Write a new post in response to today’s one-word prompt.

” So what are we supposed to do now?” Rowan Ready asked his friend Hadley Hanson.

They were sitting against the wall on a broken wooden bench- down the wall from where the operating theatre used to be.

Abandoned Hospital or not, The Van Blomgren  Institution for the Criminaly Insane still smelled slightly antiseptic and when the breeze from the outside whispered down the halls- of which there were many in Van Blomgren you could still smell bleach too.

Hadley said. ” Wait I guess. I don’t know. I’ve never been on one of these things before. Want a cupcake? My wife made them for me. She’s not a bad baker you know.”

Hadley showed the plastic container to Rowan. ” They’ve got black icing.” Rowan said cautiously.

” I think the frosting is cherry flavored. Go on. Take one.”

” Will it turn my teeth black?”

” Nope. Green. Don’t ask me why.”

Rowan took a cake, peeled the wrapper off popped it into his mouth and dropped the wrapper on the floor. Mid-chew he pointed at his mouth, nodded and gave Hadley a ‘thumbs up’.

” So this is what Ghost Hunters do- ” Rowan said after he swallowed Carmilla’s – pretty darn good cupcake-. Not a bad gig. You just show up, take a few pictures yell into a bunch of empty rooms and call it a day.”

” Yep. ”

” I’ll be. Here. Give me another one of those. So what’s up with the Operating Theatre then? Why all the interest in that?”

Hadley leaned over and whispered into his friend’s ear, ” Unnecessary surgery. Lots and lots of unnecessary surgeries.”

” Jesus.”

” Poor bastards. It had been a mercy if they had died, but the Doc and his wife knew their stuff. And on they went.”

All of the sudden the Surgery doors flew open, Rowan and Hadley each took another cupcake and they watched as a youngish man in a tight red t-shirt screamed into the hallway around him, ” Where are you, you bitch? Where are you Carmilla? Poisoning more people like you did to your husband and his friend? The neighbors children?”

‘ She didn’t do that one.” Hadley said to Rowan. She was meaner then a snake but she was no child killer.”

” It’s justice you evil vicious bitch…justice that you ended up in  Doctor Benini’s Operating room getting your brain cut up. Can you hear me?”

Hadley was transfixed, he chewed slowly his eyes were open wide. ” Hell. I could listen to this guy go on all day.”

‘ Really. The Doc cut up her brain?” Rowan asked

” Nah. He cut her head off and tried to sew it back on again. Close though. Hey. She came around for a minute after. So it almost worked”

Hadley stood up looked into the empty plastic container and said, ” Those were good. Let’s go to the kitchen and ask Carmilla to whip us up another batch.”

” Minus the poison would be nice.” Rowan said.

” Doesn’t make any difference to us now does it? Plus, it’ makes her happy you know. Doing what she loved doing before. We all need to remember we had that.”

They walked passed the youngish man in the tight t-shirt, around a woman holding a video camera that didn’t even have a battery in it and around the camera man with the camera that worked who was filming them all.

It was the woman with the dummy camera who asked her fellow Ghost Hunters, ” Can you smell that? I smell cherries.”

” Hey Verna, could you say something like, can you smell that? What is that god awful blah, blah, blah.”

Rowan and Hadley, shrouded in the deeping  darkness of The Van Blomgren  Institution for the Criminaly Insane ,  made their down the hall and to the cafeteria and the smell of freshly baked cupcakes.