Chapter 3
CHAPTER
THREE
This wasn’t at all how Oscar had expected things to play out.
He’d thought it would be like other investigations they’d conducted. Like Cloven Oak Distillery, though hopefully with fewer murderous ghosts. The four of them would go in, do some filming, and try to give the dead the peace they deserved.
Maybe they still could. Just because Montague was keeping an eye on them this time, not to mention silently comparing them to Zeeking the Unknown , didn’t mean it had to be any different.
He’d seen their show a couple of times—he tried to keep up with all the popular urbex and paranormal investigation streams. It was…flashy. A lot of loud voices and yelling.
But Ms. Montague wasn’t a fool, so they must be the genuine article. Maybe there was more in the raw footage that didn’t make it onto the internet. They worked a lot with mirrors, he recalled, though it had been a while since he’d watched and specifics escaped him.
“I’ll stay out of your way and let you work,” Montague went on. “We have a local wifi network set up—Ethan will give you the password. Cellular service is extremely spotty, since there’s no one left in the area to need it, so you can’t rely on being able to backup to…what was it, Ethan?”
“The cloud, ma’am,” Ethan said. He was good-looking in a subdued way, his brown hair neatly trimmed and his suit creases sharp enough to cut. A pair of black-rimmed glasses perched on his nose.
“Yes, that’s it.” She looked them over. “Any questions?”
“So we just go about our usual routine? Separately?” Oscar asked, glancing at Adrienne and Zeek. Adrienne’s arms were folded tightly over her chest, while Zeek wore a vague smile directed at nothing.
“Indeed.” Montague waved a hand at them. “Good luck.”
As soon as she retreated back into the tent, Adrienne marched to the trunk of the sedan. “Zeek, give me a hand. We need to set up.”
“Yeah, okay.” Zeek grinned at them. “See you on the flip side, dudes!”
Tina grabbed Chris’s arm and all but dragged them to the opposite side of the van, out of sight of the other team. Oscar and Nigel followed.
“Spill,” she said, letting go of Chris and turning to face them.
Chris sighed and rubbed their face. “Adrienne and I dated for a couple of semesters in college.”
Oscar kept in a sigh of his own. Ghosts fed off strong emotions; two exes who had clearly not parted on good terms would give them a buffet of anger and old hurt. This was definitely going to complicate things.
Tina tapped her foot. “…And?”
“We were both art majors at UNC-Charlotte.” Chris leaned against the van. “Concentrating on digital media. I wanted to be behind-the-scenes, she wanted…otherwise. She was doing a double major in acting, so it makes sense in retrospect, I guess. Our relationship went from ‘The Adrienne and Chris Show’ to just ‘The Adrienne Show.’ I felt like I was an extra in my own life. I tried to talk it over, she accused me of having no ambition, we had a huge fight, and she stormed out. That was it.”
“And you’ve been hate-watching her show,” Tina guessed.
They winced. “…A little.”
“Chris,” Oscar began, but Chris held up their hand.
“Our past aside, this isn’t good for us. And by us, I mean OtP. We take this stuff seriously—it is serious. They rely on cheap scares and jump cuts. And on Zeek acting like a dumb ass for the camera.” Chris smirked. “Though maybe it isn’t an act.”
Oscar pressed his lips together in disapproval. “He’s been nothing but nice so far.”
“Yeah, okay, sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. My point stands. Just being on site with them at the same time will hurt our credibility if anyone finds out.”
Oscar’s heart sank. Why had Montague put them in this position with no warning? Had she worried one team or the other would pull out if they knew?
He looked toward the brooding hulk of the asylum. His grandmother had suffered in there, but at least death had freed her from its walls. How many other former patients were still trapped inside, so caught in their own pain they couldn’t figure out how to move on? He couldn’t just walk away from that, not if he wanted to live up to Mamaw’s legacy.
