"Are you guys sure we won't get caught?"
Thompson kept his hand on the keys that were still in the ignition of his mom's van, ready to start the car at any moment, his eyes flickering nervously between the huge, abandoned building and the faces of his friends in the rearview mirror. He did not want to be here. He was ready to just turn the car around and leave. He no longer cared about the bet involved, no matter how entertaining it seemed. It just didn't seem worth breaking into an abandoned hospital anymore.
"That's not what we should be worried about." Robbie replied in an eerily serious tone, turning to look toward Thompson from his spot in the passenger seat. "What we should really be watching out for are all the ghosts." A smirk spread across his face. "The place is totally unreal."
"Like how?" Tambry asked, rolling her eyes and updating her facebook status from her cell phone, not seeming at all phased by the thought of the supposedly haunted hospital.
"Trust me, it's pretty hard-core. I checked it out a few days ago. I mean, I didn't go in or anything, but...It's haunted, that's for sure." The dark-haired teen replied. He looked out the window and chuckled. "Places like this can only be worse on the inside."
"Dude, shut up. I bet it's not even that bad. You use the word 'hard-core' to describe like, everything. Let's just get this over with." Nate called from the backseat.
The van was parked on the side of the road right beside the tall, chain linked fence that had been put up to keep people like them out. The fence and signs regarding fines for trespassing didn't intimidate them. They were teenagers, and they held to the belief that they could do and get away with anything.
Once they had all filed out of the van, Robbie instantly made his way over to a hole in the fence that he had found on his previous trip.
"Nice find, dude." Wendy told him. Robbie shrugged, but grinned like an idiot at her compliment, glad his knowledge hadn't gone unnoticed.
"It's no big deal, babe." He replied.
"Get a room, you two." Nate teased, pushing past the couple and squeezing through the hole in the fence. Lee followed after him, having a bit more difficultly due to his height.
After the others had all gone inside, Thompson stood on the other side of the fence, nervously shuffling his feet. "Um-guys…I don't think I can fit." He whispered into the darkness.
"C'mon, Thompson. You scared?" Lee asked in a taunting tone.
"No, I'm way serious, you guys. There's no way I can fit through there." Thompson told them, embarrassed. "I'll just wait in the van. Go on without me."
"Aw, boo!" Wendy called after him as he made his way back to the van.
"See ya later…if we make it out alive!" Lee added.
Robbie checked over his shoulder once the others had already started walking, and saw Thompson give him a thumbs up. The night was still young, and things were going as planned so far.
Gravity Falls Community Hospital was a four story tall building on the very outskirts of town. It had been mostly for primary care needs, and had contained around eighty or so beds for inpatient use that were usually less than one-forth occupied. For mostly unknown reasons, the hospital had been shut down without much warning sometime late the previous month. Most people assumed that it was due to practicality. The neighboring town had a much larger hospital that was only a ten minute drive away with many more specialized doctors, so it made sense to transfer the patients there.
Others, specifically the town's limited supply of youth, had begun to come up with other, more far-fetched reasons for the place's closing. One such story was that the hospital was built on an old burial ground and was haunted, having to be shut down when one of the patients went insane from hearing the voices of the dead during the night. It was rather clichéd, but the teens liked to dwell on such thoughts to make the dull town seem a tiny bit more interesting.
After their previous ghost encounter, the teens seemed to be yearning for more, similar adventures. So of course they couldn't resist the thrill of the new local legend. As soon as Nate had heard about the hospital's closing, he dared Robbie to break in. The boys made a bet, and now they were going through with it. No one knew the exact terms of the bet they'd made, but judging by how the two boys were acting they all knew it had to be something interesting. Now the rest of the crew was just tagging along looking for some excitement in their ever boring lives.
"Crap. Did anyone remember to bring a flashlight?" Wendy asked as the group approached the looming, empty building. Though it had been the same place that all of them had been going for checkups and appointments for years, and just weeks before, seeing it dark and empty gave it an entirely new look.
