The caretaker unlocked the old ornate iron gate as I'd requested.
I thought this place was genuinely creepy, but then you see all sorts of strange places when you're a location scout for reality TV shows. I take a photograph of the large front entrance door standing partially open. The door moves smoothly on its hinges, but spider webs and dust indicate it's been a while since anyone's used it.
There's scattered, broken and overturned furniture in a relatively large entrance room and what looks like an old reception area. Two sets of double swinging doors mark hallways, one on each side of reception. There's also a third door with a broken stairs sign mounted above. Sunlight is coming in through large windows in this room, but the hallways are dark tunnels leading back into the main building.
I hesitate, growing the courage to explore further, overcoming the uneasy feeling this place gives me. Putting on my headlamp, I start down a hallway. There are evenly spaced doors on each side leading into rooms, each containing a single dusty bed. About halfway down the hallway is a large common bathroom with multiple toilets and showers with no dividers. There are no windows in this part of the building, and the darkness is absolute.
Working deeper down the hall, I pause outside a large doorway, peering into a treatment room with a hard-mounted metal examination table, a metal chair and an electrical panel with gauges on the far wall. My professional ego told me to get good photos of this room while my gut urges me to flee. I stay, I need the money.
Stepping into the room, I trip over something unseen and fall forward while, at the same time, something rips my headlamp off my head. I'm dazed as I hit the floor hard, and I heard my camera and equipment bag skittering across the floor. Wherever my headlamp is, it's no longer shining. I see nothing but blackness.
I do a quick mental inventory for possible injuries and find none, so I attempted to set up. I can't. I can feel the hard floor and all my aches in various parts of my body, but I can't move at all. I try to scream, but that too fails.
A thin grey fog rises through the floor, and I don't understand why it's visible in total darkness? There's a coolness when it surrounds and touches me, and I sense the pressure of the floor becoming less until I can't feel it at all. I rotate until I'm facing upward as the grey fog forms and swirls beneath me. Soon there is a smooth coldness beneath my head, back and legs, which can only be the metal table.
From the corner of my eye, I see the fog has become denser, adopting a recognizable form. It's a person, a spirit, or perhaps a demon in the form of a woman, a nude woman. She's standing beside the table and seems solid, not an illusion. Her appearance puts her in her thirties or early forties, although it's hard to tell as she is still the grey color of the fog. She is shapely, but her body gives the impression she's had a hard life. Her hair is medium length and unkempt, there are noticeable shaven spots at her temples, and her eyes have a somewhat less than human look.