Chapter 18
CHAPTER
EIGHTEEN
Oscar’s lungs spasmed as the spirit pulled his arm, head, and shoulders beneath the water of her tub. The liquid was like ice, instantly sucking away even the memory of warmth. The dead hand clenching his wrist felt like an iron manacle, dragging him down.
He flailed—his fingers should be touching the bottom of the tub, but there was nothing, as if he was being pulled into a deep well. The last of his breath left in a stream of bubbles; he tried to brace his body against the edge of the tub, but she was too strong.
She was going to pull him down into whatever terrible underworld she inhabited, without light or air, and keep him there forever.
Hands gripped the collar of his shirt, hauling him back. For a moment, he was caught in a life-or-death tug-of-war, fragile living hands versus the implacable strength of the dead.
Then suddenly, the grip around his wrist disappeared. He was wrenched back out of the tub, and went sprawling back, freezing water sloshing everywhere. The cold bit into him, so deep the cool spring air he drew into his lungs felt fiery with its heat.
“Oscar! Oscar, are you all right?” Nigel yelled, practically into his ear.
He managed to nod, even as he took in a couple more heaving breaths. Rolling onto his side, he wiped water from his eyes.
Nigel crouched beside him, face pale and hands shaking with fear. Chris stood by the tub, camera discarded on the ground and an empty container of salt in their hands, upended over the tub.
Oscar swallowed hard. “G-Good thinking, Chris,” he chattered.
“We need to get the hell out of here,” Nigel said. “Can you stand?”
Oscar managed a sitting position. Thankfully, warmth was already returning to his limbs. “I think so.”
Chris backed slowly away from the tub. “Guys? Look at this.”
Oscar started to use the edge of the tub to lever himself up, then thought better of it. Stumbling to his feet, he looked down into it.
There was no water, only a rusty stain beneath the tap, and a blanket of salt crystals on the bottom. The dropped spirit box lay near the drain. His clothes were dry as well, as was his skin.
He’d just wiped water from his eyes…except the water didn’t exist, at least not on the physical plane.
“We need to go,” Nigel repeated. “We’ll regroup in the tent, and?—”
The walkie-talkie burst into life on Oscar’s belt. “Guys?” Tina said. “Adrienne and Zeek are in trouble!”
Nigel pulled it free before Oscar’s numb fingers could reach it. “What’s wrong?”
“They’re trapped in one of the seclusion cells!”
“Tell her to tell them we’ll be right there,” Oscar said, starting for the doorway.
“You need to go—” Nigel began, but Oscar cut him off.
“We need to help them! Tell her!”
He heard Nigel talking, but he was already out of the door and running for the stairs. What the hell was going on here? Removing the nurse was supposed to decrease the danger they were in, but instead everything was going wrong.
He made it onto the fourth floor and ran down the ward, heading to the north wing. Footsteps came behind him; he glanced over his shoulder and saw Chris, camera on their shoulder, racing after. Coughing from the stairwell signaled Nigel was making his way up as well.
Concern for Nigel’s health joined the worry for Adrienne and Zeek. His footsteps echoed wildly in the deserted ward, until it sounded like a dozen other people had joined in and were racing him. He stopped to open the security door into the central area holding the staff quarters—and the echoes kept going.
No time to wonder about their origin. He hurried through the door, into the spartan hall where most of the nurses, orderlies, cooks, and other staff had once lived. The doors to either side were wooden rather than steel, and hung rotting from their hinges. Bits of plaster had fallen from the ceiling and littered the ground; it crunched into powder under his boots.
Through the next set of security doors and into the first of the fourth floor men’s wards. There was no sign of Adrienne and Zeek—probably they’d been in the northernmost ward, where they’d contacted the doctor and the creeper. Paint chips fell from the walls, and the lower tiles cracked almost before his eyes, but again there was no time to wonder what was causing it.
Finally, he reached the end of the long ward, sending the last security door crashing open as he ran through it. Out of the corner of his eye, something moved inside the abandoned nurse’s station, but he was past before its shape could truly register.
Shadows fled from the bobbing light on his headlamp, giving the illusion of figures slipping into the seclusion cells to either side. Near the end of the hall, one of the doors was shut—and the shadow in front of it didn’t disappear when the beam from his headlamp fell on it.
Oscar stumbled to a halt, heart pounding and abused lungs heaving. The shadow formed the shape of person, on their knees with their hands pressed against the door. From the inside came shouts and frantic pounding against the steel.
“Stop!” Oscar yelled.
The shadow figure’s featureless head whipped around, and he felt the touch of its malevolent gaze on him. Even though his eyes showed him nothing but blackness, he nevertheless sensed a face: cruel eyes, mouth wide in a grin at the fear it was causing.
