Ashes to Ashes (Experiment in Terror #8) (23 page)

I’d like to say there was a lot
of boredom involved between then and when Carl the custodian left,
but we managed to keep ourselves occupied with card games. Dex
blatantly cheated during all of them and I didn’t care. Rebecca had
turned sullen though, her once smiling face replaced by a glacial
expression. It lasted all through the evening, and I wondered just
what the hell was going on with her. Could it be that she took more
stock in the show than we realized or was there something else at
play?

Once Carl left, it was time for
business. Since we couldn’t go back up the main staircase without
Davenport finding out and kicking us out too soon, we had to go
back in the body tunnel.

Luckily, our plan for the
evening wasn’t anything too pee-your-pants inducing. Dex noted that
though Oldman said the body tunnel eventually opened up down at the
remains of the old post office, when he was looking out the window
into the back of the school he could see a little mound of grass
coming off of the edge of the building that looked like it might
house an opening to the tunnel. The hearses had to park somewhere
and they probably weren’t taking bodies out by the post office.

I looked up to see Dex
appraising my supposed scared face.

“
All right,
that’s better,” he said, smiling at me with boyish charm. I swear,
if he wasn’t so darn sexy I’d be hitting him a lot more often and
not in a pleasurable way. Though, knowing his penchant for
spanking, he’d probably like that too.

“
I’m sure I’ll
be screaming in a few minutes,” I muttered as Rebecca came over and
stuck a wireless mic on my shearling-lined jacket.

“
You scream, I
scream, we all scream for my cream,” he sang. He had that look in
his eyes, that devious, excited look that he always got
pre-filming. Fuck. I had to admit, I was really going to miss that.
“Okay, right, Perry, all we’re going to do is head down the tunnel
in the opposite way than we did last night and look for the door
out. Rebecca will keep the door open, and you and I will go around
the children’s playground, hoping to interact with the wee dead
ones. Sound good?”

I scowled. “Not really.”

He nodded at the door leading
out into the lit hallway, the normalcy of the first floor. “We
might as well leave it like it is,” he said. “If it closes I’m sure
we can just push it open like we did before.”

Not exactly the kind of thing
you wanted to assume, but okay.

I sighed and rubbed my clammy
hands on my jeans. I was cold and sweating at the same time. “Can
we get started?”

Dex raised a brow at my tone. I
know I was supposed to be more relaxed knowing everything we filmed
was going into our last episode ever, but still, he did say we
wanted to go out with a bang and I really hoped that bang wasn’t
literal.

“
No problem,
kiddo. We’re all ready.” He put the camera on his shoulder and made
the gun symbol. “And you’re on.”

Here we go. I looked into the
camera, holding my face at a flattering angle and said, “We’re back
here in the death chute at the old Sea Crest Sanatorium. And yes,
for those who are watching, I have had the Metallica song in my
head for days.”

Dex broke into a wide smile
behind the camera. I went on, “Last night we explored the first
floor and experienced supernatural occurrences such as lights
coming on where there is no electricity and shadow people. Tonight,
however, we’re going to explore the chute and the playground area
where many of the children used to play.”

I motioned for the camera to
follow me, like it was my idea, and we went down the damp chute,
the darkness ahead waiting like a trap. Every time I thought I was
doing it for a show though, that I was playing host, that I was
acting a part, it almost made it easier. I was Perry Palomino the
host and nothing bad could happen to me on camera…

We walked for several yards,
more than I anticipated, just the sound of our breath in the cold
night air and the whisper of our feet down the steps, until we came
across a door to my right. Rebecca shone the light further down the
tunnel to see where it would go, but it just petered off into the
dark.

“
I guess this
is it,” I said. I stood to the side while Dex handed me the camera
and pushed his body against the door until it finally opened with a
moan into the damp chill of the night. Sometime after lunch we lost
our clear skies and the fog came rolling in like a massive dust
bunny intent on suffocating us all.

