Psychopathia: A Horror Suspense Novel (2 page)

Lara gave another delighted shiver.

‘You don’t need the actual buildings,’ Tully said. ‘We might get a result anyway. When a spirit is trapped, when it doesn’t know to cross over, it’s going to still be there whether the building i
s pulled down around it or not.’ She spoke with the assurance of an expert, then thumped Toby on the arm again before getting up off the grass and turning to pull him up.

‘We’re really doing this?’ he asked.

‘Hey, it was your idea.’

The stars whirled around overhead, caught in a momentary vortex, then stilled. Toby grinned. ‘Shit yeah, so it was. Let’s do this thing.’

Tully bent to pick up the candle and her phone. ‘This is still recording,’ she said, and laughed.

Tucking his arm around her shoulders, Toby leaned on his sister. ‘Cool. Maybe you can listen to it later and see if we were the only ones having a conversation.

‘Wouldn’t that be something?’ she answered, and tucked the phone in her pocket before shoving him in the direction of the path. ‘Let’s go, loser.’

Toby stumbled and righted himself. ‘Hey, I’m not the loser. I’m the ideas man, remember.’

‘All right, idea man. Prop yourself up against the car, and we’ll grab the torches.’ Tully left him leaning against the side of her car, and rushed inside, followed by a giggling Lara. Matt sauntered after them, saying he had to take a leak so he wouldn’t piss his own pants when they found the ghosts.

Toby smiled and lifted the bottle to his mouth. He didn’t think there was a chance in hell of seeing anything where the old asylum used to be, but it was an adventure, and he was all for lifting the tedium of the everyday with a good adventure or two.

The moon rode the sky bareback
over the empty parking lot and the forest bristled around them.

Tully hugged
herself. ‘It’s colder up here.’

Toby shrugged. ‘I can’t feel any difference.’

‘It’s the spirits making their presence known already,’ Matt said, lifting his torch to his chin and clicking it on, throwing his face into the light and pulling a face.

‘Idiot,’ Tully giggled and looked around. ‘Where do we go? I wish we had some proper equipment.’

‘What sort of equipment do you need to spot ghosties and ghoulies?’ Matt asked, throwing an arm around Lara and spotlighting the trees with his torch.

Tully ticked them off on her fingers,
knowing they’d all be surprised she knew so much. She’d watched whole seasons of ghost hunting programmes, tucked up in the armchair in her bedroom, laptop on her knees, a can of Coke beside her, and a journal for taking notes. Just as well it was the holidays.

‘EMF meters for a start,’ she said. ‘They measure electric – no, electro-magnetic frequencies. If they show a spike, you can bet your best pair of knickers there’s a spirit around.’ She held up a hand pale in the moonlight and ticked off another finger. ‘Infra-red cameras.’ Another finger. ‘Thermal imaging camera. Video recorder with night vision.’

‘Sounds expensive,’ Matt said.

‘Yeah.’ Tully’s sigh was wistful. ‘But it would be cool, you know?’
She swivelled to look at her brother, but he was already heading down the track from the car park, and she guessed she didn’t have to ask him which way to go. Sucking in a lungful of moonlit air, she wished she hadn’t shared his joint, but if beggars had wishes, they’d all ride horses. Or something stupid like that. A soft breeze smoothed the skin on her face and she patted her pocket for her phone, pulled it out, and switched it to record video. The screen stayed dark, just a smudge of her brother in his white tee shirt, but at least it would record sound.

‘Let’s go,’ she said to the others, and hurried after Toby, her lips spreading in a smile. This was going to be fun.

The path drew them into the mouth of a forest. ‘The Enchanted Forest,’ Tully murmured under her breath. It gave her a frisson of pleasure, and she waited for her eyes to adjust to the dark. Lara had her torch switched on behind her, but she kept hers off, and ahead of her, Toby didn’t have his on either. Around them small things rustled in the undergrowth, and she wanted to shiver in delight again, but she stopped herself, determined to approach this like a professional would. She imagined herself with a night vision camera instead, and held up her phone, wondering if her father would buy her the night vision camera for her twenty-first the next month. Probably not, but she could always ask. Or maybe she’d just ask for cash. Her father would probably go for that, it being easier and all. Then she could spend it on whatever she wanted.

