The Dead Show

by Amanda Fasciano

  “Why tell us this?” Cadence was suspicious of the man and his motives after everything that had transpired.

  “I was in for armed robbery,” Roland said. “I had two weeks left on my sentence. Two weeks. Then the riot that killed Roy happened. I got caught in the crossfire, so to speak. I was going to get out and start trying to put my life and family back together if I could. I didn’t want to follow the same path that brought me here. Not everyone who died here stayed as bad as when they walked in.”

  “So you’re just trying to help us out from the goodness of your own heart?” Cadence couldn’t keep the skepticism from her voice or face.

  “Yes, Ma’am. Ain’t like I can go anywhere now anyway. I wanted to go through that portal to whatever was on the other side, have a chance to live again, on the right side of the law this time.” Roland shrugged. “That was the only reason I followed Roy’s orders. I knew he’d gone south, but the hope of getting away, and maybe this time getting it right blinded me to just how far south he had gone.”

  “Was Roy working with anyone that you know of, Roland?” Snow’s stance relaxed as it became evident that this Roland was no threat.

  “Yeah. Not sure who, but there was someone on the other side of the portal. I kind of always got the feeling that whoever it was over there was the one making it work, not Roy,” Roland said.

  “Thank you, Roland. I appreciate your forthrightness,” Snow said.

  “And I appreciate you going back to your cell instead of making me fight you,” Cadence added with a bit of a smile.

  Roland returned the smile and nodded. “Hitting women, alive or dead, was never how I operated.” He then disappeared.

  Chapter 26

  The waiting room at the hospital was crowded, full of people waiting to be seen and waiting to be let back to see those they brought. Lauren and Derrick sat amidst the sick and impatient, as Doug and Robin were in the back with their daughter as her foot was tended to.

  “Didn’t expect to see you two here,” Aiden said, walking up to them as he and Andy walked into the waiting room.

  “Aiden!” Lauren couldn’t conceal her surprise. “What happened?”

  “Liam got hurt pretty badly. Teeny is back there with him now,” Aiden said.

  “You might want to get that chest seen to,” Andy suggested to Aiden. Andy then turned and wandered towards the triage area and spoke quietly with a nurse before he was buzzed back into the emergency department proper.

  “Your chest?” Derrick asked with concern.

  “I got attacked, it’s no big deal. Could have been much worse,” Aiden said, trying to shrug off their worries. “Why are you two here, though? What happened with the family?”

  Lauren looked around and then urged Derrick and Aiden to follow her away from the main waiting area, down a hall a little ways. “Emma kidnapped Ava from the house. Sam was able to follow and let me know where. Ava is okay for the most part except that she stepped on a nail, so they have to remove that, and she’ll probably need a tetanus shot.”

  “Poor kid,” Aiden said. “What the hell is the ghost kid up to anyway?”

  “Sam is working on getting her to leave the family alone,” Lauren said.

  “Think he’ll convince her?” Derrick asked.

  “I guess we’ll find out, Lauren said with a sigh. She then lifted her gaze to Aiden. “Your turn. What happened at the prison?”

  “Well I’m glad you weren’t there, I’m not sure you could have handled it. Teeny was practically attacked by the spirit of some madman whispering horrible things in her ear while we were investigating solitary confinement and death row. The cafeteria was lively too. I somehow got locked into a Death Row cell for a bit. And Teeny had an experiment she was running. I have no idea if that experiment is what led to what happened, but this is going to be one hell of a situation to explain.”

  “What do you mean?” Derrick asked.

  “She had this experimental box that she built, the size of a big dog cage,” Aiden said. “Whatever it was, it worked. Snow got trapped in it.” He kept his voice low, aware of the fact that their conversation could carry if they were too loud.

  “Holy shit,” Derrick said, his eyes wide.

  “Yeah,” Aiden said with a nod. “Then we started hearing these weird noises from the gallows building out in the yard. Liam went to investigate. Teeny didn’t want to leave her experiment, and she didn’t want to be alone after the whole solitary incident.”

  “So, Liam went to the gallows on his own?” Lauren asked, unable to fathom an experienced ghost hunter making such a decision when the reputation of where they were investigating was so evil.

  “Yep,” Aiden confirmed. “I’m not sure what happened, but he got hurt pretty badly.” Aiden paused, looking around to make sure that they weren’t being listened to. “Detective Halleran was already there, he was the off duty officer that they hired to work as area security for the night. I’m not sure how she did it, but Cadence managed to call Andy in to help. He came running into the prison and knew he had to get to where the gallows were.”

  “When did you get attacked?” Lauren asked.

