“Evelyn, did you and Dr. Johansson work together to keep John at bay?”
“No. Yes and no, really. Dr. Johansson never completely accepted his death. When Rosewood closed, he continued fighting for its survival. He didn’t quite understand but regardless, his actions helped keep John away from the administration building.”
“Evelyn, why did you withhold this from me for so long? Why didn’t you just tell me this that first night we met?”
She answered so matter-of-factly, but her response caught Zach completely by surprise. “Your uncle told me not to.”
“What?”
Her voice was becoming more and more faint. “He said we needed to wait and let you figure most of it out on your own.”
Zach didn’t have time to consider the implications of that information. Evelyn’s shape was little more than an outline. At the rate she was dissipating, he might not even be able to hear her final response.
“I have one last question.” It was the question Zach didn’t dare ask earlier. He suspected the answer; however, he needed her reaction, if not her words, to confirm it.
“Hurry Mr. Kalusky. I’m so very tired.”
“Did Thomas go to your husband and tell him you two wished to be together?”
Her outline flickered as though the question startled or upset her.
“Oh, no. Thomas would never have done that. We’d talked about running away together. Moving west or south or east but, no. Thomas would know better than going to John. He’d never do that. Thomas will return for me one day. This I know.”
The last thing Zach could see of Evelyn before she completely vanished from sight was her mouth twitching.
Before the lie becomes the truth.
Invisible now, Evelyn’s voice was fading as though she was moving away through a very long tunnel. “I need to go lie down now, Mr. Kalusky. I hope you don’t mind. I believe that little boy is here, wandering the halls. He’s not working for John. I suspect he doesn’t believe John’s lies. The little boy is trying to fight him. I tried to frighten him and his mother away. I doubt he’ll…”
The rest, assuming there was any, was inaudible to Zach’s ears.
Chapter Forty-One
Zach heard them shouting before he was halfway up the staircase. He used the flashlight to locate the night vision goggles, and then kept it on while he scrambled the rest of the way up.
“Joey! Zach! Hello? Where are you?”
He hurried into the lobby where Ray, Hunter and Rebecca stood. Their flashlight beams swarmed throughout the darkness.
“Hey, you guys were supposed to give me at least fifteen minutes alone!”
“Hey moron,” Ray said. “It’s been over twenty-five minutes. Which floors did you cover?”
“I got hung up,” Zach said. “But he’s not in the basement.”
Ray growled and surveyed the lobby. “Where the hell is this kid?”
“He’s in here somewhere. Hey Hunter, any luck on contacting the doctor?”
Hunter seesawed his hand in a “maybe yes, maybe no” motion. “I felt a presence, but he didn’t talk. Hopefully he listened.”
“Rebecca, aren’t you supposed to be with Ginny?”
“Nice to see you too,” she said. “We were waiting with her at the main gate. The cops have to report missing children to the national database within two hours of a report, so Ginny wanted to check in here before making this a federal issue. We left her with the security guard up front. Ray made up an excuse that he needed to show me something in his car. If she finds out we’re in here and kept her out of the loop, she’s going to throw a conniption fit.”
“Hey, we’re wasting time here with pleasantries,” Ray said. His right hand had swelled to the size of a small water balloon.
“Okay.” Zach pointed up the staircase. “Hunter and Rebecca, start at the top and work your way down. Ray and I will cover the first floor. If we don’t find him, we’ll likely meet up on the second floor somewhere. Partners stick together. No one breaks off alone.”
“Live together, die alone,” Hunter said.
Zach didn’t bother asking what that line was from. “Call or text message if you find him. Let’s go!”
They broke off in pairs. Hunter and Rebecca trotted up the circular main staircase. Zach started down the hall toward the back of the building. Ray followed along.
“Where are we heading?” he asked.
“Winkler said something about a door being left unlocked in the visitor’s area. Let’s start there.”
“So what held you up in the basement?”
