Mind's Echo

Mark

"I have a few pieces of equipment in my car," Mark offered. "I don't have much because, obviously, I'm a one man team tonight. At least I thought I was going to be. I'm pretty psyched to have some fellow boogie busters! Last week, the founder of the paranormal group I hunted with decided to disburse our group and find a new one. We were very real and went on tons of investigations up until he decided to follow Ghost Adventures. We all tried to tell him the show was fake, but it didn't matter to him." Mark chuckled and shook his head. "I'm a serious investigator. I'm glad the guy decided to chase fame and not the truth. It did leave me without a crew and with very little equipment since most of it belonged to him. I have flashlights, a couple of night vision cameras, a couple of digital recorders, an EMF meter, and a K2 meter."

Eva's mouth fell open. "That's a pretty impressive list, even for a solo investigation. I'm jealous!"

Mark shrugged amicably. "You can borrow some of it if you want. I don't mind." He looked around the large, decaying room. "The last place that we had decided to investigate as a group was this place right here. It's creepy as hell, but what really got my juices flowing was its baffling history: where all the patients went and the such. I bet not all of them took off into the surrounding woods. Surely some of them remained behind. Maybe where they couldn't be found. It's a real good possibility that some patients could've hidden away somewhere in the asylum and ... you know, died. That's fucking creepy, man. Not to mention that before all Hell broke loose it was just a bad place. That had to leave a mark. I mean, here we have a potent mixture of horrible living conditions, abuse, malpractice, lunacy, death, and mystery. I just knew this place would be a hotbed of activity! And, look, our phones and cars are already out of commission. Classic boogie business. Although," he paused and scratched at his pale goatee thoughtfully, "the cars not working ... That's major."

"That's freakin' insane," Shelly grumbled, looking around warily.

Eva crossed her arms and rubbed at them. "Mark, talking about it like that makes it ... Wow." She looked around apprehensively. "You just took it all to a new level."

Quincy and Alex remained silent, but a new tension began to settle around their mouths and eyes. It was obvious they weren't fans of the picture Mark had painted. Mark, on the other hand, was ecstatic. He rubbed his hands together, grinning wildly.

"Let me go get my stuff. We'll see if it all works. Then we can get started."

Mark walked toward the door, bouncing on the balls of his feet in obvious excitement. He'd been doing this for 20+ years, but he had never come across a place like Clarkmann. He was eager to capture evidence on his camera that would prove the asylum was haunted by the tortured souls who once called it home. He was also excited to get something he could show to his former group leader so that asshole would eat crow! 

"OOOOOOWWWWWOOOO!!! Bring on the boogies," he shouted as he exited the building.