by Rick Suttle
“I will.”
“You have your night vision goggles?”
“In my pocket.”
“Okay. Be careful.” Mike had just taken a couple steps when I said, “Ask the spirits questions with the Ovilus. We need to get more solid evidence and figure out why these things are here.”
Seconds later, I stood alone as Mike exited through the door. I heard something move to my left but didn’t get anything thrown at me. Then a desk squeaked against the floor. I ignored it and strolled through the first doorway. I glanced around the middle classroom then entered the back one. I gazed to my right. The thin hallway door was open.
“Sarah,” I said. “Are you down there?” I pressed my walkie-talkie switch. “Sarah, are you in this hallway?”
“Check.”
“Okay, Mike. Good. You’re at the elevator?”
“Almost. Just testing my vocals.”
“Roger that.”
I inched closer to the narrow hallway. I felt a headache coming on. A cool breeze blew through the air and fluttered my hair. But it wasn’t a spirit. It came from outside the busted window. And when I looked over, all I could see was a black void. The air velocity picked up and howled through it.
I stepped into the hallway, brushing aside cobwebs. The ceiling was much lower than the other hallways—no more than six or six and-a-half feet high. A layer of dust was sprinkled across the floor. I kept moving. I came upon some large footprints in the dust . . . and then some smaller ones. I didn’t know if the smaller ones belonged to Sarah or one of the child spirits. But the larger ones had probably been made by one of the male ghosts. The question was . . . which one?
“Sarah. Please answer me.”
I let go of the talk button on my walkie-talkie and listened. I heard a staccato of sounds through my speaker, as if Sarah or someone were trying to talk to me. Then footsteps pattered in the distance. I inched my way forward and down the long hallway. It was one of those hallways that seemed to grow longer the more you walked. I felt faint as I continued walking, taking a couple steps forward then pausing. A sea of dust motes floated through the air; a sphere of light flashed past me. I coughed a couple times. It was getting more difficult to breathe as I plodded forward.
Seconds later, I spotted something on the floor. I bent forward and studied it. It was Sarah’s walkie-talkie.
I took a couple more steps and saw two shiny objects on the floor. I stooped down and picked one up. It was a battery.
Just then, Sarah’s walkie-talkie screeched to life. “LEAVE NOWWWWWW!”
CHAPTER 11
I froze. It seemed like a minute before I could swallow any saliva. The walkie-talkie came on again, spitting out something I couldn’t understand. “Ya . . . shul . . . nnn . . . a . . . caaaaa . . . maaaa.”
“Goooooooooooo!” it blared.
I jumped but held my ground. I was frightened but tried to stand tough. “I’m not going anywhere until I find my sister,” I said. “Where is she?”
“Go! . . . Go now!”
The thing sure had a limited vocabulary. But the last word needed no interpretation. “Killlllll!” It sent shivers through my spine.
My heart was pounding. I took a deep breath and stepped back toward the walkie-talkie. I don’t what possessed me to do it. But just when it came to life again, I slammed the heel of my gym shoe on it. I stomped on it again and crushed the plastic casing. I then continued down the corridor.
I must’ve walked fifty feet but still couldn’t find the office that Sarah said was down here. I turned and gazed behind me. The door by the classroom now appeared no more than a foot high. Was it getting smaller? My breath grew shallower. Sweat poured from my forehead to my eyebrows. Some leaked into my left eye. It stung. I wiped my eye with my forefinger.
“Sarah. It’s Dylan. Are you down here? Please answer me.”
The hallway curved to the left . . . and then back to the right. Given the apparent new dimensions of the door, it felt as if I were getting buried alive in here. The ceiling even seemed lower. After slowly making my way forward another five feet . . . and then ten, I spotted a door to the left. It appeared to be a small office. I approached it.
