by S Mays
“I’ll take North and Maggy —” Jessica started before being interrupted.
“I’ll go where the spirits lead me,” the medium stated, stepping carefully around some rubble, her eyes closed.
Jessica started to proceed through a doorway, but before she could open the door, a mechanical arm intercepted the knob and opened it for her.
“Allow me, Master Stalker Luvkrafft.” She looked down at the small RSU unit at her feet, its red camera eye looking up at her. It was a scouting robot on tank treads, able to go just about anywhere a human could. The Order used them to investigate areas that were too dangerous for humans, like Chernobyl.
“Why, thank you,” Jessica said with a smile, glancing over at the technician. “I see Gregory has been making AI improvements.”
The RSU followed her through the doorway and began scanning the hallway. She stepped gingerly past it and continued alone through the dust and cobwebs. The power to the facility was shut off, but her harness included lighting as well as the paranormal monitoring equipment. Dust covered everything, although there was evidence that loiterers and looters had used the facility for illicit activities. Drug paraphernalia, beer cans, and condom wrappers provided vulgar evidence that humans had recently defiled the old facility.
She paused to focus her senses. Besides the quiet whirring of the RSU far back from where she had come, she could detect no sounds. She deepened her focus and let her energy emanate out from her. She could sense consciousnesses on the fringe of her awareness, but none nearby.
Odd, she thought. Facilities like this were known to be haunted by many of the former tormented patients, but most would leave for another plane of existence after their anguish burned off. She could detect no spirits close, but she knew they were there. It was like they were hiding. There was a brief flicker of something ahead of her that felt extremely unusual.
“I’m heading deeper in, Gregory. Something doesn’t seem right,” she whispered into the microphone in her headset.
She continued carefully, looking at the readouts on her equipment. Nothing. But there was something ahead of her that she had briefly detected. The temperature began to plummet. She noticed her frozen breath against the light shining from her shoulder. Spirits attempting to make contact with living beings absorbed energy from their environment, often resulting in a drop in temperature. She’d come to the end of the hallway, yet there was nothing there aside from a door, which proved to be locked. Whatever she had sensed was coming from farther down.
She pulled a small bottle-cap-shaped object from her bag and applied it to the lock. It fastened instantly to the doorknob. A small laser scanned the interior of the lock, mapping its tumblers. A half-dozen small, flexible arms extended into the lock, unlocking it in a split second.
The door resisted her attempt to push it open, creaking and groaning on rusted hinges that hadn’t seen activity in decades. A final forceful shove dislodged it, sending her barreling into the abysmal stairwell beyond. Her sense of smell was blasted by a mixture of rotting and mildewed odors. The air was warmer and moist. She proceeded down into the blackness, wary. Something had her on edge. This was not the usual pattern for an investigation like this. Usually there were faint noises, a few spirits attempting to make contact, perhaps playing harmless tricks. This felt more sinister.
She proceeded cautiously while resting her hand on Casca’s hilt. She’d never had to use the weapon on a spirit, but she knew the energy flow through the blade was unpleasant to ghosts and they’d be repulsed if it passed through them. Malevolent hauntings throughout history were uncommon, but deaths in those cases weren’t unheard of.
She was now in some kind of service tunnel. Pipes and wires ran down the length of the hallway, although they’d been unused for many years. The empty rooms she came across were filled with trash and debris. A few doors led to stairwells leading back up to the upper floor or outside. She paused when she felt the faint awareness she’d noticed earlier. In a doorway ahead, a light reflected and bounced about. She could hear a faint shuffling. Activating Casca, she moved stealthily to the side of the doorway and listened. She slowly peered around the door jamb.
“Hi, Jess!” Sverre exclaimed as his face suddenly appeared inches from hers.
“Sverre!” she gasped, startled. “How were you aware I was here?”
“I just...knew.” He shrugged, looking as if he wasn’t aware of the answer himself and, more infuriating to her, didn’t care. He must have come through one of the other doorways.
