Ghosts of Rosewood Asylum (12 page)

“One day in 1898,” Patrizia continued, “an
orderly who was substituting for a missing coworker, discovered a woman living
in one of the storage rooms. She claimed that she wasn’t insane and had been
living there in hiding from her jealous husband.”

“Was she a patient?” Zach asked.

“That’s where the story gets even more
interesting. No one recalled having ever seen her. There were no records of her
admittance. She insisted that her ‘friend,’ an orderly had snuck her in and had
taken care of her while she was there.”

“Hiding from her husband?” Rebecca asked.

“Yes. But that’s not the end of the story.
The day that they found her, they also discovered the corpse of Thomas Carter,
the
orderly
, in the stables. He’d been stabbed dozens of times.”

“She did it?” Bryce asked.

“They assumed that she did. They found
bloody clothes down here. The police wanted to take her into custody, but the
hospital administrator fought it since she was already committed to the
institution. He withheld her identity from the official records.”

“Dr. Johansson?” Zach asked. “The one Wendy
said died right before the hospital closed?”

“Yes.”

“What eventually happened to this woman?”

“Apparently, she stayed at Rosewood and was
transferred to the female quarters.”

“Did she die in the fire?”

Patrizia shrugged. “This morning, Wendy
stated the death toll of the fire was ‘more than a dozen.’ My research found
that it was quite a bit more than a dozen. The actual number was nineteen.
Nineteen women burned to death.”

The lobby was deserted when Zach and Rebecca
arrived. He grabbed a bottle of water from their supplies in the lobby and
handed it to her. She had been coughing and wheezing the entire trip up from
the basement.

“Allergies?” he asked.

Rebecca coughed. “No. Smoke...did you smell
it?”

“No.”

“I couldn’t breathe down there. I definitely
think the woman from the basement died in the fire.”

“You felt a presence?”

“Something. I felt something strong.”

Shouts echoed down the north corridor that
led to the infirmary. Instinctively, Zach bee lined for the commotion.

“Why don’t you fucking speak English?”
Matthew’s voice rang through the cavernous hallway.

“Hey, guys. Guys!” Angel shouted.

Zach entered the infirmary. The three tech
guys faced each other in a triangle. Angel looked from Pierre to Matthew.

“Look bloke, belt up. I don’t want to hear
from a septic tank how to p’form my dodge and shirk!”

“You calling me a septic tank you stupid
foreigner?”

“Hey!” Zach yelled. “What the hell is going
on?”

All three of them spoke at once—an
indistinguishable blather of words. Bryce and Sara had caught up and stood
behind him. Surprisingly, she stayed quiet and waited for him to do the heavy
lifting.

Zach held up his hands. “Quiet!” Their word
stream tapered off. “Angel, what the hell is going on here?”

“I’m not sure, boss. These guys were laying
cables and setting cameras up. I came running when I heard the shouting.”

Bryce pulled no verbal punches. “Pierre, I
told you to work as a team. What the bloody hell are you doing?”

Pierre seemed as stunned as any of them at
Bryce’s berating. He ran a hand through his sweaty black hair. “Listen Bryce,
do me a bloody Rod Laver and don’t blame me until you take a butcher’s hook how
high up this bloke wants to position the cameras.”

“I told this fucking guy to speak English!”
Matthew shouted.

“Could say the same about you. You’ve the IQ
of a Joe Blake.”

Matthew reached and grabbed Pierre’s polo
shirt before Angel could pull him back. Sara seemed content to watch how Zach
and Bryce would handle things.

Bryce charged Pierre and smothered him in a
hug. “C’mon. Let’s go. We’re going for a beer you and I,” he said.

“Beer?” Zach asked. Don’t you think—”

“Trust me.” Just before exiting the
infirmary, Bryce half turned and looked back. “Matthew, I’m sorry about this.
Set those cameras up the way you want them.”

Pierre cursed and muttered in unintelligible
dialect and pointed back. “I’m tellin’ you—”

“Quiet. I told you that you and I are going
for a drink. That’s it.” He turned again. “Zach, Sara, set up whatever work
schedule you need. I’ll take care of this and let’s meet back at five o’clock?”

“Okay,” Sara responded. “Five o’clock in the
main lobby.”

Once they were out of earshot, Zach tore
into Matthew. “What part of work as a team do
you
not understand?”

“Are you kidding me?”

Angel eased into the space between Zach and
Matthew.

“You know I’m not kidding. This isn’t
funny.” Zach kept his tone firm and his emotions in check.

Shelly and Ray rushed up the hallway.
Apparently they had heard the commotion from halfway across the property.

“No, what’s funny is that I’ve been in this
from the beginning...look, it’s bad enough I’ve got to report to you two,”
Matthew pointed at both Zach and Angel. “But now I’ve got to kowtow to some
foreign idiot? Even the girls don’t have to put up with that many bosses.”

“Even the
girls
?” Shelly echoed.
“What the hell do you mean by that?”

“Okay, okay.” Sara finally stepped in.
“Let’s not escalate this. Matthew’s upset and he has a point.”

“Gee, ya think?” Matthew seemed hell bent on
alienating everyone.

Sara glared at him. “Do you want to take the
night off?”

He crossed his arms across his chest. “No. I
never said I didn’t want to be a part of this.”

“Alright, then take a few hours off. In
fact, take as much time as you need to calm yourself down. Ideally, I’d like
you back here before sundown.”

“Fine.” He made his way down the hall alone.

“The rest of you,” Sara said, looking
around. “Where is the Turk?”

“He and Rico went to check out the stables,”
Angel said.

“Really?” Zach wasn’t sure if he was more
upset that Turk had left without getting permission or because he’d taken off
to investigate with a
Demon Hunter
.

