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“Hey, Hermann, it’s me--Newt--if you could, uh, help me out, that’d be cool, I’m kinda stuck--oh, shit.”
Hermann clicked on the next message.
“False alarm, anyway, you know that factory near the river? The sugar one? I think I--I mean, I did, I locked myself in here, and before you tell me to call the cops or something, I don’t really feel like getting arrested right now, so could you--”
Hermann shook his head to himself and closed the message to call Newt back.
“Where are you? I was gonna start eating my own shoes soon.”
“I had to finish a lecture,” Hermann said. “How long have you been there?”
“Like an hour,” Newt said. “I wasn't actually gonna start eating my shoes, but if you could bring some snacks, that'd be great.”
“I never said I was going to come get you.”
“Please? I’ll buy you dinner.”
“You’ve already bought me dinner,” Hermann said, but he still rummaged through his bag to check that he had some cash with him. “I have to get a cab.”
“Oh my god, thank you--”
“I’ll let you know when I’m almost there,” Hermann said. “Try not to get arrested in the meantime.”
Hermann hung up, searching through the map on his phone to find an address nearest to the abandoned factory; Newt had told him about it before, with a promise that he wouldn’t make Hermann come check it out with him, but he hadn't really believed it even then.
“Hello,” he said into the phone a couple minutes later, “I need to get a cab to, ah…”
Hermann’s phone pinged a little ways into the ride over.
are you coming?
I’m on my way now, Hermann replied, closing the text window to check the map again. I’m a few miles away.
His phone pinged again with a dimly lit selfie of Newt in front of a large piece of machinery.
this place is creepy as shit
Hermann put his phone back in his pocket.
He got out not much later, about a block away from the factory. He could see Newt’s car parked once he got closer, with a new I BRAKE FOR BIGFOOT sticker on the bumper; the factory was huge and looming, the roof crumbling in places to reveal the beams that had been holding it up.
I’m here.
There was a loud thumping on the metal front door.
Hermann looked around to make sure no one was nearby before going over.
“Newt?”
“No, it’s Oogie Boogie,” Newt said. “Can you try it from the outside?”
Hermann tried the handle. “I don’t think I can open it from here.”
“Go to the window,” Newt said. “On the--your right.”
Most of the glass had been broken in; Newt waved at him from the other side with a wide grin.
“You ever picked a lock before?”
“No, and I’d really rather--”
“Well, you’re gonna,” Newt said, disappearing below the window before he popped back up again with the case Hermann remembered from the first time. “I’ll walk you through it.”
Hermann frowned before carefully reaching through for the case.
“Why don’t you just break the window and climb through?”
“I didn't come here to get tetanus,” Newt said as he walked back to the door, shouting over his shoulder, “It’s not that hard.”
“What do I do?”
“Open the thing, and the, uh, second piece on the right--wait, no, third on the right--wiggle that in there.”
Hermann had to pinch the case between his thumb and his cane to take out the pick with his free hand, prodding it into the lock.
“You got that?”
“Yes,” Hermann said. “What now?”
“Little thing farthest to the left,” Newt said. “You gotta put that in there, too.”
Hermann huffed and did as Newt said.
It took a while, Newt’s instructions getting more and more impatient until Hermann finally felt a click.
“I think I’ve got it.”
“Try the door now.”
It stuck at first, but with Newt shoving from the other end, the door finally creaked open.
“You're a hardened criminal already,” Newt said, dragging the door open a little wider. “Get in here.”
“I am not--”
“I mean there's a car coming,” Newt said, tugging at Hermann’s sleeve until he hurriedly packed up the case and followed Newt inside.
Newt hadn't been lying; Hermann peered out of the door, waiting until the car had passed before he said, “Alright, now let’s go--”
“And waste the trip over here?” Newt said, only just then letting go of Hermann’s sleeve, but not before giving his hand a quick squeeze. “I want to get some more pictures. Did you bring the snacks?”
“I told you I had to finish a lecture, I didn't make a pit stop.”
“Then just a couple pictures,” Newt said, turning back around to face the rest of the factory. “I’m getting hungry.”
Hermann frowned, looking back at the door. “You're going to get both of us stuck in here now.”
“I just closed it earlier ‘cause I didn't think it would lock again, it’s fine,” Newt said. “Just give me a couple minutes.”
“A couple minutes,” Hermann repeated. “That’s it.”
“Yeah, yeah, I heard you.”
Hermann followed him with one last look to the door.
He didn't want to follow Newt, but even without any promises of ghosts to run into, he couldn't shake the memory of the last time they had been in a similar position, the hairs at the back of his neck standing on end as he had waited in the doorway with his back to the hall before he had followed Newt into that bedroom.
That hadn't ended so well either, he thought, but he at least hadn't been on his own.
“I thought you said that was just a cover,” Hermann said, gesturing to the camera Newt had with the strap around his neck as he shot a picture of an old, rusted vat.
“Usually, yeah,” Newt said. “It’s gonna be demolished soon, though, I wanted to look around first.”
“And that hour and a half before I got here wasn't enough?”
“Not when I'd been trying to get out the whole time,” Newt said, clicking through the small screen on the camera as he passed by Hermann. “Kinda ruins the fun.”
Hermann rolled his eyes, about to comment on Newt’s idea of fun when he was interrupted first.
“Holy shit, dude,” Newt said. “Check it out.”
Hermann looked down at where Newt was pointing to the floor; he didn't see it at first, too dark to tell the difference between the floor and where the floor wasn't there anymore until he got closer.
“Is that a gate to hell or what?”
“A trip to the hospital is what it is,” Hermann said. He took a couple steps back.
Newt shrugged, looking around until he found a chunk of something that looked like it had come off from the ceiling; he pulled out his phone and switched on the flashlight before nudging the chunk over the edge of the hole, shining the light down into it, but even where Hermann was standing, he could see that the light didn't seem to reach the bottom.
It took longer than he had expected to hear a dull clunk.
“That's nuts,” Newt said, wiggling his phone in front of Hermann. “Hold this.”
Hermann stretched out his arm as much as he could to keep from having to go much closer while Newt took a couple pictures.
“This really isn't safe,” Hermann said, handing Newt’s phone back. “Let’s go.”
“Yeah, okay,” Newt mumbled, pocketing his phone and turning the camera off, turning back towards the door with another tug to Hermann’s sleeve. “I need something to eat.”
Newt waited at the door before waving Hermann after him once he could see that no one was nearby. It had started to get darker even in the short time they had been inside, the few windows not showing much of a difference, and Hermann had to pull his jacket a little tighter around himself as they walked back to Newt’s car.
“I haven't forgotten that you said you would be buying,” he said as he got in.
It took a couple tries before the ignition started. “How do you feel about diners?”
Hermann picked at his plate and a cup of coffee while Newt scarfed his down.
A part of him wondered if this counted as another date, and then wondered if almost all of them would involve trespassing.
“So, I was wondering,” Newt said, pausing to wash down a mouthful of food with some of his mocha, “I got this email--”
Hermann’s fork scraped over his plate.
Newt looked up. “You want to check it out?”
“It?”
“This one’s set to be demolished soon, too, so it’s kind of a time crunch, but the security guard--”
“Security guard?” Hermann asked; it was less crackpot than he had been expecting.
“Yeah, the town hired one ‘cause they got sick of kids breaking in, but then they got sick of paying for--”
“Are you sure they’re not just trying to keep their job?”
“It’s not like I can stop a building from being torn down,” Newt said, waggling his eyebrows as he added, “It’s a hospital.”
Hermann rolled his eyes. “Of course it is.”
“I know,” Newt said. “Not, like, one of those ooh, spooky institution and scary mentally ill people kinda hospitals--I don’t think it’s a murder, someone probably just died there and got stuck--he sent some pics…”
Newt pulled out his phone, swiping through it before handing it across the table to Hermann.
