The White Night
Authors: Desmond Doane
Desmond
Doane
©2015
September, 2003
West Ramsey Asylum
Years
before the fall of
Graveyard: Classified
At a quarter
past one in the morning
, I feel something slide its finger across the back
of my neck. It’s light, like a dandelion seed caught in a puff of wind, tracing
over my skin—ever so soft—but it’s there.
I swipe at the
trespasser, exploring an inch or two below my collar, finding nothing. I turn
and look for the source, seeing only blackness, hearing the rustle of my
partner’s clothing.
Inside this room,
where it’s alleged that a former mental patient died after swallowing a bucket
of nails, the darkened hour is cloaked in the deepest shadows.
The stench of
rotting wood and damp, rusty metal pollutes my nostrils.
Our flashlight
batteries were drained of energy hours ago, the first time our ghostly
companion tried to manifest. Mike Long and I have yet to learn that we need to
always,
always
, bring backups.
Mike says, “Did
you feel that?”
“Yeah. It got you,
too?”
“I am freaking the
hell out, man. Can we go now, please?”
“You want to
leave? Are you kidding me?”
“Catching an
apparition
once
does not make us paranormal investigators, chief. We’re
two dudes with a camera and a bit of luck. Do you even have any idea what
you’re doing? Because I sure as hell don’t. What if we, like… what if we get
possessed? I can’t go home with devil horns or some shit.”
“You worried about
Toni?”
The decaying
floorboards creak at the far side of the room. Neither one of us moved, so we
didn’t cause it. The flooring groans again, and this time, it’s accompanied by
what sounds like the
clunk-thunk
of a cowboy boot.
This is our eleventh
investigation, and I thought we were having fun with it. I’m charged by the
adrenaline rush. Clearly, Mike isn’t.
“Damn right, I’m
worried,” he says. “I’ve only taken her on, like, three dates. You think she
wants me passing a ghost on to her like some demonic STD?”
I scoff and blindly
focus on the sound’s origin. I think it was in the northeastern corner, but I’m
not entirely sure. The sound plays funny in this room—dull, hollow echoes—and
it’s so pitch black, it’s like we’ve been buried alive. That imagery in my mind
tightens my lungs and I take a deep breath. “There’s no demon here. You know
that. They said—”
“I don’t care what
they
said
,” Mike whines. “We’re out of our league.”
“Speaking of
leagues, you’d step up to the majors with me if we got the call, wouldn’t you?”
“The
call
?
I don’t even know what that means.”
“You’ve seen the
insane amount of hits we’ve been getting.”
One of our friends
watched our original video capture about three months ago—the one with the full
body apparition—and was so amazed that he said we’d be famous if we posted it
online. It took a few weeks, but he was right—we’re Internet famous, at least.
So far, a few hundred thousand people have watched the evidence we’ve captured,
and some nights I sit in front of my laptop refreshing the screen simply to
watch the view count go higher. It’s incredible that people are so
into
this stuff.
Mike says, “Are
you still posting those?”
“Why wouldn’t I?
People love them. Shit, man, I keep getting messages from total strangers, asking
when we’re going to post the next one.”
“Huh. No kidding?”
Mike thought we’d
get a couple of views from friends and then disappear into the grave of long
dead videos, the same videos where a baby’s trick isn’t that impressive and
cats that aren’t cute enough go to die a digital death.
“Really, man. We
might have something here.”
“Meaning?”
I wish he could
see my teasing smirk in the dark. I bend down in front of his night vision
camera, the last piece of equipment with working batteries, and wink. “I hope
you’re cool with it.”
“Whenever you’re
tired of hoarding information, I’ll be here trying to paranormally
investigate.” Mike yelps, and in the total darkness, I can hear his hands
flailing at his face and neck. “Whoever’s doing that,” he says, “stop it.”
We’re still pretty
new to all of this, but from the research I’ve done, a lot of the respected
paranormal investigators say that passing through spiritual energy can feel
like walking into a spider’s web. I remind Mike of this and tell him to relax,
that maybe it’s just trying to communicate.
Mike shudders and
says, “God, that’s creepy.” He tries to ask something else about my news, but
gets interrupted. Behind us, a doorknob jiggles and screeches as if something
is trying to sneak out of the empty closet.
“Who’s there?” I
shout.
“Who’s in here
with us?” Mike asks.
It’s a natural
reaction. We both know that we’re alone—or, at least, unaccompanied by people
who are alive, because outside, a chain link fence that’s twelve feet high,
topped with razor wire, borders this abandoned asylum, and we have a handful of
volunteer guards patrolling the exterior in return for a pizza and a six-pack.
When the state
board of regulations shut the asylum down back when Jimmy Carter was in office,
the fence was left intact to keep out the homeless and other trespassers. A
friend of mine, Jake Dunne, bought the place not too long after the events of
September 11
th
, 2001, about a year and a half ago. Really, he got it
for pennies on the dollar because the former owners panicked that the States
were going to be overrun by terrorists, so they sold everything they had and
moved to the Caribbean. Jake bought it because he thought it would be a good
place to hide out once Osama bin Laden got prepared to invade the outskirts of
Portland, Oregon here in the Pacific Northwest.
Don’t laugh. There
are some incredible craft breweries back in the city. It would be a great place
to set up your Terrorist HQ.
The fence didn’t
keep out the homeless or the hooligans, but Mike and I know we’re in the clear
tonight
because Jake is outside with two of his buddies patrolling the perimeter,
ensuring we get a clean investigation. After we showed him the tape of the
apparition we caught, he begged us to come investigate his property.
All he needed to
say was, “There’s some freaky stuff going on, Ford. I guarantee you’ll catch
something. You keep that shit up, you two are gonna be on TV.”
