The Sick House: An Occult Thriller (The Ulrich Files Book 1) Read online

  How the scenery had changed over the course of some few hours. Leaving Toledo, he'd seen large buildings, city skylines and such on the entrance ramp and from the lanes. Here, though, signs of civilization seldom emerged from his surroundings. There were deep ruts in the edges of the gravel road; tire tracks, he fancied. Something black and frayed, like the bits of a popped tire, dressed a tall bush whose growth encroached upon the road. Every mile or so he spied what he thought was a food wrapper or plastic bottle, though with the pounding rain it was hard to be sure. The further he went, the more Ulrich began to feel that he was entering a new world. He turned down his music by a few notches and listened to the rain for a time, chilled by it despite his being safe and warm in the SUV, and he began to wonder, too, if he hadn't made some grave misstep in his navigation. He wondered if he hadn't wandered into some place where he didn't belong. A place he wasn't welcome. He'd known himself headed into a region that was noted for its remoteness, but in actually experiencing such isolation he was made surprisingly uncomfortable.

  The road never seemed to end. It would veer to one side or the other for a short jaunt before straightening out again and leading him he knew not where. Logging more than ten miles by the odometer, Ulrich began to grow apprehensive, glancing repeatedly at the bright GPS display and cursing silently at the large, blinking question marks that represented his route. There was plenty of gas left, but it wouldn't do for him to simply follow this road forever. If the SUV broke down on him or a tire was punctured, he'd have a hell of a time getting help or making it out without considerable trouble. The gradient, too, was increasing with every passing mile. This region was hillier than he was used to, and the mere thought of trekking up and down muddy hills in the event of an emergency made him feel exhausted. His cell phone's reception ranged from spotty to non-existent, which only added to the frustration.

  Slowing further and taking stock of his surroundings, he was not a little unnerved by a perceived darkening of the sky above. Whether this effect was produced by the oncoming evening, the rainstorm which seemed poised to rage on without surcease or merely the towering canopies of trees which now flanked the road on both sides with such density as to block out the natural light, he couldn't say. A little further, he thought, licking his lips and narrowing his gaze. His grip on the wheel tightened. If I don't come upon something ahead, then I can just turn around and head back towards the highway. The heater belched forth a bolus of warm air, but it did nothing to squelch the shudder that coursed through him just then. His stomach turned and he grimaced at the wave of bile that antagonized the entrance to his throat.

  The road degenerated even further, into a ruddy mix of rocks and dirt that was difficult to drive on. Ulrich would have turned around right then if not for the discovery he made some fifty yards or so from the road. To his left, the woods were thinner, the trees there a good deal younger than was the norm. Nestled within this cluster of hearty saplings he spied a squat, ramshackle building. A cabin, maybe. That the little thing, with its sloping, caved-in roof and warped wooden exterior had been utterly ruined since before he'd even been born did not seem like a stretch. The tenement crouched, looked not unlike a brigand poised to leap out onto the road, such was its degeneracy. But he passed it without incident, only to find its equal in decrepitude half a mile further down the rapidly-degenerating road.

  Was this it?

  Was this Moonville?

  His gut told him it was so. He'd been driving long enough, and if his calculations were correct, he'd been heading more or less in the right direction. He'd probably come upon the ghost town by a lesser-known route, a route devoid of markings, used by locals. He'd been aiming for McArthur, but had somehow stumbled upon the ghost town instead. He knew them to share some roads and byways. The road he now traveled must be one of them, he wagered.

  The GPS was of no help in cementing this suspicion, but the presence of these ruined abodes was sufficient evidence for him. He'd made it. In some roundabout fashion, he'd driven straight into the heart of the myth-shadowed ghost town where his investigation was to take place.

  And suddenly, he was very sorry for it.

  This wasn't the way Ulrich had intended for things to go. He'd imagined his arrival in McArthur going very differently, had pictured a warm reception at the local inn, a bit of banter with some locals, a warm meal. Instead, he'd meandered straight into the heart of things, to a stretch that could not be found on any map.

