Page 42 of Into the Dark

Nigel shook his head and cleared his throat. “No. I’m fine. It’s definitely just allergies—I didn’t so much as sneeze in the library earlier.”

Oscar was less certain. “Okay, but if you start feeling worse, promise me you’ll go back to the tents and rest.”

Nigel didn’t look happy about it, but said, “Fine. I promise.”

“Thank you.”

As they approached the stairs and elevator, Adrienne said, “I wish the elevator worked. I’m tired of walking up and down these damned stairs.”

The center of the asylum between the two patient wings was set aside for administration and staff quarters. The first floor held the offices they’d already investigated, and the second was given over to the suites used by the superintendents, senior doctors, and their families. The third had housed junior doctors and other ranking staff, while the fourth and most utilitarian was where nurses, orderlies, and other staff had their bunks.

All of which suggested Della Young, as the head nurse, had probably lived on the third floor.

“Do you want me to carry that for you?” he offered, gesturing to the case in her hand.

“No—it’s not heavy.” She started up. “I just won’t need to hit the StairMaster at the gym for the next two months.”

By the time they arrived on the third floor, Nigel was out of breath and wheezing, which stoked Oscar’s worry back into full flame. Chest colds could turn into pneumonia far too easily, and pneumonia was no joke.

Hopefully he’d be able to convince Nigel to go to an urgent care clinic tomorrow. For now, he and Zeek began to search for the room that seemed most likely to have housed the asylum’s head nurses over the years.

The stairs let out onto what looked like a spacious common room, with private bedrooms to the front and back. Once-vibrant wallpaper hung from the walls in strips, and mold dotted the revealed plaster. Couches and chairs sagged, covered in dust and no doubt full of mouse nests. There was a large rug, which at some point someone had rolled up and shoved to the side, exposing the original hardwood flooring.

The two rooms toward the front of the asylum had fireplaces, and held the remains of beds and chairs that looked in the same bad shape as the couches in the common room. There were desks as well, and one had a bookcase that still held some medical texts from forty years prior. “This is probably where the doctors lived,” Oscar guessed.

The living quarters at the back were smaller, divided into four spaces rather than only two. There was just enough room for a bed and a small desk in each, though at least they were private rather than shared like the fourth-floor staff rooms. Unfortunately, there didn’t seem to be an obvious way to tell who had occupied which room—assuming the room assignments had remained constant since the 1930s in the first place.

As they poked around, though, he became aware of the sensation of being watched. He paused, staring out one of the windows into the empty blackness of the night, half expecting to see a face reflected in the glass from behind him. None appeared, but he knew she was close.

He retreated to the common room with the others. “Since we don’t know which room was hers, I suggest we do this here, where she would have spent at least some of her off-hours.” Hepaused, then added, “She’s already hanging around, by the way. Keeping an eye on us.”

“That’s not reassuring,” said Chris from where they were setting up a static cam.

“It’s what we want, though,” Adrienne countered. She put down the case in the center of the common room, then flipped the latches and opened it up.

Inside, nestled within layers of foam padding, was what looked like a large box made from matte gray metal. Adrienne carefully lifted it from the padding, then set it in the center of the floor.

“So what is that?” Oscar asked.

Zeek grinned. “This, my friend, is a Devil’s Toy Box.”

CHAPTER

SIXTEEN

Nigel stifleda sigh at the over-the-top name. “There’s nothing demonic about it,” he said in response to Chris’s alarmed expression. “For one thing, it’s uncertain that non-human spirits—demons—even exist.”

“Are we going to get dragged into hell like with the Ouija board?” they asked, arching a brow.

Now Nigel did let out a snort of irritation. “It was a spirit board, not a Ouija board, and the only thing we talked to was the ghost of one of Oscar’s ancestors. A murderous ancestor, but still. No hell-dragging involved.”

“Yeah, don’t worry about it.” Zeek shot finger-guns at Chris for some reason. “We’ve got it all under control.”

“Now I’m really worried,” they muttered.

Adrienne huffed. “Just wait five minutes and let us film the intro. If you still have questions after, we’ll answer them.”

Zeek hurried to mount their camera on a tripod, making sure the box was in view, then joined Adrienne beside it. “We’ve got a brand-new tool tonight, just for this investigation,” he said to the camera. “We’ve had it for a while, but never had to chance to use it. But here at the Howlston Lunatic Asylum, that’s about to change.”

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