Psych Ward Zombies Read Free

mental hospital to be near their town. It was the typical “not in my backyard” kind of thing. A hundred years ago, it seems people feared that escaped mental patients would swarm into nearby towns, raping and pillaging the poor citizens like a horde of deranged Vikings. The resulting location was so remote that there was no reliable cell phone service. An amplified booster antenna for cell signals had been placed atop the new hospital, providing marginal but adequate cell service .
    Dave had started this job a year or two before they decommissioned the old building. He enjoyed the old hospital, feeling a sense of novelty to be working in an old-time mental institution. The first day of working there, he had stood on the front steps and gazed upward at the imposing structure looming over him. He recalled feeling it was preparing to suddenly reach out to grab him, using its six tall pillars as bony fingers. He figured the building was probably haunted. It certainly looked haunted.
    He was also aware of the old building’s history. He knew back in the old days the staff would do lobotomies, involuntary electric shock treatments, and ice baths for the unruly patients. Things had changed with mental health treatment over time, so he did not feel guilty or remorse about working in such a place. To Dave, it felt like working in a museum.
    The old building had been left standing after the new hospital was built, although the plan was to tear it down in the coming months. The new hospital building, dubbed Eldemere Psychiatric Hospital, had been erected directly across the parking lot from the old building. The new hospital was a totally modern facility, with large courtyards, immense windows made of unbreakable glass, skylights, colorful murals, and a state-of-the-art heating and air system. There was faux-wood linoleum throughout, which gave the corridors a cheerful, cozy feel.
    The planners of the new building realized that working in a psychiatric hospital requires passing through innumerable locked doors, so they sought to make this as convenient as possible. While the old building had utilized conventional and cumbersome keyed locks, the new building was built with the proximity readers on most of the doors. This allowed any staff member to simply wave his or her name badge in front of the sensor, and each door would unlock automatically .
    Dave pushed the huge door open and entered the hospital. He was immediately greeted with the familiar odor of a medical institution. It turns out even hospitals that do not perform medical procedures or surgeries still have that “hospital smell”. He strode down the corridor past a number of common areas such as the cafeteria, group discussion rooms, an auditorium, and a reception area. From the region of these common areas, the corridor split into branches like an immense tree, with diverging hallways leading to the individual wards .
    The hospital had 5 wards, each labeled A through E. Each ward had a specific purpose. A, B, and C Wards were used for the general adult patient population and D Ward housed the elderly patients. E Ward was designed for children, with its own small cafeteria and common rooms. The juvenile patients did not generally interact with the adult patients in the hospital.
    The wards all had a similar layout. From the entrance of the ward, there was a wide corridor that intersected with a couple small hallways that led to the clinicians’ offices. The wide entrance corridor continued onward to a central area consisting of a nursing station and several day rooms. The day rooms were where the patients would spend their leisure time when not engaged in treatment activities. The rooms contained tables, chairs, and sometimes a television, creating a place for social interaction. The nursing station consisted of a sort of kiosk, with a tall semi-circular countertop surrounding a low desk. Behind the desk was a small chart room where the medical records for each patient