Asylum: The Afterlife investigations #1

by Ibsen, Ambrose

  Dave nodded. “I see. You know, between you and me, I don't know if I believe in ghosts either. But you know what I do believe in?” He looked this way and that, as if he thought someone else might be sitting within earshot. “I believe in anomalies. I believe in, you know...” His eyes went shifty again. “Cover-ups. Not everything is cut and dry, black and white. No, we take a lot of stuff for granted, but if we really knew what was happening out there it'd drive us nuts. Know what I'm saying?”

  I wasn't sure that I did know what he was saying, but I nodded stupidly anyhow.

  “You know what's comin' out now? The Earth is flat.”

  I choked on a mouthful of coffee.

  He nodded emphatically. “It's the biggest con in history—the theory that the Earth is round. Trust me, it ain't. I've been reading about it lately, and I feel pretty sure that they've been pulling the wool over our eyes all this time. And don't even get me started on those Apollo missions. The moon landing?” He laughed into his can of soda. “Get outta here with that. It was all a ruse to keep up with the Russians. Supposedly JFK was gonna say something about that, was gonna spill the beans, and that was one of the reasons The Powers That Be capped him.”

  Unless I was losing my mind, I seemed to remember Kennedy's assassination occurred some six years before the moon landing, but I saw no need to correct him.

  Over the course of our talks, Dave proved to be a big believer in all kinds of conspiracy theories and a dedicated follower of such personalities as David Icke and Erich von Daniken. He opened one of the drawers in his desk, and besides a well-worn copy of Hustler, he revealed to me paperback copies of Chariots of the Gods? and The DaVinci Code.

  When the clock finally ticked over to 2:00 AM, I was thrilled.

  “So,” he asked me during a lull in broadcasting, “what is it you teach? English?”

  “Yeah. I'm doing a literature course right now. The Canterbury Tales.”

  “Huh,” he replied. “Never read 'em. What else you teaching?”

  “Just the one class,” I said, dropping my empty cup into his waste bin.

  He frowned, scratching at his paunch. He was wearing a green polo shirt and a pair of Adidas track pants. “Just one class? Why's that? I don't imagine they pay a whole lot for just teaching one class, do they?”

  I shrugged. “I'm new, so...” Giving a defeated chuckled, I continued. “It doesn't pay much, no. I do some work on the side—translating old books from German, when I have the time. But I'm hoping next semester they'll give me more work. I'd love to get on the tenure track. Health insurance and retirement benefits would be swell.” A tune by the Jackson 5 was winding to its end just then, the second in a string of five pre-chosen songs.

  Dave clicked his tongue. “Damn, I'm sorry to hear that, professor. That's rough. And a shitty thing for them to be doing, crapping on the rookies. How do they ever expect you to get good at teaching if they only give you one class?”

  I could only nod. He was vocalizing what I thought to myself on a daily basis.

  He was about to harp more on the injustices of the college racket when he was interrupted by the phone. It rang loudly and one of the red squares lit up, making us both jump. Looking up at the time, which was now 2:14 AM, he shuddered. Rather than pick up the phone, he scooted it across the desk towards me and thrust his chin at it. Smoothing out his wiry black hair with one hand, he looked to me with a seasick expression. “I think it's for you, professor.”

  7

  I didn't answer the phone at once, but rather stared at it. The high-pitched ringing continued, piercing the quiet. This call was what I'd been waiting for, what I'd made the drive for, and yet as I placed my hand upon the receiver, I found I couldn't pick it up. I had cold feet.

  “You can just pick it up,” explained Dave, trying to be helpful. “Just pick it up. You don't have to hit any buttons or anything.”

  I nodded—understood how to work a goddamn telephone—but still, I let it ring. “Are you sure this is the caller?” I asked. “Is it from the number we talked about?”

  Dave had only to glance at the caller ID to give an answer in the affirmative. “Sure is, though I don't even need to look. Only one call comes in at this same time every night, like I told you. This is it. Pick it up.”

