Hidden Secrets

         The sleepy town had many secrets that outsiders had no privilege knowing. The people of the town had mastered hiding. They sat on their front porches in rocking chairs drinking sweet tea and talking about the upcoming crop. The police were in on it too. They were close to the townspeople, most of them being relatives, and they would participate in anything that went on in the town.
         Occasionally, of course, some tourist would find out about the secrets and try to expose them. They would scream at the townspeople about the things they found, and the cops would take them to the station to get a “report”. Once the tourist went into the station, they were never seen again.
         The children of the town were told about the secrets during their first year of schooling and told in such a way that it was displayed as a fairytale or as a part of life that wasn’t really so bad.
         Once the children were in high school, they were taught a little more in depth about the secrets of the town. Most of the teens were to scare to question much about the secrets that they didn’t discuss it out of class. But every so often, a group would come up who wanted to know more and, in a way, became completely obsessed with the secret.
         This is where this story really begins. A group of six teenagers had sat through a class about the secrets of the town. Two of them had become entranced by the topic and what they were being told. Between those two, they convinced the others to take a visit to the place where the secret had begun.

         Addison looked up at the hospital with a look of awe. Around her stood her five friends: Jacob her boyfriend; Natalie her best friend; Harrison, Natalie’s boyfriend; Jaynie, Natalie’s twin; and Jeff, Jaynie’s boyfriend.
         Each of them was struck by the building, frozen in place by either horror or disappointment. The hospital had to have been built in the 1920s with its whitewashed, smooth walls and it’s frameless windows. Most of the glass had remained intact on the windows and the doors looked as though they had just recently been painted. The whole thing looked like it had been cared for completely with the exception of a few windows.
         Even the front yard was mowed and taken care of. Rose bushes were placed strategically against the walls, framing the stairs to the front doors. A gravel road had been placed in front of it in a half circle that lead to and from the main road. In the center of the circle the caretakers had placed a beautiful fountain. It was white marble had had stopped working some years ago, gaining cobwebs and stains from the rain.
         Addison looked at Jacob in silence. He stood next to her, staring at the top level of the hospital. She looked up there with him, but saw nothing. She scanned each level for something, but saw absolutely nothing.
         “Jacob, what are you seeing?” She asked, breaking the deafening silence of the night. Everyone seemed to jerk back into reality, blinking a few times, then looking at her in with a soul deep blankness.
         “Maybe this isn’t such a good idea, Addie,” Natalie said. She had huddled close to Harrison, who placed an arm around her then stared back up at the building, “I mean…the elders have warned us hundreds of times about staying away from this place.”          
         “She’s right, Addison,” Harrison said. He was the most religious of them all, and by default, the most in tune with the spiritual world. “There’s something in there that makes God’s angels shiver.”          
         “Must be the devil then,” Jacob said nonchalantly, “If that’s the case, we should all be safe so long as we can deny the Devil and stay within God’s light.”
         Harrison looked at Jacob with such distain it would have melted his skin. The two of them had a very difficult relationship. Jacob was an atheist who constantly tested Harrison’s faith. Now as he tested it, Harrison refused to make any comment.
         “We’ll be okay,” Jaynie spoke up. She took her sister’s hand softly, “Nat, nothing is going to happen to us. It’s just a story that the elders make up so that we don’t end go into the places we don’t want to. I bet they’ve all been here before.”
         Addison grinned, “So we’re going in. Might as well make it quick.” She grabbed Jacob’s hand and began pulling him towards the door. The group slowly made their way up the stairs to the front door. Addison was the one to push the door open.
         Addison’s stomach did a somersault at the instant stench. The hall wreaked of old blood, damp mold, and soiled sheets. Natalie turned a pale color and clenched Harrison’s shirt. Jeff reached out and grabbed Jaynie, pulling her close to his chest. The only two who didn’t cling two each other was Addison and Jacob.
         Jacob broke off of the group and walked to the reception counter that was placed to the left of the entrance. He flipped on his flashlight and shinned it over the counter. He made a startled noise when he saw the blood covering the floor. Addison moved next to him and made a sharp gasp. She watched as he leaned over and touched the old typewriter. When he pulled back, his fingers were covered in blood.  He stared blankly at his hand before turning to Addison, “Addison, this is fresh. We need to get out of here.”
         “No,” She snapped. She grabbed his hand, “It’s not blood. It can’t be.”
