The Diaper Man Read online

  “You bastard,” Connor said, serious. He consoled Layla.

  “Asshole!” she yelled through her tears. “I’m leaving. I’ll see you at the car,” she said to Connor as she stormed off through the waist-high weeds.

  “And that’s why you’re my star actor.” Ryan applauded the performance.

  “You guys suck. Cock blockers. You couldn’t wait until after I had some time alone with her?” Connor turned from the morgue, grumbling to himself as he followed after Layla.

  Billy popped the door open to reveal a cold and dark morgue inside. Vandals had already taken a run at the place. There were spray painted words and graffiti all over the metal body drawers along the back wall. On the floor were empty bottles of booze and beer, cigarette butts and even a few old, crusted, used condoms. Dust, dirt, leaves and debris that birds had carried in over the years gathered in the corners, collecting into a dank soil of sorts.

  “How the hell did people get in here?” Ryan asked.

  “Front of the building was all boarded up. Must be those tunnels. People say that they built tunnels underground, connecting all the buildings.”

  “This place is fucking awesome. Sick.” Ryan shot a bunch of photos of the old morgue drawers. “The first scene will have, like, a crazed, deranged doctor experimenting on a body in here, and it’ll come back to life and eat him alive.”

  “Nice... Hey check it out. Are those old medical tools in the corner?” Billy took two steps toward them before slipping on a condom, sending himself sailing through the air and landing on his back, directly on top of the rubber.

  “You okay?” Ryan pulled his camera down from his eye for a moment.

  Billy groaned in pain as he sat up. “Ahh. Nasty. I think that was a fresh one.”

  “Yeah, no shit dude!” Ryan added when he saw the string of semen connect his back to the nasty condom on the floor. He laughed.

  “Ugh. Disgusting.” Billy rubbed his back against the grimy tile wall to get the goo off, trading one type of filth for another.

  “Let’s try to find those tunnels. I have an idea in mind for a scene we can do there,” Ryan said.

  #

  Connor chased Layla down and grabbed her by the elbow. “Wait, wait, wait.”

  “I’m pissed at you!” She yanked her arm free.

  “I’m sorry. Let me make it up to you.”

  “How?”

  “After we finish here, I’ll...”

  “After we finish? I’m done here, Connor. This place creeps me out. I told you I’m going back to the car. You can meet me there... What was that?” She looked past him, near the edge of the trees.

  “What?” Connor craned his neck back to look.

  “I thought I saw someone over there.”

  “I bet it’s them, trying to sneak up on us and scare us.” Mischief filled Connor’s face and a sly grin curled on his lips. “You wanna get them back?”

  “Hell yeah.”

  “Let’s duck into one of the buildings and scare them when they pass.”

  “No, come on,” Layla whined. “I just want to get out of here. Let’s get back at them some other way.”

  “Come on it’ll be fun. And it’ll give us some time alone, just me and you.”

  She stood with her hands on her hips, eyeing Connor for honesty. “Promise me you won’t try to freak me out with this diaper crap.”

  “I promise. No more crappy diapers.”

  She giggled. “Alright...”

  “Let’s go, before they see us.”

  Connor and Layla trotted through the weeds toward the nearest building, where they slipped past some rotted wood boards and through a broken doorway into a long corridor. Paint had been peeling off the ceiling in large flakes due to neglect and disrepair. The walls creaked with even the most gentle of breezes, and old pipes rattled within. It was dark except for the splashes of sunlight that crept through the open doors flanking each side of the hallway.

  “Let’s go into one of the rooms with light coming in through the windows.” Connor’s voice echoed off the old fragile hospital walls.

  In that moment Layla thought a scream might even topple the old walls, or cause the ceiling to collapse. “Good idea,” she whispered. “We’ll be able to see when they pass by so we can get behind them, and it won’t be so scary in the light.”

  The room was wide open and empty, except for an old, ratty doll that sat directly in the center of the room.

  “Creepy,” Layla said as they walked past.

  They crouched at the windows, peeking out across the field of weeds toward the tree line. Connor positioned himself behind Layla and started to rub her shoulders.

