Ghosts of Rosewood Asylum (2 page)

“They’ll be just a moment,” an elderly
secretary said through a virtual fog of perfume.

“Okay. Thanks, Cheryl,” Zach said. “Wait,
did you say ‘
they’ll
be just a moment?’”

“Yes, Dr. Benz and Ms. Chen.”

Sara Chen, his show’s producer, often
quelled his anxiety before network meetings. She hadn’t mentioned she was
seeing the president prior to their audience with him, and she’d been unusually
evasive about the purpose for this little conclave. For all Zach knew, the show
was being canceled. Losing the source of his tuition’s funding would be bad—as
in “reverting back to being
Stellazzio’s
best pizza chef” bad. Making
pepperoni pies wasn’t going to fund his PhD studies. Fortunately, regardless of
the day’s result and to negate any temptation to jump, the windows on the
fifty-sixth floor were permanently sealed.

“Zach, come on back.” Sara had emerged from
the hallway leading to Dr. Benz’s office.

He approached her. “This is what you mean by
‘meeting me here’?”

“Hey,” she said, “I was told not to tell you
anything in advance.”

Despite standing approximately
five-feet-zero-inches tall, a foot shorter than Zach, Sara could still
intimidate him.

“Oh. Great.”

“Don’t worry so much, Zach. We might be
getting a ninety-minute special.”

“Really?”

Her reply was a head-tilt and a gesture for
him to follow her. He sighed deeply and trailed Sara down the hallway.
Aggressive as she was intelligent, Sara had gotten her start in Hollywood as a
reality TV “story editor” for the dating program, “
Yada, Yada or Yada?”
Since reality shows were supposedly “unscripted,” no writers could be listed on
the credits but, for all intents and purposes, Sara had written many episodes
of that show.

In her first role as a supervising producer,
Sara had taken a very active role in
Xavier Paranormal Investigators
development and filming. As much as Zach liked to think of it as his creation,
and as much as he and Sara often didn’t see eye-to-eye on maintaining the
purity of the program’s paranormal aspects, he had to admit that the show was
neither entirely his nor hers. It was a joint-custody baby.

She stopped outside the double doors to the
network president’s office.

“I thought maybe,” Zach said, “the show was
getting canceled or something.”

 “You worry too much. Don’t you know
stress is bad for your health?” She peered at his suit as though hunting for
even a microscopic piece of lint. She brushed a fleck or two of nothing from
his shoulder and appeared satisfied. “Anyway, they’re talking about giving us a
Halloween Special.”

“Shucks, I was really hoping for a Christmas
Special.” He snickered at his own quip.

“Get serious, Zach. It’s not time for
joking.”

When flushed, either with excitement or
anger, Sara became even more attractive. Her demure lips and sultry eyes
sometimes made it difficult for Zach to keep his hormones from sending his
good-Catholic-boy brain a deluge of impure thoughts. And he
was
a
practicing Catholic. He wasn’t “The Pope Should Rule the World” kind of
Catholic, but he tried to follow the Church’s doctrine. Tried to—meaning that
some rules were easier to obey than others.

The office doors swung open.

“Zach, Sara, come in.” Dr. David Benz stood
in the doorway, both arms extended. He hardly looked the part of a network
president or a scientist. Shaved head and a stocky figure, he looked like a
cross between a professional wrestler and a bulldog. Supposedly, Dr. Benz had
only been a bench-level scientist for a short time before moving into
marketing. At some point, he’d parlayed a government grant into a monstrous sum
of money and then founded the cable television network—Sci-D
:  The
Network for Science-tainment and Discovery!

Or so the promos went.

“Thank you, Dr. Benz,” Sara said.

Zach smiled and received a wide grin and a
hearty handshake from Dr. Benz in return. “Zach, great to see you again. Great
work with the show. I’m so proud of you. Come. Sit.”

His office comprised approximately eight
hundred square feet of the northeast corner of the building. It commanded an
astounding view of the cobalt blue Lake Michigan, as well as Chicago’s skyline.

The plush leather seats squeaked when Zach
and Sara sat in them. Benz plopped down in the chair behind his desk and sat
casually, propping his right foot onto his opposite knee and leaned back.

“Sara’s told you the news then.”

Zach cast a furtive glance at her. Should he
pretend that she hadn’t? Her plastered smile relayed little information.

“Not much.”

“Did she mention something about a Halloween
Special?”

“Yes,” Sara chimed in. “I told him that.”

“And the location?” Benz asked.

“I haven’t told him about that yet, sir,”
Sara said.

“Ah. Good.”

The room seemed much warmer as they
discussed him as though he were a lab experiment. Careful, Zach told himself,
can’t get too emotional here. God forbid…

Zach wasn’t afraid of ghosts. He wasn’t
afraid neither of heights nor of public speaking. However, at twenty-four years
old, Zach lived in near constant anxiety about losing control of his gift and
thereby divulging his secret. Under emotionally charged situations like the
present one, he knew his apprehension wasn’t unfounded.

Benz leaned farther back, put his hands in
his lap and propped his feet up on his desk. “Zach, your show’s ratings have
been good—not great, but good. One thing we’ve learned over the years is that
after the novelty of the first season wears off, either a show takes on a
momentum or…”

“Or it dies.” Sara slammed the point home.

“Yes.” Benz swiftly stomped his feet on the
ground and sat at attention. “So Zach—a Friday night, Halloween Special. If
there were one place in all the…” Benz cringed as though mentally calculating
international flights for the entire cast and crew. “If you could choose any
haunted facility within two-hundred miles, which would you investigate?”