“What am I looking at?”
Newt leaned over and pointed to the corner of the picture; it wasn't very clear, a squat, wide building that wouldn't look like much at all without the fence and the NO TRESPASSING signs, a light on in one of the windows.
“It hasn't had power since it was shut down,” Newt said, “like, sixty years ago.”
“That's what you’re going on? A light?” Hermann asked. “That doesn't seem very--”
“Go to the next one.”
Hermann swiped to the right.
“Zoom in on the window.”
Hermann did; there was a figure in the lit window, blurred and out of focus.
“That just looks like someone managed to get in,” he said.
“That doesn’t explain the light--”
“A lamp, maybe--”
“Or the clothes,” Newt interrupted. “Zoom in some more.”
Hermann had to squint once he did, but Newt was right; it looked more like something out of a period piece.
Hermann opened his mouth and then immediately shut it again.
Newt had said it wasn't like the last time--at least as far as not seeming to be a murder--but like the last time, every attempt Hermann made to discredit it fell short.
He had tried not to think about the last time.
Somehow, it hadn't come up on their first real date, though Hermann didn't think that Newt being tactful enough to choose not to bring it up seemed particularly plausible, given the rest of his experience with him; he had tried not to think about it, and had mostly failed, bolting awake at night on more than one occasion with the vivid memory of that reporter in the wall, unable to get back to sleep again afterwards. When trying not to think about it didn't work, he fell back on trying to remind himself that it didn't make sense, that wasn't how the world worked, but there was no way he could deny everything that had happened.
Actually acknowledging it, out loud, was harder than he thought it would be.
“You said they don’t show in photos.”
“I said they didn't ‘cause those ones weren't really ghosts,” Newt said; he didn't seem to have the same problem. “This one is.”
“And what are you planning on doing about it?”
“Figure out whatever’s keeping him here and deal with it.”
It sounded so matter-of-fact when Newt said it, and his expression said the same, all certainty and expectation; Hermann wasn't sure he understood.
Newt hadn't said much about it, before, but there had been that mention of not being able to sleep afterwards, and Hermann didn't think he could forget the look on Newt’s face after he had crashed through the drywall and almost on top of that reporter’s body. Any reasonable person would have wanted to move on and put it behind them, wouldn’t have wanted to do it all over again, but he supposed that was the whole problem. Newt wasn't the most reasonable person.
And it had worked.
He thought of Newt’s face in the basement, and Newt calling him after a careless mistake in another abandoned building even with nothing abnormal for him to try to find, the determination and the way he had refused to drop it until he had found a solution.
Hermann couldn't imagine he was going to drop it this time, either.
He took a deep breath and picked at the last remaining smear of mashed potatoes on his plate.
“I’ll go with you.”
Newt grinned. “You doing anything this weekend?”
“No.”
“Good, ‘cause that’s when I told this guy I'd be coming.”
Hermann took another deep breath; no getting out of it now.
“What do you think is keeping him there?”
“I dunno yet,” Newt said. “Any records are being a huge pain in the ass to find, so I don’t know why he was there in the first place, but the security guard said there's still so much stuff left around that we’ll probably find something there.”
“I mean…” Hermann said, frowning to himself; it sounded ridiculous. “What could be keeping him there?”
“Something of sentimental value, or from a trauma, remains--”
“Newton--”
“Not, like, a body, necessarily--if it’s not a murder I don’t think it could be that, anyway--someone I know busted one when she found some hair in a locket--”
“Please don’t reference Ghostbusters when you’re talking about an actual dead person.”
“I’m gonna reference what I’m gonna reference, Hermann, you asked--”
“Alright,” Hermann interrupted. “Is that it?”
“Probably,” Newt said. “Those are the big ones.”
“And what are you going to do with it once you find it?”
“Depends.” Newt took a bite of his bagel, a few crumbs falling as he waved it around when he continued. “Probably gotta burn it--”
“You have cream cheese…”
“What?”
Hermann pointed to the corner of his mouth where there was a smear on Newt’s.
“Oh.” Newt wiped it off. “Anyway. That’d be the easiest, since burying it back with the body is kind of a pain.”
“Kind of.”
“I don’t have the upper body strength for grave robbing.”
Hermann almost told him to knock it off and stop making a joke out of it, but there was a tremor to his voice, his hand not quite steady on his fork, his eyes not meeting Hermann’s when he said it.
Hermann didn't tell him.
Newt finally looked up at him. “So you’re in?”
“I said I was.”
Newt’s smile then looked a little less giddy and a little more warm.
Newt texted him a list of things to bring the day before they had planned to go to the hospital.
Hermann didn't think they could possibly need any more flashlights than Newt already had, and he didn't have a backup camera--Newt would just have to make do--but he packed up the old flashlight from his kitchen drawer anyway, a portable phone charger and a couple pairs of nitrile gloves in a small backpack.
He was about to call to ask if Newt was running late when he heard a knock at the door.
He could see that same big backpack in Newt’s car when he opened it.
“I brought cat treats.”
Hermann stepped to the side for Newt to come in, pulling a plastic bag from his pocket and shaking it around until Alan Purring came tearing out from Hermann’s bedroom.
“There's my little dude,” Newt cooed, crouching down to give him a few treats and a scratch behind his ears; Hermann almost hoped he would get distracted and forget why he had come. “You want a chicken one? There's the chicken.”
Hermann left to fill up the wet food bowl.
Newt was still letting Alan Purring play with his shoelaces when Hermann came back.
“He could be our new mascot--”
“You are not bringing me into this,” Hermann said. “Or him. I still don’t want to be in one of your videos.”
“Yeah, cameraman, you’re good,” Newt said, petting him another couple times before standing up. “You ready to go?”
“I didn't have another camera.”
“No big,” Newt said. “I brought an extra memory card.”
“How long are you expecting us to be there?”
“I don’t know, but I’m not about to run out of space right when shit gets good,” he said, following Hermann to the car. “I learned that one the hard way and it sucked.”
“How far away is this place?”
“Not that far,” Newt said as he started the car. “Less than an hour, probably.”
Hermann frowned and tried to get comfortable.
“I did some more digging,” Newt said. “Still couldn't find a lot, but there were a couple malpractice settlements, so that’s not looking too good.”
It was starting to sound a little too close to the murder possibility again.
“Then they lost a bunch of funding, and people started being transferred out, and then it turned into the big creepy hangout spot.”
Hermann nodded along while Newt filled him in on the history of the hospital--he sounded like a Wikipedia page that had had too much caffeine--until he heard Newt say, “Hermann.”
“Mm?”
“What do you think?” he asked, glancing over at him for a second. “‘Cause I think that doctor’s got some fishy shit going on.”
“When did you say it was shut down?”
“The fifties.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised.”
Newt turned off of the highway a little while later, into a town that seemed to be mostly filled with small houses and a couple supermarkets, a Halloween store plastered with sale signs; it didn't strike Hermann as the kind of place that would be haunted.
He hoped he was right that time.
He felt a little less confident about that when the hospital came into view as Newt turned off the main road.
It didn't look much less foreboding in the soft early evening light than it had in the pictures Newt had shown him; most of the windows were barred over or boarded up, and it took a second for Hermann to remember which one the figure had been in, but that one was uncovered, the glass broken and the window frame warped from decades without any upkeep. There were NO TRESPASSING signs on almost every section of the fence surrounding it, a few spots where it looked like some attempts to break in had left it needing repairs.
“He said he'd be here,” Newt mumbled, slowing down so he could look around. “What time is it? The clock on the dash is busted.”
Hermann pulled out his phone. “Half past six.”
“Oh, we’re just early.”
Newt didn't have to drive any farther to find somewhere to park; there were spaces, but no other cars on that side of the street.