  “You feel tense,” he said.

  “I am tense. This place makes me nervous. I don’t know what it is. Maybe I can just sense something bad here.”

  “You’ve seen too many horror movies,” Connor said. He rubbed deeper and harder, kneading Layla’s shoulders until she moaned with relief and unclenched her muscles. “There you go. That’s better. Just relax...”

  When she turned to face him, her soft, wet lips met with his. They kissed. Slow at first, and then wildly. Connor took his shirt off and set it down on the filthy floor for Layla. She kicked her sneakers off first. Then she slowly unbuttoned her jeans and seductively pulled them down, bending at the waist with her knees together. She gave him a taunting gaze with a slow blink, staring at him out the tops of her eyes. She flung her jeans off her toes into a corner. Then she sat down on his shirt with her legs open. She snapped her bra off, letting her tits spill out into her armpits as she lay down on her back. Conner could see her wetness through her panties. He pounced on her, stuffing his face between her legs. Layla propped up onto her elbows with an intense moan, and she threw her head back with pleasure.

  #

  “Shit check it out Ryan!” Billy stood over a hatch in the room adjacent to the morgue.

  Ryan lifted his head from behind his camera and went to him. “Holy crap the stories about the tunnels are true. How deep does it go?”

  Billy picked up a rock from the floor and dropped it into the black abyss before them. A few seconds later they heard it hit something in the deep and roll to a stop.

  “That’s not too bad,” Ryan said. He held his camera out over the hatch and popped the flash.

  “Good thinking,” Billy said. “Let’s see it.”

  Ryan looked down at the preview screen on his camera to examine the image he had just taken. His face distorted with shock and fear. “Dude what the...”

  Billy erupted in laughter when he saw the photo. “That’s a shadow, man. Look.” He pulled the camera from Ryan’s hands and zoomed in on the preview screen with the camera controls. “See?”

  “But it looks like...”

  “Looks like the fucking Grim Reaper, is what it looks like. With the sickle and everything.”

  “Scythe.”

  “Whatever dude, you know what I mean,” Billy handed the camera back to Ryan. “Come on let’s go down the ladder.”

  “You sure? Maybe I should text my brother just to let him know where we are.”

  “The kid is busy trying to get blown. What the hell does he care where you are?”

  “True. Service is shot here anyway. Dead zone.”

  They descended down into the tunnel, finding their footing at the bottom in a small square shaped room that mirrored the one above them. The light trickling down from the hatch barely lit cavernous walls beside them.

  “What the hell is that?” Billy asked, pointing to a steel door on the wall. “Another body storage thing?”

  “Nah. Looks like an oversized dumbwaiter,” Ryan guessed. “Check it out; an old gurney. Get on there and pretend you’re dead. I want to take some shots down here.”

  Billy hopped on the gurney beside the dumbwaiter and played dead. Ryan popped about a dozen photos rapid fire, taking a few steps backward down a long, dark corridor that stretched behind them, leading to who knows where.
r />   “Shit. My flash batteries are taking forever to recharge. Some of these are dark.”

  “Yo I bet I know what this shit was for. This fucking gurney here, right next to a huge dumbwaiter underneath the fucking morgue, bro? They transported the bodies underground dude. I bet you.” Billy sat up, his eyes angled in thought. “Ahh fuck, man. There was probably a fucking dead dude on this gurney.” He jumped off instantly.

  “Yeah you’re probably right,” Ryan wasn’t paying attention. His face was glued to the display on his camera, looking straight down. Just then a rat scurried across his feet. He leapt back in shock, nearly dropping his camera to the ground. “Fuckin’ rat.”

  Billy shined his cell phone out into the tunnel behind him. The light crept along the stony floor until the end of its glowing LED tendrils clung to the foot of a man lying on the ground. He nudged Ryan. “Is that a bum?” he whispered.

  Ryan turned to see the figure ahead. “Hey!” he called out. “You up there. Wake up.”

  There was no response, but they saw movement. His clothing wriggled, as if he were shaking in his sleep.