Just then, I heard someone speak. It was a girl’s voice, but it didn’t sound like Sarah’s. I couldn’t see the girl. I took another step—almost expecting to see one of the ghoul-like kids appear from behind the wall. That’s when I spotted the blue tennis shoe and white socks. It was Sarah. She was seated on the floor with her knees propped up, leaning against the wall.
“Please tell me where my mommy is,” she said.
“What? . . . You’re mom’s at home. Sarah, it’s me. Dylan.” Sarah was in another trance. That’s when I realized someone else was talking through her. I raised the pitch in my voice, as if I were talking to a young child.
“Who are you, little girl?” She sounded as if she were five or six, or perhaps it was a boy. I wasn’t sure. I stepped into the office and watched Sarah for several seconds. She looked up—still in her trance.
“Please help us,” she said. “We need help.” That child sounded older—and it was definitely a girl’s voice.
“Okay, sweetie. That’s what we’re here for—to help you. What’s your name?”
“Tur . . .”
Sarah coughed and rubbed her throat. She looked up at me.
“What’s my name?” she said, as her voice returned. “What are you talking about, Dylan? Are you on dope?”
“Someone else was talking through you.”
“Oh. Did she say anything?”
“One child wanted to know where her mommy was. And then the other one started to tell me her name.”
Sarah coughed again. The air was musty and lacked movement. We were both practically suffocating back here, but spirits could also cause respiration problems.
“What happened to you back here?” I said. “Your walkie-talkie’s broken.” I bent down and helped Sarah stand. She brushed the dust off the back of her shorts. She looked pale against the green cast of my goggles. She coughed and patted her chest as she tried to speak.
“I dropped it. I was in one of my hypnotic states, but then saw the man—the one who chased us down the hall. But he seemed scared, too.”
“The first man we saw?”
“Uh huh.”
“Did he tell you his name?”
“No. But I think he needs our help. He was trying to get our attention earlier, not harm us.”
“Did he say anything?” Sarah lost her balance and fell against me. I grabbed both of her shoulders.
“He’s not talking. I can’t get him talk.” Sarah held onto the wall for balance as we stepped out of the office. “That’s his choice.”
“But it’s not helping him if we don’t know what happened.”
“I know.”
“And it’s certainly not helping us and the school figure out what’s going on here.”
“Someone else was down here. That’s why I dropped the walkie-talkie.”
“Who.”
“An evil male spirit.” She coughed again and struggled for air. She put her head against the wall and moaned. “He was hideous and deformed—like some big blob of mist. But that’s not his true form; he doesn’t want to reveal himself to me.”
“What about the girl?”
“I’ve sensed about nine or ten child spirits in this school. Most of them are in the basement.”
I took a deep breath. I then sneezed. My nose was clogged. “Okay. Let’s get out of here and head to the basement. Mike’s down there.”
We heard an occasional beep from some REM-Pods as we made our way to the elevator.
“Mike, you there?”
“Yeah. Dylan, there’s a fog or mist forming down here.”
“It’s all the child spirits,” said Sarah. She glanced at my belt. “Who has the Ovilus?”
“He does.” I took my hand off the talk button.
“Tell him to use it. He may pick up some
information on the children.”
“What’s going on?” said Mike. “You found Sarah?”
“Yeah.”
“Is she okay?”
“Yeah, she’s fine.”
“I didn’t hear what she said just now. Can you repeat it, Sarah?” I didn’t say anything to Mike for several seconds. Sarah started to speak into her walkie-talkie, but I held my finger to my lip and shook my head to silence her. Mike would freak out if he knew all the child spirits were there.
“We’re coming down.”
The elevator floor jerked back up as we landed in the basement. Sarah and I almost fell when it did. The door didn’t open right away. I grabbed for the rubber seals in the center of the doors, ready to pry them open. The doors separated a few seconds later.
“Now, that freaked me out,” I said, as I stepped out of the elevator.
“Yeah. That wouldn’t have been good, getting stuck in there.”
We found Mike fidgeting with the camera. He jerked his head up when we entered, probably thinking we were spirits.