  Gulping, Ulrich shut off the stereo. Somehow, the booming vocal of “Mr. Success” had lost all its charm. Under the circumstances it seemed irreverent, gaudy. And perhaps a little dangerous. He cut his speed yet again, worried that noise from the vehicle might attract attention.

  But from who? he wondered, shaking his head.

  It was a question better left unanswered. The houses that now entered into his periphery-- if their weather-beaten, rickety carapaces could indeed be termed such-- were undoubtedly empty. The most desperate of squatters would have steered clear of them. But even if they were unpeopled, Ulrich was still careful, apprehensive that he might rouse something less substantial from within their misty depths. To break the remote silence, to interact with his surroundings as anything but a silent spectator, he feared, might serve to upset the balance of things and incite the tottering houses to loose upon him some fraction of their accumulated memories.

  What the houses lacked in shape and structure they more than made up for in memories. These houses, like prisoners of war, had seen things in their time. They'd been left to suffer and fester. And written upon their shattered, broken faces was the toll of years. The things that these houses had seen in their steady march to obsolescence, he thought, were better left to simmer in the dense woods where none might disturb them. This sort of scenery was precisely the kind which inspired feelings of fear in men and fueled tales of haunting. He felt rather ashamed now for having made fun of the superstitions of the locals when Jerome had brought the case to him. To see Moonville, to take in its ruination first-hand, was to be touched by something ethereal.

  Ulrich was only a few minutes into Moonville and already he wanted to leave.

  Chapter 6

  Maybe you should turn back.

  Maybe you shouldn't have ever taken this case.

  These were the thoughts that constantly intruded upon his mind as he attempted to navigate the ghastly scenery.

  The road branched off every now and then into less substantial paths but Ulrich was careful to stay on the main drag, lest he further lose his way. There seemed no end to the ruined houses, which sprang up now every quarter mile, and which showed little range in the extent of their dissolution. The rain wasn't letting up, and the shallower pocks in the road were already swollen over with cold rain. A bolus of dread had settled firmly in Ulrich's throat, and the more he drove the less hope there appeared to be of its being unseated by prettier scenery. Illogical though it was, he couldn't even be sure that turning around was an option; though he hadn't veered off of the shabby road that had led him to Moonville off of the highway, he felt somehow certain that he'd meandered too far now into a kind of trap for a mere reversal to be effective. The road was urging him on, and he expected that the path would continue to pull him further. It was like he was inching down the digestive tract of an enormous serpent.

  He'd entered its mouth. There was nothing for him to do but wait to come out on the other side.

  He dabbed a bit of sweat away from his forehead with a paper napkin and tried to pinpoint just what it was that had him so worked up. He hadn't seen anything too out of place, nothing unexpected or frightening. Dilapidated buildings and trees were not so uncommon, with downtown Toledo hosting no shortage of the former. The rain was hard and made travel a bit more stressful, but he was in a good car, rather than his rickety beater. So, what was the matter, then?

  Pursing his lips and tapping the accelerator cautiously as he rounded a slight curve in the road, he decided it was something in the air.
This place was not like other deserted or rundown places. Its capacity for dredging up unease ran far deeper than he could articulate. With each broken abode that came into view, Ulrich felt almost as though he were accidentally glimpsing something private, something he wasn't meant to see. In a way, it was like stumbling into a vast, dark funeral home and prying the lids off of coffins to gaze upon those who rested within. The homes, like corpses, were laid bare here, vulnerable, and he didn't like what he saw. It was a menagerie of ruin, a dense forest peppered with relictual evidences of civilized life. The people had gone, though, so very long ago, and only the structures they'd cast off remained as proof. Why had they gone, and why had the homes been left to fester in isolation? There were commonplace explanations for all of this, of course, but in navigating brooding Moonville, Ulrich could not but entertain alternative theories.