Jessica shook her head, admonishing herself. Obviously, the strange feeling she had detected was Sverre’s strange amalgamated aura. She should have noticed it sooner.
“You’ve got to check this place out, Jess,” Sverre said loudly. “This looks like some kind of old hideout! There are snack wrappers, clothes, and check these out!” he said, holding up an old magazine too close to her face. She pushed it away and put her light on it.
“That’s disgusting!” she exclaimed.
“What? These are 1960s issues! I bet they are worth some money,” he replied, ogling the pages.
“I can’t believe that on your first official mission, you would think rifling through porn in a janitor’s closet is anywhere close to acceptable. If it were anyone else, you’d be on probation as of now. Fortunately, I’m willing to cut you some slack, as I know you aren’t anywhere near ready for a real assignment. You’re only here because Grandfather asked it of me as a favor.”
Sverre continued flipping through the pages, seemingly unaware she was speaking. She was quickly advancing from surprised to furious that he was looking through lewd images while she berated him. “Sverre! What do you have to say for yourself?” she shouted.
Sverre held up a full-page spread of a buxom blonde. “Let’s ask Ms. November.”
She stood with her mouth slightly ajar for a moment, then slapped the magazine from his hand. “Get upstairs now!” she yelled, storming out of the room.
“Is something wrong?” Gregory asked, looking at the flustered Stalker moments later.
“NO…there is nothing wrong.” Jessica’s tone was still in Sverre-mode. She took a deep breath, calmed, and asked at a lower volume, “Have you found anything unusual?”
“No, the ’bots got a few EVP readings and a few faint SA readings, but honestly, the place seems deserted,” he responded. “Damnedest thing I’ve ever seen. It’s like they are hiding on the fringes, afraid of something.”
“Maggy?” Jessica asked of the elderly woman, sitting cross-legged on a portable cot.
“They are here, but I only hear whispers. You could say something has spooked the spooks,” she said with a slight smile. “They refuse to talk to me. I sense great fear and great…rage.”
Jessica turned to regard Sverre as he entered the room. He walked stiffly; obviously, he had smuggled several of the rolled-up magazines in his pants. I wonder if his aura is driving them away? she thought to herself, looking once again at Sverre’s unique aura on one of Gregory’s screens.
“We need final confirmation on what happened to the caretaker, and we didn’t find any clues down in the maintenance tunnels or up top. If Maggy could find one or two lucid spirits, we might be able to gain some knowledge. We’ll camp here for the night, let the RSUs continue to sweep overnight, and perhaps in the morning, the spirits will have calmed. If that doesn’t work, Sverre might have to leave tomorrow.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Gregory said as he took off his headset and turned a few of the brighter monitors down. He typed in a few commands for the RSUs, then started setting up his bed.
“Alright, we’ll start up again at daybreak. Everyone, get some rest. And, Sverre?” Jessica asked.
“Mmhm?” Sverre said, looking up from adjusting his pants.
“Are those porn magazines in your pants, or are you just happy to see us?”
Sverre instantly blushed intensely as Maggy and Gregory gave him quizzical looks.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Distant voices haunted Sverre’s dreams that night. Loud, angry voices that grew ever nearer echoed all around him. Turning in every direction, he was unable to see anything. Darkness blinded him. Two unseen groups formed on either side of him, closing in as they argued with each other. He was caught in the middle of their struggle.
The two forces shoved against him, crushing him between their great invisible masses. He fought viciously against the avalanche of phantoms, but as hard as he pushed, they pushed back. Inevitably, he collapsed in exhaustion, the vast weight of the crowds engulfing him, smothering him.
Gasping for air, he lurched awake, almost falling out of his cot. It took him a few moments to realize he wasn’t in his bed at the compound. He sat quietly and listened, attempting to ascertain his location. It was pitch black except for the faint glow cast by the LED lights on the equipment.
Odd, he thought. Weren’t those two monitors on when I went to sleep?