“Blasted thing keeps blinking off and on.”
“It’s the energy down here,” said Sarah. She took a couple steps into the room, then went into a trance. She spotted the children in the distance along the wall. All Mike and I could see were several misty formations.
“There’s five girls and a boy here,” said Sarah. “They’re about eight or nine children total, but I can’t see them all.” Mike and I kept quiet and let Sarah proceed.
“Who are you?” said Sarah, as she approached the figures. “Why are you here?”
“Use the recorder, Sarah, so we can pick up their voices.”
“I’ll hear them,” she said. “Turn yours on.”
I flipped my recorder on and inched closer to Sarah. She was seven feet from the wall.
“Stay back,” said Sarah. “You’ll scare them.” I stopped in the middle of the boiler room and held out my voice recorder. Mike listened by the camera, with one leg out and ready to bolt. Sarah stopped talking and used her telepathic skills. It was usually less intimidating for the spirits.
“They’re lost,” said Sarah. “Something or someone is holding them here. They can’t move on.”
“Can you at least try to send them on?” I said.
“No. A stronger entity is keeping them here,” said Sarah. “Probably the one I encountered in the annex. We’ll have to get rid of it first.”
“With the holy water?”
“No. I don’t think it’s a demon.” She turned. “I’ll need some sage.”
“We didn’t bring any.”
“I know, but we’ll need it when we come back.”
“Back?” said Mike. “I ain’t coming back here.”
“We’ll have to,” I said.
Sarah faced the misty formations again. “They might’ve died down here. The tall blonde girl is trying to tell me something about their deaths, but it’s not coming through. They’re afraid of one or more of the adult male spirits.”
“Try asking them again.”
“They’re fading away.”
Just then, a gust of air swept through the doorway. Mike dove toward the wall with his hands extended. He landed on his side. The camera crashed to the floor. The mists surrounding Sarah swept around the back and side walls and disappeared.
“GET OUT!” someone shouted. I saw a large gray mist appear near the doorway. It suddenly took the shape of a man. But the figure then changed to a fluid-looking substance with a large bulbous head. It had no eyes.
“Run,” shouted Sarah, as she darted for the doorway, trying to pass through the entity. But she bounced back as if she’d hit a brick wall. The thing then flung its tendrils outward and knocked her backwards. Sarah landed on her hip on the cement. She tried to get up but got pushed back down by another blast of air. The ghost floated toward her.
“Go, Dylan and Mike. I’ll catch up to you.”
A pang of guilt speared through me for leaving Sarah behind. But I sensed she knew what she was doing. Mark and I ran out of the boiler room and down the hallway to the elevator.
Mike hit the “Up” button. A minute later, the light was still on. He tapped it again. I heard a rumbling sound above but the elevator door didn’t open.
“Come on, stupid thing,” said Mike. Seconds later, the light went off. The elevator engine whined . . . then died.
“What the heck?” shouted Mike. He pounded the elevator doors with both hands.
“That’s not going to help.”
“I don’t care. I’m scared.”
“You’re not the only one,” I said.
Sarah came tearing around the corner, jerking her goggles off.
“Go,” Sarah shouted, as she flew down the hallway. “He’s coming. And he’s pissed.”
I looked in the distance as the large figure appeared through the boiler room doorway. The liquid mass of the entity changed shapes—first spreading wide and then stretching as high as the ceiling. It then morphed into a grayish mist and took the form of a heavy man with no head. He stood more than seven feet tall.
“Oh, God!” cried Mike. He tapped the “Up” button several times. He bowed his head and mumbled, as if praying for it to open. “Please . . . please . . . please open.”
The evil spirit inched its way forward.
Sarah turned around and faced the ghost, which was now twenty feet from her. I could tell she was trying to communicate with it through telepathy, but the thing kept moving forward. Several light bulbs illuminated and exploded as glass clinked against the cement floor. Then, one by one, starting at the far end, all the remaining bulbs lit up and exploded, extinguishing their lights like dead fireflies. The glass from the nearby bulbs rained down on us.
