Asylum

However interesting the name sounded, the building was nothing interesting to look at. Across from that building was a parking lot the size of a football field.

They continued to drive. The road appeared to be deteriorating as they traveled. The already narrow road was made even worse by un-maintained overbrush and finally the road opened out into a large lot.

There it stood, as it had when it was first built, only now it was in shambles. The building was light brown. It appeared that it had once been dark brown, but the paint had either faded or been scraped off. The main part of the building was about three stories tall, but there was also a tower. It was a clock tower (not a bell tower). This tower must have been 60 feet off of the ground. Most of the shingles had already fallen off. What Mark had once thought to have been stained glass windows were clearly windows boarded up with cheap particle board and covered by metal bars. There was a porch of sorts in front. The porch consisted of a large overhang connected to a front wall. Thus one had to go to the doors from the side in order to enter. The building was surrounded by a flimsy chain link fence, and that was surrounded by trees. The trees, which had not been trimmed in years, reached up to the sky with their twisted branches and their brown leaves.

"What is it?" Asked Hutch.

"An old insane asylum. It’s the old Worcester State." Said Mark. It wasn’t, nor had it ever been a church.

"It’s creepy," said Jem. They all agreed.

"Wanna get out?" Mark asked. In the better interest of looking at Mark’s personality, it should be known that Mark had no intention of getting out of that car. Mark was the type of seventeen year old guy who was apt to scream like a ten year old girl when it seemed appropriate. Anyway, even if Mark still thought it was a church, he still wouldn’t go near it.

After some time of silently staring at the building and its tower, which appeared to scrape the now gray sky, Jem broke the silence.

"Its starting to get dark, we should go eat now so we can get back before my mom kills me." Mark began to drive back.

"Oh my god, I’ve got the best idea," said Hutch, as the car pulled up to the fork. "Lets go inside. You know, a Halloween thing."

"Really," said Mark. "Okay." Now there is a difference between what was going on in the minds of Hutch and Mark. Hutch was completely serious, and would most certainly go inside if someone went with her. Mark was thinking about food, and dismissed the idea temporarily as a joke. So he humored her. "We shouldn’t go until October though. Gotta be in the Halloween spirit ya know."

Somehow, between Mark’s food fantasies and Hutch-humoring Mark took a wrong turn. He was driving down the right-fork road. By the time Mark realized this there was nowhere in the road to turn around. So they followed the road, hoping it would lead to a wider space to turn around in. It was nearly dark by the time they came to the end of the wooded street. It was a small circle. Mark began to turn the car.

"Crap." Said Mark. The circle was too narrow to turn around in one try.

"Mark," said Hutch, her voice trembling a bit. "Hurry."

"I am, jeeze."

"No, Mark, look." Said Jem pointing down the dark road. Mark looked down the road and saw what she was pointing at.