A brief and humble one-shot horror movie scene to get some weirdness and fright into your game.

An abandoned hospital wing. PCs trapped with a killer. Ancient evil joins the fray. Hilarity ensues.

Most all of the images and ideas that follow are other people’s. Most were culled from the Kult-L list, and the hospital rooms were described by (PeterAmthor (peteramthor.darkgod.net)) .

Setting: A Hospital/Psychiatric Ward – cracked tile, dripping and rusty water, exposed pipes, flickering fluorescents. Empty wards. It’s underground. Beneath the subways. Accessible by steam tunnels, by sewers, and by long and locked elevator shafts in buildings undisclosed.

Scenes (1-8):

1.Set up
Get the PCs there, introduce them, get them lost.
Hooks:
Ad in paper offering guided tours of NYC’s catacombs by the kind of extreme tour group that bungee jumps off the Brooklyn bridge.
A PC’s little sister ran away to New York and he found out she’s squatting in the basement of a hospital.
Druggie PCs are trying to pull a midnight cowboy.

(If it’s a one shot, bring them down there alone. In the Setup, they meet each other one by one and two by two.)

2. Hospital Beyond Hope
Wandering around the empty halls. Fluttering visions of orderlies disappear round corners. The hallway is a cluttered mess. Medicine and cleaning carts are turned over and their contents scattered about the floor.
Some of the ceiling tiles have fallen and only about half of the lights work, some of them are hanging by the wires and sway giving a sensation of perpetual motion. Other varied debris lays in piles here and there, clothing, a mattress or two, etc. There are doors to rooms all along the hallway some are opened, other closed, some are missing doors altogether.

Description
The Scrawlings:
Stretching along the entire length of the hallway walls on both sides is a intricate design. It first looks like something a child would do, but there is a pattern evident. Looking like a cross between tribal designs used by African natives and Egyptian hieroglyphs it fills the middle section of the wall completely. The media used in one section appears to be crayons, another section looks like dried blood and right beside it is a section done in black marker. This gives you the feeling that it was not all done at the same time.

The Rooms:
The rooms along this area are of varying states of disorder and chaos, some are even in perfect order (these are usually ones with the door closed). Its up to the individual GM to decide how much gore or dark imagery they want to throw in here. Below are a few ideas and suggestions, although some like to heap on the blood and death, others like to give the feeling of the surreal and unknown.

The room is layered in dust and cobwebs. The light from the ceiling is barely showing through enough for anyone to see by. On the bed are the dried remains of the room’s occupant, long white hair and typical hospital gowns give the idea that it was once an older female. Underneath her folded arms is a copy of the Bible and a small cross. The tiles crack underneath the characters feet and every sound seems to create an subtle echo.

The room is completely empty save for a mirror above where the sink used to be. There is no dirt or dust buildup anywhere in the room. Once someone enters the room they can here a faint childlike voice saying “Help me… please.. will someone help me. I’m lost.” The sound is coming from the mirror. In the reflection on the mirror the room is entirely furnished and the person looking into it does not cast an image into it. Standing on the bed is a young dark headed girl clutching a teddy bear and crying. Every now and then she will repeat her message for help. Viewing this is usually a call for an Unnatural, or Self, check. Trying to move the mirror will cause the image to vanish and the mirror will then function normally.
Breaking it causes a loud ear aching noise and the glass shards will turn first a rusty, blooded brown, and then black. However you can still hear the girl calling for help.

Several carts of life support machines and IV units clutter the room, most of them with bloodstains and dysfunctional controls. Amid the heap on a bed is a lone elderly man connected to them all by tubes, wires and hoses. The bed sheets are soaked with crusted blood and bodily fluids. As the characters get closer his eyes will turn and focus on them. He reaches to his mouth with one tired shaking hand, pulling on the tubes connected to it.
He reaches to pull the oxygen mask down from his mouth. When he has it out of his way he speaks in a slow dry tired voice “Please… help me…” His eyes begin to well up tears “Kill me… stop my suffering… please… before they get back…”

The room is brightly lit with everything in pristine order. The bed is made perfectly, the floors are clean, there is absolutely no collection of dust or dirt of any sort. It seems as if the room has been maintained in pristine condition all this time.

All the contents, the bed, chairs, IV racks, everything has been piled into the center of the floor. All along the walls are the same scrawlings seen in the hallway. Again they seem to have been made with whatever was handy. A light draft of cold air can be felt by anyone standing still in here.

The corpse of a blonde boy is strapped, naked, to a steel operating table. Thick white bands cover his ankles, his genitals, his nipples, and his eyes.
There is a… creature standing on his chest, in the process of eating his lips. The boy’s teeth and tongue have already been consumed. When the PCs enter, the creature looks at them, hisses, and darts away into a crack in the wall.
Creature: A squirrel or rat with talons, a lizard’s head, black lusterless eyes, and a long tail.

The Nurse Stations
There are several along this floor. Some have a security station in them with television screens showing various sections of the floor. The only problem is the screens are showing a normally operating hospital floor. Nurses, patients, doctors and visitors all go about normal everyday business. Everything looks like it’s supposed to. The computers at these stations no longer function properly and display a hazy green blur and are of an older model than those found at most modern facilities (think Amiga). Paperwork lies in piles, equipment seems to be moved into corners to keep it out of the way.

3. Cops.
It’s silent in the hospital. Then, finally, voices. Noise. The police are in the cafeteria. They’ve got it cordoned off. If people sneak up, they overhear that the police have an escaped lunatic in the kitchen of the cafeteria.

4. The chase.
At the end of the hallway, the PCs see an orderly crouched over a homeless man who’s sitting with one leg broken. The Orderly runs. The man stands up, his leg twisted around, and begins to cough. His throat swells. A snake slithers out of his mouth and drops to the ground, approaching the PCs. Legs appear, and fur – it becomes one of Those Creatures. The man collapses into a hollow sack of skin. More snakes begin to appear, from the walls and the ceiling. Lots more. All sound is gone – the PCs can’t hear their own heartbeats. If they scream, their voices are mute. The light goes out. I imagine they run. Flashlights are visible from the cafeteria. The PCs enter. They see the kitchen door as the only other exit. The cops are confused. Then the flashlights die and the cops begin to scream. There are sounds of feeding. One cop screams into his radio something garbled, but orders the tunnels flooded. The sounds stop. The kitchen is pitch black. It’s wet and cold with condensed steam.

5. What you’re standing in.
The lights flicker back on. The kitchen is coated in blood. The Police are slaughtered – mangled bits and torn uniforms and equipment are strewn everywhere. When the PCs leave, the way out… isn’t. The hallway keeps going. Turning. The numbers don’t make sense.

6. The big fight scene.
There is a snuffling sound following the PCs. It’s getting louder. It’s a big… thing. Horse Sized. Like a baby elephant with rhino armor, a trunk, too many tusks sticking out every which way, big claws, and a mouth that looks like a shark’s. This time, the PCs get to fight if they want. And, once it’s dead, the numbers begin to make sense.
They’re on the right path.

7. …and your little dog toto, too.
Walking backwards, the boy comes around a corner ahead of the PCs. He turns to look at them. His mouth is sewn shut. He’s speaking with a sock puppet. “It wants your voices.” The boy then shimmers, and explodes – inside the hollow sack of his skin is a nest of snakes. The snakes turn into Those Creatures, and give chase again

8. Aftermath
When the PCs then escape, racing out ahead of the floodwaters, it is to return to a world that’s two days later than the one they left.