Nightmare

by Robin Parrish

  "That's a belief, not a fact," I argued, taking up the charge. "A belief is what you hold to be true despite a lack of tangible proof. A fact is what you can prove. You believe that a soul either goes to heaven or hell-and for what it's worth, I happen to believe the same thing, I was raised Catholic-but you can't prove it. Paranormal research is the search for proof of what you cannot see."

  Derek suddenly looked sad. "Then I guess that's the difference between us, Maia. My faith is strong enough that no proof is required."

  I studied him. "Can you, in all honesty, stand there and tell me that you know what happens after a person dies? In a stepby-step, mechanical, methodical, scientific process? Every detail, every sensation, every action that takes place between the moment of death on the mortal plane and the entrance to eternal life on the immortal plane?"

  "You think there are pit stops along the way?" he shot back. "Why can't it be as simple as a direct, straight line? Death ... to heaven or hell. A to B."

  "Maybe it is that simple," I admitted. "I can't say for sure, and that's my point. All I can tell you is what I've experienced. What I've seen and touched and smelled and heard for myself. There are things that happen in the forgotten places of this world. And you can't chalk up every one of those things to overactive imaginations or mischievous demons."

  Derek didn't reply for a long moment. "I believe there are many, many supernatural things that happen that we will never be able to know or understand in this life. And I believe in life after death, Maia. I just don't think the things that happen here, in this place, happen because of anything remotely human-dead or otherwise."

  "Have you ever considered that the existence of ghosts is not dependent on your beliefs?"

  Derek crossed his arms. "Why would a ghost wear clothes?"

  The question caught me off guard. "What?"

  "Most reports of so-called hauntings feature a dead soul that's seen wearing the clothes he or she wore most often when they were still alive. It makes no logical sense. People die, clothes don't."

  "I don't have all the answers!" I cried in a sudden burst. "Ghosts, UFOs, psychics ... There are scientific, verifiable explanations for these phenomena. We just haven't found them yet. I can't explain why any of these things happen, or why the paranormal even exists. It doesn't matter whether you believe me or not, but I have seen and done things you cannot begin to imagine. If you want my help, don't make light of what I know to be real."

  "Why would a ghost wear clothes?" He repeated his question as a triumphant challenge, evidence of his rightness.

  I loathed the look on his face and wanted to knock it off.

  After a very long moment, during which I had to remind myself to breathe, I answered. "I don't know."

  He must have sensed how my mood had soured, so he called off the attack. "Look, I can take you seriously. And if you want to try and help me find Jordin, I'm grateful. But I don't believe what you believe, and I never will."

  "Fine, don't." I felt like a bull with steam coming out of my nose in hot puffs of air.

  Derek's eyes fell to the ground, and I got the impression he was regretting coming on so strong with his opinions. He seemed lost in thought for a long time, staring at the carpet in my room.

  If he was waiting for me to break the silence, he was wasting his time. He had caused the tension in the room to rise, not me.

  "I'm afraid," he said, his voice almost a whisper. "I'm scared of what could have happened to her. So maybe my faith isn't as strong as I like to think it is."

  I was still frowning, but followed him back to the subject at hand. "You mentioned the other girls she went to the Vineyard with," I said, and Derek's downcast eyes looked up. "I assume you've talked to them?"

  "Sure, yeah," he replied. "They didn't know anything helpful. Said that one day she just wasn't there anymore. They thought that she'd gone off on her own for a while, but when a week went by and she never turned up, they finally realized something wasn't right."

  I walked to the door and yanked it open. "Take me to see Jordin's friends."

  Derek looked almost alarmed. "Oh, I ... uh, I don't think that's a good idea."

  "Why not?"

  He kind oflooked around me instead of at me. "These friends of Jordin's ... They're not the nicest of people. And they don't really like you."

  He delivered this news like it was a delicate revelation that could hurt my feelings. It didn't.

  "How do they know me enough to not like me?"

  "Well, when I talked to them the other day, your name came up because of all the time Jordin spent with you last year," he mumbled, looking as if he wanted to be somewhere else. "They called you Linda Blair, the Blair Witch, and a few other names I don't care to repeat."

  I snickered. "Cute."

  "It doesn't bother you?"

  "I've been called worse," I admitted. Still, there was something to be said for not giving a group of people who disliked you an open opportunity to gang up. "Why don't you pick the least belligerent of the lot and take me to see that one."

  He was still reluctant. "It's a waste of time. I told you they don't know anything. I already talked to them."

  "Yeah," I replied in my most confident voice. "But I haven't."

  OCTOBER 2ND

  "Tell me the name of this place again?"

  I leaned back in my seat. The plane had just begun to pull back from the terminal, preparing to whisk the two of us off to Louisville, Kentucky, but Jordin had asked this question at least three times since our arrival at the airport.

  "Waverly Hills," I said. "It's an abandoned sanatorium."

  Jordin had a brand-new-and alarmingly thick-leather-bound journal in her lap and was writing furiously in it as I talked.

  "So ... crazy people were kept there?"

