“Huh,” Roy grunted. “I didn’t even know people were comin’ til these two showed up this mornin’ an’ told me,” he said with a gesture to Snow and Cadence.
“Are you sure? This Joe guy looked like some kind of 1940’s mobster, complete with fedora and New York accent,” Sam said.
“Now I am sure, I don’t know no one like that,” Roy said.
“Quite curious then,” Snow said with a frown.
“According to the blueprints I pulled up online the other day, those should be the visitation rooms through that far left door,” Derrick said, pointing them out. “That’s the security station in front of us which leads through to the circular atrium at the center of the prison. The guard's rooms, locker room, and break room would be over there on the right. This door on the left here is the warden’s office.”
“Think there would be anything back there?” Liam asked, looking over at the trio of locals.
“Most of the violence and deaths took place in the prison proper,” Derrick said.
“The cafeteria, the rec room, showers, the cell blocks themselves. Then, of course, all the death out in the yard and death row,” Liam said. He looked over at Aiden pointedly. “See, your boy there, isn’t the only one who does his homework.”
Lauren stayed back near the front door, and Sam was at her side. The color had drained from her face, and her eyes were wide.
Sam touched her aura gently. “Shield yourself. I’m right here. Just wall yourself off from it for now.”
“Lauren,” Aiden said, noting his friend's palpable alarm. “What is it? Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’ll be okay,” she said, her voice subdued. “Just nasty vibes here is all. The atmosphere in here is just the heaviest I think I have ever encountered.”
“That’s called dust,” Liam said.
“Save the drama for the cameras,” Teeny said as she and Liam went about setting up the tripods and cameras for the interviews.
“Seriously?” Aiden asked, anger flashing in his eyes as he turned to face the two television ghost hunters.
“You want us to fawn all over her because she has a bad feeling? Do you have any idea how many times we have heard that from so-called psychics?”
“So-called?” Derrick asked, the anger spreading in him. “Are you kidding me? You have no idea what she is capable of. We do.”
Snow turned to Sam. “See if you can get Lauren to calm them down. The last thing we need is their anger feeding into this place, which is likely what is intended.”
“Where the hell is Roy?” Cadence asked, noticing the monitor had disappeared from the lobby room. “Shouldn’t he be trying to keep this place in check?”
“Whatcha think I been doin’ little lady?” Roy said as he appeared beside her. He gave her a wink and a smile. “The noise of the door openin’ and the livin’ bein’ here has the folks in the back all riled up. They’re tryin’ to influence the livin’, make ‘em fight fer their amusement.”
Lauren nodded a bit to Sam’s whispered words and took a deep breath. “I’ll be okay, really. I just needed a minute to adjust to the atmosphere.”
The smirk that Teeny and Liam shared between them did not go unnoticed by Aiden, who opted to mentally count to ten instead of hitting something. Liam found two chairs that seemed as whole as possible and set them upright in front of the cameras, taking a rag from his back pocket and dusting the chairs off. Teeny turned on the bright lights affixed to the top of the camera to showcase where Liam was setting up the chairs. The little red light on one of the cameras was already on, indicating that it was recording. Teeny moved over to Lauren, and the older woman stood still, letting Teeny affix the microphone to her shirt and clip the battery pack to the back of her jeans.
“Okay, so since Lauren is a little bit wigged out why don’t we do her interview first so that she can step out if she needs to afterward,” Teeny suggested as she led Lauren over to the lit area.
Lauren nodded and moved toward the two chairs, taking a seat in one of them. Teeny’s mic pack was still on, as she had never bothered removing it after Derrick’s interview. Teeny then took her seat in the chair next to Lauren as Liam took his position behind the other camera. Sam stayed out of the range of the cameras, just in case, but was close enough to protect Lauren from any spirits out to play tricks or pranks on her.
“We’re here with Lauren Kurtz, the ex-wife of Dan Kurtz who had investigated this prison previously with another member of their local ghost hunting group, Southern Paranormal Investigations. Lauren, thank you for being with us today.”
“Thanks for having us,” Lauren said calmly, though she could feel her heart beating a mile a minute.
“Why did you not come with your ex-husband when he and Aiden Perkins investigated here? Was it because of the divorce?”
“No,” Lauren replied. “I’m a psychic, medium, whatever term you want to use. Our divorce was, for the most part, amicable, and both of us remained with the paranormal group. Because of my abilities and sensitivities, Dan and Aiden often went to check out locations before I went in. In this case, they came back and said no way.”
“Why did they say no?” Teeny asked.
“You would probably do better asking Aiden that. They didn’t give me much of a reason beyond it being a more dangerous place than they had anticipated. I left it at that because I trusted them.”
“Now Lauren, when we entered today, you said you had doubts about this being a good idea. Why?”
“There is a lot of anger and bloodshed here, and I can feel it. I’ve been in places with pain, bloodshed, anger, all those negative feelings and emotions before. But this place…it’s different. It seems like it is magnified here, it has a dangerous edge to it,” Lauren said.
“Do you know much of the history of this place?”
