"We're going to have to tear out the guts, but we can keep the bones."

"You sure? Nothing inside is good?"

"In a building this old, count yourself lucky the bare bones are still good," Robert explained to well-dressed business man, Daniel.

Daniel's tailored, navy blue suit accentuated his onyx skin perfectly, no doubt costing more than all of Robert's clothes combined. Robert would never admit it, but he always envied those business men walking up and down the sidewalks while he worked away on scaffolding up above.

"I may have gotten a good deal on this place, but it wasn't that good," Daniel muttered as he ran his hand down the decrepit wallpaper.

Daniel had sunk all of his money and then some into buying this old asylum with the hopes of turning it into a hotel. It was supposed to save him money buying a pre-existing building rather than building one from the ground up. But it looks like he bit off more than he could chew. Samara was going to be pissed.

Robert adjusted his blue hardhat while he let Daniel explore the old staff quarters, glaring at everything in sight. He watched as a ripped piece of wallpaper wiggled like a worm in the talons of a bird. It was strange, he didn't feel a draft, but some air must have been sneaking in through an old duct. Robert looked up to scan for the source of the draft, his hardhat slipping in front of his face again.

Dammit Steve, I told you to order the right sized hard hats two weeks ago! Robert inwardly groused as he readjusted his hat again for the tenth time since entering this run down piece of crap.

Whoever told Daniel that this was a wise investment must have had a silver tongue. Daniel would have been better off building a whole new place instead of gutting this one. Oh well, it meant Robert and his crew had steady work for the next four months.

Robert jumped at the sound of wood scrapping along the floor.

"Son of a bitch!" Daniel yelled.

He was jumping up and down, holding his knee.

"You okay?" Robert asked as he rushed over to the swearing man.

Daniel sucked in a breath, "Yeah, just smashed my leg on this old desk."

The further they got into the building, the darker it got so Robert pulled the flashlight from his tool belt. He shone the beam at the desk in question.

"I don't think that's a desk," Robert commented.

It looked like an old hospital bed. There were menacing leather straps hanging from the sides and a full layer of blood-colored rust coating the metal rungs.

"Oh God, do you think I'll need a tetanus shot?" Daniel looked down mortified at the old fashioned asylum equipment.

"Did it cut your skin?"

Daniel kneeled down and examined his knee under Robert's flashlight.

"It just cut my suit, thank God," Daniel sighed, getting up and brushing off the dirt now on his other knee. "I think I've seen enough. How long do you think the gutting and remodeling will take?"

This was the tricky part. You never wanted to promise the client more than you could deliver nor did you want to disappoint them with a lengthy timeframe because they could always just hire the next shmuck who promised them a quick turnaround.

"I'm going be straight with you here, Daniel," Robert choose his words carefully, "this place needs a lot to be up to code. The last thing you want is the city slapping you with a huge fine and shutting the place down because you cut some corners during the remodelling. So I'm going to say four months."

Daniel didn't like the news, but he respected Robert's bluntness.

"Four months." Daniel stuck out his hand which Robert shook in a firm grasp. "Now I'm going to leave you to it."

"You going to be able to find your way out?" Robert asked. They had made more than a few twists and turns to get to where they were currently standing.

"I have a keen sense of direction," Daniel said, adjusting his lapels.

"Alright. All that's left to survey is the basement so I'll give you a call on Monday with our complete initial assessment."

With that, Daniel took off towards the exit his smartphone already at his ear. Robert pulled out the folded blueprints they had dug up in the library from his belt and tracked down the entrance to the basement.

The floor creaked under his steal toed boots as he carried on down the dark and musty hallway. His flashlight beam bounced as he walked, shining a spotlight on random intervals as he marched. Robert did a double take when the light illuminated a face. When he aimed the flashlight where he thought he saw the malformed face, it just showed dirty wallpaper smeared with mud.

The image of red, slit eyes seared into his brain. Robert shook his head and continued on. He chastised himself for acting like a kid after watching a horror movie.

He got to the end of the hallway, still feeling uneasy. Out of the corner of his eye, it seemed like something under the wallpaper had been moving along with him, like a shark just below the ocean surface. But every time he spun to catch it in the act, it would end up just being flat drywall.

If only my daughter could see me now, Robert forced out a chuckle. The sound fell flat as soon as it left his lips. There was no echo in the abandoned asylum, adding to the eeriness. Ignoring his screaming instincts, Robert opened the basement door, the hinges squealing in protest.

