Phantasos (Part One) nosleep

Phantasos Orphanage. Or, as the old, decaying sign now read: Ph tas s Orphan e. But everyone knew what it said. I always thought it was a horrible name for an orphanage. Do you know who Phantasos was? The Greek god of surreal dreams. You know what fantasmas means in Spanish? Ghosts. Surreal dreams and ghosts. Who named this place?

Phantasos is a huge building, taking up about 74,600 square feet, although it always looked a hell of a lot bigger than that. The building itself is maybe five stories tall, and falling apart. It’s a brick building, and now, some of the bricks in the outer walls of the building are missing. The garden is dead, there is dirt everywhere, and it almost never got any visitors. Ghost hunters would have a field day at this place.

If they could get in, that is.

Phantasos is surrounded by a huge metal gate. You can tell it was once black, but now most of the paint has worn away and it’s all rust. There’s a chain looped around the two doors at the front of the parking lot, with a giant padlock holding everything shut. The entire ambiance of the place was unnerving, like the intro shot in a horror film.

No one really knew anything about Phantasos, because no one ever wanted to try to learn anything about it in the first place. The only things we really knew, were the things we could gather from the gossiping old ladies who hung out at Crocker Park, feeding the ducks every weekend. It basically was all the same, no matter who you asked. Phantasos Orphanage was built in the early 1900’s, maybe the 20’s, maybe before that, no one really knew.

It didn’t start off as an orphanage either. Apparently, it was some sort of a children's home for homeless kids living in the streets. It was run by some doctor. Doctor Jones, or James, something like that. It was a pretty chill place from what I gather. Until the Doctor died. Then it went to shit and turned into an actual orphanage at some point after that, and now, the theory was that it was some sort of haunted building.

Not even the bullies who smoked cigarettes at age fourteen and hung around Mikey’s Gas Station would dare to go anywhere near Phantasos. Sure, they would shoot at stray cats, or at birds with their BB guns. They would stand out front of Mikey’s and get wasted and then run like hell when the cops showed up. But they would never step within a ten-mile radius of Phantasos. Whether that made them stupid or smart, I don’t know.

I only made the ten-minute trip because I had nothing better to do. That and I wanted to impress Lily Terros. So, I got in my car and I drove into the north side of town, up the hill, and then parked right outside of the hell hole. A few minutes later, three more cars rolled up behind me slowly, and John, Adam, Lily, and her sister Petra climbed out.

“Yo Ray, are you really going to do this shit man?”

John leaned against the hood of his pickup and took a drink of beer. Why was he even driving?

I didn’t reply.

I walked across the front of the building, looking for a way in. A loose piece of the fence, maybe another unlocked gate. There wasn’t one. The fence seemed to go all the way around the land, making some sort of field out towards the back of the building. I looked up at the building and noticed that there weren’t any lights on. None. It was only five o’clock, and yet for some reason, it looked like it was the middle of the night up here.

I walked back to my car and popped open the trunk, taking out a pair of garden shears. I used them on the chain, trying to break it open.

“Dude, you’re seriously crazy. I can’t believe you’re doing this. Fuck, can you believe this, Adam?”

I really wished John would shut the fuck up.

The chain broke about a minute later. I was in.

I moved it out of the way and then pushed on of the doors open. It creaked so loud some birds flew out of a nearby tree.

“It looks abandoned,” I hear Petra say.

“It’s not,” I replied.

“How the fuck would you know?” Adam asked.

I looked back at everyone standing at the edge of the sidewalk.

“I don’t,” I replied.

“Then what the fuck, Ray?” Adam asked.

His tone was angry, too angry for someone who had just smoked as much pot as he did. I ignored him. He was scared. Not that I wasn’t, I was actually shitting bricks. But, I was already here, and there was no way I could back out now. Not when I had an audience.

“What’s the plan? We’re going to go in there and then what? Ask for a tour?” Lily asked.

She was sober. Never drank, never did drugs. I don’t even know why she hung out with us. I mean, I was sober too, but not always. Not like Lily.

