Page 11 of Into the Dark

“Sorry. The intro class I taught last semester took over my brain for a moment.”

The second floor turned out to be the children’s’ ward. Someone had gone to the effort of painting a string of cheerful animals marching along one wall: lion, elephant, zebra, tiger, ostrich, and monkey. They were mostly intact, but flaking paint had left gaps in the zebra’s flank and one of the monkey’s eyes was gone. The day room might have been used as a classroom, unless the mobile chalk board had simply been shoved here to get it out of the way while the asylum was shutting down. Afew dusty toys lay scattered around the child-sized chairs, and crayon scribbles marred the bottom third of the walls.

God, what a depressing place. Some of the kids had been born here, effectively institutionalized from the day they came out of the womb. Maybe they didn’t have family to take them in; maybe the state thought it better to keep them close to their mothers, though he didn’t know how often they would be allowed any sort of contact after the birth.

“There’s supposed to be a ghost girl here,” Nigel said. “Do you sense anything, Oscar?”

“Not yet.” He shook his head. “My own feelings might be getting in the way. It’s hard to center knowing what sorts of things happened here.”

Adrienne and Zeek probably weren’t having any trouble. Neither was a medium, but they both knew how to put on a show. What would Ms. Montague think when comparing their flash to him just standing around like an idiot?

Worse, he’d come here wanting to help the spirits still trapped in this place. But it was so much sooner than he’d wanted. This was his only chance; what if he failed? How many long years would they be stuck here, suffering, because of him?

Nigel knew him well by this time, because he said, “Don’t beat yourself up. We don’t know all these accounts are authentic—we may end up disproving some or all of them.”

Instead of answering, Oscar put down his backpack and unzipped it. Inside, amongst his other equipment, nestled their newest toy. Literally—it was shaped like an old-fashioned doll, complete with ruffled white dress and golden curls.

“Let’s shoot this next bit,” he said to Chris.

“I hate this thing,” Chris muttered, even as they trained their camera on the doll. “It’s going to come to life and kill us all.”

Nigel rolled his eyes as he stepped back. “Very few dolls are haunted in real life. This one is right off the assembly line; it’snever been handled by anyone but us since it went into the package.”

Chris remained skeptical. “Haven’t you ever heard of Chucky, doc?”

Oscar ignored them and displayed the doll for the camera. “This is the PolterPal, our newest piece of equipment,” he said, trying to inject some excitement into his voice for the future audience. “Once I turn her on, she’ll react to EMF fields, physical touch, and change in temperature.”

He knelt and put the doll on the ground. “I’m going to turn it on now.”

The doll let out a high-pitched giggle when he pressed the button on the back of her neck. Chris was right; this thing was creepy. “I’m going to touch her again,” he said, and lightly tapped one of her hands.

“Come play with me!” the doll exclaimed in a high voice that somehow didn’t sound quite childlike enough.

“So you see, she’s pretty sensitive to touch.” He tapped her other hand and got the same reaction from the doll. “She says different things to let us know whether she’s picked up on a drop in temperature or being touched. Of course, ghosts frequently drain batteries to take their energy, so we might not get much out of her.”

Should he have said that last bit out loud? Telling the audience up front that nothing might happen was probably against Zeek’s philosophy.

He’d worry about it in edits. “Okay, let’s set the thermal cam up here, on her.”

“And hope she doesn’t follow us around the asylum holding a knife,” Chris said, lowering their shoulder cam.

“The doll isn’t haunted!” Nigel exclaimed in exasperation.

“If you say so.” Chris gave it a distrustful look. “But I’m sleeping in the van with the doors locked.”

They set up the final two night vision cameras, one in a third-floor bathroom and one in the hallway just off the fourth floor landing where the most violent patients were kept. It was nearing sunset when they finished, so they went down and back out to the tents.

Ms. Montague was nowhere to be seen, but Ethan lurked in a corner of the command center, quietly reading a book. Tina hunched over her keyboard, the feed from all four static cams on her monitor.

Nigel sat down in one of the spare chairs, legs aching. The immense size of the building meant a lot of walking, which he admittedly wasn’t used to. Maybe he should look at a gym membership. He’d buy one when they got home, go a couple of times, then get busy with work and Oscar, and never go back while the gym deducted a fee from his bank account every month for the next five years.

Maybe not.

Zeek burst into the tent, waving something around, while Adrienne followed more sedately. “Guys, look at what I found!”

“We can’t see it if you don’t hold it still,” Oscar pointed out as he took the seat beside Nigel. He stretched out his legs with a groan; Nigel wasn’t the only one feeling the endless halls and flights of stairs, it seemed.

“Right, right.” Zeek displayed his find, which turned out to be a dusty camera. “It was laying off to one side on the fourth-floor hall. The lens is cracked, but no way is this thing from before the asylum closed. It’s digital. Someone else has been here before us!”

---