Fennel and the Haunted House - I

Today has been a boring day, nothing unusual in the hospital, but at least I can be thankful that nothing bad has happened here, so I can’t call it an entirely bad day, not by any means.

Right now is time to have a good lunch at least, that’s like… the most exciting thing that I have done during the last month, not like I’m complaining considering what has been “exciting” for me since I started working in this hospital, but I can’t deny that, after all the things I have seen, just eating lunches, doing some exercises and treating common colds and some stomachaches from time to time, feels like nothing, almost like my life was boring again…

“Hey Adam, how’re you doing?”

“Oh, Tony; I had not seen you today, how’re you doing?”

“I asked first you dumbo” – I feel like everyone has been calling me “dumb” or something like as of lastly…

“Well, I’m fine, just a bit bored, and more than usual at least”

“You always have that boring aura around you, so it’s not like this could be considered special”

“Boring aura? Yeah, you could say that I usually feel and act like a boring guy”

“Yes, you’re completely right, Adam is quite boring” – And here comes Lisa as usual, no one else can work as fine as her as a second man to Tony’s insufferable comedic act.

Both of them came to sit at the same table as me, I would personally be usually happy, even if I don’t look like it, but I’ve become a bit too accustomed to being surrounded by ghosts, not like I only like to stay around them, but it feels weird to be around people who are as upbeat and happy as Tony or Lisa, especially when most of the people that I’ve met during the last weeks are either dead or sick patients, life can be a bit depressing when you don’t change that at least a little bit.

“Tony, did you hear? The crazy caller came back” – Another noisy girl who I don’t even know came to sit at the same table as us, but at least she said something that resulted in a bit interesting, only a bit for now though.

“Are you being serious Laura? Who called this year, the child, the girl, the woman?” – Tony seemed pretty interesting in this thing, whatever it was.

“Yes, a nurse heard the phone ringing, she didn’t know about the day, so she went running to answer the call, apparently a girl’s voice started asking for help, and then she could hear a child screaming until the call suddenly stopped; the nurse was completely scared, so she started calling Samuel, the ambulance man, then he turned her down, which obviously shocked her” – Laura, the girl who sat next to us, was talking something that seemed like nonsense for me, even for Lisa, who usually liked to hear nonsense coming out of people’s mouths, this seemed like a weird talk, but Laura’s agitated behavior, as well as Tony’s shocked expression, showed that this was way more serious than what we thought.

“But I assume that Samuel expected what that call was, right?” – Tony seemed serious; I’ve only seen him like that once, only when I needed his help, and if he of all people is showing that attitude again, then I can already confirm that this is a serious thing.

“Yes, Samuel explained all of it, the poor nurse couldn’t believe it, she started talking to more people, I confirmed the story, everyone did, we told her that even Abraham would confirm it, but she still couldn’t accept that we didn’t care about answering that call”

I know that Abraham can be a rough man, but I know that he is a good guy deep inside; Samuel too, he seems like a nice man, but why wouldn’t any of them want to help? Why wouldn’t Tony be complaining now? How come everyone wants to ignore this?

“Tony, could you explain what the heck are you talking about?” – Lisa finally showed a strong attitude; she is also a good person, so it seems fitting for her to be offended after seeing it.

“Well, Lisa, don’t get mad to us; you see, every year, same month, same day, almost always around lunch hour, we receive a weird call, a call where either a boy, a girl or an adult woman, will start asking for help and giving a direction, after some time they’ll start screaming or doing weird noises, even talking full nonsense, something akin to talking in another language, basically a horror movie experience”

“You know that it sounds dumber than anything you’ve said before, right Tony?”

“Lisa, don’t blame Tony or me for it, you and Adam are new, so you didn’t experience the first times these calls happened” – Laura noticed how Lisa was getting angrier at every second, so with every word she seemed like she only wanted to calm her.

“Then tell me, explain it all to me Laura” – Lisa’s expression was so weird, she always seemed like a cute and funny person, but now she was showing a new side that I had never seen before.

“You see, the first time I was the person who went there with Samuel” – Tony started talking, it was fitting for him to explain everything to Lisa as he has been something like a mentor for us, but especially for her.

“We obviously did a call to the police, it was the most coherent thing to do with all those screams and weird noises, so a policeman rushed to the door, he knocked a bit… no one opened the door; we did it up to three times and no one opened; we were in a hurry, so this police guy moved a bit backward, and he ran like crazy to the door, basically crushing it. After that, we started exploring the house, but no one was there, actually, there was nothing there. The next year the same thing happened, the exact situation from the year that came before happened, with the only big difference being that the house was now totally abandoned, there was no doubt about it, the door was still missing, some windows were shattered, and some others were completely missing. That time we thought about exploring again, maybe someone was using that abandoned place as some kind of refuge, then Samuel talked about hearing something on the second floor, and we went there alongside two policemen, when we were going up the stairs, a side of the stair suddenly broke, I almost fell down from it, if it wasn’t for Samuel it could’ve been a pretty bad injury. The same thing happened the next three years, with the only downside being that there were actual injuries the next time, last year we decided to just avoid that place at all, including this call obviously” – Tony was serious, I could perceive that in his voice, it was almost shattering in fear.

