Holding the gun in my right hand, I pushed the door open with my left.
More candles lined the green cement hallway. The walls were stained black from smoke and mildew. The place smelled like rot and ruin with a tinge of smoke like a ghost, even after all these years.
“I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” Skink whispered. He stopped walking. I flapped my left hand back at him: You stay here.
I crept slowly down the hallway, trying to keep my feet from crunching too loudly on more broken glass, crumbled cement, bits of charred wood and plaster, melted plastic.
I heard voices. A shriek.
A girl in pain?
My heart jackhammered.
I wasn’t too late! Lauren was alive!
There was still time to save her.
I wanted to run but knew I had to move slowly, carefully.
I passed the first door on the left, spinning to look inside it, gun out in front of me like some TV show cop.
The room was empty, dark.
But the door to the procedure room, the room where Gran’s body had been found strapped to the bed, was open, candlelight flickering inside.
It’s a trap, it’s a trap, screamed a voice in the back of my brain. Run! Get out while you can!
My feet froze, not wanting to go any farther, not wanting to know what awaited me.
“Hold still,” a woman’s voice ordered from inside the room. “Or I’ll cut you.”
I took a deep breath and stepped into the room, gun raised and held steady with both hands.
The room was full of candles, their flames flickering, dancing. An old camping lantern was set on an overturned table, emitting a bright glow, throwing huge shadows on the wall.
The girl was sitting in a chair with a sheet wrapped around her so that all I could really see was the back of her head.
And there was the monster: my long-ago sister, standing by the girl’s side, the glint of a blade flashing in her right hand.
Vi
July 28, 1978
THE BUILDING WAS in flames behind them.
The fire alarm was ringing, the bells deafening. The sprinkler system had gone off. They were both soaked. Soaked from the sprinklers inside the building and soaked from the rain that was pounding down on them.
Iris was sitting up, leaning against a tree. The back of her head was bleeding, the rain mixing with the blood, making it run down her neck. Her face was pale, and her lips had a bluish tinge. Her hat was gone, and Vi could see the scar that ran along the front of her head under her stubbly hair.
From somewhere around the front of the building they could hear Miss Evelyn screaming, “Where is Dr. Hildreth?” as the thunder boomed. Patty and Sal were there, by the side of the building, counting the patients, who were half-asleep, medicated, staggering around in their hospital gowns, the rain pelting them.
Miss Evelyn kept yelling for Dr. Hildreth, her voice more and more shrill, more and more frantic, but no one seemed to be able to answer.
“What have you done?” Iris asked, looking past Vi to the Inn—the smoke pouring out of it, flames now visible from some of the lower-story windows.
Vi thought she could make out shapes in the smoke writhing and twisting as it rose: the ghosts escaping. Ghosts that had been there all along.
“I did what needed to be done.”
“The records, the files—” Iris said.
“Are all gone now.”
Iris looked as though she might start crying again.