“I am starving, though. We should’ve stopped for pizza.” His eyes searched the lot, as if pizza might be hiding among the weeds. Christina noticed that his shirt said NATIONAL HONOR SOCIETY SPRING COLLOQUIUM. It was easy for her to forget that Daniel had graduated near the top of their class, one of those sneakily good students who naturally excelled. But who cuts the sleeves off a National Honor Society shirt?
“We were just in New York City,” William said. “That would’ve been the place to get pizza. We should’ve picked up, like, ten large pies for the road.”
“We weren’t just in New York City,” Melissa said. “You guys slept through Pennsylvania.”
“All I’m saying is, we should plan better.”
“Why bother?” Christina said. “Otto’s a genius. He took us to the parking lot of an old asylum in the middle of nowhere. Humans are obsolete! The machines win!”
“Well, I mean, where do you want to go instead?” William asked.
Ruby Soho, last night, Christina thought. Rewind. Do-over. “Anywhere.”
“Nashville,” Melissa said, looking at her phone. “That’s where the new Natasha Lynn Chao boutique is. It’s only seven hours south of here.”
And Albuquerque, Christina thought. Don’t forget Albuquerque.
“Whatever you guys want,” William said. “But we’re here now, so there must be some kind of reason. I’m gonna take a look around.” He looked at Daniel. “You in, muscles?”
“Big time.”
“Hernandez?”
Christina looked through the tunnel of greenery formed by the overgrown sign. Beyond the lot, cracked cement gave way to rolling hills dotted with buildings of ivy-choked brick. The place looked like a small liberal arts college being reclaimed by nature.
“One condition,” she said. “We’re out of here before it gets dark.”
“One other condition,” Melissa said. “Nobody gets shitfaced.”
“If we can’t get shitfaced, then you’re not allowed to summon ghosts,” Daniel said.
Melissa nodded, as if this were within her powers. “Deal.”
Christina was disturbed to find this interaction cute. Melissa held up her phone. “Now everybody get under the arch and look freaked out.”
The wheelchair lay in a rusted heap at the bottom of a staircase where the banister swung free, untethered by rotten posts. Worn leather restraints sagged from the chair’s frame to the wooden floor. A huge blue graffiti arrow pointed to the wheelchair’s resting place. Above the arrow were the words
Nelly Krebs roled down the stairs in 1983
She landed here & broke her nek
& then she was finaly free
“Dislike,” Christina said. She looked away. Everywhere else was just as unsettling. Splatters of black mold, thick fly-speckled cobwebs, soiled sheets, and cigarette butts.
At the end of the hall beside the staircase lay a ruined gurney. Beyond that, a door marked CHAPEL hung from broken hinges. Christina’s mind was still partially immersed in her hack session—the flash of Dierdrax’s ruined face had proven difficult to shake off. Hints of sentience were everywhere: false glimpses of Otto’s silver chassis in floorboards, ceiling tiles, scampering rodents. She thought of the patients who’d been locked up here, their cries echoing across the grounds at precisely this hour, when stupors were disturbed and fear piqued by night rushing in. She wondered, not for the first time, if the logical end point of her parents’ obsession was a place like this, nurses shoving medication down their throats….
What would happen to her house while she was away at school? How long before Upstairs oozed down into the CB Lounge? She’d been so focused on getting out that she hadn’t given a passing thought to what her absence would mean for her parents.
The history of this place bore down on her. The walls had been saturated with madness, and now it was leaking back into the atmosphere like the toxic asbestos they were probably all breathing in….
“Guys, I’m getting some air.” She tried to make it sound like a whim, no big deal. Across the room, Melissa clicked on her phone’s flashlight app and directed the beam at William’s face.
“Action!” Melissa kept the light trained on him as he walked along the wall and spoke in a stage whisper, using what was probably supposed to be a British accent.
“We’re here at the Higginsburg Asylum, where legend has it that the spirit of Nelly Krebs still haunts the grounds, seeking revenge upon the doctors who tormented her during her final weeks on earth.”
A hand brushed Christina’s shoulder and she yelped, turning with raised arms to shield her from the ectoplasmic horror that wanted to eat her soul.
Daniel put up his hands. “Sorry! I could use some air, too. I say we leave the ghost hunters to do their thing.”
Christina’s feet were already carrying her to the doorless entrance and down the steps to the lawn. She strolled with Daniel around the side of the building, where fast-food wrappers littered tall weeds, breathing what she hoped was non-haunted air.
“I think we just violated horror-movie rules by splitting up,” he said. His mouth twitched like he was dying to keep talking. She’d seen him refuse that Red Bull, but maybe he was just wired after his long nap. Or creeped out and trying to act casual, like she was.
“You like horror movies?” she asked, trying to remember if she’d ever in her life had a one-on-one conversation with Daniel.
“Big fan of Principle Dark,” he said, giving her a kind of bug-eyed expectant look. She was surprised: Principle Dark was an obscure anime horror series about an unexplained rash of ritualistic killings that plagued an isolated mountain town. “The Ancient Ones haunted my dreams for months.”
“I’m not as into the horror side of things,” she said, then quickly added, “Of course I’ve seen Principle Dark…. I just get scared easily. I live in a basement.”
She glanced over her shoulder. Melissa’s phone light swept across a broken window. I AM THE NEW FLESH was scrawled on the chapel’s outside wall. Christina turned to find Daniel regarding her with that same expression, as if he were waiting for her to answer a question
