5th Ward - 1. Chapter 1

Mercy Hospital stood stoically on a knoll between Ponce de Leon and North Avenue, nestled among ancient magnolia trees, nearly as old as Atlanta itself.

“Good Morning Kevin. Welcome to Mercy”, a matronly blond woman smiled as she extended her hand to shake. “I’m Diana, the Nursing Director. Pam had nothing but good things to say about you. I’m sorry I wasn’t available for your interview but I trust her judgement. Did you get everything moved from Seattle?”

“I’ve learned over the years to travel light”, Kevin replied. “Clothes and a few personal things, the rest is just expendable. I’ll hit up IKEA this weekend for anything else I need”.

“Well I can see the travel light from having been in the military. I’m sure you moved around a lot”, Diana commented.”Which is why I’m going to start you off working in triage,” she continued as she led Kevin to the nurses station. “And this is Nick. He’s going to be your preceptor for the next couple of days.”

Nick appeared to be a good twenty years older than Kevin, maybe nearer to fifty, with a short tight flat-top haircut of salt and pepper with sapphire blue eyes, surrounded by faint wrinkles. Even at about 5’6” and thoroughly fit, he presented an imposing image for a man of his perceived age.

“Kevin? Is that right?” he asked in a heavy New York accent as he extended his hand.

“Yes, Nice to meet you”, Kevin replied. “Marines?”

“Navy”, Nick replied. “Corpsman”

Nick, why don’t you go show Kevin around the hospital and I’ll have Deb cover triage until you get back”

“Yes Ma’am”, turning back to Kevin. “This way, I’ll give you the two-dollar tour.”

§

“So, this place looks like something out of an old black and white flick”, Kevin commented as they started through the main lobby and down a long hallway past a bank of elevators, accented by geometric designs and a black and rose marble floor inlay.

“Oh yeah? Which one? The Twilight Zone?” Nick sneered.

“No...not exactly.”

“Well, we do have our share of ghosts and strange occurrences here, or supposedly”

“I don’t really believe in all that foolishness” Kevin firmly stated.

“I don’t either but I’m not chancing anything. My grandmother could still put a Sicilian curse on me from the grave,” Nick declared as they found themselves in front of a large arched doorway enclosed by two ornately carved wooden doors.

“What’s this?” Kevin asked, staring at the enormity of the doors compared to everything else along the hallway.

“This is the chapel; time for your history lesson,” Nick began. “When the Sisters of Mercy came here in 1846, Atlanta was still known as Marthasville. The Order came to minister to the Irish immigrants that were here building the railroad. They built a shrine and a hospital and then during the Civil War they treated both Union and Confederate soldiers. Fr. O'Reilly convinced General Sherman to spare the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, but he still burned down the hospital; which stood exactly where the chapel is now.”

“Well that doesn’t make the place haunted,” Kevin rationalized.

“I dunno… all the soldiers that must have died there, and this isn’t the original chapel either. The first one they built was burned with part of the new hospital and half of Atlanta in the fire of 1917, along with the Mother Superior at the time and 12 other Nuns.”

“Seriously? 13 Nuns? Doesn’t that seem an oddly suspicious number?”

“Dunno but people claim to see Nuns around here all the time.”

“Well duh, it IS a Catholic charity hospital. I’d expect to see nuns here.”

“No, these nuns wear the full big ‘flying nun’ habits. The church stopped using those back in the 60’s!”

“Whatever,” Kevin redirected. “Anyplace to get a cup of coffee here? I didn’t get my morning Dunkin’.” Kevin didn’t believe in ghosts but growing up with nuns teaching catechism had left him with at least a mild case of PTSD.

“Good idea, cafeteria is down here at the end of the hall. Looks like it’s a nice morning, we can sit outside and get some fresh air.”

As they sat with their coffee and making small conversation about military and work experiences, Kevin noticed a black hearse backing up to the loading dock. “Get much of that here?” He asked, nodding towards the vehicle.

“We really need to get back,” Nick abruptly replied, grabbing his cup and nearly knocking it over as he stood. “Diana is going to think we got lost…”

§

Within a couple days, Kevin had settled into the routine of the ER and been introduced to a few of the ‘frequent flyers’ as they were referred to by the regularity for which they came to be seen by one of the doctors. Night shifts tended to be more ‘colorful’ with several homeless trying to seek shelter from the elements rather than having any actual medical condition.

