Ashes to Ashes (Experiment in Terror #8)

by Karina Halle

“But you believe us,” I reminded her.

  She nodded, staring off into space, her eyes looking tired. “Again, yes Perry, I believe you. I heard the music in the tunnel earlier. I believe there’s something about this place….you can definitely feel it on that floor, too. It’s like the air pressure has changed or something. But did I see anything, experience anything weird aside from that lamp? No. Shall we watch the footage?”

  “You know what,” I said, “I don’t think that’s the last thing I should see at night. How about we look it over when it’s daylight?”

  I had to admit, the fact that nothing unusual happened to her made me feel a million times better. Still, even after she got settled in for the night, I got out of bed and shoved a chair under the doorknob. If something, or someone, really wanted in the room, it wouldn’t keep them out. But it made me feel saner. As did Dex’s strong, protective arms around me.

  I just wished I had something similar to apply to my head, some way to prevent my mind from dwelling on dark figures crawling on all fours, or ghost children chasing after a ball.

  It felt like the sun was coming up by the time my weary body finally found sleep.

  CHAPTER NINE

  It’s funny how different things can feel by the light of day, let alone look. Our alarm clock was Davenport rattling the door and trying to get in. I actually fell out of bed and onto the floor, trying to get up in a panic, my body confused from lack of sleep and the terror fresh in my mind.

  Yet the moment I opened the door to sunlight streaming in through the halls and Davenport’s disapproving face, I felt like whatever we dealt with last night was nothing compared to this woman’s wrath.

  “Pardon my intrusion,” she said, disdainfully eying my clingy t-shirt that my breasts were high beaming through. “But I need a word with the three of you. Since you’re staying on my property, I take it you won’t mind.”

  She pushed past me and walked over to the beds where a shirtless Dex was sitting up, his crazy bed hair pointing every which way, and Rebecca pulling her covers up to her collarbone.

  “I don’t want to say this more than once, but it’s too late for that,” she said.

  “And good morning to you too,” Dex said with a groan. “Are you sure we can’t have coffee before the lecture?”

  She put her hands together. I noted she was wearing another brown suit that made her look like a giant Hershey’s Kiss. “So then you know what I’m about to talk to you about. This morning as I was getting ready for work, I got an alert to my email saying that the motion detector on the camera had been tripped. Imagine my surprise when I saw footage of the two of you,” she looked from Dex to me as I rubbed my bruised tailbone, “careening down the staircase like you were on fire.”

  I gulped. “We’re sorry, we—“ Rebecca started.

  She raised her nose in the air and went on as if Rebecca hadn’t said anything. “I don’t even know how you two managed to get up there without tripping the recording the first time. I never got an email about that.” I shot Dex a look to keep quiet. We didn’t want to tell her we’d been in the body chute. “What on earth were you guys doing up there without my permission?”

  “We are so sorry,” I said, coming forward with my arms across my chest. “We were only on the second floor, We just thought we heard something, like someone was here. We just wanted to look around.”

  She cocked her ugly eyebrow. “And? Did you find anything?”

  “Sorta,” I said, though now I could see Dex was giving me a look to keep my mouth shut. I guess he didn’t want us sharing our footage with her just yet. “We thought we saw a dog.”

  “A dog?” she repeated. She seemed to mull that over. “I don’t know anything about any dogs. But this building does house raccoons on occasion. I’m sorry if it gave you a fright.”

  That was no damn raccoon, I thought, trying to convey my thoughts to Dex. We knew raccoons.

  “Still,” she said, clearing all the sympathy out of her throat, “you know I don’t want anyone up there without a staff member present. This could be a large liability for us. Do I make myself clear? Those floors are off limits unless I give you permission otherwise.”

  Dex raised his hand straight up into the air like an eager school kid.

  She narrowed her eyes. “What is it?”

  “Can we have permission?”

  She sighed like her patience was near depletion. “You have your tour with the historian in two hours. I suggest you film what you can. If you want to do more after that, then we’ll talk.” She marched across the room toward the door then looked over her shoulder at us. “Coffee is in the teacher’s lounge.”