He yanked the pouch of salt free of his pocket. “Spirit!” he shouted. “Begone! Leave this place, and trouble the living no more!”
The salt left his hand in a glittering arc. Most of it fell short, but the crystals that struck the shadow figure tore holes through its darkness, like hot coals through snow. It reeled back, and his nerves vibrated with its silent scream.
It shot across the floor on all fours—then up the wall, as if it were a spider rather than something that had once been human. Between one breath and the next, it seemed to vanish into the corner where the wall and ceiling met.
The door to the seclusion cell flew open, and Zeek and Adrienne tumbled out into the hall. “Shit!” Chris exclaimed—Oscar hadn’t even been aware of them coming up behind him—and ran to help Adrienne up. Oscar did the same with Zeek.
“Thanks, big guy,” Zeek said shakily, his skin gone the sickly white of cottage cheese. “That was really fucked up.”
“What happened?” Nigel wheezed as he joined them. As soon as he spoke, a coughing fit overtook him, and he bent over with his hands braced on his knees.
“Babe?” Oscar hurried over and thumped him on the back.
“I’m—okay—” Nigel said between bouts of coughing.
This was getting serious. Oscar made up his mind to do everything he could to make Nigel go to the damn urgent care tomorrow.
“The creeper attacked us,” Adrienne said, looking every bit as shaken as Zeek. “We tried to reach out to the doctor with our spirit box. Then the creeper was just…there. It went after Zeek.”
Zeek pulled up his shirt. Across his admittedly nice abs were scored five shallow scratches. “Damn, I didn’t think it drew blood,” he said, peering down.
“All of the doors that were closed flew open,” Adrienne went on. “We tried to run, but the creeper got between us and the stairway. We ran into one of the rooms—I guess we weren’t thinking straight. The door slammed behind us and we couldn’t get out.”
“I saw the creeper—it was keeping you inside,” Oscar said, rubbing Nigel’s back. At least the coughs had subsided.
“I don’t understand.” Zeek looked around helplessly. “We got rid of the nurse. Things were supposed to get better, not…whatever this is.”
“A ghost tried to drown Oscar in a tub,” Chris said. “So yeah, things are pretty fucked up right now.”
Adrienne folded her arms around herself. “Let’s…let’s get out of here, okay?”
“Agreed.” Chris shifted their camera back onto their shoulder. “If we even can.”
Nigel found himself jumping at every shadow and sound as they descended the steps from the fourth floor, to the third, the second, and finally the first. Distant bangs sounded, muffled by the stone walls: doors slamming, floors creaking, wheelchairs rolling. Despite the disturbances, they made it to the first floor, down the damnably long wards, and at last into the free night air.
Dr. Lawson stood at the bottom of the steps, a heavy-duty flashlight in one hand and a canister of salt in the other. When she saw them, she lifted a walkie-talkie to her lips. “They’re out, Cabeza. All in one piece by the looks of them.”
Of course—Tina had seen everything over her monitors, and Dr. Lawson had been right beside her.
“Coming to our rescue?” he asked, managing not to cough as he did so.
“If you die, the university might ask me to come out of retirement to take over your classes,” she replied. “Come on—we’ll get some hot tea in all of you.”
Oscar held out his arms as they walked back to the tent. “I’d say I need a new change of clothes after the tub, but…I’m dry. Did Mariah just project the illusion of water into our minds?”
“No,” Dr. Lawson said grimly. “We saw the water on camera. And real or not, I have the feeling you would have drowned either way.”
Nigel shuddered and leaned against Oscar as they made for the tent. Now that they were out of the building, the adrenaline was beginning to recede and exhaustion taking its place. He desperately needed another decongestant and some sleep. But he was going to have to wait on the second one of those.
Tina stood waiting anxiously in the command center, a first aid kit in her hand. “Zeek! Are you all right?” she asked the moment he stepped in.
“Oh, yeah, just a scratch,” he said, trying and failing to project his normal cocky grin.
She raised a skeptical brow, then pointed at a chair. “Sit down and take your shirt off.”
Why he had to take his entire shirt off for a few shallow scratches on his stomach, Nigel couldn’t imagine. But Zeek went along with her request, and she fussed over him as if he’d taken a dire wound, while the rest of them accepted cups of tea from Dr. Lawson.
Once they’d had time for a few warming sips, and Nigel had washed down another decongestant tablet, Dr. Lawson said, “Okay, let’s go over what happened.” She pointed at Oscar. “You first.”
“Didn’t you see it on the cams?” Chris asked, glancing at the monitors, which currently showed the feed from their static cams.
