Break Into Pieces

Despite being the magazine’s only in-house jour­nal­ist on all things relat­ed to para­nor­mal tourism—a niche sub­ject if ever there was one—Terry had nev­er per­son­al­ly expe­ri­enced what peo­ple in his field called an encounter. This was not for lack of try­ing, either.

He had trekked through Latin Amer­i­ca for the last six months cov­er­ing pur­port­ed­ly haunt­ed loca­tions, inter­view­ing eye­wit­ness­es about every­thing from hos­tel ghosts to chu­pacabras, and even tak­ing part in some high­ly ques­tion­able ‘rit­u­als’ involv­ing even more ques­tion­able ‘sub­stances’ that did not make it into the final drafts of his arti­cles. Although he’d nev­er encoun­tered a spir­it him­self, he’d devel­oped a keen sense for the lucra­tive creep fac­tor dur­ing his tenure. The cas­es he con­sid­ered most legit often gave him a weird twist­ing sen­sa­tion in his gut, like he’d slurped down some bad street meat. Always, always, always, their read­er­ship jumped expo­nen­tial­ly when he cov­ered those sites.

And this place? Oh, man. His guts were in tat­ters when he and his trav­el com­pan­ion pulled up. If this worked out, he might even be able to con­vince his boss to send out a film crew and real­ly do it—and his bank account—some justice.

Nes­tled in the cra­dle of a moun­tain slope in the Tier­ra Blan­ca dis­trict of Carta­go, with rolling green hills blan­ket­ing the seem­ing­ly serene land­scape, the old Sana­to­rio Durán had long ago giv­en in to decades of neglect. Back in its hey­day, peo­ple would come here dying of con­sump­tion with a doctor’s order to get some fresh air. And he had to admit, the air was excel­lent out here, so he could see the appeal. It was cool­er than most of the coun­try, more pas­toral than trop­i­cal, but the bright sun beat down on Terry’s back nonethe­less as he climbed out of the truck, his col­lar damp with sweat and his stom­ach in knots.

The place was in the process of being repur­posed as a tourist attrac­tion. The rot­ting skele­tons of sev­er­al large build­ings sprawled across the prop­er­ty. The main one looked to be under­go­ing restora­tion, but the oth­ers sport­ed bro­ken win­dows, dan­gling boards, and a seri­ous rust infection—exactly what his read­ers adored in their haunt­ed locales.

Ter­ry strolled up to the gate of the Sana­to­rio Durán, leav­ing Roxy in the dusty grav­el park­ing lot with a cig­a­rette hang­ing out of her mouth. She didn’t do the spooky places—that was Terry’s thing—and she would not be con­vinced to ven­ture in, even though she was, arguably, the bet­ter pho­tog­ra­ph­er of the two.

“You owe me lunch after this,” Roxy shout­ed at his back.

He waved her off, check­ing his phone—two missed calls from his mom and girl­friend, a prob­lem for later—before set­ting it back to air­plane mode. He stepped up to a small kiosk and sub­tly glanced around for a restroom in case this actu­al­ly was a street-meat-revenge sce­nario and not a phys­i­o­log­i­cal man­i­fes­ta­tion of some weird elec­tro­mag­net­ic field activ­i­ty, or whatever.

“Uno, por favor.” Ter­ry held up one fin­ger to indi­cate his desired num­ber of tick­ets in case his Span­ish real­ly was as ter­ri­ble as Roxy teased.

The girl in the booth raised an eye­brow and said in Eng­lish, “One thou­sand five hun­dred colones. We take Amer­i­can, too. Three dollars.”

“I’m Cana­di­an,” Ter­ry clar­i­fied as if by com­pul­sion, hand­ing her two red­dish-pink bills imprint­ed with white-tail deer.

She slid him some change. “Well, wel­come to Cos­ta Rica. And to the Sana­to­rio Durán. Your friend want a tick­et, too?”

Ter­ry shook his head. “Nah, she’s too scared. You ever see any fan­tas­mas?”

She laughed, tuck­ing her hair behind her ear and lean­ing for­ward. “Me? I don’t go in. But there are sto­ries. The daugh­ter of the founder is said to have died here of tuber­cu­lo­sis. Some say Doc­tor Durán him­self still haunts the Casa de Médi­cos at the back. And of course, many sight­ings of nuns. The Sis­ters helped run the place back when it was oper­a­tional. Maybe you’ll see one.” She winked.

He chuck­led. “So you believe that stuff?”

“Here? Def­i­nite­ly. This place housed patients from 1918 until around the six­ties when demand fell—medical advance­ments. But after that, it was con­vert­ed into an orphan­age, then a prison, until an erup­tion at Irazú forced it to close per­ma­nent­ly. Struc­tur­al dam­age. The volcano’s only eigh­teen kilo­me­tres away. Good sightseeing.”

“Yeah, we were there this morn­ing.” Ter­ry glanced back at Roxy, her face obscured by a cloud of smoke. Vol­ca­noes were like crack cocaine to that woman—she was the magazine’s reg­u­lar-bor­ing-tourism spe­cial­ist, but she put up with Terry’s detours. She loved nature…just not as much as she loved her cig­a­rettes, of course.

“A his­to­ry like this, you’ve got to think some of the ener­gy lingers.” The girl flashed him a smile. “Enjoy your tour.”