  She left the room just as I remembered something. “Dex,” I hissed. “Did you remember to get all the beers out of the staff fridge?”

  “Fuck!” he exclaimed and popped out of bed. He ran out the door and down the hall in just his boxer briefs. His hard, beautiful body got a cry of surprise and look of admiration from an early-bird teacher who had just walked in the main doors. I could only hope he wasn’t sporting his usual morning wood, though I’m sure our encounter with Davenport had officially frozen his balls.

  I looked over at Rebecca. “How did you sleep?”

  “Why, do I look tired?” she asked almost defensively.

  “No,” I said, coming around to sit on the edge of her bed. She did have dark circles under eyes and this sense of weariness to her, but I was no better off. “I just barely slept at all. Doesn’t help that these beds aren’t made for two.” I observed her, pondering over her words from last night, that she wasn’t in her right frame of mind. It had been at least two months since she and her ex-girlfriend broke up and I wondered if she was still deeply affected by it.

  Before I had a chance to ask her though, a breathless Dex appeared in the doorway, a six-pack of beer cradled in his arms like he’d just stolen the holy grail, and quickly shut the door. “That was close,” he said, opening the cupboards under the nurse’s sink and sliding it in there. “Let’s hope Kelly doesn’t like beer.”

  “Did anyone see you?” I asked.

  He grinned. “With the beer, no. In my underwear? Let’s just say I gave a few teachers something to dream about tonight.”

  I snorted while Rebecca’s eyes sought the ceiling.

  With the school slowly coming alive, it became easier to go about the morning without that ever-present cloud of dread hanging over me, enough that I was able to use the showers by myself and not freak out that someone was going to trap me in the stall or pull a Psycho. The events of last night seemed far away, and even though I was a bit nervous about the tour, I was excited to hear some of the truths about the place from a trusted source and not “Dikipedia.”

  Just before nine o’clock, as bleary-eyed students were shuffling into their classrooms and occasionally looking at our motley crew with curiosity, the three of us waited outside Davenport’s office for Brenna and the guide.

  “Hey guys,” Brenna said, waving at us as she came down the hall. She looked bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and I had no idea how she was able to work at this place day in and day out without going absolutely crazy, especially given the things she had seen.

  Dex smiled, adjusting the camera in his hand. “Does your boyfriend ever sing ‘Hot for Teacher’?” He glanced at me. “Man, if you were a teacher, I’d be singing that to you every night. Maybe pull your hair back into a bun, put on some sex kitten glasses, and carry a large ruler…”

  “Dex!” I admonished him, jerking my head at Brenna.

  She only laughed. “It’s no bother. And yes, he sings ‘Hot for Teacher’ all the time. Makes a nice change from Raffi.”

  Rebecca leaned in closer to her and lowered her voice. “So what can you tell us about the man who will be giving us the tour?”

  “Patrick?” she asked. “He’s legit. Lived in Gary his whole life. His mother or grandmother used to work here.”

  “But does he know about what you’ve seen?” I asked.
“Will he think we’re nuts if we start talking about what we saw last night?”

  Her attention sharpened. “What did you see last night?”

  Dex patted the camera. “We have footage. We haven’t looked at it yet, but I think it picked up most of the anomalies. When do you have a break today?”

  “Just at lunch,” she said. “Noon.”

  “We’ll come by your room then, if that’s okay,” I said. “I personally have a few questions for you myself.”

  She nodded with trepidation. “Okay.”

  The doors to the school opened and in walked a man in his mid-forties with thick brown hair and glasses. He was hunched over a bit from bad posture and wearing a khaki jacket that looked too warm for the sunny day we were having.

  “That’s Patrick,” she said, gesturing to him. “I’ll see you at noon.”

  While she walked off, Rebecca managed to catch Patrick’s eye.

  “You’re Mr. Rothburn?” she asked.