Dex went first into the white
mist, beckoning me to follow and film. It was probably too late to
appreciate, but I liked the way we had traded on and off lately,
like we were both sharing duties and both responsible for the
show.

I straggled forward across the
wet grass after him while Rebecca planted herself in front of the
door, keeping it from closing on us. She gave us the nod to say
that she was okay.

Dex joined me at my side. We
looked around.

The sanatorium was just as
creepy from the outside and especially so from the backyard. The
fog that moved in covered everything in a layer of moving gauze
while the building glowed from the faint moonlight that penetrated
it. I could barely see the playground in front of us, and the
structures that did stick out looked like charred, skeletal remains
in the mist.

Lovely.

“
Well,” he
whispered to me, away from the mic, “let’s see if we can contact
Elliot or any of the other kids out here.”

“
You know I’m
not the ghost whisperer,” I hissed at him.

He stared at me steadily before
saying, “You don’t give yourself as much credit as you should.”

Then he nudged me in the back
and I walked forward, in front of the camera, and looked around
me.

“
Elliot,” I
said, projecting my voice to him and the camera. I walked toward
the jungle gym, pausing near the slide. “Elliot, if you can hear
us, please give us a sign. We know all about you but would love to
talk to you ourselves. We mean you no harm and understand you feel
the same.”

We waited, air in our throats,
trying to hear anything unusual, for our eyes to pick up anything
in the dark.

Nothing.

I tried again, saying I wanted
to make contact and that we just wanted to say hello. But whatever
trace of Elliot there was, whatever boy was warning me last night
to run away and see Rebecca, he didn’t seem to be on the
playground.

I looked over at Dex, feeling
slightly frustrated. Our next two days were strategic. We all knew
we could stay a few extra days if we needed to record more, and
that was the original plan, but I insisted we leave the place as
soon as we could. Like Gary Oldman, I also wasn’t someone to push
my luck. It was now our last show, but the sooner we got out of it,
the better it was for us in the long run.

I decided to pretend I wasn’t
being filmed and stopped asking anything from our supernatural
hosts. I walked toward the edge of the playing field, where potted
garden beds turned into scraggly wildflowers and the wildflowers
turned into the trees.

I inhaled the dewy breeze,
feeling the sharpness sink all the way into my lungs.

That’s when I heard the
giggle.

I froze in place and slowly
swiveled around. Dex was in the middle of the field, filming me
from far away, and beyond that was Rebecca in her vintage coat,
still holding the door to the body chute open.

A movement at the playground
caught my eye. I squinted, trying to focus on the swings just in
time to see one of them swing back and forth by itself.

Oh man.

I gestured to Dex to turn
around and film it. I was just about to join him and go over when I
heard another giggle from behind me.

I shifted to see a young boy
standing beside me.

The scream that wanted to rip
out of me was stuck in my throat.

“
You’re Jody’s
friend,” the boy said, plain as day. Aside from the sickly
transparent quality he had, he looked absolutely real, from the
shininess of his hair to the freckles across his nose, to the
plushness of the toy teddy bear he was holding. The way he held his
hat in his other hand reminded me of Oliver Twist asking if he
could ‘have some more.’

I swallowed painfully, trying
to find my voice. “I met Jody today. You must be Elliot.”

Elliot look at me for a moment,
sussing me out, and in that one blinding instance, I was reminded
of how fleeting the glimpse between life and death was. He was
looking at me like I was real and I was looking at him as if he
were the same, and yet we could never really coincide; we never
belonged in each other’s world.

“
Elliot,” I
began, an idea building through me. “Why are you here?”

He stuck out his lower lip in
thought. “Why are you here?”

“
Do you know
where you are?”

“
At Sea
Crest.”

“
Do you know
what year it is?”

He began to flicker before me,
like the light was going out of him. I started to panic. By now my
eyes went over to Dex and I could see him filming me, though being
careful about being too obvious and keeping his distance.