  “Maybe he’s a fucking crazy bum. Better yet, one of the escaped lunatics who never figured out how to get free of this place,” Billy suggested.

  They walked toward him. Ryan snapped photos the whole way. The sound of his shutter echoed through the cavernous tunnel. He zoomed up tight on a few shots. That’s when he noticed what the movement was. “Fuck! Oh fuck!” Ryan exclaimed. “The rats. They’re eating him. Maybe we should call the cops.”

  “No way dude. We’ll get in trouble for breaking in. Trespass.”

  “I think the cops are a little more concerned about a dead body than a few kids trespassing.”

  “Not if they want to keep sweeping this stuff under the rug, you know, if it’s the Diaper Man again.”

  “Oh come on, bro. It’s probably just some homeless guy who died of old age or some crap. We should at least call the police from a payphone or something. Let’s try to find out who this guy is. If he’s not homeless there’s probably someone looking for him or worried about him.”

  Billy mocked. “Okay, Mr. Sensitive.”

  Dried blood surrounded the body, and a foul green ooze puddled around it that stunk worse than week-old garbage mixed with diarrhea. The boys covered their noses in disgust.

  “People don’t die of old age with blood all over the place like that. Is that a briefcase? Who the fuck carries a briefcase into a place like this?” Billy was incredulous.

  “Let’s check him for ID,” Ryan suggested.

  “Go ahead, but I’m going for the briefcase full of money and diamonds.” Billy snatched the case from the man’s cold dead fingers and began prying at the buckles that held it closed. “Fucking locked.”

  “His name was James Conway. Why does that sound familiar to me?” Ryan wrinkled his brow in thought. “He was young, 34. No, 35.”

  Billy started to bash the briefcase against the wall. “People that young don’t just die. Bet this was a murder. Or a drug deal gone wrong. Maybe this is filled with coke!”

  “If it was a bad deal, do you think the suitcase of money or drugs would still be here?”

  “Flip him over then. See where all this dried blood came from,” Billy said between smashes.

  “No thanks.”

  Just then the briefcase burst open. A slew of papers flew into the air and then flopped to the ground. A few slid into the slick of decomposing fluids beside the body, slowly turning wet and green from absorbing the man’s coffin liquor.

  Ryan picked up a piece of paper. “That’s who he is. He’s a reporter. Local guy, grew up around here, and became somewhat of a known investigative type guy for one of the big papers in the city. His oldest sister was one of the victims. A nurse. Look. He was writing a story.” Ryan handed Billy the paper. It was an archived article from years ago, printed out. Conway had written notes all over it. There were other articles too; lot’s of old ones. Even some recent ones.

  “Man... Look at some of these headlines.” Billy marveled. “I thought they were all hushed up? That’s how the story goes, anyway.”

  “Look where they’re from though. Different counties, different states. I guess the police pressure only goes so far. Why the hell wasn’t this national news?”

  They scanned over the articles.

  Hushed Burial of Diaper Man’s Body in Potter’s Field Behind Facility – Headstone 666.

  School Children See Half-Naked Man in Woods Near Asylum, Next to School.

  Diaper Man Strikes From the Grave: Could This Be the Work of Abraham Davis?

  Another Child’s Body Found Dumped in Woods Adjacent to Defunct Mental Facility.

  A Mess Wiped Clean? Residents Allege Local Police Cover Up.

  Truth Flushed Away in Diaper Man Mystery.

  School Closes, Students Moved to Another Building.

  Local Teens Arrested for Grave Robbing, Claim All They Found Was Empty Pine Box.

  #

  Connor looked out the window as he pulled up his pants. “Do you think they passed by?”

  “They’re probably still taking test shots or whatever,” Layla answered as she slipped back into her jeans.

  “We should walk around a little. Explore,” Connor suggested.

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea. We could breathe in asbestos or the floors could collapse or something.” She hooked her bra behind her back and turned away from Connor.

  “Come on,” he nagged, tugging at the belt loop on her jeans and pulling her ass back into his crotch.

