Ghosts of Rosewood Asylum (21 page)

“Very good. Good stuff,” Sara said.

“I’m exhausted,” Shelly stated. “G’night
all.”

Sara echoed Shelly, and a series of
goodnights were exchanged. Everyone made their way to their respective tents
except Zach. He motioned to Hunter who wasn’t staying. “I’ll walk you out.”

They headed down Rosewood’s driveway.

“Well? How’d it go?”

“I don’t know,” Hunter said. “Something
about it bothers me.”

“You don’t know if the doctor was released?”

“I’m just not sure it was a good idea.”

“Why not?”

“Balance.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know what I mean. The word came to
me during the exorcism. It was as if it was the doctor’s final warning.”

“Final warning?”

“I don’t know how to explain it.”

Hunter was behaving strangely. Zach wasn’t
used to him acting sketchy like this. Upon reflection, everyone seemed already
affected by the case—or perhaps by Rosewood. Zach himself felt overwhelmed and
needed sleep. It promised to be a full day tomorrow.

“Let’s talk tomorrow. You’re coming back,
right?”

“Only if you’ll have me.” Hunter smiled
weakly. “I booked a hotel room just down I94.”

They’d reached the security car that was
parked just inside the locked main entry point. The engine was running, but the
vehicle was dark. Zack tapped on the glass. The guard at the wheel stirred and
opened his door issuing a string of apologies. He unlocked the gate and let
Hunter out.

“Drive safe,” Zach said. “See you tomorrow.”

Hunter waved.

Zach trudged back towards Rosewood. No one
was around and the grounds were silent. Overcome with fatigue he stumbled to
his tent, spilled in and crawled into his sleeping bag. He slipped off his
pants but left his shirt on. Also, unlike Ray, Zach wore his scapular to bed;
even in his dreams, he needed the Lord’s protection.

Unfortunately, the scapular didn’t guarantee
a night of restful sleep.

“Knock. Knock,” Uncle Henry said, reaching
up and rustling his parka. “Breakfast is served.”

He reached under his chin and tugged a
zipper from his jugular down his sternum to below his belt. The scent of
Sailor
Black
transitioned to fresh ground java beans. Evelyn emerged from inside
his godfather. As she climbed out, Zach calmly noted that her body was that of
a skeleton.

“Wakey. Wakey,” she said. “Your Café
Americano is here.”

Zach stared at the inside wall of his tent
and at Ray’s crumpled sleeping back. It was light out.

“Your coffee, my liege.”

Ray was standing at the entrance to their
tent holding out a tall,
Muses
to-go cup. Zach sat up and pretended his
head wasn’t filled with remnants of dream world material. Eyes half closed, he
reached for the cardboard Café Americano. Its heat focused his mind. Steam
surrounded the cup and his hands around it.

“Don’t like the weather in Chicago?” Ray
said, quoting the oft-heard, local expression. “Wait a minute, it will change,”
His breath brought a stream of mist.

“Time is it?”

“Seven thirty-ish.”

Zach grunted. “Shouldn’t you be reviewing
video?”

“Yes, sir. Just bringing you your coffee,
sir
.”
He saluted using one inappropriate finger.

Zach rolled his head on his shoulders. It
felt like he’d slept on a bed of frozen peas. “Sorry.”

“Ahhh,” Ray waved off the apology. “This
case is so off the charts that even your morning grumpiness can’t get to me.”

“What’s so off the charts?”

“Well, I mean in the past, we’ve captured
doors closing on their own and images and voices, but we’ve never had one
interact so boldly as last night—to burn down a tree?”

Zach understood what Ray meant, and after
hearing Hunter’s warning and considering how destructive fires could be, he
didn’t welcome this powerful of an interaction with this particular spirit.

“Hey, c’mon,” Ray said. “We’ve been
reviewing for a couple of hours. Turk’s already found something.”

Zack sipped his coffee. Without it, he’d
certainly have retreated back into his sleeping bag. Ray exited and closed the
zipper of the tent reminding Zach of his bizarre dream. He tried to recall what
had transpired before Evelyn had emerged from his uncle but it was lost to the
ether. Any hope of retrieving it was gone when from outside the tent, Ray
hiss-whispered Orson-Wells-style. “Rosewood!”

The dusty odor of Rosewood’s lobby had taken
on, but not been completely taken over by, the musky smell of unwashed men.

Angel sat at the command point. His head
propped up by his fist.

“Well, good morning, stranger,” Zach called
out.

Angel stirred.

Zach slapped him on the back. “You missed
all the excitement last night.”

“So I heard.”

“Anything fun or exciting happening this
morning?”

“Bryce and Rico are doing a sweep of the
building. They radioed down that Room 217 is filled with the smell of peaches.
They want you to get Sara and a camera crew and go up and take a look.”

“Cool. Actually, could you get Sara and tell
her I’ll meet her up there? I’ve gotta check something out with the video
review guys.”

“You talked to Ray?”

“I did. I guess Turk found something?”

“Supposedly.” Angel sighed and pointed down
the hallway toward the infirmary. “They set up a video review center in room
111.”

“Thanks.”

Zach bounded down the hall clutching the
remnants of his Café’ Americano. Caffeine began coursing through his veins.
Even with only a few hours of sleep, his excitement in solving Rosewood’s riddles
had replenished itself—or had at least been jumpstarted by the java bean.

By the time he passed room 107, he could
hear them rumbling around in the room up ahead.

“When’s he gonna get his ass here?” Turk was
saying.

“I told you, he’s coming,” Ray said.

Good ole Ray The Protector.

Zach reached room 111. “Hello, ladies. I
hear you have something to show me.”

“Zach!” Turk said. “Wait’ll you see this!”

