Why’d he put up that big hospital if he ain’t going to use it?

Estimated reading time: 9 minutes

Please welcome guest author Elton Camp. Camp is a near lifelong resident of Appalachia. After retirement, he took up a hobby of writing about its people and practices, with the emphasis being on Sand Mountain in northeast Alabama. He has had numerous articles published in magazines and newspapers.

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Nothing like the grim building had ever been seen.  It was 1932 on rural Sand Mountain when construction began in the tiny community of Snead’s Crossroads.  Well off the road and surrounded by a mixture of oak, pine trees and nondescript undergrowth, the edifice could only be glimpsed.  One of the few brick structures in Marshall County, it rose to an impressive four stories.  

All workers were from outside the area.  They lived in tents on the grounds and had nothing to do with local residents.  Smoke and aromas showed meals were cooked on site, to the dismay of Bob’s Eats.  Bob’s hopes of a bonanza of new business from the temporary carpenters went unfulfilled.  The building materials were delivered late at night, announced only by angry shouts and barked orders from a man named Boyd.  In only six months, it stood completed. 

Boyd had shaggy brown hair and a chest length beard, badly in need of a trim.  His skin was dark, not from exposure to the sun like local farmers.  Piercing, blue eyes caused most to divert their gaze, as he seemed to see right through them.  His most noticeable feature was a marked limp that suggested a wooden leg.  “He shore ain’t from these parts,” was a common expression when people speculated about him and what had brought him to such an unlikely location.  It was only when a sign, “Boyd’s Clinic,” appeared that all realized he was a doctor. 

Medical services were sparse in those days, leading to a trickle of patients from the crossroads.  The double front doors opened to a dark hallway with a steep set of stairs at the rear.  The doctor’s office was a small room to the right.  Scantily furnished, it had no examination table or the customary anatomical charts.  

Dr. Boyd worked without a nurse, although he employed a man named Embra White, who lived a few miles away at the Mt. Olive community.  Embra was a farmer, without medical training, and thus assumed to be a mere maintenance worker. 

Dr. Boyd dealt with his few local patients in a perfunctory manner, never suggested follow-up visits, nor did he admit anyone to his clinic.  Anyone with a serious condition he referred to a physician in Albertville, about a dozen miles north. 

“I don’t know why he put up that big hospital if he ain’t going to use it,” said Mrs. Brackins, whom he had sent there for a minor operation. 

“I don’t deliver babies,” was his announcement to expectant mothers who sought his services.  “See one of the granny women.  They’re all you need.” 

Despite his brusque manner, there was no shortage of patients.  Many arrived by train to Albertville and were fetched to the clinic by Embra in the doctor’s enclosed Model A Ford.  Lights in the clinic rooms showed short admissions, entirely women.  “He must treat female problems,” local ladies speculated, using the expression to cover a range of disorders that one dare not name. 

Boyd’s Clinic continued in operation for six years.  When questioned, Embra became unaccustomedly evasive. 

“He helps folks who need him,” was his only reply.  When pressed as to his role, he described himself as a janitor.  “You must keep up the grounds too,” insisted one of his neighbors.  “I seen you in the woods out back with a shovel plenty of times.”  Embra made no reply. 

The night of October 29, 1938, Dr. Boyd tripped on the second story stairs and tumbled to the floor on ground level.  Embra found him there when he arrived for work.  The man died two days later without regaining consciousness.  No relatives emerged to claim the body, so he was placed in an unmarked grave at the south end of his hospital.  Embra returned to farming and met inquiries about the doctor and his employment with a stony silence. 

The closed clinic, likewise unclaimed, progressively suffered the fate common to all abandoned buildings.  Bushes and trees grew.  Fallen limbs littered the yard.  The grass became knee-high.  Daring boys crept close enough to throw rocks and break out window panes.  It became a place of dread, all the more so as passers-by claimed to see bobbing lights and moaning like that of a person in distress.  In 1943, boys who had been “over seas” during the War returned. Jaded by the horrors they had seen, two of them conspired to explore the forbidding hulk.

“We better go at night,” Marvin suggested.  “Somebody might call th’ sheriff down on us if we’re spotted.  Joe, a bit nervously, nodded in agreement. 