This, ultimately,
was what led me to post the video online where we captured a full-bodied
apparition of a woman in a white nightgown, pleading for help. Plain as day,
you can see her cautiously approach us and hold out her hands for a total of
five seconds before her transparent body vanishes.
Mike and I wait in
silence for a few moments, scanning the room, giving our visitor a chance to
communicate again. Mike finally breaks the quiet and says, “The silence
commands you to speak, Ford Atticus Ford. Out with the news.”
“Yes, your
majesty.” I can’t see it coming, but I feel a light punch on the shoulder. “Two
days ago, I got this cryptic email from a woman named Carla. She said she’d
seen our videos and wanted to talk to me. I figured she was just a reporter,
maybe looking for a local story, you know? Anyway, she sets up a phone meeting
and we talked earlier today. Turns out, and you’re not going to believe this,
but she’s a producer with The Paranormal Channel.”
“What? Seriously?”
Mike’s voice breaks in the middle of
seriously
, which makes him sound
like he hit puberty yesterday.
The closet’s
doorknob rattles violently. So aggressively, in fact, that it falls off and
slams against the floor, sending us both retreating by a few feet.
The room goes
quiet.
It feels like the
skin-prickling energy, the buzz, has dissipated.
It’s almost…
normal
in here now. Just two guys hanging out in the dark.
No otherworldly
company. Did it burn itself out?
I’ve noticed this
behavior before. Spirit, demon, supernatural entity, it doesn’t matter what it
is—it takes energy to manifest, and whomever was with us just now has used all
that he had, and has left us behind for the time being, slipping back into his
hazy limbo, caught in the netherworld until something comes along with enough
juice to recharge him. Seems like this guy hasn’t quite figured out yet that he
can use the energy in our bodies after the batteries have been depleted. Which
is entirely possible given that he was in an institution. He might not have the
mental acuity to process the possibilities available to him.
Mike says, “You
feel it, the emptiness? That thing’s gone, yeah?”
“For now. And
don’t call him a
thing
. He had a body, same way we do.”
“Except for the
fact that I’ve never eaten a bucket of nails like it was a three-piece from
KFC.”
“You know what I
mean.”
Again, we go silent
for a moment, waiting, watching, confirming that our ghostly pal had indeed
gone back to the other side.
We’re in the clear
and Mike says, “So you’re not full of shit? She’s really from The Paranormal
Channel? I thought all they showed was a bunch of crap about aliens and
Sasquatch?”
“True, but they’re
branching out. She was telling me that they had this idea for a show that would
be an hour-long collection of home videos—you know, evidence submitted by their
viewers.”
“I’d watch that. And
they wanna use ours?”
“More than that,
amigo. They want to use
us
.”
“Like for an
interview or what?”
“Way,
way
more. Check this out: the producer’s name is Carla Hancock. I looked her up on
the Internet thinking somebody was screwing with me. Anyway, she’s legit and
has a list of credits a mile long. Totally, absolutely, completely loved the
evidence we captured, said it was some of the best she’d ever seen, and get
this… She said the video was fantastic, but what she dug more than anything was
how we interacted, talking about how we had great chemistry, good banter.”
“And she got all
of that from a two minute video?”
“I asked the same
thing. Actually, the smell is really getting to me in here. Let’s go take a
breather.”
Entering the empty
hall, we step out into the somewhat fresher air of the dilapidated asylum where
there’s more ambient light provided by the moon. Our feet crunch on broken
glass, shattered tile, and the remnants of fallen sheetrock. Out the broken
window and a couple of stories below, in the courtyard, I can see Jake sweeping
a flashlight across his path. I tell Mike, “Carla said she used to be in casting
before she moved over to TPC and always had an excellent eye for a real
connection between people. Sounds like she saw something in us that caught her
attention. Whatever. Long story short, she
loved
the clip, and she wants
us to dig up the scariest place we can find for an investigation—”
“Like your
bedroom?”
“Hardy har har,
but no. We come up with the scariest place we can find and she’ll bring a film
crew up here for a test run. She’s got some room in her budget to film a cheap
pilot, and from what she says, she wants to blow it on us. Reality shows have
low production costs, so it’s perfect.”
“Wow.” It’s not an
excited sound. Mike crosses his arms, turns his eyes toward the moon. The way
the window frames his silhouette, he looks like a single-pane drawing from a
comic book. “I don’t know, man. That’s a big commitment, but…”
I knew he would be
hesitant—timid, even—because Mike is a creature of habit. He likes things to
stay the way they are. The right shoe always goes on first, that kind of thing.
“You don’t have to
answer now. Just take some time to think—”
“No, I’m in.”
I pause, staring
at him to make sure he’s not screwing with me. “Really? Just like that?”
“Yeah. At least
the pilot. I’ve never been on TV before, so, sure.”
“Awesome! I
thought I’d have to beg you for weeks, dude, what made you—” I pause
mid-sentence, knowing exactly what the reason is. “Toni, huh?”
“I got zero game
with her. Maybe being a TV star will help.”
I can’t help
chuckling. “So you’ll practically
catapult
yourself out of your comfort
zone for a woman you’ve known for two weeks, but not me?”
“She’s prettier.
And a knockout ten to my five.”
“Fair enough.” I
clap him on the back, squeeze his shoulder. “This could lead to something big,
Mikey Mike. I’m getting good vibes already.”
I feel a knock
against my thigh, glancing down in time to see a rock skittering across the
cracked tiles. Something threw it at me, definitely. The hair on my arms
prickles and stands at attention like trees in a haunted forest.
A disembodied
voice, deep and distant, says, “
You will fall
.”
***
Over a decade
later, I have no doubt that something was trying to warn us, even back then.
But how could we
have known?
Blindsight becomes
hindsight.