The Hollow Ward

I took the night shift at Blackwood State Correctional Facility, a sprawling complex set in a dry, forgotten valley two hours from the nearest town. The job was my only offer after six months of nursing applications, so I ignored the pit in my stomach the day I signed the contract. The facility had a reputation among locals—whispers of strange happenings, of a hospital wing that was ‘bad luck’—but I chalked it up to small-town superstition.

My first week was uneventful. I learned the routine: medication rounds, charting, and the constant clang of steel doors. But the third week, I was assigned to the hospital ward, a separate block connected to the main building by a long, windowless corridor. The ward was eerily quiet compared to the general population. Most of the inmates there were in serious condition, and the medical staff moved with hushed urgency.

One evening, I was working the 1800 to 0600 shift with a senior nurse named Dana. She was a no-nonsense woman in her fifties, but I saw her shiver as we passed a particular room—212. ‘Don’t go in there alone,’ she said, not meeting my eyes. ‘It’s just a storage room now.’ I asked why, but she just shook her head and walked away.

That night, around 2200, Dana stepped out for a smoke break, leaving me alone at the nurse’s station. I was reviewing medication logs when I felt a cold draft sweep across my back. I turned, expecting a window left open, but the hallway behind me was empty and still. I shrugged it off and returned to work. Then I felt a poke on my right shoulder—sharp, deliberate, like a finger tapping. I spun around, but there was no one there. My heart raced. I laughed nervously at my own jumpiness, but the air in the room seemed to thicken.

I tried to focus on my charting, but the feeling of being watched grew unbearable. I looked up to see a figure at the end of the hallway—a tall, gaunt man in a grey jumpsuit, standing perfectly still, staring at me. His face was in shadow, but his eyes seemed to glow with a faint, sickly yellow. I blinked, and he was gone. I called out, ‘Hello?’ Only the hum of fluorescent lights answered.

I radioed Dana, who returned a few minutes later. I told her about the figure. She went pale. ‘What did he look like?’ I described him. She whispered, ‘That’s Charlie Voss. He was an inmate here in the 80s, went crazy, killed two orderlies in that storage room. They found him hanging from a pipe in there the next morning.’ My skin crawled. ‘They say he still walks the ward,’ Dana added, ‘looking for someone to take his place.’

The rest of the shift was uneventful, but I couldn’t shake the feeling of that cold presence. The next morning, I reported to the shift supervisor, a man name Osei, who was also a former Marine. He listened to my story with a stony expression. ‘Stay away from room 212,’ he said. ‘Whatever you do, don’t open that door.’ I asked why. He lowered his voice. ‘There was an incident last year. A new nurse, just like you, felt a poke. She ignored it. Then she started hearing the name ‘Voss’ being called. She walked into 212 and was found unconscious on the floor, with scratches on her arm. She never spoke of it again. Quit the next week.’

I was deeply unsettled, but I couldn’t afford to quit. I kept working the night shifts, avoiding 212. But the encounters grew more frequent. One night, as I walked past the door, I saw the handle start to turn. I froze, my hand flying to my radio. The door stopped, and a cold breath brushed my neck. A voice, dry as dust, whispered in my ear: ‘Nurse… I’m cold.’ I ran to the nurse’s station, my hands shaking.

I called my sister, a nurse in a hospice, to ask if she’d ever experienced anything like it. She said, ‘It’s likely the stress of the job, Sarah. But listen, if you ever feel like you’re being touched, it might be a sign of a head injury. Maybe you should see a doctor.’ But I knew it was real.

Three weeks later, I was assigned to cover the ward with a new graduate, a young man named Omar. That night, the activity was relentless. We heard banging on walls, electrical lights flickering, and doors swinging open and shut on their own. Omar looked terrified. ‘Is it always like this?’ he asked. I didn’t have a chance to answer because the phone at the station rang. It was the main security desk. ‘We’ve got a medical emergency in the ward,’ the officer said. ‘Room 212. Inmate says he’s having chest pains. But that room is empty.’

I froze. Omar asked, ‘What do we do?’ I had two options: ignore it, or check. But protocol demanded we answer any emergency call. I grabbed the emergency kit and told Omar to stay behind. ‘You’re not going alone,’ he said, but I insisted, thinking of the times I’d felt that poke, that whisper. I had to face it.

I walked slowly down the corridor, each step echoing. The door to 212 was ajar, a sliver of darkness visible. I pushed it open, the hinges groaning. The room was bare, with a single bed frame, a mattress on the floor, and a small steel mirror on the wall. In the corner, a shape was hunched—a man in a grey jumpsuit, his back to me. ‘I called for a nurse,’ he said, his voice low, gravelly. ‘You came.’

My heart pounded. ‘I’m here to help,’ I managed. He turned. His face was gaunt, hollowed out, skin stretched tight over bone. His eyes were milky white, unseeing. ‘You shouldn’t have come,’ he said. ‘I was dead. But you breathed life into me.’ He reached out a long, cold hand. ‘Now you’re taking my place.’

I screamed and fled, the door slamming behind me. I ran straight into Omar, who had followed despite my orders. He held me as I sobbed, describing what I saw. But when we looked back, the door to 212 was open, and the room was empty. The next morning, I resigned. I couldn’t explain the logic of it, but I knew that if I stayed another night, I might not leave with my mind intact.

Months later, I read a news article about Blackwood. A nurse had been found dead in room 212, a smile on her face, her eyes looking at the ceiling. The article said she had been on duty alone. A chilling thought hit me: I had been there, that morning, and I had experienced the same feeling of being poked, of a cold breath, of a voice calling. I realized then that I had seen what I was meant to see—the hollowman, in a ward where the living and dead blur, waiting for another soul to take his place. I still wonder if, one day, I’ll feel a cold hand on my shoulder, and hear that dry whisper: ‘Nurse… I’m cold.’