Ghosts of Rosewood Asylum (39 page)

Zach gently but firmly gathered the boy in
his arms. “What did he say to that?”

“He said there was a lady ghost living here
who he was afraid of.”

It hadn’t struck Zach before that John
Paramour, or whatever he had become, might not know the spirit in the asylum
was Evelyn. With her ability to shift forms, maybe she had been able to
disguise herself to him all these years.

“Good. I’m glad he’s afraid. I promise. I
won’t let him hurt you or your mommy. I promise. Let’s get out of here, okay?”

Joey didn’t respond, but his eyes were
already half closed. He put his head down on Zach’s shoulder.

“Let’s get the puck outta Dodge,” Ray said.

They shuffled through the hallway towards
the lobby. They were twenty yards away when it lit up. No doubt originating
atop the main staircase, a flashlight beam illuminated the crooked figure of
Grant Winkler. From Zach’s vantage point, it looked like the custodian was in a
spotlight at the end of a tunnel.

“Yeah, I seen you up there,” he said
pointing toward the top of the steps. “And what the hell are you guys doing in
here with a little kid?”

Winkler wasn’t looking at Zach and Joey; he
was looking up the stairs at someone they couldn’t see.

Hunter’s voice echoed through the lobby.
“That’s not a boy. Stay away from it.”

Winkler stumbled out of view toward the
staircase.

“Last fuckin’ thing I need, is some nig—.
Excuse me, some
person of color
, to tell me what is and what ain’t no
boy!” He cackled as though he’d just told the funniest joke in the history of
late-night TV.

Zach eyeballed Ray and signaled that they
move forward.

He whispered in Joey’s ear. “Be very quiet,
okay?”

Hiding his eyes on Zach’s shoulder, Joey
nodded. Zach’s shirt felt wet as it rubbed against his skin. He wondered if it
were Joey’s snot or his tears.

They crept forward toward the lobby.

“Look Mr. Winkler...” It was Rebecca. “We’re
trying to warn y—”

“No, you look here, missy. I’ll be the one
doin’ the warnin’. This is my place. You take your kid and get the fuck out!”

His footfalls plodding up the steps echoed
throughout the otherwise silent lobby. Then, from that direction, there came a
high-frequency screech.

“Who are you?!” An electronic version of
Angel’s voice screamed above the increasing blare of a siren. “Who are you?!”
It repeated.

It was another Whistling EMF-EVP. Any doubt
as to whom or what was lurking on the staircase was erased. It could be none
other than John Paramour.

Ray darted into the lobby and looked up. The
flashlights from above were steadily dimming—being drained of power.

Zach moved out of the hallway shielding Joey
in his arms. He couldn’t help but look. For years, no matter how Zach tried to
forget it, some random event would trigger a snapshot of the scene. The etched
memory would replay with such crystal clarity, that it would cause Zach’s heart
to race.

At the top of the stairs, Hunter stood with
wide eyes. Rebecca bore a similar look of horror. Halfway up the staircase,
Winkler was turning around, and was off balance searching for the sound of the
siren. Maybe he’d already spotted the device, maybe he hadn’t.

And in between Winkler and the top of the
staircase stood Boy.

Dressed in a brown suit like those worn in
ancient photographs, his haircut looked as if his head had been placed in a
bowl. His part left an upside-down V in the middle of his forehead.

It appeared Boy may have been blocking
Hunter and Rebecca’s descent when Winkler had shown up. His attention, like
Winkler’s seemed focused on identifying the source of the noise.

From that snapshot things happened all at
once. Later, Zach’s perception slowed everything down to a crawl, but that was
likely a trick of the memory.

Boy glanced in Zach’s direction. He didn’t
make eye contact, but it had been close enough to run Zach’s blood cold.

Boy was staring at Joey.

He began to transform, started to grow, not
into the burly blowhard police officer John Paramour had been in Zach’s
visions, but into something else, something different. His legs grew first, or
perhaps that’s just what Zach noticed. They sprouted both up and out shredding
his brown slacks. Boy’s upper body erupted, splattering fragments into the air,
but the bits of flesh disappeared into nothingness before they traveled more
than a few feet. His chest, massive and hairy, expanded outward until it was
the size of four men’s torsos.

It all happened silently.

Winkler began to turn back. As though if
watching a frame-by-frame video, Zach could see it happening—knew what would
occur. There had been time to shout a warning—plenty of time. But he didn’t.

He couldn’t.

He would justify it to himself later with
mentally constructed excuses that revolved around the assumption no one else
had said anything—an assumption that Zach never could be sure of since, except
for his uncle’s voice, he heard nothing until
after
the dreadful sound.

You cannot save him.

Winkler had begun to turn back. The Paramour
thing’s face was in a state of transition. The crooked, pug nose and facial
features of the John Paramour that Zach had seen during his episode were
briefly visible. Then, the nose and ears elongated. Its pointed chin jutted out
even further. Ram horns sprouted from its forehead. It stood nearly nine-feet
tall. By the time Winkler turned back, it had already started descending
towards him. He looked up and flinched.

The flinch caused him to slip backwards.

His head struck the steps at the same time
as his shoulders. At least in Zach’s recollection there was still no sound. The
head trauma alone might well have killed Winkler. But it was the tumble that
did him in—not the somersaulting tumble as seen in movies—more an awkward
backward sprawl. He slid down a few steps before his head hit the side of the
staircase wall at an unnatural angle. When Winkler’s neck broke, Zach heard the
snap—and he’d never forget that sound. At first the mind denies—tricks itself
into thinking that everything will be okay. But soon enough, awareness sinks
in—the man is dead. Zach didn’t delude himself into thinking that he liked
Winkler. Had the man lived, Zach would likely have continued to dislike him.
But there was something about witnessing his death that would link them
together forever.