  Having run out of stalling tactics, I did just that. Lifting the phone from its cradle, I brought it up to my ear very slowly, as though it weighed a ton, and then let it rest there a moment before uttering, “Hello?”

  It was hard to force the word out. There was something in my throat that got in the way. Dread? The call had come so suddenly; one minute I'd been rolling my eyes at Dave's banter, and the next I was suddenly picking up the phone, preparing to listen to the strange message that was said to come through at this time every night from some disconnected number—a number once linked to a closed asylum, where years prior, a vicious murder had taken place. I shouldn't have been scared, and I'm not sure that fright was the right word for what I was experiencing as I sat there, waiting for a reply, but it would be fair to say that my guts did a nervous shifting as I listened.

  The first thing that registered on the other end of the line was a crying sound. It was faint, muffled, but undoubtedly feminine in character. The sniffling, gasping sobs were not so difficult to make out once you knew what to listen for, and the more I listened, the more I felt I could almost picture the woman on the other end. Young. Young and hiding in some corner, covering her face. Tremendously frightened.

  Another voice entered the equation. I'd been so focused on the quiet sobbing that the utterance of proper words startled me. The voice that spoke was deep, commanding and articulate. It'd been one thing to hear Dave discuss the contents of the call second-hand, but to hear it personally in the quiet studio was something else completely.

  “Tonight, we're going to pull away the veil. No longer will we trust the limits of our mortal eyes; we're going to look further, deeper than our species was ever intended to look. And when we've done it, we're going to transcend our humanity, make contact with the fabled other side. Are you ready?” The speech was firm, possessed of an inspired—if not maniacal—energy, and it seemed to become louder with every passing moment, as though the speaker were getting closer and closer to the phone. It struck me almost as a snippet of sound taken from a film; if I closed my eyes, I could imagine the tall, dark figure of the man as he walked across an empty room towards the sobbing woman. I fancied I could almost hear the scraping of his shoes against bare floors...

  That should have been the end of it, based on everything Dave had told me. And it was, except for a single parting phrase that chilled my blood and sent the receiver tumbling from my grasp not a moment later. My host had not alluded to this last bit, and so when the man on the phone continued to speak, I was quite surprised.

  “Can you hear them?” asked the man with the deep voice. It was closer than ever now; clearer, too. It felt like he was standing right next to me, speaking directly into my ear.

  “Whoa,” blurted Dave, sitting up. “What's the matter, professor? Something wrong?”

  When I finally recovered the phone, white-knuckling it, there was only a dial tone blaring in the receiver. The call—or whatever it had been—was over now.

  I took some time in composing myself, returning the phone to its cradle and loosing a few nervous laughs. My skin was dotted in gooseflesh and a persistent ringing plagued my ears. “That was something,” I said, leaning back in the creaky folding chair. “I heard it.”

  Dave sat back too, appraising me with curiosity. “Yeah... it's kind of spooky, ain't it? It's like you're listening in on something—some scene from a movie, maybe. Or like you're tuning in to something that you ain't supposed to hear. I wasn't sure what to make of it.”

  I couldn't argue with his description. It really had felt like a sliver taken from private life; something that had never been intended for an audience. I shuddered, combing a hand through my hair.

  “I not
iced you didn't say anything,” continued the DJ. “After you said 'hello', you just sat there, listening.”

  He was right. I hadn't said anything else over the phone—hadn't felt myself able to. I'd merely listened. “I don't know why,” I admitted, “but I was just absorbed in listening. It didn't even occur to me to try and talk to the person on the other end. I didn't feel like my speaking would change anything, that the man on the other end was even listening.”

  Dave patted my forearm reassuringly. “It's been the same for me. No one on the other end is calling for a chat; whoever is placing that call wants for the recipient to listen. Nothing more. Someone... or something is reaching out.”

  I gulped. “And, if your buddy, the cop, is to be believed, that something is calling from Chaythe Asylum, am I right?”

  Dave nodded gravely. “Seems so.”