         Natalie let out a loud screech as the lights in the hall shot on and the door slammed shut. After their eyes adjusted to the blinding light of the hospital, they all let out a gasp of surprise, the boys of the group grabbing hold of their girlfriends. The hall had gone from a dark, creepy corridor to a brightly lit, clean corridor filled with doctors and nurses. Each of them seemed to have a mission and didn’t notice the six kids standing awkwardly at the door.
         Addison watched the nurses run past her out of the door. The smell of bleach filled her lungs, making her wince in pain. She looked at the nurse across the counter, laughing with another nurse. “Excuse me.”
         The nurse went on joking with her friend. Addison reached her hand out to wave in front of the woman’s face but she had no response.
         “They can’t see us,” Jaynie said quietly, just as a nurse rushed through Natalie, who whined and dove back into the protective arms of Harrison.
          Addison stared at the nurse for another minute or two and turned back to the hall. She was met with the smiling face of a rather handsome man, staring right into her eyes. Unlike the rest of the nurses and doctors, he was dressed in all black and smelled strongly of cigarette smoke.
“So, some teenage trespassers have come to see what the fuss is all about, hmm?” He had a singsong voice that seemed to lead into something far stronger than a simple joke. He stood straight once again, having had to been down for Addison, and was far taller than any of them, “Well, I suppose we should get the tour on.”
         “Wait just a second, who the hell are you?” Jacob demanded. He had moved in front of Addison as if to protect her from the man.
         He smiled at Jacob, “Oh, little old me?” He joked. He had an air of him that Addison just couldn’t place her finger on, but she’d felt it before. “I’m Kane. I’ll be your tour guide tonight, and I’ll show you everything you wanted to know about the secrets of your little town.”
         The group shifted awkwardly and Kane sighed, “You really have no choice. If you don’t come with me, you’re stuck here, in the past, as ghosts or things such as ghosts. They have more power than you do, really, they can move things, where as you, in your current state, cannot move anything other than yourselves. Make your choice, kiddies.”
         Addison looked at Natalie, who was now a pale white. Nobody spoke for a few minutes, while Kane danced his fingers mimicking a clock. Finally, Harrison spoke, “We have no other choice. So, we might as well get this over quick.”
         Kane grinned and giggled like a schoolgirl. He turned on his heel and began walking down the hall, “Now, keep up! Anyone left behind will remain behind. We will only stop at our prescribed stops.”
         The group followed him. He seemed to skip. As they walked past the rooms, Addison took a look around. Some doors were painted bright red, blue, and yellow. She wondered what hid behind those doors and if the color had any relevance, although those thoughts were quickly dismissed as they came to their first stop. Addison looked at the large window blankly. Behind the glass there were rows of babies, cuddled deep in blue or pink blankets with their last names scribbled across it.
         “Pop quiz, kiddies!” Kane said as he did a spin. “In 1945, how many babies died here in this hospital?”
         “Four,” Harrison said, “They had birth defects that caused their heart to over work or not work at all.”
         “Wrong!” Kane laughed manically, and pointed a slender finger at him, “First kiddies to go.”
         Each of them looked at Harrison with a sense of fear and took a small step away, except Natalie that is. Harrison stared down the man, refusing to budge on his ground.
         “In 1945, every child born to this hospital died. Altogether, that was around a hundred, hundred-fifty infants,” Kane said as he looked at the babies, “Addison!”
         She snapped out of her staring at Harrison to look at the man, “What?”
         “Come here, come look at these babies,” He held out his hand for her, but she by passed it and went to stand near the window. He curled his hand over her shoulder and used his other hand to hook his finger and bring a baby girl close to the window. Her face was covered, but she seemed normal.
         “I don’t get it, they look like healthy babies,” Addison said with a shrug. Kane chucked and twitched a finger. The blanket flew off of the child rather brutally causing the baby to scream. Addison’s blood screamed in her veins at the sight. It looked like a baby for the most part in its shape, but its skin was a gnarled gray and twisted oddly around the baby’s joints. One of her eyes was bulging on the point of popping out of her head and several of her teeth were already exposed on her gums. She had no lips and her ears were lopsided. Her tiny fists were like one-fingered hands and her knees had grown together.  She screamed as if she were a dying cat, high pitched to the point of near breaking their eardrums.
         Harrison turned Natalie into his chest and hid her face, while Jaynie turned and relieved her stomach. Jeff turned his back on the baby, his own stomach threatening to come up on him. But Jacob stood there, unphased by the screaming child.
