Ghosts of Rosewood Asylum

by Stephen Prosapio

  GHOSTS OF ROSEWOOD ASYLUM

  Copyright © 2011 STEPHEN PROSAPIO

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form without written permission except for the use of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  Interior design and typesetting by Lynn Calvert and Stephen Prosapio

  Cover design by Irina Ivanova

  Author photo courtesy of Robert Rossi

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.

  First Edition:

  Paperback ISBN: 978-1-936593-10-1

  Hard Cover ISBN: 978-1-936593-09-5

  In memory of Mark Crisman, whose passing

  during thewriting of this novel

  reminded me what’s truly important.

  “But if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.”

  — The Gospel of Matthew 18:6

  Prologue

  July 4, 1900

  Amelia Lovecroft continued to pretend that the evening’s firework show was important to her. Other girls her age were likely eager for the festivities—busying themselves with trivial affairs, such as wondering if their hair ribbons matched their dresses, or if their mothers might let them finally wear a corset. Those issues didn’t matter to Amelia. At least today they didn’t. At dusk, Amelia was supposed to rendezvous with Boy.

  She looked out the window from the administrative building of Rosewood Hospital. Her mother, still wearing black since Father had died, worked at Rosewood as a nurse. Amelia didn’t understand how the patients were sick—they didn’t look sick. She saw them strolling through the gardens from time to time, but Mother said those weren’t the really troubled ones.

  “Mother, these clouds won’t hide the fireworks will they?” Amelia said looking skyward with a frown.

  “Well aren’t you the little patriot? A girl your age so interested in celebrating our country’s birthday.”

  “Tell me, Mother!”

  “Don’t be getting your head full of bees,” Mother said. “You know I’ll answer by the by.”

  Mother had been in a foul mood all afternoon. Despite the Independence Day holiday, she had been tasked to stencil room numbers onto small placards. Mother had taken offense and had groused to the doctor in charge, Dr. Johansson, that she was not a maid.

  She set down room number 217 on the table and looked out the window. “Perhaps the clouds will drop, but I’d be surprised if they obscure the fireworks.”

  Amelia made a gleeful clap that caused her mother to smile. But her real worry was that she would miss Boy. She only saw him at Rosewood and only during twilight hours. Last time, he had promised they would see each other more often. She edged toward the door.

  “Hallo, where are you going?”

  “May I walk?” Amelia held her breath as Mother produced a timepiece from her pocket and examined it.

  “Well, the patients are locked in their quarters,” she said. “But I want you returning before it’s fully dark.”

  Amelia bolted for the door.

  “And stay out of the dirt,” Mother called after her. “I don’t want you looking all a ragamuffin tonight.”

  “Yes ma’am.” She passed through the doorway and rushed down the garden path toward the pond. Lined with heavenly white roses, lilies and carnations that blocked her view on both sides, they exuded a heavy floral scent that made Amelia feel a bit giddy.

  “Boy? Are you here, Boy?” Amelia called out. She had reached their meeting point out beyond the gardens. “Boy?”

  He’d never told her his name. At first, she thought it a secret, but once when she had asked, it seemed as though he himself could not recall it. Amelia thought that very odd, but Mother always said, “Keep your breath to cool your porridge. Others can manage their affairs without the help of a meddlesome girl.”

  Amelia did not want to be rude to Boy, so she had not broached the topic again.

  She ventured off the path and nearer the tree line—the woods that walled in the hospital’s eastern border. So as not to soil her dress, she stepped carefully. “Boy?”

  “I’m here.”

  She whirled about. There he was, standing in the path from whence she’d just come.

  “How do you do that, Boy?”

  “Never you mind,” he said with a smile.

  Boy was near her age, perhaps a year or two younger, but he could do things that Amelia only wished she could do. He always seemed to know when an adult was nearby and how to navigate through the bushes and trees to avoid discovery so that they could explore on their own.

  “Let’s walk in the woods,” he said.