He and Newt got out, leaning against the side of the car while Newt checked through his backpack one more time before clicking through his phone.
“Yeah, it’s Newt, we’re outside,” he said, pausing before he added, “Right out front--cool.”
Hermann waited until he had hung up before asking, “Don’t you have a PhD?”
“PhDs,” Newt said, emphasizing that it was plural. “Why?”
“‘Newt’ doesn't sound particularly professional.”
“Dr. Geiszler just sounds pretentious when some guy’s asking you to catch a ghost, he already saw it on the website,” Newt said, putting on his backpack. “I’m all about that cozy customer service.”
A young, large man in a gray uniform came around the corner of the block before Hermann could say anything else.
“Newt?” he asked, holding his hand out for Newt to shake it before hesitantly moving his hand towards Hermann’s.
“And this is--” Newt cut off when Hermann nudged him with his elbow. “My associate.”
Hermann swapped which side he held his cane on to shake the security guard’s hand.
“You'll have to come around the back.”
Newt waited until he was a couple steps ahead of them before he whispered, “What’s the big deal?”
“One of us has a professional reputation to maintain.”
Newt rolled his eyes; the security guard slowed down a few feet later when he realized he was getting ahead of them.
“It’s just around here,” he said, taking a key ring from his belt to open the heavy lock chaining two sections of fence together, pulling it open with a loud, rusty creak. “I have to stay on my rounds, but I can leave it open a little for you guys.”
“Thanks,” Newt said as they followed him through the dead grass surrounding the hospital. “Has there been anything new?”
“Not really,” he said. “That light went on again last night, but I didn't see the kid.”
“Do you know anything about who he might be?” Hermann asked.
“All they told me is to keep an eye out for teenagers,” he said. “I caught some trying to open a filing cabinet in one of the offices a few months ago, it might still have some records.”
It took him a minute to find the key for the lock on the door.
“You remember which office it was?” Newt asked.
“You go up those stairs,” he said, hauling the door open and leading them inside before pointing down the left side of the hall, “and it’s the, uh, third door on your right.”
Newt tugged at the hem of Hermann’s sleeve. “Is that gonna work for you?”
“I’ll manage it.”
“Where’s the room with the lights?” Newt asked.
“Same floor, you gotta go around, and then it’s the fourth room on your left,” he said, pausing for a second. “I’ve never seen anything while I’ve been in there.”
“Where’s the morgue?”
Hermann raised an eyebrow.
“Downstairs in the basement,” the security guard said, checking his watch before he added, “I have to go, but if you need anything, call me, I’ll have my phone on.”
He nodded at Newt and Hermann on his way out, pulling the door until it was mostly shut; Newt nudged it, nodding to himself, heavy enough not to worry about it.
“Office or creepy mystery light room first?” Newt asked, pulling a headlamp from his backpack and putting it on before handing Hermann the GoPro, taking out the EMP meter next. “Your pick.”
“Office.”
The air grew thick with damp the farther in they walked towards the stairs, Newt’s headlamp shining on large patches of mildew and plants sprouting through the floor as he looked around.
“Is the camera on?”
“Oh, no, give me a moment,” Hermann said, fumbling so he could switch it on with his thumb without taking his other hand off of his cane. “Ready.”
Newt nodded and unsuccessfully tried to smooth his hair out from the band of the headlamp. “This is Newt back with our Halloween special at the old Litchview hospital, where I’ve gotten a local tip about a spectral body that’s been making unconfirmed appearances since at least the ‘70s,” he said, almost tripping as he walked backwards to keep facing the camera. “Until now.”
Hermann rolled his eyes.
“I got a couple pictures from a classified source, which you’ll remember from the last video probably means it’s a ghost, not like our last one.” He bumped the heel of his palm against the EMP meter and held it up towards the staircase. “But there’s not too much going on yet on the first floor.” He paused. “You can stop shooting for now.”
Hermann lowered the camera.
Newt took another flashlight out from his backpack, shining it over the steps and up the staircase before he said, “That looks pretty sturdy, are you--?”
“It’s fine,” Hermann said, waving Newt ahead of him.
It was, mostly, but Hermann still lagged behind him, no free hand to use the handrail with the GoPro--not that he wanted to, it looked disgusting--and Newt stopped a couple steps ahead of him to hold his hand out.
“Give me that,” he said, cinching the camera into a side pocket on his backpack, but he was still holding his arm out after.
“I don’t need help.”
“I want to get up there sometime this century.”
“Why not just find a different cameraman if you’re always going to be in such a rush?”
Newt wiggled his arm in front of Hermann. “I need my Scully.”
Hermann pursed his lips in a tight frown and held onto Newt’s upper arm for the rest of the walk up.
“Was it the third on the left?”
“Right,” Hermann said, pulling at Newt’s arm. “No, it’s the third on the right.”
“Right,” Newt repeated. “Get the camera back on.”
Newt waited until Hermann nodded at him before holding up the EMP meter.
“Can you see that?”
“Not very well.”
Newt pulled off his headlamp to shine on the EMP meter. “This is the floor where the sightings have been,” he said, pointing to the dial with his thumb, “and you can see the readings get a little higher up here.”
Hermann kept the camera running as Newt put his headlamp back on; the first two doors they passed were open, the rooms empty aside from a couple beer cans, but the third room was a mess.
The hinges squeaked as Newt pushed the door all the way open, a rusted office chair tipped over behind the desk with framed credentials lining the walls. The filing cabinet in the corner was dented, the paint chipping away, a few dings in the metal around a combination lock that looked like they were from someone trying to break it open.
“Ah, crap,” Newt mumbled, crouching down in front of it. “How are we supposed to get in there?”
“Try the address,” Hermann suggested; he put the camera down on the desk, reaching into his backpack for his flashlight.
“That didn't work,” Newt said a couple minutes later, pulling out his phone, and then, “The date when this place opened didn't, either.”
Hermann looked behind the desk, swishing a few spiderwebs out of the way with his cane, but there was nothing he could see with three usable numbers.
Hermann huffed and brushed some dust off of the edge so he could lean against it.
Newt kept muttering to himself as he tried more and more numbers, sounding increasingly irritated the longer he tried, and Hermann was about to tell him that they should just leave it and move on when he stopped with the flashlight shining on one of the frames.
“What about these?”
“What about them?” Newt asked.
Hermann pushed himself off from the desk with a slight wince, walking up to the first one closest to the door.
“Four, twelve, twenty-six,” he said.
The lock clicked as Newt spun it around to the numbers Hermann had told him, taking a deep breath before he pulled down on the lock.
“Oh, shit!” Newt clapped his hands together and tossed the lock to the side. “I can’t believe that--where did you find that?”
“It’s the date this doctor got his medical degree.”
“Fuckin’ Sherlock Holmes or something,” Newt said, sliding the cabinet open. “There's so much stuff in here…”
Hermann left Newt to look through it as he went back to the desk. He jumped when he heard the snap of what he realized a second later was Newt putting on a pair of the nitrile gloves, reaching into his backpack again to put on his own pair before pulling open one of the desk drawers.
“Can we trade?” Hermann squinted against the glare of the headlamp when Newt turned to look at him, gesturing towards his flashlight. “I need a free hand.”
“Yeah, you don’t want to sit on that,” Newt said, lightly kicking the chair on his way over to give Hermann the headlamp.
There wasn't much in the top drawer, a few blank, rotting pieces of paper and pens, a dead wasp at the back of it; Hermann pushed it shut to open the next one, and he didn't see anything in there, didn't feel anything when he reached into the back.
His wrist bumped the top of it, and he didn't think much of it at first, but then he remembered the basement in that last old house, and, “Newton.”
“What?”
“I might have found something.”
