Creepy Short Stories

Sniff

Sniff

I never liked Rustic Gables Skilled Nursing Facility.

Years ago, I worked as an EMT for MediTrans Ambulance Service. We did inter-facility transports, mostly dialysis runs and hospital discharges, so I spent a lot of time around crappy nursing homes. But even with my bar set as low as it was, Rustic Gables SNF still managed to underwhelm.

The four-story building itself put off an air of hostility. Near Sixth and Alvarado in a slummy corner of Westlake, Rustic Gables SNF sat like a diseased tooth – a squat, square, filthy-white structure jutting out of a narrow, uneven parking lot surrounded by a fourteen-foot fence.

Inside, Rustic Gables was, well, exactly how you'd expect. The residents were crammed four to a too-small room. Every August, half the ancient window air units broke down. Their one-and-a-half star rating was on display over the reception desk, and I'm pretty sure they only managed the extra half-star because someone knew how to BS the inspector.

The faceless healthcare conglomerate that owned the place had bought the property from a bank auction. I'd never leave anyone I loved at Rustic Gables SNF.

Rustic Gables burned through nurses like cheap cigarettes. It seemed like every time I approached a nursing station, I was greeted by a different young woman in stained scrubs. Meanwhile, my partner and I would run into ex-Rustic Gables employees everywhere we went – dialysis centers, hospitals, other SNFs.

It was rumored that Rustic Gables was haunted.

Stories were told of eerie voices behind patients' closed doors. Of strangers seen wandering the halls, of objects moving by themselves, and of staff members somehow teleporting themselves all over the facility without realizing it. I heard more than one tale in which the teller swore they'd seen a nurse walk into a patient's room, fail to reappear, then be found on the next floor up – swearing she hadn't been near the patient's room in hours.

Once, a patient had been killed when a nurse gave her a second dose of Metoprolol, sending her into hypovolemic shock. The guilty nurse swore that she'd spoken to the medical director, in person, and that he'd given her orders for the extra dose. That was obviously bullshit – the medical director had been in his office, miles away, with multiple witnesses. But the nurse was insistent, even after she'd pled guilty to avoid jail time.

I highly doubted that incident was the work of ghosts – a hangover was a more likely culprit. But even the most skeptical of the ex-nurses agreed they'd gotten a bad vibe working at Rustic Gables, especially at night.

*****

In early 2010, my wife Lily told me she'd gotten a job at Rustic Gables SNF. I warned her that everybody who worked there hated the place, and offered to continue paying the lion's share of our bills until she could find other employment.

"You want me to say 'fuck you' to a full-time nursing job with benefits?" she snapped, squishing her mouth into a pissy little bow. "I'm sick of working at Subway. Do you honestly think anyone else is going to offer me anything with no experience?"

She had me there. The oversaturated medical job market of Los Angeles was a tough spot for a recently-graduated Licensed Vocational Nurse, especially in the middle of a recession.

"I get it," I told her. "But I'm making enough money now. And I don't think you're going to like Rustic Gables much. People say it's haunted, and you hate horror."

Lily flashed me a condescending, pursed-lip smile. She knew I hated that smile. She was a tiny girl, my wife, barely five feet tall and maybe a hundred pounds soaking wet. Her eyes were opal-shaped and deep-set in her square face. She had long, dark, silky hair. A clump of it fell over an eye.