  “Fine... But I don’t want to stay here too long. I’m supposed to meet up with Melissa later.”

  They wound their way through a labyrinth of twisted corridors and up cavernous metal stairwells. They stepped over piles of bird shit three feet high, plodded through drifts of dried leaves and debris leaning against cracked cement walls, and walked across floors littered with flaked paint that snapped under foot like twigs. They pushed their way through a pair of swinging double doors. The rusty hinges squealed an awful sound, so loud it nearly made Layla’s blood curdle. A faded, rotting sign above the doors read Maternity Ward.

  “I didn’t realize this place had a maternity ward. I thought it was just for psychiatric patients,” she remarked.

  “Yeah this place was a full service facility at one point. Sometime later though they started closing down different wings until eventually all that remained was a mental asylum. Nurses and doctors used to actually live on site at first, like a college campus. There was housing, shuttle buses and everything.”

  They turned from the hallway into a large windowed room, bathed in sunlight.

  “Ooh! Look at that view,” Layla marveled. Gently rolling waves of overgrown grass stretched out across the abandoned property in a field ringed by proud pines and ancient oaks. From there on the third floor they could see the dark waters of the Long Island Sound shimmering on the horizon. “I bet this room was used for recovering moms after they gave birth. It’s so peaceful here. Serene and beautiful.”

  “Look at all this retro stuff. I bet we could sell it to some of those weird collectors,” Connor said.

  “Yeah that’s a good idea,” Layla said. “Old medical tools and equipment. I’m going to pocket some of this junk. I need to save up for a car!” She began to rummage through some ratty old drawers and cabinets along the wall.

  “Yo check out this old table with the stirrups. Nasty.” Connor pulled out his cell phone and took a picture. “I gotta text this to Ryan." He typed out a message to go with it: OMG dude we gotta use this in the movie!!!

  Layla froze in place when her eyes came upon a disturbing sight. Dried blood and crimson-brown handprints smudged across one of the drawers in a large cabinet on the wall. Above it was the printed label Diapers, just beside Gauze and Safety Pins. She began to tear up. “Connor,” she whispered, her voice rattling with fear. “Connor.”

  Connor looked up from his cell phone to
see her gaze fixed upon the cabinet. He followed her eyes and saw it. A crusted mound of filth settled in a small pile at the base of the cabinet, just below the blood stained drawer. All the others were dusty, but not that drawer. Not the one labeled Diapers.

  “It’s probably just some punks like us playing games, vandalizing,” he said as he strutted over to the cabinet. He pulled open the drawer with a cavalier yank, trying to diffuse the fear that filled the air like a thick fog before a rainstorm. But to their surprise the drawer was filled with rotting meat and body parts. Decayed ears, bloody teeth, fingers with their nails ripped off...

  Layla let out a prolonged and glass-shattering screech. Then there was a kind of silent scream that filled the room with terror as tears streamed from her eyes in torrents. She could barely see through the blur. Flashes of the gory drawer filled her mind.

  Connor nearly dropped his phone onto the grungy, peeled-up linoleum tiles at his feet. He quickly tried to dial out to the police, but it was no use. The image text to his brother was still pending, and there was no signal at all in the concrete box of the King’s Park Psychiatric Facility.

  “Oh fuck.” Layla shuddered. Her knees buckled and she nearly hit the floor from the shock. She cried.

  Connor went to her. “Come on baby. Let’s get out of here,” he whispered. “Just try to stay quiet. I think I know a faster way out of here. The way we came is too long. There has to be a quicker way out.”

  #

  Billy felt around the inside of the dead reporter’s pockets. His palms sunk into the decaying flesh around the corpse’s thighs. He felt the pads of his fingers moisten with decomposing ooze. He grimaced a sickened grin and was about to yank his hands free when he fingered something rigid and plastic. He pulled it out to reveal a digital recording device.

  “Think it still works?” Ryan asked him.

  “Only one way to find out,” Billy replied. He pushed some buttons on the recorder and suddenly it came to life. A moment later the dank tunnel was filled with the reporter’s final words.