“Well, I discovered something late last night after I’d written my presentation and after you told me to focus on events relating to fires.”
Zach nodded. “Okay?”
“I knew you and Sara wouldn’t want me to divulge this right up front in the historical section. It’s creepy as shit.”
“Okay, spill it already.”
“So, on July 4th 1899, on the site of the female quarters destroyed by fire earlier that year, some guy doused himself with kerosene and set himself ablaze.”
Zach realized his mouth was ajar, but quickly composed himself. “Lit himself on fire? Who?”
“They didn’t have the technology back then to determine his identity, but there had been an ongoing investigation into series of fires including the original Pullman Market Hall that burned down in 1892—”
“Wait, Market Hall? Same location as the one that burned in ’72?”
“The one and only,” Wendy said.
“1892 was the same year that the hospital opened?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Are they connected?”
“That’s what I need to research today. There were a lot of fires around that time, including the White City in 1894.”
Evelyn had mentioned the White City the prior night. Zach had looked it up online. “The site of the 1893 World’s Fair?”
“Well technically, it was called ‘The World’s Columbian Exposition,’ but yes.”
Zach ignored her anal retentiveness, and motioned for her to continue.
“But here’s the kicker,” she said, “from everything I gathered, after the suicide by fire here in 1899, high-profile buildings in the area stopped being torched, the arson case was closed and—”
“And the haunting here at Rosewood started full force.”
“Aren’t you a smart one?”
“Good work, Wendy.”
“Well,” she said donning her on-air flirtation. “Is that all I get?”
“You come up with a connection between all this and our haunting, and I promise you’ll get a lot more time in front of the camera.”
By the glee on her face, he might as well have just told her she’d won the lottery. She batted her eyes at him. “Well in that case,” Wendy said, “it might be a coincidence, but that incident with the Lovecroft girl?”
“Yes?”
“It happened one year to the day from when that man set himself on fire.”
Chapter Ten
Bryce spoke in dramatic tones for the cameras. “In a moment, giving us the opening tour of Rosewood Asylum will be Demon Hunters very own DemonHistorian– Patrizia!” He extended his arm toward her. “You may be asking yourselves, why is Patrizia leading the tour? As most of you know both Demon Hunters and XPI typically have the property owner give us a tour and point out the hot spots. Well friends, we couldn’t find one person working for the State of Illinois who was brave enough to walk us through Rosewood!
“But first, Zach wanted me to remind all you amateur Demon Hunters and XPI’ers why a tour is so important.”
Zach had done no such thing. He set his jaw and attempted to feign ambivalence.
“Knowing the ‘hot spots,’” Bryce continued, “is necessary to document evidence of an intelligent haunting.”
No, Zach thought, they weren’t. It helped to know where to look, but it wasn’t necessary. Even if Bryce’s facts were accurate, this kind of speech was the type of spoon-feeding the audience that Zach often butted heads with Sara about. Next, Bryce would be telling the audience the most basic of ghost hunting facts like that Electromagnetic Field meters, or EMF meters, were used to detect the presence of spirits.
“Residual hauntings refer to the residue attached to places and things a spirit had been connected to during their life. They are like looped reruns of activity the ghost had participated in during their lifetime—things like laughter, speaking, giggling, music and singing. In comparison to these snippets of paranormal activity, intelligent hauntings are very rare. Intelligent hauntings are when spirits attempt to contact or interact with the living.”
Zach’s reaction to Bryce’s speech was being filmed, so he nodded. He had to admit that Bryce had pretty much nailed that explanation. Typically, there were important reasons for a spirit to conduct an intelligent haunting; they weren’t always logical motivations, but uncovering them was what Zach did best, thanks to his special gift.
Bryce’s monologue was drawing to a close. “Now, without further ado, here is Patrizia.”