“That’s a no-brainer, Dr. Benz.” Zach’s
heart raced at the thought. Is this why they’d been so hush-hush? Rosewood
Psychiatric Hospital, commonly known as “The Haunted Asylum” was famous not
only throughout Chicago, but the entire Midwest. He had been trying to get his
team through the State of Illinois bureaucratic red tape all year. Rumor had it
that a rival paranormal show, the
Demon Hunters
, was also fighting hard
to publicly investigate the infamous asylum.

“Rosewood!” Zach’s heart pounded in his
chest.

As though on cue, a hint of
Sailor Black
wafted into his nose as a signal – this time, as a warning. There was nothing
intrinsically offsetting about pipe smoke, especially
Sailor Black
brand. With subtle cinnamon and faint tangerine scents, the tobacco aroma
hinted of leather-bound books in an ornate library more than it did danger on
the high seas.

But to Zach,
Sailor Black’s
sweet and
spicy smell implied danger at the highest level.

Zach focused on breathing and staying in the
moment with Sara and Dr. Benz. He knew that they couldn’t smell the tobacco,
nor would they hear the voice that would inevitably speak unless he controlled
himself. And if he accidentally lapsed into an episode, it would end his
television career. Something like that—something that bizarre just couldn’t be
explained away.

Zach blurted out the first thing that came
to mind. “The place has been haunted ever since the thing with the nurse’s
daughter back in 1900. But everyone in Chicago knows about that.”

Benz smiled. “Yes. And more recently?”

“Well, they built a strip mall next to
Rosewood,” he said. “Allegedly, a few months ago, there was an incident. After
the
GrocersMart
closed for the night, windows were blown out from the
inside. A security camera captured one of the windows breaking completely on
its own. The video is all over the internet!”

Sara bit her lip as if to keep from giggling
at his excitement.

“So I’ve heard,” Dr. Benz said. “Anyway, the
state has agreed to give us unlimited access for forty-eight hours.”

“Unlimited access!”

“More or less,” Benz said. He shifted in his
chair.

The pipe scent intensified. And the voice
came.

They’re not telling you everything.

The voice rarely lied and, judging by the
tense body language of both Sara and Dr. Benz, it wasn’t lying this time. As
though to confirm his suspicions, Zach spied furtive glances between them. His
temples began to throb – subtly at first but, as the pipe smell swirled around
him, the room felt hotter.

Zach knew that during an episode his heart
rate dropped dramatically. He could feel it steadily slowing—making his fingers
tingle. His hands and feet grew numb. If things continued, it would render his
arms and legs inoperative. He took a deep breath and looked down at the tiny
Chi
Rho
symbols tattooed on the insides of each of his wrists. With his
slightly blurred vision, the markings resembled less the symbols of early
Christianity and looked more like the
XPI
of his show’s logo. Then
slowly, as he continued to inhale as much oxygen with every breath that he
could, the tattoos calmed him. They centered him. They reminded him of what he
was.

 “Are you okay, Zach?” Sara asked.

“Yes, yes. I’m just so excited. How did we
finally get approval to go in there?”

Dr. Benz grinned like a cat with feathers in
his teeth. “Finally pulled the right strings with the right people in
Springfield. Apparently, there have been almost ten attempts to convert the
place over the past hundred years?” He looked at Sara for verification.

“I think the number is seven,” she said.
“Seven attempts to renovate it.”

“Regardless, they can’t tear the place down,
it’s federally protected land,” Benz said. “The entire town of Pullman has
landmark status. My hunch is that the state hoping for us to debunk the haunted
rumors so that they can use it as an extension of Chicago State University
that’s just a couple of miles away. Or hell, sell it off.”

“There have been numerous fires on the
property recently,” Sara said, turning to Zach. “They haven’t even reported all
of them and are trying to keep things hush hush. Apparently, they’re hoping for
an explanation, a scientific explanation.”

They’re not interested in science.

Zach ignored the voice and took a deep
breath. “When do we begin?

“Right away,” Sara said. “We film the case
briefing tomorrow and we’re onsite the following two days.”

“This week? Why the short notice?”

Benz shifted in his chair. “The state was
allegedly supposed to have notified us sooner,” he said. “But I think they kept
this quiet until the last minute so that the news media didn’t get wind of it.”

“Anyway,” Sara interjected. “It’s going to
be a week of intense focus. We need some good
dramatic
stuff.”

They still haven’t told you all of it.

“Well, we can’t control how dramatic our
findings are, but you know I’ll give every ounce of effort.” Zach fidgeted with
the arms of his chair hoping that the meeting had come to an end.

“Now, Zach, we’ve only been given
forty-eight hours to investigate Rosewood. So...” Benz raised a finger in the
air as if he were a used car salesman about to throw in the final bargaining
chip to close the deal.

Zach sensed Sara tense up beside him.

Benz continued. “Well, our network family
has two groups that want the opportunity to investigate Rosewood and, in an
effort to minimize our production costs and not compete against each other...”

“As well as get great ratings!” Sara said as
though on cue.

No, they were not. No, Zach thought, they
are not setting me up to do a show with those lunatics. Not the
Demon
Hunters
. His budding headache worsened.

“Yes,” Benz said. “As well as provide us
great ratings. One team, your team, needs some exposure. The other team could
use some additional…” Benz snapped his fingers in rapid succession.

“Legitimacy?” Sara volunteered.

“Thank you, Sara. Yes, legitimacy.” Dr. Benz
smiled. “Zach, this Halloween Special is a ‘can’t miss opportunity’ for us all.
It is my sincere hope that it will combine the best aspects of both
Xavier
Paranormal Investigators
and the
Demon Hunters.”

Between the stench of
Sailor Black
tobacco, Zach’s throbbing temples and his plummeting heart rate, it was all he
could do to not pass over into a full-blown episode.

Chapter Two

The blow to Zach’s midsection forced all the
air from his body. Zach stumbled backwards and raised a trembling arm as if it
would protect him from the burly boxer approaching him again.