  “But I mustn’t get dirty tonight.”

  Boy shuffled ahead of her. He took his steps gingerly as though both of his feet were painful to walk on. Boy’s clothes were not ragged, but they looked old-fashioned. His hair was cut short, in a way she had seen in old-time photographs. Amelia followed him.

  “Boy, is it your mother or your father who works here at Rosewood?”

  He grabbed for the green sprig of a plant, but it didn’t move. “No. Neither.”

  Amelia focused on Boy as she followed him deeper into the woods, but she soon noticed her inattention to the path had caused her to step in a tiny puddle of mud. Her shoe would come clean, but she’d also soiled her hemline. Mother would almost certainly scold her. Boy continued to limp ahead of her on the path. Rather than try to clean her dress, she scampered after him.

  “If neither works here, then why do you come?”

  “I’m looking for helpers.”

  “To help you with what?” she called out.

  He turned and faced her. There was something about his expression, or perhaps the look in his eyes, that made him appear older and certainly less innocent. “I’m different.”

  “Oh, I know,” she said.

  Amelia tried to act nonchalant. She swatted at the branch of a sapling and pretended not to pay Boy any attention, but she could feel him staring at her. Her stomach quivered with an unusual excitement and she could no longer contain her curiosity. “How did you get this way?”

  His voice came out deeper. “I did something special that made me this way.”

  Boy smiled and gazed into her eyes. It made her feel lightheaded—not dizzy but tingly. Amelia had seen older girls act silly and scatterbrained around boys, but she was determined not to let that happen to her.

  “Would you like to be special too?” he asked.

  “What did you do, Boy?”

  Before he could answer, a howl arose from somewhere further down the path that could not have been made by mere wind. Its tone changed, and the shrill pitch hurt Amelia’s ears. She plugged them with her fingertips. Above her, the treetops swayed mightily.

  The noise stopped and the air became icy cold, prickly against Amelia’s skin in contrast to the warm July evening.

  “No,” Boy said, looking up into the tree branches, “this is my place.”

  Just off the path from where Amelia and Boy stood, a hazy vapor began to form. Amelia blinked, as she saw it change from a swirling outline of smoke and light into the shape of a young woman with delicate features. Her shoulder-length blonde hair fluttered in the breeze, looking every bit as real as Amelia’s own curly hair.

  “My place,” he repeated at the woman.

  “It is not your place,” the woman said.
Her stern voice contained an odd echoic quality.

  Amelia trusted Boy to protect her and she took a few steps toward him, shivering. He remained motionless. His face expressed both petulance and fear.

  “Boy,” Amelia whispered, “who is she?” Her knees trembled but her feet felt locked to the path beside him.

  “I’m not strong enough yet,” Boy said to her. “Go. I’ll find you.”

  Amelia looked back at the woman. Her beautiful complexion began to transform into charred, black flesh. Her shimmering hair burned away leaving ragged, uneven stalks. Clumps of it peeled from her skull. Her dress smoldered. Amelia smelled the rank odor of soot.

  The woman pointed a blackened finger at Amelia, who stood rigid with fright. “Get away from this place.”

  “B-but I c-can’t…” Amelia stammered.

  “Get away!”

  Amelia desperately wanted to run, but how could she desert Boy? And her legs still wouldn’t move. This feeling reminded her of the day Father died. When Amelia had heard the news, she’d felt woozy and unbalanced, yet frozen. The doctor had called it shock. She hadn’t been able to feel anything, even sadness, until the next day. But this kind of shock was already wearing off. The numbness being replaced by something worse; something both electrifying and foul. She remained frozen, but her insides felt like everything was trembling.

  “Well then,” the woman said, her lips forming a sardonic grin, “you can watch what I do to him.”

  Boy flinched at the woman’s words, but held his ground.

