A dark caption.

It is never a good idea to leave a tour group, especially if the place in question is a large old hospital with a very dark past.

Like many people before her, she had come here to learn about this place's past, both real and embellished. About the strange treatments they offered. About the mistreatment of patients staff. About the sordid history that led to this place's closure over fifty years ago.

But, most people didn't come for the real history, despite the fact that several books could (and had been) written about that very subject. No, for some reason the real life stuff was not enough and people felt the need to make things up.

Like any place of this sort, rumors of hauntings abounded. Tales of dead patients, vengeful doctors, a screaming, faceless nurse, and disembodied voices crying into the void were common enough (and made great commentary on the tour). Even within those tales were another set of tales, tales of medical experimentation. It was mostly types of drugs but rumors of worse, of unauthorized surgeries, of funding for things that fit squarely in the realm of mad science.

Every so often on these tours someone gets the bright idea to wander away, to see if they can see a ghost or find a hidden room or something of that sort. The vast majority of the time they find nothing and rejoin the tour. Most of the rest of the time they get lost, get found, and get kicked out for violating the rules.

Then there are times like this. Most of the staff who did these tours had no idea that this place had a third level to their basement, a dark, secret area whose two entrances are not even on the grounds themselves. Even the stairwell that led to the second basement level were hidden well and it was only the most brave or foolish who would venture down to such a place to find this secret.

She, he thought as he walked toward her car to drive it away, was one such fool. That move, just the very act of realizing that bookcase wasn't just a bookcase, that was enough to do her in. Good thing they had been working on their latest experiment and needed some subjects and her body would fit the bill nicely.

He didn't worry about being seen, as the tour would be deep within the building at this point and the parking lot was isolated enough to not have to worry about onlookers. Besides, he thought with a smile, someone seeing a man walking around the grounds with his head on a woman's body would be just another story in a place like this!