Ashes to Ashes (Experiment in Terror #8)

CHAPTER ELEVEN

 

 

 

 

 

“Okay, stay right there, face the camera, and look more scared,” Dex said as he adjusted the settings. Rebecca flashed the light on me.

 

I was standing in the middle of the death chute. I was already fucking scared.

 

After the two of them came up with a shot by shot plan for the rest of the stay at the sanatorium, the three of us heated up some microwave meals, Dex and I started sneaking shots of Jack Daniels, downing them in the break room well after school was dismissed for the day.

 

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.