  My mind darted back to the last bit of dialogue I'd heard. The man had said something that'd struck me blind with terror—something familiar. I needed only to think back to the incident in downtown Moorlake to recall it.

  “Can you hear them?” the man on the phone had asked.

  The kid who'd died in my arms—those had been his last words, too. I didn't have the slightest doubt. His bloodied face, in the moment before he'd passed on, was forever etched in my memory. If I focused, I could still see his lips moving, could hear his rasping death-rattle of a voice. “Can you hear them?” he'd asked me.

  What significance, if any, this phrase held, I couldn't say. But that both the dying student and the man on the phone had uttered it served to link the two of them in my mind in an unsettling, tenuous way. “The man on the phone concluded the call by asking, 'Can you hear them?' What do you think he meant by that?” I asked Dave.

  The DJ leaned forward on his elbows, arching a brow. “Wait, what? What did he say?”

  “He asked, 'Can you hear them?' It was the last thing he said before I dropped the phone. What do you think that means?” I repeated.

  Dave still wasn't getting it. “No, no,” he replied. “I didn't hear anything like that. I've listened to that very call a dozen times or so, and I've never heard him ask that question at the end.” He shrugged. “I think you must have misheard.”

  No, I hadn't misheard a goddamn thing.

  “Can you hear them?”

  I'd heard the dying kid utter it, and I'd heard it from the man on the phone, too. I was certain, and I said as much. “No, I mean it. I heard it. I'm positive. What could it mean?”

  Dave was looking kind of spooked, constantly playing with his hair. He glanced over at the broadcast board and went to commercials with the tap of a button. “You serious?” he asked.

  “As a heart attack.”

  The DJ whistled. “Well, I don't know. But it's damn strange, because in all the times I've listened to it, I've never heard that. Makes me think that maybe it was a message intended for you. Like, you, specifically.” He gave a mock shiver. “Don't know what it could mean, but it's pretty creepy, I admit.”

  That was about all the nerve I could muster for the night. The shock had passed but a low-grade fright remained, keeping my pulse up and my nervous system on alert. I thanked Dave profusely for the tour, and for the tip about the asylum, and when he'd sent the broadcast to commercials for a second time, he followed me back out to the front door. “Thanks,” I said as I exited into the brisk night. “Have a good one, Dave.”

  He watched me leave, waving. “If you learn more about that call, or if you find something in the asylum with your students, be sure to let me know, OK?”

  I waved back, ducking into my car. Starting the engine and reversing quickly, I grit my teeth. I don't think I'm going by that asylum anytime soon, Dave.

  8

  I slept on it.

  Well, I tried to sleep on it, anyhow. I awoke around six in the morning, tangled in my covers, and felt completely unrested. Eyes heavy, head achy, I sat on the edge of my bed massaging my temples for a good twenty minutes before even attempting to stand.

  The night had been long, filled with more ruminations on my visit to the studio than with rest. In those rare, fleeting moments when I'd felt myself on the edge of sleep, the voice of that man on the telephone had returned to me, yanking me back into wakefulness.

  It was possible that the whole thing was a trick, some overly complicated prank on Dave's part.

  In fact, that made a lot more sense than the alternative; that something supernatural was reaching out from the closed asylum every night, repeating the same cryptic message.

  But even so, I didn't need much convincing. Strange though it was, I felt somehow sure, in my gut, that what I'd heard had been a genuine message—one sent from Chaythe Asylum, and possibly by a supernatural presence.

  Can you hear them?

  It was that last line—that single phrase—that stuck in my craw.

  I had a look at my phone and found a text from Elizabeth Morrissey waiting for me. Hey, has anyone replied to the ad yet??? it read. With a sigh, I shambled to the kitchenette in my robe and set about making a pot of coffee.

  My apartment was a little thing, a one-bedroom, and I didn't have a whole lot in it. There was a TV in the living room, along with a curbside recliner I'd salvaged. In the bedroom I had a bed, as well as a couple of flimsy plastic containers with drawers in them that kept my clothes sorted. There was a card table there, too, which served as a desk. The kitchenette, connected to the bathroom by a small hallway, featured a stove, sink and fridge all stuffed into a corner. Except for a couple of token cabinets that my meager collection of kitchenware couldn't hope to fill, that was it.