I was going to say something, it was too much without giving an opinion after all, but then a nurse came running to us.

“Laura! Please you must come with me, I want to go to that house, I need to see it with my own two eyes”

This girl was sweating, you usually don’t see such an elegantly looking girl agitated in such an exaggerated way, it almost seemed like she had been running thru the whole city.

“Wait, Fennel!? I thought you went to your home”

“Laura… *pant* I came running, I just couldn’t stop thinking about the call… *pant*”

Wait, so she actually came running from wherever she lives!?

“Tony, guys, you see… This is Fennel, she is the nurse who heard the call I was talking about, and as you can see, she is also a thick-headed girl who started working here two weeks ago”

Oh come on, being the new guy was my only gimmick around here, well… at least the only gimmick that I can openly talk about with all the people who talk to me in the hospital, well, the people who are actually alive around here.

“Um… Hi, Fennel; nice to meet you!” – Wow, even Lisa thought that Fennel seemed like an awkward kind of person…

“Please… *pant* Laura you must come with me, I just couldn’t bring myself to completely ignore the call *pant*”

She seemed like a good person, at least her light-colored eyes seemed like the eyes of a good person, even if it didn’t match with such dark hair, but she was so into whatever she was talking about, that she couldn’t bring herself to listen to Lisa, or even to realize that there were more persons around her than just Laura.

We kept talking for some time, no one wanted to go aside from Fennel and Lisa, but Lisa couldn’t go this same day; the original idea that these two extremely thick-headed girls had was to visit the place another day, but, according to Tony and Laura, it was impossible. Someone at the hospital tried to visit the place after the first incident, but nothing special happened, nothing broke out of nowhere, no one was injured during any other day, but the call day seemed to be special. I was personally uninterested; visiting abandoned houses wasn’t my thing, my line of work is a bit more specific than that, well, both of my lines of work, but then she had to say those damned words.

“Please, if there’s someone there if someone actually lives there… I couldn’t bring myself to accept ignoring it!”

Maybe it was how invested I was getting in the story, maybe it was how much she wanted to help someone, even if there wasn’t a real person in this story, or maybe even her beautiful eyes alongside a pretty face, I’m weak, don’t blame me, but I needed to help her after that.

I accepted to visit the place after my work hour ended I went directly to the house, Fennel, the hot-blooded girl, was waiting for me there, I’m not going to lie and ignore the fact that she seemed extremely attractive to me, and that it could’ve been an extra point to go to the house, but I completely ignored it after I realized how invested she was in this visit.

“Are you ready!?” – She is really hot-blooded, did I mention that before?

“Yeah”

“Pump yourself up a bit more Adam, at least give it a try” – I always complain about Lisa being noisy, but I’ve been totally unfair with her, Fennel is on a whole other level when compared to any of the other hospital workers.

“I’m ready!” – At least she makes me “pump up” a bit… whatever that’s supposed to mean…

We decided to enter the house together, obviously, I had to go first, not only because I was “the shield” here, and not because she decided to use a skirt knowing that we would go to the second floor through that scary staircase, but also because I was interested, I hadn’t thought about it, but maybe the voices could mean something weird, maybe it could be something related to my weird abilities, not like I had any special reason to think that, but I know that there’s always a chance to find something related to it to any place I go.

“Do you think all those weird things are real?” – Fennel finally started acting a bit more like a normal person; this was a place to be scared after all, and being completely honest, well… we didn’t tell anyone else that we were coming here, that was not my most intelligent action of this year…

“I can’t say that they are, but being completely honest, I can’t deny anything”

“I thought you were more like the kind of guy who would ignore everything related to ghosts and spirits, more like the ‘pragmatic cool’ kind of guy”

“Maybe I seem like that, but the most important part of being a grown-up is being able to accept that you don’t know about everything”

“Oh, so you actually are on the mature kind of guy *chuckles*”

Her little laugh was actually a fun thing to hear here, it was way more relieving than the weird dark atmosphere that I feel in this damned place. Wait...

“Fennel, isn’t this the first time we meet?”

“Yes, why do you ask?”

“Because you talked about how I look like that ‘cool pragmatic kind of guy' almost like you’ve seen me before”

“Oh, well… about that…”

She passed me and entered the house alone, directly to the stair; I obviously had to avoid looking, because I’m a well-behaved guy obviously, and I also didn’t want to create an uncomfortable situation.

I started walking alone around the place, there wasn’t anything, just a torn sofa and the remains of what seemed like clothes and toys thrown around the place, there was also a bad odor around, which seemed obvious since the place had been abandoned for years, and who knows if someone ever used this place.

“Adam!!!” – That was Fennel’s voice from upstairs!

“Hey, Fennel! Did something happen!?”

“Please, come here, now!”

I rushed up the stairs, but suddenly someone took my hand, the hand of a child was over mine. I turned towards this hand, behind me I saw a little boy whose face seemed like he was crying just some seconds ago.

“Mister, did you come here to help us?”

Apparently, Fennel was right, I had to come here.