THE SCARE
She described the place as if she were still there.
She described the first rooms she saw. She told of old files and papers. Notes, perhaps,
written about patients who had long since passed from the old building’s dark walls. They
were strung about the floor in haphazard piles. Long forgotten and ignored.
They lived inside the long abandoned walls of the old Bryce Hospital in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.
The whitewashed brick glowed a frightening shade of purple in the moonlight. The windows,
empty and dark, stared at them through their own broken panes. The old creaky front door
seemed to beckon them. So they entered.
First, and frightening in their abandoned state, sat the administration. But just beyond a
passageway, behind an old steel doorway perhaps, was the life of the old hospital.
Or as it was known at the time, the Bryce Hospital for the Insane.
They walked into the dark hallways, afraid even to look at the walls around them. They were
said to drip with the blood of the many patients who suffered at the hands of early
psychiatrists and their barbaric treatments. They’d pass doors, some with huge locks on
them, she remembered. These were where the more unruly patients were locked up. For their
own good, they were told.
And it is said that in those dark rooms they still remain.
In an open room, the moon shone through the broken window and onto a floor littered with
debris. It was hard to tell exactly what it was in that light. Maybe it was just paper and
dirt. Or maybe the remains of an experiment gone awry.
They tried to shine the flashlight in the room, but it went out. They were surrounded in
darkness. Then, in the dark recesses around them, they heard a noise. Whether it was behind
them, above, in front, or below they had no clue. All they knew was that they seemed to grow
louder.
And more vicious.
More alive.
The voices of anger and despair seemed to follow them as they raced for the front entrance.
As soon as they stepped from the entranceway they stopped. It was cool and listless outside.
And the only sound they heard was the ceaseless whine of the wind around the trees.
THE TRUTH
I had heard another story about the old Bryce Hospital. It said that the building sat on top
of a hill overlooking the city below. It was supposedly a long and arduous journey to the
top, so if one were to complete this journey, the caretakers of the building rewarded you
with passage into its hallways.
I knew this was utter nonsense when I first read this. But in the very least, I expected and
old, crumbling, abandoned building on top of a hill.
Some persist in saying, however, that no matter what one sees, it still doesn’t change the
hospital’s history of violence and abuse. Some say that this (just because it served in the
early part of the century and was labled an asylum) and other hospitals now harbor the
negative energies of their pasts.
In fact, the Bryce Hospital was ahead of its time in the use of humane treatments toward its
residents. No restraints were ever used, and was a forerunner in the use of positive
reinforcement to gain results. Staff were trained to respect the residents as equals, and,
as a part of their treatment, patients were often given odd jobs and responsibilities around
the campus.
This, and many other old buildings, do harbor some energies. But Bryce's story tells
otherwise. Unfortunately, this doesn’t make for good storytelling. But to let the lies
persist would be a disservice to Dr. Bryce, a man who fought for his own patients’ good when
others were perverting their powers.
I never said, however, that the place wasn't haunted...