Already cued up on a monitor was a video
display of what, by now, Zach recognized as the basement. In the upper right
corner of the screen, a digital clock kept the recording time, as well as a
counter of total minutes filmed. It currently read 11:22 PM. Turk clicked the
remote and the video began.

It ran about a minute before Zach noticed
what the commotion was about. In the greenish darkness, an image formed and
swirled. It seemed to manifest out of the ether. At one point, it appeared to
be the form of a woman. Then it vanished in a puff that went straight into the
ceiling.

“This was right before the fire,” Turk said.
“Maybe this activity caused it?”

“Replay it,” Zach said.

Turk clicked the rewind and the video
reversed back to murk. He hit play.

“Here it comes,” Ray said.

 “What the...” It was even more
impressive the second time Zach saw it.

“Play it for him frame-by-frame,” Ray told
Turk.

They examined the footage in that manner and
froze it when the form had reached its largest. There on the screen, right
before their eyes, was a young woman with shoulder-length hair. With the
picture stilled, they could even make out features of her face—nose and lips.

“She’s a looker,” Ray said.

“No thanks,” Zach and Turk responded in
unison.

“Screw you’s,” Ray said.

“Hey, seriously,” Zach said. “Let’s get this
to our digital analyst, pronto. Maybe he can enhance the image.”

“Will do, boss,” Turk said. “Are ya proud of
me?”

“Hell yes,” Zach said. “If this holds up to
digital enhancement, I’ll freakin’ name her after you!”

“Turko’s Treasure,” Ray said.

Something told Zach that the nickname might
stick. “Hey, get through the footage as quickly as you can to see what happened
down there during Demon Hour,” he said to Turk.

“You mean, ‘Spirit Hour.’” Turk winked at
him. “Will do.”

“Did you hear about what Bryce and Rico
found in Room 217 this morning?” Ray asked.

“Yes, I’m headed up there now,” Zach said.
“Do me a favor and review the footage from Camera 8 outside that room?”

Ray looked a bit put out. “What do you think
I’ve been doing since I heard the news?”

Chapter Twenty-Three

“We discovered it this morning doing a quick
walk through,” Rico said.

Even having arrived skeptical, Zach had to
admit that standing inside Room 217, it smelled strongly of peaches.

“I told you I smelled something last night.”
Bryce posed as though he’d just climbed Mount Whitney.

Sara and her cameraman filmed them examining
the floor and walls for evidence of the scent.

“Check this out.” Rico crouched near the far
corner of the room and pointed to a puddle of clear liquid the size of a silver
dollar.

“Don’t touch it.” Zach rushed over. He got
on all fours over the spot and eased his nose closer and closer, careful not to
inhale too deeply. Sometimes even odorless liquids could be harmful. This was
not odorless. It smelled like peaches.

“Maybe it’s ghost ectoplasm!” Bryce’s
enthusiasm was even more annoying in the early morning than it was late at
night.

“I think it’s just peach juice.”

“Are you sure?” Bryce asked.

Zach scooped some of the liquid into a tiny
sealable container used for such purposes. “We’ll take it in and have it
analyzed of course, but I think we’re gonna find it’s a natural fruit juice.
How it got here is anyone’s idea.”

“Maybe,” Bryce said, pacing the room, “the
ghost of the man who died eating the peach jar has returned to warn us of
something.”

“Anything is possible,” Zach said to the
camera. What he didn’t say was that this whole thing stunk more of planted
evidence than it did of southern fruit.

“Let’s walk through the rest of the asylum
with the camera crew,” Rico said.

Zach’s cell phone buzzed notification of an
incoming text message. It was from Ray:  Need 2 see u. Private.

“You guys go on up ahead. I’m going to get
this to a safe place,” he said lifting up the container. “I’ve got to look into
something. I’ll catch up with you in a few.”

Sara glared at him but didn’t say a word.

“Patrizia,” Zach said into his cell phone as
he walked down the hallway. “Do you have anything more on that mysterious
patient from the basement?”

“Hello Zach,” she said. “I’ve isolated many
of Dr. Johansson’s notes on this woman. After they found her in the basement,
they treated her in the infirmary and then held her in room 11 for close
observation for over a week. During that time—”

“Wait.” Zach tap-stepped down the marble
stairs of the lobby’s staircase. “Did you say room 111?”

“No. It just says here room 11.”

“There isn’t just an 11. There’s a 111, 211
and probably a 311.”

“Oh. Well, yes. I guess
now
it would
probably be room 111,” Patrizia said.

Pierre and Matthew had joined Angel at the
command post. Matthew looked tired; Pierre appeared seriously hung over. The
three of them were gathered together speaking in hushed tones. They
suspiciously broke apart and started making small talk as he circled towards
them while descending the stairs.

“What do you mean, ‘now it would be 111’?”
He nodded at the Tech Team as he passed by. They seemed far too interested in
his presence. Something was afoot.

“Well, reading through this,” Patrizia said,
rustling papers on her end of the line, “I found out today that in July of
1900, Dr. Johansson changed the room numbers at Rosewood. Apparently there had
been confusion about the numbering having two digit numbers on the first floor
and three digit ones on the second and third floors. There was something about
people confusing one of the offices outside the infirmary with room 101, a
patient’s room.”

Zach stopped dead in his tracks. “So until
July of 1900 rooms on the second floor had three digits that started with a 1?”

“Yeah. Why would that matter?”

“When did that guy, Wozniak, eat that jar in
his room?”

“Before that, I believe. Yes, yes. 1897.”

“Right!” Zach tried to keep his excited
voice down. “So that means that room 217 today used to be called room 117 and
room 317 is actually where Wozniak was kept.”