Matthew Cornachione - Dansk Bay Hotel

Useless, all of it. If it wasn’t good enough for the museum, what good would it do me? Frustrated, I slammed a fist into the nearest pile of books.

A single piece of paper slipped to the floor. I knelt down and picked it up. Like everything else in the room, it was old and torn, but was heavier than most papers, like card stock. The lettering was typewritten and it appeared to be a brief memo.

To: Records Clerk, Dansk Bay Branch

From: Director of Records Retention

Date: 10-Aug, 1946

The order has come. All mention of facility 387AR-55 is to be scrubbed from public record. Priority documents are to be secured and delivered to Washington. All other documentation, including this missive, is to be destroyed.

Execution of these tasks must be completed by 17-Sep, 1946, after which date the facility will be decommissioned.

Wait, did this mean what I thought it meant? Well yeah. Since the missive had survived, it meant that the records clerk hadn’t followed orders. More importantly, this sounded suspiciously like the cover-up of a secret government facility. One abandoned right after the end of WWII. Short list of candidates in this town for which building they’d used…

A piece of the puzzle clicked into place. The Dansk Bay Hotel didn’t look like a hotel because it never had been. So, then, what kind of facility was it? And, why had the government expunged the building from record? I didn’t know much about the military, but I was pretty sure that sort of thing wasn’t normal.

Intrigued, I dug through the pile of books. I skimmed pages of the journals and newspapers, but found only the daily ups and downs of a fishing town. No apparent military connection. Disappointed, I almost stopped, but then I found a navy blue journal dated 1946. By the first line, I knew I’d found something.

08-15-46:

They want to bury it all. I should have known they would, but the truth must get out. Our research must count for something greater.

Where these pages will end up, I cannot know, but at least now I have a chance to pass on a message. Perhaps someone will get it, will pick up where we left off.

Regretfully, I do not have time to explain the experiments that my team has been authorized to perform. I leave only the pertinent details and know that a suitably keen mind will understand their value.

This war, terrible though it has been, allowed us to run tests on the most fascinating subjects: humans. We have been asked, nay forced, to push the limits of what the mind can achieve. Many cultures through history have spoken of the concept of an “out-of-body experience” in vivid detail. My colleagues and I suspected such a thing must be real, not merely a delusion of laypersons. Indeed, our evidence from the last three years shows not only that this state exists, but that it can be induced at will through the right chemical elixir.

Our military overseers think only to harness this power to spy upon their enemies, but the applications are boundless. A chance to see the world from the safety of one’s own home. The ability to send the mind to explore inhospitable regions like the ocean floor or the center of the Earth. Just imagine!

Alas, our efforts have been cut short before our formula is complete. We have seen indisputable evidence that our elixir works as intended. Gaseous vapors rise from the subjects and coalesce into tangible clouds. These clouds move in ways that cannot be described by any physical equation. A conscious will must be directing their movements. This conclusion is supported by numerous observations. Stimulation of the vapors elicits a response in the bodies of the subjects.

Unfortunately, the range of the effect is limited by subject mortality. No subject survived more than a minute after receiving the dose, thus preventing the mind from traveling far afield. As such we have been unable to study the properties of these “mind clouds.” A complete physical understanding eludes us.

None of us took the abrupt end of our research well. Jorgensen committed suicide and Pizzani is locked up for attempting to smuggle an elixir sample. Then there is young Friedrich… he is frighteningly angry. He claims to have a plan to continue our work, but I fear his naive hopes are misplaced. We will all be watched for the rest of our lives. What we’ve done here can never be revealed to the masses. In this case the government is right – the people will not understand.

Although removing a physical sample of the elixir has proven impossible, the formula must be set free. Here it is:

Below was only a smudge. Apparently someone had tampered with the journal, but I read on, too fascinated to care.

Know, he who reads this, that further improvements are still needed to suppress the toxic side-effects. Experiments will cost more lives, but I believe that one day, the elixir can be perfected.

Please, do not let our work be in vain, and please do not judge us for what we did. You, whomever you may be, are not so different. Think of how many have died so that you may stand where you do. Ancients suffered plagues that we could learn how to heal them. Construction crews died to perfect our home designs. Automobile pioneers lost their lives so that our vehicles could become safe. All life is built upon death. We do not admit this to ourselves, but we know its truth.

Yes, they were our enemies, but they were still human. That is why their sacrifice must have meaning. Their deaths can advance all humanity. One day everyone will thank us.

Cool droplets fell against my upturned face as I stood on the dock. Eyes closed, I let the rain patter over my skin, as if it could wash away this whole situation. It couldn’t, but, for a moment at least, I felt free.

I knew the freedom couldn’t last. What I’d read, the atrocities that had been committed, that knowledge could never leave me. Long in the past, yes, but by our government, by our citizens. The hotel I’d come here to buy turned out to be a former POW camp, one drenched in the blood of its captives. It was a horrific secret.

I knew this was what Thea had wanted me to find. This thing was much bigger than I had ever imagined.

But now I knew something about the evil spirit. It had something to do with the elixir, with the vapors described in the scientist’s journal. Was the spirit the tortured remnant of some prisoner’s mind floating in space for eternity? Was that even possible? The whole idea was too crazy to comprehend, yet it explained everything I’d seen in Dansk Bay.

The ghost was no longer so mysterious. I knew where it came from, why it existed. But not how to escape.

Then it hit me. Thea’s words rang in my head. I doubt you have the fortitude.

If you can’t run, you have to fight.

Damn that woman.

I took off at a jog, quickly crossing town. I reached the trading post and tried the door, but it was locked. No, she couldn’t leave me now.

“Thea!” I pounded on the door. “You can’t do this to me.” No response.

Part of my job is to read people. I’d been so thrown off by the ghost that I hadn’t seen it sooner. Thea wasn’t trying to help me; she was trying to help Dansk Bay. She knew I didn’t have a choice and was using me as a weapon.

But, at this point it didn’t matter. I’d walked into this trap, and there was only one way out.

Deflated, I turned and stared into the rain. Across the street I saw the young waitress in her raincoat walking into Lucy’s. She glanced around, spotted me, and gave me a long look before slipping inside.

So much like Lena. Lena who was now in a full time care home. Because of me. Because I’d left her alone to face a ghost.

This was my chance for redemption. If those old notes were to be believed, this horror went back over half a century. Hundreds of lives ruined in the pursuit of mad science. I’d ruined one life, but I could save others. The waitress, the fishing hand, the old couple.