“Don’t worry about it,” Zach said. “I’ll tell ya later.”
They arrived at the old visitor’s room and shone their flashlights around it. There were a lot of footprints across the dusty floor, however they looked like they’d come from the ghost hunter’s tour their first day at Rosewood.
“What’s that?” Ray whispered.
His light beam trained on something on the floor that looked vaguely like a spider. He crept to the far side of the room. He bent, picked it up and held it near his face. Zach sidled up next to him and illuminated the find. It was a fuzzy red piece of lint. The kind that would scrape off a child’s pajamas.
“I’ve got the eyesight don’t I, buddy?” Ray asked.
Zach said nothing, but rewarded his friend with a thumbs up signal.
Following the line from the outside door to where the lint had been, the two of them trekked into the hall leading to the infirmary. They left no room unchecked.
“Did you hear that?” Zach asked, hoarsely.
Ray extended his nose in the direction the noise had come from. It had sounded like a child’s sigh. After investigating the infirmary, they checked every room and were heading back towards the lobby. Since the tiny evidence of red pajamas, they had found nothing.
“I know where he is,” Ray said. “Room 111.”
It made sense. In addition to the tables the video equipment was set up on, there were packing pads and a number of equipment cases. The perfect hiding spot for a kid. In hindsight, they should have looked there first.
They entered but didn’t see him. “Joey? Are you in here?”
There was rustling behind the cases beneath the table.
“Joey?”
“Go away. Leave me alone!”
Zach turned and flashed Ray a thumbs up. Ray looked as relieved as Zach felt that they’d found the boy. “Joey, your mom’s very worried about you.”
“Well, I’m worried about her. That’s why I’m hiding.”
Zach motioned to Ray to call Hunter and Rebecca.
“Joey, it’s not safe to hide here. We’ve got to get you home.”
“No!” he skittered away until his back hit the wall. “He told me he’d burn it down if I didn’t help him. It’s the only thing he said that I believe.”
“Who?” Zach asked, already knowing the answer. He inched closer to the boy while the question distracted him.
“The boy who isn’t a boy. He promised that he’d bring my daddy back. He wanted me to help him burn this building down. I told him to do it himself.”
Zach gently but firmly gathered the boy in his arms. “What did he say to that?”
“He said there was a lady ghost living here who he was afraid of.”
It hadn’t struck Zach before that John Paramour, or whatever he had become, might not know the spirit in the asylum was Evelyn. With her ability to shift forms, maybe she had been able to disguise herself to him all these years.
“Good. I’m glad he’s afraid. I promise. I won’t let him hurt you or your mommy. I promise. Let’s get out of here, okay?”
Joey didn’t respond, but his eyes were already half closed. He put his head down on Zach’s shoulder.
“Let’s get the puck outta Dodge,” Ray said.
They shuffled through the hallway towards the lobby. They were twenty yards away when it lit up. No doubt originating atop the main staircase, a flashligh
t beam illuminated the crooked figure of Grant Winkler. From Zach’s vantage point, it looked like the custodian was in a spotlight at the end of a tunnel.
“Yeah, I seen you up there,” he said pointing toward the top of the steps. “And what the hell are you guys doing in here with a little kid?”
Winkler wasn’t looking at Zach and Joey; he was looking up the stairs at someone they couldn’t see.
Hunter’s voice echoed through the lobby. “That’s not a boy. Stay away from it.”
Winkler stumbled out of view toward the staircase.
“Last fuckin’ thing I need, is some nig—. Excuse me, some person of color, to tell me what is and what ain’t no boy!” He cackled as though he’d just told the funniest joke in the history of late-night TV.
Zach eyeballed Ray and signaled that they move forward.
He whispered in Joey’s ear. “Be very quiet, okay?”
Hiding his eyes on Zach’s shoulder, Joey nodded. Zach’s shirt felt wet as it rubbed against his skin. He wondered if it were Joey’s snot or his tears.
They crept forward toward the lobby.