Newt put a file down on the desk when he came over. “That doesn't look like anything.”
“I know,” Hermann said, “but look. I don’t think it’s just warped.”
He held his hand sideways with his thumb straight up, the top of the drawer scraping his pointer finger, and when he did the same with the top one, there was a little more room above his hand.
“That’s something.”
Hermann nodded and stepped back; Newt shone the flashlight into the drawer, his fingers scraping against the wood as he reached in with a frustrated huff.
“Gimme the headlamp again.”
Newt put it back on, crouching down until he was low enough to look at the bottom of the open drawer, nearly on the floor. He had a cobweb in his hair when he stood up again. His eyes narrowed on Hermann’s cane before he shook his head to himself, crossing the room to a row of shelves Hermann hadn't seen until Newt had the headlamp turned towards it, his hands on his hips before he grabbed a large glass award with an inscription too covered in dust to read.
“You're not going to--”
“No one puts in a fake bottom for no reason,” Newt said, crouching down by the drawer again. “Knew this guy had some fishy shit going on.”
Hermann took another step back.
Newt held the drawer in place with his free hand, slamming up on the bottom of it with the award; the wood cracked, and Newt hit it again, another couple times before it came splintering down with a puff of dust and a small notebook.
Newt brushed some of the dust and a few wood chips from his legs as he stood up. “You're on a roll today.”
“What’s in the file?”
“Patient records,” Newt said, carefully opening the notebook, the paper yellowed and crackling. “I haven't looked through them too much yet--is there a Josiah in there? ‘Cause there's a Josiah in here. Ten bucks it’s that kid.”
Hermann slowly opened the file, holding his breath without fully realizing until it was flat without too much crumbling. The handwriting was almost unreadable, and Hermann had to put his glasses on before he could make any real attempts at looking through it.
“This doesn't list any first names.”
Newt nodded and mumbled something Hermann didn't catch, distracted by the notebook.
Hermann skimmed until he found a J.
“There's a J. Hanson who died in ‘42,” he said, “and a J. Ansel who died in ‘49, but John is so common--or James, maybe--I don’t think--”
“Look for the ‘50s,” Newt said.
The list of names stopped at 1954, and a few lines above that, one of the names had been blacked out.
“One of them is redacted.”
That got Newt’s attention.
“That would've been…” he said, coming around the desk to look at the file, “in ‘52, that's gotta be--”
Newt was cut off by the sound of his phone buzzing.
“Yeah, it’s…”
He trailed off, his eyes going wide before he abruptly hung up and ran out of the office.
“Where are you--?”
“The light’s on,” Newt shouted back.
Hermann followed him as quickly as he could manage, almost forgetting the camera on the desk; he had to go by the sound of Newt’s footsteps and the blinks of light he could see from Newt’s headlamp, but it didn't take any more looking to find the room Newt had run to.
The light coming out into the hallway was blinking unsteadily, Newt’s EMP meter nearly screeching; Newt was flicking the switch when he got there, but the light stayed on, ebbing brighter, the bulbs audibly crackling.
Hermann had only looked to the light switch and away from the window for a second before he looked back up.
“Newton.”
“Wh--?”
He didn't finish getting a word out before he turned around and went silent.
The boy by the window was clearer than the reporter and her murderer had been, a little flickery around the edges, not quite solid, but undeniably there, facing the two of them; he looked young, not quite an adult yet, gangly but still soft.
Hermann had to squint against how bright the lights became.
“It was you.”
“Are you Josiah?” Newt asked, holding the notebook out in front of him. “Is this you?”
“You did this,” the boy said, the lights buzzing before one of them popped, the rest still so bright it didn't make much difference. “Get out.”
“We’re here to help--”
“Get out!”
Another bulb popped.
“Newton--”
“I just--”
“Get out,” the boy said again, the lights buzzing almost as loud as Newt’s EMP meter before Hermann’s ears were ringing with the sound of the remaining bulbs shattering, the room suddenly dark.
Hermann couldn't see if the boy was still there, and he didn't have time for his eyes to adjust before Newt grabbed his arm and ran from the room.
“Newton--let go of me, I need that hand--”
“Sorry,” Newt said, letting go of Hermann’s arm only once they were back in the hallway. “Did you get any of that?”
“That’s what you’re worried about?”
“Did you not just see all of that? That was crazy, that was--that was gold, that kid was giving off more of his own electrical field than I’ve ever seen, of course I’m worried about--”
“The camera was on,” Hermann interrupted. “You're welcome for remembering to get it when you went running out, by the way--”
“Let me see,” Newt said, moving his hands out like he had forgotten for a second that he had the notebook in one and the EMP meter in the other; he put the EMP meter back in his bag, grabbing the camera from Hermann.
“What’s in the notebook?”
Newt looked up, and the excitement on his face from getting the recording was gone.
“Here.”
Hermann had to step closer to Newt to catch some of the light from his headlamp. The handwriting was the same messy scrawl as the file Newt had shown him, but as Hermann skimmed the first couple pages, there was only that one name mentioned; Hermann went back to read it more carefully, his heart beginning to pound the longer he went, not helped at all by the tinny voice coming from the camera shouting at them to get out.
“We need to go back to the office,” Hermann said, and when Newt didn't look away from the camera yet, “Newton.”
“What?”
“We need to go back to the office.”
Newt nodded and paused the recording a second later to go back with him.
Before, it had been expectedly eerie, the dark and the spiderwebs enough of an excuse for the way it had left the hairs at the back of Hermann’s neck prickling; he almost didn't want to go back inside, hesitating for a second in the doorway, but he didn't really have a choice.
It felt much more ominous than it had earlier, its contents more disturbing than just from being abandoned and understandably creepy. Newt was still watching through the recording again when Hermann went back to the desk to lay the notebook out flat, about to look through more of the files before he was interrupted.
“We gotta find the…” Newt said, putting the camera back in his bag as he went back to the desk to look at the notebook again. “There's a--he mentioned it in here, I don’t think it’s one of the patient rooms, they’re too public--”
“What?”
“Where he did the tests,” Newt said, his leg bouncing with the effort of not rushing through the fragile pages. “He would have had to be left alone for a while, right, so someone would have probably showed up one of those times if he’d been doing it back there.” He gestured towards the hallway. “Unless he--shit, I don’t know--”
“The morgue?” Hermann asked, only remembering because Newt had brought it up earlier. “He only would have needed one person in the know to get in, I can’t imagine it would have gotten much traffic that he wouldn’t know of ahead of time.”
Newt’s eyes went wide, his shoulders suddenly straighter. “You good to get down there?”
“I’m already here,” Hermann said. “I wasn't exactly expecting a quiet night in.”
“Okay,” Newt said, nodding to himself before he dug a napkin out of his backpack to wrap the notebook in, carefully sliding it into a flat side pocket. “Morgue it is.”
Hermann didn't protest when Newt took his flashlight and held out his arm for Hermann to lean on as they went back to the ground floor.
“Where’d he say we have to go?” Newt asked, giving Hermann his flashlight back and looking up and down the dark hallway.
“He just said the basement.”
Newt tucked the EMP meter under his arm to take out his phone, typing for a few seconds before he pointed to the right.
“Let’s try that way.”
It was only a couple minutes before Hermann heard Newt’s phone buzz.
“Wait, no, other way.”
Hermann bit back a huff and turned around. “Where did he say it was?”
“There's a door marked as staff only,” Newt said, looking at each of the rooms they passed; most had been left open, almost all of them empty aside from a couple musty beds and rolling tables, the handful of closed doors only marked by room numbers. “He said it’s around…”
They turned the corner, Hermann shining the flashlight over the doors on the left side of the hallway while Newt looked over the right.
“That looks like it used to have a sign,” Hermann said; the door didn't have a number, but there was a rectangular patch that wasn't quite the same shade as the rest of it.