  He gave her a shy smile and walked over to us. “I am, but please call me Patrick. Are you…?” He had quite the low, raspy voice.

  We all introduced ourselves, which went well until Dex added “Ghost hunters” to the end of his introduction.

  Patrick brought a toothpick out of his front pocket and stuck it in his mouth. “Oh, I don’t care much for ghost hunters.” He eyed Dex’s camera warily.

  “Weren’t you told why we’re here?” Rebecca asked.

  He nodded slightly. “I was. But I thought you were from a paranormal society, not for an actual show.”

  “We don’t have to film you,” Dex told him. “And if we accidently do, we can blur you out.”

  “I’d like that,” he said appreciatively. His eyes softened beneath his glasses. ”Sorry, I work at the museum and don’t want to be associated with any sort of show or entertainment. I’ll gladly show you around though. It’s much better this way than it has been in the past.”

  “What happened then?”Dex asked.

  “Ghost hunters or paranormal researchers have broken in on their own, trying to film. So, I guess we can all appreciate you taking the official route and respecting the history.”

  I exchanged a loaded glance with Dex. It was probably a good idea if we left last night’s rule-breaking shenanigans out of it.

  “No problem,” Rebecca filled in quickly. “Shall we get started? Do you want a spot of tea or coffee from the break room?”

  He raised his palm. “No. Thank you though.”

  “Are you still offering, Rebecca?” Dex asked. “Because you know I’d love one.” He batted his eyes at her.

  “Get stuffed,” she told him. She and Patrick turned and headed for the stairs.

  Dex looked so stunned at her comment, as if he was genuinely let down, that I had to kiss him on the cheek. “Nice try,” I teased.

  “The nerve,” he said. “She does it for this Gary Oldman impersonator but not for good ol’ Dex.”

  I put my arm around his waist, loving the feel of his abs beneath his thin t-shirt. “Tell you what, I’m not going to get you a coffee either but when we get back to Seattle, you can put on Van Halen and I’ll dress up like the bad, bad teacher that I am.”

  “Fucking hell,” he groaned, turning so his body was pressed up against mine, his eyes becoming seductive. “Don’t tease me because I’ll seriously pull you into Davenport’s office right now and bend you over her desk.”

  I grinned, sticking the tip of my tongue out through my teeth. “I told you, I’m not having sex in this place even if—“

  “I had two dicks,” he supplied. “Yeah, so you say.”

  “Ahem,” Rebecca said, clearing her throat. We looked over to see her and Patrick (who did look freakishly like Gary Oldman) standing at the middle of the staircase and waiting for us.

  “Sorry,” I apologized. I looked back at Dex, covering him from their unamused eyes while he adjusted the erection in his jeans.

  We caught up to them just as the morning bell rung and I nearly flew out of my skin in surprise.

  “Got the creeps already?” Rebecca asked.

  “I guess in some way I know what things might lie ahead,” I said carefully.

  “Actually,” Gary Oldman said as we climbed the stairs, “Sea Crest was a hopeful place. My grandmother was a nurse here, just at the end of the administration when the cure for TB had been found, and she said that most of the children were happy. Sick, yes, but not all of them died. Many of them went home, and until then, they had their friends here to play with. Have you seen the playground out back?”

  We stopped on the landing and he nodded out the large bay window that faced the back of the property as he fished another toothpick out of his pocket and placed it in his mouth. I had no idea where the other toothpick went.

  Outside there was a large play area—a small grassy field lined with flower beds, a baseball diamond, a woodchip flecked jungle gym complete with swings and slides. Everything looked brand new, if not unremarkable.

  “That’s where the playground used to be back when Sea Crest was operating,” he said. “See that grassy area there just before the trees? The students often go there to paint nature scenes. The forest, the flowers, the clouds. In the old days, that grass stretched along the length of the building. The nurses would wheel the patients out there for fresh air and leave them there for hours. If they were well enough, they’d play on the old swing set which is where the new swing set is located now.” He let out a sad sigh. ”Being outside was important for these kids—they believed fresh salty air was the cure. On the fourth floor, where they had the deathly ill, they had the windows open all the time, even in the dead of winter. Sometimes the nurses would come in the morning and find them dead of hypothermia.”

