The Supernaturals

SEVENTEEN

Lionel Peterson was putting off shaving and showering for as long as he possibly could. For the moment, he was content to sit in the small, smelly motel chair and stare at the water-stained carpet. He knew his actions against Kelly Delaphoy were taking a toll on his health. Not only had he endangered his career over his hate for the woman, he had become obsessive in his drive to destroy her at all cost. He smiled. If the show flopped, millions upon millions of network dollars would be lost. He would be held responsible and fired unceremoniously. Still, he would have to root for the show to fail. He could always explain to the media that he had warned against such a risky venture as a live Halloween broadcast. On the positive side, if the show flopped, Kelly would never breathe the conditioned air of a network office again.

If the show came away with big ratings numbers for the entire eight hours, Kelly Delaphoy would end up sitting in his chair — as had been her design from the very beginning. That was a thought that almost made Lionel physically ill.

A knock sounded at his door, but Peterson kept his eyes on a particular stain that he found entertaining. The stain was in the shape of a man’s head, and its wide mouth was open in a scream. The water stain (or was it something far fouler than water?) looked like a painting from a Salvador Dali nightmare. The tongue was extended from the wide open mouth and its eyes were closed so tightly that they were nothing but mere slits with wrinkles. Peterson tilted his head as the knock sounded again. He could hear one person speaking to another outside of the flimsy door. He finally closed his eyes to block out the hypnotizing effect of the filthy carpet. He slowly stood from the chair and small table where one glass and one nearly empty bottle of Jack Daniels sat looking dejected after being ignored for most of the morning. Peterson made it to the door, removed the security chain, and cracked it open a few inches.

The priest stopped talking and turned. He looked shocked at Lionel’s unkempt appearance, but held back any rebuke he might have had.

“You do realize it’s almost three o’clock in the afternoon?” Father Dolan said, wrinkling his nose.

“Of all the fools in the world, I believe I know how late in the day it is,” Peterson said. He stepped back and pulled the door all the way open.

Dolan looked at the two women who had assisted him in cleansing Summer Place the day before, and then nodded that they could go.

“Goodbye, ladies, I’ll hitch a ride to Summer Place with Mr. Peterson later.”

Lionel raised his eyebrows and then moved as father Dolan stepped in.

“The company you keep are rather suspect in their abilities as ghost hunters,” Peterson said as he closed the door behind Dolan. “As a matter of fact, you’re not that hot yourself, Father.”

Peterson bypassed the chair and sat on the edge of the still-made bed.

“Has something happened at the house?” Dolan asked as he placed his black hat on the small table, making sure to miss the spilled whiskey. He sat down and watched Peterson rub the tiredness from his face.

“The phone has been ringing all morning, so in answer to your question, yes — several things.” He looked up at Dolan with bloodshot eyes. “One, I guess your ghost cleansing isn’t what it’s advertised to be. Things happened last night that more than a dozen people witnessed, including Harris Dalton and Julie Reilly. Two, it seems thirty or more people were attacked outside the gate this morning by deer who thought they were commandos or something. Injuries were sustained, and some of it was actually caught on tape.” He looked away at the closed curtains. “Not exactly a good start for a show that has to fail, would you say?”

“All I can tell you, Mr. Peterson, is that Summer Place was either cleansed yesterday, or it was fooling us and laying low.”

“Now that’s a great explanation.” Peterson stood and made his way to the bathroom. Before he went through the door he turned and looked at the Father. “The house went dormant on you, is that what you’re saying?”

“Didn’t you hear those people yesterday? The house felt empty to them, so I wasn’t the only one fooled. I would say that you have real trouble on your hands tonight, especially if I can’t get back in there and try again.”

“You’ll get your chance.” Peterson turned and slowly started to close the bathroom door. “They’re almost done with the equipment placement, so they’ll begin their final walk through and dress rehearsal in about two hours — you’ll be on that tour and in the rehearsal.”

Father Dolan watched Peterson close the door and waited until the water was running before he reached for the bottle of Jack Daniels and the glass. He poured himself a glass and then made his way to the window. He pulled the curtain back and saw the heavy, dark clouds far off to the east. It looked as though they were in for rain. As he sipped the whiskey he couldn’t help think that Summer Place was behind the weather buildup. Dolan had become convinced that the house had set him up, and worse than that, he felt that it knew it would be in the spotlight tonight.

As Father Dolan drained the glass, the first flash of distant lightning illuminated the window, and ten seconds later he felt the rumble of thunder through the soles of his black shoes. He turned and looked at the bottle of Jack Daniels, and then quickly turned away. One drink was enough.

As he let the curtain fall back into place, the room once more became dim and dreary. He stood motionless for the longest time, listening to the shower run. For the very first time in his many years in the priesthood, he was frightened. Frightened because of the man he knew Gabriel Kennedy to be. Kennedy was a man that feared nothing in the normal, everyday world. So if Summer Place frightened him, he knew there was something in that house that he himself should be very afraid of.

Not since he had been a first year priest in Vietnam, had Father Dolan been so afraid to do what he knew was the right thing.

At nine o’clock in the morning, after forcing down a breakfast of cereal and coffee, Gabriel and his people entered Summer Place. Kennedy stood just inside the doorway with his eyes closed, taking in the smell of the large house. It was as if he was getting reacquainted once more with an old foe, or, Jennifer thought, an ex-wife — one whose marriage had ended horribly.

Gabriel took the others on a tour of the first floor, where it seemed he was most comfortable. He didn’t seem frightened of the memories of that night seven years before; not until they started to climb the grand staircase to the second floor. His demeanor changed, then — it was like listening to a recorded voice as he explained the second floor to the group. As they climbed higher, Jennifer left John’s side to step up to Gabriel. Halfway up the stairs, he had stopped, unable to move another step toward the third floor. Jennifer took his hand. He swallowed and looked down at her face, filled with the early morning sunlight streaming in from the windows. Gabriel nodded his head and then took a step up. Then another and another, until he realized the house wasn’t going to do anything about their presence for now. He showed the others the room where the diva had vanished, and the wall where his student had disappeared. He was shocked to see the sewing room door standing wide open, as he had never seen that particular door unlocked before. He only gestured to the sewing room before turning away, stating that they had a lot of work to do.

As the team moved away, John and George lingered, looking at the sewing room from about ten feet away. They were trying to get an impression of it, just as they had done the wall and the opera star’s room. They looked at each other and shrugged, then turned and followed the others back down the stairs. As they moved, the third floor hallway darkened, the window at the opposite end shut off from the sunlight outside. The clouds had started to move in.

The sewing room door slowly closed and the lock turned on the inside with an audible click.

The technical crew along with Gabriel, Jennifer, John and George assisted Leonard Sickles with the most bizarre electronics any of them had ever seen before. It took four hours to string what looked like nothing more than Christmas tree lights — small blue LEDs — along every hallway wall and staircase banister. Gabriel made his team reserve their questions for the end of Leonard’s strange run-through. At every point where Harris Dalton, along with Kelly Delaphoy, placed a night vision static camera, Leonard would be close behind to attach a small box with a lens to every stand. He explained that it was a spectral digital device that would not only pick up a color image of something that couldn’t be seen by the human eye, but an image that was etched in color by the variant air temperature, thus eliminating the need for an extra thermal cam placement next to the static night vision cameras.

As Leonard looked over the final spectral placement, he saw Kelly Delaphoy standing nearby. She reached out to touch one of his black boxes and the small black man jumped, startling her.

“That is one sensitive piece of equipment, you break it — you buy it.”

“I already own it,” she said with a smirk.

“The hell you do. Your network may have paid for the parts, but the patent is listed in my name. So, hands off.” Leonard’s eyes blazed a hole through Kelly.

“I don’t see any hookup for a feed to the production truck,” she said, looking from Leonard to Gabriel. Everyone else, technicians and investigators alike, watched the small power play in silence.

“That’s because there isn’t one,” Gabriel said. “The spectral cameras are for my team and their safety. If something shows up on one of these, it will be caught by Leonard down in the ballroom, and he’ll warn us. We would rather not have any surprises coming down the hallways at us if we can help it, and we would rather not be seen running like frightened school children by a national audience.”

“But—”

“But nothing. Leonard will be recording everything the spectrograph picks up. If and when I say so, you can put it on the air. Otherwise, it’s a warning device only.”

Harris Dalton walked up and handed a coil of electrical wire to one of the technicians. “May I ask, why the Christmas lights?”

Gabriel looked at Leonard and nodded.

Leonard looked smug. “This is a special air density meter.” He removed one of the LEDs from the string of lights taped halfway up the wall, and held it up. “This looks like a normal Light Emitting Diode, but it isn’t. At the base is a small chip that measures air density, air temperature and humidity change, particulate matter disturbance, and air velocity.”

“What?” Harris Dalton took the small blue diode from Leonard’s fingers and looked at it.

“If something moves, it creates a disturbance in the air. I don’t give a damn if it’s a ghost or a freight train, if it’s physically in this world, it creates a disturbance. Even if it’s infinitesimal. The laws of physics say it has to obey, and my sensors will pick it up.”

“You can track whatever it is when it moves?” Kelly looked impressed.

“That’s right. If it’s moving down the hallway, or up or down the stairs, we can see it just like tracking runway lights at an airport. As it moves past one of my diodes, it will light up.”

Leonard hooked up the connection to the electrical line that was snaked up and around all of the staircases and hallways. He then nodded at John Lonetree, who moved a few feet down the hallway. As he stepped down the center of the carpet runner, the small blue LEDs lit up as he passed.

“It tracks everything. And before you even ask, it’s also patented.”

Everyone, including Kelly and Harris, laughed. Leonard was enjoying showing everyone just how brilliant he was.

“Now, can you explain the four computers down in the ballroom, besides the one you’re using for recording?” Kelly asked.

“Leonard has connections at UCLA and USC in California. The operators out there are going to break into the Lindemann family records in Philadelphia and New York for photo archives and birth records. We have to do it as the show goes out live, since we never had the opportunity to investigate for ourselves. And before you ask, no, Wallace Lindemann does not know about this, and we would appreciate it not being mentioned, since computer theft is a crime.”

“Why is all of that necessary?” Harris Dalton asked.

“The reason why we’re all here tonight is because there is something in this house that is inherently evil, and the reason it is here is in those family records — maybe in the plans for the house, or in the property’s history, or even in the family’s past. Leonard will coordinate with the computer people at the two universities and then feed up information as it becomes available.”

“Will we have access to that information for broadcast?” Kelly asked. She looked worried that Kennedy would keep the juicy stuff all for himself.

Kennedy looked at his team and nodded his head. They agreed that since Julie and the network’s camera and sound men would be in the same danger as themselves, they deserved to hear anything that could be important.

“Yes, Ms. Delaphoy, we’ll hook up a sound box so that Julie Reilly can hear everything we hear.”

