"We should ask Nora," Derek declared. "If there's any records about why this place really closed, she would have found them."

"Good idea. Should I join you and film that, or should I go join Tate and Amy?" Zac asked.

"Hm. They'll probably be done setting up by now," Derek said. "I'm not sure you'll get much good footage of me and Nora rifling through her research notes, though."

"I was going to check the attic," Bob suggested. "I figured you'd want to film up there, what with the stories."

"Stories?" Zac asked.

"Well, it was the children's ward," Bob explained. "People claim to hear laughter, kids singing, footsteps, all that stuff. I have a buddy who worked here before it closed down, and he refused to do any repair work up there, ever. So did everyone else on maintenance. They had to call in outside contractors."

"Really?" Derek asked. "It was that active?"

Bob nodded. "So they say."

"Awesome," Derek declared. "I hope you're cool filming that story for Zac, later."

"Sure. Not name dropping my friend, he had a reputation to maintain, but he won't mind me sharing the story on camera," Bob said.

"I could go with Bob," Zac suggested, "and film him telling the story in the attic."

"Great!" Derek said. "You two do that, make sure we won't fall through the floor or something, maybe throw up a motion sensor or two, and then join us downstairs so we can knock out the ER. We should make it in there right when night falls if we hustle."

"Sounds like a plan," Bob said.

Zac was surprised that Bob didn't hesitate to be alone with him.

Bob and Zac went upstairs, while Derek went down, soon followed by Tate and Amy. Bob stopped at the foot of the attic stairs.

"So," Bob hesitated. "Is there something up there?"

Zac shrugged. "I don't feel anything. But I've never been very attuned to ghosts so I might not be able to tell."

"But aren't you like, part Grim Reaper now?" Bob asked.

"I'm still not sure how it works," Zac admitted. "It's only been a couple of days and I was unconscious or running from a monster for most of it."

"Unconscious?" Bob repeated.

"Healing sleep. I was really badly injured," Zac said.

"Oh. Uh, yeah. I, uh," Bob scratched the back of his head.

Zac waited. He had no reason to make any part of this easy.

"I'm not sure which is worse," Bob said, "this conversation or going up those stairs."

Zac snorted. "It's probably just an attic. You've seen scarier stuff."

"Yeah. Well. It might be full of little kid ghosts," Bob said. "I have literally faced Death, twice, and I am not sure I want to see what's up there. The stories my friend told me aren't the kind of ghost stories you tell around a campfire, y'know."

"It was your idea," Zac said.

"Yeah, well, I just remembered that all my ideas are terrible," Bob muttered.

"We could film you telling the story on the stairs," Zac suggested.

"Good idea," Bob said. "They look creepy enough." He prodded at a stair riser with a tool. "I'm gonna be extra honest, I don't think anyone should go up there. And not just because of the possibility of murderous child ghosts. This is about as stable as that staircase back in the mall."

Zac, who had been standing on said staircase when it collapsed, took a step back.

"The other ones are okay, though?" Zac asked.

"Yeah, should be," Bob said. "I'll just stand here so you can get a shot up the stairs behind me."

Zac nodded and made a few adjustments to the camera. He flashed a thumbs up when he was ready for Bob to start.

"Okay, so this isn't my story," Bob informed the group's future viewers, "but I trust the guy who told me. Up there," Bob pointed up the stairs, "used to be the children's ward. That was back in the fifties, maybe the sixties. This staircase is the only access. The elevator stops on this floor."

Bob motioned out into the darkness. Zac followed the gesture with the camera, showing the ominous darkness of a partially open elevator.

"Obviously, that was not safe, certainly not for children, so the ward was moved downstairs," Bob continued, and later shifted into a newer, linked building. But for decades, hospital staff climbed these narrow stairs in order to care for the youngest and most vulnerable patients. And then they learned the hard way why it was a bad idea to have only one access to an entire ward."

Zac had to admit that Bob was a Hell of a story teller. He was already drawn in, utterly absorbed by Bob's narrative.

"Nora probably knows more about the details," Bob said, "but what my buddy tells me is this: one cold winter night, when the ward was still open, there was a brutal thunderstorm. The whole hospital lost power. They had a backup generator, but something went wrong. The wiring fritzed, maybe, or a breaker tripped. The attic stayed dark, and stayed cold. The children were trapped up there, sick and hurt and afraid."

Zac shivered at the thought.

