Ghosts of Rosewood Asylum (6 page)

With the smell of
Sailor Black
tobacco thick in the air, for
a moment, Beth wondered who had been smoking in the room. She darted for her
boy and snatched him in her arms.

Gary flicked on the lights, but the darkness
in the corner lingered. Gary blanched.

A voice said,
“He is my godson. It must be passed to him.”

 “Leave my son alone!” Beth said,
clutching Zachary.

“No,” Zach said, still reaching toward the
dark entity. “Stay me. Stay me!”

“Zachary.” Beth pulled his arm down. “No!”

He closed and opened his extended hand
repeatedly. “Stay!”

He had no sooner uttered the word than the
blackness swooped down at him. It disappeared into his mouth and nostrils. Zach
collapsed unconscious in her arms.

Just as quickly as the apartment had gone
cold, it returned to a normal temperature. Looking at her son, Beth saw the
blood.

She screamed.

Chapter Five

“So has she done that before?” Zach asked,
after they’d ordered lunch.

Zach had been queasy since the events on the
quad, and the aroma of rich Italian food that Zach normally adored, did nothing
to settle his stomach. He was conflicted. On one hand, he was nervous that
Sashza had somehow sensed the spirit housed inside his body, had somehow
discovered his possession. Given her terror at whatever vision she had, Zach
suspected she would have bluntly pointed him out had she uncovered his secret.
On the other hand, he was anxious because she may not have been referring to
his condition—which meant someone else was hiding an even more sinister secret.

“Done what?” Bryce asked.

“What she did at the quad?”

“Oh, yeah, no. Well, she does get intuitions
and feelings and suspicions. She’s swooned before, but I’ve never seen her as
shaken and scared as she was today.”

“She
will
relent and show up
tomorrow, won’t she?” Sara asked.

Bryce ripped a piece of bread from the loaf
on the table and shrugged. “Might work out better for the show if she doesn’t.
If our fans see that Rosewood is too creepy for Sashza. More dramatic that
way.” He shoved the bread into his mouth.

“Was that planned?” Zach asked.

“Nnnnt mmmm.” Bryce shook his head fiercely.

Zach continued. “I want to be up front here.
Just investigating Rosewood should provide us plenty of drama. I don’t want
anything manufactured.”

“Why not?” Bryce asked.

Zach couldn’t believe his ears. “Why not?”
he echoed.

Sara stuck her hand between them. “Bryce,
what I think Zach is saying is let’s let this situation play out. We got some
great footage today to start. Tomorrow, we’ll investigate the haunting and see
where it goes from there.”

“Whatever.”

Blood rising to his face and temples already
throbbing, Zach wasn’t about to back down an inch. “Not ‘whatever.’ If we’re
going to work together, we work together straight up, no tricks and no
backstabbing.”

Bryce’s hands rose. “Halleluiah and Amen! I
was kidding. Christ, learn to take a joke. Now, if you’re accusing me of
something do it, but this isn’t a trial and it had better not be a lynch mob.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Just as it was said, pal.”

Zach had no clue what Bryce’s point was. His
mounting frustration brought on the scent of
Sailor Black.
The smoke
mixed with the smells of Italian cuisine to create an odor Zach guessed would
saturate the lair of a mob boss. Although they probably smoked cigars.

“Look,” he said, trying to clear his head.
“All I’m saying is that on my show, we do things by the book. We have checks
and balances to make sure our evidence is authentic. It’s reviewed
independently.”

“Checks and balances,” Bryce echoed. “Sure.
I’ve seen how your audio and video reviewers authenticate evidence on
your
show.”

“What’s wrong with that?”

“What’s wrong with it? Dude, that’s the
difference between
Demon Hunters
and
XPI
. We don’t doubt that
haunts are real. We trust our clients and help rid them of evil spirits.”

“We do pretty much the same thing, Bryce.”

“No, you guys walk around all high and
mighty acting like you have all the answers. Well, you don’t. Point-in-fact?
That ‘
GrocersMart
security video’ you’re all hot and bothered by?” Bryce
used two fingers on each hand to make air quotes. “It’s a fake, dude. It’s nothing
more than an Internet hoax.”

Surprised, Zach said nothing.

“Yeah, we researched it
ad hominem
.”
Apparently unaware or unconcerned that he’d used the term incorrectly, Bryce
ripped another piece of bread and waved it around as though celebrating a
victory. “I didn’t want to say anything while the cameras were rolling, but
anyone worth his investigative salt would have noticed that the stacks of
Woods
Red Firelogs
, which are clearly displayed on the video, weren’t ever sold
in Chicago stores. Plus, they were discontinued nationally two years ago—long
before some poseur claimed that video was from the
GrocersMart
built on
former Rosewood property.”

Zach ignored the dig. “Okay, cool. One more
myth we can debunk on the show.”

Bryce sighed. “I told Patrizia to study the
architectural blueprints, so we know the ins and outs of all the buildings’
layouts.”

“And I’m just hearing about this now?” Zach
asked. It came out much harsher than he’d intended. The scents of red sauces
and sausages were drowned out by
Sailor Black.
His fingertips tingled.
Unlike most people in an argument whose heart rates sped up, Zach’s slowed,
making his thoughts distorted. “Why not first talk about it?”

Calm down, godson.

“Listen, Patrizia works for me—not you.”
Bryce’s voice rose. “I don’t need your permission or your advice. I’ll be the
one who tells
my people
what they will—”

“Boys!” Sara pounded the table hard enough
to cause the silverware to jingle. The restaurant hushed and many of the
patrons inspected them curiously. “This isn’t a contest of whose dick is bigger
or smarter.”

Zach wasn’t shocked at Sara’s language. She
wasn’t opposed to using flat out vulgarities in order to make her point. Bryce
stared at her.