Ter­ry fold­ed his tick­et into his pock­et in case he need­ed it, but there was no one polic­ing the week­day trick­le of entrants. It became appar­ent the tour would be clos­er to a self-guid­ed explo­ration of a most­ly aban­doned build­ing with no safe­ty code. The Sana­to­rio Durán’s recent turn as a tourist des­ti­na­tion was a unique plea­sure for Terry—it was a val­ued site of archi­tec­tur­al and his­tor­i­cal her­itage on paper, but real­ly, peo­ple came for the ghosts. Its var­ied his­to­ry left it with a rep­u­ta­tion as one of Cos­ta Rica’s most haunt­ed loca­tions, and ide­al for Terry’s pur­pos­es. His para­nor­mal tourism col­umn had been strug­gling for a while now and Paul was on his ass about it.

Ter­ry snapped some pic­tures as he walked up the long path of the front court­yard to the main col­lec­tion of build­ings, dig­ging a half-crum­bled antacid out of his jeans pock­et and crush­ing it between his molars. A rust­ed heavy-duty truck that may once have been a 1940s Chevy sat on blocks out front. The prop­er­ty was fenced with barbed wire, but it wasn’t uninvit­ing. Trees and flow­ers bloomed bright against the ver­dant land­scape, and in the acres behind, plod­ding through the col­lapsed con­crete of the for­mer men’s pavil­ion, were dozens of relaxed brown cows chew­ing cud.

Ter­ry passed an admin­is­tra­tion build­ing that sat fur­thest to the left on the prop­er­ty, attached to a chapel with a small white cross pro­trud­ing from the peak. Super creepy—old church­es were always a big read­er­ship draw. He took his time fram­ing a decent shot.

From there, the build­ing stretched to a new cafe­te­ria with washrooms—thank the gods—the only active and staffed loca­tion, which led to a long hall con­nect­ing to the children’s pavilion.

Stom­ach grum­bling as it set­tled, Ter­ry walked down the gold-and-maroon check­ered hall in silence as cows watched him dis­in­ter­est­ed­ly through the bro­ken win­dows. Tiny palm­prints from the chil­dren who had once lived here paint­ed the walls in blues, reds, greens, and yel­lows. A smil­ing sun peered over the hall­way door lead­ing fur­ther into the dor­mi­to­ries that housed the youngest patients. He stepped inside, a chill slid­ing down his neck, leav­ing fields of goose­bumps in its wake. Ter­ry stopped to make a note of this, so he’d remem­ber to add it to the arti­cle lat­er for flavour.

Two sto­ries high, the sprawl­ing children’s and women’s pavil­ion build­ings con­tained rooms upon rooms. Light cas­cad­ed in through mas­sive win­dows span­ning the exte­ri­or walls on each floor. Most were bro­ken. Shat­tered glass lit­tered the floor in places and in some rooms the roof had caved in. Pigeons and bats skit­tered in the open attics above. Utter per­fec­tion. These details would real­ly sell the story.

At a quick pat­ter of foot­steps, Ter­ry glanced behind him, sur­prised Roxy had changed her mind for once. The hall was emp­ty. He jolt­ed, heart kick­ing up a notch.

Some­how, the space behind him felt occu­pied. A thin ten­dril of adren­a­line twist­ed through him, toes to scalp, a rare occur­rence for a sea­soned para­nor­mal tourist. With a slight trem­ble in his fin­gers, he made anoth­er note, chuck­ling at himself.

The celadon-green walls were cov­ered with graf­fi­ti. He not­ed his impres­sions and snapped a few more pho­tos for his arti­cle. On one white wall, scrawled in black hand­writ­ing that stood out against the messy, juve­nile tags were the words “Par­tirse en pedazos.”

Ter­ry tapped his fin­ger against his lips, doing his best to men­tal­ly trans­late the phrase.

Break into pieces.

He shiv­ered. Was that even right? Regard­less, it was creepy as hell. He made a note of it and shot anoth­er pho­to. At least the antacid had set­tled his stom­ach. In fact, now that he thought about it, he felt fine. Great, even. The air here real­ly was some­thing. There was a light­ness to it that seemed to fill his head and his lungs, leav­ing him a bit day­dreamy. His fin­ger­tips pressed against the cloudy panes of glass on the sec­ond-floor win­dows as he looked out over the breath­tak­ing land­scape, won­der­ing what it would have been like to stand here a hun­dred years ago and have it lit­er­al­ly take his breath away. Con­sump­tion. What a way to go.

“Ouch.” Ter­ry pulled his hand back from the weath­ered pane, inspect­ing his index fin­ger. A tiny bead of blood welled on the tip. He sucked it into his mouth, grum­bling about slivers.

The place was all but emp­ty. He’d passed only two oth­er peo­ple in the cafe­te­ria ear­li­er as he snapped pho­tos of the por­traits on the walls—pictures of old pic­tures. He’d only noticed one secu­ri­ty cam­era on the prop­er­ty. But still, every­where he walked in these halls, he felt odd­ly watched.

A buzz in his pock­et star­tled him and his fin­ger popped free of his lips. Roxy had got­ten impa­tient, most like­ly. Or his girl­friend was tex­ting again. But no, that couldn’t be. His phone was on air­plane mode so he didn’t chew up data while they were out today. He checked it.

Low bat­tery.

How was that pos­si­ble? It was ful­ly charged when he left the truck. As soon as he pressed the but­ton, the screen flashed red and died com­plete­ly. “Son of a bitch,” Ter­ry cursed under his breath.

