Ghosts of Rosewood Asylum (15 page)

“Is there a Mrs. Radcliff there?” She
shuddered and then peered at Zach.

 Mrs.
Radkey
had been the woman
who had admitted to having seen a shadowy figure in her house.

“Mrs. Radkey?” Zach asked.

Rebecca’s psychic abilities never ceased to
surprise him. In the interest of his show, because she wasn’t that comfortable
on camera, he may have been holding back her talent.

“Yes.” Rebecca’s voice was calm and
confident. “I need to talk to her. She knows more than she’s letting on.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know. I may be able to convince her
to let me investigate there. She may not allow cameras but…”

She stared out at the homes a hundred yards
away and slightly downhill from Rosewood. Her eyes were vacant, as though
unfocused. “Which is hers?” she asked.

“You tell me.”

Rebecca closed her eyes and extended her
arm. Her index finger pointed out to the dual rows of homes. It circled in the
air a moment and then came to rest aimed at the building on the north side next
to the vacant lot. She’d chosen the house across the street from the Foster
residence—the home of Mrs. Elizabeth Radkey.

The two-way radio flared static. They both
flinched.

Sara’s voice came across the transom. “Zach?
Come in, Zach!”

He put the radio to his mouth. “I’m here.”

“Rosewood Psychiatric Hospital is ready for
you and Rebecca.”

Chapter Sixteen

“Zachman!” Bryce bounded out of the front
doors of Rosewood. “This place is ripe!”

Rico tread out behind him looking stirred
but not shaken. The cameraman and Sara followed behind. The lights from the HD
camera made it difficult to see for a moment. Bryce dashed at Zach and stopped
just a whisker away. He grabbed Zach by the shoulders and shook him with every
syllable.

“You are go-ing-to-be-a-mazed-in-there!”

“Really? That’s awesome.”

“We got some good shit. Didn’t we, Rico?”

Rico’s eyes got wide and he nodded. “I’ve
not seen anything like this since maybe that case we did back in Atchison,
Kansas.”

“We smelled peaches in room 217!” Bryce rose
up on his toes and then dropped down flatfooted. His eyes were unusually active
and his movements were quick—almost cat-like. Zach didn’t need the scent of
Sailor
Black
nor his godfather’s voice to tell him that Bryce was on something.

“Didn’t we Rico? Tell them.”

Rico pursed his lips. He tilted his head to
one side and then the other. He seemed unwilling to confirm but equally
unwilling to object.

“Dude, what’s it like out in the boonies?”
Bryce asked.

“We didn’t come up with all that much,” Zach
said. “But once the spirits start getting activated, who knows what may
happen?”

“That’s right!” Bryce said. “Boo-yah! We’re
gonna wake these bitches up!” He strode off toward the administration building
with so much bounce in his step that Zach imagined him to be a human version of
Tigger. After bounding fifteen or twenty paces, he turned back. “Let’s go, Ricooo!”

Rico hurried off to catch up. Zach watched
them practically skip across the field of shin-high weeds before he turned back
to Sara.

“Have at it,” she said, following after
Bryce and Rico with her cameraman in tow. The first-night plan was for Rebecca
and Zach to cover floors two and three. This is it, Zach thought. The real
investigation begins now. I’m finally fulfilling my dream of investigating
Rosewood. They rushed through the technical command center and were headed up
the lobby’s main staircase when Rebecca stopped. “Wait. What happened to the
candles?”

“Apparently, Angel couldn’t keep them lit.”

She emitted a pensive, “Hmmmm.”

“Hmmm, what?”

“Something therein that doesn’t love a
fire,” she said, parodying a Robert Frost poem. “Can we go to room 217?”

Zach nodded, and they climbed up and around
the lobby to the second floor. Wood floorboards creaked and groaned beneath
their feet. The corridor, lined with one doorway after another, stretched on
ahead of them. Some of the metal doors were closed, but most remained at least
halfway open, as if daring Zach and Rebecca in. As they crept down the darkened
hallway using their flashlights as sparingly as possible, Zach reminded Rebecca
not to let the setting affect her mood.

“The trick is to experience the place as if
the building is a blank slate and not a creepy asylum.”

“Easier said than done, but I hear you,” she
said. “Still, this place doesn’t feel right. It’s...off—not as bad as the
basement, but there is a lot of latent torment here.”

“We knew there’d have to be residual
effects, but we’re hoping for some evidence of an intelligent haunting.” Zach
flicked on his flashlight as they approached room 217.

“Say ‘hi’ to the boys,” Zach said, pointing
his beam at the camera situated to monitor the room’s doorway.

“Hi, boys.” Rebecca waved.

“Hi back.” Matthew’s voice crackled on
Zach’s walkie-talkie.

Zach raised his index finger to his upper
lip and made the shush motion to the camera. Once inside the room, they took
thermal readings and performed a few EVP questions as they’d done in the
administration and old stables buildings.

“Smell anything?” Zach asked.

Rebecca took a series of measured
inhalations in various directions. “Nothing but old plaster and dust. You?”

Because the camera was filming, he only
replied, “I don’t smell or sense anything unusual in here.” What he couldn’t
say was that he thought Bryce was crazy...or worse.

“Something has been bothering me about this
case,” Rebecca said in hushed tones.

Before heading back down to the lobby,
they’d stopped in a few rooms on the third floor, but hadn’t experienced
anything unusual.

“What’s that?”

“The fires and the suicides—spirits of those
who’ve committed suicide are very confused. There have been cases where they’ve
even believed that during their lifetimes they were murderers, even though they
weren’t.”