         “No one really knows why the babies were born like this,” Kane said, his hand going to stroke Addison’s hair, “But each child was deformed and hideous at birth. Some were quite worse than this one. She’s actually one of the more normal ones.” He smiled and moved his finger to wrap the child back up and set her back in her crib. “None of them lived long. They either died from the malformations or they were killed.”          
         No one asked any questions as he began to walk again, thankful to get away from the deformed babies. They walked for a long while, down the same hall, causing each of them to wonder how this long hallway fit inside the medium sized hospital. When they stopped again, Kane called Natalie forward.
         “Wait, where’s Jaynie?” Jeff said, he turned and looked, scanning each part of the hallway.
         “Oh, she’s gone now,” Kane giggled, “No sense in looking for her or you’ll be gone too.”
         Jeff looked at Harrison as if for some encouraging words, but Harrison’s eyes were fixated on the hand that held Natalie’s neck so gently.
         “Now, we come to the ICU.” Kane touched Natalie’s cheek tenderly, “Take a peek, deary.”
         Natalie gulped before pulling opens the door. She let out a loud scream as a man came crawling through the doorway. His lower half of his body was missing, as was part of his face. He looked as though he’d been cut in half and had the same gnarled skin as the baby. He groaned and grunted on the ground as he used his one good arm to claw at the ground trying to move his body.
         “Bloody hell happen to him?” Jacob said as stumbled a few feet away from the man.
         “Not quite sure. The ICU is full of people such as this. The nurses talk of someone turning out all the lights at night and then the patients scream in pain and when the lights finally come back on all the patients crawl along the floor like this, groaning and grunting because of their tongues having been cut out.”          
         “That’s disgusting!” Addison screeched as the man clawed at her leg. She sprung into Jacob’s arms and held her feet above the ground, out of the man’s reach.
         “Yes, yes it is, but this is only the second stop!” Kane giggled and began walking again. The five of them scrambled over the man and near ran to keep up with Kane.
         This time, they walked down a flight of stairs, “Methinks you all wonder about the reason behind each of these occurrences?”
         “That’d be an understatement,” Harrison snapped as he walked down the stairs behind Natalie.
         “Oh well, it’s really quite simple,” Kane giggled as he skipped a few steps, “The people got tired of giving God all their attention so they turned on him and began being good friends with the Devil!”
         “So you’re saying the Devil did all of this?” Addison said softly, watching the surrounding walls turn to a dark black color.
         “Nope,” Kane giggled as they came to the bottom of the stairwell, “God did. He punished them for turning on him. But then God got a little sad that he was doing this to his people so he sent them an angel.
         She was so beautiful that the people thought she was the Devil’s child. The people had finally wised up to the fact that God was punishing them, so they figured the normal child was another punishment of God’s so they killed her rather brutally. Her mother did this.”
         They entered a dark room, but the smell of blood was so strong that it made Addison feel as though she had it in her mouth. The room slowly came into light and she saw the blood and bits of the body on the walls, floors, and piled into a corner curled into a blanket drenched in blood. Off to the right of the corner, a lump of a body sat, rocking back and forth singing a song.
         The person looked up at them with wild eyes. She would have been a pretty woman if it weren’t for the fact that she had blood rolling down her face and smeared in her hair. Her eyes were wide and her face was paler than paper. She gasped and crawled towards the bloody blanket. She seemed to know what Kane was going to do and did it before him. The woman crawled towards Addison, the blanket in tow, and threw it at her feet. She reached down and pulled back the cover. Addison screamed, echoed by Natalie. Jeff turned around and began to release his stomach while Harrison and Jacob turned their faces away quickly.
         The covers revealed what only could have been described as horrific. The little girl still had some shape to her, although not very much. Her heart was exposed and still struggling to beat. Her right arm was gone, while her left one flailed about wildly. Her legs had been brutally broken and were twisted horribly. Her left food pointed behind her and she had only a bloody stub for her right one. Her head had been bashed in several times and now indented strongly. Her face was covered in blood and seemed to be spewing from her mouth in a horrible way. She gargled as she cried, choking on her own blood. Her skin, which was still a healthy pink color, was covered in little cuts, some deep, some shallow.
         “She’s a mess, isn’t she?” Kane giggled. He grabbed hold of Addison and pushed her forward, closer to the baby, and then held her there, “She’s still alive. How does she live? Her brain is damaged, as is her heart; she’s lost more blood than her body can hold. So how is it she still lives?”