A cool breeze ruffled through their hair, conveniently giving them a less lame excuse for chills to run down their spines. Robbie used this as a perfect opportunity to put his arm around Wendy's shoulders, though he knew it was likely that he was feeling more scared than she was.
"I did." Lee said, a thin beam of light flickering on as he spoke. He shone it up the crumbling, red brick walls and let out a quiet gasp that may have been either from amazement or fright.
"Whoa. Guys, this is totally awesome!" Nate exclaimed, high fiving the taller, blonde boy.
"We've been in there like a billion times, dudes. Chill out." Wendy laughed.
"Uh-How do we plan on getting in, anyway?" Tambry asked, the light from her phone's screen duly illuminating her face and making her passive expression seem almost haunting.
Lee aimed the flashlight at her, and then used it to look along the brick walls of the hospital. "We could check all the doors. Maybe we can bust a lock." He said.
"The hospital's only been closed for like a week, idiot." Nate reminded him, rolling his eyes. "I doubt the locks are rusting already."
Lee turned off the flashlight and shrugged at him. "Everything in this town is pretty outdated. You never know."
"Status update: checking out haunted hospital with stupid blonde." Tambry muttered, continuing to stare at her phone. After attempting to send the message, she glanced up from the screen, which was a rare event in itself, and scowled. "Ugh! There's like no service all of a sudden!" She groaned.
"Oh no, looks like you'll actually have to…" Robbie mock gasped. "converse with people in the real world!"
Wendy shrugged out from under Robbie's arm and shoved him, somewhat playfully. "Shut up. We've gotta find a way to get inside."
"Robbie's been trying to do that for months." Nate said under his breath, stifling a laugh at his own lame joke. Lee chuckled, and the two of them high fived again.
"Let's break a window." Robbie suggested, ignoring Nate's crude remark. The duo nodded in agreement.
"Hm…Maybe, but it sounds kinda risky. If we get caught and we've broken a window, isn't that like destroying public property?" Wendy asked, biting her bottom lip contemplatively. She didn't like to be a party pooper, but sometimes she needed to be the common sense of the group.
"Look, it's not like we'll get caught. People break into places like this all the time. And the cops around here aren't really good for anything anyway. Then they'll just board up the window once they find it." Robbie told her. "Plus, I plan on doing graffiti;" He took a can of spray paint out of his backpack and held it up. "So we're already vandalizing things. It'd just be adding to our list of charges." To prove his point, Robbie walked over and painted the word "BEWARE" in huge, sloppy font that was a darker red than the brick, giving the vague impression of dripping blood. "You can back out now if you wanna, but I didn't really see you as the cowardly type."
Wendy rolled her eyes, trying her hardest not to get irritated with her boyfriend. "You're being a real jerk, tonight." She muttered. "Whatever, I guess I'm up for it."
Robbie rejoined the group and tossed the can of paint back into his backpack. "Give me the flashlight." He said. Before Lee could ask any questions, Robbie snatched the flashlight from his hand and chucked it at a ground-level window. The flashlight shattered through the glass and landed noisily on the tile floor inside. Robbie walked over, kicked in the rest of the glass, and grinned at the other members of the crew. "There. That wasn't so bad."
"Nice one." Nate said, clapping him on the shoulder as he walked past and climbed into the ill-lit main hall of the hospital. Lee followed after him, finding the flashlight and then helping Tambry to avoid the piles of shattered glass. She didn't seem too enthralled by his random act of kindness.
Wendy put her hand on Robbie's shoulder before he could follow the rest of the group and glared into his eyes for a moment.
"Dude, if we make it out of here alive I'm either going to kiss you or punch you so hard." She whispered. "And ladies first, by the way." She grabbed Robbie's hand and pulled him through the window after her, not in an entirely friendly way.
"Well I certainly hope you go with the first option." He laughed, tugging at a strand of her hair with his free hand.