“Thank you,” she said.

“Now, I need to know about power. Do you have a backup for the electricity coming in from Metropolitan Edison?” Leonard asked.

“Yes. We have three backup generators rated to cover everything on the property, plus the two production vans. They have a non-interruption contact start, meaning that there would be only a split second of light failure before the generators kicked in,” Harris said, looking proud. “It’s the same backup we use for sporting events.”

“Sounds like we’ll have enough power in case that storm seriously hits us.”

Kelly smiled at Gabriel. “As a matter of fact, our network meteorologist says we could be in for one of the largest storms of the year, hitting sometime after we go on the air.”

“And this is good because?” Jennifer asked. She didn’t like the look that came across Kelly’s face at all.

“Ambiance Ms. Tilden…ambiance. What’s better than a haunted house investigation on a dark and stormy night?”

Kelly’s smile deepened and she moved past them. Harris Dalton shook his head but followed along with the technicians, leaving Gabriel and his people alone on the third floor.

The group was quiet as they took in the gathering darkness in the third floor hallway. John and George could feel the energy coming off of Gabriel in waves. They couldn’t tell if it was growing fear of the night ahead or the hatred he felt toward Summer Place. The two men exchanged glances and a silent message — one of them would be at this man’s side all through the broadcast.

“Jenny,” Gabriel looked down the hallway toward the suite where the German opera star had once stayed, and then past it to the sewing room. He purposefully refused to look at the area of the wall where his student had vanished, but he felt the spot nonetheless. “You haven’t felt the presence of Bobby Lee at all?”

Jennifer could tell that Gabriel had been banking heavily on Bobby Lee McKinnon’s help. She could see it in his eyes as he finally turned to face her. She almost wished she could help Gabriel, even though it would have meant having Bobby Lee back inside of her. Yet, she knew if that happened again, she would never survive the ordeal. He would make her go without sleep and practically sing herself to death. The past few days, she had regained strength and the perception of what a living hell she had endured at the hands of the mad ghost, and she didn’t think she could willingly go back. It had been a fluke at the Waldorf when Bobby Lee had came across the man ultimately responsible for his death, and she knew how lucky she had been to get relief; lucky that Bobby Lee felt avenged when he confronted the man after all those years. It had been as simple as that, as if the old-time record producer had unwittingly performed a half-assed exorcism and sent Bobby on his way, content just to have had his say.

Jenny took Gabe’s arm and shook her head. “Sorry, no.”

“Gabriel, I don’t mean to be an ass here, but you asking her that…it worries me,” Lonetree said, studying his old friend. “You would be willing to risk Jenny over this house?”

Kennedy felt ashamed. He realized that was exactly what he would have been willing to do. He looked away.

“John, it’s okay.” Jenny smiled first toward Lonetree, and then Gabriel. “If I thought Bobby Lee could really be of some help here, and if it meant driving out into the open the thing that’s inside this house, I would have done it. Don’t blame Gabriel.”

Lonetree nodded, unconvinced. They heard the creak of a door opening. The sewing room door stood wide open; they could see the sheet-covered furniture inside, even through the gathering darkness. No one moved or said a word. It was as if the five of them were standing in front of an old enemy and both sides were sizing each other up. If it weren’t for Julie Reilly coming up the stairs with a script girl, the stare-down would have continued.

“What’s wrong?” she asked as she gained the third floor landing. Her eyes went from face to face and then settled on the portrait of the Lindemann clan on the wall facing the staircase.

“Oh, we were just discussing how to keep Kelly Delaphoy from making a mockery out of our attempt to find out what’s going on here,” Jenny said, lying smoothly.

“Well, I think one of the answers to that just came in. He’s down in the ballroom with Lindemann and Peterson. Detective Jackson made his grand entrance a few minutes ago. He’s taken up station in a corner of the ballroom after threatening anyone that would listen about what will happen to them if they get his face on camera.”

“Any other demands?” Gabriel asked, his eyes moving back to the sewing room door.

“As a matter of fact, yes,” Julie said. She wrote something on her notepad and read it over, then tore the page out and handed it to the script girl. The girl didn’t even see the instruction Julie had written out; she was staring at all of the camera equipment and Leonard’s strange devices lining the hallway. Julie pushed the paper at her and the girl finally took it, then started for the stairs.

“Miss,” Gabriel said, stopping the girl. “No one goes anywhere in this house alone. Leonard, will you see that she makes it back to the first floor?”

Leonard smiled at the young, pretty girl and nodded. “You bet, Doc.” He took the girl by the arm and started down the staircase.

“You were saying?” Gabriel said, getting Julie back on track.

“He told Dalton and Peterson that he wants to travel the house tonight with your team. Specifically you.”

“And this cop is camera shy?” Lonetree asked.

“Lionel, the big mouth that he is even when he’s sober, said it would be no problem. They can get shots of the team without including Jackson. So I guess he’ll be behind the camera and sound men the whole night, but he’ll be there watching.”

“It sounds like he would be better off watching Kelly if you ask me. She’s the real danger here.”

They all looked at Jenny, who stood with her back to the sewing room, not wanting to give her cold chills any credence.

“Harris will have her in the production van right at his elbow. He’ll be watching her. After all, his reputation is on the line here also.”

Gabriel didn’t say anything. Damian Jackson was one small problem in a chain of them. He finally looked away from the sewing room and at the four people with him.

“Remind me to tell Leonard to concentrate his investigation in the archives on that room and the person who used it the most — Mrs. Lindemann. I’m wondering if something may have happened to her inside there. It seems to be making sure it’s noticed.”

“I agree, there’s more power coming out of there than any other room,” George said. He took a step toward the sewing room. Gabriel took his arm and stayed him from going further.

“Not now,” Kennedy said. “We’ll accept its invitation later.”

Julie looked at her watch. It was well after four-thirty. “I agree. Right now we have the final run through of the opening sequences, and Harris wants a word with everyone. And, just so you know, since the promos for the show have been running, the anticipated viewership has risen to close to fifty million.” Julie looked around the third floor and at the sewing room, then finally back at the others. “So if we fall flat on our faces, the whole country’s going to witness it.”

“I think we can bear up under the pressure,” Gabriel said staring directly into Julie’s eyes.

“That’s nice, Professor, but your career was already in the shitter. My fall will be from a much higher plateau than yours.”

“That shouldn’t bother you, Ms. Reilly. You should be more worried about what’s going to cause your falling to your professional death — a flop, or a success?”

Julie looked at Jenny. Her tense and smile said that she was only concerned about the flop portion of the equation.

As she watched the others start down the stairs, Julie looked up at the Lindemann family portrait and the smiling faces of the large clan. Then she heard a noise and turned. The sewing room door was once more closed. She shook her head as she turned and followed Gabriel and the others, wondering for the first time which death would be worse: the flop she fully anticipated, or something Summer Place had in mind. The possibilities of the latter alternative might just be the worse of the two.

“Goddamn creepy place.”

The commissary tent was packed with technicians, electricians, cameramen, soundmen, hair and makeup stylists, production assistants and producers. And, of course, the people who were going to be seen live across the nation in less than three hours — the group that a lighting technician had dubbed the Supernaturals: Gabriel Kennedy and his team, along with Julie Reilly and Detective Damian Jackson.

While everyone sat around the ten long tables drinking sodas and coffee, Jackson stood in the far corner of the tent with one hand in his coat pocket and the other at his chin, listening but not hearing as Harris Dalton addressed the hundred or so crew. The lieutenant’s eyes were squarely fixed on Gabriel Kennedy. And what was most irritating to the state policemen was the fact that Kennedy stared right back. Jackson realized for the first time that the psychologist actually believed this night would bring him the redemption he sought over the disappearance of his student seven years before. But Jackson knew he would never see that redemption. He knew Kennedy would throw up a smoke screen at some point during the night to mask his culpability in the incident years before — to make people believe, or guess at his innocence. Jackson would be right beside Kennedy the whole night and he would make sure that the smoke screen was not as thick as the professor would like it to be.

“The two generators are outside the production vans for quick and easy access,” Dalton said as he looked at his notes. “The state police have moved the looky-loos three miles down the road, so we shouldn’t have any interference from them.”

“Just how many police will we have on hand?” a nervous production assistant asked. The pretty young woman was one of Dalton’s own people, and he felt for the girl. This was a lot of pressure for her first live assignment.

“The state police will have six men stationed in and around the property,” he answered.

“But not in the house, correct?”

All eyes turned to Kelly.

“Only Lieutenant Jackson, as per Professor Kennedy’s request,” Dalton answered. Kelly knew exactly who was to be allowed in the house, but was baiting both Wallace Lindemann and Lionel Peterson who sat side by side in the furthest corner away from everyone, watching silently. Both men were impeccably dressed and cleanly shaved and showered.

“Can we discuss the roving teams?” Julie Reilly asked.

“Please do. It’s time each team met their camera and sound people,” Harris Dalton said as he gestured for Julie to take over.

As Julie stood, Jennifer nudged Gabriel’s arm. She raised her right eyebrow as if to tell him to end the staring game with Jackson. Before she turned, however, she saw a small smile crease the state policeman’s mouth. Then he relaxed, but not before placing his hands on his hips; in so doing, he uncovered the black pistol he kept holstered on his hip. Jenny lightly shook her head.

“Professor Kennedy’s technical man, Leonard Sickles, will be with the four computer assistants inside the ballroom. They will be covered by a static and a remote controlled camera. Lighting there will be minimal, so expect a lot of blurred close-ups,” she said, smiling at Leonard.

“Blurred? Baby, this is the one face you want clear,” Leonard said with a grin. He kept his smile on until his eyes went to Jackson who merely stared at the former gang member. Then Leonard lost the smile fast.

“Just do your job in there, Mr. Sickles. Your research, which should already have started, will be going out live if you uncover anything.”

“If there’s something to dig up, we’ll dig it up. But I will need clear access to the west coast. Anything spotty may lose us valuable time and data,” Leonard said. He glanced nervously at Damian Jackson, knowing the man could see right through his bravado.

“Your satellite link is secure and every computer has a battery backup,” Julie reassured Leonard. “Team two, Professor Tilden, John Lonetree and George Cordero. Team three, myself, Professor Kennedy, Father Dolan and Detective Jackson.” She looked at the lieutenant, who raised his brows. “Detective Jackson will be the only one not filmed, taped, or otherwise recorded.”

Gabriel stood up and looked at the others. “Only one team at a time will be on any floor of the house, with at least one floor separating teams for sound variance. When team two is in the basement, team three will be on the floors above. When three is in the barn, two will be on floor three, and so on. You will be told your assignments during the show and at commercial breaks. It’s not perfect, but it will keep us from crowding each other.”