Ter­ry trekked back the way he’d come, fig­ur­ing he’d made Roxy wait long enough as it was. The light, cloudy sen­sa­tion that had filled him in the build­ings dis­si­pat­ed the fur­ther he walked toward the gate. His stom­ach twist­ed again as the antacid wore off. He stopped by the front gate for one last pic­ture just as his cam­era bat­tery bit the bul­let too. Damn.

A fit of cough­ing slowed him on the way back to the park­ing lot where Roxy’s legs hung out of the open truck door, cloud of smoke still in place as always. Gaze locked on his cam­era, he told her, “You’re not going to believe this. It was ful­ly charged when we got here. Didn’t I tell you I just got this battery?”

“An hour and a half,” Roxy accused, toss­ing her head back. Her red hair tum­bled over her shoulders.

“What? I wasn’t gone that long. Thir­ty min­utes, tops.”

“You’re killing me, Ter. I’m starving.”

“My phone died.”

“No shit. I texted you like nine­ty times.” She stubbed her cig­a­rette into her pack, glanc­ing around. She’d got­ten the side-eye more than once from envi­ron­men­tal­ly con­scious Ticos for ditch­ing her butts on the ground here.

Ter­ry rubbed at his sud­den­ly scratchy throat. “No, I mean, it was in air­plane mode and it still drained—”

“So you were ignor­ing my texts, nice. Get in the truck. I guess you want my charger?”

Ter­ry climbed into the blue Chevy, over sev­en­ty years new­er than its elder­ly fore­bear­er rust­ing in the court­yard. He tried to clear the itch in the back of his throat. “Uh yeah, that’d be great.”

He plugged his phone in, his head weird­ly heavy since leav­ing the grounds—a blood pres­sure drop, maybe. Not enough to eat at break­fast. He tried to shake it off but only end­ed up pro­vok­ing a dull headache behind his eyes. His stom­ach grum­bled, indi­ges­tion resurg­ing with a vengeance as he buck­led in.

Roxy turned to him, gaze shield­ed by sun­glass­es as she start­ed the loud engine. “You know who else was tex­ting you?”

At her tone, Terry’s already upset stom­ach wob­bled a bit more. Shit. He could guess how this con­ver­sa­tion was about to go. Ter­ry cleared his throat again, unsuc­cess­ful­ly, try­ing to catch his breath—the walk must have tak­en more out of him than he’d realized—but he took too long to answer.

“That clingy girl­friend of yours,” Roxy answered her­self. “The one who hates me. You want to know how I know?”

“Oh, man,” Ter­ry mum­bled, clutch­ing his stom­ach. The pain was mak­ing this con­ver­sa­tion hard­er to fol­low. “I don’t feel so…”

Roxy ignored his protest, launch­ing into full tirade-mode, say­ing, “I know because she’s tex­ting me now, since she couldn’t get a hold of you. Thinks you’re dead, or cheating—and I think the lat­ter is worse in her mind. How does she even have my num­ber, Ter?”

Ter­ry hunched for­ward in his seat, con­sid­er­ing putting his head between his knees. He wasn’t usu­al­ly prone to motion sick­ness, but it was hit­ting him hard. “Um.”

“Yeah. Um. That’s what I thought.”

Ter­ry leaned back against the head­rest, tak­ing a deep breath and clos­ing his eyes. “What, uh, what did you tell her?”

“That you were dead. Con­firmed her fears.”

He opened one eye to glance at her. “You didn’t.”

“I’d mes­sage her back if I were you. Don’t know why she’d text me if she hates me so much. We work togeth­er; it’s not like I’m going to steal you away. Why are you even with her?”

Ter­ry let his eyes fall closed, ener­gy drain­ing out of him like some­one had pulled a plug inside. He sud­den­ly couldn’t remem­ber the last time he’d slept through the night. It was get­ting to him. “Roxy, it’s—”

Roxy shift­ed gears. “Road we took com­ing in was garbage. Good thing the boss sprung for the four-wheel dri­ve. This truck would be going back in pieces.” She set her hands on the steer­ing wheel. “Hey, lis­ten. Can I bor­row some mon­ey?” Before Ter­ry could say any­thing about not being paid back the last time, Roxy stared out the win­dow and added, “Just, you know…things have been tight.”

Ter­ry sighed but nod­ded while search­ing the glove com­part­ment for some more antacids, shov­ing a hand­ful in his mouth.

She lit up anoth­er cig­a­rette and glanced at him from the cor­ner of her eye. “You’re a good friend, Ter.”

Ter­ry coughed, exhaus­tion sweep­ing over him as the Sana­to­rio Durán shrank to a speck in the rearview mir­ror. He fell asleep against the win­dow on the way to lunch, strange dreams weav­ing through his grey matter.

#

When they stopped, he woke with a start, bleary eyed and still dizzy, the morn­ing lit­tle more than a blur and his dreams for­got­ten. “Are we at the soda already? Rox, I real­ly don’t feel so good.”

Roxy looked him up and down. “No kid­ding. You look like hell.”

Ter­ry stretched out his stiff mus­cles as they climbed out of the truck, ignor­ing the jibe. “I mean it. I think I might have the flu or some­thing. It just hit me.”

“Fine, we’ll get it to go. Your phone is charged. Don’t know how all the ding­ing didn’t wake you.”

