Chapter 8
CHAPTER
EIGHT
Oscar took a deep breath as they entered the asylum for the second time. Grounding was one of the basics of mediumship, both to have a clear mind to receive what the ghosts wanted to share with him, and also to keep his emotions level to avoid giving the spirits too much strength.
Ghosts fed on the ambient energy generated by the living, but strong emotions worked like an all-you-can-eat buffet. Any would do, but negative entities preferred fear.
Without the light of the sun to filter through the windows, the entryway was black as pitch. Their headlamps played over the peeling wallpaper and empty doorways, making shadows jump and swing.
“Yuck,” said Chris, pointing their shoulder cam at the wall. A large splotch of mold discolored the exposed plaster near the entrance to the superintendent’s office. “I didn’t notice that before. No wonder Nigel is sneezing.”
The elevator lurked at the end of the wide hall, festooned with cobwebs that seemed to shift in the beams from their lights. From the right-hand stairway came the faint sound of voices as Zeek and Adrienne climbed to the north wing’s fourth floor.
Through the double doors on the left, the women’s ward lay quiet before them. Chris paused to swap out the batteries on the static cam, even though nothing of interest had shown up on it yet.
That could be about to change. Oscar stopped in front of the laundry chute. “I’d like to try a spirit box session here.”
Nigel adjusted his glasses. “Are you sensing anything?”
“Not at the moment.” Oscar shrugged. “We might not get anything, tonight at least, but it’s worth a try.”
Chris took up position for the shot, and Nigel stepped back so as not to be in it. Oscar took the spirit box off his belt and held it up for the camera.
“Our subscribers already know this, but for anyone new here, this is a spirit box. It switches rapidly between radio frequencies. Normally, we should just hear static punctuated by the occasional word fragment if it happens to hit the frequency of an actual station.” Which didn’t seem likely, given the remoteness of the asylum, not to mention the surrounding mountains which would block most signals. “Spirits can manipulate the frequencies to form words. So if we hear more than one or two words in a row, it should be from them.”
That was the theory anyway, and it had worked before. Oscar switched the device on, wincing as a loud burst of static filled the air.
“Is anyone here with us?” he asked, then paused to give any spirits time to answer.
Nothing but static.
He took a deep breath. Was he sensing something?
No. Maybe the spirits here were more shy than the ones they’d encountered before. If they’d died here in fear and pain, tormented by their own minds, locked in that horrible Utica crib or something similar…well, in their place, he wouldn’t be particularly eager to approach strangers either.
That, or there was nothing to sense. Or, worse, he just wasn’t good enough to sense it.
He tried to push the thought aside. “My name’s Oscar,” he said. “We just want to talk to you. I’d like to hear your story, if you’ll tell us.”
Sometimes that alone was enough to release a ghost to the afterlife. But again, the only reply was static.
He frowned. Maybe he was using the wrong tool. Letting the spirit box run, just in case any ghosts changed their minds, he said, “Earlier, you made a sound in the laundry chute. Can you do that again?”
Another pause. Nothing again.
Oscar switched off the box. “I don’t think?—”
A knock sounded from inside the chute.
Nigel jumped at the knock echoing up the metal sides of the chute. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up, and he glanced over his shoulder, irrationally certain something was sneaking up behind them.
Oscar cleared his throat. “Okay, thank you,” he said in the direction of the chute. “Can you tap twice to let us know you’re there, and it wasn’t just the building settling?”
Knock. Knock.
Nigel glanced at Oscar, whose face had lit up with excitement. Chris kept the camera steady, their expression one of concentration.
“Thank you.” Oscar sobered. “Can we do one knock for ‘no’ and two for ‘yes’?”
Knock. Knock.
The air seemed to grow colder. Nigel pulled out his EMF reader, which included a temperature gauge.
“Fifty-five degrees Fahrenheit,” he read out. Chris swung the camera in his direction. “Fifty-three. Fifty.”
“Remind our viewers what that means,” Oscar urged.
Right—he still wasn’t used to performing for a camera. “Incorporeal personal agencies—that is, ghosts—can draw on the ambient energy in the air, creating cold spots. At the moment, this one is likely doing so in order to gather the strength to communicate with us.”
“They want to talk, whoever they are,” Oscar said, and the camera refocused on him, much to Nigel’s relief. “Were you a patient here?” he asked in the direction of the chute.