“Look Mr. Winkler…” It was Rebecca. “We’re trying to warn y—”
“No, you look here, missy. I’ll be the one doin’ the warnin’. This is my place. You take your kid and get the fuck out!”
His footfalls plodding up the steps echoed throughout the otherwise silent lobby. Then, from that direction, there came a high-frequency screech.
“Who are you?!” An electronic version of Angel’s voice screamed above the increasing blare of a siren. “Who are you?!” It repeated.
It was another Whistling EMF-EVP. Any doubt as to whom or what was lurking on the staircase was erased. It could be none other than John Paramour.
Ray darted into the lobby and looked up. The flashlights from above were steadily dimming—being drained of power.
Zach moved out of the hallway shielding Joey in his arms. He couldn’t help but look. For years, no matter how Zach tried to forget it, some random event would trigger a snapshot of the scene. The etched memory would replay with such crystal clarity, that it would cause Zach’s heart to race.
At the top of the stairs, Hunter stood with wide eyes. Rebecca bore a similar look of horror. Halfway up the staircase, Winkler was turning around, and was off balance searching for the sound of the siren. Maybe he’d already spotted the device, maybe he hadn’t.
And in between Winkler and the top of the staircase stood Boy.
Dressed in a brown suit like those worn in ancient photographs, his haircut looked as if his head had been placed in a bowl. His part left an upside-down V in the middle of his forehead.
It appeared Boy may have been blocking Hunter and Rebecca’s descent when Winkler had shown up. His attention, like Winkler’s seemed focused on identifying the source of the noise.
From that snapshot things happened all at once. Later, Zach’s perception slowed everything down to a crawl, but that was likely a trick of the memory.
Boy glanced in Zach’s direction. He didn’t make eye contact, but it had been close enough to run Zach’s blood cold.
Boy was staring at Joey.
He began to transform, started to grow, not into the burly blowhard police officer John Paramour had been in Zach’s visions, but into something else, something different. His legs grew first, or perhaps that’s just what Zach noticed. They sprouted both up and out shredding his brown slacks. Boy’s upper body erupted, splattering fragments into the air, but the bits of flesh disappeared into nothingness before they traveled more than a few feet. His chest, massive and hairy, expanded outward until it was the size of four men’s torsos.
It all happened silently.
Winkler began to turn back. As though if watching a frame-by-frame video, Zach could see it happening—knew what would occur. There had been time to shout a warning—plenty of time. But he didn’t.
He couldn’t.
He would justify it to himself later with mentally constructed excuses that revolved around the assumption no one else had said anything—an assumption that Zach never could be sure of since, except for his uncle’s voice, he heard nothing until after the dreadful sound.
You cannot save him.
Winkler had begun to turn back. The Paramour thing’s face was in a state of transition. The crooked, pug nose and facial features of the John Paramour that Zach had seen during his episode were briefly visible. Then, the nose and ears elongated. Its pointed chin jutted out even further. Ram horns sprouted from its forehead. It stood nearly nine-feet tall. By the time Winkler turned back, it had already started descending towards him. He looked up and flinched.
The flinch caused him to slip backwards.
His head struck the steps at the same time as his shoulders. At least in Zach’s recollection there was still no sound. The head trauma alone might well have killed Winkler. But it was the tumble that did him in—not the somersaulting tumble as seen in movies—more an awkward backward sprawl. He slid down a few steps before his head hit the side of the staircase wall at an unnatural angle. When Winkler’s neck broke, Zach heard the snap—and he’d never forget that sound. At first the mind denies—tricks itself into thinking that everything will be okay. But soon enough, awareness sinks in—the man is dead. Zach didn’t delude himself into thinking that he liked Winkler. Had the man lived, Zach would likely have continued to dislike him. But there was something about witnessing his death that would link them together forever.
The thing that had been John Paramour, descended the steps. He swept past Winkler’s corpse both avoiding and ignoring the body’s convulsing limbs.