Ter­ry reached for it and checked his mes­sages. Despite Roxy’s protests ear­li­er, there were only two from her, giv­ing him shit for tak­ing so long while walk­ing through the Sana­to­rio Durán. Twelve were from his cur­rent girl­friend, Ali­cia, who didn’t “think his friend was fun­ny” and claimed she’d be “super pissed if you died” with a vari­ety of emoti­cons indi­cat­ing a broad spec­trum of feel­ings on the matter.

As Roxy wait­ed for her order, she gave him her dead eyes as he texted Ali­cia back and forth while hunched over at their small table.

“You going to pass out on me?” Roxy said around a mouth­ful of empana­da as they start­ed walk­ing back to the truck.

Ter­ry pock­et­ed his phone, shak­ing his heavy head. “I’ll be fine. I just need to lie down or something.”

“Your girl­friend still pissed?”

“She’s giv­ing me shit for not return­ing her texts prompt­ly, not being around, not giv­ing her suf­fi­cient atten­tion.” His wrist ached. He rubbed at it. Too much phone time.

“I’m just say­ing, she’ll buy my claim that you died. You’re pale.”

Ter­ry glanced down at his hands, notic­ing for the first time the red­ness and swelling around the joints of his knuck­les and his wrists. His breath caught. “My hands…”

Roxy flicked her gaze toward his out­stretched hand as he exam­ined the unex­pect­ed red bands cir­cling his joints. “What about them?”

“They’re all…swollen.”

She grabbed his hand, flipped it over, shrugged. “Looks fine to me.”

“They ache like hell. Guess I’ve been spend­ing a lot of time on the com­put­er. Plus, all the dri­ving today.”

“You should at least eat—it’s deli­cious,” Roxy sug­gest­ed, food par­ti­cles spray­ing from her open mouth.

He cringed, the mere prospect of food sick­en­ing right now. They climbed back into the high truck and Terry’s joints protest­ed every move­ment. He flexed his hands in his lap as they drove.

“I don’t know how you slept on that road,” Roxy said. “Think it knocked my spine back into place. Let’s call it a day. I’ll drop you at home. You got your ghost sto­ry piece, and I got my volcano—we’re set for a while.”

Ter­ry cringed, rub­bing one swollen fin­ger along anoth­er. An aller­gic reac­tion, maybe? He had some Benadryl at home. “Paul wants the arti­cle in this week. Keeps email­ing me. I’ll work on it this after­noon, I just need a nap.”

The skin around his knuck­les flared a bright red.

#

When he got back to his rent­ed AirBnB, he could bare­ly keep his eyes open. His dog Kip met him at the door, lit­tle paws bounc­ing on the tile as he danced in a circle.

“Hey, bud­dy,” Ter­ry said, drop­ping to the floor to pet the ter­ri­er, his oth­er trav­el part­ner. Kip dashed away before hand met fur with an unchar­ac­ter­is­tic growl. Ter­ry blinked, swal­low­ing away the dry­ness in his throat. He searched through a draw­er, find­ing the Benadryl and pop­ping two.

His phone buzzed—an incom­ing call. Kip barked from the cor­ner of the room. Ter­ry dug it out of his back pock­et after a few fum­bling attempts, fin­gers stiff and thick. “Ali­cia?”

“Now you both­er to answer your phone?”

Terry’s stom­ach dropped. “I told you, I was work­ing, I was—”

“I thought we had some­thing, Ter­ry. But you only care about your­self. I need some­one who puts me first.”

He tight­ened his grip on the phone, his fin­gers throb­bing along with his head. “I don’t know where this is com­ing from. Can we just—I don’t feel very well…”

“Of course, it’s all about you. What about me, Ter­ry? I can’t do this anymore.”

She hung up while Ter­ry spun in place in his rent­ed kitchen, a whirr of dizzi­ness loud in his ears. His chest tightened.

Ter­ry coughed, then hacked. He rushed to the bath­room sink, cough­ing so hard his whole body shook.

When he pulled back, wip­ing his hand across his lips, blood spat­tered the porce­lain. Ter­ry blinked, jolt­ed by a shot of adrenaline.

When he looked again, the sink was clean.

He stum­bled out of the bath­room, glanc­ing at his desk where his lap­top flashed with email noti­fi­ca­tions from his boss. His unmade bed called to him. A cou­ple hours of sleep, then he could patch things up with Ali­cia, and the world would be set right…

His phone rang again from the kitchen counter. He stum­bled over, answering.

“Ali­cia?”

“Well, now you answer,” a woman’s voice said.

Ter­ry frowned. “Ma?”

“Fig­ures you hard­ly remem­ber your own mother’s voice. You nev­er return my calls. What kind of son nev­er calls his own mother?”

He hacked into his hand, try­ing to cov­er the explo­sive sound. What the hell is hap­pen­ing today? “Ma, I’m sor­ry. I’ve been busy.”

“Yes, I know, dear. Work. Cer­tain­ly not mak­ing me any grand­ba­bies, that’s for sure.”

“Jeez, Ma.”

But she wouldn’t be inter­rupt­ed, rant­i­ng in turns about how Susan Lang cheats at bridge, com­plaints about the econ­o­my, and veiled prod­ding to: attend church more often, come home before his moth­er dies which would be any day giv­en the state of the world, and set­tle down with a nice girl with good child­bear­ing hips because his moth­er wasn’t get­ting any younger. His par­tic­i­pa­tion in the con­ver­sa­tion was not required beyond con­tribut­ing the appro­pri­ate hmms and ahhs as he tried to stay upright and not vom­it. The puls­ing in his head turned to pounding.