“We’re going to sneak in, have a look around, and then get out before we get caught,” I replied.

“Fuck you guys, there’s no fucking way that I’m going in there,” Adam said.

“Fine. Don’t go,” I pushed through the gap in the gate and my feet crunched on the gravel path that leads to the parking lot.

I hear two pairs of footsteps behind me as I made my way to the front door. I reached out and pulled on it. It was locked.

“Was that really your plan? Go in through the front door?” Lily whispered.

I shrugged but I didn’t say anything and instead continued making my way around the building.

“Do you even know where you’re going?” Adam asked.

So he had decided to come after all.

“Not a damn clue. Now shut up and look for an entrance,” I said.

We split up, but not too far from each other, looking for an open window or another door. The windows were no use, they all contained metal bars in front of them. Preventing anyone from jumping out, I assume. However, that thought made me a little nervous. What the hell going on in there that had them worried that kids were going to jump out of the windows?

We kept creeping around, and I was starting to get disappointed. Maybe there just wasn’t a way in.

“Holy fuck, look at that,” Adam whispered.

I looked towards where he was pointing and I saw a little girl standing in the open doorway, next to the dumpsters on the side of the building. I approached her carefully.

She was small, maybe five or six years old. Super thin, unhealthy thin. And her hair was falling out. You could see bald patches among what was left of her caramel brown hair. Her eyes were huge and really green. Almost glowing. She wore a pink frilly dress that was too big for her and kept sliding off her shoulders.

“Hey, what’s your name?” I asked softly.

“Greta,”

She had an English accent, or maybe Australian, I couldn’t really tell based off one word.

“Can we come in?” I asked.

Greta looked at me, then Lily and then Adam. Then back at me.

“Sure. But you won’t be able to get back out,” She replied.

That gave me chills. However, I still walked in for some stupid reason, and Lily and Adam still followed me. Adam was less willing. I saw him debating whether or not he was going to follow us in.

“Come on, don’t be a pussy,” I replied.

Adam looked around nervously before making the sign of the cross upon himself and then walking in. I rolled my eyes. Once we were all inside, the door slammed shut. I jumped. The sound was louder than any other sound I had ever hear in my entire life. Once my eyes adjusted to the poorly lit room, I was able to make out racks lined up against the walls with loaves of bread. We were in the kitchen.

“Hey, where’s Greta?” Lily asked.

I looked around the room. Greta was gone. What the hell? I made my way further into the room, past the giant metal refrigerators and the wooden tables placed across the room. The wallpaper was peeling off, and there was some heavy water damage all along the bottom of the walls. The tile had been broken off in places, revealing some of the cement floors underneath.

“Oh fuck! Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck!” I heard Adam say.

“Dude, shut up!” I hissed.

“Man, look at this. Is this blood?”

I looked over at Adam, who was pointing at the surface of one of the tables. Lily walked over to take a closer look.

“That’s pomegranate juice, you imbecile,” She said.

“How would you know?” Adam asked.

He looked like he was going to piss himself. If he hadn’t already.

“Because there’s half a pomegranate right there,” Lily pointed to it, sitting on the other end of the table.

I snickered, as I kept walking around the kitchen. There weren’t any dishes, which I found odd. The only things that I could see were some dirty butcher knives on some of the tables. It was also really quiet. Like, there were no other sounds except for our footsteps and the occasional “fuck” from Adam.

Then Lily screamed.

I jumped and spun around to where she was standing; in front of an open fridge.

“Shh!” Adam hissed.

“Guys, we need to get out of here, now,” She said, sounding like she was about to cry.

“What? We’ve only seen the kitchen,” I said.

“I think the kitchen is enough,” She said, finally turning around to face us.

Her already pale skin was even paler now, and her eyes were huge. I watched as she reached over and opened the fridge door wider, to give us a view of what she had seen. I almost screamed.

They were bodies. No alive, of course. They were most certainly dead, and some were missing limbs or parts of their face. One had no lips. And they were all naked.

“Fuck, fuck, FUCK!” Adam cried.