         Addison shook from the sobs welling up in her chest. She groaned and twisted, trying her hardest to get away from him. He laughed and held her tighter, moving her to be pressed against his chest, “She is an angel, Addison, only people of God can kill God’s angel.”
         Natalie screamed louder this time, something hard had hit her in the small of her back. Kane released Addison instantly and she fell to the ground. Her hands were on either side of the bloody mass, and when she looked up, she was near touching the mother’s nose with her own. The mother shot her hands up and began raking Addison’s face with her nails. The child began to scream and yell, seeming to try to crawl towards Addison. The mother continued to scratch at Addison’s face while she responded by flailing her arms at the woman trying to get her away.
         Addison screamed for Jacob, but he didn’t respond. Nor did Harrison, Natalie, or Jeff. No one came to her aid as the woman kept calling at her face.
         Addison stumbled backwards against the wall, her hands feeling around for something, anything to get the woman off. Just as her hands found the handle of an axe, the woman lifted Addison’s head from the wall and slammed it back against it. Addison groaned as she felt the hot blood roll down the back of her neck, slowly trying to open her eyes and gain sight once again. She saw the woman as a fuzzy human shape, getting surrounded by other fuzzy human shapes. The last thing Addison heard before sliding onto the ground in a pile was the words of a man screaming, “Heavenly work, Sister!”
         Addison woke in the darkness and began to move her hands about in search of something familiar or gentle to the touch. She was only met with cold, hard stone. She groaned and whined, sniffling from the many tears that flooded her face.
         “Poor, poor Addie,” Kane said as he snapped his fingers and a ball of light appeared. “She was taken by fiends and held prisoner for a crime she didn’t know she committed.”
         Addison made a painful noise before she stopped and looked up at him. The corners of her mouth were torn, she could taste the blood on her swollen tongue, and her bottom lip was cut deeply in the middle. She fought back the tears that stung her bruised eyes as she looked at him, pleading with him to help her.
         Kane smiled and kneeled next to her. He placed his hand on her cheek, “I do not envy you, Addie,” he stroked her cheek tenderly, “Your life has been so short and you have so little wisdom in you.
         But you’re the one who’s going to bring this all to an end. You’re the only one who can. I’ve seen them do this billions of time over the centuries and no one has ever been strong enough to fight them. I feel it from you. You have it. God has given you this sweet power to prevent this from ever happening again. All you have to do is allow Him to grace you with it. I had the chance a long time ago to do the same, but I turned away. My envy of Him was the cause, my jealousy. Don’t be like me, Addie.”
         Addison made a weak noise before closing her eyes. She wanted to sleep so badly, her body was so tired. Her arms had gone heavy and her torso felt as though it weighed near six hundred pounds. She started to lie down, but Kane’s hands grabbed her bruised and cut arms and pulled her to stand against him.
         “Don’t do that!” Kane near squealed, “Sleep later. Die later! Get up and get this over with!”
         Addison could barely open her eyes, even when the bang of the door hitting the wall echoed through the dungeon. Kane touched her hair softly, and then let her go. She dropped like a rock, hard to the ground. Her eyes squeezed shut as her beaten body received more bruises. When she opened her eyes again, she stared into a familiar face of a man she’d known all her life. It was her gym teacher and an old family friend Mr. Harper.
         She smiled meekly and raised her hand up. But he didn’t smile. He grabbed her arm roughly and jerked her to her feet then began dragging her out of the dungeon. She stumbled along with him, leaving a trail of blood behind her from her torn feet. When they finally stopped, Addison fell to her knees. She whined lowly but the moment the sound escaped her, Mr. Harper placed a hard slap across her face. She placed a hand on her cheek, and looked up at him. He glared across the room at something.
         Addison turned her eyes to the place where he was staring. The fear that ripped through her spine couldn’t have been any stronger without killing her. Her heart raced at the familiar faces that surrounded her, each scowling at her as though she was the Devil himself. She reached for her cross that had resided on her neck since shortly after birth only to find it missing. She inhaled sharply, realizing what they were planning on doing, what they were going to do to her.
         “Addison Nadine Stanford,” Her mother’s familiar voice said. Addison searched the crowd for her until she found her mother’s face. The woman stepped forward, “You are a disappointment to your family and this town. I can no longer call you my daughter.”
         “We can’t allow you to condemn our town, Addison,” Her father said, moving to stand near his wife. “Why could you have been a good girl and just listened to us?”