‘What was that?’
Lara squealed, stopping dead behind her and flinging the light from her torch into the bushes. Tully spun around.

‘What did you see?’ she asked, breathless.

Lara giggled and turned the light on her. ‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘Made you jump, though.’

‘Did not.’

‘Did too. Straight up into the air.’ Lara nudged her boyfriend. ‘Didn’t she?’

‘Yeah
Tully, you kinda did.’

Tully shook her head at them. ‘Come on
children,’
she said, and turned back to the path, looking for Toby. He was gone. ‘Great,’ she said. ‘Now we’ve lost him.’

‘Toby,
ya miserable bastard – where are you?’ Matt called and spun his torch light down the path and out into the trees.

‘Shh,’ Tully said. ‘Don’t yell.’

‘Well you wanted to find him.’

‘Yeah, but we don’t want to, you know, disturb everything.’

‘Disturb what?’ Matt asked.

‘She means the spirits, idiot
,’ Lara said. ‘Come on, Toby must be out here.’

The path ended in a clearing clothed in grass that looked grey under the moon. Tully ploughed out into it and stood looking around for her brother, before spotting him standing still and silent in the middle of the clearing. She pushed up next to him.

‘See anything?’ she asked. Toby’s eyes were fixed on a point in front of him but Tully couldn’t see anything there. The moment stretched out without him answering. ‘Toby?’

He shook himself and turned to look at her. ‘What did you say?’

‘I asked if you saw anything.’

His gaze wavered, then he shook his head.
‘Just the night,’ he answered.

Tul
ly looked around. Lara and Matt had wound themselves into an embrace and weren’t paying attention to anything other than themselves. ‘Where was the building?’ she asked.

Toby pointed. ‘Over there. It was huge. Three stories high, built like a castle with turrets and everything. Even a watch tower.’

‘How come you know so much about it?’ she asked him.

He shrugged. ‘Steve
and I used to come here quite often. We thought it was cool.’

‘I never knew this.’ Her voice was sharp and she didn’t like it. She thought she knew everything about her twin.

‘You woulda been scared.’

‘Would not. I’m not scared now.’

Toby wiped a hand across his nose. ‘It was years ago. Don’t worry about it. You want to see the bits of the building left?’

Tully let it go and nodded. ‘Yeah, that would be good, right?’ She looked back for
Lara and Matt, but they were on the ground now and she caught a glimpse of skin.

‘Somehow, I think they’re doing their own thing,’ Toby said and laughed.

‘Yeah. I reckon you’re right.’ She turned back to the direction her brother had pointed in. ‘So lead the way.’

There wasn’t much to see, but Tully found herself shivering anyway. It was just a little creepy, with the moonlight, and the breeze rustling around in the long grass. The curved wall, maybe part of some walkway or something, made her feel sad. She put out a tentative hand and touched the stone, imagining she could feel the hundreds of other hands that had touched it. Poor souls abandoned to the asylum, treated in ways she could only imagine, none of them good. She didn’t know much about old mental hospitals, but enough to know they weren’t places you would have wanted to be. Prisons, torture chambers, some of them, so she’d heard.

‘Do you think they treated the patients badly, here?’ she asked.

Toby
scuffed his feet against a loose rock. ‘Probably.’

‘I can feel their sadness,’ she said. ‘It’s like, emanating from the walls.’

‘Bullshit. You’re making things up.’

‘No I’m not. Touch it, can’t you feel it too?’

Toby looked at her, then put out a hand and touched the wall too. She waited.

‘You’re just stoned,’ he said at last.

She snatched her hand back. ‘Yeah, probably,’ she admitted. ‘But let’s look around some more anyway, okay?’