“Shouldn’t each team have a…” Lonetree looked around as if not being able to come up with the word. “Shouldn’t each team have a seer?”

All eyes looked at John.

“No. With Professor Tilden’s friend missing in action, I want her covered. I think she still may be a magnet for whatever it is in there. She attracted Bobby Lee McKinnon; she just may do the same here. You two will watch her and try to feel if that happens before it happens.”

John Lonetree looked satisfied at the answer, but not truly happy about it. It was as if Gabriel was still using Jenny as bait. Jenny calmed John when she reached out and wrapped her thin fingers through his enormous ones. She smiled without looking at him.

“By Professor Kennedy’s request, after the taped lead-in from New York, and after my intro from the front steps along with the introduction of the teams and their expertise, Summer Place will be secured — locked from the outside.”

“That’s just a little extreme, isn’t it?” one of the soundmen asked from the back table.

“Integrity.” Kelly stood, her clipboard held against her chest. “That’s the modus operandi of Hunters of the Paranormal. No one in or out for the duration. At the very least, it compels the viewer to believe the teams are isolated, which is hard enough to do on television.”

“Look, we all heard what happened the last time we had people in this funhouse. What if we need to get out of there fast?” the same man asked. He didn’t looking the least bit ashamed at questioning the Hunters of the Paranormal routine.

“For all of those who have the same concerns, I present you with this magic talisman,” Kelly said dramatically, holding something up like a cross to a vampire. “The key to the front and back door!”

Everyone, including the nervous soundman laughed aloud.

Lionel Peterson even grinned, to a point. He had to hand it to the queen bitch of the universe; she knew how to handle the production team.

“It makes me want to have the locks changed,” Peterson mumbled.

“What was that?” Wallace Lindemann asked, leaning toward Peterson.

“Nothing.”

An hour later, Harris Dalton stood on the upper tier of the production van while the three teams were in makeup. Without the roving team cameras and sound, he had to be satisfied with testing the static night vision and infrared cameras on each floor, bedroom and basement. He would have liked to test Leonard Sickles’ lighting system before the start, but he guessed that would have to wait — the ghosts wouldn’t move on cue just because he needed a test.

“Go to One,” he said. The view on static Camera One showed the interior of the ballroom. There were three people inside sitting at the computers that had been installed. One of the state policemen was there as a precaution, as most were still outside the house. As the camera zoomed in, Harris could see the technicians tapping away at their keyboards. Every once in a while they would look up nervously. Jesus, he thought, if they’re going to do that all night long, they’ll never uncover anything.

“Okay One, switch to infrared please.”

On the monitor, the scene switched and it showed three red hot figures, two sitting at the table by their computers and one standing at the open door to the ballroom. Their body heat put out enough energy to turn their images red. The rest of the ballroom, with the exception of the computer monitors and their towers, was a soft blue, yellow or green.

Harris continued the static camera check. Twenty minutes later the still camera and sound backup installed in the stable picked up movement, and just as Kelly Delaphoy walked into the production van Gabriel Kennedy came in view. Harris was annoyed at Kelly for coming into the camera check, since he usually allowed no one in or out during this critical time. He looked at her, annoyed, but went back to Camera Thirteen inside the stables. Kennedy just stood there looking around, then moved over to the first stall and eased down on a bale of hay. He sat silently, rubbing the tiredness from his face.

“Tell makeup they have to hit Professor Kennedy again before airtime. He just rubbed his face off.” Harris shook his head. Amateurs. He would have to watch everything these people did. A shadow fell on Kennedy and then a large man stepped into the view of the night vision camera.

“Bring up the sound on the parabolic microphone on Thirteen please,” Kelly said.

“You don’t give orders in here, Kelly,” Harris stared a hole through the smaller producer. “Harris, turn up the Goddamn mic, will you? Do you see who that is?”

Dalton looked again and saw that the man who had joined Kennedy was none other than Damian Jackson. The state policeman stood over the professor with his hands casually at his sides. Then he moved over to a bale of hay feet away from Gabriel, sat down and tipped his fedora back on his head.

“Do as she says, bring up the volume,” Harris ordered.

At first there was nothing, only the camera picking up two men who seemed to be taking a quiet moment for themselves.

“I don’t like eavesdropping on private conversations.” Dalton leaned on the large console as he watched the scene before him.

“They know the stables are hot. That camera was placed where Kennedy himself wanted it. Leave it. I wouldn’t miss this conversation for the world. In fact…” Kelly placed a set of headphones over her ears. “Record this. It may come in handy.”

Dalton shook his head but nodded to the playback technician anyway.

In the barn, the two men faced each other. Jackson leaned forward and entwined his fingers, resting his elbows on his knees.

“I guess you’ve been waiting for this night for quite some time,” Jackson said.

Gabriel looked at the detective. Then he straightened and looked around the stables for a brief moment, his eyes momentarily settling on the camera and its stand in the far corner. He looked away and finally settled on Jackson.

“Even if I prove nothing, I know what happened that night seven years ago.”

“You know, Doc, I truly believe that you think something supernatural happened at this house, but that doesn’t make it right that you placed kids in your charge in danger.” Damian held up a hand when Gabriel started to say something. “Whether it was you or one of your students responsible for the disappearance of that kid, it doesn’t matter. He’s dead and gone, and I’m going to bring the person responsible to justice. If that makes me the bad guy here in this sickening menagerie, then so be it.”

“You’ll never understand anything about this world, will you? All you see is black and white, and there’s never anything in between. I used to believe that hauntings were simply self-induced illusions brought on by adrenaline and stress. Mass hallucinations by people expecting to see something, and the human mind producing the desired outcome.”

“Now, that is a sound theory, Doc. You should have stuck to it.” The camera couldn’t see Jackson’s expression as long as his back was to the camera, but it could pick up Kennedy’s. His was tolerant, as if he were speaking to a child who didn’t know any better.

“The theory is shit, and any clinical psychologist that subscribes to it is a moron. I was one of those, seven years ago. I assumed I knew the natural world, and this house is a part of that world. I didn’t know a damn thing.” Kennedy leaned forward until he was only a foot away from Jackson’s face. Kelly and Harris did the same thing, unknowingly leaning toward the monitor for Camera Thirteen. “There is something in that house, Detective. As matter of fact, there are several somethings. If they show themselves tonight, you better be prepared to open up that pit you call a mind, or you’ll find yourself in a purgatory, like I did — a place where nothing in the universe makes any damn sense at all. I know what it’s like to have a closed mind forced open, and it hurts.”

“Doc, your rhetoric is the best I ever heard. You talk a game that most can’t follow, and those that can, well…” he gestured toward the stables’ twin doors, “look at the ones who do believe; the people you assembled, they’re all nuts. The true believers will get you every time. That’s who I’m going to be watching tonight, Doc.” Jackson stood and looked down at Kennedy. “And you, of course.” Jackson turned and walked toward the doors but paused before opening them to the gathering darkness outside. “It ends tonight, Kennedy, one way or another; you’re going to come clean.”

Gabriel and those watching in the production van saw Jackson exit the stables, whistling a tune none of them knew.

“I’m using this. We’ll find a place to plug it in later in the show,” Kelly said. Kennedy turned his head and momentarily looked at the camera. She saw the small shake of his head before he stood and left the range of the camera and microphone.

“You really are a little cutthroat, aren’t you?” Dalton asked, loud enough for everyone in the trailer to hear.

Kelly gathered her things and made her way to the plastic curtain that covered the door. Then she stopped and looked back at Harris Dalton.

“You better get this through your head, Harris: if this show fails, we’ll both be wishing we had used everything we could get on the air. I, for one, am leaving nothing under, or on top of, the table. Cutthroat? Yes, I am. And you better be also, at least for tonight.”

Harris watched her leave and then lowered his head. He heard one of his technicians punch a button.

“We have the opening angle, and it looks great.”

Dalton looked up into the number one out — on-the-air monitor. Summer Place was glowing bright yellow and white in the setting sun. The house looked magnificent, but he knew it was a beast waiting for its prey to come into range. He had not seen a thing that night of the broadcast test, but he knew something was waiting for all of those who would enter.

Harris also knew that he wasn’t going to be one of those people.

Summer Place wasn’t going to eat him.

After Jackson departed, Gabriel sat and listened to the sounds around him. The stable, although empty of people, was alive with activity. He could hear birds in the upper rafters and wondered why they hadn’t headed out of Pennsylvania with the turning of the weather. He could hear mice scurrying in the hay. He even thought he could hear the ghosts of summers past and the stable workers employed by the Lindemann family many years ago. The sound of horses anticipating a summer ride by privileged houseguests filled his ears, along with the laughter of men and women long dead.

Gabriel walked over to the old tack room and looked inside as the sun drained from the sky outside. He turned the ancient light switch and saw the gleaming, oiled tack kept in immaculate condition by the Johansson family. The reins, saddles and fancy horse blankets emblazoned with the Lindemann family crest — a shield, two horse heads facing each other with crossed swords. Gabriel knew that F.E. Lindemann had originally come from a family that would have had no crest. His ancestors were hard-working folk from the Alpine region of Germany, farmers for the most part, so he knew that the family crest had either been borrowed or outright manufactured for the benefit of Lindemann’s American friends. Impressions were everything back then.

Gabriel reached out and shut off the light. He stood motionless, thinking. No, Lindemann and his ancestors were not people of historical significance, but Elena Lindemann was. With a last name like Romanov, it wasn’t hard to figure who carried the real family jewels. Gabriel turned away from the tack room. Elena, the matriarch of the Lindemann clan, had met F.E. in 1879 at a function regaling the Romanovs in New York. Old F.E. had already made his fortune by then and was continually adding to it. By all accounts, the romance was burning as soon as Elena found out about that fortune. Gabriel guessed it was enough to keep her good name in even better standing in New York circles. Gabriel had always thought he had a trail to follow with Elena’s ambitions and the effect she had on the family and on Summer Place, but by every account, Elena had been nothing short of an angel on earth. Not only did she feed the hard working women of Frederic’s garment industry, she fed the homeless of New York and Philadelphia. She actually recruited women from Europe, personally financing down-trodden women from all over the continent to come to America and get a fresh start.

Gabriel shook his head. Nothing in Elena’s past could be a key to the haunting of Summer Place.

Kennedy stood and looked into the darkness, toward the expansive wooden beams overhead. His historical research before that night seven years ago was a cause célèbre for his classes at USC. He had over a hundred students volunteering for library research on the Lindemanns, their family legacies and their philanthropic endeavors. They came up with nothing more than a five hundred page report on just how great an American family they truly were. Oh, Lindemann himself had his troubles, as every business man in the nation did in those harsh times of early manufacturing. Fires were a big issue in the garment industry in those days. A hundred men and women lost their lives in one such incident in 1889. Even then, long before he met Elena Romanov, Lindemann had paid out to each family a thousand dollars for the loss of their mother, wife or daughter. The payout was unheard of at the time, and he did all of this without admitting to having a sweatshop. He always came out smelling like a rose. Even more, his students’ research report showed that his goodness was never a publicity ploy; newspapers only found out through back channels that Lindemann had made the contributions at all. There was no history of trouble at their New York, Philadelphia or German estates. They were as clean as his students found them to be.