I walked closer to one of the bodies. It was a male body. All of their hair had been shaved off, and this particular body wasn’t missing any body parts yet.

“Is that Quincy Clark?” I asked.

Quincy had gone missing a few weeks ago, no one really knew from where, or the exact date, considering that Quincy frequently wandered around town and camped in the parks of the woods, and no one would hear from him for a few days at a time. But he had never been gone for an entire week straight. The only thing they found was his car, at the bottom of the hill that leads up to Phantasos. I was pretty sure the cops had stopped looking already.

“How did he end up here?” Lily asked.

“I’m assuming not by choice,” I replied, pointing to the laceration marks still visible on his wrists.

“I’m getting the hell out of here, fuck this,” Adam said. He walked towards the back of the kitchen, back to the door that we used to get in here.

Lily and I looked at the rest of the bodies. We didn’t recognize any others, they were all missing any distinguishable features. I opened the next fridge to reveal more bodies, then the one after that, more bodied. I stopped opening fridges.

“Oh fuck, we are screwed. We are so fucking screwed guys,”

I turned around to see Adam running back over to us. He crashed into one of the tabled but didn’t even flinch.

“What are you talking about? I thought you were leaving,” I replied.

“I was. But there’s no fucking door,” Adam said.

He as almost yelling now.

“Dude, shut the fuck up, you’re going to blow our cover!” I said.

He lowered his voice.

“The door is gone, Ray. Poof!” He said, making some sort of ‘jazz hands’ motion with his hands.

“What are you talking about?” Lily asked, walking towards the back of the room.

I rolled my eyes and followed her.

When I reached the part of the room where the door was, I froze. Adam was right. The door was gone.

“What the hell? Doors don’t just vanish,” I said.

“I told you, you won’t be able to get out again,”

We spun around to see Greta standing across the room, holding a butcher knife. Blood was running down her mouth.

“Is that…” Adam squeaked.

“I don’t think that’s pomegranate juice,” Lily said.

Greta stepped forward and looked around the room. So did I.

There were kids everywhere, and they all had blood on various parts of their body. Lips, cheeks, hands, necks. Fresh blood.

“You should run now. You don’t have much time left,” Greta said.

Her voice had changed. It sounded like someone had previously recorded it and the slowed down the recording, so it came out sounding deep and warped.

“You should run”

“Run Adam,”

“Run Ray,”

“Run Lily”

Run, run, run, run, RUN!”

We did. We ran like hell, out of the kitchen and down the hallway. I stopped, and Lily and Adam crashed into me.

“Why did you stop!?” Lily asked.

“Where the hell do we go?” I asked.

In front of us was a long hallway. It was a dead end, but it was covered in doors, about eight on each side of the hall. We stood there, trying to think of what the hell we were going to do, with an army of killer kids slowly making their way towards us, their chanting growing louder and louder.

“Just pick a damn door!” Adam shouted, panic in his voice.

Lily ran forward and opened a door. We all ran inside and leaned against the door. I reached over and locked it and the looked around the room to see where we were.

It looked like an operating room. With a metal table in the middle, and a tray of tools on a small metal table, like the ones dentist use to hold their tools. There were discarded surgeons outfits on the floor, and one single fluorescent bulb lit up the room. There was a body on the table. It was already missing a leg, but the blood was still oozing out of the stub where the other leg had once been.

I slowly walked over to it and Lily followed me. Then Lily let out a blood-curdling scream. On the table was Petra. Her mouth had been sewed shut, super tightly, and she had nails in the left side of her face and through her left eye. Both of her eyes were still open and she was looking straight up. There was a chunk of skin missing from her right cheek.

Lily turned around and puked right on the floor. And then, Petra at up and I watched, in horror, as she slowly opened her mouth, the stitches ripping her lips apart until she opened her mouth all the way and then screamed. Her teeth had been replaced with what appeared to be the blades from Exacto knives. Then she looked straight at me and threw herself in my direction.

Submitted December 22, 2017 at 12:29AM by EaPAtbp http://ift.tt/2zc3NA1 nosleep