According to the information his team had dug up on the place, it had been abandoned for almost fifty years after a fire had devoured the east wing. There were rumors that the owner, Dr. Shiffield, had started the fire himself after the asylum began to lose money once the government set up public mental health facilities. The insurance payout had got him out of debt and given him a nice little retirement fund while the remaining residents were turned onto the street, releasing Alberta's worst serial killer in the province's history. Locals said that Mark Carrington used the abandoned asylum as a torture chamber for his twenty-three victims, often using the ancient equipment to electrocute and flay skin from bone.

Alright, so maybe reading those gossip rag newspapers before taking this job wasn't such a good idea, Robert admitted to himself. Mark Carrington was long dead, having died in a police shootout forty years ago. This place had been boarded up ever since, with the occasional group of teens breaking in on Halloween for a cheap scare.

Robert stared down the descending staircase like it was the road to hell itself. He took a deep breath to steady his usually steel nerves. His heavy footfalls bounced off of the walls in the narrow staircase, making each step louder than it should have been. Robert tried to listen for the sound of wood rot, but it was proving impossible in the small space.

He made it to the bottom without falling through, so he took that as a good sign of the stability of the old stairs. The temperature had dropped significantly, to the point where Robert could almost see his breath. At least the basement would make a good cold storage space for food.

Robert pointed the light in front of him revealing another long hallway with shortened ceilings. Odd, considering there had to be more than enough room between the main floor and the basement to leave room for normal height ceilings.

Please don't be a giant vent system, Robert prayed. Older buildings tended to have them and it made remodeling a bitch. He sighed and followed the corridor hoping to find a boiler room to assess the water situation.

Robert almost screamed- a manly scream of course - when a low growling noise crackled from the walkie on his belt. Irritated, Robert ripped it from the holster and placed it to his lips, holding down the talk button.

"Someone's got their ass on the talk button again."

Once Robert released the button, the crackling like bad TV reception started again.

"Gary, Dale, can anyone hear me?" Robert tried again.

This time his only answer was a low growling noise amongst the static.

Why the hell did I hire this crackpot team again? Robert wondered as he switched off the walkie.

Choosing to ignore the creepy interruption, he kept going until he came across a door labeled employees only. Inside were the multiple antique water heaters that used to heat the water for the entire building. The temperature had started to rise once Robert entered the room, the previous chill replaced with a dry heat. The vents and pipes rattled, coming to life even though the power had long since stopped.

Robert swallowed, his mouth drier than if it had been stuffed with cotton. He took a few steps backwards towards the door. His hand almost reached the knob as his hands fumbled behind him, but it was swung close by some unseen entity. He turned and started to slam and pound on the door, the handle not twisting properly.

Growling erupted from the other side of the door. Immediately Robert stopped his banging and wandered further into the boiler room away from the door.

It's all in your head Robert, stop it! He yelled at himself. You probably knocked the door closed.

It was then Robert noticed the low light being emitted from further into the room. He followed the harsh, red glow revealing a stone and metal contraption towards the back. The light was coming from behind the panel at the front, a long metal slab leading up to it. He had only seen one in his lifetime, the one at the morgue where he had to say goodbye to his father to be cremated.

This was a high heat oven used to cremate bodies. Why would the asylum have one? Didn't they have to send off the bodies to morgues? Robert wondered. As if the oven could hear his thoughts, it roared to life, flames sneaking out from behind the panel. His pulse spiked as the growling sound started right behind him this time. Hesitantly he turned around. Shadows danced all around him, but no concrete figures. The growling intensified and he took a big step backwards, the back of his legs hitting the metal slab laid out before him like an alter ready for its sacrifice.

A force more powerful than a tackle from one of his Sunday night football league cohorts sent him flying backwards onto the cold, metallic slab. The sensation of touching his skin to a frozen bag of peas ran up his arms to the base of his skull. His hardhat fell to the ground, the cheap plastic cracking upon impact.

He tried to get up, but something was keeping him down, keeping his body deathly still no matter how hard he struggled.

"Help!" Robert screamed, even though he knew full well his hired team was panning out the second and third floor as he screamed. They would never hear him.

He was spread out on the slab, his feet pointed directly towards the heated panel. Robert tried to rock from side to side hoping to slip off. Whatever unseen force that was holding him down would not have it. A louder growl sounded right beside his ear. He strained his eyes, trying to spot the source.

"Whatever you are, let me go," Robert tried to bargain. "I haven't done anything."

"No... one... is... innocent...," a grainy voice rasped.

A chill ran up Robert's spine. The voice had come from thin air, not a mouth. The panel shot open revealing a lake of flames behind it. Robert's eyes widened as he renewed his struggles.

"Help!"

An invisible set of hands started to push the slab into the fire. Robert's screams reached an unholy level as fire consumed him piece by piece. The fiery beast ate Robert up like a hungry dog.

He had found the road to hell in the end.