Diaries of Our Last Moments

  [If you’re new to this blog, go back five posts so you know the context of what I’m about to say.] I was fired today. All of the patients that killed themselves were interviewed by me and never heard the voices or saw the faces in windows before I showed up. Before I cleaned out, I got their emails to keep in contact. When the pumpkin head and the goblin wouldn’t leave me alone, I researched similar cases. Reports from all over the world discussed the same entities visiting different end of life psych wards. Suicides reached heights uncommon for many facilities. After the cases reached too high, the facility shut down. I’d be worried if it weren’t for the  text I received.

  We lost another patient at Woldroff Psychiatric Hospital the other night. I didn’t get there in time to hear a final testimony but the creepy visitors bothered this patient so often that it was only a matter of time. The Psychiatrists say it’s mob mentality between the patients that is causing all the suicides and blame the gossiping staff. Several custodians were fired along with the librarian. The latter doesn’t make much sense, she’s not into gossip. I worked late last night. Maybe it’s my exhaustion and all the ruckus at the ward, but I can’t sleep tonight. While I washed my dinner dishes, I caught a glimpse of a pumpkin head in the window. When I showered, a voice spoke to me through my vents. It’s probably just my imagination.

  Last night at the start of my shift (I work nights so I can work my day job as a barista) the janitor at Woldroff Psychiatric Hospital cracked a joke that the place was haunted. Rumors between all the staff from the lunch ladies to the librarian float around about a new visitor. Sure enough, I speak to my usuals and they share frenzied accounts of the skull pumpkin head that appears in the window watching them at the Witching Hour. It speaks to them via a pipe in guttural snarls and indecipherable incantations. My patient managed one phrase. “Come to Franyor.”

  This past week was rough. Another patient of mine informed me they’ve heard a voice from the ventilation cover. Same message “Come die with us.” Well, there might be a trickster patient who likes screwing with the others but some report hearing the voice from the other dormitories across the hospital campus. Woldroff Psychiatric Hospital has five. They’re small, but not nearly close enough for the same voice to reach all of the ventilation ducts. I told the corresponding Psychiatrists and more anti-psyotics were administered. One of the patients took their own life. I’m not sure if it was the anti-psychotics or if the “goblin” from the ventilator was too much. Maybe both. I went home that night, drank a bottle of wine and cried after I found out. They didn’t deserve to go that way. I’m not supposed to get too attached but I did anyway. I think I got so attached that I see a glimpse of a goblin in my vents and hear a whisper right before I fall asleep.

  One of my patients at the Woldroff Psychiatric Hospital in Anoka, MN told me they’ve seen a figure peering at them from between the slats in the ventilation cover during the “witching hour” (about 3 AM) each night for the past week. Hallucinations are common in patients but this one is eerier than those I’ve come across. It’s always the same goblin creature speaking to my patient. I informed the patient’s psychiatrist immediately and no doubt they will be put on antipsychotics. That was the beginning of this week. Now, it’s day seven and the hallucinations persist. Each time, it’s the same creepy refrain that my patient continues to hear. “Come die with us.”