Page 27 of Into the Dark

Nigel hadn’t expected there to be—Oscar’s grandmother died nearly twenty years before the asylum closed. “They must have stored the older records somewhere. I’m thinking the big room with all the extra equipment in it. There were a bunch of filing cabinets in there.”

Oscar rolled the drawer shut, looking disappointed. “We can check in there later, when we have Chris to help us move things out of the way,” he said, hand still resting on the drawer handle. “Though I don’t know what I think I’m going to find. Just records of a medium everyone else thought had severe schizophrenia.”

Nigel went over and hugged him from behind. “You want to connect with her,” he said, resting his head against Oscar’s back.

“Yes, but will notes written about her by other people—people who thought she was insane—help me to do that?”

“You’d at least know what she went through.” Nigel hesitated. “Though it might be better not to know.”

“Maybe.” Oscar sighed. “Let’s keep looking around in here.”

None of the staff records from the 1990s were likely to tell them anything about the nurse, but it was likely many of the staff were still alive. They might be willing to talk about any paranormal experiences they’d had—if it was possible to track any of them down, at least. Nigel made a mental note of the files’ location and kept looking.

In the bottom of an especially rusty cabinet, he found a series of crumbling ledgers alongside more modern binders. Somewere thicker than others, but all had years, or spans of years, neatly labeled on the spines.

Nigel pulled out a binder marked 1978-1980 and opened it. The first page read“Howlston Lunatic Asylum, Howlston, VA, Death Records January 1, 1978 - December 31, 1980.”

“Oscar, take a look at this,” he said, laying it out on the desk.

Oscar let out a low whistle. “I don’t remember her death date exactly, just that it was in 1979.”

Nigel flipped through until they found the right year. The records consisted of columns: date of death, date of hospitalization, name, cause of death, age, and cemetery lot.

“There’s a cemetery somewhere on the grounds,” he said. “For patients who didn’t have anyone to receive the bodies when they died.”

“Or anyone willing to claim them.” Oscar shook his head. “Mamaw is buried beside Papaw back in Marrow, so at least she isn’t lying in a forgotten grave somewhere.”

Nigel scanned the entries, looking for Barbara Fox’s name. “Do you think we should find the cemetery? They aren’t usually haunted, but it does happen.”

“Unmarked graves, the inhabitants abandoned here by their families and society…there could be some unquiet spirits hanging around,” Oscar said. “Maybe we should head over there just after dusk, before we go back into the asylum.”

A familiar name caught Nigel’s eye. “Hold that thought. I found her.”

The record was heartbreaking in its simplicity.March 10, 1940 - December 1, 1979. Fox, Barbara. Pneumonia. Aged 39.

Damn it—she’d been so young. All those years of life ahead of her, wasted and lost thanks to the combination of a vengeful ghost and a disbelieving medical system. She’d left behind a family, a community. People who needed her as a mother, as a medium.

Oscar let out a long sigh, as if he were having the same thoughts.

“I’m sorry,” Nigel said, not knowing what else to do.

“Thanks. So am I.” Oscar closed the binder and returned it to the filing cabinet. “Wow. A lot of people died here in the twenties and early thirties,” he remarked in a voice that sounded like he was trying to change the subject.

The binders for those years were noticeably larger than the others. “Penicillin wasn’t widely available until the 1940s,” Nigel pointed out. “We tend to underestimate just how many people died back then from what we think of as simple infections.”

“You’d think the previous decades would be just as thick, then. Or the ones after…looks like 1933,” Oscar said. “Should we take these to look at later?”

Nigel doubted they’d find anything more mysterious than a tuberculosis outbreak. Even so, he shrugged. “We might as well. Obviously no one else cares about these records, or will miss them if they’re gone.”

Oscar hauled the crumbling binders out and stacked them on the desk. “Anything else?”

“Let’s check out the superintendent’s office, just in case any records were kept in there,” Nigel suggested.

The superintendent’s office was dimmer, thanks to fewer windows and more overgrown vines. The air hung thick with dust, making Nigel cough.

“Look,” Oscar said, pointing to the wall behind the massive oak desk that dominated the office.

Framed photos hung on the wall, overlain with dust and cobwebs. Nigel brushed aside some of the grime, revealing a row of men and women in Victorian-era dress posing on the front steps of the asylum

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