He believed all of it, and that had been the basis for his beliefs seven years ago. The history of the disappearances, the assaults and the strange happenings had to be brought on by hysteria, mass hallucination or a group mentality that forced people into believing there could be such a thing as an actual haunting. The property that Summer Place was built upon also stood up to scrutiny. No Indian massacres, no settler disappearances, nothing. Only F. E.’s old hunting camp; the house was built over the small gorge once used as a hunting blind to catch deer and other animals off guard. No, the property was as clean as the family history. Since there was nothing in the past, there could be nothing haunting Summer Place. Easy: two plus two made four.

Kennedy smiled as he slowly made his way around the darkened stable. Two plus two makes four, he thought. That night with his students, he had found out the hard way that Summer Place wasn’t good at math. Two plus two equaled whatever the house wanted it to equal. All through the night he debunked his students’ feelings, or sightings, or misadventures, one after the other. He was proving that he was in control, to not only them, but to himself. He was proving beyond any reasonable doubt that his theory on haunted houses was the correct one. About the time that he was patting himself on the back for his brilliance, was when Summer Place came alive and started showing its true power. The doors slamming, the power surges and outages, the screams, the cries, and finally the apparition that every student on staff claimed to have seen up on the third floor.

Gabriel felt his knees weaken at the memory of that night. He leaned heavily against one of the solid wood support posts in the stable and took a couple of deep breaths to calm himself. He thought back to that long climb up the stairs after Warren Atkinson, the brightest kid in the graduate program, had disappeared. At the top of the stairs, he saw the sewing room door close on its own and he heard the laughter — he had never told Damian Jackson, nor anyone in authority. He remembered finding Warren’s glasses at the base of the wall. His class ring was also there; the bulging plaster, the wetness of the wall and paper that covered it. He had gone into shock at the discovery of those items on the carpet runner, and had torn into the wall with one of the table lamps that lined the hallway every thirty feet. He had seen the emptiness of the interior of that wall, and the slat work behind it. Yes, Summer Place had done its own math that night — it subtracted very well indeed.

When the hand reached out and touched him, Gabriel jumped. Julie Reilly stood beside him with a makeup tissue still tucked into her collar. She looked at him curiously.

“I would say you looked like you saw a ghost, but that would be a little too cliché, considering.”

“Past mistakes,” Gabriel mumbled.

“Excuse me,” Julie said watching his face in the darkness. She reached out and turned on the light. The man did look like he was scared, and indeed looked as if he had seen a ghost.

“I will not underestimate this house again.”

“I hope you don’t. Even if I don’t believe like you do, I always cover my bases.”

“What do you want?” he asked when he got his heart and breathing settled.

“You’re due in makeup, we only have forty-five minutes to air.”

“I was already there,” he said.

“Harris and Kelly said you messed up your makeup and that you have to go back in.”

Gabriel smiled and looked back at the camera mounted on its tripod. As Julie watched, Gabriel raised his right hand and flipped the camera the bird.

“Any particular reason you don’t like that camera?” Julie said as she turned to leave.

“Yeah, but none that I care to share at this particular moment.”

Kelly Delaphoy stepped out of the production van to get a breath of air. The trailer was air-conditioned to accommodate all the electronic equipment, but she still she found it hot and oppressive. Kelly was used to a small Chevrolet production van and a minimal staff, one reason for Hunters of the Paranormal’s minimal production costs. Being this close to an expensive special was starting to eat away at her confidence. She looked at her watch and the bright lights of a camera caught her eye. When she looked up she saw a network crew setting up on the lawn just inside of the half-moon drive in front of Summer Place. The news division had come on site without having notified her.

Kelly saw Wallace Lindemann walking toward the network reporter, a woman not far beneath the stature of Julie Reilly. He was being tagged by one of the makeup people, who dabbed at his face as they moved toward the reporter and camera crew. She saw Lionel Peterson standing off to the side, impeccably dressed in a black three piece suit, standing as if he were king of Summer Place. She made a beeline toward the head of the entertainment division.

“What is this?” she asked Peterson.

“Well, let me see. From this distance I’m not sure, but it looks like Wallace Lindemann is about to do a news interview.” He looked at Kelly as she came to a defiant stop in front of him. Then he grimaced when he saw Julie Reilly come out of the stables with Professor Kennedy not far behind her. She saw the bright lights of the news team, and then him and Kelly. She ripped the makeup guard from around her neck and sprinted toward them.

“What the hell is this?” Julie asked. Her question wasn’t directed at Peterson, but Kelly.

“That’s what I’m trying to find out.”

“Look, both of you need to get a grip. This interview is going out live on the evening news. As much as I hate the news division piggy-backing us the way they have,” he shot Julie an ugly look, “we need a solid lead-in to the show.”

“We don’t need a lead-in; all the projections are skyrocketing. And we surely don’t need a loose cannon like Wallace Lindemann walking the news audience through his hoax speech.”

“And if the network wanted this, why didn’t they have me do it? I could have controlled Lindemann,” Julie Reilly chimed in. As much as she hated Kelly Delaphoy, she knew the producer was right. Lindemann was dangerous with a live camera. She looked into Peterson’s eyes. “You set this up, didn’t you?”

Peterson looked from Kelly to Julie and shook his head. “Now, why would I try to sabotage a show that has control of the trapdoor underneath my feet?”

“Because, you sanctimonious son of a bitch, you actually think you can survive this thing,” Julie said before Kelly could open her mouth. She looked beyond Peterson and saw two men who had been with the CEO inside of the boardroom watching the test broadcast. They were standing side by side and seemed quite content with the happenings.

Julie’s mouth fell open — she realized finally what Peterson’s game was. He had played the dummy, acting his way through the indignity of the special as if he had no choice to do so, while all the while he had been playing a game, making fools out of everyone from the CEO to Julie and Kelly. Julie actually smiled as she turned from the two board members to face Peterson once more.

“You’re not just out to solidify your position as the president of entertainment, you bastard, you’re out for a full blown coup against Feuerstein, aren’t you?”

“That’s one dangerous and foolish accusation, Ms. Reilly.” Peterson straightened and removed his hands from his pockets. “As you’ve noticed, there are two board members right over there, and three more are on the way. Now why they are here to observe the special is beyond me, but if you like working in this field,” he looked from Julie to Kelly, “I suggest you keep this coup idea to yourself.” Peterson started to walk away, toward the two men who were waiting for him, but he stopped and turned with a smile on his face. “It seems the CEO’s decision-making has come under scrutiny from the stockholders lately; he may have overstepped his bounds with this very expensive special, something that’s a little out of his area of expertise.”

“You bastard!” Kelly said loudly, drawing the attention of those around them. She started to go after Peterson, but Julie stopped her.

“Let it go.”

“We have got to tell the chairman what’s going on here. At least, the news division has to be notified that they’re being used.” Kelly glared at Peterson, who smiled even wider and turned away to join the board members.

“Do you think that son of a bitch would ever have chanced this without most of the board and division heads in his corner? He’s not just making his play for control, he’s trying to oust the chairman. The news division is in on it, and who knows who else. All we can do is what we’re here to do.”

“Yeah, and if Summer Place is dormant?” Kelly said, turning on Julie.

Julie smiled and shook her head.

“Then the joke really will be on us, won’t it? I mean, I knew for a fact that Professor Kennedy was a nut and proved it once a long time ago. You, well, you were out to use him. Now we’re both dependent on the nutcase for our professional lives.” She started to turn away, but stopped. “Summer Place is either going to bail us all out, or make the real monster king of his world, wouldn’t you say?”

Kelly watched Julie Reilly walk away. Then she turned to watch Wallace Lindemann as he extolled the virtue and beauty of his summer home, which just happened to be on the open market for a bargain price. Kelly looked up from the bright lights of the interview to the brightly lit façade of Summer Place. The house seemed to be looking on with only mild interest at what was happening below.

Kelly knew as well as Julie that they had been played. She also knew that Peterson had started setting her up the moment the CEO and chairman gave her the go-ahead for the special. She had been outmaneuvered, and she knew this would be her last night in broadcasting.

Summer Place had already beaten her, and the battle had yet to start.

EIGHTEEN

Abraham Feuerstein stood in the corner of the theater-style viewing room. The entire board of UBC and the top members of the General Television and Electronics Corporation board were on hand for the special. The buffet had been laid out and the drinks were flowing. Feuerstein watched certain members of the UBC board as they meandered from person to person, hardly sparing the CEO a glance. The old man with his bowtie sipped his club soda and watched, knowing the talk was about him. The game was afoot, and Abe knew for certain that Lionel Peterson and his allies were smelling blood. The plan was to oust him as head of his own network, and Feuerstein knew they could do it with the board’s approval. He had stuck his neck out by approving Kelly Delaphoy’s dangerous scheme, but he knew that Peterson and his young bunch could be shoved to the side with no problem if the ratings came in. If not, he would just go back to overseeing his electronics empire.

The fifty- by twenty-foot screen was the main feature of the room and at this moment it was blocked by the lower members of the UBC board, here to see the fight between the young lion and old. Everything in the world was in Kelly Delaphoy’s lap. He knew young Kelly for what she was — a cheat, a liar — but she was also a showman.

“Mr. Feuerstein, we have ten minutes to showtime. Would you like to say a few words?”

The CEO placed his drink on a side credenza and shook his head. The man who asked the question was in Peterson’s camp. Abe had watched him hang up the phone only a moment before; he knew he’d been talking to the shark on location in the Poconos.

Feuerstein moved to his seat in the center of the room. He nodded at trusted friends from the electronics board as they joined him. These were men and women who seemed genuinely excited for Abe, with the risky venture about to start. Test pattern from the Poconos came up on the screen, and Abe watched as everyone took their seats. The test pattern was soon replaced by the still shot of Summer Place that was to be used extensively in the special. The picture of the house was meant to portray evil, but Abe knew it could hold real horrors for him tonight — it held the power that was to be exchanged between him and his television empire. He couldn’t help but wonder what Peterson was doing at that very moment.

Lionel Peterson was standing just inside the large gate, looking up at Summer Place. The crowds, both for and against the show, had been banished three miles down the road and the scene was quiet. Peterson was well aware that by now Abraham Feuerstein had to be aware of the board’s consensus that he had overstepped his bounds on the television special. The outlay for expenses would never be recouped, and the old man would be the one to answer for that. Only ratings could save him. If the show was a hit, Feuerstein would survive and would be standing over Peterson’s dead body this time tomorrow.