He listened for a few more seconds, then turned over in his sleeping bag in order to get back to sleep. It was frustrating, because the bags and cots were uncomfortable, and it had taken him over an hour to fall asleep due to his excitement. He heard it again.
His tossing had muffled it, but he recognized that there had been a noise in the darkness. He held his breath. There was an unusual sound to his right.
Maggy’s bunk. She’d fallen asleep almost instantly and snored a bit. Sitting on your ass talking to voices in your head must take a lot out of you, he chuckled mentally. He turned back over to go to sleep, but then he heard the noise again.
That didn’t sound like a snore, he thought. Maggy seemed to be kicking around a bit, too. Probably a nightmare. He’d written it off, but the hackles on the nape of his neck began to stand. His instincts told him something was wrong.
“Jess? Gregory?” he whispered into the shadows. No response. He edged out of his sleeping bag and found his light. Activating it, he shone it in Maggy’s direction. He could see her bag jerking, as if something was trying to escape it.
He inched around the perimeter of the sleeping bag, keeping his distance until he could see her face. Her head was immobile, facing upward at a slight angle. Her eyes were open, but the bag was sealed tight around her neck, obscuring her body. She lashed out at something within the bag, but her movements were slowing. Something was sticking out of her mouth.
He moved closer, keeping the light on the object. Her eyes turned to regard him for a moment before glassing over. She stopped moving. The object in her mouth was a heavy lead pipe. His eyes widened in shock as he followed it down and looked under her cot.
The pipe was driven through her mouth, out the back of her skull, and into the floor, impaling her head. Blood pooled where the pipe penetrated the floor. It had pierced several arteries, but apparently blocked the blood flow long enough to keep her alive for long minutes.
He yelled for Jessica and Gregory, but there was still no response. Rushing over to their bunks, he found them empty. Their commlinks were on the table, as were their weapons. Panicking, the darkness closed in around him, suffocating him. He began to breathe rapidly.
“Whoa, slow down there,” he said to himself. “I’m going into shock.”
Closing his eyes, he concentrated on his breathing. He listened. He focused his energy around him, as Jessica had trained him to do. Jessica’s energy signature was faint. He grabbed one of the sidearms and started down the hall, but froze. It would be wrong to leave Maggy in such a gruesome state.
He rushed back and pulled the pipe with all his might. It slid slowly out of the wooden floor. Maggy’s lifeless head bobbed as the foreign object was slowly wrenched free. He tossed the pipe to the side in awe. It was almost five feet long. It would have taken something of immense strength to drive that through the heavy wooden floor like that.
He looked at the pipe, then back to Maggy’s lifeless body. “You know, I probably should have just pushed that through the other side. I’m sorry, Maggy.”
He moved cautiously down the hall in the direction from which he’d felt Jessica’s presence. Something on the wall caught his attention. He backed up slowly and panned his light over it. A bloody smear in the shape of a handprint.
He was approaching the end of the hall, where one of the doors to the sub-levels was. Sprinting forward, he flung the door open. A shape lunged up from the dark stairwell and grabbed him around the shoulders.
“Gregory!” Sverre exclaimed. The technician was limp, barely able to lift his head to look up. Blood ran down his forehead. Sverre gently laid Gregory on the floor.
“C-came to find you…I-I tried to stop him…” he said, barely audible.
“What is it? What’s down there?”
“Jessica…” Gregory began to say. He shuddered before losing consciousness.
Sverre felt Gregory’s pulse and determined he’d have to risk leaving him. He moved cautiously down the steps. Dust particles swirled about, distracting him as he focused on the darkness ahead.
As he moved down the stairs, the temperature quickly dropped. At the base of the steps, every breath resulted in a small puff of condensation. He moved slowly down the hall, peering into the side rooms quickly. A loud crash echoed from the end of the hall. He thought he heard Jessica’s voice. His pace quickened as he reached a large steel door. Taking a deep breath, he slung it open.
