The Hollow Wards of Whitefall

In the autumn of 1987, when I was eight, my Cub Scout pack was granted a night’s stay at Whitefall, an imposing brick edifice that had once served as a county poorhouse and later a sanatorium for the ‘feeble-minded’. The building sat atop a hill, glaring down at the town like a stern grandmother. We were told it was an old school, and we believed it, for the halls smelled of chalk dust and floor polish. The scoutmaster, Mr. Harlow, was a jovial man with a red beard and a belly laugh that echoed through the corridors. He set up our sleeping bags in what he called the ‘assembly hall’, a cavernous room with high windows, now stripped of furniture, leaving only a stage and a vaulted ceiling. The floor was cold linoleum, and the radiators clicked and hissed like old men whispering secrets.

That night, after the flashlights were turned off and the whispers faded into rhythmic breathing, I lay awake, staring at the ceiling. The moonlight filtered through the high windows, casting long, skeletal shadows. I heard a sound, like a slow, dragging shuffle, coming from the hallway. I assumed it was Mr. Harlow doing a night check, but the footsteps were too heavy, too deliberate. They stopped outside our door. I held my breath, waiting for the knob to turn. It didn’t. Instead, a low, guttural humming began, a melody I didn’t recognize, something like a lullaby but wrong, the notes slurred and off-key. I pulled my sleeping bag over my head, and eventually, the sound faded.

The next morning, I mentioned the humming to my friend Tommy. He went pale. ‘I heard it too,’ he said, his voice hushed. ‘And I saw a shadow under the door, a really weird shadow, like it was too big for any person.’ We decided to explore during our free time, hoping to find some evidence of our ghostly intruder. We crept down the main staircase, which was wide and grand, with a worn wooden banister. The building had a peculiar layout: the upper floors were a maze of small rooms, each locking from the outside, with a small viewing window in the door. We found a door that was ajar, leading to what looked like an old infirmary. The room was lined with iron bedsteads, their mattresses gone, leaving only the bare springs. In the corner, there was a porcelain basin, stained brown. The air was thick with the smell of bleach and something else, something sweet and rotten.

I was about to leave when I noticed a small object on one of the beds. It was a child’s shoe, scuffed and worn, the leather cracked. I picked it up. It was still damp, as if recently worn. That’s when I heard the humming again, coming from directly behind me. I spun around, but there was no one. The sound seemed to be coming from the walls, all around us. Tommy grabbed my arm, his face ashen. ‘We should go,’ he whispered. We ran back to the assembly hall, but the rest of the pack was playing a rowdy game of tag, oblivious. I slipped the shoe into my backpack, feeling a strange compulsion to keep it.

That night, the humming returned, but this time it was accompanied by a soft tapping, like fingers on glass. I looked toward the window, and there, pressed against the pane from outside, was the faint outline of a face. It was gaunt, with hollow eyes, and its mouth was open in that same song. I wanted to scream, but my throat was paralyzed. The face slowly receded, replaced by a hand, which began to write on the glass with a finger, as if in the condensation. The letters were reversed, but I could read a single word: ‘MINE.’ I felt my insides go cold. I knew, somehow, that the shoe I had taken was the trigger.

The next day, I tried to return the shoe to the infirmary, but the door was locked, and an official-looking padlock was in place. I looked through the viewing window, and the bed where I had found the shoe was now occupied by a dark shape, a bundle of rags that seemed to breathe. I dropped the shoe and ran, but I could feel the presence following me, a cold that clung to my back like a wet blanket. That night, I found the shoe back on my sleeping bag, neatly placed on my pillow, as if someone had set it there while I was in the washroom. The room was silent, but I could feel eyes on me from the darkness. I zipped my sleeping bag shut and prayed for morning.

The final morning, we packed up, and I was desperate to leave the shoe behind. I ‘accidentally’ left it under my sleeping bag, but as we walked out the front door, I saw it waiting on the steps, propped against the railing, as if to say goodbye. Mr. Harlow bent down to pick it up, but I snatched it away. ‘It’s mine,’ I said, my voice shaking. He looked at me strangely but didn’t argue. I put it in my backpack, and we boarded the bus. As the bus drove away, I looked back at Whitefall. In the highest window, I saw a figure, wispy and dark, watching us leave. I didn’t tell anyone. I never wore the shoe, but I kept it. To this day, it sits on my nightstand, and on cold, quiet nights, I hear the faint, off-key humming, and I know it wants me to come back.