  I dumped some coffee grounds into my french press and set the kettle on the stove. It took me a few turns to get the heating element to come on, and when it did, it took its time in heating up. While waiting for the water to boil, I decided to dial Elizabeth. To my surprise, she answered almost immediately, and with cheerfulness, like she'd been waiting for my call all night.

  “Jesus,” I muttered, “You're a real morning person, huh?”

  “It's almost noon,” she replied.

  I clicked my tongue, leaning against the fridge. “Eh, whatever. So, you texted me this morning, asking about the ad? Well, someone called me last night and it was... interesting.”

  “Whoa, really?” I could hear her perk up, could make out the intensity in her voice, though just as quickly she walked it back some and sounded more guarded. “What do you mean by 'interesting', exactly?”

  Walking into the living room, I cracked the window and pulled a cigarette from the pack I kept on the TV stand, lighting it up. I wasn't supposed to smoke in my apartment, but as long as I stayed close to the window I didn't see the harm. At any rate, I couldn't be bothered to put on actual clothes just to step out to the parking lot and enjoy my first cigarette of the day. Keeping her in suspense longer than was kind, I chuckled and took a long drag. “I got a call from Dave Thackeray, a radio DJ. Know him?”

  “No, I don't think so...”

  “Well, he works at a station just outside of town and he called suggesting we give Chaythe Asylum a look.” I continued before she could interrupt. “But here's the thing—it goes a little deeper than that. You see, he reached out because he's been getting strange phone calls recently, late at night, from what he feels confident is a ghost or something. He looked into it, asked the cops, and they traced the line back to the asylum. The freaky thing? That line's been disconnected for years and years. I paid him a visit last night and heard the call myself.” I flicked the ash from the tip of my cigarette into an ashtray and returned hurriedly to the kitchen to take the whistling kettle off of the burner. “I don't want to get your hopes up, but it was... strange. I don't have a good explanation for what I heard.”

  To my surprise, Elizabeth came at me not with excitement, but with agitation. “Well, why didn't you call me? You could have brought me along, you know! I wasn't doing anything last night and would have loved to hear it, too!” She sigh
ed, and I thought I heard her pacing angrily. “You need to call me next time!”

  “Whoa, look, this meet-up was late. Like 2 AM late. I feel like absolute garbage this morning because of all the coffee I drank while driving over there. I also didn't think it appropriate for the two of us to drive off to the middle of nowhere together, OK?” I slowly poured the boiling water into my french press, making sure to dampen all of the grounds. When that was done, I gave the mixture a stir and set the lid on top to let it steep. “I called you first thing this morning—er, afternoon—though. I wasn't trying to keep you out of the loop.”

  She huffed, but argued no further. “I've never been to Chaythe Asylum before. I've heard a bit about it—wasn't someone killed there or something? When are we going there to check this out, then?”

  I returned to the window, snatching my Viceroy from the ashtray and taking a few more puffs. “Hold your horses. I'm not sure we'll be bothering with it, to tell you the truth.” I exhaled through the window screen, trying to come up with some excuse. “An old place like that... it's probably closed to the public. And unsafe. Plus, we should wait and see what other tips we get. The ad's only been out there for a little while. Maybe something better will come along.”

  “Something better?” she screeched. “What could be better than this? Mysterious phone calls from an abandoned asylum? Professor, this is exactly the sort of thing I've been looking for. And I'm sure someone out there must own the property; if we tell them we're with the university, they might let us in! You can tell them it's for the sake of science!”

  She was right, of course. If we really wished to investigate the asylum, then there was probably some way we could do so, legally. It might require us to jump through a few hoops, but it wasn't anything I wouldn't be able to manage.

  The real trouble was, unbeknownst to her, that I didn't want to go anywhere near that goddamned building.