Toby showed her where the foundations for the main building used to be. It was huge, he said, then led her to the trees again. ‘Used to be a garden, right? Sort of
a walled garden where the patients used to be able to sit, get some fresh air.’

‘How do you know all this stuff?’ she asked.

‘I read up on the place. It was interesting.’ He looked at her and she saw a grin spread across his face. ‘Never saw any spooks here but Robyn Darnell let me put my hand down her knickers.’

Tully reached out and swiped her brother. ‘Jeez
Toby, you’re a dirty bastard. Robyn Darnell? She’s in my twentieth century history class.’

‘Yeah? Wow, does she still have tits way out to here?’ He held his hands out from his chest. ‘Got to stick my face in them as well. It was a good day all round.’

She was going to punch him again, get him back on track, but something distracted her. Something whispering behind them.

‘What was that?’ she said, voice low. She clutched at Toby’s sleeve and
clicked on her torch for the first time, blinking at the bright light. She’d forgotten about her phone somewhere along the way and took it out of her pocket again.

Toby giggled, the stoned bastard. ‘It’s a hedgehog, look.’

He was right. The spiky little animal poked its sweet little nose out from under the shrub, then trundled out into the moonlit night like he owned the place. Tully sighed. There probably weren’t any ghosts left here. They’d have all packed their bags when the buildings were torn down.

‘It’d be cool if there was the morgue or something left. Treatments rooms, anything,’ she said, casting the light around.

‘Morgue is still standing.’

She rounded on her brother and pinned the torchlight to him. ‘Why the bloody hell didn’t you say!’

‘It’s on private property now. Morgue, kitchen block, blacksmith, maybe a couple others I can’t remember. That’s where they filmed the horror flick I was telling you about.’

‘We can’t go there?’ Tully
pulled her mouth down in a pout. The night was a wash-out. Maybe she’d have to resort to the Ouija board. But there were so many horror stories about it, that she just didn’t feel that desperate yet.

Toby was talking. ‘Nah, they chase off anyone who tries to go exploring.’

‘How do you know all this stuff?’ The hedgehog had frozen in the grass, finally realising they were there, its tiny ears twitching as though listening to them.

Stretching, raising his arms in the air and yawning, Toby looked around. ‘It’s all online. We should watch the movie they made. Can’t remember what it’s called, though.’ His gaze made its way around to settle on Tully. ‘Let’s go for a walk through the woods. There must be a reason it’s called The Enchanted Forest.’ He gestured to the phone in her drooping hand. ‘You can do the EVP thing.’

Tully perked up. Yeah, they could do that. Nothing to lose, anyway. ‘Okay. That sounds good.’ She looked back the way they’d come. ‘What about Matt and Lara?’

‘They looked pretty busy already.’

‘Yeah. They’re at it like rabbits.’ She sighed.

Toby laughed and started walking across the lawn, the moon following him. ‘Jealous?’ he asked. Tully hurried to catch up.

‘Of what?’

‘When was the last time you had sex?’

‘Jeez Toby, I’m recording this conversation! It’s none of your business, anyway.’ They walked in silence for a minute. ‘Besides,’ she said. ‘You can’t talk. You haven’t dated anyone since Laura dumped your skinny arse.’

She felt her brother tense up beside her, and regretted saying anything. She touched him lightly on the shoulder. ‘Sorry bro, I shouldn’t have said that.’

He shrugged under her hand. ‘Don’t worry about it.’ He turned and looked at her, and his eyes were wide, dilated. ‘Anyway, just because I haven’t got a girlfriend doesn’t mean I haven’t been having sex.’

‘Gross. Toby, if I catch you being an arsehole to some girl, I will beat the living shit out of you.’

Toby’s face split in a wide grin. ‘You’d have to catch me first.’ He gave a wild whoop and took off, sprinting towards the trees and disappearing under their spreading branches.

‘Arsehole!’ Tully called, and
launched herself after him. The trees reached for her and herded her into their darkness. She clicked the torch on and swung the beam around, looking for her brother. A branch cracked over to her right and she laughed.