The knob was locked when Newt tried it. “Can’t make any of this easy for me, can you, dead guy…”
Hermann could still hear the EMP meter beeping when Newt put it back in his bag to take out the lockpicking kit. He turned so his back was to the wall while Newt crouched down in front of the door, stifling a shudder; it had gotten colder the farther they got into the hospital, even with the air too stuffy and still for much to be coming in from outside, but the beeping wasn't helping any, leaving Hermann’s skin prickling.
“Are you getting anywhere with that?”
“Give me a minute, this thing is so rusted,” Newt mumbled, swearing under his breath before he eventually said, “God, finally.”
Hermann took a deep breath, and Newt hauled the heavy door open.
Newt put away the lockpicking kit and took out the EMP meter again, the beeping growing steadily faster as they walked down the sloped hallway that didn't seem much different from the rest until they reached a desk and another door at the end.
“Oh, come on--”
“There might be a key,” Hermann said, gesturing with his flashlight towards the desk.
“I hope so, my hands are getting tired.”
Hermann walked up to the door while Newt started looking through the desk drawers, leaving his backpack on top of it; there was a fogged window that he couldn't see much through when he held the flashlight up to it, the vague shapes of exam tables and not much else.
“You're really on a roll today,” Newt said, jingling a key with a chain that looked like it had been broken off of something.
It slipped right into the lock.
Hermann hadn't been sure what to expect; a body, maybe, or something suddenly jumping out--Newt must be starting to rub off on him--but all that came was the beeping from the EMP meter getting even faster, the chill setting in deeper as he looked over the dusty, rusting exam tables and the small metal doors set into the wall.
Newt tied the chain into his belt loop and grabbed the EMP meter from the desk.
“You know,” Newt said, holding the EMP meter up to the wall with the metal doors, “I was really hoping there wasn't gonna be a body this time, like, it’s a ghost, it doesn't need a body…”
He opened each of the metal doors, straining against the weight and the rust, but each of them was empty.
“There’s nothing here,” Newt said, his voice unsteady. “How is there nothing here? The EMP--”
“Are you sure that was the Josiah in the notebook?”
Newt frowned at him. “Who else would he be?”
“He wasn't dressed like a patient,” Hermann said. “And he never gave you an answer when you asked if that was him.”
Newt opened and shut his mouth a couple times before he looked back down at the notebook.
He tilted his headlamp down, carefully flipping through the pages again until he said, “Can you read this? This guy wrote like his eyes were closed.”
Hermann had to put on his reading glasses again. “Josiah had to be younger,” he said. “That boy had to be at least a teenager, Josiah was only five feet tall.”
Newt quickly started wrapping up the notebook again. “We gotta go back to the office.”
Hermann didn't have any inclination to stay down there any longer than he needed to; he picked up his flashlight while Newt was still taking care of the notebook, walking out a few feet ahead of him, but he had only just gotten through the door when it suddenly slammed shut.
“Newton?”
Newt’s voice was muffled when he shouted, “Hermann, what the fuck--?”
“I thought you--”
“No! Why the hell would I--”
Newt suddenly went quiet; the beeping didn't. Hermann could hear it through the door, even louder than before, but all he could see through the fogged window was the beam from Newt’s headlamp.
“Newton,” he said again. “What’s going on?”
“Get the door,” Newt said, his voice jumping in pitch; Hermann could see Newt’s silhouette backing against the window. “Hermann! Get the door, there's no lock on this side!”
The knob didn't budge.
“I can’t--”
“Get the kit!”
Hermann rushed back to the desk, digging through Newt’s backpack until he found it; he almost dropped it with the way his hand was shaking, laying it out on the desk instead to grab a couple picks that looked familiar from when he had had to break Newt out a few days before.
“Hermann--”
“I’m working on it.”
The lights inside flickered on, and the voice he heard next wasn't Newt’s.
“You did this,” the boy from the upstairs room said again. “You can’t just get away with it, how many other--?”
“I didn’t do anything, I wasn’t even there,” he heard Newt say. “I’m trying to help--”
“This is your fault!”
Hermann had to take a deep breath, forcing his hands as steady as he could manage as he jiggled the first pick into the lock.
“Newton, stop wiggling it, I’m trying--”
“Then hurry up!”
Hermann didn't realize he was biting the inside of his cheek until he tasted copper; the second pick didn’t fit, and he almost tripped over himself as he rushed back to the desk, his wrist starting to ache from how heavily he had to lean on his cane. He grabbed another few picks, almost dropping one again before the third he tried finally made the lock click.
Hermann was still crouched by the door when Newt came crashing out, knocking them both to the floor; the lights were still flickering above the boy, but before they could try to stand up, the lights went out again, leaving nothing but Newt’s headlamp and the flashlight Hermann had left on the desk, and the boy was gone.
Newt’s whole body was trembling against Hermann’s.
Neither of them could get themselves to move at first; Newt’s hand was like a vice around Hermann’s wrist, the pain in Hermann’s hip from hitting the floor pushed to the back of his mind as they both stared into the morgue, but the seconds kept ticking by, and nothing else came.
“Newton,” Hermann asked, “what just happened?”
He could feel Newt’s breathing, heavy, his back to Hermann’s chest.
“We gotta go back to the office,” he repeated eventually, shakily standing up and holding out a hand to help Hermann up. “Sorry, shit--”
“It’s fine,” Hermann said, but he still had to lean more weight than usual on his right leg. “I think we should go.”
“What? No, we’re so close, we just have to find what--”
“You're going to get yourself killed--”
“That kid already did!” Newt snapped. “You seriously think I’m going to just give up after that?”
Any reasonable person would, Hermann wanted to say, but he had already had to accept that Newt wasn't, so he didn't, not with the determination mixed in with the fear in Newt’s expression; he wasn't going to stop, and the best Hermann could do was keep Newt from doing it by himself.
“Alright,” he said, about to bend down for the picks he had dropped, but Newt got to them first. “What do you need from the office?”
“Those records,” Newt said, packing everything up again; the beeping from the EMP meter had slowed down again. “If that’s not Josiah, we still need to figure out who--do you think they'd have visitor logs anywhere?”
“I don’t think that doctor would have had them.”
“Yeah, probably not,” Newt mumbled, turning to look back at the morgue before he nodded towards the other end of the hall. “Are you going to be okay getting back up there?”
“I’ll manage.”
He would have to; he wasn't about to leave Newt on his own again after that.
They were slow to get back up to the second floor, but Newt didn't make any more comments about it, wordlessly holding his arm out to help Hermann up the stairs.
He didn't say anything at all until they made it back to the office, digging through the filing cabinet again.
“It doesn't look like he was doing this shit to all his patients,” Newt said, thumbing through the pages and taking a few out to leave next to him as he kept looking. “Like, the kid was the only one in the notebook, but--”
“Those malpractice settlements?” Hermann asked. “Is there anything about that?”
“Those ones looked kinda sketch,” Newt said, gesturing to the files he had taken out. “I couldn't find the names when I was looking this stuff up before, though, just that it happened.”
Newt held them up so Hermann wouldn't have to bend down to take them.
Those were typed, at least, and Hermann didn't have to try so hard to be able to read them like he had with the doctor’s handwriting; there were signed consent forms and descriptions of basic, simple operations, but the notes--not so lucky that time, the same messy scrawl--described more than had been called for, separate exams done and treatments that hadn't been signed off on.
“I think these are the malpractices,” Hermann said. “They didn't agree to everything that was done.”
“Sounds like our guy,” Newt said, absently picking at a tear in the nitrile glove just above his wrist. “I still can’t find anything else about the kid. Or the other kid. The dead one. Ghost-dead one.”
