Page 63 of Into the Dark

“I’m not losing a student, even a former one, on my watch,” she’d said. “Nor am I coming out of retirement to teach his classes, just because some long-dead man spirited him away.”

The second ward was decaying as rapidly as the first, and Oscar was relieved when they reached the solid concrete forming the third floor landing. Beneath the layer of grit, their flashlight beams revealed old stains on the floor, no doubt left over from poor Kyle’s tragic and painful death.

“What do we do?” Zeek asked.

He wished they’d thought to grab the thermal cam from the children’s ward. “We need to try and contact him. See if he can at least indicate the direction we need to go to reach the basement.”

“Oh!” Adrienne pulled off her backpack and began to rummage through it. “What about dowsing rods? We’ve used them at a couple of locations where we haven’t gotten anything else good for the camera.”

Dr. Lawson’s lips thinned. “Dowsing rods aren’t remotely reliable. The tiny tremors in the user’s hands are what causes them to move, not spirits.”

“Yeah, I know.” Adrienne stood up, a pair of L-shaped copper rods in her hand. “That’s why we only use them if we don’t get anything else—it gives us something for the camera. Then Zeek jumps around a lot and threatens to fight a ghost baby.” She held out the rods to Oscar. “But hopefully a medium in a location we know for damn sure is haunted will have better luck.”

Why not? It wasn’t as if he had any better suggestions. Oscar held one rod loosely in each hand, the long part of the L-shape pointed directly in front of him. He grounded, centered, and then said, “Spirit of Kyle McIntosh, I call upon you. If you’re here, can you give us a sign?”

Silence. Then, so faint the audio would never catch it, a sigh near Oscar’s ear.

He gave a tiny nod to indicate to the others that he’d felt something. “Thank you, Kyle. We’ve come here just as you did—to investigate the spirits haunting this building. I’m sorry you became one of them, and I promise I’ll do everything I can to set you free. But for right now, my partner is missing. We think he’s in the basement. If you know how to find the basement, can you give me a sign?”

The pause was so long, he didn’t think Kyle was going to answer. Then static shocked his palm, and he almost dropped the rods as they swung to point at the stairs going down.

“Thank you.” He started down the stairs, the rods seeming to hum with electricity against his skin. They continued to orient to paths down, which was to be expected since they were looking for a basement.

When he emerged back onto the first floor ward, the rods swung north.

“The arts and crafts wing is down there,” Adrienne said.

Following the rods, they walked to the security door at the end of the ward, which let them into a big room that mirrored the storage room on the southern wing. Old tables, stained with paint, had been pushed up against the walls, wooden chairs stacked haphazardly on top of them. Fungus sprouted from the spongy wood. The nurses had tacked some of the drawings to the walls in pride of place, but whatever they had originally depicted was obscured by mildew stains that seemed to form the image of screaming faces.

“Is it just me,” Chris asked, “or is it getting colder?”

Adrienne shivered. “Not just you.”

As Oscar walked further into the room, the rods swung west, pointing to the back wall. “Can you clear a path?” he asked, and Zeek, Chris, and Adrienne all rushed to shove the furniture out of the way.

The rods guided him to a spot in the center of the rear wall. The plaster was badly degraded, sloughing off in places like loose skin.

Frustration boiled in him—maybe Kyle didn’t really know? Or maybe it wasn’t even Kyle at all, just another spirit messing with them. “This is just a wall. Please, show me the door to the basement.”

A static shock delivered through the rods nearly made him drop them, but they continued to point steadily forward.

“Wait.” Zeek pointed. “Is that part of a door?”

Sure enough, his light had picked out what looked like a bit of a doorframe through one of the holes left by falling plaster.

Frustration vanished, replaced by hope. And gratitude. “Thank you, Kyle—we never would have found this without you.” Though he wanted nothing more than to start clawing at the plaster to get through to Nigel, he forced himself to continue. “Your work in this world is done, and peace awaits you beyond the veil. You’re free to go. And—thank you again.”

Even though he wasn’t trying to open a doorway to the other side, a flicker of silvery light played in his peripheral vision. For a moment, he glimpsed Kyle as he’d been in the picture, dressed all in black and with a smile on his face.

Then he was gone.

Oscar lowered the rods. “He passed over.”

“He was just waiting to help, in case some other team came to explore here,” Dr. Lawson said. “Or at least, he wasn’t here because the doctor had a grip on him.”

“Wow—what a good guy, to hang around like that, then.” Zeek shook his head, impressed. “I’ll pour one out for him once we get back to civilization.”

“I’ll join you.” Oscar passed the dowsing rods back to Adrienne. “For now, let’s get this wall down so we can go save Nigel.”

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