Nico doesn’t look back. “Yes.”
“Really?” I ask. “What about when they scream?”
“All of us could hear a ghost scream,” Nico says. “But ghosts trying to talk sounds like gibberish to anyone who hasn’t made a neural connection. Donny calls it ‘speaking in tongues.’”
I pull a confused face. “Like from the Bible?”
“Donny’s idea of humor,” Nico confirms. “Speaking in tongues for us means random noise that sounds like a language but isn’t.”
Nico punches a code into the keypad lock, and I watch his finger dart between each button:0-3-1-9-0-1.
I pull the zipper of Dad’s jacket all the way up to my chin. Yesterday I was unprepared for how cold it was, but not today. “I’m not thrilled at the prospect of going down there again.”
“Do you have trouble doing things you aren’t thrilled to do?” Nico punches the green button.
I make a face at his back, scrunching my nose and baring my teeth.
The locks disengage with a series of heavy clunks. Nico pushes the door open and descends without waiting for me. I rest a hand on the doorknob. “Do you want the door closed, or…?”
Nico’s head snaps up from the base of the stairs, and the look he gives me could strip paint. “The door always stays closed.”
Uh huh. I pull the door until it clicks and walk down into the containment area as Nico flips on the main lights. Goosebumps spread across my arms under my jacket as I rub them for warmth, but I’m not convinced it’s just the chill making my skin prickle.
In the center of the room sits that glass dome Billy was in, and now that I’m looking at it without a serial killer staring me down, I can see the web of wires leading to a generator the size of a small refrigerator. The dome is connected to a control panel that resembles a scary version of the one fromInside Out.The whole setup looks as if a morgue and a mad scientist’s lab had a baby.
I count thirty of those morgue drawers on the back wall. Each one is the size of a library computer monitor, with a metal handle on the front. I’m close enough to make out a couple of the names:
NAME:Caine, William
ALIAS:“The Parking Lot Strangler”
ACTIVE:1987 - 1989
CLASSIFICATION:Possessor
DATE OF DEATH:December 27, 2025
NUMBER OF KNOWN VICTIMS:5
CONTAINMENT DATE:January 15, 2026
HANDLING NOTES:
NAME:Keller, Marianne
ALIAS:“Mommy Dearest”
ACTIVE:1959 -1967
CLASSIFICATION:Possessor
DATE OF DEATH:January 3, 2022
NUMBER OF KNOWN VICTIMS:9
CONTAINMENT DATE:August 5, 2022
HANDLING NOTES:Prone to hysterics.