“There was that redacted--”
“Wait,” Newt said, abruptly standing up and clapping his hands together. “Those were all just pretty routine ops, right? On adults?”
“Nothing too complicated,” Hermann said. “And they signed their own forms, I don’t think any of them were minors.”
“The stuff in the notebook was complicated,” Newt said. “And longterm. Couple malpractices like the other stuff, that’s, like, doable, that can slide, it’s the fifties, everything was fucked up, ‘course he’s not gonna do the serious stuff on someone who could even try to sue.”
“If he was doing this on a child--and it was after the first couple of these, too, that couldn't have been too hard to find out--the parents could have--”
“Not if he didn't have parents.”
“You think he was an orphan?”
“I mean, probably, right?” Newt said. “He wouldn't really have anyone to do anything about it, and the doctor would have known.”
“But if that--in the room, and the morgue, if that wasn’t Josiah--”
“He looked like a teenager,” Newt said. “What if he’d just gotten old enough to get custody?”
“And that’s how he found out.”
“This guy probably didn't think he had any family to find out,” Newt said, “so he killed our guy to cover it up.”
There were a few seconds with nothing but the slow, steady beeping of the EMP meter before Hermann asked, “What now, then?”
“Murder weapon?”
“What?”
“That’s probably what’s keeping him here,” Newt said. “Like, that’s one hell of a trauma, and there's no body, so…”
Hermann had to squint against the headlamp when Newt turned to face him more fully, but he could see Newt’s eyes falling on the heavy award still on the floor from when he had used it to break through the desk drawer.
“He’s a doctor,” Hermann said. “He would have had plenty of ways to do it that wouldn't have made such a mess.”
“Won’t know until we try it.”
Try it, apparently, meant Newt tearing out one of the drawers from the metal filing cabinet, setting it down in the middle of the floor before taking his lighter out of his pocket and crushing it under his boot, the fluid spilling out over the bottom of the drawer. He put the award in next, rolling it around in the lighter fluid to try to cover it as much as possible before digging through his backpack for a small book of matches from a restaurant Hermann didn't recognize the name of.
“It’s gonna suck if this doesn't work,” Newt said, lighting one of the matches, “I just got that lighter, like, two days ago.”
Hermann stepped back as far as he could and held his sleeve over his nose before Newt dropped the match.
The fluid lit with a loud whoosh, the flame stinging Hermann’s eyes from how dark the rest of the room was; Newt kept looking into the drawer every few seconds, his foot bouncing until there was a crack of something breaking apart.
“This is gonna take forever,” Newt said. “You got a lighter on you?”
Hermann frowned and handed Newt the one in his pocket.
It took a couple seconds for the plastic to melt before the fire crackled, bigger than before, more cracking sounds from the award until Newt finally said, “Let’s go check that room again.”
“I don’t think we should leave this.”
Newt frowned, hands on his hips as he looked around the room before carefully emptying the files from another drawer onto the desk, flipping it upside down and sliding it over the one on the floor until the fire ran out of air.
Hermann followed Newt back out, the musty, damp air still feeling clearer than the smoke in the office.
The EMP meter still kept beeping.
“I don’t think that was it,” Hermann said.
“This guy’s really not making this easy for me,” Newt mumbled, holding the EMP meter up as he walked around the room before he looked up at the ceiling. “Can I use your flashlight?”
Hermann handed it over; Newt had to lean up on his toes to try to get a look at the lights, most of them broken from before, but a couple still looked to be mostly intact.
“I don’t know what else…”
Hermann looked behind him before stepping out of the way of the doorway so his back was to the wall.
Newt kept walking around the room, giving Hermann his flashlight back as he passed him before he continued.
Hermann thought.
He still didn't think the award could have been the murder weapon, too messy, even if Newt hadn't already tried burning it; if it had been something like an injection--the doctor would have had all the supplies right at hand--there was no way they would be able to get ahold of that to burn, and any syringes would likely have already been destroyed decades ago, leaving them out of options, unless, “What if it’s not the murder weapon that’s keeping him here?”
Newt still kept walking with the EMP meter. “What?”
“You said it could be something related to a trauma, and the murder itself--you said--that’s quite a trauma, but…”
He had never talked to Newt about it; it had never come up, and he hadn't felt the need to bring it up, old news even when they had first been talking years ago. He had put it behind him, leaving all the blood tests and scans and the not knowing at the back of his mind, untouched, favoring moving on over thinking about it once he no longer had to, and his chest felt tight from more than just the thick air at having to think about it again then.
“What if it’s the hospital?”
Newt stopped halfway around the room. “What do you mean?”
Hermann took a deep breath and cleared his throat. “When I was younger,” he said, “while I was still getting diagnosed. I didn’t see a doctor for almost a year afterwards, until I absolutely needed to, it made me sick to my stomach just to think about--hospitals, mostly, but even doctor’s offices had that smell, you know, sterile. And they all use the same soap.”
Newt nodded.
“So, what if it’s the hospital itself?” Hermann repeated. “If you’re right about who that boy was--both of them--he would have just gotten to his brother only to find out what was happening to his brother, here, at the hands of a doctor. I don’t think anyone would be too keen on any sort of hospital setting after that, let alone one where he and his brother were killed.”
“The hospital’s the trauma,” Newt said, accidentally knocking the EMP meter against the side of his head like he had forgotten he was holding it when he brought his hands up to his face. “Oh my god, we’re going to have to--”
“But you said it’s being demolished soon--”
“That’s not gonna work,” Newt said. “It’s gotta be burned.”
“You can’t be serious.”
Newt raised his eyebrows.
Of course he was serious.
“We’re gonna have to make it look like an accident,” Newt said, tapping the EMP meter against his chin. “And we’re out of lighters anyway.”
“Won’t it be obvious that it wasn't an accident with the fire we just started in the office?”
“We put it out, it’s close enough to Halloween, that’s totally the kind of thing some teenagers would do, we just…”
He trailed off, looking back up to the ceiling lights.
“We gotta get that kid to come back.”
“You're going to try to start an electrical fire?”
“I’m going to start an electrical fire,” Newt said. “It’s gonna work.”
“With what?”
Newt frowned and looked around the room.
He walked out without a word; Hermann followed him as he looked into the rest of the patient rooms, all empty until he made it to the last one in that hallway, his headlamp glinting off of a metal bar attached to the ceiling that looked like it used to hold a curtain.
Newt took off his backpack, leaving it on the floor and giving Hermann the EMP meter on his way across the room.
It took a couple jumps, but his hands finally caught on the bar; it creaked, a couple bolts coming loose before Newt’s hands slipped and he had to try again. The second time he got it, it creaked again, his legs swinging as he tried to pull it down before it fell with a loud crash and a thick plume of dust, a few ceiling tiles tumbling away.
“Newton--!”
“It’s cool, I’m good, it’s cool,” Newt said; he coughed a couple times before he stood up, bar in hand. “Let’s go commit some arson.”
“You really don’t have to put it like that.”
“That's what it is,” Newt said, setting the bar down to pick up his backpack, EMP meter in one hand and the bar in the other. “It’s for a good cause.”
Hermann’s heart was racing as they went back to the other patient room; breaking and entering was one thing, two out of the three with some level of permission, but arson was something else entirely.
“You should probably go back downstairs,” Newt said, looking down at the EMP meter.
“Are you forgetting what happened the last time I left you alone here for all of a few seconds?”
“Hermann--”
“I’m not going downstairs,” Hermann said. “I’ll take something at home if I have to.”
Newt frowned at him, a crease appearing between his eyebrows before he said, “Okay.”
He tucked the EMP meter under his arm so he could take the notebook out again.
“Hey, ghost!” he shouted, holding the notebook out in front of him. “I know what happened to your brother.”
Hermann went back to the door to make sure it didn't close on them like it had in the morgue.