  “My god,” I said, putting my hand to my mouth. “That’s horrible. You said this was a happy place.”

  He gave me a wry look. “Happier than you’d think, yes. But like any hospital back in the day, there were horror stories. It didn’t mean it was the norm for these kids, though.”

  We started back up the stairs to the second floor. Dex was already filming. “And these horror stories would be…” He trailed off.

  “You want to hear some of them?” Oldman asked.

  “A floor by floor rundown would be great,” Dex said. He looked over the camera to see Oldman wincing, toothpick in mouth. “Don’t worry, I’m not filming you, just past you.”

  He nodded and stopped in the middle of the hall, the same place where Dex and I had been when we saw the thing. “The second floor,” he announced without flourish. “This floor housed the majority of the children. To our right here, down this wing, they kept the lower-class children. Over to our left is where they housed the upper class.”

  “And the difference?” Dex asked.

  “Minimal differences now,” he said with a wave of his hand. “Let me show you.”

  He took us down to where we were last night, near the room where Dex saw the rat. We poked our heads into one of the rooms. In the daylight it was still creepy, but a little more morose; the walls were a stark grey, the floor hard and austere. Dead leaves and yellowing newspaper littered the ground, along with rat droppings. You could see the broken glass of the windows, jagged edges glinting against the sun. I walked across the room and peered out. From this floor you could just see over the tops of the trees, the Pacific Ocean glinting on the horizon.

  “They had a nice view,” I said.

  “They did when it was sunny, like today,” he said. “But most of the time, the fog rolls in and gets stuck here on these hills. When they first built the hospital back in 1912, they were having good luck with the summer. This spot never saw a lick of fog. Then, a year after it was built, the fog rolled in around Gary and never left. The patients were caught in the clouds.” I turned around to see him addressing Dex, who was filming me. “That’s something to note for your show. On the fourth floor people report seeing fog in the hallways, no matter what time of day or
what the weather is like outside. Sometimes the fog gets so thick you can’t see your hand in front of your face.”

  “What have you experienced?” Rebecca asked. “If you don’t mind me asking.”

  He stuck another toothpick in his mouth. Dex nodded at it. “Can I have one? I used to chomp on these fuckers myself.”

  Oldman raised an eyebrow but took a container of them out of his pocket and offered one to Dex, who confidently popped it in his mouth. He shot me a cheeky look. “Just like old times, kiddo.”

  Oldman waited patiently for Dex’s attention to return to him. Once he did, he continued. “My experiences have been all over the map. If you believe in ghosts, they would frighten the hair off your chest. If you don’t…I’m sure you’ll find some way to explain it scientifically.”

  “And do you believe in ghosts?” I asked.

  He smiled quietly, eyes glinting beneath those glasses. “All historians believe in ghosts.” His toothpick bobbed from his lips. “Let’s see. On this floor I’ve seen the little boy. Many people have seen him, including previous ghost hunters.”

  “Elliot,” I said.

  “Is that his name?” he asked curiously. “Suits him. I often see Elliot when I’m here, day or night. He’s usually going after a rubber ball. I’ve seen ghost hunters place toys around on this floor, trucks and the like, and I’ve seen them move as if he is playing with them.”

  “Anything else?” Dex asked.

  Oldman eyed Dex in surprise. “That isn’t enough? No, I suppose it isn’t really. But the boy is a kind soul, never playing tricks or doing anything malicious.”

  “Do you know if he plays the xylophone?”

  His lips crooked upwards. “Ah, you’ve heard the music. I have never seen evidence of him playing any instrument, but you must understand there were so many children here over the years, so much energy in one place. No one knows where the music comes from, but we at least know it comes from this floor. You can sometimes hear children giggling and laughing too, or the sound of footsteps and children running past, though you can’t see them. I’ve experienced all of that on this floor.”