Suddenly a female voice boomed from the speaker. “Your speaker is now connected.”

Xander dropped the chalk and spun around. It took him a few minutes to calm down as he glared at the portable device. He’d forgotten about the auto notification. “Get a grip, Xander,” he said as he picked up the chalk.

He went back to sketching. He glanced over his shoulder a few times to make sure he was alone.

Chapter Five

That evening Xander’s friends gathered in the haunted hospital. Xander’s headlamp illuminated his hand-drawn layout of the place, which he’d spread out on the counter. Priya adjusted the light strapped to her head. Li and Omar directed the glow from their phones onto the map as well.

“Awesome!” Omar said. “I’ve got goose bumps.”

Li beamed at the new site for their game. “It’s perfect,” she said, sounding a bit stuffed up.

“I could do without the smell of cat piss,” Priya snapped. “And the building looks like it’s about to fall down.” She was still unhappy about being overruled.

Xander ignored her comments. “George Wickerman Hospital was used in the 1950s to experiment on patients who were going to die anyway. A doctor working with a secret government agency injected a chemical compound called Digi-Tox into the patients to see what it would do. The government wanted to use this chemical to cure TB, but it did more harm than good. Within hours of the injection, the test subjects went into shock and started throwing up. Their eyes bled, and they experienced so much pain, all they could do was scream. They died within a day.”

“Brutal,” Omar said. “Remind me never to go to a hospital when I’m sick.”

Li shushed him. “Not all hospitals are bad.”

Priya didn’t comment.

“This one is,” Xander said. “And one of the patients who died was a woman named Alison Rigby. She had a promising career as a concert pianist.”

Omar chuckled. “Heh, heh.”

“Pi-an-ist,” Xander said. “Anyway, Alison dreamed of playing in all the great concert halls around the world, but her dream ended tragically right here at the George Wickerman Hospital. In room 176.”

Li peered over her shoulder at the dark corridor. “What happened after she died?”

“They say you can hear screams from the room at the exact moment she died—9:07 p.m.”

Li checked her phone. “Seventeen minutes from now.”

Omar shot his hand up. “I’m first. Let me go.”

Xander pointed at his makeshift map. “Okay, Omar. Your mission is to get to room 176 and record any sounds. You have to stay there for at least fifteen minutes.”

“No problem,” Omar said.

“But be careful,” Xander warned. “Avoid any areas that are blocked off with yellow tape.”

“Why?”

“Because they’re unsafe,” Xander said. “For real.”

Li leaned into Omar. “Mom said this place got major water damage from some heavy rains a few summers ago. That’s why no developer wants to renovate it. Don’t get yourself killed.”

Omar took her hand. “If I don’t make it back, my Star Wars collectibles are yours.”