The sun had gone down and the threat of the storm — one which the network weather men had assured them would stay far from the Poconos — was building in not only intensity, but in camera-attracting splendor. It could only add to the ambiance of the show. Peterson cursed his luck, but what could one expect from the weather men? They were, after all, part of the news division. When and if he became head of the network, he would make sure those incompetents were all off working for NBC, or at the very least, Fox.

He watched the house, knowing that the inert structure held his destiny in its hands. But with the Kyle Pritchard incident, he had an outstanding chance of making this look like a Kelly Delaphoy fiasco, designed and carried out by that power-seeking bitch. If only he could pull this off and destroy her, he would never crave anything so much ever again.

“Mr. Peterson, Harris says we’re fifteen minutes from airtime. He asks that you come to the production van for the final meeting.”

Lionel never looked down at the small woman. She had headphones on, with the cord dangling at her side. When he looked back up at the well illuminated house without acknowledging her, she shrugged and moved away.

Peterson concentrated on the windows at the third floor. He felt that he was being watched, but knew it had nothing to do with Summer Place — the feeling came from all the remote cameras around the front of the house. He knew Kelly was in front of a monitor somewhere, watching him.

A small group of people moved out of the commissary tent. Peterson finally broke his gaze from the house and saw the professor’s group of ghost hunters moving toward the front door. He watched as Kennedy shook hands with each member of the group. The professor actually looked sad as they moved into the house and into position for the start of the broadcast. Gabriel Kennedy stood just underneath the portico and waited for Julie Reilly to join him. Their first cue would be right after the narrative of Summer Place by John Wesley. After that would be the rolling of the opening credits and theme song.

“Are you coming? I mean, you are the executive producer of the show.”

Peterson’s spell was broken. Jason Sanborn stood beside him with his pipe in his hand. His other hand held a water bottle, which reminded Peterson that he would have to sneak off sometime in the first hour to get a drink. Maybe when the first segment was pushed upstairs.

“Yes, I’m coming.”

“This should prove, at the very least, to be a most interesting evening,” Jason said, placing the cold pipe into his mouth.

Peterson walked past Sanborn. With one last look up at the yellow and white mansion, he shook his head.

“I hope it’s at least that.”

The production van was silent, watching as the last commercial ran before the broadcast’s eight o’clock start. At five o’clock on the west coast, the show was going to be cutting a lot of the Pacific Time zone ratings, but New York had decided that the trade off could not be helped. The Alka-Seltzer commercial started fading to black on Harris Dalton’s orders.

“Cue up John Wesley,” Harris called, and then, “Roll tape.”

On monitor one, the view was what would be seen by all of North America on a three second tape delay. That was another decision made by New York, just in case something untoward happened, so that there would be a chance to censor untoward language from going out live over the airwaves. John Wesley, looking resplendent in a black coat, black turtleneck sweater and black slacks, with his distinguished gray hair combed straight back, stood before Summer Place. He smiled the disarming smile he had shown the American public for over twenty years while bringing them the world and national news. He placed his hands together and nodded as if lecturing to a schoolroom. He then released his left hand and gestured toward the house.

“This is Summer Place.”

The monologue went on for a full ten minutes as John Wesley explained the history of the giant house behind him. As he moved through the morbid details, still shots of the interior of Summer Place popped on and off the screen. Kelly Delaphoy had won the fight about keeping the house under wraps for as long as they could. The first people seen in the house after the opening credits of the show would be Julie Reilly and Gabriel Kennedy, and even then they would only be standing on the steps leading to the house. Only after the introductions would they move into the foyer of Summer Place.

Harris Dalton knew these few moments were his last chance to relax. Monitor two was filled with the faces of Kennedy and Reilly as they waited for the cameraman, who would cue them on Harris’ orders. Dalton glanced back at Kelly and Peterson. They sat quietly, both looking like ghosts, themselves. In the darkened far corner of the trailer, Harris saw the gleam of stainless steel flash in the glare of the monitors as Wallace Lindemann raised his flask of whiskey. Harris Dalton thought about reminding Lindemann that they were just as live in the van as out in front of the cameras. Instead he just eyed Kelly and Peterson until they saw Lindemann drinking. Kelly nodded to signal that she understood; if Lindemann acted like a jerk, Kelly would hustle him out of the van.

On monitor one, John Wesley gave a fatherly look toward the house, then slowly turned and faced the camera once more.

“So sit back, relax if you can, and join the greatest team of ghost hunters ever to work the field of parapsychology — welcome to the live Halloween broadcast of Hunters of the Paranormal.” He gestured once more at the bright, glowing house, and the camera panned away from the retired anchor to bring Summer Place to full focus on the screen. “Let the hunt begin!”

“Cue intro, cue music,” Harris called out calmly. The regular lead-in started and the opening strains of Blue Oyster Cult came through the speakers. Don’t Fear the Reaper played while famous still shots of the show’s former hosts and scenes of their adventures flicked by.

“Camera Two, close in. You’ve got a little too much space showing on the sides. Get Reilly and Kennedy framed up right!”

On monitor two, the shot of Julie and Gabriel tightened up.

“Okay, Camera Three, tight on Julie. You’re up first. I repeat, just Julie for the initial shot.”

Kelly smiled. After a full week of agony and planning, Dalton was now in his element.

“Cue three,” he said as the music wound down. Kelly’s opening started, and it sounded better than she had hoped. The song stopped like someone had placed a hand on the old recording and dragged it to a stop. At that exact moment, the live television broadcast kicked in with a still shot of the former hosts of Hunters of the Paranormal.

“Good evening and happy Halloween,” Julie said. She looked into Camera Three for the close headshot. “Greg Larsen and Paul Lowell,” she continued as the screen split in two — one side showing Julie, the other the still shots of the hosts, “will not be here with you tonight. While investigating the stories surrounding this house, this summer home of the world famous Lindemann family, one host vanished and the other stepped down after the traumatic night of October 17th. One host returned only to commit suicide, the other never to return to investigative work again.”

Inside the ballroom Detective Damian Jackson pushed his hat back on his head and frowned. He had asked that no information be given about Paul Lowell’s demise. He angrily slapped the table, making one of the computer team jump, then pointed at the only other people in the room — John Lonetree, Jennifer Tilden and George Cordero.

“That’s one,” he hissed. “Any more and I’ll shut this down for endangering an active murder investigation.”

George waited until the large black detective looked away and then shot him the finger, making Jenny smile.

“And here with me tonight is the man responsible for bringing the troubles of Summer Place to the world’s attention — or should we say infamy?”

Dalton rolled his eyes. Infamy? Julie was already going off script. He glanced back at Kelly, who had the script in her lap and was following along. When her eyes met the director’s, she just shrugged.

“Professor Gabriel Kennedy. Professor, just why have you returned to a house that nearly destroyed you personally and professionally?”

“Goddamn it, what is this?” Harris yelled. “The goddamn Spanish Inquisition? I thought she was giving Kennedy the benefit of the doubt — hell, she opens challenging him and we’re not one minute in!”

Kelly looked over at Peterson who was sitting quietly. He frowned and shrugged his shoulders. Kelly wondered if he had gotten to the network reporter.

“Go to camera two — now!”

Gabriel Kennedy came into full focus. Gabriel was composed, not shocked, and he smiled and looked from Julie Reilly directly into camera number two. The wide-angle shot captured both their faces.

“That’s enough, camera three, focus on just Kennedy,” Harris called out. He hit the mute button on his mic as he faced Kelly. “You put a bug in her ear that if she goes off on her own again, I’ll have her fired by the next commercial. I don’t care who the fuck she thinks she is or who the hell she knows. You got that, Kelly?”

Kelly went to the sound console and cued in Julie’s earphone. She rapidly explained the situation and Dalton’s threats. Off camera, Kelly saw Julie smile and nod her head as Kennedy explained why he had come back. He looked into the camera with all the confidence in the world. On the secondary feed, Julie Reilly looked quite annoyed by Gabriel’s seemingly nonplussed reaction.

“Well I guess he was expecting that, wasn’t he?” Dalton said with a smirk. “Okay, New York, getting ready for the break in five, four, three, two—”

On camera, Julie took over from Kennedy and gestured to the house. “After a word from our sponsors, we’ll take a look inside of Summer Place for the first time, and then you can decide whether you agree with Professor Kennedy’s statement: that this house is, by far, the most haunted house in America. We’ll be right back.”

“….One, New York you’re a go for three minutes of ad time,” Dalton said. On his monitor, Julie was looking at Gabriel, and the professor was smiling.

“So you expected me to corner you?”

“I never had a doubt you would revert to your old ways. How can a shark not be a shark?” Gabriel said. He gestured toward the steps that led up to the wide double doors of the house.

Julie shook her head, still disappointed that Kennedy hadn’t stumbled at all in her surprise opening. She placed a hand to her earphone and spoke into her mic.

“Harris, or Kelly, any feedback from New York or the test family in Boston?”

Kelly flipped the switch that gave her direct communication to Julie.

“You mean any reaction about your little ambush, you little—”

“All right, that’s enough,” Harris said. “Kelly, settle down and do your job.” Dalton looked over at the monitor that held the view of the family of four sitting on their couch in the suburb of Boston. The father was watching the commercial; the mother was admonishing the two kids, and a boy and a girl of about of thirteen or so, about holding still when they went live on camera. “No test family reaction.” Harris examined the construction worker and his dowdy wife. “And if I have my way, we’ll not be showing much of Mr. and Mrs. American viewer tonight.”

“Let me know if New York has any comment. Especially the news division,” Julie said. She walked faster to catch up with Gabriel.

“Okay everyone, places in the ballroom. Julie and the Professor will enter the house. They’ll be in the ballroom exactly two minutes after we start rolling. For God’s sake, look like you’re busy doing something when the camera pans. Mr. Sickles, I don’t want to hear a smartass comment coming from your mouth, you hear me?”

Camera Ten moved just far enough to show Leonard standing behind one of his computer researchers with his hands on his hips, looking angrily at the lens.

“Not a word, even when they introduce you,” Dalton finished. “We’re back from commercial in five…four…”

The view opened with Julie Reilly standing in front of the massive stone and wood fireplace. Gabriel had already gone inside the ballroom to head off any chance that Leonard might retaliate for the slight.

Julie started explaining how the television investigation would be conducted — how the three teams would explore certain sections of the house after the lights went out. As she spoke, she moved closer to the ballroom, which had been tagged “command central” earlier in the opening.

“Before we meet our teams…On a personal note, I want to state that while I reported on a massive breakdown by the Kennedy investigation seven years ago, I am only an interested observer here. I have no evidence or convincing argument to say that Summer Place is at all haunted. I believe that Professor Kennedy’s original theory concerning this beautiful, mysterious house is nothing more than a conductor that allows the mind to roam freely, injecting anything it wants into the moment, and that includes things that go bump in the night and strange sounds coming from a very old house. Now, we’ll meet tonight’s team: the Supernaturals.”

