Chapter 6
CHAPTER
SIX
“What do you mean, catch a ghost?” Oscar asked. “Are you going to use a Faraday cage?”
Zeek brightened. “We’ve got this device?—”
“Which you’ll have to wait and see,” Adrienne cut in.
“Oh, so we’re doing a big reveal?” Zeek asked. “Just wait you guys—this is going to be sick!”
Adrienne caught his arm and steered him back toward the tent’s opening. “Let’s get going.”
“But we aren’t going to use it tonight, right?” Zeek allowed himself to be pulled along in her wake. “Is it going to be, like, the grand finale?”
Adrienne sighed. “Come outside and we’ll talk about it. Alone.”
She didn’t wait for him to agree, just headed out of the tent. “Okay, we’ll be back soon!” Zeek called over his shoulder. “Bye, Tina, and thanks again!”
Oscar listened to their footsteps recede. Before he could say anything, Chris muttered, “What is wrong with that guy?”
Tina picked at her colorful skirt. “He’s just enthusiastic.”
“That’s one way of putting it.”
“He seems nice,” she mumbled, then hastily turned back to the monitors. Chris gave her a searching look, but she stared at the feeds as if willing a ghost to pop up in them.
The chair grumbled as Oscar shifted his not-inconsiderable weight to face Ethan, who had remained silently absorbed in his book. “What’s this ‘special box’ Zeek was talking about?”
Ethan removed a bookmark from his suit jacket pocket, placed it in his book, then shut it and folded his hands on top. “I’m certain when you were in school, teachers reminded everyone to keep their eyes on their own papers and not their neighbors’. That is the case here as well. Concentrate on your own investigation, Mr. Fox.”
Beside him, Nigel bristled. Oscar wasn’t too happy himself, but he put a restraining hand on Nigel’s arm. “If that’s how it is,” he said, even though he didn’t like Ethan’s evasiveness at all.
“It is, according to Ms. Montague’s wishes.” Ethan rose to his feet. “Speaking of which, I must attend to her supper. Excuse me.”
Once he was gone, Nigel said, “They can’t stop us from asking Zeek and Adrienne questions.”
“No, but they can throw us off site,” Oscar said unhappily. “Let’s forget it for now.” Ethan had been right; whatever Zeeking the Unknown had planned, it didn’t affect their investigation. Except in terms of not being as flashy—but surely Ms. Montague wouldn’t be swayed by something so superficial. “Let’s go to the mess tent and grab some food and a few hours of shut-eye before we head back into the asylum.”
As they left the tent, he glanced back at the colossal building. The westering sun bathed the old stone in golden light, the rotting clock tower an arrow against the pink-tinged sky. Despite its beauty, the asylum felt like a lurking presence, watchful and waiting.
He did turn his back, to head to the other tent. But as he did so, a shiver went up his spine that had nothing to do with the cool spring evening.
During previous investigations, they’d camped in sleeping bags on the floor or in the van, so Nigel was grateful to find cots in the mess tent. They retired after a meal of noodles cooked on a hotplate.
It took him a while to fall asleep. He’d tried to stay up late the night before so he’d be tired enough to pass out around 6 p.m., but his brain hadn’t gotten the memo. He tossed and turned, started to fade into sleep before waking himself up with a violent sneeze that left his sinuses clogged.
When he finally drifted, he was plagued by the uneasy dreams about the asylum, the details of which vanished when he woke to the clatter of cups and the scent of coffee.
He pulled off his sleep mask and found the tent lit up and everyone else milling around, except for Tina, who usually got up early to review any static cam footage. Oscar gave him a smile that warmed his heart and said, “Look who’s awake! I was just getting your coffee.”
Nigel sat up and accepted the cup gratefully. Ms. Montague had brought in an actual coffee maker, which was heavenly compared to the instant they usually made do with in the field. The drainage from his sinuses had left him with a sore throat, which the warm liquid soothed a bit.
“Thanks,” he said. “My allergies are killing me.”
“I thought your breathing sounded pretty raspy while you were sleeping,” Oscar said with a sympathetic wince. “Do you have any meds?”
“Not for allergies.” He’d need his testosterone shot in a couple of days, but that was all he’d thought to bring.
Chris went to Tina’s bag, which sat beside her cot. “Hold on—Tina carries half a pharmacy around with her.”
Zeek had been sitting so quietly Nigel hadn’t even really registered his presence. “Whoa, she really is prepared for anything!” He sounded impressed.
“Should you be going in her bag?” Nigel asked, but Chris flapped a hand in his direction.
“She expects us to get what we need—that’s why she carries it around. Ah!” They pulled out a strip of small red pills and passed them to Nigel. “Decongestants. That’ll fix you up, doc.”
While Nigel popped one of the pills through the foil backing, Zeek said, “So you’re really a doctor of, like, ghosts and stuff?”
He put the pill into his mouth, then chased it with hot coffee. “I have a PhD in parapsychology, yes.”
“That’s so cool. Isn’t that cool, A?”
