“Shadows of Darkness” is episode six of season three of Mutant X.
Brennan is in the Helix when Lexa runs in. He got a call from Dr Palance, an old psychiatric friend of his. Lexa thinks it’s high time that Brennan starts to deal with his inadequacies. In high school, Brennan was given the option of therapy or juvie; Palance was the first person he told about his abilities. Now, he’s the head of the psychiatric unit at St. Pastor’s. Lexa knows someone who spent time there. 15 years ago, a fire wiped out the entire psychiatric facility and killed 8 people, most of them children. Since then, there have been claims it’s been haunted. The unit was closed and has just reopened, to claims of paranormal activity. Lexa is going to come with.
At the hospital, an orderly hears a child singing ‘Hush Little Baby’ but there’s only a janitor cleaning the corridor. The orderly sees something invisible and runs. He locks himself in a room, but cockroaches come under the door. Then a child appears and says this is his place. Outside, Lexa and Brennan arrive just as the orderly jumps out of the window and lands behind them.
Palance talks to them as the orderly is being taken away; the doctor tells them the dead man wasn’t a patient and had no history of mental illness. The cleaner arrives and says he saw the orderly running from something, but nothing was there. Bad things happened in this place long ago; horrible, unspeakable things.
Another doctor, Willett, arrives, and Palance claims Brennan and Lexa are from the state board. Willett says suicidal tendencies are hard to predict. After she leaves, Palance says that Willett is trying to distance herself from the negative publicity and claims the hospital is cursed and haunted. He has something to show them.
This is ‘Get out’ written on the wall in red. It started the day they reopened, and appears again when it’s painted over. Lexa suggests hanging a picture. The cleaning crew claim the place is infested by cockroaches, but exterminators haven’t found any.
Palance is summoned by his pager and Lexa suggests the message is from a patient’s health insurer. Brennan asks if she can reserve judgement until after they look around. She can try. Brennan calls Jesse and asks him to dig up everything on the fire. Shalimar is not good with mental institutions, after her father had her locked up.
Lexa is in the bathroom when she sees a cockroach in the sink. Then hears a giggle. The cubicles are empty, but she sees a boy in the mirror, who is gone when she turns around.
Willett is questioning why Palance called the state board in; Lexa turns invisible. Willett asks someone else to look up Brennan and Lexa. Lexa also takes a look on the computer system, looking up a Leo Pierce. Same last name as her. Probably not to do with the case.
Brennan asks another janitor about the one they spoke to, to be told no-one like that is working. Truthfully, the janitor did look suspect. Brennan sees the other and pursues, but he vanishes.
Jesse has dug up detail on the fire; its cause was never determined. Clean-up crews claimed they could hear a child’s voice in the corridor and over the years there have been claims of paranormal activity.
Brennan comes across a nurse, who says she knows where the janitor is. She offers to take him, singing ‘Hush Little Baby’ as she does. Lexa turns up and manages to stop Brennan from walking into an open lift shaft. Neither the nurse nor the lift were there. Palance says the uniform Brennan described was phased out after the fire. The nurse, it turns out, died in the dire. She was the head nurse on the children’s psych ward, and worked on something called Project IET.
Jesse and Brennan head to the only survivor of the fire, Sandy Fetko. She says the dead nurse saved her. She’s also clearly holding out.
The treatment Sandy was given, when Jesse and Shalimar look into it, makes little sense. Something was clearly going on at the hospital. It seems highly unlikely that the cause of any of the strange things will be anything supernatural. A mutant doing it is far more likely.