“I know what you know, what Derrick told us. But before this no, I hadn’t known much of the history other than it had some problems in the 80’s right around when it closed down, and that there had been riots here,” Lauren said with a bit of a laugh. “I knew about as much as most of the regular public probably. But I usually like to go in knowing as little as possible about the history of a location we’re investigating. I don’t want prior knowledge, coloring anything I might see or hear.”
“You’re saying you see and hear ghosts, then?” Teeny continued the interview.
“I hear them often if they wish to talk to me. Seeing them is…it’s not like I see you sitting across from me. It’s more along the lines of flashes in my mind, feelings that I know are not mine, images, memories, things like that.”
“Are you prepared for what you might see and feel on this investigation?”
“I’m not entirely sure I am, but I suppose we’ll find out, won’t we?” Lauren smiled a little, trying to shake the feeling of dark, venomous clouds gathering around them
“Now Aiden is here, as is another member of your group, but I have to ask, where is Dan?” Teeny knew the answer, but she had to get it on camera.
“He died last year,” Lauren said, her voice becoming terse.
“Is it true that his death was related to an investigation you all were doing?” Teeny asked.
Both Aiden and Derrick stepped forward in defense of Lauren. “What the hell kind of question is that?” Aiden said, his voice a growl.
“A legitimate one,” Teeny said, looking up at Aiden but not moving from her seat. “A very legitimate one considering he and you are the only two with any practical knowledge of this prison and its hauntings. Was his death in any way connected to this place?”
“Dan died of a heart attack in his apartment. He did not die in any location we were working on,” Lauren answered. She stood and unclipped the mic pack they had outfitted her with. “And I am done answering your asinine questions.” She tossed the pack on the chair and headed out the front door, Sam going with her.
“Good for her,” Snow said approvingly. “These two television people are horrid. Wh
o would ask such a question?”
“People who go for the shock value of their show instead of actually being interested in furthering paranormal research,” Cade said. “Which on the one hand is sad but on the other hand is great for us. They aren’t going to dig deep enough to come up with anything we likely have to try to cover up.”
Snow turned to Roy. “Is there anything that can be done about the way this place is encouraging anger? Aiden is usually quite level headed, not prone to the kind of outbursts we see here.”
Roy shrugged. “Not sure I can do much more about the atmosphere here. But I’ll see if anyone is still tryin’ to stir up trouble back there.” Roy turned and disappeared.
“I want to make sure Sam and Lauren are doing alright,” Snow said. “Are you alright here with Aiden and Derrick?”
“I’m not made of porcelain, Snow, I’m not going to break, I promise. Ramon cleared me, I’m fine to be here,” Cade said.
“Well, that’s not going to stop me worrying over you now, is it?” Snow said with a smile. He then followed Sam and Lauren out.
“Dude, what the hell is your issue?” Aiden asked Liam as Cadence turned her attention back to them.
“Look,” Liam said, putting up his hands in a defensive gesture. “I have no issue with you guys, and neither does Teeny. We have to ask these questions. People were going to wonder why we didn’t have Dan here on the show since you, and he were the ones who investigated this place before. Now they know why and they can see that Lauren is still broken up about it. Trust me, it will play well.”
“I’ll go apologize once we’re done here,” Teeny assured him. “I really wasn’t trying to upset her.”
“Your questions sure were phrased badly then if upsetting her wasn’t your goal,” Aiden said and his voice a resentful grumble.
“I’m sorry I upset her,” Teeny said. “But if I’m going to get this mic on you, you need to sit. You’re a foot and a half taller than me.”
Aiden sat down and let the small woman go about clipping the mic to him. Once done, she took her seat opposite him.
“Aiden Perkins, thank you for joining us here at Barrington Prison today,” Teeny said.
“Thanks for having us,” he replied, his voice and manner calm, in contrast to just a few minutes ago.
“You have investigated this prison before, right?”
“Yes, but it wasn’t a full-on investigation. We were more checking it out to see if we should or could do a full-scale investigation here,” Aiden said.
“Right, because you and Dan, the man who investigated with you, determined it to be too dangerous for your group to proceed with a full investigation as I understand. What made you decide this?”
“It just seemed to be a bit too much. I’m no psychic, but even I could feel the oppression and the anger here,” Aiden said. “We came in, and it was like trying to walk through sludge. The feelings were a bit much for us, and neither one of us is nearly as sensitive as Lauren.”
“Other than the feelings of oppression and anger, did you get any evidence here?” Teeny asked.
“We got noises, things that sounded like cell doors opening and closing. When we were in the hall by the kitchen it sounded like there was a huge fight going on inside, but when we got inside there was nothing,” Aiden replied with a shrug. “A few touches and scratches once we got in there, but no fight.”
“What are the places you would warn people to stay away from in here, and what are the places you think we might have the best luck investigating?”
“Cellblock 1 held the worst of the worst in here when the prison was in operation. That was the direction where we heard the cell doors opening and closing from, and it was used as both death row and solitary confinement. The kitchen might be worth investigating since that’s where the 1975 prison riot that killed eight prisoners and three guards took place. I would warn people who don’t know what they are doing to stay away from the rec room and the gallows building outside. The rec room had a lot of debris in front of the door like someone was trying to barricade something in there. We did go outside to the gallows, but we didn’t go in. Dan and I both got horendous feelings out there, so we decided to go with our guts and stay out.”