  Slowly the woman evaporated back into a swirling mist. White plumes silently swept toward Boy. Upon contact with his skin, the mist, or Boy’s flesh, sizzled. His mouth opened emitting a noise that seemed to be comprised of many cries. Amelia once again found herself forcefully plugging her ears. It was as if his throat contained a dozen discordant voices. Amelia had learned about hell in church, but she had never conceived of tortured wails so disturbing. Screams that must have originated someplace far away from Pullman, Illinois.

  Boy’s mouth seemed to stretch and pull as the wails continued to escape. Then they stopped. Boy was gone.

  In the place where he’d stood, the woman’s apparition reappeared. Her charred face scowled. Black sockets stared out where eyes had once been.

  “Do you wish to be next?”

  Amelia turned back toward Rosewood and began running, not caring about soiling her shoes or dress. As she ran, she could sense the woman approaching silently from behind. She inhaled deeply. “Mamma, help! Help me!”

  Amelia reached the tree line, but fell. Above her, a cold mist swirled about kicking up dirt and mud onto her dress. Would the ghastly woman do to her what she’d done to Boy?

  Lightheaded, Amelia struggled to regain her footing. She attempted another step toward safety, but it was no use. The charred woman now blocked her way.

  Alone on a desolate path, Amelia Lovecroft blacked out.

  Chapter One

  The fifty-sixth floor of the Willis Tower provided a majestic view of downtown Chicago. Skyscraper shadows stretched out toward Lake Michigan on the autumn afternoon, as though reaching vainly for the distant shores on the other side. Known for its first thirty-six years as the Sears Tower, it had been the tallest building in the world. It was also home to the corporate offices of Sci-D TV.

  For the umpteenth time, Zach Kalusky brushed imaginary creases off his slacks and used his palms to press his jacket and tie—as though a wrinkle-free appearance would ensure a successful outcome to the upcoming meeting. His black sports coat contrasted his pale complexion but matched his wavy hair. The tie was coal gray with emerald flecks, which, Sara said, brought out the green in his hazel eyes.

  “They’ll be just a moment,” an elderly secretary said through a virtual fog of perfume.

  “Okay. Thanks, Cheryl,” Zach said. “Wait, did you say ‘they’ll be just a moment?’”

  “Yes, Dr. Benz and Ms. Chen.”

  Sara Chen, his show’s producer, often quelled his anxiety before network meetings. She hadn’t mentioned she was seeing the president prior to their audience with him, and she’d been unusually evasive about the purpose for this little conclave. For all Zach knew, the show was being canceled. Losing the source of his tuition’s funding would be bad—as in “reverting back to being Stellazzio’s best pizza chef” bad. Making pepperoni pies wasn’t going to fund his PhD studies. Fortunately, regardless of the day’s result and to negate any temptation to jump, the windows on the fifty-sixth floor were permanently sealed.

  “Zach, come on back.” Sara had emerged from the hallway leading to Dr. Benz’s office.

  He approached her. “This is what you mean by ‘meeting me here’?”

  “Hey,” she said, “I was told not to tell you anything in advance.”

  Despite standing approximately five-feet-zero-inches tall, a foot shorter than Zach, Sara could still intimidate him.

  “Oh. Great.”

  “Don’t worry so much, Zach. We might be getting a ninety-minute special.”

  “Really?”

  Her reply was a head-tilt and a gesture for him to follow her. He sighed deeply and trailed Sara down the hallway. Aggressive as she was intelligent, Sara had gotten her start in Hollywood as a reality TV “story editor” for the dating program, “Yada, Yada or Yada?” Since reality shows were supposedly “unscripted,” no writers could be listed on the credits but, for all intents and purposes, Sara had written many episodes of that show.

  In her first role as a supervising producer, Sara had taken a very active role in Xavier Paranormal Investigators development and filming. As much as Zach liked to think of it as his creation, and as much as he and Sara often didn’t see eye-to-eye on maintaining the purity of the program’s paranormal aspects, he had to admit that the show was neither entirely his nor hers. It was a joint-custody baby.

