Chapter 19 #2
My shoulders relax just a little bit more, and I unthaw around this group of strangers enough to say easily, “It’s Persephone. No joke, my mother was in her mythology phase when she named me. But I just go by Persy.”
“Any siblings?” the woman not messing with her camera asks.
“I do. A younger brother. But she was no longer fascinated with mythology by the time she had him, and our dad never would’ve let her name a boy something ‘weird.’” I grew up hearing my dad complain about my name, about how people would think my parents were hippies or worse.
When he said it with a shudder, I got the idea that there was nothing worse in this world than being a hippie.
Well, until I became a content creator and he discovered a new great evil in the world.
“Have you thought about just going to the manor? Just once?” The guy who brought it up in the first place eyes me expectantly, his light grey gaze making him look a little feverish and way too intense.
“Not because you want to. Not because it’ll be fun.
” He makes a face. “But if you go, they can’t keep using you in their content. Their interest in you would die off.”
He…makes an excellent point. One I never really thought about before.
If I give in and go, as long as I don’t do anything stupid like actually appear scared, then won’t they just get over themselves and find someone new to harass?
While I don’t have any desire to go to a haunt that gets off on scaring people by actually hurting them or horrifying them to the point of someone needing to go to the ER for a panic attack, I also have confidence in myself to not be that person.
That, or I’m just arrogant, which is always a possibility.
The two women who work here make their way to the front of the room, and for the next ten minutes we go over all the same things that were in the emails we were sent.
Photography and video are fine. No taking anything, obviously.
No destruction of property, and no throwing ourselves off the roof.
For tonight, all areas of the sanitarium are available to us, including the roof, the morgue, and the infamous body chute that goes to the bottom of the hill.
“Be honest with yourself when you’re considering walking down the chute, okay?
” the woman who’d walked me here says in an unimpressed way.
“It’s a long way back up, and the incline is a real bitch.
None of us is going to come down and wheel you back up because you can’t make it.
You’ll just have to have someone come pick you up at the bottom, or lay there with the ghosts all night. ”
A chuckle goes through the room, but from the tone of her voice, I have to think that it’s totally happened before and she’s not really looking for it to happen again.
“Jen and I will be here all night,” the other woman adds. “Here, specifically. Not wandering the halls without heat up there.” Another chuckle goes through the room, and I wonder if the other people here realize how cold the cement and stone building is going to feel up there in a few hours.
I should’ve brought a blanket. While I don’t intend to lie down and sleep anywhere, I would absolutely love to have something to bundle up in while I walk through the building.
“You’re welcome to leave whenever you want, obviously,” Jen puts in. “We aren’t your jailers. And you’re welcome to come use this building as a break room or to use the bathroom. At six tomorrow morning, we’ll come get anyone still inside, and that’ll be it. Any questions?”
There’s a general murmur through the room, but I can’t imagine what questions could be left to ask.
“So there’s no power? And no bathrooms inside? No elevators?” The whiny voice of a man in his thirties makes me roll my eyes up towards the ceiling. What part of abandoned hospital was unclear? Obviously, there are no modern conveniences.
Beside me, Zack snorts into his hand, and I trade an exasperated look with him. The two employees look at the man behind us, and Jen’s mouth twitches in a derisive frown.
“Correct,” her companion confirms, sounding placating. “Anything else?”
I hear the man mumbling about the inconvenience, about not realizing they meant it online when they said the building was abandoned. But no one else has any questions, thank God. Not even Whiny Dave.
Not that his name is Dave, as far as I know. But it feels like a good nickname for him if I need to refer to him as anything in my head.
Finally, all of us are on our feet, and Jen stands at the door that will take us through a tunnel up into the building.
It’s easier than the original main entrance, she explains, and this way she can show us how to get back here if needed.
For my part, I find myself willing to stick with Zack and his little coterie, though I wonder how many of them he actually knows and how many of them are strays he’s sort of adopted tonight, like I am.