“
Elliot,” I
quickly went on, “what do you want?”

He looked down at the hat in
his hands. “I want to see my family. I want to go home.”

“
Why don’t you
then? Go see them. I’m sure they’d love to see you. You have no
reason to be here.”

He was staring past me at the
swing set. I glanced at it over my shoulder to still see the swing
moving.

“
I can’t. Not
until she lets me.” His eyes were white-rimmed with fear. I looked
at the swing set again and when I turned back, Elliot was gone. I
called after him into the forest but only heard the faint rustle of
pine needles. The trees suddenly looked as if they wanted to
envelop me in their darkness.

I spun around and ran across
the field to Dex. “Did you catch all that?” I asked
breathlessly.

He gave me a wary smile. “I
did. But the camera didn’t,” he said, patting the side of it. “This
time it looks like you were talking to yourself. Sorry, kiddo.”

“
But you saw
it with your own eyes, right? You saw Elliot.”

“
Of
course.”

I nodded, as if that’s all that
mattered. In some ways, that was true. As long as I looked sane in
Dex’s eyes, I wasn’t doing half bad. I looked at the swing set.
“Well, that’s still moving, and from the way Elliot was looking at
it, I’m guessing that there is someone there.”

I stalked off toward it,
knowing in my heart that it was Shawna on that swing. She was dead,
didn’t like me, and I was frightened to death of her, but I had to
push that all aside.

“
Shawna,” I
said carefully as I approached the set, the metal chains glinting
in the light of the camera. “Shawna, are you there?”

The swinging slowed down. Then
stopped. The gravel underneath the swing began moving, crunching
under unseen weight.

It stopped right in front of
me.

I held my breath. I felt tiny
fingers grasp my one hand and turn it over. What felt like teeth
grazed the top of my anchor tattoo.

I gasped and snatched my hand
back. The air filled with a girlish, malicious laugh, then a
growling, drooling, snapping sound.

I cried out, the noise working
its way into my bones, and staggered back into Dex’s grasp.

“
I have you,”
he said gruffly. He looked out at the playground, at the gravel
that kept moving. “Hey, little bitch, you wanna come back and try
something with me?”

I kept my wrist to my side and
shook my head. “Dex, don’t tempt her.”

His eyes were on fire as he
looked at me. “Yeah well, maybe I don’t like it when they keep
going after you. This is exactly why we have to end this show.”

“
And we are,”
I said. “We are.”

He held me close to him,
lowering the camera. “I fucking hate it when I’m filming and this
shit happens to you. Hate it. Makes me feel so powerless.”

“
Jealous of
the attention?”

“
It’s not
funny, Perry,” he said.

I managed a smile. “Well we can
stay out here and find out what else they have in store or we can
go back inside and try something else.”

“
To be honest,
I’d rather just go back to our rooms and save the rest for
tomorrow,” he admitted. “I have the footage of the swing going by
itself, that’s a powerful enough image, especially with this
background at night.”

I eyed him closely. “What about
me talking to Elliot?”

“
That seemed
more like a private moment. Even if the cameras don’t pick him up,
it’s obvious he’s there. I think it’s better if we keep the kid out
of it.”

I nodded, completely besotted
with Dex’s protective side.

We turned back to head into the
building when we saw Shawna standing between us and the door.

And Rebecca was no longer
holding it open.

Dex’s hand tightened around my
waist and I heard his breath hitch. He saw her too.

“
I asked you
to play with me and you never did,” Shawna said in her melodic
voice. She pulled at the sides of her plain white dress as if she
were trying to look weak. I did not buy it for a second.

“
Where’s
Rebecca?” I asked.

She gazed at me blankly. “I do
not know what you mean.” She took a step forward, the grass looking
like dark blades around her white shoes. “Why didn’t you play with
me?”

She was addressing me. I licked
my lips and said, “You were in my dream.”