Patrizia smiled at the camera, and then led the group down the long hallway toward the cafeteria. They peeked in each room taking pictures and EMF readings just in case a daytime apparition lurked naked to the visible eye. Angel needed to unlock a few of the rooms but most were open. Many of the doors had long been removed, perhaps ported and used in other hospitals.
They approached the doors of the cafeteria. “Hey,” Shelly yelled out. “My EMF meter just leapt from .04 to 1.8. Did anybody else get that?”
“I caught it,” Rico said.
“Me too.” Zach’s reading dipped back to an ambient .04.
“It would make sense to get readings here,” Patrizia said. “With this being the largest inside gathering place on the property, it was also the most active spot for violence.”
Zach, Shelly, and Rico scanned the room with their EMF meters. None of them picked up a reading above .05 anywhere in the room.
Rico positioned himself in front of one of the cameras. “That was a definite paranormal spike!”
Bryce turned to Patrizia. “Did anyone die in here?”
“Well, I didn’t find any records of specific locations where people died,” she said. “It would be likely that those injured in fights here would have passed away after being taken to the infirmary.”
“Not just gorgeous, folks,” Bryce said into the camera, “but smart too!”
Patrizia ignored the comment. “There were several reports of violent acts here: patients smashing trays into other patient’s faces, fistfights, and even a couple incidents of forks used to gouge out fellow combatants’ eyes.”
She proceeded through the double doors and into the wide-open space. Oversized windows made the room bright, but the bars outside must have provided ample reminder to the long-ago diners that they weren’t free. Along one wall, large square openings would have allowed staff to pass food to patients and linked the dining hall with the kitchen.
“I want to see the kitchen!” Shelly said.
They herded through a door and into the adjoining room. Dented and rusted metal cabinetry and countertops adorned the room, but all appliances had been ripped out.
“Yo, you guys, these aren’t the originals,” Rico said, banging on one of the counters. “I’d say these are circa 1960.”
“If they’re new, why are they all dented?” Shelly asked.
“Good question.” Zach’s finger outlined a gash deep enough to have been caused by an angry gorilla. “Were there any reports of suspicious fires in here?”
“As opposed to unsuspicious ones?” It may have been Patrizia’s attempt at a joke. “No. There were no reported major fires or accidents in the kitchen.”
The group soon continued out into the back corridor of the hospital. Rooms on the interior half of the hall had no windows to the outside world. They reminded Zach of prison cells he’d seen while touring Alcatraz—the flaking tan paint and grime on the walls cemented the impression. Conversely, the outer side of the hallway contained what may have once been nicer rooms with windows, large meeting areas and solariums which would have looked out onto the back gardens.
“Generally speaking, the patients kept on the outer main floor were the least violent and safest to the hospital staff and visitors,” Patrizia said. “Many roamed the halls with minimal supervision and may have been people today who would be diagnosed with clinical depression. Some were alcoholics needing to dry out. The upstairs rooms housed the more dangerous elements.”
“The folks they didn’t want decent people to have contact with,” Rebecca whispered to Zach. “The ones likely to be haunting this place.”
XPI’s Occult Specialist maintained a strong connection to the supernatural that had emerged from personal experience. Her mother passed away when Rebecca was a toddler, but her only memories of her mom were from when she’d been six or seven-years old. The discrepancy confused Rebecca; she and Zach had developed a theory that her mom’s spirit must have visited her until she’d been old enough to care for herself.
“Are you picking up any psychic vibrations?” Zach asked her.
Rebecca shook her head. “Nothing. Nothing, yet.”
Sara and her cameraman swarmed in and out of the group as they proceeded down the long hallway. Zach guessed that ninety-five percent of the tour, absent any drama, would end up on the cutting room floor. Still, it was necessary for them to understand the asylum’s layout before wandering these halls in the dark.
“This was the visitor’s area,” Patrizia said when they arrived at a great room at the end of the hall.