He moved toward them. Even with his broken hand, Ray stepped in front to protect them.
“Wait,” Zach tried to say, but it eked out weakly. He wanted to tell Ray to run. Zach wanted to flee himself, but he was frozen.
Paramour approached with brash indifference. His black eyes—there was an emptiness to them. It suggested that John Paramour ceased to be just a spirit. Over one hundred years of evil—a century of collecting souls had given him power. Paramour barely paused to flick Ray aside as if he were an insect. Ray flew across the lobby, smashed against the far wall and lay still.
Paramour drew closer to Zach and Joey. A century ago, when Rosewood still housed patients, Paramour had caused as many as thirty seven to commit suicide. Since then, who knew how many lives he’d destroyed, how many fires he’d caused others to light? He’d become so powerful that he could now ignite them on his own in our realm. He wasn’t merely a soul snatcher, but as Rebecca had surmised, he was the most powerful soul snatcher on record.
And he wanted Joey.
Ray’s spilled flashlight, lying halfway across the lobby, was the last to die. It was pitch black.
The Paramour-thing spoke. His breath stunk of expired beef—his voice toned with contempt and hatred. “I want you to watch.”
A candle atop the video control panel lit. Then, one after another, each wick of every candle that Angel had laid out the first night in the lobby took fire. It was like a falling domino string of flames.
“I want you to watch me take him.”
“He doesn’t want to be with you!” Zach shouted.
Paramour stopped short of where Zach stood. “What makes you think he has a choice?”
From the top of the staircase, Rebecca and Hunter recited familiar words. “Saint Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle. Be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil.”
Although safe where they had been, they advanced on the entity.
“May God rebuke him, we humbly pray; and do Thou, O Prince of the Heavenly Host.”
Paramour glared at Zach. “Leave the boy. I have no need of you.”
Ray had recovered and joined Hunter and Rebecca in the prayer. “By the Divine Power of God—cast into hell, Satan and all the evil spirits, who roam throughout the world seeking the ruin of souls.”
In unison they all shouted, “A
men.”
Its mouth opened and emitted a noise that seemed to be comprised of many voices—thousands of discordant screams. Never had Zach imagined a noise so disturbing. And yet it did not advance on him and Joey. Something was protecting them.
But what?
Hunter and Rebecca continued down the staircase. In unison they shouted, “The power of Christ compels you. The love of Christ commands you!”
With Joey clutching tightly to his neck and shoulders, Zach peered around the room. Ray’s strength. Rebecca’s intelligence. Hunter’s sense of humor. Joey’s innocence and his own powerful intuition. They represented so many of the positive qualities of human nature—things John Paramour detested. But they still lacked something. The host and hostess—the keeper and the kept—Evelyn and Dr. Johansson.
He yelled as loud as he could. “Hunter, summon the doctor! Do it now!”
Hunter closed his eyes. His dark face twitched and his lips moved.
Zach called out. “Evelyn, we need your help! We can get rid of him. Please!”
At first, the room gave no sign of her, then the candles flickered. He could feel her there, watching, waiting for something. Zach couldn’t tell if the doctor was present.
“The power of Christ compels you. The love of Christ commands you!” Ray, Hunter and Rebecca closed in, yelling. They lacked only holy water to cast the demon to hell. Zach remembered Macginty’s comment.
“Holy water is holy water, is holy water. Help yourself whenever you need’ta, son.”
But how did that apply to this situation?
Holy water is water, son.
The voice was at once both his uncle’s and the monsignor’s. “Help yourself whenever you need’ta, son.”
He had helped himself to holy water. After his episode, he drank holy water. It was inside him. It had blended with his body, but was still a part of him nonetheless—contained in the microscopic makeup of his cells. Zach imagined it in the blood coursing through his veins. Holy water was present in his sweat. Holy water was lubricating the fluids in his eyes. Hell, it was even part of his—
Ghosts of Rosewood Asylum Page 27