Adrienne seemed less impressed. She was getting ready to be on camera for the night, peering into a small makeup mirror and applying eyeliner. “Sure.”
Chris glowered in her direction, but she didn’t look around. “Let’s go see if Tina found anything on the cams,” they said after a minute.
Zeek popped up like an excited puppy about to go on a walk. Nigel wasn’t entirely sure they should be sharing anything with the rival team, especially since Zeek and Adrienne were keeping secrets. He glanced at Oscar, who was looking speculatively at Zeek. Maybe he suspected Zeek was putting on an act to get them off guard? Surely this wasn’t his real personality, just a character he put on for the camera.
Either way, no one objected, and Zeek bounded along with them to the command tent. Tina sat hunched over her monitors, their glow bathing her face, an oversized coffee mug shaped like a sheet-covered ghost sitting at her elbow.
“Great mug!” Zeek exclaimed when he spotted it.
Tina’s smile was unusually bright when she turned it on him. “Thanks! I got it from this cute shop online?—”
“Did the cams catch anything?” Chris cut in.
She shot them a look Nigel couldn’t interpret, but said, “Yeah. I’ve just finished going over it.” She turned back to the monitor. Oscar leaned in over one shoulder, and Zeek over the other. “Mostly it was a bunch of nothing—a few moths fluttering around, some other bugs, that’s all. However…” she scrubbed through some of the footage. “Something checked out the PolterPal.”
The thermal cam showed shades of blue and yellow, the yellow representing the fading warmth that had come through the window during the day. A few seconds into the clip, a darker blue mass seemed to coalesce out of nowhere.
“There’s the cold spot,” Tina said. “Then…”
The PolterPal let out its eerie giggle, then shrieked. “That tickles!”
Zeek recoiled. “Holy shit, that thing’s terrifying!”
“I know, right?” Chris said, then looked conflicted about agreeing with Zeek on something.
Honestly, what was wrong with people when it came to dolls? “It’s just a tool,” Nigel said. “No different from an EMF reader or anything else we use.”
The deep blue mass of colder air lingered for another second or so, then dissipated. The PolterPal stopped giggling.
“Looks like we have a good chance of encountering the child ghost, then,” Oscar said, rubbing his hands together. “I’m thinking we use the flashlight method there—kids love touching things.”
Nigel nodded. “Good idea. A shame we didn’t get anything from the other cameras, but this is only the first night.”
Zeek leaned his hip against the edge of Tina’s desk. “So, hey, did you have a cable for that memory card? No problem if you haven’t had a chance to look yet.”
Her smile came back when she looked up at him. “I did! I haven’t tried it yet. I thought you might want to see it first, since you found the camera.”
Tension coiled in Nigel’s belly as Tina hooked up the cable and slotted in the memory card. Had the camera been left by Dr. Lawson’s mysterious prior team? Or had some urban explorer snuck in years ago, then been scared off by security?
“It’s possible the data degraded,” Tina warned. “But the card was in good shape—there wasn’t any corrosion on the contacts…” She peered owlishly through her glasses at the monitor, then grinned. “Okay! It’s still readable!”
“Hell, yeah.” Zeek high-fived her again.
The first image came up, showing a group of four white men standing in front of the asylum. The trees were much smaller, the walls less overgrown. The group were all dressed in black, posed side-by-side, grinning happily for the camera. Judging by the angle of the shadows, the photo was taken just before sundown.
“Who were they?” Zeek wondered aloud.
Tina shook her head and clicked through to the next picture. It showed the dusty entry hall, the paint more intact than it was now. The third photo was of the ornate elevator between the two staircases.
Oscar leaned closer. “What is that?”
A patch of what looked like fog hovered to one side, its shape vaguely human. Nigel pushed up his glasses and peered at it. “It could be a digital artifact, either from the original shot or introduced as the media degraded. As for the shape, our brains are programmed to look for human faces and forms, so without knowing more, I’d hesitate to call it evidence.”
Zeek looked confused. “What do you mean? This is viewing gold! Our fans are going to love dissecting this.”
Nigel pressed his lips together, and Chris glowered. This was what Chris had been warning them about—any association with Zeeking the Unknown could tarnish their reputation as serious investigators.
Oscar pursed his lips thoughtfully but didn’t say anything besides, “Next image.”
Tina obligingly clicked through. The next few only showed the men standing around in various places, holding what looked like EMF readers in their hands. The photographer had clearly been an enthusiastic amateur, rather than a professional of any kind.
“Only two left,” Tina said.
The penultimate image was a close-up of a man’s hand holding an EMF reader. It lit up the darkness around them, meter spiked all the way to the red. The background was cloaked in shadows; the photo could have been taken anywhere in the building.
The final shot was so blurry it could have been from an accidental button click. It showed three men running down a long hall with utilitarian doors—the fourth floor, then, where the camera had been found.
One man’s face was almost in focus. He looked back over his shoulder as he fled, eyes wide in an expression of absolute terror.