The remaining lights didn't flicker.
Newt kept standing there, his shoulders eventually sagging when, still, nothing happened, the EMP meter keeping up its slow, steady beep.
“Wasn't the meter going higher in the morgue?” Hermann asked.
“Yeah…” Newt mumbled, putting the notebook back in his bag. “Let’s try the morgue.”
Newt held his arm out to help Hermann down the stairs again, still looking down at the EMP meter every few seconds as they made their way to the morgue. The door to the hallway was still unlocked, and Newt dug around his backpack until he found a roll of duct tape, heavily covering the latch in a few layers so it wouldn't be able to lock them in.
The beeping started getting a little quicker as they made their way down the sloped hallway.
Newt started tapping the pole against the wall as they got closer to the morgue, the dull clanks echoing through the hall; there was still only the light from Newt’s headlamp and Hermann’s flashlight, nothing up ahead of them, but the beeping became even faster, until Newt stopped at the desk to put the EMP meter back in his bag.
“Are you gonna be good without that?” he asked, gesturing to Hermann’s flashlight; Hermann put that away, too. “Okay…”
Hermann waited in the doorway to the morgue while Newt took the notebook back out.
“Still here?”
There was no response.
They waited, and waited, and just when Newt turned around, about to say they should try somewhere else, the first row of lights hanging from the ceiling flickered on.
Hermann couldn't tell if it was the lighting or if Newt’s face had really gone that pale.
Newt turned around again, and the boy appeared in the corner.
“I know what you--”
“I didn't do that,” Newt interrupted, his voice trembling slightly before he took a deep breath and continued, tightening his grip on the pole. “I know what happened, okay, but--”
“You can’t just hide it,” the boy said, the next row of lights blinking on, his body flickering with the light bulbs. “How could you do this? He was just--”
“I’m sorry,” Newt blurted out, taking a step back; Hermann could see his head tilt up, looking at the lights, but the only ones that were on were still closer to the other side of the room. “He’s--that doctor’s dead by now.”
The boy bristled, and the rest of the lights flickered on, buzzing, brighter than it seemed like they should be.
“You're lying,” he said. “All of you--”
Newt didn't waste any more time.
He threw the pole up at the lights, hitting the closest two rows, breaking apart with a flurry of spark and smoke, but it wasn’t enough; he shouldn't have left the door, he knew, but one hit wasn't going to do it, and Hermann had just replaced the rubber tip on his cane a few weeks ago, too recently to have worn down much yet.
His leg almost buckled with the sharp pang shooting up through his hip when he lost the support as he lifted his cane up from the floor, hitting it square at the nearest row of lights.
That alone didn't get the job done, but the row came crashing down, narrowly missing Newt before he jumped out of the way, and that did it; more smoke came bubbling up from the cracked lights before flames started billowing out of it, small at first, but it was only a couple seconds before Newt grabbed Hermann’s arm--his left, this time, at least--and ran.
Hermann almost couldn't keep up.
He could smell the smoke creeping after them, barely registering Newt’s arm at his waist after he stumbled over the pain in his leg, holding up enough of Hermann’s weight that he could go a little faster up the incline. Newt shoved his shoulder against the door once they finally reached it, pulling Hermann through before he ripped the tape from the lock, pushing the door until it clicked open and stayed that way.
They needed it to spread.
“Please, please, please,” Newt muttered, breathless by the time they reached the back door they had entered through, before, “Oh, thank fuck.”
The chill outside felt like a smack compared to the still, heavy dampness and the smoke, creeping out behind them when Hermann looked back before Newt shoved the door shut.
“Let’s go, let’s go,” Newt said, grabbing Hermann’s hand as he started booking it through the dead grass to get to the fence. He didn't stop, didn't slow down except to look around once they reached the front before taking off again towards his car.
“Shouldn't we tell the--?”
“Plausible deniability,” Newt said, barely giving Hermann time to clip in his seatbelt before tearing off from the curb. “Can’t get shit for it if he doesn't know we did it.”
Hermann might have told Newt that it wasn't like there was much question about it, with them being the only other people there, if his heart hadn't still been pounding so hard that it felt like it could jump out of his throat.
Newt didn't say anything about how they hadn't gotten any more footage.
He didn't say much at all, his voice thready and unsteady as he complained about traffic or someone not using their turn signal.
One of them was going to have to say it eventually.
The traffic thinned out, not many other cars as they left the highway, most of the way back once Hermann asked, “Do you think it’s going to work?”
Newt didn't say anything yet; his eyes were still firmly on the road when Hermann looked over, his knuckles white with how tightly he was gripping the steering wheel.
“It better.”
Hermann had to grit his teeth against the pain throbbing through his hip and his leg with the adrenaline quickly wearing off.
It wasn't easier than the last time; he felt out of place, watching the houses and the couple people here and there walking their dogs, like nothing had happened, again, no one else but Newt knowing what had happened in the hospital either just then or a few decades earlier. It felt like an uneven pressure, the urgency still rushing inside him but nowhere else, like it could burst, and it only got bigger when Newt pulled into Hermann’s driveway.
Neither of them said anything for a minute.
“Do you want to come in?”
Newt nodded.
That pressure eased up a little then.
Newt dropped to the floor as soon as they got inside, crossing his legs for Alan Purring to come sit on his lap. “You want some more treats? I got some more treats.”
Each step felt like a mile as Hermann walked to the closest kitchen chair while Newt lay out an excessive amount of treats over his leg.
He wasn't sure what to do with himself, still feeling caught between what they had just had to do and what they would have to do now, keep going as if everything was normal--maybe this was normal, for Newt--so he did what he usually did when he didn't know what else to, and stood up for the kettle.
He didn't make it very far up from the chair before he had to sit down again with a wince that didn't go unnoticed.
“Are you okay?”
“It’s fine,” he said.
Newt left a trail of treats leading off of his lap so Alan Purring would get off of him before he stood up. He started the hot water, opening the cabinet with the tea and the mugs before he said, “Who needs this many different…do you have any hot chocolate?”
“It’s in the back,” Hermann said. “I can--”
“I know you can,” Newt said, emptying out most of one of the shelves before he found the packets of hot chocolate. “Just--which are you having?”
“Blue tin near the front.”
“There's two.”
“Lighter blue.”
Newt started microwaving a mug of milk for the hot chocolate next, and then it looked like he didn't know what to do with himself either.
“How are we going to know if it worked?”
Newt took a deep breath. “I don’t know. There are some forums I can keep an eye on if anyone gets more pictures or something, but…”
The only sound in the room was the water heating up and the crunch of Alan Purring finishing the treats Newt had left until the kettle finally clicked.
“Do you need something for…” Newt started to say, pouring the water before gesturing vaguely towards Hermann, “that?”
Hermann grit his teeth as he pushed himself up with most of his weight on his cane. “Give me a minute.”
He was slow to make it to the bathroom, shaking the orange pill bottle in the medicine cabinet before looking at the date on it with a frown. It wouldn’t really do much, he knew, but he went for the Advil instead; he could only imagine it would feel worse in the next couple days, and he had work, too much time before he would be able to get another prescription to risk wasting it.
Newt had pulled out the other chair at the kitchen table with Alan Purring on his lap again and the mug of hot chocolate in front of him when Hermann came back out.
“No, no, do not eat--”
Hermann hadn't seen the notebook in his hand until Newt had to hold it out of the way. He slumped down in the chair across from Newt, his tea already milked and set out for him.
“What are you doing with that?”
“I need pictures,” Newt said, keeping the cat away with his arm as he held the notebook in one hand and held his phone above it in the other. “We should probably burn this too. Or not. I don’t know. It’s still creeping me out.”
“There are jars in the next cabinet,” Hermann said, before clarifying, “I don’t need to deal with any more fires today.”