“Some of it, but I want to hear it from your perspectives.” She folded her arms. “So start.”
Oscar did so, with Chris and Nigel chipping in here and there. Once they got to the panicked call from Tina, the other team took over the narrative.
“And now our spirit box is broken, too,” Adrienne finished, slumping back in her chair. “I dropped it while we were running and pieces went everywhere.”
“It’s okay—we’ll just use the EMF reader, stuff like that,” Zeek said, pulling his shirt back on. “We could borrow the SLS, maybe?”
Tina folded her arms and glared down at him. “You’re seriously thinking about going back in there?”
“Well…” Zeek took off his backward cap and scratched at his head. “It’s sort of our job? That people pay us for?”
“Especially Ms. Montague,” Ethan said from the tent entrance.
They all jumped. Nigel studied Ethan carefully. He looked as composed as always, his suit impeccable, his expression absolutely neutral. Utterly inoffensive on the surface, but Nigel was rapidly coming to dislike him, though he wasn’t entirely sure why.
Dr. Lawson bristled. “Tell Patricia I’m not letting her send more people to their deaths.”
“Who has she sent to their death?” Adrienne asked, eyes widening in alarm.
“There was a young medium, a long time ago.” Dr. Lawson kept her gaze trained on Ethan.
Robin, in other words. The medium they’d both known back in the eighties. The one whose journal she’d given excerpts of to Oscar, to help him figure out his own mediumistic talents.
The one who’d died after being thrown out the window by a poltergeist.
Ethan didn’t seemed disturbed by the accusation. “It was a simple reminder, nothing more. I’m retiring for the evening—is there anything further you require?”
“No,” Dr. Lawson said in a cool voice. “That will be all.”
Dismissed, Ethan inclined his head slightly and let the tent flap fall. Dr. Lawson glared after him for a long moment, then turned back to them.
“For whatever reason, the asylum’s spirits have become far more dangerous,” she said. “You’ve done what Patricia asked, but Fox here could have been killed.” She nodded at Oscar. “You don’t have to go back inside.”
“That’s what I don’t understand.” Adrienne flung up her hands in frustration. “We got rid of the nurse who killed the investigator. Getting rid of her was supposed to make everything better, not worse!”
Nigel’s brain turned sluggishly, weighed down by his cold and exhaustion. “They were afraid of her. The other ghosts, I mean. With her gone, maybe they feel free to act?”
“Fuck.” Adrienne stood up and paced a few feet from her chair, then back. “What do we do? Release her back into the asylum?”
“So she can be the one to kill us?” Chris exclaimed. “Good plan, A.”
She glared back at them. “I don’t hear you coming up with anything.”
Nigel turned to his boyfriend, who sat staring into nothing, a pensive expression on his face. “Oscar? What do you think?”
Oscar let out a long sigh and scrubbed at his face. “I…I don’t know. I came here to help the ghosts that Mamaw couldn’t. The ones she was trapped with for so many years. I wanted to wait, get more experience under my belt…but this is my only chance.”
Dr. Lawson’s mouth softened. “Not even a medium can live for the dead, Fox,” she said gently.
“I know, but this is my family’s legacy. From my mamaw, and her mamaw, and who knows how many generations of women and men. Mountain grannies and root workers and spirit callers.” He sighed. “But I dragged all my friends into this, and now everyone is in danger, and…I just don’t know.”
Nigel reached out and took his hand. If only he could wave a magic wand and make everything okay. “Tomorrow, when the sun is up, we’ll go to the storage area and see if we can find any records that might shed light on the spirits we’ve encountered. We’ll arm ourselves with salt and flashlights, just in case the sunlight isn’t enough to keep everything quiet. Maybe we can find something to help.”
“And if we can’t?”
“Then we have a decision to make, I suppose.”
Zeek fluffed his hair, then destroyed his work by putting his cap back on. “Let’s sleep on it, okay? It’s getting late, and I don’t think anyone wants to go back in there tonight.”
“Definitely not,” Adrienne agreed.
Dr. Lawson didn’t look happy. No doubt she’d hoped they’d all agree to leave Ms. Montague sitting alone in her tent, Ethan choking on their dust as they drove away. “Fine. But if we go inside tomorrow, we all go, except for Cabeza.” She held up her hand when Tina started to protest. “We need someone on the outside, in case things go badly wrong inside.”
“You can watch on the cams while we get dragged into hell,” Chris said, but their voice lacked its usual upbeat tone. They sounded tired, dark circles under their eyes, the cheerful pink streak in their hair contrasting sharply with their demeanor.
Tina sighed. “Well, on that happy note, let’s go to bed and hope nothing else happens before dawn.”