The room ahead was a cavernous boiler room. Large pipes ran across the walls, floors, and ceiling. A sound from his left caught his attention. He made his way around a large column and saw Jessica with her back against the wall. A man stood in front of her, his back to Sverre.
“Jess!” he shouted.
“Sverre! Stay back. Go get Maggy and Gregory!” she said.
“Gregory’s upstairs, hurt. Maggy’s dead!” Sverre called back, unsure of what to do.
At the sound of Sverre’s intrusion, the head of the man facing away from Sverre turned completely around. The eyes were sunken. His skin was white. The man was larger than Sverre and appeared to be in his late fifties. There was something wrong with his body. The arms and legs moved of their own accord, as if the man did not have control of his limbs. Well, that and the fact that his head had done a one-hundred-eighty-degree rotation, complete with the sound of his spine snapping. It appeared to be a zombie of some type. Jessica had damaged it, but compound fractures did not deter it.
It smiled at Sverre, a lurid grin of missing teeth and hatred. “Mine. Find your own.” His head then jerked to the side, and his voice changed to that of a man much younger. “She’s ours. Get the hell out of here! Until she’s cold and dead and forever after!” it screamed.
Jessica was slammed against the wall, struggling with some unseen entity.
“Find your own,” the creature said with finality, turning back toward her. Although her arms were held against the wall, she lashed out with a kick that rocked him back. He moved forward again. Her legs slammed against the wall and were held as her arms were, by the same unseen force.
“Sverre, go get Casca!” she commanded. Her protests were then muffled as the unseen force clamped down over her mouth as well.
The crack of Sverre’s firearm rang out painfully through the small area, reverberating the pipes. Five more shots followed as Sverre unleashed a barrage of bullets into the man. Four of the shots impacted the back of the head, and two passed through the heart. Sverre had moved closer and off-center so the bullets would not pass through and hit Jessica. The creature’s head spun around again. The smile had faded.
“You shouldn’t have done that. You shouldn’t stop our fun. We need more room.”
Sverre was suddenly thrown back against the wall. An unrelenting pressure squeezed every part of his body against the unforgiving cinder block. It felt as if someone had rolled a car over him and parked it. The gun clattered to the floor as he struggled to breathe.
The figure turned back toward Jessica, the grin returning. “Another shell. So crowded in this one. A prett
y shell. Much power in this one,” it said, moving in.
“Stop!” Sverre whispered. There was a tearing sound as an unseen force tore the sleeve from Jessica’s shirt. Several long, painful scratches appeared across her cheek, another set on her neck and leg. Jessica continued to struggle against the unseen force, but her eyes had grown more desperate. She looked at Sverre one last time before the large man blocked her from view.
She needed him. Just like his mom and father had needed him, when he wasn’t there for them. He relived the event again, as he’d imagined it had happened…seeing his stepfather calling out his name, hoping he’d show up to save him as he was murdered in his own home. A place that was supposed to mean safety. His mom dragged away into the darkness. The few people who had ever loved him, destroyed in seconds.
Always, the good people suffered and the wicked prospered. The world around him turned red as his rage burned within him. He felt the anger and frustration of those within him. They’d all suffered similar injustices. All had fought over the centuries for those who were abused and too weak to defend themselves. In the end, it always made little difference.
Tears streamed down his face. Jessica was probably his only real friend in the world now, even if he’d neglected her recently. This thing wanted to take her away forever. A faint red glow sparked in his eyes. The outlines of forms moving in the darkness coalesced into view. Jessica, Sverre, and this creature were not the only ones in the room.
There were several incorporeal forms hovering around Jessica. He could now see they were responsible for holding her arms and legs down. He looked to his left and right and saw distorted mockeries of human faces leering back at him. He was being held down by several spirits, just as Jessica was. The maniacal grins on their faces left no doubt in his mind that they were previous residents of the asylum who now haunted the buildings. They clawed and lashed at him as well, and he was helpless against them. He could feel the warm wetness of blood trickling down his face and arms.
