He nodded slightly. “I was. But I thought you were from a paranormal society, not for an actual show.”
“We don’t have to film you,” Dex told him. “And if we accidently do, we can blur you out.”
“I’d like that,” he said appreciatively. His eyes softened beneath his glasses. ”Sorry, I work at the museum and don’t want to be associated with any sort of show or entertainment. I’ll gladly show you around though. It’s much better this way than it has been in the past.”
“What happened then?”Dex asked.
“Ghost hunters or paranormal researchers have broken in on their own, trying to film. So, I guess we can all appreciate you taking the official route and respecting the history.”
I exchanged a loaded glance with Dex. It was probably a good idea if we left last night’s rule-breaking shenanigans out of it.
“No problem,” Rebecca filled in quickly. “Shall we get started? Do you want a spot of tea or coffee from the break room?”
He raised his palm. “No. Thank you though.”
“Are you still offering, Rebecca?” Dex asked. “Because you know I’d love one.” He batted his eyes at her.
“Get stuffed,” she told him. She and Patrick turned and headed for the stairs.
Dex looked so stunned at her comment, as if he was genuinely let down, that I had to kiss him on the cheek. “Nice try,” I teased.
“The nerve,” he said. “She does it for this Gary Oldman impersonator but not for good ol’ Dex.”
I put my arm around his waist, loving the feel of his abs beneath his thin t-shirt. “Tell you what, I’m not going to get you a coffee either but when we get back to Seattle, you can put on Van Halen and I’ll dress up like the bad, bad teacher that I am.”
“Fucking hell,” he groaned, turning so his body was pressed up against mine, his eyes becoming seductive. “Don’t tease me because I’ll seriously pull you into Davenport’s office right now and bend you over her desk.”
I grinned, sticking the tip of my tongue out through my teeth. “I told you, I’m not having sex in this place even if—“
“I had two dicks,” he supplied. “Yeah, so you say.”
“Ahem,” Rebecca said, clearing her throat. We looked over to see her and Patrick (who did look freakishly like Gary Oldman) standing at the middle of the staircase and waiting for us.
“Sorry,” I apologized. I looked back at Dex, covering him from their unamused eyes while he adjusted the erection in his jeans.
We caught up to them just as the morning bell rung and I nearly flew out of my skin in surprise.
“Got the creeps already?” Rebecca asked.
“I guess in some way I know what things might lie ahead,” I said carefully.
“Actually,” Gary Oldman said as we climbed the stairs, “Sea Crest was a hopeful place. My grandmother was a nurse here, just at the end of the administration when the cure for TB had been found, and she said that most of the children were happy. Sick, yes, but not all of them died. Many of them went home, and until then, they had their friends here to play with. Have you seen the playground out back?”
We stopped on the landing and he nodded out the large bay window that faced the back of the property as he fished another toothpick out of his pocket and placed it in his mouth. I had no idea where the other toothpick went.
Outside there was a large play area—a small grassy field lined with flower beds, a baseball diamond, a woodchip flecked jungle gym complete with swings and slides. Everything looked brand new, if not unremarkable.
“That’s where the playground used to be back when Sea Crest was operating,” he said. “See that grassy area there just before the trees? The students often go there to paint nature scenes. The forest, the flowers, the clouds. In the old days, that grass stretched along the length of the building. The nurses would wheel the patients out there for fresh air and leave them there for hours. If they were well enough, they’d play on the old swing set which is where the new swing set is located now.” He let out a sad sigh. ”Being outside was important for these kids—they believed fresh salty air was the cure. On the fourth floor, where they had the deathly ill, they had the windows open all the time, even in the dead of winter. Sometimes the nurses would come in the morning and find them dead of hypothermia.”
“My god,” I said, putting my hand to my mouth. “That’s horrible. You said this was a happy place.”
He gave me a wry look. “Happier than you’d think, yes. But like any hospital back in the day, there were horror stories. It didn’t mean it was the norm for these kids, though.”
We started back up the stairs to the second floor. Dex was already filming. “And these horror stories would be…” He trailed off.
“You want to hear some of them?” Oldman asked.
“A floor by floor rundown would be great,” Dex said. He looked over the camera to see Oldman wincing, toothpick in mouth. “Don’t worry, I’m not filming you, just past you.”
He nodded and stopped in the middle of the hall, the same place where Dex and I had been when we saw the thing. “The second floor,” he announced without flourish. “This floor housed the majority of the children. To our right here, down this wing, they kept the lower-class children. Over to our left is where they housed the upper class.”
“And the difference?” Dex asked.
“Minimal differences now,” he said with a wave of his hand. “Let me show you.”
