Alexandra Sokoloff - The Unseen

Laurel stepped forward and tried each one of the heavy double doors. Locked. She moved back to look up at the building again.

The sign above the doors read BALDWIN AUDITORIUM, and it was not the kind of building she would have expected to house an academic department. So, had a building of original classrooms that had contained the parapsychology lab been converted into an auditorium? Or had she made some sort of mistake? Perhaps the shot of the building from the old film she had seen had been an aesthetic choice rather than the actual building that had housed the Rhine Lab?

She was fighting an almost crushing sense of disappointment as she walked down the steps. But what did you really expect to see? It was a lab, not a haunted house, she told herself.

It was a cold day, overcast and misty from the night’s rain, a hint of winter before fall, and the drifting fog made Laurel feel even more alone in the vast and strangely deserted quad. Most of the former academic buildings had been converted to freshman dorms, and compared to the constant activity and traffic of West it seemed like a ghost campus—only an occasional student going in or out of the residence halls.

At the foot of the grass circle below the auditorium was a towering bronze statue of Duke University founder Washington Duke, seated in a bronze easy chair. Only “seated” was not exactly the correct word. The founder was more precisely “slouched” or “sprawled” in the chair, cigar in mouth, bronze hands loosely gripping the rounded armrests of the chair, legs flung carelessly wide apart, with the ease and arrogance that only comes with vast wealth, and looking pretty much as if he still owned the place. Laurel circled the statue in a sort of awed admiration; she’d never seen a statue with quite such… attitude.

A voice spoke behind, her, a low, lazy drawl. “Thinkin’ of climbing up?”

She turned, startled—and was even more startled to see Tyler Mountford standing on the grass, watching her.

“Everyone does it.” Tyler’s eyes flicked up to the statue of Washington Duke, then back to Laurel, with insolent amusement. “That ol’ dog has had more sorority girls in his lap than three generations of lacrosse teams.”

Laurel almost laughed. “I’m sure,” she said, willing her face not to redden under the boy’s sly smile. She suddenly wondered if he had followed her from class. “I think I’ll pass, though.”

He glanced around the deserted quad. “What are you doing all the way over here on East? Nothing but freshman and theater geeks over here.”

I might ask the same thing of you, she thought. While she was annoyed at his intimate and knowing tone, she realized she might be able to get information out of him, so she smiled as she answered.

“I’d seen photos of that building”—she turned and indicated the domed auditorium—“and I wanted to come take a look… but it’s locked. Do you know—was it always an auditorium? Or did there used to be classrooms there?”

“Looking for the Rhine Lab?”

She started, and he smiled slowly at her, enjoying her discomfort. How did he know?

He shrugged. “You’re from California, aren’t you? Y’all are into all that spooky shit.” He looked at her challengingly.

“I don’t know,” she found herself responding without thinking. “From all I’ve been reading, you have a whole lot more ghosts here in the South.”

“Yes, we do.” His drawl extended all vowels for at least three syllables, and she was uncomfortably aware of feeling the words like an illicit caress. She was immensely irritated at this automatic sexual response she was having to a kid who was at least ten years younger than she was. That’s the last thing you need, she thought. Leave. Now.

Instead she found herself saying aloud, “So the Rhine Lab was in that building?”

“Oh yeah,” he said, his eyes gleaming.

“How do you know?” she demanded.

That lazy shrug. “I’ve worked crew on some shows.”

This seemed to her unlikely in the extreme and she was about to say so, when he smiled crookedly. “Gut class. Easy five units.”

She studied him, still skeptical. “I can’t see it.”

“I had a band for a while,” he said, and his face was suddenly closed.

Now that makes some sense… that musician indolence. And probably didn’t have the guts to risk the family inheritance by telling Daddy he was going into music.

“What’s your major, anyway?” she asked casually.

His smile twisted again. “Business, what else?”

“Ah. Oldest son?”

“Oh, yes, ma’am.”

His voice was light and mocking, but she could hear the simmering anger underneath. She supposed his family went to Duke, too, the father at the very least, but probably a whole line of them. She decided not to push the questions, for the moment.

She turned and looked at him straight on. “Who told you where the lab used to be?”

He leaned back against the base of the statue, hands gripping the marble edge, a pose strikingly similar to the captured arrogance of the statue. “The old guys from the scene shop talk about it. Say it’s haunted, because of all the Rhine experiments.”

“Haunted?” She stared at him.

“Oh, they’re just mainly trying to haze us, I know. But things go missing down in the shop, and sometimes the lights go weird, and they say it’s because of all those kids that Rhine brought in and tested. The kids from the haunted houses. The shop guys say they brought the ghosts in with them.”

Laurel was strangely electrified, even though she knew the prevalent theory was that poltergeist phenomena had nothing to do with ghosts.

She realized she was holding her breath, and was suddenly annoyed with herself. What are you looking for? What do you expect, here? What the hell is this about, anyway?

Tyler was watching her like a cat. He smiled slowly. “You’re really into it, aren’t you?”

“Curious,” she said, briefly. “It’s all curious. So what else have they told you, the ‘old guys’?”

He shrugged, pushed off the granite slab on which he was leaning. “What were you looking to know?”

Good question, she thought to herself. “Has anyone ever said why the lab closed down?”

He smiled, a strangely humorless smile. “Well, it’s kind of a shock they ever let it happen at all, isn’t it? Studying ghosts and such on a college campus?”

“Have you ever seen anything happen, in there?” she said suddenly.

He looked at her, and after a long moment he smiled. “Can’t say I believe in that stuff, Dr. MacDonald.” His smile broadened. “It was just you were interested, and all. Has anything spooky ever happened to you?”

She found her skin heating. “I—no. You mean ghosts? Nothing.”

He sat back, studying her. “Ghosts—or anything. You’re into this for a reason, aren’t you? Doesn’t just come out of nowhere…”

She looked into the drifting fog, and her dream came back to her. The clock that read 3:33 A.M. The dog barking in the distance. The fire siren. The curtain blowing at the window.

I saw it all.

She snapped back to the present. Tyler was still watching her, leaning on the base of the statue again, ankles crossed, smiling faintly.

“Well, thanks, Tyler,” Laurel said stiffly. “You’ve been very helpful.”

“Anytime,” he drawled, and dipped his head, a mocking little bow. She could feel his eyes on her back as she started off across the lawn.

She suddenly turned back to him and called out. “Have you ever heard of a Dr. Alaistair Leish?”

He looked at her for a long moment. “Can’t say I have.” He tilted his head. “Why?”