“You didn’t go in?” Teeny asked. ”I’m a little surprised that a ghost hunter would avoid a place so steeped in death as a prison gallows.”
“Well first, it wasn’t a full-scale investigation, we were just scouting. And I’m not sure if I can explain it the right way, but it just didn’t feel right. It felt like if we went in there, one or both of us were going to get hurt.”
“Have you ever had that kind of feeling in any other place?”
“No, never,” Aiden said with a shake of his head.
“How many places have you investigated?”
“More than I can easily count off the top of my head,” Aiden said.
“Have you ever been hurt or attacked in any of those other places?”
“Oh, there have been scratches and things like that. Things that tend to go with being a paranormal investigator. But even places where we have been attacked, it has never felt that dangerous. There was just this feeling that if we stepped in there…one, or both of us might not walk back out.”
“Alright, thank you Aiden,” Teeny said and reached forward, shaking Aiden’s hand.
Liam turned his cameras off as Teeny helped Aiden get the mic pack off of him. Silence fell on the group as Derrick hung back by the door, unaware of Cadence standing right beside him. Liam began taking the tripods down and setting them by the door.
“Hey Aiden,” Liam said, offering a camera to the man. “Would you want to help us out?”
“What do you need?” Aiden took the camera in hand as he replied.
“Film Teeny and I doing our intro outside, and maybe a thing or two in here,” Liam said with a shrug.
“Yeah, sure,” Aiden said, though he really wasn’t sure he wanted to help them out that much after the way they had treated Lauren. “Hey Derrick, go check on Lauren, will you?”
“Sure,” Derrick said with a nod and turned, slipping out the door.
“Thanks, Aiden,” Liam said, trying to smooth over the anger from earlier. “We appreciate it. Let’s start outside.”
Everyone walked out of the prison, and Teeny closed the prison door but did not lock it up again since they would more than likely be going right back inside.
Teeny and Liam situated themselves on the crumbling sidewalk, a little bit before a couple of steps that led up to the prison door. Liam got his mic pack snapped on and looked over to Aiden.
“Start with a wide shot, get the prison in, then slowly close in and center on us,” Liam said. “Got it?”
“Sounds simple enough,” Aiden said, trying to not be irritated by the way Liam was talking to him as if he didn’t know what he was doing. He took a deep breath, steadied himself and the camera while finding the best framing of the two hosts and the prison itself. The wide rectangular building’s brick façade and iron bars over the windows were a wonderful backdrop to the ghost hunting duo. They stood on the concrete steps of the prison’s entrance, the massive front doors behind them. Once satisfied, Aiden hit record and gave them a thumbs up.
Chapter 11
“Welcome to The Dead Show,” Liam said, speaking to the camera as Aiden slowly began to narrow the view from the prison building to the two television hosts. “Tonight we’re bringing you with us to Barrington Prison, a place that has been steeped in violence and death, even though it was in operation for less than fifty years.”
“A television show once fled from this place under mysterious circumstances shortly after it closed more than thirty years ago,” Teeny said. “No one has attempted a full-scale investigation of the prison since then. Until now.”
“Tonight we will take you inside these halls and give you access to rooms that haven’t hosted the living in many years,” Liam said. “Will we be brave enough to venture into the areas
that are reputedly the most haunted and the most dangerous? You’ll have to wait and see.”
“Also tonight we will be running an experiment,” Teeny said. “I’ve been working for a long time on this and tonight is its maiden voyage, so to speak. If it works, we may be able to see and speak to a spirit in real time.”
Cadence frowned as she heard that. Snow had gone with the others back to Aiden’s van to check on Lauren and put heads together for plans. If this experiment worked, it was not going to make their job any easier.
“So sit tight and stay with us,” Liam said. “As The Dead Show investigates Barrington Prison.”
Liam gave a motion to cut, and Aiden stopped recording. Aiden was less than thrilled about the news of what this experiment was supposed to be able to do. He only hoped that it would fail. He did not want to be responsible for having to try to hide footage from a television show.
Liam walked over and grabbed the camera from Aiden. “Just give me a minute to review this, make sure it looks okay,” he said. He rewound the footage to where it began at the wide show and watched through it. “Damn, not bad at all, Aiden. Want a job as our cameraman?”
“I’m good where I am,” Aiden said with a chuckle. “Thanks, though.”
“You know between the interviews and the intro we just shot, I’m not sure we really need to do any interiors,” Teeny said.
“What, you want to just leave it for tomorrow night?” Liam looked over to his partner with a raised eyebrow.
“Why not?” Teeny shrugged. “We’re leaving the experiment as a surprise, let’s do this show a little differently. Let’s go into this without knowing the layout, other than the blueprints. No daytime shots other than what we already have.”
“I have a feeling this one might be different from your normal shows anyway,” Aiden said. “If what Derrick dug up is anything to go by.”
“Exactly!” Teeny said with a smile. “We have the intro, we’ll lead after that with Aiden and Lauren’s interviews, then leave it with Derrick’s history before just going to the night shoot.”
The Dead Show Page 7