“Damn it, she’s doing it again. Where the hell did that come from—the Supernaturals? She’s making a joke out of the whole thing!” Kelly said loudly. Dalton turned and gestured for her to shut up, waving his hand angrily.

“Peterson, you’re the executive producer. At commercial break, you’re going to have to corner that woman and rein her in,” Harris said, watching Julie Reilly enter the ballroom. She went directly to Gabriel, who started introducing the team. The only person off camera who looked pleased at all was Leonard Sickles. The grinning young man clearly thought that the new nickname was cool.

Peterson almost couldn’t hide his smile. Instead of answering Dalton, he just nodded. He would indeed talk with Julie about naming the team and going off script. However, deep down inside, he wanted to thank the arrogant bitch for upstaging the maniac professor and his team of ghost hunters.

“And finally a man who is not a member of my team, but an independent observer, Father Dolan of Columbia University,” Gabriel concluded.

“Well, there you have it, the three teams of men and women who will try and make America believers in the supernatural. Right after the break, the hunt is on. We’ll be right back.”

Julie nodded to the cameraman, who gestured that they were off live TV. Jennifer Tilden came forward.

“The Supernaturals? Are you joking?”

“I thought the team needed a name. It’s far better than calling you the group, or something.”

“Well let me tell you what I think,” Jenny continued. Lonetree took her arm, but she wasn’t dissuaded. “It may not be a joke to you, but you’re trying your best to turn us into one, on live TV no less. Why now? Why make us think you were coming on board as a fair and impartial observer? You know, Gabriel said he expected this much from you.”

The last statement caught Julie off guard. She felt hurt that Kennedy never had trusted her; that all of her acting had been for nothing. Had her insincerity been that obvious? Kennedy was ignoring her and he didn’t even seem upset. He walked up to Damian Jackson and looked at his watch. He had one minute to say what he wanted to express to the state policeman.

“You see, Detective, I’m more observant that you thought. I picked up on Julie’s little game early on, and now I’ll tell you what you’re hoping for in this mess. You think that I’m here to publicly declare that I was responsible for what happened that night. That maybe this is some grand stage for my confession and I’ve been waiting all of these years for the big moment.”

“Personally, I bet you want to confess that you had the disappearance of your student staged. That’s what I’m hoping for. And then I’ll arrest you all over again.”

“I guess we’ll see eight hours from now, won’t we?” Gabriel smiled and started to turn away. “By the way, are you armed?”

Damian Jackson smiled and patted his coat. “Always. Professor. Always.”

Gabriel allowed his smile to grow. The policeman’s grin vanished as he wondered what the professor’s question had been about. Why would he need a gun against ghosts? Now he had to wonder if Kennedy was running a game, just as Julie Reilly had been.

Dalton absentmindedly watched the commercial airing from the New York studio. The soap advertisement showed a small girl in a clean, unbroken field of wheat as the image of the bar of soap spread across the screen. Dalton blinked and then caught himself.

“Okay, we’re back in ten, people, get to your places. Professor, Julie, you’ll start off by taking Leonard up to the second and third floors to explain his tech. Then we’ll switch to Lonetree in the stables and his walk-through of the pool area. Then after the next three-minute commercial break, we go dark. All power inside the house gets turned off, save for the ballroom. Okay, here we go in five, four, three, two—”

As the camera panned backward, bringing the base of the large staircase into focus and showing the expansive stairs leading upward — just the effect Harris Dalton had been hoping for — Leonard Sickles, Gabriel Kennedy, Father Dolan and Julie Reilly began their slow climb to the second floor. Leonard started explaining the technology behind his motion detectors. He pointed out the small blue LED lights that had been strung along the thick wooden banisters of all the stairs. From the first floor to the third, the little lights were designed to detect the slightest variance in temperature and air movement; the miniscule swirling of dust particles to the minute drop in temperature. The system would track anything moving along the stairs or hallways. The blue illumination would be picked up in the dark by the naked eye, and would also show brightly for the infrared cameras.

After Leonard finished and Julie and her team started back down to the first floor of Summer Place, Dalton switched over to John Lonetree, Jennifer, and George in the stables. John repeated the story of the assault on the riding trail and then moved the show outside and along the colorful pool. The atmosphere was developing well. Inside the van, Kelly allowed herself to breathe. Everything was going smoothly for the moment. She chanced a glance over at Peterson who brushed at a nonexistent piece of lint on his black slacks. While he looked outwardly bored, Wallace Lindemann, who sat next to him, was anything but. He continually shifted in his seat, as if his ass was on fire. He watched nervously for anything on the monitors that might spell disaster for his plans to sell Summer Place.

After the teams finished their tours, the commercial spot for their main advertiser came on. Everyone had three full minutes to gather themselves. Julie stood to the side and listened for any instructions that might come over her earpiece. She glanced at Gabriel, who stood silently, mostly ignoring those around him. He didn’t even flinch when the makeup girl started tapping at his face and neck with a sponge.

“Okay, Julie, make sure the professor is ready to go lights out after the break. We’ll start with your team on the third floor,” Dalton said over her earpiece.

“What about the basement and the subbasement? We didn’t cover them yet.” She stepped further away from her team, brushing off the makeup girl who attempted to get at her.

“If things bog down, we’ll send Lonetree and his team to the basement. If anything happens down there, we have remotes.”

“Harris, I think it’s important for the creep factor. If we—”

“Look, if you want to direct this thing, I’ll go home right now.”

“Okay, okay.” Julie ducked away, knowing that Gabriel was hearing all of this in his own earpiece.

“Everyone, this is Leonard,” came a voice cutting into the chatter.

“What is it, Sickles? Make it fast,” Harris called out.

“We have something interesting on the computers here. We have some photos from the Lindemann foundation showing the wedding of Lindemann and his wife Elena.”

“I think we have enough background on the Lindemanns, Mr. Sickles, maybe we—”

“That’s not what I’m getting at.”

“Leonard, what have you got?” Gabriel cut in, silencing everyone.

“We have plenty of pictures of Elena after her marriage, but not one photograph of her before. Even the Romanov family history and family tree don’t show any Elena Deleninov — that’s her maiden name.”

“The official Lindemann family lineage declares publicly that Elena was a member of the Romanov family.” Gabriel stepped toward the ballroom door so he could see Leonard inside.

“Look Gabe, we know from the archives that Elena was the daughter of a lowly fifth cousin of Nicholas the Second, but these photos and records show that family as two parents and three boys. There is no Elena.”

“Hold onto that for now, Leonard. See what else you can dig up,” Gabriel said. He nodded into the ballroom toward Leonard and his three computer hackers. Sickles gave him a thumbs up and then leaned back over the shoulder of one of the operators.

“Sounds like old Lindemann may have been sold a bill of goods,” Dalton said from the van.

“I don’t think so. The history is clear on this: Elena and her family financed Lindemann’s expansion into the United States. We’re talking five million dollars. Quite substantial for that time. It’s on record.”

Julie looked over at Gabriel. He was concerned about Leonard’s revelation, even with his secure knowledge of the financial history of the old family.

“Keep digging, Leonard. Mr. Dalton will check on you again in an hour.”

“Okay people, we’re back in one minute. We’re ready for team one to go to the third floor, and then we go lights out.”

“Hey, be sure not to cut the power to my equipment up there. Only the spectrograph has battery backup.”

“Mr. Sickles, do not break in on me again,” Dalton hissed angrily.

“Okay, okay. Chill, man.”

“Thirty seconds. All other teams go to the ballroom as per the professor’s instructions. Okay, where is Father Dolan? I don’t see him.”

“He’s praying over by the coat check station. He’s coming now,” Julie said. She took her place by the broad stairs and Gabriel joined her in silence.

“Camera ten, we’ll start with you. Take the opening shot at the stairs and just follow them all the way up to the third floor.”

The camera operator, a man named Steve, moved his remote camera up and then down. He had worked with Harris before and knew when not to speak.

“Okay — three, two, one, back from commercial, cue Julie.”

“Welcome back,” Julie started. “We’re now ready for the start of our ghost hunt, so if you, America, are ready, we’ll begin with arguably the most haunted part of Summer Place, the third floor. Professor Kennedy has instructed our technical team that it is most effective to conduct the experiment with as little light as possible, so at this point we will go to the very expensive ambient night vision. Don’t attempt to adjust your television’s picture if everything seems to be green-tinted; this is normal. Your screen will be absent color only. I promise you that you will see everything we see. Shall we start, Professor?”

Gabriel stayed as professional as he could and smiled down at Julie. He took the first step up the staircase and raised a small hand-held radio to his mouth.

“Gentlemen, let’s go with lights out, please.”

As the world watched, every visible light inside of the giant summer mansion went out. The property was thrown into inky darkness. If it wasn’t for the faraway flash of lightning, the grounds would have looked nearly primeval.

Halloween had truly begun.

Damian Jackson watched from the coat check area just inside the massive entranceway. He saw Gabriel, Julie Reilly and Father Dolan take their initial steps up the staircase and that was when the lights went out. Jackson placed his heavy raincoat on the counter of the hatcheck station and then his fedora on top of that. He straightened his suit collar and moved to the stairway. The sound man was the only person to turn, but was careful to keep his microphone boom pointed forward toward Kennedy and Julie. Father Dolan would only answer questions or give an opinion when asked.

The trio climbed the staircase with the cameraman and soundman in tow. Once more the soundman turned and looked at Jackson in the darkness of the staircase. Damian raised a finger to his lips and then pointed ahead, indicating the soundman had better watch where he was going. As the team reached the second floor landing, Julie stopped in front of the giant Lindemann family portrait.

“As we showed you earlier, this is the family that originally built Summer Place — the matriarch and patriarch, Elena and F.E. Lindemann,” Julie whispered in a low, mysterious voice as she gestured up at the portrait. “An interesting bit of information has been learned by way of Professor Kennedy’s computer research team, which we met earlier. It seems our motherly figure, Elena, had no pictures ever taken of her before her wedding day. How do you account for that Professor Kennedy?”

Gabriel wasn’t the least bit surprised that Julie would use the partial information that Leonard had given them earlier, and he really couldn’t be mad since he’d hadn’t told her not to use it. Still, Gabriel knew he had to fight fire with fire where Reilly was concerned.

“As a matter of fact, Ms. Reilly, I don’t account for it at all. Our research has only indicated that there are no photos of Elena that we have yet found. You must remember, she was a part of a very tightly protected royal family. Sometimes daughters, beautiful though they were, were not photographed for security reasons. We should know more later in the evening.”