“Yes,” Zach said. “Remember when we first
set up
XPI
and we encountered that case in—was it Joliet?

“Lockport,” Rebecca corrected.

“Right. That guy had committed suicide and
his spirit was inadvertently haunting his wife and child—”

“Yes, believing that he’d killed them too.
It’s fairly common with suicidal haunts. Their reality becomes a mishmash world
of confusion and misunderstanding,” Rebecca said. “And there is a greater
danger.”

“The confused spirits are more susceptible
to demons,” Zach said.

“Demons and evil spirits, ghosts wishing to
be demons who recruit them for some malevolent purpose.”

Zach was unfamiliar with that particular
phenomenon. “Like what?”

“They’re called ‘Soul Snatchers’ or ‘Soul
Collectors.’ Their aim is to build an army of the dead—sometimes both the
living and the dead.”

“Why?”

“Sometimes there’s a motivation behind it,
but usually it’s just an obsession to prove they can do it. The power, the
control of it.”

Zach placed his hand on the cold plaster
wall. A century of grime had made it sticky to the touch. The complexity of the
case was unlike any other he’d faced. The fires, strong evidence of spirits,
Evelyn’s information and confusing history, not to mention Sashza’s negative
forecasts, added up to one inevitable conclusion. If Hunter’s reading didn’t
clarify the situation, Zach would need to induce an episode and utilize its
powers. He shuddered. Summoning his visions carried consequences—serious ones,
which he’d rather not face during an investigation this large in scale.
Precautions would need to be taken.

His wrists throbbed as they sometimes did
when he thought about his episodes.

He pressed thoughts of them away. Not only
were they making him anxious, the mere act of remembering an episode increased
the chances that one could accidentally occur.

“Tomorrow,” he said to Rebecca, “before you
talk to Mrs. Radkey, could you do some more research on these ‘Soul
Snatchers’?”

“Sure.”

“Maybe prepare a little presentation for the
group?”

“Do I have to?”

Unlike Wendy, Rebecca detested giving on-air
speeches.

“I think you’re the most qualified to
present it.”

Rebecca sighed and continued panning the
room with the EMF meter. It sometimes took a while for her to relent.

Zach had found flattery the best angle to
use. “I always enjoy when you share your paranormal expertise with us. I’m sure
our viewers learn a lot from you. I’d hate to deprive them.”

Sometimes a little bit of guilt did the
trick too.

“Okay, I’ll do it.” She acted as though
public speaking might kill her. “You just don’t get how hard it is for me.”

She had no idea that Zach was preparing to
bear his own cross.

Zachary’s Past—Age 7

“Za-aach? Zach!”

Gary Kalusky shook his son. Later, he would
wonder if he had shaken him too hard.

“Zachary Thomas!”

The boy needed to get to a hospital, but
fucking Christ, how would he explain this? Worst of all, he didn’t know if
these wounds were self inflicted or if his mother had, in one of her states,
administered them. And Gary didn’t know which scenario frightened him more. He
picked up Zach’s limp body and cradled him in his arms like an infant.

Crybaby idiots on the radio were always
singing about their damn hearts breaking. None of them could ever put into
words what it really felt like. He clutched his son, his only son, wrapped him
in a blanket and carried him to his car. Gary gently laid Zach on the passenger
seat and carefully strapped the seatbelt across him.

Despite driving at faster speeds than he
ever had in his life, those first few blocks seemed to last an eternity.

Then Zach stirred.

“Uncle Henry?” he called out.

“Shhhh, Zach,” Gary said. “We’re on our way
to get help.”

“Daddy.” His son’s voice sounded so content,
so peaceful, that it helped Gary focus his thoughts. At 95th street he needed
to make a decision—an important one. A right turn led him straight to Christ
Hospital. A left hand turn would—

“Daddy, take me to church?”

With the vehicle stopped at the red light,
Zach had opened his eyes and realized where they were. His drawn, pale face had
a death-like quality, but his green eyes were vibrant and alive. At the moment,
he looked much older than a boy two weeks away from making his first communion.

“Zach, you’re sick. We’ve got to get you to
a hospital.”

“No hospital.”

“Buddy, church is your mom’s thing, not
mine. When you’re sick—”

“I’m not sick. I’ll be okay, Dad. It’s
happened before...lots of times.”

Behind them a car honked. The light had
turned green. Gary motioned out the window for the driver to go around them. As
the vehicle passed, Gary flicked a one-fingered salute.

“I promise,” Zach continued, “I’ll be okay.”

Before turning left, as though it was a
condition for taking him to the church, Gary said, “Zachary, your mother must
never, never, never find out about this.”

“Don’t worry, Dad, I know.”

His son understood that his mom wouldn’t be
able to cope with something like this. Not now. Not ever. That’s why Zach had
hidden in the garage; he knew his mom wouldn’t find him there.

Gary sped recklessly toward Saint Francis of
Assisi. He’d take Zach to Monsignor Macginty. Gary didn’t attend services, but
he’d met Macginty on a number of occasions. The old priest would know what to
do; how to help Zach get a handle on this...thing. Some things are better
turned over to priests, not spoken of again—buried.

As he pulled up to the rectory, Gary made
what turned out to be his final, direct comment about Zach’s affliction.

“You need to find a way to control this
thing, Zachary.”

Chapter Seventeen

Pierre and Matthew seemed to have mended
fences and were working together in the lobby. Next to the command center were
a number of drained beer bottles. Zach suspected the beer may have contributed
to them bonding. Angel was asleep in a nearby tent; he’d be working a later
shift.

Zach pulled Matthew out of earshot of the
others. “Hey, go easy on the drinking tonight, okay?”