Newt waited until Alan Purring got up from his lap before looking through the cabinet for a jar.
“Would you do that outside, please?” Hermann asked. “You can go out the back, the neighbors--”
“Yeah, gotcha.” He dropped the notebook into the jar, hesitating for a second before he asked, “Do you smoke?”
“We just--”
“I mean.” Newt held his thumb and pointer finger together near his mouth.
“I have.”
“Do you want to?”
The Advil was still only doing its expected nothing. “I wouldn’t say no to it.”
Newt nodded and left the jar on the counter before going back out to his car; he came back in a few seconds later, his hand loosely clasped around a joint he put in his mouth once he was back inside.
Newt held his hand out to pull Hermann up with a little more support than just his cane before picking up the jar again.
“I’ll see you in a minute, you little nugget,” Newt said, leaning down to scratch between Alan Purring’s ears before following Hermann outside.
There wasn't much of a yard, a small space with patchy grass and an old lawn chair that Newt stood next to while Hermann sat down; he put the jar on the armrest, going through two of his remaining matches before the joint finally lit.
“You're not planning on driving after this, are you?” Hermann asked, taking it after Newt had gotten a couple hits. “You're bad enough as it is.”
“Says the guy who couldn't get his license,” Newt said. He paused, his eyes searching Hermann’s face while he waited for him to hand the joint back; Hermann knew what he was implying, and it seemed like Newt did, too, after a few seconds and another couple hits, adding, “Nowhere else I have to be.”
Hermann nodded, and Newt gave the joint back.
It had been a while, and it didn't take long for Hermann to start feeling comfortably fuzzy, the pain a little duller and easier to ignore.
“What are you going to do with the pictures?”
“What?”
Hermann gestured to the jar.
“Oh, shit, right,” Newt said, putting the jar on the ground and tossing a couple matches in while Hermann took his next couple hits. “Post them, I guess, like, guy’s dead, doesn't mean we can’t still get it out there.”
Hermann forgot to give the joint back until Newt bumped his hand, distracted by the paper curling and crackling, the last of that doctor’s experiments burning up with the rest of what he had left behind.
They could still get it out there, but, “Hunting ghosts doesn't sound like the most credible…” He paused, frowning, the words not quite coming. “People might just think it was faked.”
“They can go fuck themselves--”
“Keep your voice down, I still have neighbors.”
Newt’s jaw clenched, a thick puff of smoke coming out from his nose before he gave Hermann the joint again.
Newt took out his phone, swiping through the pictures before he suddenly went stiff and looked back up at Hermann.
“You didn't leave the camera--?”
“No, I got it,” Hermann said. “I wouldn’t have left something that obvious.”
Newt nodded and took the joint back. “There goes my Halloween video.”
“You got some of it,” Hermann said. “And those pictures.”
“Yeah, I guess.” Newt flicked away some of the ash. “You want to finish it?”
Hermann took the joint back for the last hit. He snubbed it out under his shoe, about to stand when Newt held his hand out to help him up.
“You got anything for dinner?”
“There should be something in the freezer,” Hermann said. “I need a shower.”
Newt started the toaster oven for some chicken nuggets Hermann had forgotten about while he got a change of clothes before going into the bathroom; it was a little easier to push back the unsettling normalcy of it with the gritty, foggy feeling in his head, focusing as much as he could on getting his shower chair at the right angle instead. His clothes smelled like smoke, not just the kind he didn't mind thinking about, and he left them in the corner to deal with later once he finally got the smell out of his hair and the dusty feeling from his skin, scrubbing away the memory of that hospital until he felt raw. He wondered when the fire department would have come. He tried not to think about what they would find.
Newt was smearing his last chicken nugget around in some ketchup with his free hand keeping Alan Purring away from it when Hermann got back out, and the feeling of being out of place was replaced with not knowing what to do with himself again, but not for quite the same reason as before.
“There's an extra towel in the bathroom.” It was a loaded statement, and not the first, but neither of them had said anything about how long Newt wouldn’t be driving after they had smoked, whether just for a while, where he could just shower when he got home, or, “I should have some extra sweatpants somewhere.”
Newt was distracted by that just long enough for Alan Purring to get the last bite of the chicken nugget. “Hey, no, you fiend--”
“You've still got…” Hermann added, gesturing towards his hair, “spiderwebs.”
Newt’s hand came back a little sticky when he touched his hair with a grimace. “Oh, that's gross.”
“It’s disgusting.”
“Like you were looking any better,” Newt said, gently lifting Alan Purring up from his lap and onto the floor. “Sorry, buddy.”
Newt hovered outside the bathroom while Hermann went to find some spare clothes.
“You don’t want to turn the knob more than halfway,” Hermann said, handing him an old uni shirt and a pair of sweatpants. “I don’t know why it gets that hot.”
“I always figured you'd have grandpa pajamas.”
“What?”
“Like, you know, the button-up kind, with the collar, maybe a hat--”
“I’m not Scrooge.”
Hermann heard the water start a couple minutes after he went back to his room.
He sat down on his bed, leaving his cane propped against the headboard; it felt too quiet, too still to distract him from the rest of that evening. He still woke up from nightmares of that reporter’s murder, her body in the basement, and that had been bad enough, but the worry of getting caught, if the security guard said anything, was pushed to the back of his mind behind the anger in that boy’s voice down in the morgue, the way he had talked to Newt as if he was the one who had done it. It didn't seem like he knew it had been over sixty years since the hospital had closed down. He had been existing with that anger still fresh and raw that whole time, like none of it had passed at all.
Hermann took a deep, shuddery breath and adjusted his pillows.
He didn't hear the water turn off, didn't realize until Newt poked his head in the door.
“You got, like, a couch or something--?”
“You could stay here,” he said. You should stay here, he wanted to say, I want you to stay here, but all he managed was, “There’s enough room.”
Newt blinked, his eyes going a little wider as he pushed the door open. “I, uh, don’t have any--”
“You've deeply misread this situation if you think I have the energy for any of that.”
Newt looked a little less stiff as he closed the door, leaving it open just enough for Alan Purring to come in and out without Hermann having to tell him to.
Newt waited until Hermann had tucked a pillow between his knees and under his hips before getting in next to him, leaving his glasses on the headboard and lying on his back closer to the edge of the bed than he really needed to be, more space left between them than Hermann really wanted. The backs of their fingers were just barely brushing up against each other under the blankets.
Hermann inched his fingers a little closer, and Newt did, too, until they were loosely linked together, before Newt turned onto his side and said, “You totally saved my ass back there.”
“I know,” Hermann said. “Someone’s got to keep you from getting yourself killed one of these times.”
“I wasn't gonna get myself killed--”
“Locked in a morgue.”
“You really don’t have to remind me, you know that--”
“Sorry.”
He hadn't realized how long Newt’s eyelashes were until he saw him without his glasses, so close up, even with just the dim light filtering in from the streetlights outside.
“Does that count as a date?”
“I’d really hope not,” Hermann said. “Go to sleep.”
Newt still didn't close his eyes yet, and Hermann didn't, either, neither of them looking right at each other at first, and then neither of them looked away.
It was warmer than usual under the blankets with both of them.
Newt bit his bottom lip, glancing down at Hermann’s, not quickly enough for it to go unnoticed.
Newt’s eyebrow twitched almost imperceptibly, questioning, and maybe it was just because he was so tired, or still fuzzy from the joint they had shared, but Hermann didn't give himself the time to overthink it before he leaned forward.
There was the faint taste of Hermann’s toothpaste on his mouth, his fingers twitching before holding onto Hermann’s a little tighter, his lips soft and just a little chapped; Newt finally moved in a bit closer from the edge of the bed, and didn't move any farther away when Hermann pulled back slightly.
“Go to sleep, Newton.”