"At first everything was chaos. The nurses down on the main floors had their hands full. But they realized pretty quickly that something was wrong. They hadn't heard a peep from the attic. And the nurses up there should have been running down to report in, to get supplies, to ask for help. And they didn't. There was nothing but darkness and cold at the top of these stairs," Bob said.

Zac glanced up the stairs. Surely that cold draft was his imagination.

"So a group of nurses ran up there to find out what was going on. They found most of the kids in the hallway, bundled up together. Someone had piled all their mattresses and blankets together and wrapped the kids up in this huge cuddle pile. They were cold and scared, but all right."

"The nurses took those kids down and found them beds in the adult wards. They had to treat them for severe hypothermia, even though it had barely been an hour since the power went out. Then they did a head count, and realized they were missing a few kids. And they still hadn't seen a single nurse assigned to the ward, either."

"So they searched the ward. And they didn't find anyone else. Just no sign of them," Bob continued. "They asked the kids, and they said that the nurses went back for the really sick kids, the ones that needed the machines. That's the last anyone saw of them, to this day."

Bob glanced up the stairs, visibly nervous, and then added, "Well, that's the last anyone saw of them alive. According to my buddy, they're still up there, somehow. Still trying to take care of their patients. Even after the attic was converted to storage, people said they heard medical equipment beeping and room alerts going off."

Zac wondered how much of that story was the truth, and how much was rumor and speculation built up over the years.

"Now, that's just the story my friend heard," Bob continued. "So I don't know how much is accurate. But my buddy swears the next part is real, that he experienced some of it himself. And he is not a liar. I'd trust this guy with my last dollar and my first born child."

"So. It is always, always cold up there. They fully repaired the heating and air and redid the whole system. My buddy was lead contractor on that job. And he tells me that no matter what the temperature up there is set to, no matter how high you jack up the heat, it's freezing. Like, teeth chattering, skin turning blue, cold. Middle of summer and you're risking frostbite being in that attic. I've got one of those fancy infrared thermometers from Derek, we can test that. But I can feel the cold just standing here so I'd say that one's true."

Zac looked down at his arm. There were goosebumps rising on his skin from a cold breeze. He'd attributed the cold he felt to the story Bob told, but if there was a physical reaction, maybe it really was cold.

"Besides the cold, there's the noises. My buddy told me he was up there working on the heating, and he'd hear footsteps running down the hall. Sometimes it was a nurse's heels tapping away. Sometimes it was the patter of little feet in those grippy socks they give kids. There was never, ever anyone around."

"He'd find things where they had no business being. His tools would vanish, and turn up under equipment or tossed all the way down the stairs. It always happened when he was alone. And he'd find things. Kids' toys. Old medical equipment, things like stethoscopes and thermometers in styles that haven't been used in decades. They'd just show up. He'd reach for a hammer and come back with some ratty old teddy bear."

"He told me the last straw. He was up there, alone, fixing a busted vent. He heard the footsteps. He was used to the footsteps. Everyone heard that. He dropped his screwdriver. There was a giggle. Like a little kid. It got cold. Like, he could see his breath cold. It was July. He was standing in front of a broken AC vent. He reached for his screwdriver. And something grabbed his hand. He never found out what 'cause the second he felt that, he bolted for the stairs. And he never, ever went back up there. They threatened to fire him, offered him a bonus, never mattered. He wouldn't set one foot on these stairs. Not ever again."

Zac hit the button to stop recording. "So, do you want to try out the fancy infrared thermometer?"

"I guess Derek would really appreciate it," Bob said. He pulled the tool out of a pouch on his belt. "You feel that, too? The breeze from up there?"

"Yeah. I feel it," Zac said.

Zac and the contractor stared at each other. Then they looked at the dark opening at the top of the stairs. Bob took a deep breath and visibly braced himself to take the first step.

A soft, rhythmic sound echoed down the stairs. It was a faint thump. Zac tilted his head. Was that a heartbeat?

Bob froze, foot in the air and thermometer held out like a cross to deflect a vampire. Zac hit a random button on the camera without looking. He wasn't going to run before Bob. He was braver than Bob. He could not look Skye in the face if he ran before Bob.

The thumps continued, easily heard because neither Zac nor Bob dared to breathe.

As they watched, a small, rubber ball rolled out of the darkness and bounced down the stairs. It passed between Bob and Zac, hit the floor, and rolled into an open door a few feet away.

Zac looked at the door, up the stairs, and at Bob. Bob looked at him, and shook his head.

"Nope," both of them said in chorus, before breaking into a run for the main staircase.