headed home Tuesday evening. Then, as now, the tingling sensations evoked an involuntary shudder.

Mitt sensed that the sudden sighting of the deserted building had had a similar effect on Lashonda despite her familiarity with it because she abruptly stopped to stare up at it. He had to put out his hands to cushion the collision. “I beg your pardon,” he said, lifting his hands off her back and stepping to the side.

“My fault,” she said, still staring up at the hulking black edifice with all its architectural details appearing ghoulish in the darkness. Adding to the drama was the high wrought iron fence interspersed with granite stanchions that surrounded the building. In the darkness the imposing barricade had a particularly menacing quality, especially with every other baluster having a stylized spear point.

To the left, Mitt could see the unending traffic on First Avenue heading northward while to the right the street dead-ended. Directly ahead of them was a decorative but locked double gate as part of the surrounding wrought iron fence. It was topped with symmetrical, curvilinear elements and secured with a rusting chain and a hefty padlock. Beyond the gate was an overgrown walkway leading up to an ornate two-to-three-story entrance structure, which stood proud from the building’s central façade with a pedimented top, decorative concrete urns on plinths on either side, and a large arched niche containing what appeared to be an ornamental state seal. Below that were two Corinthian columns supporting a full doorway entablature and framing an oversized double door. Incised into the frieze area and just barely visible in reflected light were the words Psychiatric Hospital.

“I hope you also have a key for the gate,” Mitt said, trying for a bit of humor. They certainly weren’t about to climb over a barricade of that size.

“Of course,” Lashonda said while continuing to gaze up at the black, massive red-brick structure. Unlike all the other more modern buildings in the neighborhood, the psychiatric building was totally dark: Every one of the windows was pitch-black. “The numerous times I’d gone in and out of this place, especially when I worked here on a nightly basis before all the patients were moved out, I never stopped to look at it critically. Now that I have, I can see why it would give anyone pause.” She laughed humorlessly. “I have to say, it definitely looks spooky, almost like a set for a horror movie.”

“You are right about that,” Mitt said, but in his estimation it was more than “spooky.” To him, it was a huge anomaly, a quintessential haunted house smack-dab in one of the busiest parts of one of the busiest cities in the world. As the thought occurred to him, he felt a definite chill, wondering what it was going to be like inside. Was he going to see the apparitions that supposedly had taken up residence, and if so, would he and Lashonda be seeing them simultaneously? And if they did, would the visions be exactly the same or would the eye of the beholder influence what was perceived?

Mitt had no answers to these questions, but for the first time he felt a tug of reluctance to follow through with the plan, wondering if there was any risk involved. If the building was actually haunted as Lashonda claimed, it would be a world in which he had absolutely no understanding or experience. At the very least it promised to be a disturbing, scary experience and possibly disgusting if it included the surgerized people, the rats, and the horrid cacosmia.

At the same time these thoughts and questions arose, his motivations for going ahead with the plan quickly reasserted themselves. He was more than motivated, he was compelled to make the visit. With his family legacy at stake, he had to see this stash of hospital records. And there was another reason as well. He had an inkling that the visit had the potential to provide answers as to how and why all his patients had died, which would add credence to Lashonda’s warning about Bellevue not being safe for him or his future patients.

Encouragingly enough, Lashonda obviously had no qualms about entering the building, and from Mitt’s perspective, she definitely seemed to know what she was talking about. Of particular importance, she was confident that the spirits or ghosts or whatever couldn’t touch them directly but could only make their presence known by manipulating inanimate objects. As reassuring as that idea sounded, what if Lashonda was right about the ghosts but wrong about their capabilities? What if they had more earthly power in their own domain than, say, in the high-rise hospital building?

Mitt broke off staring up at the empty psychiatric building and looked back at Lashonda. She, on the other hand, was still totally mesmerized. “Are you rethinking whether you want to go inside?” Mitt questioned. “I have to say, it is forbidding-looking, particularly in the darkness. Maybe it would be better to do this tomorrow during the daylight hours.”

“No! Absolutely not,” Lashonda remarked definitively. “As I said earlier, if we are going to do this, it has to be at night, and this is as good a time as any. I’m hesitating because I never appreciated how truly unique this building is. I’m amazed at all the fancy ornamental details like the columns, the urns, the plaques, and even those fake balconies on some of the upper-floor windows. It’s almost like a parody of itself or, like I said, a set for a horror movie.”

“I read that it was designed to be in what’s called the Renaissance style,” Mitt said. “All those embellishments are taken from classical architecture, like the columns on the side of the entrance door. I have to say, it is a particularly decorative entranceway. I thought the building’s main entrance was on First Avenue, where there is also an impressive door.”

“This was always functionally the main entrance,” Lashonda said. “The one facing First Avenue was purely decorative and was never used.”

“Really?” Mitt questioned. He’d never heard of a building having a purely decorative entrance. “That’s all very interesting, but maybe we should get on with this visit. If we’re going to spend a lot of time on this errand, I’d rather spend it reading the old records than just standing out here.”

“You’re right,” Lashonda agreed. She quickly handed her brown paper bag to Mitt while getting out a key from her side pocket. A moment later, she had the padlock open and proceeded to slip the chain out of the double gate. As she pushed one side open with some effort, its hinges complained loudly with a grating squeal. She then gestured for Mitt to precede her onto the psychiatric hospital grounds.

