Moulsford Asylum

An expansive, Gothic style building erected in rural Massachusetts, near Steep Hill Beach and Plum Island Sound. It's surrounded by sweeping fields with nothing but long grasses, before giving way to acres of forest, cliffs and ocean. The structure and landscape itself emanate horrid feelings of isolation that cannot be disregarded.

Between two towering angel statues, with their age-cracked stone faces looking mournfully down upon the forsaken, are the stairs leading to the awaiting fate. They’re steep, the bleached ashy white concrete jutting into a sharp edge that looked like it would scrape up a knee dreadfully, if one were to slip. Long, untamed grasses lapped at the sides of the staircase and waved in the light winds while barren bramble bushes scratched against the walls of the building. Landscaping did not seem to be a major concern, but it doesn’t feel like that matters out here anyways. The overgrown dandelions and dried grass is fitting. Forgotten, like the rest.

At the top of the vertiginous steps is the door. A looming, red door that held a dark, fogged glass window with the word ‘Moulsford’ printed neatly across it. Its ominous, a Gateway to Limbo, stuck somewhere between the land of the living and the world of the dead.

Through the door.


The Foyer is often mildly bustling with guards and nurses escorting patients to and fro across the open space, or up and down the spiral staircase centered in the room. Staff members stop here and there to chat with each other over charts or schedules, patients wander aimlessly and stare blankly. Three other doors, all push-handles with little locks that are rarely used, constantly swing open and closed with foot traffic. The tall walls are brazenly covered in framed front pages, certificates and awards. It smells of Lysol, cigarettes and faint wafts of someone’s fresh cup of black coffee in here.

A large, oak desk housed the Reception Station, and a young blonde woman with horn rimmed glasses. The telephones pressed to her ear with a shoulder while she scribbled notes onto a pad, and popped pink chewing gum bubbles nonchalantly. She felt more like a candy striper than a registered nurse, someone here to earn school credits and little else. The tag pinned to her breast read, ‘Barbara J.’ She has little interest.

That spiraling staircase so prominently projected in the middle of the Foyer led to the Patient Wards, a labyrinth of narrow hallways lined by parallel doors, each looking just like the last. The majority of the dinky, cell-like rooms held nothing but two twin sized beds, a small dresser with two drawers, and one barred up window with dust stained glass in between. Solitary Confinement rooms were smaller and furnished with only a mattress to rest on.

The common room is provided for the recreation of patients; offering board games, TV, books, a jukebox and socializing. There is a co-ed room for bathing and hydrotherapy, checkered with bathtubs and a few shower stalls. A sound insulated lower level houses the lab, and no one is truly sure just how deep or far those tunnels run.

There is an area behind the building lined by a 15 foot tall prison-style fence with curls of barbs along the top, that is the patient's Yard. It is filled with dry and crunchy, mowed grass, weathered wooden benches and pathetic, wilting and feeble excuses for flower beds.

The hallways are often littered with patients, shambling and shuffling around aimlessly. It's common to see patients who looked utterly lost, or completely out of it - nearly catatonic. Coming across Nurses or Guards who are paddling or manhandling patients in some form or another is a daily occurance. Catching sight of restraint marks, bruises or welts from lashings on a patient's body is normal.

Mice can sometimes be spotted scurrying around in the cracks and shadows, or cockroaches fleeing away from the light in some rooms or hallways. Happening upon random messes of blood, vomit or other such unsightly substances that haven’t been cleaned up yet is also very common here.

Chilly drafts leak through the hallways and patient cells, carrying the scent of AJAX Cleanser, Bleach, or faint notes of urine. The Bath Room smells mildly of mildew, and of copper. Certain areas of Moulsford, like the Infirmary, Lab, Doctor's Offices, or sometimes random patient cells, have that distinguishable, metallic blood odor that can grow so strong it's gag inducing, at times. The harsh tang of disinfectants, cleansing alcohols and burnt hair from electroshock also plague these same areas.

Occasionally, one can be smacked in the face by the random perfume of vomit, feces or general sickness, from seemingly nowhere. The fragrances that waft from the Kitchen are one of the very few pleasant smells, if that, hanging in the air within these walls; stew, fresh baked bread or oatmeal. Stale cigarette stench hangs in the air most everywhere. And depending on the last bathing procedure, the Common Room can grow rather ripe with body odors when it's being used.

The howling of the harsh wind whipping on the other side of the brick laced walls nearly drowns out the terrible sounds of sickly coughing and dreary moaning, nearly.

It's routine to hear pitiful wailing echoing down the hallways, deranged laughter, horrific screams or incoherent rambling and raving. It is seldom close to quiet within the walls of Moulsford, and when it is, it's worse than any of the sounds that may be heard.

During the night's lull, noises like scratching on stone - whether that be from human nails or creature, whispering and muffled sobbing seep through the walls. A voice from beneath the small drainage grates in the cells can sometimes be heard feebly murmuring or calling your name in urgent, hushed tones. Things that go bump in the night are to be counted on like the setting of the sun, each and every day, like clockwork.

A strangely common occurrence here is the sound of footsteps, coughing, screaming, singing or doors closing with no fathomable source in sight.

The food is either bland, or too salty. The water tastes like chlorine and is often foggy in color. The prefered treatment / sedation method of choice, Thorazine pills, taste chalky and sour.

A locked, narrow door divides a common hallway from one of many ‘Staff Only’ labeled passages. This one, though, leads somewhere the others do not. Through this Staff Only door, a lengthy extension of hallway stretches out, lined by nothing but beige carpet tile and buzzing fluorescent lights. At the far end of this passage, another narrow door lay in wait. BOILER ROOM is stamped across this door, in bold red lettering. Inside the Boiler Room is mostly to be expected; some machinery, some water and gas tanks, a utility sink, the obvious boiler and a grate covering a large cement pit in the floor.

A locked, narrow door is positioned just behind a large water tank. This door does not have the helpful label to introduce itself to the guest, nor does it have a handle like the rest.The only detail protruding from the smooth, grey surface was a deadbolt lock, eagerly awaiting its key.

Beyond this door, a set of stairs waits to carry its company to the depths of hell. Beyond this door, the true Mad House sprawls. Beyond this door, the lights grow fainter and fainter, dimmer and dimmer. Beyond this door, the hallways grow longer and longer. The further from this door one goes, the more twists and turns seem to be birthed. Hallways lined with doors, some locked, some not. Doors that lead to rooms of doors, rooms that lead to other rooms inaccessible from a hallway. Doors that lead to stairwells that go to nowhere.


“It’s a cult!” Hollered the elderly patient, shaking his fists. “It’s those high-classers, those high society, nose-in-the-air types! They’re paying off the church for our blood, for our suffering down there! They’ve got sacrificial alters set up, to bleed our souls of the suffering that they don’t feel!”

“I heard, they’re makin’ smut tapes down there, usin’ the patients... dope ‘em up with opium and go wild on film,” the brunette nurse whispered to her blonde friend as they puffed on their cigarettes beside the building, then coughed dryly.

“No shitting! I saw it, man! All nasty and twisted and crawling, I’m telling you. They’re making monsters down there!” The young, freckled orderly urged his friend, but couldn’t fight the infectious smile as his buddy laughed. “You really think those fancy pants doctors are experimenting down there?” His buddy questioned skeptically. The freckled orderly shrugged off the conversation, and got back to work.