“Please . . . please . . . please,” said Mike, as he tucked his shoulder against the elevator doorway.
CHAPTER 12
“Are you sure the elevator isn’t working?” said Sarah. She hit the button. Nothing.
“It just died,” I said.
“Where to?” said Mike. “We’ve got to do something. He’s right there.” The REM-Pod near the wall started beeping. It grew louder—with a higher pitch. The ghost reached out for Sarah. She screamed.
“Around the corner,” I said.
We scrambled down the hall and around the corner, but ran into a dead end five feet down.
“Quick,” I said. “Over there.”
We sped toward a small corridor on the other side of the hallway. Just as Mike and I passed the intersection, Sarah tripped and fell on her stomach. She’d been trailing us and now lay near the wall in the middle of the hallway.
“Is he still there?”
Sarah didn’t respond. She was staring upwards with her arms planted on the floor, mouth open and knees up. She sat there for five seconds, then stood up.
“Get away from me,” she shouted. “You don’t belong here.”
Several objects clanked around in the hallway. An entire light fixture crashed against the floor. Sparks shot down from the ceiling. Another object hit the wall above Sarah. She covered her head as the thing ricocheted down and struck the cement. It looked like a wrench.
“Come on,” I shouted. I rushed over and grabbed Sarah’s hand. We ran down the corridor and came to another dead end twenty feet down.
“You’ve got to be kidding,” said Mike. “We’re trapped down here.”
“No,” said Sarah. “I see a door on the opposite side.”
“But I thought the elevator was the only way in and out,” said Mike.
“It’s not. I see a door in my mind.” I didn’t question Sarah. She’d been right too many times.
“What about this door?” said Mike. He turned one of the knobs of a double door. It was a closet.
“Get in,” I said.
We jumped in the closet and closed the door. Heavy footsteps plodded down the corridor, then stopped. I held my breath and heard my heart beating in my eardrums. I exhaled through pur
sed lips. I felt Mike’s warm breath streaming down on my neck. We waited in the closet for ten minutes, trying to stay as quiet as possible.
“What a douchebag,” said Mike—“a grown beast like that chasing kids.”
“Shhhhhh!” Sarah whispered. “He’s still nearby.” Another five minutes passed.
“Is he still out there?” said Mike. He flashed his cell phone light.
“Turn that off,” I said.
“Shhhhhh!” Sarah waited several minutes and opened the door. She gazed down the corridor and then looked back at me. “He’s gone.”
“That stupid turd could just be hiding,” said Mike, as he stood and exited the closet behind me. He clutched the back of my shirt.
“No, he went looking for the kids.”
“What for?” I asked.
“He’s the one holding them here,” said Sarah. “The man’s spirit has been here a long time; he can manipulate his energy better than the other spirits, or he’s just plain evil. I suspect the latter.”
“So, he died before the kids?” I said.
“I can’t tell. They died sometime in the 1930s, from the way they were dressed. Theresa didn’t say.”
“Theresa?” I said. “I think that’s the name of the girl who was speaking through you. She said, ‘Tur.’” Sarah nodded but kept talking.
“I’m sensing they froze or drowned down here. My lungs are getting tight.” I looked at her; my heart sank. She went into a short-lived trance, but came out of it.
“They died in this building?” I felt the energy drain from my body.
“Poor kids,” said Mike.
“I don’t know if it was an accident,” Sarah said. “I need to find them again so I can figure out what happened for sure. The man’s holding them here, but they’re hanging around because they want to tell their story.”
“Are you sure this isn’t one of the two spirits we encountered before?” I asked.
“No, it’s definitely the evil one. But I can’t tell how long he’s been here.”
“Hey, about that other door,” said Mike.
“I see a stairwell on the far side. The door might be locked at the top.”