“This is my only chance to try and free any ghosts inside,” he said at last. “Ms. Montague might be able to convince the owner to let us inside in exchange for a fee, but I doubt I’ll be able to meet the same price later on. I have to do this.”
“Not to mention Montague holds the purse strings,” Nigel added. “If we leave, I have a feeling they’ll be tied up tight from now on.”
“A good point.” Oscar dropped a kiss on Nigel’s hair. “Chris, if you want to leave, I’ll drive you back to the interstate and find a hotel for you to stay at until we’re done. Tina can do the camera work.”
Both Tina and Chris looked horrified at the prospect. “No offense, but also, no way,” Chris said. “Sorry, Tina.”
“No, I agree,” she said hastily. “I have zero interest in setting foot in a place that looks like the setting for a big-budget horror movie.”
“I’ll stay.” Chris glanced at the asylum. “Like Montague said, it’s a huge building. We’ll be far enough apart not to interfere with each other’s investigations. And when we can’t avoid each other, I’ll be civil. I’m sorry I overreacted earlier.”
Tina put a hand to their arm. “You were caught by surprise.”
Relief went through Oscar—he really hadn’t wanted Tina on the camera. It wasn’t that she couldn’t operate it, but she didn’t have Chris’s flair. “Okay, then. Let’s get started.”
They set up Tina’s workspace in the tent Montague referred to as the command center, on the opposite side from the folding table Adrienne and Zeek had claimed for their own. The other team had far less equipment—did they wait until after an investigation to look through the footage?
Once Tina was ensconced in front of the monitors and making sure everything was hooked into the wifi, Oscar and Chris went to film the intro to the episode. Once no one else was paying attention to him, Nigel took the opportunity to wander back down the driveway while checking his phone for a signal. It took a bit of searching, but eventually he managed to get one bar. With a guilty look back over his shoulder, he placed a call.
“Taylor?” asked Dr. Lawson. “What’s going on?”
“You always assume something is going on.”
“Because lately it has been. Out with it.”
He paused for a moment, choosing his words. Dr. Lawson had history with Ms. Montague, though he was still unsure of the details. Back in the late 1980s, the two women had worked together alongside a medium by the name of Robin.
But something had gone wrong when they were investigating poltergeist activity. Robin died, Montague withdrew her monetary support for the Institute of Parapsychology, and Dr. Lawson…
From the first, she’d warned him against Montague. Which made this doubly hard to tell her now.
When he finished explaining the circumstances, including the surprise competition between the two teams, Lawson let out a stream of expletives he’d never heard from her before, then ended with, “I can’t believe this! No, wait—I believe this is exactly what Patricia would do.”
“I know you’ve never wanted us to work with her?—”
“Because she’s dangerous!” Lawson’s voice went icy with fury. “She always pushes too far. I’d hoped she learned her lesson, but then she’d have to be capable of learning from her mistakes. Which she can’t, because she’ll never admit when she’s made one!”
Nigel ran his hand through his hair. Maybe this call had been his mistake. “I could use some advice. This place is huge, and honestly?—”
“Leave,” she cut him off. “Right now.”
“It’s not that simple?—”
“Like hell it isn’t. Listen to me, Taylor, and listen close. You aren’t the first team to investigate here. They?—”
“Dr. Taylor?” asked a smooth voice from behind him.
He guiltily hung up even as he turned. Ethan stood there, his face solemn, his hands folded neatly in front of him. “Uh, yes?” Nigel asked.
Ethan gave no indication he even realized Nigel had been on the phone, let alone that he’d been talking about their boss. “Ms. Montague wished me to make certain you have everything necessary for the investigation as well as your stay here.”
Damn it—Lawson had been about to tell him something important. “We’re fine,” he said impatiently.
“Very good. If you need anything not already provided, let me know. Though given the remoteness of our location, it may take me a few hours to have it delivered.”
“Uh, thanks.”
Ethan gave him a polite nod, turned, and strolled back in the direction of the tents. Nigel immediately tried to call Lawson back, but the lone bar of signal had vanished.