He took us down to where we were last night, near the room where Dex saw the rat. We poked our heads into one of the rooms. In the daylight it was still creepy, but a little more morose; the walls were a stark grey, the floor hard and austere. Dead leaves and yellowing newspaper littered the ground, along with rat droppings. You could see the broken glass of the windows, jagged edges glinting against the sun. I walked across the room and peered out. From this floor you could just see over the tops of the trees, the Pacific Ocean glinting on the horizon.
“They had a nice view,” I said.
“They did when it was sunny, like today,” he said. “But most of the time, the fog rolls in and gets stuck here on these hills. When they first built the hospital back in 1912, they were having good luck with the summer. This spot never saw a lick of fog. Then, a year after it was built, the fog rolled in around Gary and never left. The patients were caught in the clouds.” I turned around to see him addressing Dex, who was filming me. “That’s something to note for your show. On the fourth floor people report seeing fog in the hallways, no matter what time of day or what the weather is like outside. Sometimes the fog gets so thick you can’t see your hand in front of your face.”
“What have you experienced?” Rebecca asked. “If you don’t mind me asking.”
He stuck another toothpick in his mouth. Dex nodded at it. “Can I have one? I used to chomp on these fuckers myself.”
Oldman raised an eyebrow but took a container of them out of his pocket and offered one to Dex, who confidently popped it in his mouth. He shot me a cheeky look. “Just like old times, kiddo.”
Oldman waited patiently for Dex’s attention to return to him. Once he did, he continued. “My experiences have been all over the map. If you believe in ghosts, they would frighten the hair off your chest. If you don’t…I’m sure you’ll find some way to explain it scientifically.”
“And do you believe in ghosts?” I asked.
He smiled quietly, eyes glinting beneath those glasses. “All historians believe in ghosts.” His toothpick bobbed from his lips. “Let’s see. On this floor I’ve seen the little boy. Many people have seen him, including previous ghost hunters.”
“Elliot,” I said.
“Is that his name?” he asked curiously. “Suits him. I often see Elliot when I’m here, day or night. He’s usually going after a rubber ball. I’ve seen ghost hunters place toys around on this floor, trucks and the like, and I’ve seen them move as if he is playing with them.”
“Anything else?” Dex asked.
Oldman eyed Dex in surprise. “That isn’t enough? No, I suppose it isn’t really. But the boy is a kind soul, never playing tricks or doing anything malicious.”
“Do you know if he plays the xylophone?”
His lips crooked upwards. “Ah, you’ve heard the music. I have never seen evidence of him playing any instrument, but you must understand there were so many children here over the years, so much energy in one place. No one knows where the music comes from, but we at least know it comes from this floor. You can sometimes hear children giggling and laughing too, or the sound of footsteps and children running past, though you can’t see them. I’ve experienced all of that on this floor.”
With that we left the room and walked down the hall back in the other direction. Toward the room with the light. My heart started racing as we neared it. I had to find a way to point it out.
Oldman showed us one of the rooms, saying, “As you can see, these rooms are smaller. They were private or semi-private, while the other rooms for the lower class were bigger, having sometimes twenty children squeezed into one room. The rich could afford privacy and space. Sometimes the kids were older, in their teens, and they were kept separately.”
While he spoke, I kept walking down the hall, trying to ignore the pounding in my chest as I neared the room. Once I saw a glimpse of the desk and the lamp, I stopped. I didn’t dare poke my head inside.
“Hey, why does this room have a desk and a lamp?” I announced, thinking I sounded totally fake. I kept the questioning look on my face as Oldman, Dex, and Rebecca came over. Oldman walked in the room which gave me the courage to do the same.
The lamp was turned off, the desk covered in a thick layer of dust. The window behind the desk was boarded shut for unknown reasons. There was a crooked picture on the wall, a painting of a girl that caught my eye.
“This would have been an office,” he said. “Perhaps one of the doctors who was stationed on this floor.” He went on to tell the history of some of the doctors who came to work at the hospital but I stopped listening. I was totally fixated on the painting.
It looked exactly like the girl I saw in my dreams. Brown hair, dark eyes, and a smile that seemed more wicked than joyful. Was this Shawna? I felt myself staring deeper and deeper at the painting until I heard the voice of a young girl whispering “Perry” in my ear.
I jumped and turned around. There was no little girl behind me. The three of them were ignoring me while Dex was trying to turn on the lamp.
“No electricity up here,” Oldman informed him just as the lamp’s switch went click and nothing came on. I looked at Rebecca as if to say I told you so but she just shrugged in return.
“Hey, what’s this painting about?” I asked, motioning to it. “Kind of weird that it’s just hanging here.”
“Perhaps it was a favorite patient or the daughter of one of the doctors,” Oldman said without much interest. “Shall we move on? If you folks are really interested in the horror stories of this place, this floor isn’t the one to give them to you.”