  She stopped outside the double doors to the network president’s office.

  “I thought maybe,” Zach said, “the show was getting canceled or something.”

  “You worry too much. Don’t you know stress is bad for your health?” She peered at his suit as though hunting for even a microscopic piece of lint. She brushed a fleck or two of nothing from his shoulder and appeared satisfied. “Anyway, they’re talking about giving us a Halloween Special.”

  “Shucks, I was really hoping for a Christmas Special.” He snickered at his own quip.

  “Get serious, Zach. It’s not time for joking.”

  When flushed, either with excitement or anger, Sara became even more attractive. Her demure lips and sultry eyes sometimes made it difficult for Zach to keep his hormones from sending his good-Catholic-boy brain a deluge of impure thoughts. And he was a practicing Catholic. He wasn’t “The Pope Should Rule the World” kind of Catholic, but he tried to follow the Church’s doctrine. Tried to—meaning that some rules were easier to obey than others.

  The office doors swung open.

  “Zach, Sara, come in.” Dr. David Benz stood in the doorway, both arms extended. He hardly looked the part of a network president or a scientist. Shaved head and a stocky figure, he looked like a cross between a professional wrestler and a bulldog. Supposedly, Dr. Benz had only been a bench-level scientist for a short time before moving into marketing. At some point, he’d parlayed a government grant into a monstrous sum of money and then founded the cable television network—Sci-D: The Network for Science-tainment and Discovery!

  Or so the promos went.

  “Thank you, Dr. Benz,” Sara said.

  Zach smiled and received a wide grin and a hearty handshake from Dr. Benz in return. “Zach, great to see you again. Great work with the show. I’m so proud of you. Come. Sit.”

  His office comprised approximately eight hundred square feet of the northeast corner of the building. It commanded an astounding view of the cobalt blue Lake Michigan, as well as Chicago’s skyline.

  The plush leather seats squeaked when Zach and Sara sat in them. Benz plo
pped down in the chair behind his desk and sat casually, propping his right foot onto his opposite knee and leaned back.

  “Sara’s told you the news then.”

  Zach cast a furtive glance at her. Should he pretend that she hadn’t? Her plastered smile relayed little information.

  “Not much.”

  “Did she mention something about a Halloween Special?”

  “Yes,” Sara chimed in. “I told him that.”

  “And the location?” Benz asked.

  “I haven’t told him about that yet, sir,” Sara said.

  “Ah. Good.”

  The room seemed much warmer as they discussed him as though he were a lab experiment. Careful, Zach told himself, can’t get too emotional here. God forbid…

  Zach wasn’t afraid of ghosts. He wasn’t afraid neither of heights nor of public speaking. However, at twenty-four years old, Zach lived in near constant anxiety about losing control of his gift and thereby divulging his secret. Under emotionally charged situations like the present one, he knew his apprehension wasn’t unfounded.

  Benz leaned farther back, put his hands in his lap and propped his feet up on his desk. “Zach, your show’s ratings have been good—not great, but good. One thing we’ve learned over the years is that after the novelty of the first season wears off, either a show takes on a momentum or…”

  “Or it dies.” Sara slammed the point home.

  “Yes.” Benz swiftly stomped his feet on the ground and sat at attention. “So Zach—a Friday night, Halloween Special. If there were one place in all the…” Benz cringed as though mentally calculating international flights for the entire cast and crew. “If you could choose any haunted facility within two-hundred miles, which would you investigate?”

  “That’s a no-brainer, Dr. Benz.” Zach’s heart raced at the thought. Is this why they’d been so hush-hush? Rosewood Psychiatric Hospital, commonly known as “The Haunted Asylum” was famous not only throughout Chicago, but the entire Midwest. He had been trying to get his team through the State of Illinois bureaucratic red tape all year. Rumor had it that a rival paranormal show, the Demon Hunters, was also fighting hard to publicly investigate the infamous asylum.