The room, situated at the asylum’s back corner, connected the two long hallways that jutted out in 90-degree angles. It would have allowed visitors to meet their friends and relatives in a place with a nice view of the gardens without having to venture inside Rosewood’s innards. Devoid of any furniture, the room was large, but felt unthreatening. The group rambled down the hallway that led to the infirmary using thermal cameras to check for cold spots and continuing to look for EMF anomalies. Zach couldn’t help but chuckle at Winkler’s earlier comment. It did look like a field trip.
“Are the hallways this long on the upper two floors?” Angel asked Patrizia.
“Longer. Those floors are all patient quarters. No large rooms on either end. There are also connecting hallways in the middle of each wing.”
Angel turned to Zach. “Between the two groups, we’ve got fourteen stationary night-vision cameras.”
“That’s cool.”
“Yes, but without known ‘hot spots,’ we’re only going to be able to cover a fraction of this place after dark.”
“How many mini digital cameras do we have?” Zach asked.
“Six total.”
“And we’ll have three pairs of investigators each with at least one of those, an EMF meter and a thermal cam.”
“Three pairs? Are you going to let Matthew investigate?”
“No,” Zach said quietly. He pulled Angel aside. “Patrizia is going to team up with Shelly.”
“Ohhhhh. That will go over well, mi hijo.”
“Don’t you worry about it. As soon as we get done with the tour, I want you to set up a technical command post in the lobby, and I want you to take charge of the tech group and make as many of the decisions as you can,” Zach said. “No slight to our Australian friend but you’re the guy I trust.”
“Gracias, señor.” He mixed cultures and bowed, Japanese style, at the waist.
“I mean it, Angel. If something isn’t right in regards to the set up, I’m going to hold you responsible, and if something isn’t sitting well with you, I expect you to come to me pronto.”
Angel’s acne-scarred face beamed. “Seriously Zach, I appreciate that. I won’t let you down.”
“Boys. Boys.” Sara’s voice echoed through the vacant hallway. “Keep up!”
The group had reached the infirmary.
By the time Zach and Angel entered, the rest of the group stared around the series of connected rooms with stark disappointment.
“I thought there’d be…like…stuff,” Ray said to a chorus of “Me too’s.”
The infirmary rooms looked like all the others in the vacant hospital–empty, dirty and bland.
“In here!”
Sara and the camera crew led a stampede into the adjoining room where the shout had come from. Rico and Turk stood next to a row of five-foot tall metal file cabinets. The rest of the group descended on the drawers like starving vultures on a dead wildebeest.
“These aren’t…” Rico had gotten a head start and was examining the contents of a folder. He shook his head. “They’re court records.”
“From the 1940s,” Rebecca chimed in.
“Misdemeanors,” Bryce said. “Traffic violations and whatnot. What the fuck?”
“The State of Illinois used this building for record storage from the 1920s until the 1960s,” Patrizia said. “I’m fairly certain that none of this is from the period of the asylum.”
A few uttered growls and groans. Matthew slammed a drawer closed. Shelly continued taking EMF readings that showed no abnormalities.
“Guys, this was the infirmary, so as harmless as it may appear now, people would have passed away in here,” Zach said. “We’ll want this room heavily video monitored and explored tonight.”
“Maybe we pitch one of the tents in here tonight?” Bryce’s tone made it clear he wasn’t volunteering to sleep there.
Zach noticed that no one leapt at the chance to camp out in the room people had died. “I think we’ll want to keep together tonight,” he said. “Two groups of tents. One in the lobby where the nerve center will be and a group outside on the front lawn not far from the vans. And while we’re on the subject, no one roams the grounds or any building on the property alone after dark. Safety first, people.”
Shelly raised her hand. “Hey Patrizia?” She looked around the infirmary. “Wouldn’t there have been a morgue around here somewhere?”
Patrizia scoured the map but didn’t locate one.
“If I might?” Rebecca spoke up and waited for Sara to get a shot of her. “It’s doubtful that in those days there was one. Cadavers were at a premium and would likely have been sold to medical schools.”