  “Right after Andy and Teeny took off for the gallows room. I stopped the cameras and was going to turn off the box to let Snow out, but something caught me. It was like some hand had reached into me and had a hold of my bones.”

  “Show me,” Lauren said. Aiden lifted an eyebrow at her, but she shook her head, her “den mother” role in full effect. “Show me,” she ordered.

  Aiden sighed in resignation and began to unbutton his shirt beneath his open coat. He hadn’t even looked yet, and he was hoping there would be nothing to see. He was wrong.

  “Oh my God,” Lauren said, her voice just a breath as she took in the damage. A hand shape was visible on Aiden’s chest beneath his brown chest hair. The handprint varied, going between an angry red and a vivid purple. “You should probably get seen too, Aiden. To make sure there isn’t any worse damage.”

  “I’m fine, Lauren, it’s just a bruise. Stings still, but I’m fine,” Aiden said.

  “Aiden…” she began, but then she backed off with a sigh. “Fine, but if they say you should be checked out, we’ll do it?”

  “They?” Aiden asked, not sure to whom she was referring to.

  “Our friends,” Lauren replied, trying to keep it vague.

  “Fine, if they think it is more serious then I will get it checked out. But we’ve all been scratched or bruised before. It’s never been anything more.”

  “Except for Dan,” Lauren said.

  “Lauren, that was a whole different situation, and you know it,” Aiden said, putting a comforting hand on her upper arm.

  “I know. It just…I don’t want the same thing happening to you because we ignored something serious,” Lauren said.

  “Don’t worry,” Aiden said, offering his friend a smile. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  “Where are they anyway?” Derrick asked.

  “Not sure,” Aiden said with a sigh, leaning against the wall. “Cadence and Snow had to deal with taking someone into custody, whatever that means for them. I have no idea if they came back or are still dealing with that or with the prison.”

  “Wait, they took someone into ghost custody from a prison?” Derrick asked, not sure if he found the idea unbelievable or just hysterical.

  “Yeah, I know how it sounds. There was a whole thing that was going on with them. Not sure if the prisoners were trying to riot again or what but I think that the guy I helped them trap in the box was the monitor for the prison.”

  “Like Sam was for the dorm house?” Lauren asked.

  “Yeah,” Aiden said.

  “What do you mean you helped them trap him?” Derrick asked.

  “At one point Cade touched me. I don’t hear her like you do,” he said to Lauren, “but I got images, intentions from her. She needed me to turn the box back on when I heard her yell. I waited, heard her yell, turned the box on and
there was this other guy. Snow stepped back in and cuffed him, took him away.”

  “Anyone else finding this ironic and absurd?” Derrick was shaking his head, trying to wrap his brain around all of this. “The monitor for a prison, a bad guy that the ghosts we know had to remove from the human prison and take him to ghost prison?”

  Aiden smiled. “We’re in a strange position, Derrick. We know more than probably most people do about what goes on over on the other side of the veil. Just because we know it, however, doesn’t mean it is always going to make sense to us.”

  “Amen,” Lauren said.

  *****

  Cadence and Snow entered the hospital waiting room behind Andy and Aiden. They noticed Derrick and Lauren at the same time as the two other men did and Cadence looked over to Snow.

  “That means Sam is here,” she said to him. Snow nodded, and they turned, leaving the breathers to catch up and going in search of the younger Riley sibling. They passed the nurses station and rooms for treatment. They finally saw Sam in a room that had a little girl asleep on the bed, wrapped in blankets. She had a parent on each side of her holding her hands as a nurse was working on bandaging her foot.

  “Sam,” Cadence said, beckoning her brother out to them.

  He looked a little surprised to see them here and went out into the hallway to join them.

  “What brings you two here?” Sam asked.

  “One of the television guys got hurt pretty badly,” Cade said. “He’s around here somewhere and is probably going to be here for a few days. I can’t imagine he is not going to have surgery.”

  “What happened with the little girl?” Snow asked.

  “Turns out that Wolf guy was pulling the strings on the whole thing. He summoned Emma, not knowing that he would get Sarah in the deal as well. He wanted Emma to escalate the haunting to get our ghost hunting group drawn in to investigate. He somehow knew that they had ties to someone involved in the Irene Woods case you guys did a couple months ago.”

  “So he was deliberately trying to get our ghost hunters involved in a case that would take place during the time of the television investigation?” Cadence looked to Snow, trying to make sense of it. “Why?”

  Snow frowned as he thought. “The obvious answer would be to try to get our guys to ignore the television group and go with the case involving the family and the little girl. But you are right to ask why Cadence. Leaving the television investigators unattended and unassisted by our breathers? Or does he know more than he should? Did he know that would split us up, and some would have to attend the prison and others attend the family?”

