Free The Ghost of Graylock by Dan Poblocki Page A

Wesley wouldn’t kick him in the chest. “Those will totally work.”
    “You can thank Bree. She was the one who reminded me. I pulled them out of our TV remote. Should still have some juice left. Here. Catch.”
    Neil sat on the still swing beside Wesley and carefully opened the slot in the side of the camera. After replacing the old batteries with the newish ones, Neil took a deep breath and then pressed the power button. A second later, the lens whirred open as the view screen blinked on. “Yes!” said Neil. “Thank you, Wesley!”
    Wesley dropped his feet to the worn-out ground and skidded to a stop. “So … what’d you get?”
    Neil hit the REVIEW button, and an image popped up on the screen: a brightly lit doorknob. This was the last picture. Room 13. “Wait,” he said. “Let’s start from the beginning.” He selected the slide show function, and suddenly the two boys were watching a recap of the previous day’s misadventure, filmstrip style.
    The first few pictures showed the front of the hospital — the circular drive, the ivy, the solid main-entrance doors. The sky was blue. The light was golden. The shots revealed nothing about the secrets locked inside. In fact, the place looked almost pretty.
    Next, the camera showed the gymnasium — the warped floorboards, the decaying ceiling. This was more like it. Still, Neil saw nothing that might be paranormal. No mists. No floating orbs. No shadows filled with faces. The only faces that appeared were in the group shot of Wesley, Bree, and Eric huddled together underneath one of the basketball hoops.
    They journeyed up the dark stairs to the labyrinth of hallways. Chipped tiles. Dusty gurneys. Toppled wheelchairs. There was one particularly disturbing picture of a large black spider, but no ghosts. Not yet.
    The youth ward appeared with its giant, sunlit windows. There were pictures of the cake table, the rack of stuffed animals. In one shot of the stairwell, a small bulb of light hovered near the top of the screen, but Neil could not be certain whether or not it was merely a speck of dust. That was the problem with orbs — according to Alexi and Mark, they were very inconsistent phenomena.
    Then the camera showed them the doorknob picture again, shiny, bluish-white. Overexposed. They’d reached the end. Neil felt faint with annoyance.
    “That’s it?” said Wesley, standing. “No ghosts. Are you sure you guys didn’t just imagine seeing something in the room with you?” He began to pace in front of the swing set.
    “I thought I was sure,” said Neil. “But maybe we were wrong.”
    A light flickered at his hand. Neil glanced back at the camera. The slide show had progressed. On the screen, a new image stared up at them: a taxidermic deer head hanging on a wood panel wall, wide antlers reaching toward a soot-stained ceiling. “What the heck?” said Neil. He didn’t remember taking this picture.
    Wesley stared at him from the far swing, looking concerned.
    The slide show continued on. The next shot revealed what appeared to be a piano bench. A stack of sheet music stood precariously on the edge, ready to topple. The top sheet read Superstition, music by Stevie Wonder . In another picture was a fireplace. Three decorative birch logs were arranged just so upon a set of plain andirons.
    “What is it?” Wesley asked, rushing back. But by the time he reached Neil’s shoulder, the screen had turned blue. The slide show was over. Neil stared at the camera for several seconds. Then he quickly told Wesley what he’d seen.
    “You’re sure those shots aren’t from your aunts’ house? Maybe someone took them last night after you got home.”
    “I’m positive,” said Neil, feeling queasy. “And besides, the camera wasn’t working last night. Remember?”
    “Let me see.”
    Neil scrolled quickly through the pictures. The catalogue of Graylock photographs appeared, but the last three, the ones Neil didn’t remember taking, were now