         “Frank, stop it,” Addison’s mother said. She grabbed hold of her husband’s arm and pulled him back into the line.
         Addison stared up at them all, having no way to defend herself. She had disobeyed them intentionally. She did this herself. Now, her life was over and there was no one that could help her. She closed her eyes and, for the first time in her life, she began to pray with earnest that she’d never had.
         She swayed softly, her legs weak and tired, but she stayed kneeling. She refused to bend, to break. She felt her heart fill with a feeling she couldn’t recognize; it was warm, flittering a bit, and strong. She slowly felt her strength return to her. With each passing second her heartbeat became harder and harder.
         Addison opened her eyes to a small group of men, family friends and neighbors, each holding a club. One raised his club high above his head and Addison stared up at him, her eyes bright and daring him. He scowled deeper and brought the club down at full speed.
         But it never touched her. Not a hair. The club slammed into a barrier only inches from her head, a loud thud ringing out.
         No one moved. Each person stood in pure shock and fear. Addison herself felt a twang of fear, which was quickly erased. She kept her eyes on his and watched as the man jerked backwards. He dropped the club and grabbed hold of his neck, hacking and wheezing. His skin seemed to be on fire as it started to turn pink and the smell of burning flesh. Soon, he dropped to the ground in a pile of ashes.
         Around her the group began to fall in to pile of ashes, one by one. Her mother screamed and cursed Addison before falling to the ground. Rather quickly, Addison was kneeling in an empty room. She fell forward and lay out on the ground. Her body was drained of everything and her heart was nearing stopping.
         Small hands touched her hair gently. Addison tiredly turned her face up. She was met with the face of a young girl around 10 or 11 years old. She had piercing blue eyes and jet-black hair with a sweet smile stamped on her face.
         “Thank you, Addie,” She said softly, her hands still holding on to Addison’s hair, “I’m sorry that this happened but you’ll be okay. Right now it hurts, but later you’ll understand why this had to happen.”
         “How?” Addison’s voice was barely audible and so hoarse she was certain the girl couldn’t hear her.
         “God’ll tell you, Addie,” she said, a softer smile smoothing onto her face, “You trusted God this time to take care of you and he’ll keep taking care of you. God won’t abandon you like everyone else will. I have to go now, Addie, but you’ll see me again.”
         Addison frowned but the girl disappeared before she could even attempt to speak. As Addison lowered her face back to the ground, two hands grabbed hold of her and pulled her up. She wasn’t very happy to see the face of Kane for the split second before getting crushed into his chest.
         “I knew you could do it, Addie!” He squealed.  Addison groaned in pain and Kane laughed, “Yeah okay.” Holding her up with one hand he touched her forehead. Within seconds, Addison felt every bruise and cut heal and her energy restored completely.
         She stared at him for a second before finally getting frustrated, “Who the hell are you?”
         Kane smiled and brushed her hair out of her face, “The Devil himself.”  He near choked on his laugh at Addison’s expression to his response, “Yeah, I know. The Devil did something nice! Don’t get too worked up about it because there’s a lot more to this than you think.
         Few centuries ago, I got the bright idea to turn a town away from God and bring them to my side one by one. It worked wonderfully for a century, but then it all changed. Generally, I’m the bad guy in Christians’ eyes. But believe it or not, there is someone worse than me, meaner than me, and a hell of a lot crueler than I am. I don’t cause every bad thing that happens. I may egg it on, but I don’t make everything bad happen.
         Her name is Lilith and she was Adam’s first wife. Originally, God made Lilith at the same time he made Adam. But she was too independent for Adam and she basically told Adam to shove it when he asked her to be submissive. So, Lilith left him and the garden. She had enough.
         But when she left is when it got bad. God punished Lilith and she turned on him. She went bad. Way worse than what I did, and she began terrorizing not only you mortals, but me as well. I can’t stand the woman, really. She takes my souls and uses them for her own selfishness. I had to stop her. And that, Addison, is where you come in. The town went from being mine, to being hers. They worshiped her, loved her, and did everything for her. They’ve sacrificed millions to her without blinking. And finally, you’ve rid them of everything. Addison, you’ll never know what you’ve done.”
         “Oh,” Addison said, “I think I do. And do you know what I’m going to do next?” Kane’s face went blank and he stared at her blindly. “I’m going to go to a psych ward and admit myself because I believe I need it.”
         With that, Addison turned away and walked out of the cramped little building, leaving a laughing Kane behind.