Julie was silent for the briefest of moments. The cameraman zeroed in on the face of Elena Lindemann, casting her features in the ghostly green and grays of the ambient light system. Behind them, even Jackson had to stifle a chuckle at the way Kennedy had turned the tables on the reporter.

“I’m sure our viewers will be waiting with anticipation,” Julie said in the lowest tone of voice she could muster. “For right now, we will pause on the second floor landing and view the extraordinary hallway from here. As you know from the tour, the Lindemanns placed the second tier guests on this floor, where the rooms were much smaller. Royalty from Europe and guests from Hollywood stayed upstairs on the third floor. If there were any incidents on this floor, they were kept quiet by the family. Let’s listen.”

Inside the production van, Harris Dalton shook his head. He knew that Kelly could see Julie setting herself up to be the firm and sound mind on this little experiment — she would leave Kelly and Kennedy holding the bag for its failure.

“You have to hand it to her, she’s like a clairvoyant when it comes to sensing danger to her career,” Harris mumbled.

“Harris, New York is on the line. Mr. Feuerstein would like you to call him at the next commercial break,” one of his assistants said, lightly placing a phone back in its cradle.

“Jesus, this better not happen all the way through the next eight hours. The damn woman was his choice, not mine.”

In the corner, Lionel Peterson watched without comment. His eyes never left the low light photography of the second floor, but he heard all.

The camera swiveled and caught Father Dolan as he tried his best to peer into the blackness of the second floor. Gabriel turned a low-power flashlight on, casting a pinpoint beam of soft light ahead of them down the hallway. They saw the still cameras and the digital audio equipment right where they had been placed. Kennedy slowly walked up to the equipment and the camera followed with the soundman in tow. Julie squeezed past them to see what Kennedy was doing. Then she spoke softly into the mic clipped to her blouse.

“The professor is checking the activity of the digital sound recorders and the infrared still cameras. Professor, exactly what do you hope to find on this very expensive equipment?”

Gabriel was leaning over the sound devices, hiding his frown of annoyance at Julie. After checking both the cameras and the digital sound recorder, Kennedy straightened and looked into the camera. He would explain once more to the viewing audience and ignore Julie completely. Down in the ballroom, Lonetree, Cordero and Jennifer smiled at the slight.

“As we explained earlier, with the infrared cameras we hope to pick up any variations in heat and cold emanating from this floor. That could be an indicator of paranormal activity. The digital sound recorders are something totally different. They can pick up sounds that the human ear cannot, or will not, hear.”

“And have we caught anything on either the cameras or the sound equipment, Professor?” Julie asked, though she knew the answer.

“Not at this time. The cameras have not been activated by any sudden changes in temperature, and the digital recorders have detected only us coming up the stairs, and our own voices.”

“I see. So that means there is no activity on this floor.”

“Not as of yet, Ms. Reilly.”

The cameraman zoomed in on Kennedy as he answered. Damian Jackson watched as his eyes grew more and more accustomed to the darkness around them. He had also guessed the answer to Julie’s question. Any mysterious sounds or sights detected by this equipment would have been placed there by Kennedy, Kelly Delaphoy, or both. He saw Gabriel look up at him in the darkness and though he couldn’t see well, he knew the man was smiling at him. That made Jackson lose his own sense of humor.

Inside the production van, Lionel Peterson raised his eyebrow. Was Feuerstein’s own girl going to throw a monkey wrench into this whole thing and save him the trouble? He looked over at Kelly, who was seething. She gripped her clipboard tightly.

“Okay, we go to commercial in ten. Julie wrap up the second floor and try not to lose any more viewers than you already have,” Harris Dalton said. He, too, was seething at the way Julie Reilly was handling Professor Kennedy. “The second we go to black, I want the CEO on the line. If he sent Reilly here to sabotage his own special, we need to know right now.”

Kelly looked over at Peterson who returned her look with a shrug of his shoulders. Then he smiled and leaned toward her, ignoring the questioning look from Wallace Lindemann. The owner of the house tilted a stainless steel flask to his lips and drank deeply.

“She’s your girl in there. I suspect that her agenda is entirely from yours and old Abe’s.”

“I swear to God, Lionel, if you had anything to do with this turncoat bullshit, I’ll go straight to the board with it.”

“Honey, I’ve been threatened by far better people than you, and guess what? I’m still standing, and they’re back at their old cable channels with handheld cameras.”

Abe Feuerstein accepted the phone from his assistant. His eyes lingered on several of the board as they stepped away from their seats at the commercial break. Their eyes wandered over to the old man sitting stoically in his large chair, but quickly moved away when they saw him looking at them. It seemed Lionel had far more supporters than even the CEO had realized.

“Harris, what is that woman doing to my special?”

Feuerstein listened as Harris Dalton asked him the same question from the Poconos. The CEO kept his smile on his face so the others would see him in control.

“I was just handed the ratings for the first hour. We started at sixty-two five — that’s over sixty million viewers — and in a single half an hour we lost ten million. There is a cutoff point, Dalton, when I have to pull the plug on this thing. We cannot sit through seven more hours of nothing; I want you to pass Ms. Reilly a little note from me. You tell her that if she thinks she’ll escape this thing unharmed, she’s sorely mistaken. Tell her she better appear to be giving Kennedy the benefit of the doubt, because he’s the star of the show, not her.”

The old man adjusted his bowtie and listened to Harris Dalton on the other end of the phone. Several members of the board started returning to their seats with fresh drinks in their hands.

“I never said that. Nothing gets faked, Harris. She can make it far tenser with her delivery. Explain to her that as of right now, the loss of viewers is on her head.” He smiled and handed the phone back to his assistant. “Get a message to the entertainment division, and for God’s sake bypass Lionel Peterson. Talk to LA directly. Have them get alternate programming ready in case this thing goes bad on us.”

“Yes, sir.”

Feuerstein smiled again, nodding as though he had been given good news. He nodded his head at the men and women of the board as they waited for the disaster from the Poconos to start once again.

The CEO knew he was facing another kind of horror if this special fell flat on its face. He would not only lose the confidence of the shareholders, he could possibly lose the backing of many for control of the manufacturing divisions. As this thought crossed his mind, he absentmindedly accepted a drink from his assistant. She nodded her head, letting him know that his message had been passed to the entertainment division. Abe sipped his drink and regained his confident air. The commercial — a small green lizard pushing car insurance — ended, and the show started again from Summer Place.

Abraham Feuerstein knew that if this failed, he could very well end up joining those ghosts out at that damnable house.

NINETEEN

With the second hour into the special having passed with no discernable recording or image having been relayed to the remaining thirty-eight million viewers, the mood in the production van was sticky at best. At the beginning of the last four-minute commercial break of the hour, Harris Dalton tossed his headphones down and stepped out of the van. He stood looking up at the darkened Summer Place. After the test broadcast, he had been sure that they would at least have something in the first two hours to hang their hat on, but thus far the show was sliding steadily downhill. He felt his reputation sliding with it.

“It’s playing with us.”

Kelly Delaphoy had come out just behind him, her clipboard still pressed to her chest as if she was preparing to ward off his ill humor with the thin piece of plastic. Harris shook his head and turned back to the darkened house, just as the first real drops of rain started to fall from the cloud-laden sky. He turned his face upward and took a deep breath as the rain cooled his face.

“Professor Kennedy doesn’t seem too worried about the non-happenings in the house,” Kelly said, flinching as a streak of lightning crashed over the property.

“What the hell does he have to lose?” Harris said. “His career was already in the shitter.” He brushed past Kelly and returned to the van.

The small producer watched the door to the van close, and then looked back at the house. With the darkened windows, it reminded her of a dangerous animal as it slept, its eyes closed and breathing lightly. Lightning illuminated the sky once more, reflecting off the glass on the second and third floor. She felt as if the house was mocking her and the entire effort to bring out what was hidden inside. The wind picked up and the rain start to come down in earnest, but instead of running for cover she stood her ground, looking up into the silent face of Summer Place.

“Show yourself, you bitch,” she said as the thunder caught up with the last bolt of lightning. The house remained as still as before. Silent and sleeping.

The real threat to Summer Place was coming, in the form of package carried by a messenger that had been dispatched from Philadelphia two hours before.

That package was a result of a theft from the Immigration and Naturalization Service Center mainframe computer. It was so hot that the man Leonard Sickles had hired to break into that system had decided to deliver the package himself. For the moment, Summer Place sat unaware of the threat coming its way.

Gabriel, Julie, Father Dolan, and Damian Jackson — who still stood back from the camera’s lens — stood on the third floor landing and looked through the darkness toward the sewing room at the end of the long hallway. It was a corner room facing the back of the property, standing like a dark sentinel. They would have to pass it to turn the corner and get to the guest rooms on the far end of the floor. Jackson, the last person in line, took the opportunity to examine the device that Leonard Sickles, the little hood from LA, had engineered. It looked like a string of ordinary Christmas lights to him, and Jackson suspected that Sickles was running a game on Kennedy. Jackson had taken the opportunity to have all of Kennedy’s team checked out, especially the little gang member, so he knew the kid had recruited some friends from Los Angeles to do God-knew-what for him. As long as the gang members didn’t show up at Summer Place, Damian had more important fish to fry.

A flash of lightning produced a soft rumbling through the floorboards of the old house and brimmed brightly around the shuttered third-floor windows. Jackson heard Kennedy explain to the television audience that the intermittent light from the lightning outside could affect the ambient light photography they had planned. Damian smiled in the darkness as the team started moving down the hallway toward the sewing room and the suite where the opera star had supposedly disappeared.

The team, with Julie in the lead, stopped just outside one of the rooms and directed the camera toward the spot where Kennedy’s student had vanished into thin air — or, thick wall, if you believed the professor’s story. Lieutenant Jackson watched Kennedy’s expression as Julie once more explained the incident of seven years before. Gabriel looked away as the camera zoomed in on the spot where the kid had supposedly vanished and Jackson knew the professor was looking right at him. He couldn’t say for sure, but he suspected Gabriel was mocking him. Jackson placed his hands in his suit jacket and waited for Kennedy to look somewhere else, but he kept looking Jackson’s way. Jackson found it unnerving.

“Professor Kennedy will try to recreate the circumstances surrounding that night years ago. If he is successful, one of the greatest mysteries of Summer Place may be solved right here before the UBC cameras,” Julie said. The team moved away from the wall, the last place Kennedy’s student had ever been seen.

As the soundman slowly followed the others down the hallway, Damian intentionally rubbed his large hand across the spot on the wall. The velvety wallpaper was cool to the touch. Damian pressed hard onto the wall, making sure nothing creative was lined up for later discovery. It felt solid.

Julie and Kennedy stopped just beneath the ventilation grill where Damian had stood himself with the state police not two weeks before. The low-light camera adjusted and the world saw for the very first time the vent that had supposedly consumed the man Kelly Delaphoy had hired to trick out the house.

