BOOM.
The sound wasn't just a noise; it was a pressure wave that slapped my entire body. In the confined space of the locker room, the concussion was deafening.
I squeezed my eyes shut, expecting the spray of buckshot or the recoil to break my wrist. Instead, I felt a surge of heat, like opening an oven door, followed by a sound that I can only describe as a choir of glass shattering.
I opened my eyes.
The locker room was filled with a thick, glittering mist. It looked like diamond dust suspended in the air.
The Head Nurse was gone.
There was no blood. No gore. Just a scorch mark on the opposite wall in the shape of a tall, thin woman, and a lingering smell of ozone and burnt sulfur.
"Holy..." I coughed, waving the sparkling dust away from my face. "Holy smokes."
I looked down at the weapon in my hands. Smoke curled lazily from the twin barrels, but it wasn't grey gun smoke. It was blue. The obsidian metal was warm, humming against my palms. The silver runes etched along the stock were glowing with a faint, rhythmic pulse, fading slowly back to dull grey.
"Okay," I wheezed, turning the camera to face me. The lens was coated in the same glittery dust. I wiped it with my thumb. "Ghost Gang. Please tell me you got that. Please tell me the frame rate didn't drop."
My ears were ringing, a high-pitched whine that drowned out the silence of the asylum. I slumped back against the lockers, the adrenaline crash hitting me hard. My hands were shaking so badly I could barely hold the gun.
"I think... I think she's gone," I whispered. "I think I just deleted a ghost."
I sat there for a minute, just breathing, letting my heart rate come down from 'cardiac arrest' levels. I looked at the heavy black case still sitting open on the floor.
"I guess I owe you an explanation," I said to the camera, patting the stock of the shotgun. "I didn't just find this at a garage sale."
I pulled the gun closer to the lens, showing off the craftsmanship. The wood was dark walnut, polished to a mirror shine. The metal was vantablack, drinking in the light.
"This belonged to my Great Uncle Silas. I never met him. The family said he was crazy. Said he spent his fortune traveling to 'bad places' and never came back for Christmas. When he died last month, he didn't leave me money. He left me a storage unit in New Jersey."
I cracked the action of the gun open. Click. Two empty brass shells ejected, clattering onto the tile floor. They were smoking.
"Inside the unit was this case and a note. It said: 'Jax, you have the sight. You just don't know it yet. They are going to come for you eventually. Use The Negotiator. It speaks their language.'"
I reached into the case and pulled out a fresh box of shells. They weren't plastic and lead. They were heavy, made of brass, with strange symbols stamped on the primer.
"Spectral Buckshot," I read from the box. "Uncle Silas was into some heavy stuff. I thought it was a joke. I thought he was just a larper with a budget. But after tonight..."
I looked at the scorch mark on the wall.
"Uncle Silas was the real deal."
I loaded two fresh shells into the breach. They slid in with a satisfying shunk. I snapped the barrel closed.
KA-CLACK.
The sound was authoritative. It was the sound of safety. For the first time since landing on this cursed island, I didn't feel like prey. I felt like a predator.
"The lore says this gun doesn't just hurt them," I explained, getting back to my feet. "It disrupts the electromagnetic field that binds a spirit to this plane. It literally unravels them. It is an exorcism at twelve hundred feet per second."
I stepped out of the locker room and back into the hallway.
The atmosphere had changed. The oppressive, suffocating weight that had crushed me earlier felt lighter. It was as if the building itself had flinched.
The yellow bulb at the end of the hall was no longer flickering. It burned steady and bright.
"I think I scared it," I realized, a grin tugging at the corners of my mouth. "The building knows. The Head Nurse was a heavy hitter, and I just one-shotted her."
I walked down the corridor, footsteps heavy and deliberate. I wasn't sneaking anymore.
"Hey!" I shouted. "Is there anyone else? Visiting hours are over!"
My voice echoed down the hall. No doors slammed. No lights died.
I reached the lobby. The frost on the reception desk was melting, dripping onto the floor in dirty puddles. The temperature had risen back to a chilly, but survivable, twelve degrees.
"Okay," I said, assessing the situation. "We have a weapon. We have a base of operations. But we are still locked in."
I walked to the main doors. The timber I had jammed in the handles was still there, but the scratching from the outside had stopped. The Crawlers from the plague pit had evidently decided that whatever happened inside was scarier than being outside.
"I need to secure this floor," I said, adopting a tactical tone that I had definitely stolen from video games. "If I am going to survive until sunrise, I need to make sure nothing can sneak up on me while I sleep. If I sleep."
I looked at the grand staircase winding up to the second floor. Darkness pooled at the top, thick and inviting.
"The ground floor first," I decided. "Kitchens. Laundry. Staff quarters. We clear it room by room. If it is dead, we shoot it. If it is alive... well, nothing here is alive."
I checked the safety on The Negotiator. It was off.
"Alright, Ghost Gang," I said, moving toward the double doors marked CUCINA (Kitchen). "Let's see what is cooking. Hopefully not me."
I kicked the kitchen door open.
The smell hit me instantly. Rotting meat and stagnant water. And underneath it, the sound of something heavy dragging across a tiled floor.
Schhh-thunk. Schhh-thunk.
"One down," I whispered, raising the gun. "Thousands to go."