Knock. Knock.
“I’m sorry for your suffering. Did being here help you at all?”
KNOCK.
The bang was so loud they all jumped this time. “I’d say that’s an emphatic no,” Nigel muttered.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Oscar told the spirit. “We’d like to help you if we can.”
Nigel lifted his hand, signaling Oscar he had a question. When Oscar nodded, he asked, “Can you tell us what year you were brought here? Tap out the numbers if you can.”
If they could find records, they might be able to identify the spirit, which could help them bring it the closure it needed to move on. Of course, given how many people had died in these walls over the years, it might not be much of a clue.
Knock.
“That’s one or no,” Oscar said.
Knock. Knock. Knock. Knock. Knock. Knock. Knock. Knock. Knock.
Nigel felt a surge of excitement. It had worked; they were getting what was undeniably an intelligent response. “Nine.”
Knock. Knock. Knock.
“Three.” Oscar met his gaze. “1930-something. What’s the last?—”
Farther down the ward, a door slammed shut with a loud bang.
Oscar’s heart raced as he directed the beam of his head cam toward the noise. The others swung theirs as well, and there came a moment of conflicting shadows—movement or the illusion of movement, he couldn’t tell.
The air felt suddenly heavier. Hostile.
“That was the door to the stairs,” Nigel said. “I don’t feel a breeze or anything that might have pushed it closed, but this is a drafty building.”
Oscar shook his head. The sense of hostility was fading, but still there. “Something doesn’t want us asking questions,” he said. “There’s a second presence here. Stronger than the one we’ve been talking to.”
“Do we need to get out the salt?”
Salt was an ancient ward against ghosts, although, according to Nigel, no one really understood how it worked. “Not yet. It’s fading.”
After a long moment, the sense of an outside pressure against his mind eased, then disappeared. “And it’s gone.”
Nigel seemed reluctant to move his flashlight from the shadowy stairway door. “What does our friend in the chute think?”
A good question. Oscar turned his attention back to the metal hatch. “Do you know who that was?”
No reply.
“Do you like them?” Nothing. “Are you afraid of them?”
His only answer was silence.
Nigel fished out the travel packet of tissue he’d stuck in his pocket earlier and discreetly blew his nose as they approached the door to the stairway. Something had come through here—more, it had slammed the door in order to get their attention.
Had it frightened off the laundry chute ghost? Or had that spirit already expended what little energy it had in talking to them, and couldn’t have continued to answer anyway?
This was the problem with his chosen field of study: There were too many damn variables and almost no way to control them. As for direct measurements, temperature fluctuations and EMF readers were among the only tools they had, at least currently.
“Let’s be cautious on the steps,” Oscar said as they started up. “The spirit I sensed didn’t like us, and ghosts have been known to push people down stairs.”
“Do you think that’s what happened to the earlier team?” Chris asked, alarmed. “The guy Lawson said fell to his death? Should we warn Adrienne and Zeek?”
The walkie-talkies on their belts screeched. “Zeek left me his two-way radio in case I needed to call him and Adrienne,” Tina said. Nigel had forgotten she monitored everything over the remote feed. “I can let him know.”
“Thanks, Tina.” Chris seemed to relax slightly. Were they still carrying a torch for Adrienne, or just worried about someone they’d once cared for?
Their boots echoed eerily off the stairs, the metal cage rattling any time they brushed against it. When, they reached the children’s ward on the second floor, the PolterPal still sat where they’d left it on the floor of the common room/class room. Nigel had to admit, it did look somewhat unsettling in the beams of their flashlight.
“Let’s sit on the floor near the PolterPal,” Oscar suggested. “If we’re dealing with kids, we don’t want to be looming over them.”
Nigel lowered himself down a few feet from the doll. The floor was gritty from a mixture of flaking paint, dust, and god-knew-what else. Oscar did the same on the opposite side of the doll. Chris circled them slowly, filming all the while.
“We hear there’s a child here,” Oscar called. “Do you like to play?”
“Do you sense anyone?” Nigel asked him softly.
Oscar hesitated, then nodded. “I think so. They’re hiding, or shy, or just doesn’t want to come closer. At least not yet.” He looked around, then leaned over and snagged a dust-covered toy truck.
“Are these your toys?” he asked. “Can you move one and show me how to play?” He pushed it back and forth on the scarred wooden floor, as if demonstrating how to move it, then let it go.
