Alex had joked for years that he was great at "fake" ghost hunting.
Turns out, the real thing came with a lot more screaming.
The metal stairs groaned under his boots as he followed the others down the body chute, each step taking them deeper beneath Waverly Hills Psychiatric Hospital. The air thickened-mildew and something else, something that felt like being watched.
"Totally fine," he muttered. "Not terrified. Just... tactically uneasy."
Anastasia's hand brushed his in the dark, a quick squeeze that said she heard the lie. Ahead, Lance's flashlight cut a narrow tunnel through the black, the cone of light shaking just enough to prove even he wasn't as calm as he looked.
Then the music started.
Faint, tinny carousel notes drifted up the tunnel-impossible, wrong. They'd checked this place in daylight; there had been nothing here but dust and old rumors.
"Tell me that's you, Lance," Alex whispered.
Lance didn't answer.
Whatever was playing that nursery song in the dark... it wasn't part of their equipment. And it wasn't supposed to exist anymore.
Tonight was supposed to be good content for their YouTube channel.
Instead, The Frolicking Cartel had just walked into a secret someone was willing to kill to keep buried.
Book Description
They thought they were hunting ghosts for clicks.
They didn't expect to uncover a corporate cover-up, a missing nurse, and a hospital full of erased lives.
The Frolicking Cartel-six college-age friends who met gaming online-have finally taken their horror obsession offline. When a desperate woman pays them to investigate the abandoned Waverly Hills Psychiatric Hospital, they load up homemade ghost-hunting gear, pile into a van, and hit the road, hoping for spooky footage and a boost to their channel.
What they find instead is real.
Inside the decaying asylum, Xander, Alex, Anastasia, Katrina, Matty, and Lance uncover evidence of secret "sessions" in the 1960s: unauthorized experiments, missing patients, and a nurse who vanished after trying to expose the truth. As night falls, motion sensors trigger with no one there, a music box plays in rooms that were empty hours before, and someone else stalks the corridors-a living threat determined to keep the past buried.
When a homeless veteran in the tunnels hands them hidden files tying the experiments to a powerful pharmaceutical company that still exists, the team realizes they're in way over their heads. With suits in black SUVs closing in and the internet as their only weapon, the Cartel has one shot to get the evidence out before it disappears-and before they do.
Now they're racing the clock to scan, upload, and broadcast everything they've uncovered, turning a ghost hunt into a viral exposé that could destroy a billion-dollar corporation... or get them silenced first.
The Asylum Sessions launches The Frolicking Cartel series: character-driven paranormal mysteries where found-family banter, slow-burn tension, and grounded investigative work collide with hauntings that are never just about ghosts-perfect for readers who love creepy abandoned institutions, YouTube-style ghost hunts, and supernatural thrillers where the scariest monsters are often human.