He shift­ed against the counter, rub­bing his tem­ple with his free hand. “Ma, I should get going.” Silence. “It’s just, I have an arti­cle to fin­ish. Paul’s real­ly on my ass late­ly and I’m not feel­ing too well today.”

His moth­er start­ed to cry. “Every­thing I’ve done for you and you can’t even talk on the phone with me. I’m all alone here, Ter­ry. Ever since your dad left, I’ve had to do every­thing myself.”

Ter­ry rubbed the back of his neck—damp with sweat. A fever? “Ma, he left when I was a baby.”

“You don’t appre­ci­ate me. Look how you treat me.”

Is every­one los­ing their minds? She could be a lot some days, but his mom wasn’t usu­al­ly like this. In fact, Ali­cia hadn’t sound­ed like her­self, either. Ter­ry wiped an aching hand down his face, the red bands cir­cling his joints not at all dimin­ished by the Benadryl. This was too much. He had noth­ing left to give any­one today. Pla­cat­ing­ly, to min­i­mize the shrill­ness of her voice through the phone as it pierced the soft parts of his aching brain, he said, “I’m sor­ry, Ma, I have to go—”

His moth­er snif­fled. “Let me tell you—”

Ter­ry put the micro­phone on mute, set it back on the counter, and threw up into the sink next to him as his moth­er con­tin­ued unabated.

He slid down the cup­board and this time when he coughed into his hand, the blood spat­ter didn’t dis­ap­pear. Kip curled up in a ball across the kitchen and growled low in his throat.

When his moth­er final­ly hung up, Ter­ry man­aged to fum­ble the phone back into his grip and call Roxy. “Something’s wrong.”

“Yeah, no shit. Your psy­cho girl­friend just texted me, call­ing me a home­wreck­er. She’s a whacko, Ter.”

Ter­ry stared at the speck­les of wet blood on his palm. “No—she’s…we broke up. It doesn’t—Rox, I need help.”

A long-suf­fer­ing sigh. “In so many ways.”

A herd of stray cats stormed across the met­al roof of his top-floor apart­ment, a dai­ly occur­rence, but this time the clat­ter was as loud as a mis­sile attack in his skull, drown­ing out all oth­er noise. His head throbbed and the sun­light in the room seemed to throb with it. None of this made sense. Some­thing was seri­ous­ly wrong, and this wasn’t just some flu. “Damn it, I’m serious.”

The line was qui­et for a long moment. “Uh, okay. What do you need?”

He knew when it start­ed. It was crazy to think…but what if going to the Sana­to­rio Durán had…done some­thing to him? Ter­ry remem­bered the eerie creep-fac­tor feel­ing he’d had in his gut in the park­ing lot, but when he’d been on the grounds, he’d felt fine. It was only once he’d left the place again that it started.

The refrig­er­a­tor in front of him split into two, dou­bling across his vision, and on its stain­less-steel sur­face a flur­ry of small, colour­ful hand­prints appeared before his eyes. He blinked, but they didn’t go away. His heart ham­mered behind his ribcage.

“Rox—the Sana­to­rio Durán,” he man­aged. “After…after we went there today…there’s some­thing wrong with me. I‑I think I’m sick. I’m coughing—”

Roxy’s laugh car­ried across the line and hit him like a punch to the gut. “Wow, can you say psy­cho­so­mat­ic? Take it up with your shrink, dude.”

Ter­ry closed his eyes, bile work­ing back up his raw throat. “Rox, please. I need you to come over.”

Anoth­er sigh, bare­ly per­cep­ti­ble over the pound­ing of his heart­beat in his ears. “All right. But you bet­ter be dying. I was mid-throw­down in Call of Duty.”

The light and sound and the very air touch­ing his skin coa­lesced sud­den­ly into a sin­gle, over­pow­er­ing sen­sa­tion, short­ing out his brain. Ter­ry col­lapsed on the kitchen floor, con­scious­ness ebbing from his grasp.

Weight pressed down on him, crush­ing his chest and suck­ing the air from his lungs.

Vivid images assault­ed him in a rush. Hands grabbed at him from all direc­tions. A woman leaned over his form, dark robe pool­ing on the title as she knelt, beg­ging, “Come back, please, you belong here, you mustn’t leave, you’re not well…” Her pale face hov­ered clos­er, closer…

Ter­ry passed out.

“Hey, idiot,” a voice reached him through the dark­ness. “When I told you to get some rest, I meant in a bed. What the hell?” Roxy helped him up from the floor. Kip sat beside her. “You know I wasn’t seri­ous about the dying thing?”

The tobac­co smell from her clothes clogged in his throat and sent him into a cough­ing fit.

“I‑I need…a doc­tor,” he managed.

Ter­ry grabbed the kitchen counter for bal­ance, dizzi­ness still swirling his vision, but at least the pound­ing in his head had less­ened. Flick­ers of remem­bered images rose to his con­scious­ness in a con­fus­ing jum­ble. And beneath it all, a sin­gle clear direc­tive like a bea­con guid­ing his thoughts: he had to return to the Sana­to­rio Durán.

