Page 8 of Into the Dark

“No shit,” Chris snapped. “What kind of assholes do you think we are?”

“The kind without over twenty million views.”

Nigel ground his teeth. “We aren’t doing this for views.”

“You’re not?” Zeek asked, looking confused. “That’s wild, bro.”

“We’re serious investigators! This is for science!”

Oscar cleared his throat. “Agreed, Adrienne. What else?”

“We go our separate ways. If possible, we stay on different levels and in different wings.”

Oscar nodded. “That makes sense—there’s less chance of accidental interference with the results. I’d like—that is, we’d like—to start in the southern wing, first floor.”

“So we’ll begin with the northern wing, fourth floor,” Adrienne agreed.

Zeek brightened. “Isn’t that where the creeper is?”

Chris glanced at Oscar. “Creeper?”

“A shadow person!” Zeek exclaimed. Did the man ever say anything with a normal level of volume and enthusiasm? “But the kind that crawls around on the floor or the walls, not, you know, a hat man or something.”

Shadow people hadn’t yet been properly investigated, at least not to Nigel’s standards. They were probably incorporeal personal agencies of some kind, most likely human ghosts. But he’d read some theories suggesting they could be of inhuman origin.

That, he doubted. No one had ever proven the existence of any sort of inhuman paranormal entity. There’d been reports of ghost dogs and the like over the years, but they were almost certainly living animals mistaken for ghosts. Shadow people were probably just ghosts able to gather enough energy to manifest, but not enough to be seen as anything more than a silhouette by non-mediums.

“Sounds good,” Oscar said. “The creeper is all yours.”

“Then, with that out of the way…” Adrienne opened the door “…let’s get to work.”

Oscar braced himself as the door swung wide, its rusty hinges shrieking a protest.

Had his mamaw come through this door? Or were patients admitted through a more discreet entrance? Maybe it depended on whether they arrived voluntarily with their families or were brought forcibly by ambulance.

Which had it been for her? The latter, probably. She’d been declared a danger to herself and others.

Bands tightened around his chest; grief for a woman he’d never known. By all rights, she would have trained him up just as she’d been trained by her grandmother. Instead, he’d wasted years in shame, afraid he was crazy and seeing things, suppressing his gift as much as he could.

Adrienne went inside first, followed by Zeek. Oscar followed them into a wide, airy entryway, the plaster arches decorated with stylized flowers. Light filtered through the twin windows to either side of the door and the transom above it, dimmed by years of accumulated grime. A reception area greeted them on the left; on the right was a room marked SECRETARY and another labeled DIRECTOR.

This had once been a beautiful place, but years of neglect had taken their toll. The dark wood of the floors bore deep scratch marks, and the paint flaked from the walls. A thick layer of dust covered the receptionist’s desk and the old 1990s-era computer that sat on it.

Oscar stepped around the desk and tugged on a drawer. It opened reluctantly, wood swollen and spongy from humid summers and wet winters. Inside rested the typical office supplies, from sticky notes to pens and a stapler.

“I’m always amazed at what gets left behind,” he said. “So many of the abandoned places we go, people just walked away and never came back.”

Nigel glanced at him. “I wonder if any records are still here.”

Mamaw’s records, he meant. Oscar didn’t know if it would be better or worse to find out the details of what happened to her here.

“If you want to rummage through dusty old files, be our guest,” Adrienne said, flapping a dismissive hand at them. “We’ll be doing what we actually came here for.”

“Get to it, then,” Chris shot back.

She rolled her eyes, then made for the wide, curving stairs at the end of the hall. Zeek gave them a thumbs-up and trotted after.

Once they were gone, Nigel said, “Are you all right, Oscar?”

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