Two days later, just before midnight, the two, their courage enhanced with gulps of shine,  approached on horseback to avoid drawing attention to themselves.  It was late summer and various insects and frogs issued their calls in search of mates.  About 50 yards from the clinic, all sounds abruptly ceased.  The explorers could hear only their heavy breathing and the thump of excited pulses in their ears.  Both horses snorted and attempted to rear. 

“Whoa, settle down,” Joe ordered as he struggled to control the young stallion. 

The men decided it wise to lightly hitch the animals and proceed on foot.  They had gone only about 30 feet when frenzied snorts were followed by cracking limbs as the animals broke free and galloped away. 

“Guess that means we walk back,” Marvin said.  “But we came here for a look, so let’s do it.”

Joe fingered his small flashlight and steeled himself to continue.  He was unwilling to have his pal think him a wimp. 

Crumbling, concrete steps led to the porch.  Rotting boards sank ominously as they crossed to the double front door.  The right door, slightly ajar, swung inward with a rasping sound at their touch.  There lay the central hallway, just as Marvin’s mother had described it to him. 

“Maw said the door to the right is doc’s office.”

The flashlight revealed a desk laden with stacks of papers, obscured by a years-long accumulation of dust.  Finding nothing of interest, the duo returned to the hallway and made their way to the steep stairs. 

“Right here is where Maw said he was found.  Knocked out cold and his wood leg unattached.  “Man, what a sight that must have been!” 

Pulling themselves to the third step to avoid the spot they imagined the doctor had lain, the trespassers ascended to the second floor and found a series of doors leading into small rooms.  “Where the patients stayed,” Joe ventured.  Rusted frames of beds and sets of old-fashioned coil springs supported the speculation. 

From one room and then another came cries, loud moans and occasional screams.  A woman’s pleading voice implored, “Doctor, you’ve got to help me!”  Another called out, “I think I’m dying.” 

“What the hell is that?”  The intruders exchanged frightened glances.  “Let’s get out of here!” 

They bolted for the stairway and took it two steps at a time until a ghastly sight brought them to a halt.  Holding the rail and hopping from one step to the next was the figure of a man with a single leg.  “I hear them calling.  I’ve got to go to them.  They need me and nobody else will help.” 

As the figure neared, they pressed themselves against the wall to let it pass.  There was an overwhelming odor like decaying flesh.  It turned toward them as it passed.  The long hair and beard were both matted and tangled. Patches of dark skin adhere in places to the underlying muscles.  The eye sockets contained the collapsed orbs of eyes that had once been blue.  “Leave.  You have no business here!” the apparition hissed.  “Return and you die.  Tell no one what your have seen.” 

The terrified men dashed down the hallway and into the yard.  In their haste and confusion, they turned toward the woods behind the clinic.  Hurrying through the trees, they began to stumble on one and then another of dozens of small depressions in the ground where Embra had been seen digging for some unknown purpose. 

“We’re going the wrong way.  The road is behind us,” Joe shouted. 

Reversing course, they stumbled to the roadway and sprinted the two miles home. Despite the spectral warning, they told their experience to anyone who would listen the next day.  It brought knowing grins from neighbors.

“Them boys had way too much to drink,” Bob said when they repeated the tale to customers in his café. 

The clinic stands to this day, although the roof long ago collapsed.  It has never been used for any purpose.  Was the story true or just the result of alcohol stimulating overactive imaginations?  Decide for yourself.  Have you the courage or foolhardiness to go there and check?    

Postscript:  This is a tale only.  I don’t for one minute believe in “ghosts.”  I know others do and that is their right.  This is a mish mash of true things and total fiction. 

The last time I passed, it was finally being repaired to be used for some purpose.  I never know who might see a story like this so don’t want to do anything to endanger their investment. 

Twice, I’ve written fiction about real places and given specific locations.   The ones living there somehow found the stories.  It scared one of them pretty badly.  

The Embra in the story is one of my uncles and he really did work for the crippled doctor.  He never would discuss anything about it, even decades later.  I believe, but can’t prove, that something unethical and illegal was going on there. 

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