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If I had a child, I would tell her stories too.
But I would tell her about a tower and a knight covered in hair instead of shining armor. I would tell her how hard it is to run in the dark, and how tricky it is to climb hundreds of stairs up into the night. I would remind her that not all heroes are easy to understand, and that there are bigger reasons to rise to the occasion than the rescuing of princesses.
And if she’s any kid of mine, I expect she’ll understand.
I told myself that this stop would be easier in the morning, in the bright orange light before the sun got too high. I zipped down the mountain in my freshly repaired Death Nugget, and went out to the main drag of a north Chattanooga suburb.
I turned off Dayton Boulevard and drove down a winding two-lane road beside a cemetery. A pond full of ducks flapped to excited attention as I puttered past.
Off to the right, a narrow strip of pavement veered up a hill. I followed it. Even farther to the right, an even narrower band of half-paved road squeaked between fluffy arches of bright green foliage.
It seemed there was nowhere to go—the road was swallowed by the forest. I couldn’t see beyond ten feet in front of my hood.
But I kept going, creeping slowly, with my foot off the gas, but off the brake too. My car crawled over the gravel, over the rocks, over the branches that had fallen or toppled or been blown over the path.
It had only been a year.
I simply couldn’t believe the change. It was as if, when all the old buildings were bulldozed and carried away, the hill had swallowed the foundations whole.
Over here I saw an overgrown stone wall, and over there I picked out a leftover pile of bricks. Along the gravel strip, hanging over the edge of a ditch, there were stacks of old tires. I didn’t know what the old tires were from, and I didn’t know why there was a decrepit washing machine beside a big tree, so I was forced to conclude that people had started using the place for a dump.
I tried to remember how far up to go and what the rough layout of the place had been, but it wasn’t until I reached the top of the hill that anything looked familiar. Where the incline leveled out, a set of foundations remained uncovered; these were the larger buildings—the gymnasium, the dormitories, and an administration building. Only rubble remained, but at least the field was relatively clear and the trees were taller, higher above and not dangling down to obscure my field of vision.
I parked there, wondering exactly how I was going to turn around and leave again, but not so worried this time that I might be spotted by the cops.
No one was going to spot anything up there now. Even if there was trouble, it was highly unlikely that a passerby would come to my assistance. I didn’t like the thought of it, but I’d made a stupid promise and I intended to keep it.
I turned off the car, and immediately felt the weight of the place. It felt heavy, and bleak, and wet—even though it hadn’t rained in over a week. And it was deeply dark, despite the hour. Between the leaves, thin orange columns of light spilled to the forest floor; but the canopy was laced tight, and I felt like this could have been late afternoon instead of late morning.
I took a deep breath and climbed out of the vehicle.
My boots sounded loud on the knotted, gravelly ground beside my tires. I shuffled my feet a little just to make that noise, so I could hear it and not feel so alone. Except for my intrusion, the place was perfectly quiet. No birds, no leaf-scattering lizards or squirrels.
“It must be me. Or the car,” I thought aloud. It must have been the sound of my engine that scattered the wildlife.
All around me, the slow, insistent growth of vines, the wheedling of roots, and the spreading of ferny branches marked the hill’s progress in reclaiming the site. Without intervention, another two or three years ought to hide the human scarring of development altogether if someone didn’t buy the property and build there.
I closed the car door and walked to the nearest overgrown slab of concrete. I couldn’t remember if it was the foundation of the gymnasium or the main administration building, but either way I was mildly surprised by how small it appeared. Without the trappings of walls and ceilings, the naked under-flooring looked like it could not possibly have supported the three-story structure I remembered.
I stepped up onto it, that bare gray dance floor beneath the trees. I wasn’t sure why. For some reason I felt the need to get off the ground, away from the carpet of nature. I didn’t want to touch it. I didn’t want to stand on it at all.
“Hello?”
I could’ve said it louder, but then I might have gotten an answer—and I didn’t really want an answer. In my perfect world, in my perfect morning, I would stand there feeling stupid for a few minutes and then leave…with nothing eventful to report.
“Hello?” I asked again.
The sound of my voice was too loud, even though I was deliberately keeping it down. The silence was thorough and thick.
“Anyone?”
Around me the quiet air moved. It shifted in a mass, all at once. It drew closer to me and I retreated, back-stepping along the concrete slab until I stood nearly in the center.
I remembered the heartbeat—the angry, rhythmic pulse of syllables that had followed me once before. I remembered it, but I didn’t hear it.
I remembered something else too, when the shadows began to come forward. I remembered that this place was once a hospital where people went to die. A figure popped into my head, a number I’d read a long time ago: two thousand people.
I didn’t see anything solid, not even a shape I could definitely pick out as human. Along the encroaching tree line blackness shifted—not hard, not fast. Freeze-frame slow, and stilted. If I looked away and then back again, I couldn’t swear I’d seen anything at all. But if I stared, and if I could keep from blinking, I saw it.