“Clarence, what are you here for this time?”, Kevin asked as he placed his hand over his face to shield the stench. Clarence was a homeless man that Kevin had encountered numerous times already. His overgrown grey beard and strangled hair made him look much older than his birthday indicated. The beard was stained yellow around his mouth from spilled coffee and cigarettes and his fingernails were embedded with dirt as if he’d been digging in the ground. His right index finger remained curled with arthritis, appearing as if it had frozen in that position from being locked on a rifle trigger.

“I saw her”, Clarence screaked, eyes wide and excited.

“Saw who?”

“Mother Superior!”

“Ok, Clarence. Where did you see her?”

“In the chapel. I saw her in the chapel above the altar!” he continued, his excitement growing. “Like the angel of death I tell ya!”

“What were you doing in the chapel?”

“I was just trying to find someplace dry to sleep,” Clarence explained.

“Are you sure you weren’t trying to find the communion wine?” Kevin accused.

“You know I quit that shit,” he sniped. “I’m telling you I saw the Reverend Mother! She was wearing her cornette and all!”

Kevin motioned for the security guard to come join them at the desk. “Clarence, I have someone I want you to tell, what you just told me, ok?” and motioned for the guard to escort Clarence to a room in the back while he proceeded to enter his information into the computer. “Agh, not even here a week and I already have this guy's demographics memorized.”

§

A few days passed and Kevin realized he hadn’t seen Clarence. He had actually been accustomed to at least seeing him once a day. “Maybe he’s been in during the day shift,” he thought as he sat staring at the computer screen. “I’ll just check and see…” and began entering Clarence’s information and searched. “That’s odd…”

“What’s odd?” Nick asked as he entered to see how Kevin had been getting along with his new job.

“Remember Clarence?”

“Yeah, that homeless drunk that’s here more often than I am?”

“He’s not a drunk”, Kevin sternly declared. “But yes, the homeless guy. I checked him in a couple days ago because he was seeing things. It shows he was admitted to 5th ward but doesn’t show anything else.”

“Seeing things? See, I told you he was a drunk. Like what kind of things? Pink elephants?” Nick rudely commented.

“No, Nuns actually. Says he saw Mother Superior in the chapel. The dead one, with the full habit and headpiece with the wings.”

Turning ghostly white as if he had seen the apparition himself, Nick stuttered, “Oh, um...I guess she’s back.”

“What do you mean by that?” Kevin demanded.

“People start dying when she starts showing up.”

“That’s nonsense and you know it. Now what is 5th Ward and why is there no record of him after leaving the ER?”

“5th is the psych floor and all the documentation there is done on paper. Dr.von Gebhardt doesn’t like anyone else to have access to the patient information. Probably because he still uses electro-shock therapy up there,” Nick explained.

“What? I didn’t think anybody still used that Frankenstein crap!”

“Well, they do, and he does, and I’ve said too much already,” as he scurried away.

“Wait, how do I find out about Clarence?” Kevin yelled out.

“Better just forget about Clarence.”

But that was just the problem. He couldn’t forget about Clarence. Even as he sat in the corner of the cafeteria later that evening, nibbling at his sandwich. What the hell did Nick mean about ‘people start dying when the Mother Superior starts showing up’? A sudden clap of thunder followed by several bursts of lightning, illuminating the sky outside as the hospital lights momentarily flickered off. From the corner of his vision, Kevin noticed a hearse backing into the loading dock outside. Glancing at his watch; 2am. “You’d think they’d wait until morning or at least until the rain clears,” he thought as a sense of anxiety rose from the pit of his stomach and he realized he had taken his meal break at the same time every night, and the hearse had been there, at the same time, every night. In fact, everytime he had been at the cafeteria, there had been a hearse either there, or coming, or going…

Kevin quickly grabbed his tray and headed towards the door and down the long hallway passing the large wooden doors of the chapel. He noticed one door to be slightly ajar but continued past. “I don’t need to see no nunsense,” he sputtered, continuing to the elevator. “Eh, better take the stairs,” decidedly turning into a side passageway, not entirely certain what he was going to do or find.

Through the frosted glass window of the stairwell, Kevin couldn’t see anything on the 5th floor except a faint glow, unlike the full light radiating on the other floors below. Even the light in the stairwell was absent except for the eerie green glow of the exit sign above the door. He slowly placed his hand on the door handle and carefully turned it clockways. He had half expected it to be locked from the stairwell side like many public buildings often are but the brief power twitch earlier must have disarmed the locks. Carefully peering through the cracked doorway, Kevin paused to see if anyone was around or if he heard anybody. Only the sound of his heart beating obtrusively in his chest, as if pleading with him not to proceed, and the echoing clashes of thunder, bellowing through the empty stairway behind him, persisting him forward.