The truck sat motionless.
“We brought something new for you to play with,” Oscar went on, undeterred. “This doll right here. You played with her earlier. Can you do that again, while we’re here?”
The PolterPal stared ahead with lifeless eyes, silent.
Oscar let out a sigh of frustration. “Let’s try the flashlight.”
The flashlight was a simple Maglite that twisted on and off. When set to the point just between on and off, it took only a small tap to change between states. Oscar stood up and put it on the common room windowsill, between the bars, then sat back down.
“Can anyone turn on that flashlight for me?” he asked. “Just tap it and it should come on.”
Once again, the ghost or ghosts refused to respond. After trying several more times, Oscar shook his head. “They don’t want to come any closer while we’re here. Let’s move on to the third floor.”
“Thank god.” Chris glared at the PolterPal.
Nigel let Oscar pull him to his feet. As usual, the strength in Oscar’s arms sent a flush of warmth through him. He’d never imagined himself the type to fall for a jock—though of course, Oscar was much more than that. But there was something sexy about a man who could easily lift him off his feet and pin him to a wall.
…And it was definitely not the time for those sorts of thoughts. Nigel schooled his expression, reminding himself that this was all being filmed. He could climb his boyfriend like a tree later, when they were back in the apartment they shared in Durham.
The air seemed to get colder as they went up. Then again, the hours since sunset were slipping by, and any heat the building collected during the day would continue to dissipate until sunrise. It didn’t necessarily mean anything paranormal was going on.
When they reached the third floor, Oscar led the way into the bathroom. The place was even more depressing than the rooms, its bare concrete walls discolored from old stains, the sinks, tubs, and toilets streaked with rust. Though they hadn’t found any other evidence of vandalism so far, someone in the past had smashed every mirror into tiny shards.
Oscar positioned himself in front of one of the cast iron tubs. It looked old and extremely heavy.
“This is the bathroom in the women’s ward on floor three,” he said into the camera. “As you can see, none of the stalls have doors on them, so the nurses could keep an eye on the patients at all times. I can’t help but wonder how the patients felt about that, or the message it—perhaps unintentionally—sent. The tubs here tell an even darker story.”
Chris panned the camera down and along the three bathtubs. As soon as the camera was off him, Oscar gave a shiver. Nigel looked at him questioningly, but he shook his head.
“One of the early treatments—I use the term ‘treatment’ loosely—here at the asylum was hydrotherapy,” Oscar said, once the camera was back on him. “Before the advent of the lobotomy and chemical restraints, themselves hardly bastions of progress, some agitated patients would be wrapped in sheets soaked in ice water. Several layers of sheets might be applied—however many were needed to immobilize the patient. Then they were placed in these tubs, and the tubs were filled with cold water. A canvas cover was put in place, with only the patient’s head sticking out. This at least kept them from slipping down and drowning, while they endured hours of lying unmoving in freezing water. No doubt hypothermia indeed ‘calmed’ them, but I can’t help but wonder how many lives it cl-claimed.”
Normally Oscar’s performance in front of the camera was polished, so his stumble over the last word was unusual.
As was the color of his lips.
“Shit, you’re turning blue!” Chris started to lower the camera.
“K-keep filming,” Oscar said through chattering teeth.
Nigel took an alarmed step forward, then stopped. Oscar knew what he was doing, even if every instinct screamed at him to go help his boyfriend.
“I-I’m feeling very cold,” Oscar told the camera. “Nigel, what’s the t-temperature?”
Nigel held out his reader. “Forty-nine degrees.” He switched on the EMF part of the reader, and it immediately went wild, spiking up to yellow. He stepped closer to Oscar, and it went to red and stayed there.
“Sh-she definitely wants to communicate,” Oscar said.
“EVP or spirit box?” Nigel asked.
“E-EVP.” Oscar swallowed, then gave a shaky smile for the camera. “That means Electronic V-Voice Phenomena.”
Maybe it was time for Nigel to step in. “With an EVP, we’re trying to record sounds not audible to the human ear,” he said. Chris moved back to get them both in the shot. “We’ll ask questions now and analyze the recording later.”
He took out a digital recorder and turned it on. Oscar wet his lips, which were tinged white at the corners. “What’s your n-name?” he asked, then paused for any unheard response. “Were you a patient here?” Pause. “What happened to you?”
A crash sounded from the hall outside.