  The general mood of the place was seeping into him, coloring his perception. This seemed overwhelmingly like the sort of locale where one might venture only to be spirited away suddenly, and without a trace. Without explanation. That was what had happened to Dr. Siegfried Klein, allegedly, and now that he was there himself, Ulrich was beginning to refine his previous hypothesis. He was no longer confident that it'd been a mere misadventure during a hike that'd seen him disappear.

  A place like this... it could swallow a man up so that he could never be found.

  The gradient continued to steepen. The trees, though they partially masked the rise and fall of the terrain with their shadowy bulk, could be seen to jut out about the edges of the road awkwardly as they erupted from the sides of large, mossy hills. This region, he'd read, was known for its hills and ravines. Giving the SUV some gas, Ulrich climbed to the top of a hill and paused at its apex, glancing nervously at the way ahead. Though he kept his foot half-pressed to the brake, the steep, muddy descent that followed made it difficult for him to maintain control of the hefty vehicle. The SUV slid on its way down, nearly coasting off of the road and into the barrier of trees. It was only thanks to a patch of intact cement that he managed to regain traction and steer the thing to a stop. He could feel his pulse pounding in his palms as he dug his fingers into the wheel. Sweat burst from the pores across his hairline, and a few drops accosted his eyes. Outside, the rain was as furious as ever, with powerful gales knocking sheet after sheet of it into the side of the car. It was like being at sea during a storm, and the vehicle swayed on its suspension every bit as much as a ship might when caught on a wave.

  Then, from behind, came a wicked commotion.

  The ground shook, and the sound of splintering wood broke through the oppressive cannonade of rain and wind.

  A tree had fallen, narrowly missing the back of the car. The partially-rotted trunk smashed into the ground and left a deep rut in the murk. Smaller branches from other trees came raining down in its wake, rapping against the top of the SUV like so many searching claws. In a panic, Ulrich pressed the accelerator and lurched forward. He needed to get to some sort of clearing and wait out the storm. No good would come of lingering here, in the open, where more trees might fall and strike the car. Ahead could be seen the base of a great hill, taller than any he'd yet climbed. The wheels slipped as he picked up speed and the SUV met its first real trial in scaling it. Ulrich kept the thing straight, peering at the rearview as he did so and spying the titan length of the fallen tree through his rain-speckled window.

  There could be no turning back on this road now. The way was blocked. The realization brought him to the verge of nausea.

  Driving on, Ulrich felt the wheel pulling to the left. He wrenched it to the right in the hopes of keeping things steady and fought his way to the top of the hill. The makeshift road was steadily degrading now, and the mud was sloughing downhill in messy heaps. If he didn't make it to the top, and to McArthur, soon, then he was liable to end up stranded.

  With no little cursing, the hill was mounted. And when he was over it, something just beyond, couched within a nest of trees on a narrow drive that branched off to his immediate right, captured his attention. It towered awkwardly amidst the woods, its battered panels soaked by the rain and its Garrison style overhang serving as a startling contrast against the tumbledown shacks he'd hitherto seen. The great double-paned windows stared out like the compound eyes of a furtive insect, and were dappled in a mix of rain and age-accumulated dirt.

  It was the Sylvan Infirmary.

  The Sick House.

  Ulrich gulped as it came into view, promptly parking the SUV and leaning forward in his seat. He cranked up the windshield wipers until they thumped along at full speed and he squinted through the rainfall to get a better look. Further examinations removed any doubt he might've had at first glance. This was the place. In the flesh, so to speak.

  Quickly and curiously enough, the storm began to peter out, as though the discovery of the old infirmary were sufficient to call it off. The wind persisted, nudging the SUV as it sat atop the hill, and some few fat drops of rain tumbling down from the overburdened leaves of trees above smacked at its roof noisily. Ulrich felt his chest tighten. The very sight of the old building put a fright in him, though he couldn't for the sake of him say why. Maybe it was the way the windows looked, each of them possessed of an otherworldly darkness and seeming to showcase, in turn, strange, ethereal stirrings indicative of habitation. Maybe it was the way the place had kept its shape, despite being nearly so inundated in ruin as its various neighbors, that gave him the chills. The thing exuded a quiet kind of defiance and would not so easily succumb. Unlike the others, this building might be entered, explored, dwelt in. That was, in fact, what Ulrich was there to do.