While I’ve sworn off doing livestreams, he makes me want to reconsider that.
You know, if he ever asked me to be part of his ghost-hunting show.
He’s nicer than Squad Ghouls by a mile, and while he’s definitely not old enough to be anyone’s dad, he still makes sure all of us have our things, and that we’re all in front of him on the way through the tunnel.
The tunnel leads up to the first floor of the sanitarium, and when we’re all spread out in a side room, our flashlights on, Jen stops to look at us with her LED-powered light.
“I’ll come check here every hour or so, just in case any of you are waiting for me or someone’s yelling for help.
Don’t count on us hearing it, though,” she warns.
“This place is big and sounds get distorted between floors. While you may be screaming, we might just hear what sounds like the wind. If you need us, come back through the tunnel. Otherwise”—she shrugs—“well, I hope you enjoy your night in Easterly Ridge Sanitarium.” With that, she gestures toward the multiple hallways leading out of the room, and the staircase behind her.
“This place is big enough that you really shouldn’t run into each other much, unless you’re trying to. Have fun.”
Her words have barely finished echoing off of the walls before she’s closing the door of the tunnel behind her to keep the cold air from creeping into the maintenance building, and all of us are left in the darkness broken up only by flashlights, phones, and camera lights.
“We’ll be setting up in the surgery suite,” a woman I don’t know announces. “We’ll be there all night hosting a seance, if anyone’s interested in that.” She gestures to Whiny Dave and a blonde woman who looks like she’d rather be anywhere than here. “So, don’t count on us to hear your screams.”
The blonde doesn’t look up from her phone, and Whiny Dave looks as if he’s about to have an aneurysm considering the way his face is pinched and unhappy.
Maybe they’ll decide tonight’s too much for them and leave the rest of us be.
It technically doesn’t quite matter, I guess, if they’re here or not.
But the fewer people there are, the less of a chance I have of running into anyone and having a semi-peaceful night with the ghosts that may or may not exist.
A trio of ghost hunters heads off first, traipsing down the hallway with their gear.
A streamer follows them, looking starstruck, then the seance group goes upstairs toward the surgical theater.
Based on my memory of this place, I sort of know where things are, but I’m also not looking for anything specific.
I’m just here for the all-night investigation to take pictures and come up with content to use on my blog.
Maybe this time, I’ll do a video about this place. I haven’t done enough of them this year, I consider ruefully as I turn to head up the stairs behind Zack. The ghost hunter is talking to the other man from our table, and I have no idea where they’re going.
“Hmm?” I look up, realizing he’s speaking to me now that we’re all on the landing of the second floor, where the rickety wooden stairs connect with the concrete of the hallway beyond.
“I asked if you wanted to hang out while I set up. I’m not live streaming, but I’d still love to have you in a few videos,” the man invites.
I hesitate, but only because in my head, I made a plan of where I want to go and what I want to explore.
This floor isn’t it, and he’s facing the hallway instead of the next flight of stairs up.
“Um…” I trail off. “Yeah, actually. As long as you don’t mind.
” God, I hope he’s not doing this just for pity.
Zack’s grin widens. “Great! I was looking for a way to invite you, and I think we can get some cross-viewing and new fans for both of us. I just didn’t want to seem like I was, I don’t know, waiting to ambush you with it,” he admits.
It’s very nice of him to say that he’ll get anything out of this, when it’ll be me benefitting. Even though his solo career isn’t picking up as quickly as it could, he’s still more of a household name than I am, especially since he’s been on TV and I have not.
The next hour and a half goes by quicker than I could’ve expected it to in the light of flashlights and Zack’s compact filming equipment.
He pulls out an EMF reader and a parabolic microphone that fit folded up in his backpack, and while filming, he shows me how to use both.
It’s more fun than I thought it would be, and I don’t mind looking like an idiot on camera while he helps me use the EMF to seek out any spectral traces, with a wide, childishly happy smile on my lips.
It’s fun enough that I forget about my problems for a little while.