  “That’s a reach, though, isn’t it?” Sam looked at Snow as he asked the question. “I mean the breathers don’t know what we do.”

  “Don’t they?” Snow looked back at Sam as he replied. “Our group knows quite well what goes on, much as I dislike that break in the rules. If this man summoned the spirits of the girls as you say, he might well have a great deal of knowledge. Let’s not forget that this Wolf person also had the recipe for the non-human chaos being that killed Dan Kurtz and that we barely managed to get rid of.”

  “And he was somehow involved in everything that went on with the dorm house too,” Cadence added. “Remember, he is who Overton called for help when they had Andy in the basement of your dorm.”

  “I guess it isn’t that much of a reach then,” Sam admitted with a shrug. “But if that’s true then what the hell is going on? Why did he need to split us up?”

  “I have a guess as to why,” Snow said, weighing his words. “Assuming that Wolf knows about how we work on this side of life, he could have wanted to split us up to hide what was going on at the prison.”

  “What do you mean?” Sam’s emerald eyes looked between Snow and his sister, and it was his sister who answered.

  “Something was going on there, most of the active spirits were gone. There were maybe ten to twelve that we saw in the cafeteria, but then by the end of the night, there were only seven, and that included that asshole, Roy.”

  “How were they leaving?” Sam asked.

  “There was a portal circle in the rec room of the prison,” Snow said. “After the fracas, another prisoner explained that the portal led to somewhere else, that Mr. Pruitt had been sending inmates through the portal with the promise of freedom and a flesh and blood body to possess, to live again. However, the person on the side of the portal, the one who seemed to be the person making it work, that is what we don’t know,” Snow said. “And that is what bothers me.”

  *****

  Wolf tossed his coat on his couch. He was tired and getting far too old for this crap. That Ava girl would have been a great student, she had such skill at seeing and communicating with the spirits. But now he was afraid that he had lost her. He was going to have to be careful with any plans regarding her in the future, at the very least.

  He went to his kitchen, pulling a bottle of water from the fridge. He paused, looking at a picture on the wall in there. It was a picture of the day he got his promotion to police Captain. “How did I let this get so damned far?” The question was to no one, as he was alone in his apartment.

  “Oh, please, are you lamenting your position?” a familiar voice came from the hallway that led from his living room back to his bedroom. A shadowy figure stood there as if he had been waiting for Wolf all night.

  “No, I’m not,” Wolf replied, straightening up and setting the bottle of cold water on the breakfast bar that separated his kitchen from his living room. “I simply dislike scaring children.”

  “I told you when you were a teenager that you were going to need to check your conscience at the door,” the figure replied. “Some things we have to do may not be pleasant, but they are necessary. It is for the greater good that we do this.”

  “I know,” Wolf sighed. “I’m aware. If your plan can be brought to fruition, it will help us all. I’m on your side, Shaldoxz, you know that. My devotion to the cause has never wavered. Not once. Not when I have to put aside files the coroner sends me, not when I have to lie to my officers about what really happened at a crime scene, and not when I have to bury one of my best detectives.”

  “Captain Rodriguez,” Shaldoxz said, “I know what you have had to do has been hurting you. Trust me when I say it will all be worth it in the end. Immortality is one hell of a reward.”

  “Is it working? Have the tests you have been running on things been going smoothly?”

  “Well, that’s the problem we had tonight. Even though you tried to split them up, they were still able to be far more successful than I had anticipated. The group was even short one of their usual team members. Your cult is going to have to work on finding another place with spirits that want out. But up until tonight, things were going well.”

  “Is there another student candidate other than the girl from tonight? I doubt I’ll be able to get anywhere near her again thanks to the brat you had me summon,” Captain Rodriguez, aka Wolf, said.

  “Give it a few months and try again,” Shaldoxz said. “By then I’ll have moved Snow and Riley onto some other contrived emergency, and they’ll have forgotten about the girl. But mark my words, Wolf. Do not screw up again. My patience with mistakes is fading quickly as time grows closer.”

  “How are you able to direct Riley and her partner?” Wolf asked, taking a swig from his water bottle.

  Shaldoxz stepped forward into the light, and his usual form melted into one Wolf hadn’t seen before. His wavy ginger hair was wildly unkempt, and he was shorter than usual, with a little weight to him. He wore slacks, a button-down shirt, and a sweater vest, with glasses covering his eyes. Whitfield gave Wolf a little bit of a smile.

  “Because they trust me,” he said.

 

 

 
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