“How’s it going, welcome to Zeeking the Unknown ! I’m Zeek!”
“And I’m Adrienne!”
“And together we investigate the spookiest places on earth!”
“Remember—we do this so you don’t have to!”
Chris let out a noise of disgust, though quietly enough for only Oscar to hear as they trudged through the long grass surrounding the asylum. Adrienne and Zeek had set up their intro shot at the end of what remained of the driveway, the ominous entryway in frame behind them and the vast wings of the building sprawling off to either side. Rather than wait for them to finish, Oscar thought it might be better to be proactive in front of Ms. Montague, so he’d suggested they find somewhere else to shoot their intro.
The front door was the obvious place. They could be more creative than the other team, right?
Zeek and Adrienne were really loud, though, their voices filling the emptiness in front of the somber building. That was part of the schtick. Their show had a different audience; no need to wonder if he should spice things up a little this time. Some people preferred a more measured approach to ghost hunting.
Still, Zeeking the Unknown had millions of subscribers. OutFoxing the Paranormal …didn’t.
“How about here?” he asked. “In front of the barred window. We can intercut my intro with drone shots of the buildings to show how big it is.”
The drone, dubbed “Flying Bob” by Tina, was one of the new pieces of equipment they’d been able to pick up courtesy of Ms. Montague. It nice to use the newest technology…but they didn’t need it. If the money faucet turned off, they’d be fine.
They hadn’t been fine before. OtP had been bleeding money left and right, on the brink of closing shop before Montague’s cash infusion.
“Sure,” Chris said, sneaking a look at Adrienne and Zeek. Zeek was waving his arms around, emoting wildly, while Adrienne played it cool.
Once he was mic’d up and Chris was rolling, Oscar composed his face into a solemn expression. It wasn’t hard; though his back was to the massive asylum, he could feel it looming behind him.
“Welcome to OutFoxing the Paranormal ,” he said. “I’m Oscar Fox, and today we’re investigating a location that’s a little better known than our usual fare.”
The wind must have shifted, because the faint sound of Zeek’s voice drifted to his ears. “I’d never even heard of this place before! Crazy, huh?”
The mic wouldn’t pick him up, hopefully. And if it did, Tina could just edit Zeek out. “The Howlston Lunatic Asylum sits within the ghost town of Howlston, West Virginia. The closest inhabited town, Weston, is about twenty miles off, down winding mountain roads.”
Was he being too monotone? Did he need to bring the energy up? Maybe they could shoot an alternative opening later.
“Completed in 1864, this monumental building was meant to house up to two-hundred fifty patients at a time. When it was built, this asylum represented the forefront in humane care for the mentally ill. The long, thin wings where the patients were housed were designed to give each inmate access to plenty of light, accompanied by calming views of nature.” He paused for a beat. “Unfortunately, the asylum was plagued by overcrowding almost immediately. At its worst, nearly ten times the patients it was designed for were held within these walls.”
He’d decided from the start to be honest about his personal connection, but it was surprisingly difficult now that the time came. The instinct of hiding his family’s troubles, ingrained by his dad, was a hard one to shake. “My grandmother, Barbara Fox, née Dillon, was one of them. If you saw our special on the Cloven Oak Distillery, you’ll recall she was a medium, like myself.” He swallowed, the words sticking in his throat. “I don’t expect to contact her here, but she’s the reason we’ve come. I want to understand better what she went through within these walls.”
Maybe they could intercut the line with a few frames of him looking wistfully at the building. “And I want to live up to the family legacy, and help any spirits still trapped inside.”
He let the silence hang for a few seconds before nodding at Chris to cut. As he did so, Zeek’s voice intruded again.
“…the damned souls within. Will we join them? Keep watching to find out! In the meantime, smash those like and subscribe buttons!”
“I’d like to smash him,” Chris muttered. “Come on, let’s get away from these clowns.”