  If the thought of entering or interacting with those other shanties along the way had given him grounds for unease, then the idea of stepping through the threshold of the infirmary that now glared back at him was sufficient to fuel his nightmares. Those other habitations seemed quaint and impotent by comparison. This building carried itself differently, scarcely seemed like a building at all in certain aspects. Eighty years and more of operation had gifted it no shortage of memories. There was no accounting for all that had occurred within its walls. Perhaps it was merely his imagination working overtime, but Ulrich couldn't but suspect that some secret sins yet festering, hidden, in the dark corridors of the place, were in some way responsible for its profoundly demoniacal cast. Its posture and condition were unlike those of any other building he'd ever run across. It was a blatantly antagonistic thing. That a man should pay it a visit and disappear was not surprising in the least.

  Evening had begun to set in with alarming swiftness, rendering the boxy frame of the Sylvan Infirmary in rough hues of shadow. His arrival at this site seemed nothing short of providential. Mere instinct had led him onto that unnamed road off of the highway, and that lonesome stretch had brought him here, to the very threshold of the Sick House. It was like he'd been called, lured. That the occasion was owed solely to coincidence never crossed his mind.

  Hesitating for a long while in the SUV, Ulrich eventually shut off the engine and listened to the last of the rain as it died away against the exterior of the car. The heavy trees were disturbed by a strong gale, and a shower of loosened limbs rained down upon the ground from all around him. Reaching for his cup of coffee, he raised it to his lips and sucked in a a great mouthful, only to find it unpalatably cold. Frowning, he swallowed it, shivering as the chill brew wormed its way down his esophagus and dropped into his stomach with an almost audible splash. The air in the vehicle was stuffy; not so long ago he'd been comfortable, would have raved about the excellent climate control system. No longer. Now he found himself tugging at the collar of his shirt, his scalp itching and his lungs burning for fresh air.

  When the rain had fully stopped, Ulrich grit his teeth and opened the door, stepping out. With his first step the muddy ground grasped at his leather boots firmly. It was only by holding onto the outside of the car that he managed to pry himself free and waddle off of the main road towards t
he narrow byroad that led to the infirmary. He locked up the car, its security system activating with a shrill chirp which was, in that moment, appallingly discordant. He wasn't even sure why he'd bothered to lock it; there was no one around for miles.

  No one he could see, anyway.

  Somehow he felt confident that there were no other humans in the vicinity, though if pressed he could not claim to truly feel alone as he stood outside the SUV. There was something out there that gave him pause, made him reconsider the feelings of overwhelming isolation that should have plagued him right then. The remoteness was broken up by some other presence, its provenance scarcely perceptible. The house, maybe, was watching him. But was that even possible? Could houses, being inanimate things, possibly watch someone? If not for the plague that fell over his senses then, he might have thought it a silly notion.

  The Sylvan Infirmary looked just like it had in the photographs, though seeing it in person only seemed to add a new and horrific dimension of realism to its features. That college students should make the trip out here to explore the place made no sense to him; he was being paid handsomely to investigate some goings on surrounding the old building and he wanted nothing more than to flee. He took a few unsteady paces forward and stopped in the sodden grass, looking up at the two-story structure with a mixture of awe and nausea. Something creaked from nearby; it may have been the groaning limb of a tree or some unfastened panel in the old building that did it, but the effect was fearful, and he instinctively braced himself.

  He'd approached the building from an angle. Its front entrance could not be seen from this spot, meaning he would have to do a bit of walking about the grounds before he could enter. It wasn't at all what he wanted to do; driving to McArthur and waiting for a sunnier day to begin his investigation of the place was a far more pleasant idea.

  Nonetheless, he went on.