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For those of us who have worked in the older PICU in Center 3, this story may

ring a familiar chord, because as we all busily worked to take care of our patients

on that unit some of us felt that underneath all the business and dedication of

caring, there may be something.....something more than what we saw on the surface

in that room. Those of us who worked so hard in that room on that night not only

felt, but vagely knew, that on some level there was a deeper, darker 'thing' that

stayed behind or refused to leave. One day this past Spring, this feeling emerged

anew for me in a stranger and darker way that I never expected or wanted when I

revisited the old unit. It has taken me this long to be able to articulate andwrite down what happened on that day. I realize that the events I am recording here

may seem to come out of a page of Stephen King, but those who know me know that

what I say is true.

It was a dark and stormy evening on that Friday in the Spring of 2009, when I

finally arrived at work after a long and tedious drive on the expressway from

Muskego. Despite moving at a snail's pace through traffic with tall, black storm

clouds looming overhead being pierced by lightning followed by rumbling thunder, I

arrived a half hour early to prepare for another 12 hour night shift on West 4

PICU. Since I still had fond memories of working so closely with my friends in the

old Center 3 PICU I occasionally walked through the old unit on my way up to the

brand new West 4. In the days when the old unit thrived, it seemed to have a

quality that the new one could not quite capture, a closeness, an atmosphere of

community and cooperation that seemed to be built into the structure and its walls.

Having arrived a bit early, I had time to once more casually and nostalgically walk

through that old, abandoned and empty unit, or so I thought, that stormy Friday

evening.

After I walked up the back stairs from our department to the 3rd floor, I

approached the back door of the old PI but hesitated as I touched the door as I

entered. A vague feeling of dread immediately passed over me as the door creaked

opened and a musty cool sensation swept over my face as I walked over the threshold

into the unit. I stopped in my tracks and my first impulse was to just turn around

and leave but for some reason I felt drawn inward, deeper into that unit where I

used to work every weekend. Part of it may have been curiosity, but I also felt

that something was compelling me to go forward, to investigate the source of this

dread feeling. As I slowly walked, the abandoned unit seemed darker and coolerthan usual that evening even though the lights were turned on and the thermostat

was reading 70 F. The hallway seemed longer and my footsteps seemed heavier as I

tread forward with foreboding. The air became heavier, pressing against me, and the

air was becoming cooler and mistier when suddenly I heard strange sounds coming to

my ear from the distance.....eerie sounds that are difficult to explain to this

day. It sounded vaguely like crying over a hissing sound like the wind, but with a

distant dark quality to it, as if it came from something not quite human. Looking

forward through the unit, I saw a misty hazy undefined shape about the size of a

person at the entrance to one of the rooms on the high end from which the strange

sound seemed to emanate. It continuously shifted in shape and from white to black

from moment to moment. As I approached closer, it's shape was shifting from one of

almost human appearance to something hard to explain, something dark, dank and

evil. As it shifted to this dark horrible thing, the musty smell I sensed earlierturned into a distinct dead, evil smell and a long screeching agonizing cry issued

forth from it. The inside of the old PICU room, on whose brink it was drifting,

was black, but not just black. It was totally absent of anything. There was nothing

there. There was no light, a dark black void, blacker than the darkest night, from

which I knew the misty, shifting, dark nebulous shape had been trying to

desperately escape. As I was being drawn closer, the hissing wind-like sound became

louder and the dark misty shape appeared to be half in and half out of the black

void but was being drawn into the blackness more and more as I approached.

Suddenly, it vanished into the blackness with a whooshing sound as it's high,

piercing, screeching cry became more and more distant. At the same time the black

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void of the room shrunk smaller and smaller as the room became more and more

visible until the blackness was a tiny pinpoint and then vanished, coinciding with

a peal of thunder from the storm. The room and old PICU then returned to normal and

I ran up to West 4 fast as I could, having abandoned my nostalgia for the old unit.

What the black void in the room and the misty dark shape sucked into its blackness

was I cannot guess. Your guess is as good as mine.