When I come to an old slate chalkboard, I slow down. The board’s smudged with tiny fingerprints. Smeared in old chalk across the dark slate is one word…

Shhhhhhh.

Elliot maneuvers around the desks to get a better shot. Dread blooms inside me. Jackson’s voice crackles through the speakers. “Ange, you feeling anything in there?”

I turn in a full circle, sweeping the light across the empty desks. “Nothing,” I say.

“Let’s keep moving. Lots of ground to cover tonight,” Jackson says. His crackly voice fills the room.

“Copy that,” I reply.

The next room we enter has rows of bunk beds with long untouched mattresses. I drag the light over the walls, illuminating timeworn paintings and sketches. On paper, colorful stick figure children play. Green for grass. Blue for sky.

Taking another step, my foot kicks something. I stop and kneel down, finding a small cloth lump. A ragged doll. When I shine the flashlight on the face, its mouth has been stitched shut.

I exchange a quick look with Elliot. Right as our eyes lock, a sque-eak echoes behind us. Whirling around, I can detect the sound comes from the hallway. Sque-eak. Sque-eak.

Like a rusted joint.

Sque-eak.

I set the doll down and move back towards the hallway. “Please tell me you hear that,” I say, but when I drag the light over Elliot’s face, he only looks bewildered. He’s about to say something, but the sque-eak picks up again. I shush him and inch towards the hallway.

Sque-eak. Sque-eak.

Elliot follows behind me, the light from the flashlight daggering through the darkness. His walkie crackles. Jackson’s voice flows through the tiny speakers: “El, where’s she going?”

“Not sure,” Elliot replies.

Sque-eak.

I rush down the hall, through an open doorway, into a library filled with worn books. Flashing the light on the high ceilings, I study the delicate light sconces and the photos of playing children. When Elliot tells me to stop, I keep moving, searching, listening. I walk to the rows of books, but there’s no sound. I’m about to step back outside when I hear a whining sque-eak. It’s rusty and close. Urgent.

Lumbering footsteps now accompany the sound. I halt, and then move closer. Something ruffles on the other side of the shelf, but I’ve seen enough horror movies to not want to look.

Elliot grows restless behind me. “You see anything?” he asks.

I shake my head. On the lower shelf, I remove a book with a cracked leather spine, leaving an inch wide hole to the other side. Leaning forward, I scan the open space, but all I see are more books and a lone air vent.

“There’s nothing there,” I say, relieved.

But then a small-boned figure drifts past on the other side. I stumble back into Elliot. “Woah,” he says. “You okay?”

Jackson’s impatient voice cuts through the darkness: “Ange, what’s going on?”