Page 36 of Into the Dark

“Warn you?” Oscar asked, at the same time as Chris said, “Were you in danger?”

Adrienne waved a dismissive hand. “We’re fine. We got great results, if a bit more dramatic than we’d bargained for.”

“Views are going to go through the roof, though,” Zeek said. “Especially with you screaming like that.”

“Screaming?” Chris asked, eyes widening. “Adrienne?—”

“I said I’m fine. Honestly.” She blew a strand of hair out of her face. “Long story short, I saw this man, Dr. Wilkes, very clearly in my mirror. He pointed to the wall, some words appeared telling us to look up. The creeper was on the ceiling over our heads?—”

“What?” Oscar exclaimed.

Nigel shivered. “It was pretty, ah, creepy. For lack of a better word. And that was before the lights went out and the mirrors broke.”

“I saw the nurse in my mirror just a split second before it exploded all over the place,” Zeek put in. “I think she’s the one who drained the battery and broke the mirrors.”

Oscar found a chair and sat down. He and Chris had been wandering around the cemetery and grounds, while Nigel and the others were being terrorized by hostile spirits. He should have been there to help, should never have agreed to splitting up.

“The nurse certainly has been the most aggressive spirit so far,” Nigel said. “This site is incredibly active, given we’ve only been here a few days. Why are all the spirits so strong? After years of abandonment with no living people to give them energy, I would expect them to be weaker.”

Oscar ran a hand through his hair, tugging at the roots. “There’s so many of them.” The whole property seemed infested with the restless dead. How was he to help them all to move on?

This was his job, his legacy, and he couldn’t even keep his own boyfriend safe.

Adrienne sat back in her chair, expression distant as if she was thinking hard. “The nurse—what was her name again?”

“Della Young,” Nigel supplied.

“She’s our main issue here. It’s hard to investigate when she’s breaking equipment or scaring the other ghosts into silence.” She blinked, then focused on Zeek. “We definitely need to remove her.”

“We have a Faraday tent,” Oscar said. “We once lured a ghost into it with some batteries, so maybe we could do the same here.”

“Thank you,” Adrienne said, “but that won’t be necessary.” She locked eyes with Zeek, who started to grin. “We have our own plan in mind.”

Nigel slept poorly that night, thanks to the congestion settling in his lungs. Coughing fits woke him more than once, and he cursed whatever bacteria was setting up shop in his airways. At least he didn’t have a fever, so hopefully the cold would remain mild, especially since they were hours away from the nearest walk-in clinic.

When he stumbled blearily into the tech tent, clutching a cup of coffee, only Tina and Dr. Lawson were awake. Since Dr. Lawson had gone to bed early the night before, she quizzed him closely about everything that had happened.

“I agree with Adrienne,” she said when he finished. “The nurse’s ghost is a problem. Once she’s gone, things will likely settle down.”

Adrienne and Zeek had remained coy about their plan, even though Zeek seemed bursting with excitement to tell them. Whatever it was, they’d clearly planned on using it before even coming here.

Hopefully they knew what they were doing. With the nurse out of the way, maybe they could make some progresscommunicating with the other spirits and encouraging them to move on. And with all her patients gone, maybe the nurse could be persuaded to pass over as well.

When Oscar and Chris joined them, Tina said, “By the way, there was nothing on your EVP session in the cemetery last night.”

Chris made a face. “Yeah, she seemed more of a ‘show, don’t tell’ type.”

“It would have been nice to get some extra information from her,” Oscar said, then shrugged. “Oh well. We need to establish our plans for today.”

Nigel said, “I’d like to check out the library Chris found. Since they have a newspaper archive, maybe we can find out more about the other ghosts, such as Dr. Wilkes.”

“Sounds good,” Chris said. “What about you, Oscar?”

Oscar seemed to ponder a moment, then turned to Dr. Lawson. “Do you have any information on the surviving member of the investigation team who lives nearby?”

“Name and address,” she responded. “I take it you want to talk to him?”

“I think we should. I want to know if the nurse ghost was responsible for the death of the man who fell down the stairs.”

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