#

Was it pos­si­ble to con­tract tuber­cu­lo­sis from an aban­doned sana­to­ri­um that hadn’t housed TB patients for more than half a cen­tu­ry? No. The hos­pi­tal gave him a clear bill of health. He did not have TB or any­thing beyond a migraine and pos­si­bly a pan­ic attack. When he made the rook­ie mis­take of blab­ber­ing about his the­o­ry of catch­ing some­thing at the Sana­to­rio Durán, they wouldn’t even keep him for obser­va­tion. He left with a psych refer­ral and some Tylenol, which was insult­ing, but the Tylenol did seem to be work­ing. His head wasn’t aching and his stom­ach was calm, though his joints were still red and stiff. All he could think about was the Sana­to­rio Durán, and as long as he was focused on that, his phys­i­cal symp­toms seemed to lessen. There was some­thing there. Some­thing that called to him. He need­ed to return.

For the sec­ond time that day, he stood next to Roxy in a park­ing lot as she puffed on a cig­a­rette. The sun was set­ting in a spray of red and orange across the sky. She said noth­ing for an entire cig­a­rette. After light­ing the next, she said, “You’ve been under a lot of stress late­ly.” It slapped like an accusation.

His head still felt fuzzy—cottony and thick in an inde­scrib­able way. “I’m not crazy.”

“Didn’t say that. Just…people have pan­ic attacks, is all. It hap­pens. Not like it’s some char­ac­ter defect, dude. We all have our shit.” She punched him in the arm—lightly, though, like maybe she actu­al­ly was wor­ried. “Migraines are a death­like cir­cle of hell. No won­der you looked like dog barf. Why don’t we swing by and get Kip, then crash at my place and play some COD? I’ll even unthaw some dinner.”

He looked down at his open hands. They trem­bled. His fin­gers were swollen to the point he could bare­ly bend them. “I was cough­ing up blood.”

“I didn’t see any blood. Not on you, not in your apart­ment.” Anoth­er puff. “I get the cough­ing up blood thing for TB, but you real­ize the scat­ter­shot symp­toms you described to the doc­tors had basi­cal­ly noth­ing to do with tuber­cu­lo­sis? Like, not even close.”

Ter­ry attempt­ed to ball his hands into fists, not get­ting far until his aching knuck­les burned. “So it’s some­thing else. An old place like that, it’s full of contaminants.”

“It was a migraine. Classic.”

“Cough­ing up blood is not a clas­sic migraine symp­tom. And look at my knuckles!”

She threw her hands up. “There was no blood, Ter. And your fin­gers look fine. Lis­ten, you’re tired and stressed. That’s all it is.”

Ter­ry shook his head, flex­ing his ten­der hands. “No. No, you’re wrong. I saw some­thing today.”

“At the Sana­to­rio Durán?”

“No, on my kitchen floor.” He kicked at the tire of the truck. Even his shoes felt too tight on his feet. “When I was passed out.”

Suck. Puff. “Okay.”

Ter­ry squint­ed into the dusk. He pulled at his shirt col­lar, mas­sag­ing his neck. “It’s hard to explain.”

“No judg­ment here. Just tell me.”

“I‑I think it was a woman’s face. In…in a nun’s habit.” He glanced at Roxy. She exam­ined the cher­ry of her cig­a­rette. “She was scream­ing,” he con­tin­ued, “or try­ing to—like her mouth was open, but noth­ing was com­ing out.” His thick fin­gers touched his own lips absent­ly, the image still stark in his mind. “No one could hear her. And there were all these…these hands, pulling at her. Only, they were pulling at me, and I was her. I guess.” He exhaled. “Tear­ing me to pieces.” He tried to breathe in, failed. Ter­ry ran his hands down his face. “You think I’m nuts.”

“I’ve always known you were nuts,” she said, smirk­ing. “So, you had a weird migraine dream dur­ing your floor nap.” She flicked the ash off the tip of her cig­a­rette. “Have you been drink­ing a lot lately?”

Ter­ry straight­ened. His shoul­ders pulsed at the move­ment. “No. Of course not.”

Roxy raised a hand. “Just a ques­tion. Well, what do you want to do then? I’m not leav­ing you alone tonight, so my place or yours?”

Terry’d had migraines before. He’d had pan­ic attacks. This was dif­fer­ent. That place had its hooks in him. It had drained his elec­tron­ics and it was drain­ing him, even now. When­ev­er he closed his eyes, he saw that face, and she called to him, beck­on­ing him to return. He couldn’t say exact­ly why, but he knew, he absolute­ly knew he had to do as she asked. “I want to go back to Sana­to­rio Durán.”

Roxy frowned. “You don’t mean now?”

Resolve set­tled in his bones like heavy con­crete, and his thoughts were a lit­tle clear­er. He had to go back. He had to. He wasn’t well. The Sana­to­rio Durán was the only place that would make him bet­ter. “Yeah. Now. Tonight. I need to fig­ure this out.”

“Dude, it’s closed.”

The cer­tain­ty that filled his chest fuelled him, straight­ened his spine, made the world less hazy. “Doesn’t mat­ter. We’ll sneak in. They won’t have secu­ri­ty, I’m sure of it. If they do, we’ll leave.”

Roxy flopped her hands down. “It’s like an hour dri­ve from San Jose. We’re in huge trou­ble if we get caught. Well, if you get caught. I’m not screw­ing around in some creepy old build­ings in the mid­dle of the night.”

If he went back, he’d feel bet­ter again. He could breathe again, in that clear, cool air. “That’s fine. But I need to do this.”

“Why don’t we go tomor­row dur­ing the day, legal­ly. A few hours won’t mat­ter, and you need the rest. Let those Tylenol Extra Strength kick in.”