“All of them? Wouldn’t their families want them?” Bryce asked.
“To be realistic, maybe some of them had close family relationships, but they’d have been in the minority. This was a public institution. Visitor facilities notwithstanding, the vast majority of these patients were outcasts, forgotten about and never recovered their mental health. Any corpses not given over to family burial would have been sold. Except those with infectious diseases and maybe…”
“And maybe?” Bryce asked.
“Well, back in that day, the medical schools wouldn’t have accepted suicides.”
“What would they have done with those?” Zach asked.
“They wouldn’t have been entitled to a Catholic burial, so they likely just dumped them in the ground somewhere on the property—probably in unmarked graves.”
Although no one’s thermal camera detected a cold spot, a few in the room shuddered.
“They probably stored dead bodies temporarily downstairs, in the basement,” Patrizia said.
“A basement?” Rico’s eyes were ablaze.
“Can we go there next?” Shelly asked.
“Hey guys, c’mon. This is Patrizia’s tour.” Zach winked at her. To his surprise she flashed him a grateful smile.
“I was saving the basement for last,” she said.
“First, I have some stories of patients who stayed on the upper floors.”
“Onward,” Sara instructed.
They all clodded up a concrete stairwell next to the infirmary to the 2nd floor. Apparently, there had been less salvaging on the upper level. Unlike many of the rooms below, most of the rooms still had doors—most of them barred. To Zach, the second storey more resembled an abandoned prison’s solitary confinement holdings than a hospital wing.
“Room 217.” Patrizia stopped outside the room and ushered the group into the vacant cell. It was located on the interior side of the hallway. Absent windows to the outside except for the barred door, living in the room must have been hell. “It was in this room, in 1897,” she said “over the course of a weekend, patient Kurt Wozniak ate his entire bed. Mattress. Pillows. Wooden frame and sheets.”
“Did it kill him?” Rebecca asked.
“No, but later tha
t year, despite attempts to keep a closer eye on him, he managed to sneak a jar of peaches into his room. They found the peaches on the floor the next morning. Wozniak’s dead body was lying in here, the glass from the jar, inside his shredded stomach and intestines.”
“Eww,” Shelly whispered. “I may never eat peaches again.”
“So does that qualify as a suicide, or was it just stupidity?” Bryce asked, smirking.
“Mental illness is not stupidity.” Rebecca’s face had ripened with anger. “And it’s certainly no laughing matter!”
“Of course not,” Bryce said feigning sincerity for the camera. “This poor man’s spirit could still be lingering in room 217.”
The hypocrisy was more than Zach could take. He turned to Patrizia. “Were there any incidents that involved fire or arson?”
“Yes,” she said. She pointed up. “Upstairs a patient set his room ablaze.”
The two groups proceeded to the 3rd floor. Sara was repeatedly checking her watch. Either they were overdue for a break, or she’d suddenly become an obsessive compulsive. From behind them on the stairs, Zach noticed how the two groups appeared to be intermingling rather well. They gathered at the door to room 362.
Patrizia cleared her throat. “In July of 1901, a patient by the name of Stanwick Hartwell managed to set fire to his room and suffered second and third degree burns over much of his body. He claimed voices had prompted him to do it and had supplied him with the matches.”
“Yo! That sounds like what happened in ’98 at the Pullman factory,” Rico said.
“Was he ever suspected in the burning of the female quarters?” Zach asked.
“No. He wasn’t a patient of Rosewood in 1898.”
“Did he end up dying here?” Zach pressed.
“We don’t know,” Patrizia said. “After the fire, I couldn’t find any records of him.”
Sara had moseyed over next to Zach. “Legally,” she whispered to him, “the cast and crew need a lunch break.”
“We haven’t seen the basement yet,” Zach said. “Can you, me, Bryce and Patrizia go down there with a night vision camera?”
She frowned. “What part of ‘legally’ do you not understand?”
Ghosts of Rosewood Asylum Page 7