“Well, spread the word,” Sara said. “We’re
all meeting up at five o’clock in the lobby. We’ve got a long couple of days
and nights ahead of us. Let’s pace ourselves, people.”

“Damn straight,” Ray said. He motioned to
Shelly and Rebecca. “Come along now,
girls
!”

“You need a good ass kicking don’t you?”
Shelly asked, failing to keep a straight face. She punched him in the meaty
part of his arm.

“Oww.” He began shadow boxing Muhammad
Ali-style, and then extended his right arm straight putting his palm on her
forehead – a move that made it impossible for her to reach him with punches.
“C’mon,
girl
. C’mon,
girl
.”

Shelly chuckled and played along. They
meandered down the hall toward the exit. Rebecca grabbed Zach by the elbow and
held him back.

“I need to ask you something.” She looked
unsure of how to express herself, which for her wasn’t unusual. Rebecca often
had trouble articulating her feelings and conveying her psychic experiences.

“What’s going on?”

“I’m not sure. Do you feel anything here? I
mean, when you’re inside this place?”

Zach inhaled a deep centering breath. Other
than dust and the faint smell of musk, he sensed nothing. “No. But you’re more
attuned than I am. What do you feel?”

She looked him in the eye, which for
Rebecca, was rare. “Something is in this place—something ugly. It’s subtly—in
this case, not so subtly, affecting people’s moods.”

He nodded.

“Zach, something evil is roaming these
halls.”

Chapter Thirteen

That Sashza showed up to Rosewood shocked a
few—even Bryce had claimed that her appearance was a fifty-fifty proposition.
Sara had gotten the network to apply significant pressure to the
transvestite-psychic. Apparently a Sci-D lawyer had told Sashza that if she
expected to ever be seen on television again, she had better perform her
psychic walkthrough.

When Sashza did appear, it surprised no one
that she showed up in dramatic fashion. She strolled up the driveway wearing a
pink sequined dress and emitting an attitude as if she’d been pulled away from
an Emmy Awards dinner. Her sequins picked up the light of the setting sun and
flashed and twinkled. But her hat was what stole the show. A throwback to maybe
the 1940s, a faux white rose perched upon a tiny brim from which long thin
white feathers sprouted. And of course the
pièce de résistance
, the
white veil wrapped around her face as though it could shield her from all harm.

“Hello everyone. Hello!” She waved like she
was in a parade. “Thank you for all the calls!”

Her mood seemed to cool to just about frigid
when she approached Sara and the camera. With a nervous fluster, Sashza looked
away and focused on Bryce. “Darling, I am so glad you insisted I come. This is
a once-in-a-lifetime chance at really making contact with souls who need help.”

She grabbed Zach’s arm and pulled him close,
as though she needed both their support if she were to take more than a few
steps forward. “And Zach, my dear, I do hope to provide you a first-hand
viewing to the effectiveness of my readings.”

Zach smiled. “I’m sure it’ll be a treat.”

“We’re going to walk the property,” Bryce
said to Sashza. “We’re going to start at the administration building, move to
the old stables, and lastly go into the main hospital building.”

“Very good. And it will just be a small
group of us, yes? I don’t wish to be distracted by conflicting vibratory
sensations.”

The crew had finished filming Sashza’s
arrival. Sara walked out from behind the camera. “It’s just going to be the
on-air talent here and us.” She pointed to the two cameramen and herself.

Zach always loved being referred to as
‘on-air talent.’

Sashza acted as if Sara wasn’t even there.
“Bryce dear, could you get me some water? My throat is incredibly parched.”

Bryce trotted to the equipment van to fetch
her drink.

“Where did you come from this evening?” Sara
asked, seemingly intent on breaking the iceberg-sized barrier.

Sashza looked at Zach and then at the sky.
As though realizing she couldn’t be overt in her rudeness toward Sara she
spoke, but without looking at her. “I had an early dinner with a lovely friend
in the city.”

“Really? Where?” Sara asked.

“Oh, I don’t know.” Sashza focused on
flicking away imaginary lint from her dress. “Downtown. I don’t remember the
name of the establishment.”

Zach glared at Sara. She was enjoying this
too much. Fortunately Bryce returned with bottled water which Sashza used as an
excuse to wander a short distance away—in the exact opposite direction of Sara.

I’m sensing a little girl,” Sashza said.
“Why would a child be in this place? She’s lonely. Not scared but lonely. She
wishes she had…a friend.”

Zach, Bryce, Sara and her cameraman stood
outside the administrative building near the far southeast corner of Rosewood’s
property line. Sashza had not experienced any psychic feelings inside the
building. Upon exiting, she had meandered around the perimeter in a semi-trance
before standing still, closing her eyes and beginning to speak.

“Boy!” Sashza squeaked. Her facial
expression took on the innocence of a cherub—her complexion cleared and the
wrinkles in her face seemed less pronounced. Zach would never have believed it
just an hour earlier, but Sashza actually looked like a young girl.

They waited patiently for her to continue,
but she seemed to be far away—in the recesses of her mind.

Bryce broke the silence. “There is a boy?”

“Not a boy. Just Boy.”

Zach looked at Sara. Had she told Bryce or
Sashza about their experience with Joey? As if reading his thoughts, Sara
deliberately shook her head.

“Where are you?” Bryce asked. His eyes never
left Sashza’s face. He moved close enough to catch her if she swooned, but
stayed a safe distance from invading her space.

“I’m here!” Sashza giggled, but the laugh
wasn’t at all like her.

Bryce appeared confused, and then rolled his
eyes.

“
When
are you?” he asked. “What year
is it?”

“It’s 1900, silly. Don’t you remember the
big New Year’s party?”

“Ohhh, sure,” Bryce said. “Did you have fun
at the party?”