Some­thing moved in the shad­ows behind the truck. The starchy swoosh of a robe brush­ing over the asphalt grat­ed dis­tinct­ly in Terry’s ears. A chill sank into his body. “No. It needs to be tonight.”

Roxy sighed, but Ter­ry knew he had her. She stubbed out her cig­a­rette and they were back in the truck.

#

As the road changed from the smooth pave­ment of the city to the grav­el and pot­holes of the coun­try, Terry’s joints ached with every bump. He tried to flex the stiff­ness out of his mus­cles, but it didn’t help. The entire ride, he sensed eyes watch­ing him from the back seat. When­ev­er he turned to check, it was emp­ty. But she was with him. He knew this with greater cer­tain­ty than he’d ever known any­thing. She was guid­ing him home.

They cir­cled the Sana­to­rio Durán once when they arrived but didn’t see any­one onsite. If Ter­ry had any luck at all, the care­tak­er would still be hav­ing din­ner with his fam­i­ly. Some cows shift­ed in the field as the head­lights passed over them. When they parked in the lot again, they wait­ed fif­teen min­utes with the truck run­ning but still no one came around to con­front them. Roxy turned the truck off and reached into the glove com­part­ment, pulling out a flashlight.

“No set­ting your phone to air­plane mode this time. Keep it on and I’ll text or call if we have an issue with secu­ri­ty. If I need to move the truck, I’ll meet you up on that road under the tallest tree by the bend.” She point­ed. “The head­lights will be off, so pay atten­tion. Don’t get tram­pled by any cows, don’t nick your­self on the barbed wire, and don’t be falling down any stairs or off the damn build­ing, because I’m not com­ing in there to save you.”

“You sound like you’ve done this sort of thing before.”

“Mis­spent youth. I’ll give you one hour to do what­ev­er you need to get your head sorted.”

“Before what?”

She gripped the steer­ing wheel. “Haven’t decid­ed yet.”

Ter­ry nod­ded, swal­low­ing. “Thanks, Rox.”

The glow of her cig­a­rette lit the cab­in of the truck. Ter­ry climbed out, boots crunch­ing on grav­el. The air was clean and cool, coat­ing his aching lungs like a balm. He’d been right to come here. He belonged here.

Above him, a shock of stars lit­tered the night sky like a bil­lion of Roxy’s lit cigarettes.

He held the flash­light close but off. His ful­ly charged phone was tucked into his back pock­et. The stars were so bright, he didn’t need the illu­mi­na­tion, but he stuck to the shad­ows as he crept onto the prop­er­ty, avoid­ing the secu­ri­ty cam­era, and slipped inside. His joints were still red and swollen but a wave of peace filled him, the heav­i­ness in his head lift­ing, high­er and high­er, so light his mind was weight­less. This was right. This was good. This was what he needed.

He flicked on the flash­light, bring­ing the graf­fi­tied walls back to life.

Terry’s fin­gers tin­gled. At first he put it down to adren­a­line, the thrill of tres­pass­ing in this place at night, but the tin­gling didn’t stop. As he walked through the sprawl­ing, emp­ty build­ing, the sen­sa­tion spread up his arms. His toes and legs tin­gled. His cheeks and lips went numb.

He pulled at his tight shirt col­lar, swal­low­ing, as his foot­steps echoed against the con­crete walls, lend­ing the hol­low, eerie impres­sion of a mil­lion steps con­tin­u­ing behind him.

Ter­ry walked through the cafe­te­ria, the beam of his flash­light land­ing on the pho­tos on the walls. Old black-and-white pic­tures of Doc­tor Durán him­self, of school chil­dren smil­ing in a class­room, of nuns stand­ing with chil­dren. The Sis­ters—Her­manas. Some of their names were list­ed, while oth­ers were unidentified.

He stopped cold, light cir­cling one now famil­iar face. A nun, unac­count­ed for by the sub­ti­tle below the pic­ture. The woman in his vision. It was her. She was here.

Ter­ry stum­bled back, knock­ing into a table. She smiled a black-and-white smile in her nun habit, her hands clasped in front of a grin­ning child. She would save him, he knew. She was his only hope. He wasn’t well, and this was where he belonged.

Despite his con­vic­tion, a tiny sliv­er of his brain want­ed to ques­tion this asser­tion. In some ways, it didn’t make sense to come back here. Maybe it could even be dan­ger­ous. His log­i­cal self asked him if he’d seen this pho­to ear­li­er and this woman’s face sim­ply stuck in his sub­con­scious, emerg­ing in his stress-induced night­mare today. No way to be sure. He shuf­fled out of the cafe­te­ria, look­ing over his shoul­der and tak­ing sev­er­al deep breaths. He flexed his hand, swish­ing the flash­light back and forth, try­ing to get the feel­ing back.

Ter­ry walked through the children’s hall, past the paint­ed hand­prints. There were more now than he remem­bered in the day­time. He could have sworn the echoes of children’s laugh­ter fol­lowed behind him.

I’m los­ing it, he thought, the psych refer­ral in his pock­et heavy.

Maybe he shouldn’t be here? No, no, that was ridicu­lous. This was where he belonged. He wasn’t well. The dis­sent­ing voice in Terry’s brain choked and gasped, as if sub­merged under water, until it silenced.

