Unless…
“Maybe this is all a hoax,” he said, trying the idea on for size.
“What do you mean?” Sara asked.
“Well, if this really is an experiment to study fear, we’re behaving exactly as they they they want us to.”
Mal came over, shaking his head in the pale green light of the glow stick he held. “That Cornelius Wellington was practically decapitated. And Tom shot Ol’ Jasper at least ten times.”
Belgium tapped his chin. “Are we sure?”
“That’s what we saw,” Pang chimed in.
“And we see magic all the time. Chris Angel levitating on the street. David Copperfield making the Statue of Liberty disappear.”
“How about all the blood?” Mal asked.
Belgium shrugged. “Special effects. Movie props. Maybe Wellington is even in on it. It happened after the lights were out. How can we be sure what we saw?”
“That man, in the exam room.” Deb’s voice was still raspy and faint. “Franklin. He was real.”
“Could he have been someone made up to look like Franklin? With make up? A good make-up artist can make Dustin Hoffman look a hundred years old, and Eddie Murphy look like a five hundred pound woman.”
Deb seemed unconvinced. “He was going to drill my leg.”
“But he stopped before he could. He scared you. And hurt hurt hurt you while drawing some blood. But what if all of that was scripted out? What if he wasn’t a real threat?”
“So Tom is in on it too?” Sara asked.
Frank turned up his palms. “He certainly could could could be. I suppose any of us could be. We all just met today.”
Mal rubbed his chin. “So this could still all be part of the experiment. They’re just trying to scare us, but it’s all a hoax.”
“Shouldn’t we consider that it’s at least a possibility?”
“So Ol’ Jasper was fake as well?” Sara asked. She looked so hopeful, Frank’s heart fluttered.
“Dr. Forenzi said that Colton Butler was trying to sew extra limbs on slaves. Even with today’s advancements in medical technology, that’s impossible. Isn’t it a more reasonable explanation to believe it’s fake?”
Pang shook his head. “What about Aabir? She spiked on my EMF meter. And with my full spectrum camera, she looked like she was on fire.”
Frank brushed away a drop of sweat from his forehead. “When you arrived, did you have your equipment with you the whole time?”
“Yes.”
“How about when we were eating? Did you have it with you then?”
Another drip of sweat, and Frank wiped it off and looked at his hand.
It wasn’t sweat. The smear was blackish in the glow lights.
Blood?
Was something above him dripping blood?
Frank looked up, but couldn’t see the high ceiling. He raised his glow stick up over his head—
—and saw a man staring down at him, his back pressed to the ceiling.
A smiling man, his clothing soaked with blood.
Frank yelped, and jumped to the side just as the man dropped down, landing on the floor in a crouch, then rising to his full height. He shook like a dog, spraying blood everywhere.
“An… interesting… theory… Dr… Belgium…” the man said. There was something messed up about his voice. It sounded like two or three people talking in unison. The sclera—the whites of his eyes—were black.
“It’s Jebediah Butler,” Pang squeaked, pointing his camcorder at him. “Floating on a pool of his own blood.”
Frank didn’t know what to do. He wasn’t a fighter. And even if he was, would fighting work against a supernatural being?
“Tell… me… something…” Jebediah said with his freaky voice. His hand shot out, grabbing Frank by the wrist. Frank tried to pull away, but the grip was unbelievable. “Am… I… a… hoax… or… a… real… threat?”
Then he twisted.
Frank heard his own elbow snap, and stared in disbelief as his arm was suddenly bending the wrong way.
The pain hit a moment later, and it was unreal. Frank dropped to his knees, not sure if he should vomit or faint or both. He stared up into the grinning, bloody face of Jebediah, and realized he’d been horribly wrong.
This wasn’t a trick.
They were all going to die here.
A chair splintered over Jebediah’s shoulders, courtesy of Pang. The ghost backhanded the Asian man across the room. Then he turned his attention back to Frank.
“I… shall… keep… twisting… that… arm… until… it… comes… off… like… a… turkey… leg…”
And then a hand was in Jebediah’s face.
A female hand, clutching a rosary.
Sara!
“Get away from him, you son of a bitch,” she snarled.
Jebediah’s eyes went wide. “A… crucifix…”
The ghost stuck out a black tongue—
—and began to lick it.
Long, wet, obscene strokes of the tongue, followed by quick ones. He moaned while doing so, as if in ecstasy, and then slurped the whole cross in his mouth and began to chew.
Then someone was pulling on Frank’s good arm—Mal, dragging him to the door—a mad scramble to move the desk—and Frank was in the hallway being half-carried and half-yanked—and then through another door and stairs going down—down—down—and there was actual electric light there, dim but on just the same, then Frank was laid down on the ground and unable to think about anything other than the unrelenting, throbbing, unbearable pain before unconsciousness finally took him.
Forenzi
His patient was struggling to breath. Vitals were weak. The will to live gone.
“Fight, damn you,” Forenzi said, shaking him. “You still have more to give.”
The man stared blankly at him, then his puffy eyes closed.
Forenzi made a notation on the chart, then checked the monitors for the vital signs of his volunteers. They were elevated, as expected. Heart rate, blood pressure, brain activity. Every one of them was scared.
Which, of course, was the point. And the longer they remained scared, the better the results would be.
He once again lost himself in a familiar daydream. A world without fear. Which would ultimately lead to universal peace.
The ringing phone interrupted his thoughts.
“I’m working,” he answered.
“There’s been a death.” It was Sykes.
Forenzi put his hand to his face and said, “What? A death? Who?”
“The skeptic. Wellington.”
“How did this happen?” This was the worst possible thing that could have happened.
“There have been some complications,” Sykes said.
Dear Lord, Forenzi thought. What have I done?
Tom
The thing’s face was blackened, skin peeling off in strips, glistening with grease like a broiled pork chop.
Tom’s mind flashed to the Butler House web site. Sturgis Butler, a serial killer from the 1800s who slayed prostitutes in satanic rituals. When he was caught by a mob they tied him to a tree and torched him, Sturgis supposedly laughing as he burned.
Deep set eyes bored into Tom, intelligent, malevolent, and he immediately spun away from the ghoul’s grasp and fell backward, shooting as fast as he could pull the trigger.
Five shots fired.
Five shots hit.
But his attacker didn’t even flinch.
Tom fell onto his ass, a shock of agony rippling up from his coccyx to the base of his skull. Ignoring the pain, Tom crab-walked backward, fast as he could, trying to get as much distance from the thing as possible.
Then he turned onto all fours, pressing the flashlight’s off button as his fingers clenched it, and then scrambled onto his feet and sprinted for all he was worth toward the great room.
Eight strides later he ran into something—a chair—Tom hitting hard as a football tackle. He flipped, ass over elbows, and sprawled forward, his shoulder smacking into the wood floor.
Tom somehow managed to hold onto his Sig, but the flashlight bounced out of his grasp and went skittering off into the darkness.