The thing that had been John Paramour,
descended the steps. He swept past Winkler’s corpse both avoiding and ignoring
the body’s convulsing limbs.

He moved toward them. Even with his broken
hand, Ray stepped in front to protect them.

“Wait,” Zach tried to say, but it eked out
weakly. He wanted to tell Ray to run. Zach wanted to flee himself, but he was
frozen.

Paramour approached with brash indifference.
His black eyes—there was an emptiness to them. It suggested that John Paramour
ceased to be just a spirit. Over one hundred years of evil—a century of
collecting souls had given him power. Paramour barely paused to flick Ray aside
as if he were an insect. Ray flew across the lobby, smashed against the far
wall and lay still.

Paramour drew closer to Zach and Joey. A
century ago, when Rosewood still housed patients, Paramour had caused as many
as thirty seven to commit suicide. Since then, who knew how many lives he’d
destroyed, how many fires he’d caused others to light? He’d become so powerful
that he could now ignite them on his own in our realm. He wasn’t merely a soul
snatcher, but as Rebecca had surmised, he was the most powerful soul snatcher
on record.

And he wanted Joey.

Ray’s spilled flashlight, lying halfway
across the lobby, was the last to die. It was pitch black.

The Paramour-thing spoke. His breath stunk
of expired beef—his voice toned with contempt and hatred.
“I want you to
watch.”

A candle atop the video control panel lit.
Then, one after another, each wick of every candle that Angel had laid out the
first night in the lobby took fire. It was like a falling domino string of
flames.

“I want you to
watch
me take him.”

“He doesn’t want to be with you!” Zach shouted.

Paramour stopped short of where Zach stood.
“What makes you think he has a choice?”

From the top of the staircase, Rebecca and
Hunter recited familiar words. “Saint Michael the Archangel, defend us in
battle. Be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil.”

Although safe where they had been, they
advanced on the entity.

“May God rebuke him, we humbly pray; and do
Thou, O Prince of the Heavenly Host.”

Paramour glared at Zach.
“Leave the boy.
I have no need of you.”

Ray had recovered and joined Hunter and
Rebecca in the prayer. “By the Divine Power of God—cast into hell, Satan and
all the evil spirits, who roam throughout the world seeking the ruin of souls.”

In unison they all shouted, “Amen.”

Its mouth opened and emitted a noise that
seemed to be comprised of many voices—thousands of discordant screams. Never
had Zach imagined a noise so disturbing. And yet it did not advance on him and
Joey. Something was protecting them.

But what?

Hunter and Rebecca continued down the
staircase. In unison they shouted, “The power of Christ compels you. The love
of Christ commands you!”

With Joey clutching tightly to his neck and
shoulders, Zach peered around the room. Ray’s strength. Rebecca’s intelligence.
Hunter’s sense of humor. Joey’s innocence and his own powerful intuition. They
represented so many of the positive qualities of human nature—things John
Paramour detested. But they still lacked something. The host and hostess—the
keeper and the kept—Evelyn and Dr. Johansson.

He yelled as loud as he could. “Hunter,
summon the doctor! Do it now!”

Hunter closed his eyes. His dark face
twitched and his lips moved.

Zach called out. “Evelyn, we need your help!
We
can
get rid of him. Please!”

At first, the room gave no sign of her, then
the candles flickered. He could feel her there, watching, waiting for
something. Zach couldn’t tell if the doctor was present.

“The power of Christ compels you. The love
of Christ commands you!” Ray, Hunter and Rebecca closed in, yelling. They
lacked only holy water to cast the demon to hell. Zach remembered Macginty’s
comment.

“Holy water is holy water, is holy water.
Help yourself whenever you need’ta, son.”

But how did that apply to this situation?

Holy water is water, son.

The voice was at once both his uncle’s and
the monsignor’s. “
Help yourself whenever you need’ta, son.”

He
had
helped himself to holy water.
After his episode, he drank holy water. It was inside him. It had blended with
his body, but was still a part of him nonetheless—contained in the microscopic
makeup of his cells. Zach imagined it in the blood coursing through his veins.
Holy water was present in his sweat. Holy water was lubricating the fluids in
his eyes. Hell, it was even part of his—

Zach spit at Paramour. Then, in one fluid
motion, he spun and slid Joey across the wood floor away from him so that he
stood between the boy and the entity.

Paramour screeched, but held his ground. The
anguished cries echoed throughout Rosewood’s lobby.

“John,” Zach said, calmly. “You’re not a
demon, John.”

Perhaps he shouldn’t have—maybe Zach should
have merely trusted, however he spit at him again. Paramour seemed to wince,
but that might have merely been Zach’s wishful thinking.

From his open mouth, a thousand voices
cried.
“This is my place. My place!”

“Saint Michael the Archangel,” Zach began.
The others, all of them, joined in. “Defend us in battle. Be our protection
against the wickedness and snares of the devil.”

Evelyn and Dr. Johansson stood side by
side—their translucent figures wavered and glowed. She looked young, but her
hair was long. Dr. Johansson, spectacles resting above his high cheekbones,
appeared healthy and determined.

The voices of his friends rose. “May God
rebuke him, we humbly pray; and do Thou, O Prince of the Heavenly Host.”

It was time. Time for Zach, filled with holy
water, to make the leap of faith onto John Paramour—the wicked man who wanted
to be a god. Onto the evil spirit that wished to become a demon.

The police chief version of John Paramour
stood just a few feet from Zach.

Confidently Zach said to him, “You’re not a
demon, John, but you’re going to hell.”

Paramour’s eyes blazed. “You don’t have the
strength.”

“This is not your place,” a female voice
said. “You must leave.”

“It is time for you to go,” a male voice
confirmed.