  I glanced at my companion, frustrated at her ignorance. But it was such a common misconception, I found it hard to hold on to the grudge. "A sanatorium is a place where people are treated for long-term physical illnesses. The patients at Waverly Hills were treated for tuberculosis, about a century ago."

  This would be my fourth investigation at Waverly Hills. I knew it very well.

  "And you're sure it's haunted?" asked Jordin, looking up from her notebook for the first time.

  "Some reports suggest that as many as sixty-three thousand people died on the premises," I said. "They tried all sorts of things to cure the disease-taking ribs out, removing entire lungs, and electroshock therapy. Waverly Hills is a house of pain and horror. It's saturated with the dead."

  Her eyebrows popped up at this. "How big is this place?"

  "Huge," I replied, glancing at Jordin. "You having second thoughts? I've pulled some strings, using some of my parents' contacts to arrange for us to have the entire facility to ourselves, overnight. Once we're in, we're in. If you want to turn back. .."

  She scribbled in her journal again. "I'm not turning back. I just ... This isn't quite what I was expecting."

  "You said you only want to go to places that are guaranteed to be haunted, right?"

  Jordin nodded without looking up, but her expression was less certain.

  "Waverly Hills is without a doubt one of the most haunted places in the whole world."

  Suddenly she frowned, her expression skeptical. "I've never even heard of it," she mumbled.

  "Well, now you have." I looked out my window. It suddenly occurred to me that I'd been thrust into a new role of teacher/ mentor. I didn't like it.

  We sat in silence for a while as the plane lifted off the ground, and Jordin continued to write. I had hoped to get some time to do a little studying during this trip, but the silence didn't keep.

  "Something else has been bothering me," she said softly, closing her book and leaning over a little closer than I liked, like a fellow conspirator. "That day we first talked ... I got the feeling you don't believe in orbs."

  Orbs were a common phenomenon known throughout the paranormal world. They often appeared as tiny white glob
s of light that flew freely through a given space. The prevailing theory about orbs was that they were disembodied souls trying to manifest themselves visually.

  "True paranormal investigation isn't about what you believe," I told her. "It's about what you can prove. Evidence-pure, scientific, empirical evidence-is the holy grail. It's all about proving that ghosts and the paranormal are real in ways that even the most skeptical pundit can't argue with."

  "But has that ever been done?"

  "There's some very, very compelling evidence out there," I replied. "Most of it collected by people like my parents. But the world of the paranormal is never eager to reveal itself. My parents' TV show is popular partly because they don't accept everything they find as evidence of the paranormal. Whenever they come across something odd, their first move is to find a normal explanation for it. If they can't find one, if they can't prove that it has a logical explanation, then it becomes a candidate for paranormal activity."

  Jordin considered this. "But ... has real evidence ever been collected? Has the paranormal ever been proven?"

  I thought carefully, considering the best response to give. "Any scientist will tell you there are infinite numbers of things in the universe that we cannot explain. And no one will argue that proving what happens to us after we die is a question we still can't answer. Whatever label you apply to it-the paranormal, the afterlife, the unexplained-almost everyone agrees that things exist that are outside of our ability to perceive. But defining it, quantifying it, cataloging the exact scientific parameters of what it is and where it is and how it functions ... no, we've never achieved that."

  Jordin looked thoughtful. "Then what makes your parents think they ever will? Why keep searching for evidence that might not ever be found?"

  I shrugged. "Why do people keep looking for evidence of Atlantis? Or UFOs? Or any other supposedly `crazy' thing that's never been proven? No matter how many years pass without definitive evidence, people just keep searching. Why do you think that is?"

  "I don't know."

  "It's because no matter how many times these things are shot down or explained away with logic, it's never a good enough explanation."

  Jordin was visibly having a hard time with this. "I don't know what that means."

  "We believe because we want to believe," I said. "We believe so strongly that no one can change our minds."

  She was frowning. "Are you saying the pursuit of the paranormal is illogical? Irrational?"

  "I'm saying that in my experience, it's very human to want to believe that there's more to us than this mortal life. And maybe that desire is inside us for a reason. But don't take my word for it-you tell me. Why are you so eager to experience the paranormal for yourself? What's your reason?"

  Jordin was instantly uncomfortable, and closed her mouth tight.

  I smiled without humor, knowing my point was made. "Whatever your reason, no one ever stops searching ... because we can't."

  We headed in a rental car from the Louisville Airport to Highway 21 and eventually to an unassuming single-lane road that took us past a small trailer park and a diminutive collection of apartment buildings and then through a gated entrance. A narrow road snaked back and forth through woods too dense to see through.

  One final curve to the left, almost a full U-turn, opened up a full view ahead where the gigantic Waverly Hills Sanatorium loomed like an immense monolith. The massive building, the very ground we drove upon, felt dead.

  "Ruh-roh, Raggy," said Jordin, her voice filled with awe despite the silliness of her words.

  I wanted to slap the spoiled, silly rich girl in the passenger seat. But I settled for rolling my eyes and choosing not to acknowledge the painful Scooby Doo reference.