To his left, where what should have been the elevators, had been blocked off with a solid wall of concrete. “Well, I guess that makes sense” Kevin decided, presuming no guests or the public would be permitted on the psych floor. “Hmphf, Good thing I took the stairs.” Ahead of him stood two solid metal doors, shut tight. The door on the right had a push bar at waist level. Kevin tried to peer through the crack between the doors but could only see complete darkness. Down the long darkened hallway to his right were several open rooms with only the light from outside shining into the glasslike polished hallway floor synchronized to the thunder and lightning. At the far end, one room drowned the floor with fluorescent white light. A shadow passed through the glow within the room, sending a surge of panic through his very sole. Quickly but carefully, and with almost ninja like timing, Kevin burst through the doors to his left with the roar of thunder, closing the door behind him and pausing to catch his breath and listen for anyone that may have heard or seen him. Once again he was faced with near complete darkness. At the far end of the hall a red exit sign illuminated just enough to perceive the distance. “Where the hell are all the patients and staff?” he began to wonder. “Even on the regular floors they dim the lights at night and work with a ‘skeleton’ crew, but there’s nobody here…” As his eyes began to adjust to the darkness he observed a door to his left marked by a small engraved plate: ‘Dr. Wilhelm von Gebhardt’. “Well, let’s see if I can make some sense of this character.” Slowly and silently Kevin placed his hand on the doorknob and turned it until it clicked and the door freely opened. Kevin became preoccupied as he glanced around the room searching for a filing cabinet. “Gebhardt, Gebhardt…. I know I’ve heard that name somewhere…”

Finding the filing cabinet adjacent to a large oak desk, illuminated by the dim glow of street lights from below refracted by the rain, Kevin began sifting through the folders. “Here it is” Clarence Thompson. Homeless. Diagnosis, manic depressive, sociopath with hallucinations… “Well that's not right”, he continued. Treatment: electro-shock therapy, 10 sessions at 200, 300, and 500 Jules per interval. “What the hell? They’re killing him!” Kevin gulped hard and began randomly pulling more files and skimming through them. All the same: homeless, result: deceased, homeless, deceased, homeless, deceased…

§

Kevin’s eyelids flickered as a white light penetrated his vision from the ceiling. He tried to move but realized his arms and legs had been securely fastened, his back flat against a cold metal table. His head throbbed with pain as his eyes seemed to roll trying to focus.The white light must be the room he’d seen down the other hallway, he estimated. Soon a voice heavy with German called his attention. Focusing on the imposing figure at his side, “Don’t tell me, Dr. von Gebhardt.”

“Yah, ze one undt only”, he replied. “You ize mouch too clevah fo you own goodt Mister Mayfeldt.”

“Why are you killing all those homeless people? They haven’t done anything!”

“I’ze jest continuing ze work of mon grandzfathzer.”

“Grandfather?” Kevin puzzled for a moment. “And why homeless people? They’re not harming anyone!”

Gebhardt raised a syringe above him and pointed it downwards. “Exactzy, undt nobody vill miss dem eitder, they iz expendable. Jest like ouu!”

“Gebhardt, that's it! Now I remember….” as the needle pierced his arm and he again fell into complete darkness.

§

“Has anyone seen Kevin?” Nick began asking everyone working in the ER.

“No actually, why”, one young nurse responded.

“He never came back from his meal break.”

Suddenly a security guard burst into the hallway bellowing towards the nurse station, “Somebody… come quickly…. I think he’s dead… I dunno, bring a stretcher!”

“What is it?” Nick called back as he scrambled toward the officer and motioned for a nearby tech to grab the other end of a stretcher as they passed.

“In the stairwell, there’s a body, looks like they fell or jumped or something, I dunno….” the officer stammered as they sped around the corner and by the elevators. “Over here, the officer directed.

Laying at the foot of the stairs laid Kevin, a pool of blood at his head. Nick quickly squatted down at his side to check for a pulse. “Shit,” he bellowed. “He’s dead.”

Outside the rain had subsided with only distant grumbles of thunder and faint wisps of lightning flashed across the night sky. Slowly and systematically, a black hearse backed up to the loading dock.