Once inside, Lashonda took the time to pull the gate closed behind them despite its equivalent strident rasp. She even looped the chain back through the frame and re-engaged the padlock but without locking it. “I prefer not to take any chances someone might see this lock and chain open,” she explained even though Mitt assumed as much. She took the bag back from him and extracted the two flashlights. They were of a significant size with large lenses and square battery packs. After giving him one but telling him not to turn it on, she put the empty bag behind one of the granite fence stanchions for their return to the hospital high-rise.

From there they faced a short stretch of sidewalk to the front steps and the impressive, oversized double doors. As they hurried forward, Lashonda used the opportunity to exchange the gate key for the key to the building. A narrow lawn extending along the entire length of the building was a riot of overgrowth. Several small trees and shrubbery were completely enveloped in vines and even a bit of poison ivy.

Now that they were close, Mitt noticed something else that had escaped him as it was covered by the overgrowth, namely that the building’s entire first floor was sheathed in decorative granite and crowned with a narrow cornice separating it from the brick. “My word,” he said as he mounted the front steps behind Lashonda, glancing up and down the structure’s façade. “This place must have been quite impressive in its heyday.”

Lashonda nodded, preoccupied. She had to struggle a bit to insert the key in the lock and get it to turn. When it finally did, there was a loud mechanical click. But then before pulling the door open, she hesitated and turned back to look directly at Mitt. “Are you sure you are ready for this?” she asked. She was still holding on to the key.

“I don’t know,” Mitt admitted. “I was wondering the same thing back when we were eyeing the place from a safe distance. Let me ask you this: What do you think the chances are we’re going to be seeing some of the... resident spirits?” He’d hesitated asking his question and was reluctant to use the term ghosts. He still wasn’t convinced ghosts existed in the real world, and saying the word out loud seemed like too much of an acknowledgment.

“My guess would be about a hundred percent,” Lashonda said. “At least that’s been my experience. I’ve always seen them when I’ve come in here after all the patients had been moved out and the building was empty. But I’ve never done that with anyone other than my mother just before and after Hurricane Sandy. You’ll be the first.”

“Did she see them?”

“No, she didn’t, as I told you in the cafeteria. But remember, she was not a portal like I believe you and I are. I expect to see a lot of them tonight as I normally do, and I’ll be shocked if you don’t as well.”

“Fair enough,” Mitt said. He was encouraged that she was taking the experience so much in stride. “I guess the important thing is that you’re convinced that they can’t interact with us directly, correct?”

“Correct, that has been my experience. What I’ve learned to do is to ignore them, which can be difficult, as they can be visually distressing if not revolting. It’s hard to imagine how much these patients suffered when the major medical treatments for just about any ailment were to be bled or made to vomit and have propulsive diarrhea. It defies current-day imagination, especially with the little or no sanitation that was available back then and the horrendous overcrowding. I understand that at one point Bellevue had two thousand beds, which is hard enough to grasp, but then during epidemics, like cholera outbreaks, the patients had to share beds and even the floor and the halls. On top of that, patients were regularly experimented on, even subjected to surgery with no anesthesia and no antisepsis in front of an amphitheater full of students.”

“Good God,” Mitt voiced. Just thinking about what Lashonda was saying made him squirm anew. He’d always wanted to believe a hospital was a place for people to go to be relieved of suffering and not vice versa.

“And those poor people labeled as insane were even worse off,” Lashonda said. “Before this psychiatric hospital was built and the specialty reformed, a lot of such patients were treated with chains, various other kinds of restraints, and truncheons. On top of that, with the restraints there’d probably been even worse sanitation.”

“Okay, okay,” Mitt repeated, raising his hands in submission. “I get the picture. There’s more than enough reason for the place to be haunted. Fine! All I want is to be assured that we’ll be able to walk back out with life and limb intact when we are finished with our visit.”

“That I can guarantee,” Lashonda said. “It’s not physical injury that I’m concerned about in the slightest, but rather your state of mind. Please gird yourself because your senses are going to be assaulted. Since you told me you have already experienced the apparitions, heard the cries, and suffered the odors, I assume you’ll be able to tolerate it. My advice is to ignore it all as best as you can. That’s what I’ve learned to do, and it works — the visuals, sounds, and odors usually just disappear if they are ignored. Do you think you can do it?”

“I haven’t been able to do it yet,” Mitt said. “But then again, I haven’t tried. I do have to admit, each time I’ve been confronted with what I’ve called hallucinations, I’ve been a bit less taken aback.”

“I assumed as much,” Lashonda said, “which is part of the reason I agreed to take you inside. Are you ready?”

“I guess I’m as ready as I’m ever going to be.”

“Okay, but stay close!”

Mitt laughed hollowly. “Don’t worry about that.”

Lashonda turned her attention back to the oversized double doors and gave the one on the right a significant tug. The door reluctantly let itself be opened, creaking in protest just as the outer gate had. Immediately a stale smell wafted out of the abandoned building.

“Here we go,” Lashonda announced, gesturing inside. “You first, but don’t turn your light on until I close the door behind us. And keep your beam mostly covered with your free hand and trained downward. We don’t want any lights to flash in any of the windows. But we won’t have to worry about it for long, as we’ll be taking the central stairway directly down to the basement, where the lack of windows means we won’t have to worry about our lights.”

“Got it,” Mitt responded as he hesitantly preceded Lashonda into the building’s foyer. As he did so, he experienced another passing wave of paresthesia, which added to his mounting jitters.