X: In Which Ronaldo Does Some Research

Ron sighed and closed the book, adding it to the stack already towering precariously on the end table.  Nothing matched.  Eye symbols were ridiculously common;  religions, secret societies, sigils; everybody used eyes, but this one had that weird slant for a pupil and the strange flare at the corner.  Pretty identifiable if he ran across it, but nothing was coming up.

To give his mind a break more than any hope of success, he opened Google and started an image search for stylized eye symbols.  He let his mind wander as he scrolled through an infinite stream of Eyes of Horus, All-Seeing Illuminati Eyes, Cleopatra eye makeup, and more.  He absently traced a rune for uncanny luck in the ash of his incense with the third finger of his left hand while he scrolled.  

Just as he was about to return to his books, he saw it.  The same symbol with its slant and flare was in a picture of graffiti on a wall.  Excited, he pulled up the page.  It was somebody’s Urbex blog, documenting their urban explorations.  The picture was part of a series of photos taken at the old Kanetown State Mental Institution, of all places.  That was right outside of town.  This town.  Ron knew the place, most people in the area did.  After it was shut down in the Eighties, it sat abandoned for years until some developers bought the land and started converting it, piece by piece.  Part of it was now a retirement home for veterans run by the VA, there was a residential neighborhood on the south side; but most of it was an industrial park full of factories and warehouses.  The only parts of the original ‘hospital’ still standing were a few of the old dormitories and the surgical wing where they did lobotomies, shock therapy and other draconian procedures.

And the tunnels.

When the place was functional, the buildings had all been connected by underground tunnels for easy passage between them, especially during inclement weather, or to prevent escape by the patients during transport.  Among the circles in town who talked about such things the tunnels were said to have been sealed off, collapsed, flooded, or even just urban legend.  Others claimed to have been there, since the place was a popular urban exploration destination for local teens.

Ron checked the date on the blog entry.  Posted four years ago.  That was quite a while before Steve had started getting his ‘gifts’ from the bird he called Jake, and who knows how long the graffiti had been there before the pic was taken.  The eye was in a prominent spot above an archway and, though there was no overlap, other graffiti on the wall was arranged as if it had been done after the eye had taken up the prime space.  One, a declaration of love between ‘Jen’ and ‘Dmitri’ done in what appeared to be black Sharpie, was dated five and a half years ago.

The blog claimed the picture was taken in an underground surgical theatre beneath the surgical wing.  They had accessed the theatre by way of a tunnel leading from a gurney ramp in the basement of one of the dormitories.  Strangely, one of the pictures showed that the entry doors had been welded shut, but the hinge pins on the old iron doors had been removed and the whole doors had been lifted out and propped against a nearby wall as if they didn’t weigh several hundred pounds.  They were still welded together.

The blog entry itself wasn’t very helpful, just an account of how their team had gotten in and where the pictures were taken.  Ron skimmed the other entries, finding more of the same, taken at sites all over the midwest.  The blog owner’s main page listed nothing about the group, other than the handle ‘mid west urbex’; not even a group bio or mission statement.  The posts were pretty regular, with about one a month up until two years ago when they suddenly stopped.  There didn’t seem to be any user activity after that at all.  The last entry was just like all of the others, except for one glaring omission.  There were no photos.  The entire entry consisted of descriptions of photos, but no actual pictures to match.  It was supposedly an abandoned shopping mall in small town Indiana, with the last caption ominously reading:  “We didn’t even notice the creepy mannequin in the Radio Shack window until I was uploading these.”

It was a dead end.  Even if the blogger could be tracked down, there was almost no chance they knew anything about the eye symbol or any of the other graffiti; they were just kids that liked exploring old buildings and taking photos.

Ron went back to the photo.  He knew that the placement of the graffiti might just be a prime spot for tagging, but, to him it looked more like a protective symbol placed over a door, to ward off evil spirits; or a keystone symbol, designating the purpose of the door or room.  Perhaps it was a mystical ‘keep out’ sign with a surveillance alarm style warding.

Doors and Eyes!

Both of them were much too universally used for him to figure out what the exact intent was here.  This is why he’d always hated reading or watching fiction.  In fiction, someone would mention right now that French Monks in the Twelfth Century put Eye Symbols above Doorways to Libraries where Secret Religious Texts were kept.  And Bob’s your uncle, that’s what it would be.  In reality, there were a million reasons why an eye would be inscribed over a door.

Maybe the best way to get answers would be to go there and investigate; see it for himself and feel the energies of the place.  Would any of the new group want to go with?

* * * * * *

“Not on your f*****g life.”  Steve said.

“C’mon, man, I’ll work for you on Tuesday.”  Carolyn pleaded.

“Nope, there is nothing you can say that would get me to close on Friday, then be back here at five a.m. on Saturday.”

“But I already have concert tickets and…”

“And save it for someone who’s gonna care.  I’m out.”  Steve swiped his ID card on the time clock, flipped it up between his first two fingers and used it to fire off a salute before walking out.  He slipped the swipe card into his pocket and took out his keys.  The sun glinted off of them briefly, drawing his attention to the mark on the glove box key again.  ‘Quan had a girlfriend a couple of months back who always had her nails did.  Maybe she had left some nail polish remover at the apartment that he could use to get the Sharpie off.

He put it out of his mind, started up the car, turned up the Twenty-one Pilots song just starting to play on the radio, and edged his car around the black cargo van with tinted windows that was parked too close to the parking lot entrance.  F**k.  Was everybody an inconsiderate a*****e today?