“If you guys want me to pull the plug on
this special right now, I will,” she said. “I’ll save the network a whole lot
of money and I’ll move on to another project. I don’t need this shit.”

Zach was pretty sure that she was bluffing,
but she sure sounded convincing. He wondered if his own face had turned as red
as Bryce’s had. Nearby patrons had paused their meals, stopped being coy and
were just staring at them.

“Or,” her diatribe continued, “we can all
play nicely. Put aside our egos and give this project two days of intense
focus. We need some good stuff. Yes, Zach, some
dramatic
stuff.”

“Sara, I told you, we can’t control how
dramatic our findings are.”

“Yes, but you know this place. You’ve seen
the case file— it’s ripe with legend and strange activity. People are not going
to want to see a Halloween Special that merely debunks urban legends for ninety
minutes. Some of the rumors have to come from authentic paranormal activity.
How could it not be? The place is a former insane asylum.”

“Former
psychiatric hospital
.”

“Zach.”

She had a point. This case had more
potential for what they called in the business an “intelligent haunting,” than
any case they’d filmed during their abbreviated first season; the “trial
season” as Sara had called it.

“Listen,” Bryce said, looking at Sara. “You
know that I can be as good of a team player as the next guy. I agreed to use
you as our producer rather than our own, and I’m cool with that. I just don’t
want my team treated as an afterthought.”

Sara fixed her steel glare on Bryce, and
then alternated it on both him and Zach. “Look guys, I know the potential is
here for a phenomenal show. If we do this right, the network may even give both
shows two or three year deals. That doesn’t include syndication, specials,
foreign rights, licensing, etcetera, etcetera – provided neither of you fucks
this up.”

“I’m willing to let bygones be bygones,”
Zach said.

Bryce nodded. “Ditto.”

Zach held his hand out across the table.
Bryce shook hands firmly, but Zach couldn’t help but notice that the entire
length of the handshake Bryce Finman never made eye contact.

Chapter Six

After the uncomfortable truce, things had
gone moderately well at lunch—Zach even agreed to allow Bryce his infamous
“BryceCam,” a tiny video camera which he wore attached to his belt buckle. It
rarely contributed videos of anything except images of chaotic activity, but
Zach didn’t want to make a stink over something so trivial. After lunch, he had
needed to clear his head and had driven east through a few questionable
neighborhoods to Pullman.

Zach arrived at Rosewood Psychiatric
Hospital just as the sun was setting. The clear autumn sky held captive
peach-orange hues and illuminated Rosewood’s grounds in a peculiar glow. As
Zach peered across the weed-strewn lot at the three-story asylum, he felt as if
he was staring at a sepia-toned photograph. He could imagine the property as it
might have been a hundred years ago: The inclined path to the brick asylum
would have been well kept and welcoming. Two massive oak trees spaced forty
feet apart and standing between the pathway and 115th Street may have been mere
saplings when Rosewood opened. The asylum’s clock tower in the center of the
wide angled L-shaped building would be sturdy instead of besieged by the
elements. As opposed to having its hands stuck at 12:43, the clock would keep
accurate time. Had he stood there a century earlier, the fountain in the middle
of the circular driveway in front of the building wouldn’t have been cracked or
damaged; water would have jettisoned into the fresh country air plummeting down
into a basin pool, flowing over into the main receptacle.

A line of trees concealed the back fence,
but in Zach’s vision, the wooded area extended as far as the eye could see.
Visitors, men in derbies and women wearing Victorian hats, strolled along tended
garden paths near the south end of the property. Others sat on benches
surrounding the orange-brick hospital—relatives hoping their loved ones would
regain their sanity. The sun slinked below the horizon, the long shadows
vanished, and the happy fantasy faded to gray twilight.

Zach had driven by Rosewood plenty of times.
He’d even parked and walked through the historic neighborhood. Blocks away,
restoration of both the Market Hall as well as the old Pullman factory was
nearly complete. Decades ago, fire had ravaged the historical landmarks. Zach
vaguely recalled the incident, but didn’t remember the details. Details that,
no doubt, Wendy would supply at tomorrow’s briefing.

Standing at the chain-link fence that
separated him from Rosewood’s original wrought iron gate, Zach felt much more
anxious than he had on previous walks around Pullman. Soon he would be inside
the asylum; in a position to solve the hundred-year mystery of Rosewood’s
haunting. As dusk slowly claimed Pullman, questions ran through Zach’s mind.
Would the two teams,
XPI
and
Demon Hunters
, work in harmony?
Would they discover natural phenomenon that would scientifically explain and
debunk the ghost stories, or would they document proof of the paranormal? Would
the infamous female spirit who had scared off people for a century reveal
herself to them? To
him
?

The asylum’s main entryway had stood
sentinel for over a century. Situated on the northeastern edge of the property,
set in from the corner of 115th Street and Pine Avenue, a nine-foot fence
topped with barbed wire separated Zach from the historic buildings. The fence
served as a northern barrier along 115th Street. Past the two oak trees to the
west, lay the new strip mall with the
GrocersMart
and a
Muses Coffee
House
. The fence also ran southward around a building that had been the
hospital’s administrative offices and another that had long ago been the
asylum’s stables.

Although his emotions were in check, Zach
swore he caught a hint of
Sailor Black
in the air. Was this a warning to
stay away from Rosewood? Was the investigation doomed before it had even begun?
When he heard a voice, Zach nearly crawled out of his skin.

“Allo, mate.”

Zach spun around. Pierre, the
Demon
Hunters’
TechniHunter
, stood on the side of Pine Avenue within thirty
feet of him. In his right hand was a lit pipe.

“What the heck are you doing here?”

“Prolly just like you, I came t’ava lil
Captain Cook.”

Zach struggled to make sense of what he was
trying to say. “What?”