He found him­self on a set of creak­ing wood­en stairs, then at the top of them. His phone buzzed. Had it been an hour already? Impos­si­ble. Ten min­utes at most. He checked it, notic­ing a missed text from Roz. “Time’s up, where are you?” The bat­tery flashed red and died as soon as he saw it.

Ter­ry faced a white wall flecked with green paint and cov­ered in graf­fi­ti, uncer­tain how he’d found it. “Par­tirse en peda­zos,” the wall told him. Break into pieces. It wasn’t just a sen­tence, it was a demand. It was a cure. His flash­light beam trem­bled around the words, then extinguished.

Fin­gers touched the back of his neck in the dark.

He gasped, drop­ping the flash­light with a clunk. The sharp blade of true fear final­ly cut through the fog that held his thoughts in its vice-like grip.

Ter­ry backed out of the room, breath­ing hard, glanc­ing around for an exit. He should have entered a hall­way, but when he turned, he was in a dorm bathroom.

The stalls were in sham­bles, the white ceram­ic cracked. The black-and-white tiles of the floor were thick with grime and the wall-length trough sink along the back wall was stripped bare. A mir­ror stretched above it, in tact. As Ter­ry inched toward it, his mouth dry and hands quak­ing, cer­tain­ty chilled him that ear­li­er in the day a tall block of bro­ken win­dows had stood in the mirror’s place.

A thrill shiv­ered in his veins with the pos­si­bil­i­ty this was one of the para­nor­mal events he’d spent a career writ­ing about and nev­er experienced—a true encounter. Hun­dreds of arti­cles, and one unspo­ken truth—he just didn’t believe in ghosts. But the fear twist­ing in his guts now, liquify­ing his bow­els, wrap­ping like a noose around his throat and steal­ing his breath, that was real.

A sound echoed through the small space—both famil­iar and out of place. His mother’s voice. “I’m so lone­ly, son. Why don’t you ever call? Lis­ten to me…”

Ter­ry glanced around the emp­ty room, his breaths gasp­ing and shallow.

Paul’s dis­em­bod­ied voice inter­rupt­ed, demand­ing, “I have dead­lines, too. You think no one’s breath­ing down my neck? I’ve got a mag­a­zine to run…”

And Roxy, “I just need a lit­tle more mon­ey, Ter, you understand…”

Ali­cia shout­ed from the walls, from his mind, “What about me? You nev­er pay atten­tion to me…”

Ter­ry stared at his own pale face in the mir­ror. He touched his neck. A red ring cir­cled his col­lar­bone, and high­er, just under his clenched jaw. His trem­bling hand reflect­ed back at him, his knuck­les and joints ringed in red, swollen tis­sue. Only now, the skin was flaky, itchy.

He rubbed at his wrist, heart pound­ing in a quick pat­ter. The ten­der flesh sloughed off into the sink with a splat and Terry’s mouth dropped open, eyes wide as he stared at the miss­ing skin.

“I just need a piece of you…” Alicia’s voice whined.

Ter­ry gasped, hold­ing his hand up. The white of his wrist bone peeked through the red flesh of his raw, puls­ing mus­cles. Blood dripped down his arm.

“We all need a piece,” said anoth­er voice. “Just a piece.”

His index fin­ger snapped off in a burst of pain, tum­bling into the sink. His thumb and mid­dle fin­ger fol­lowed before he processed the shock.

Ter­ry opened his mouth to scream and erupt­ed into a fit of cough­ing, a fine spray of blood coat­ing the mirror’s smooth sur­face, and there, stand­ing behind him, the nun’s mouth was open wide, a silent cry trapped in her throat.

Ter­ry stum­bled away from the mir­ror, falling to the floor as his ankle snapped in two. He screamed, but no sound came out.

Oth­er voic­es flowed around them, now in Span­ish, all pleading…

“I need water, Sister.”

“Please, help me, it hurts.”

“More!”

“Help us!”

Ter­ry scram­bled back­ward with one hand and the oth­er clutched help­less­ly to his chest, leav­ing his foot behind. His shoul­der cracked and he hit the grimy floor hard, head lolling as he watched his left arm roll under a stall. A small hand reached out and snatched it away.

The dim illu­mi­na­tion of a cell­phone flash­light spilled into the hall­way beyond the door­frame. Rox’s dis­tant voice called to him, “Ter? Are you up here? This isn’t fun­ny. I’ll leave you here if you don’t answer me, you jerk. I’m serious.”

Ter­ry strained toward her with his one remain­ing arm. His mouth opened, gap­ing as he tried to call her name, reach­ing with his blood­ied hand. No sound escaped his tight throat. The light extinguished.

The weight of dozens of clutch­ing hands land­ed on his body in the darkness—pulling, tug­ging, grip­ping. Sharp pain explod­ed through his joints, over­whelm­ing his nerve end­ings as shock slid its cool fin­gers into his chest, slow­ing his rac­ing heart.

“God­damn it, I just charged this…” Rox mut­tered in the hall, her foot­steps mov­ing away.

Blood pooled beneath him, sucked into the thirsty grout of the tiles. The Sana­to­rio Durán had got­ten a taste ear­li­er at the win­dow, and now it want­ed more, it want­ed every­thing. The spread­ing pool stopped only when it met the hem of a black robe. The build­ing sighed around him, a cool breeze of long-sought sati­a­tion. Soft hands grasped his head. Trem­bling, Ter­ry stared into the dark­ness of the nun’s eyes above him.

“Just one more piece,” the voic­es whispered.