  I turned my attention instead to what was in front of me. The colossal main hospital building filled the entire windshield as we drove closer, and its dilapidated brick walls, honeycombed with endless rows of huge square holes where windows had once been, were enough to give even the most hardened skeptic pause. It hadn't changed in the slightest since the last time I was here, more than five years ago.

  Waverly Hills Sanatorium was utterly frozen in time, and the setting sun behind the trees off to the left only enhanced the ancient, abandoned feel of the place. It was like staring at a vintage postcard for a place no sane person would ever want to visit.

  I glanced at Jordin. She seemed smaller than before, as if she'd physically shrunken. She seemed to sense my staring and turned to look out her side window.

  "What are those buildings over there?" she asked in a tiny voice that was trying desperately hard to be nonchalant, and she pointed into the distance beyond the big building.

  "Urn, well," I had to collect my thoughts for a moment, preoccupied as I was with the cloud this place cast over both of us. "Waverly Hills was originally comprised of half a dozen buildings or so. There were wards and dormitories for men, women, children, and so on. Some of them still stand, but the main hospital is the biggest by far. It's where we'll be spending the night...."

  My voice faded in reverence as I stared up at the immense building. The sight of it affected me a lot more than I'd expected it to.

  It had been three years since I'd last gone on a paranormal investigation, and I'd had no regrets about leaving that life behind. By pursuing a career in law enforcement, I'd traded off trying to prove the existence of the dead for trying to help the living, and I was happy with the decision.

  Yet I could feel the old tingle sizzling across my skin, the anticipation building within me, as I gazed at this exceedingly haunted location. We were going to encounter ghosts this night. I could feel it.

  Because they were already watching us.

  I could always sense it as soon as we walked through the enormous, ancient double doors at the front entrance to Waverly Hills Sanatorium. The place was just wrong.

  The darkness was palpable now that the sun had gone down fully, and the cold air was nearly suffocating in the enormous old building. We were armed only with flashlights, sleeping bags, and snacks for the night.

  Hello again, I thought, my heart beating heavily. My eyes darted through the dark, musty atmosphere, searching the crevices and corners. Remember me?

  I recognized the sensations this place caused from the times I'd been there before, alongside my parents. My lungs seemed to labor to draw breaths, like I was at a high altitude. Yet the cool air wasn't light. It was much, much heavier than what I'd breathed before we arrived.

  The walls were coated in graffiti made up of words, names, vulgar phrases, and drawings of skulls. Every surface was either peeling, rusted, or rotten.

  I looked atJordin, who had her hand to her chest. Her face was slightly scrunched up as she absorbed the feelings that seemed to permeate this place.

  "This is..." She tried to express her feelings, but faltered. "I just ... I don't.. ."

  "Feel a weight against your chest?" I asked.

  She let out a shallow, quavering breath, and nodded. Her eyes were wide and troubled as she whispered, "I feel so sad. It's like there's ... misery here ... and grief."

  I nodded carefully. It was difficult to understand and process, but I didn't want her to miss it. It was too important.

  "Most people who come here feel it," I said softly, my eyes darting around the gloom. "So many people died here under such painful conditions ... the grief and terror they must have felt. I can't explain it, no one can, but it's like the building and the grounds became soaked with those heavy emotions, sopping them up like a sponge."

  Jordin looked a little alarmed. We'd barely crossed the threshold into this place, and already we were experiencing things she could never have anticipated. "How is that possible?" she said, her voice louder than normal and echoing down the dark hall that stretched out in front of us.

  I shook my head, having no answers. "This is only the beginning. Do you feel the cold?"

  She nodded. "I don't like this," she said, still clutching her chest while lookin
g at the air in front of her, trying to see if her breath was visible. "I feel sick."

  I cocked my head to one side. "This is what you came here for. Congrats, girlfriend, you've just had your first paranormal experience."

  "It feels like I'm gonna have a vomiting experience."

  "Come on," I said, taking tentative steps into the darkness. I switched on my flashlight and aimed it down the long, black hallway, until its beam could no longer reach the building's depths.

  I led the way as we descended into the night.

  Ten minutes later, we wandered the halls as I tried to give Jordin a bit of a tour so she could orient herself amid Waverly's long walls and five floors. Jordin stopped in place and put one hand on her opposite shoulder. She gasped aloud.

  "What?" I whispered.

  "It felt like someone tugged on my shirt!" She bunched up the shoulder of her shirt to demonstrate what she'd felt. "Right here!"

  Her face was pale, and her eyes darted around in all directions.

  "Don't be alarmed," I said, trying to keep her calm. I wanted her to get the full experience here, in the hopes that she might be satisfied with this one trip, but if she gave in to panic, it could end really badly. I gazed around the empty space surrounding us. "They're just making their presence known. They're trying to get your attention."

  "They have it," she rasped, swallowing hard.

  Okay, she's spooked. Back to business.

  "So where would you like to start your investigation?" I asked.

  Jordin's jittery eyes were following her own flashlight's beam into empty rooms on either side of us, up on the ceiling above and down the hallway ahead. Every now and then she turned quickly to glance behind.

  "I want to do whatever you would do if you were investigating with your parents."

  "Well, if they were here, right now I'd probably be helping them set up stationary cameras and recording equipment all over the building...