“And now, for the first time anywhere in the world, the UBC network will broadcast the actual incident that happened right here in Summer Place two weeks ago.”

Damian wanted to jump right out of his skin. He realized suddenly that he had been lied to, not only by Harris Dalton, Julie Reilly and Kelly Delaphoy, but by UBC as a whole. The footage had supposedly been lost forever, and they had sworn they had nothing to turn over to the police. Jackson clenched his teeth as Julie raised a concerned brow at the camera.

“A warning, the footage you are about to see is graphic and frightening. As most of our viewers are aware, this man, Kyle Pritchard, turned up yesterday. Mr. Pritchard committed suicide before he could give a full accounting of his experience. Once again, this footage is graphic, and has been proven to be real.”

They all heard the voice of Harris Dalton in their earpieces as the canned footage started playing. This allowed five minutes for the team to relax.

“You lying sons of bitches had that footage all along and didn’t tell me. That’s tampering with state evidence, and I told you I would hang you for it!” Jackson shouted, pushing past the sound- and cameramen.

“Lieutenant, I have been authorized to explain to you that our network technicians only a few hours ago came up with a workable copy of the video tape. As we speak, a copy of this tape has been forwarded to your office in Philadelphia — by US Mail.”

“If it takes me a year, I’m going to get someone at your network for withholding evidence.” Jackson looked from Julie to Kennedy’s smiling face. “And if I find you had something to do with the decision-making here Kennedy, that’s going to add to your problems.”

Gabriel took a step toward Jackson. The men were of equal height, and for the first time Jackson realized Kennedy wasn’t easily intimidated. Even in the dark he could see that the professor’s eyes were filled with a challenge the detective had never seen in them before.

“Hang around, Detective Lieutenant Jackson. You may get all the answers you ever wanted.”

Julie nodded toward the cameraman and he gave her a quick thumbs up. The scene had been filmed, and during the next commercial break he would feed it quietly to the control van for broadcast at the appropriate time.

Both men were being set up by Julie Reilly.

George Cordero followed John Lonetree and Jennifer Tilden down the steep basement stairs with the use of low power penlights. The camera and soundmen were taking up the rear of the line and were still in the kitchen as the group slowly made their way down the steps. George hadn’t mentioned anything to either Jennifer or John, but since they had opened the door to the basement, he’d had a feeling that something was down there. He corrected himself — something had been down there. Deep down, he felt as if they had missed an opportunity by delaying their movement to the cellar and the subbasement. He stopped on the third step down, causing the camera man to almost bump into him. They were currently going out live, which was the only thing that stopped the cameraman from complaining that Cordero had almost killed them all with his sudden stop.

Jennifer and John continued down. It took a nudge from the large man behind George to get him moving again before the two lead team members hit the bend in the staircase. As George started downward, he smelled the dank cement floor below, and possibly beyond that the loamy smell of the subbasement. He shook his head, wanting to catch up with Lonetree and tell him that something wasn’t right. In his earpiece, Dalton extolled them to step up the pace.

As John and Jennifer hit the turn in the stairs, they heard a loud thump from the floor twenty-five feet below, as if something had hit the concrete floor. John picked up the pace as Jennifer communicated quietly into her microphone. The crewmen wanted to push George out of the way so they could catch up with the two lead investigators. Finally the cameraman, the same large ex-Marine who had run that night two weeks before — a man wanting to regain some of the dignity he lost that night — finally hissed into his microphone that Cordero was slowing them up too much for them to get a visual on Lonetree and Tilden. Everyone heard the complaint and John and Jennifer slowed their pace, not wanting to get George into further trouble with Dalton. As they came to a stop only ten feet from the darkened floor, they heard a loud moan coming from the recesses of the basement.

“Okay, did everyone hear that?” John called out softly.

Cordero heard it. Instead of slowing, he started moving faster down the stairs. As the two technicians hurriedly followed, taking the steps one at a time, they heard Cordero mumbling, “This isn’t right, this isn’t right,” over and over.

“Our colleague George Cordero is voicing an opinion.” Jennifer positioned herself to assist George as he came stumbling down the stairs. She held both hands out to the darkness, keeping George from continuing past when he caught up with them.

“Whoa there,” John said. “What are you feeling, George? Is it something to do with the moan we just heard?” John spoke for the benefit of the microphone clipped to his collar.

“Something’s not right down here,” George said, catching his breath. “Something’s going to happen.”

In the darkness, the camera and soundmen focused the lowlight lens on the team.

“I’m not following,” John said as Jennifer looked nervously from one dark face to the other. “I’m not picking up anything. No cold spots, nothing.”

“I don’t know what it is. Something has been here and was waiting for us.”

“Waiting for us?” Jennifer asked.

“Well, we won’t know what it is until we move down the rest of the way.”

As the tension became palpable, the three investigators moved down the stairs and finally onto the concrete floor of the cool basement. Around them, something grew in power and everyone watching the show could feel it.

“Damn. Now this may get good,” Harris said. He remembered the lost little boy feelings he’d had during the broadcast test two weeks before. He could only hope that his visuals were relating those same feelings to the viewers watching from the safety of their warm homes.

Was it possible Summer Place was finally coming alive?

Inside the production van, Kelly Delaphoy smiled over at Lionel Peterson and Wallace Lindemann. She knew Summer Place wouldn’t let her down. The two men kept their eyes on the many monitors and acted as though they didn’t know she was looking at them.

“About goddamned time,” Harris said. He leaned over and patted the sound tech on the shoulder. “I need more gain; I want to hear their steps. That’ll add tension. And you tell visual to keep on Cordero; he seems to be the star of this thing.”

The technician nodded her head and passed the instructions along.

Kelly watched the monitors as the basement team hit the floor and stood their ground momentarily. Another loud moan came through the speakers, clear as day. Chills ran through Kelly. This was far better than any sexual encounter she had ever had. She was about to be proved right to her network and forty million television viewers. Her eyes settled on the team that stood on the third floor landing. Professor Kennedy and the others couldn’t see what was happening in the basement, but they were following the audio progress of Lonetree’s team far below them. In the low light camera angle, Gabriel looked concerned about something. Kelly thought that he may have been wishing he were with the basement team as they proved to the world that Summer Place was haunted.

In New York, Abe Feinstein nodded his head and took a drink from his glass of whiskey. Things were finally happening, and even the board members were riveted to the large television at the front of the room. The man whom he knew Peterson was closest to turned and looked at the CEO. His smile was faltering as he nodded. Feuerstein nodded back, enjoying the advance surrender of the board and the first of many humiliating congratulations from his detractors.

For the first time in three hours, Abe was feeling his oats. He was tasting his drink for the first time that night. He turned the glass up, draining it, and held it out for his assistant to refill. Yes, this was going to be sweet — from being on the verge of having to pull the plug on the rest of the special, to getting the greatest ratings coup in history. Yes, the whiskey tasted just fine.

The basement was dark. To the many viewers still watching, it was scary enough to make children hug their mothers. Fathers made silly, teasing noises to cover their own Halloween night chills.

John held the small penlight up and examined the basement. The old kitchen appliances, from the ancient wood burning stove to the bathroom fixtures lined against the walls, helped to lend the room an eerie feeling. It was like the history of the house was a time capsule stored in the basement and the viewing audience was seeing it for the first time.

The team spread out with John in the lead, all heading toward the center of the basement. The camera adjusted the green tinted picture to show the detritus from over a hundred years — accumulated appliances and a family’s boxed-up life. There were boxes and boxes of antique children’s toys. Though worth a fortune on the open market, in the dark of the basement they seemed forlorn and lost. At the top of a pile in a box that had split open after years in the damp cellar, Jenny spotted just what the viewing public would want to focus on. She held the toy up so the camera could zoom in. The ancient Jack and the Box was wooden and old fashioned, its handle overly large and its lid thick with dust and rotted with age. Jenny turned the box over. On the side, a child’s name was written in gold paint — Garrett. As Jenny turned the box back over, the clown suddenly sprang out. Everyone, with the exception of John Lonetree, let out an exclamation of surprise. Even the cameraman jolted the camera.

Inside the production van and at the New York headquarters of UBC, everyone, including Abe Feuerstein, jumped.

Jennifer almost dropped the antique toy. She examined the features of the clown. The paint on the face had chipped, leaving the mouth turning at a downward angle. Instead of a happy smile, the clown had a look of terror etched on its once happy face.

“Oh, yeah, that’ll keep a child occupied,” George said, standing next to Jenny. John Lonetree took the toy from Jenny’s hands and placed it back in the box. He straightened and moved off toward the trap door that led to the subbasement.

“George, are you still feeling something?” he asked.

“Only that there was recent activity down here.”

Jennifer remained in place and the camera zoomed in on her. She felt a momentary flutter of her heart as if she had just wakened from a dream and didn’t know where she was. John caught her attention with a look that asked if she was all right.

Jenny nodded, but her thoughts felt distant and not her own. She realized Bobby Lee McKinnon was making a return to her subconscious. She didn’t feel threatened by his presence; she felt only his curiosity as to what she was doing. It was as if he was feeling her unease. Then the feeling was gone. Either Bobby Lee didn’t like the basement, or his curiosity had been satisfied. For the first time since her own personal haunting had started seven years before, Bobby Lee’s presence, brief as it was, had been comforting. She almost felt he was looking out for her.

As the camera moved away from Jenny and focused on the trapdoor in the concrete floor, a loud bang sounded, frightening everyone in the room. Even Lonetree felt his heart jump. Just as the team started to settle, another loud bang sounded, then another, and another. Three in a row, and they could all feel the power behind them. They felt the beats through the soles of their feet.

“This isn’t right,” George said once again. “Something isn’t right. Do you feel it, John?”

Lonetree looked around, trying to pinpoint where the banging had come from, but he was having trouble. It had come from two different directions. He tilted his head.

“There’s no change in room temperature,” George said, and John knew that George was right. “If this was real I would feel something.”

Another bang sounded and Lonetree started forward, away from the trap door. He stopped in front of the box of toys and without hesitation reached over and upended the torn box. Toys, music boxes and children’s art supplies spilled all over the floor. With the aid of the penlight he examined the toys and the box. His foot kicked at something big and round. The camera zoomed in on the object but no one recognized it for what it was.

“What is it, John?” Jenny asked.

Lonetree turned on his heel, moving directly for the large wood-burning stove in the far corner of the basement. He ripped open one of the large oven doors and rummaged inside. Then he slammed it shut. He went to the next door and pulled it open, rummaging through its interior. Then he yanked and pulled and finally emerged with a small black box with an antenna on it. It was attached to the same kind of big, round object that was in the toy box.

Inside the van, Harris Dalton’s gut wrenched as he watched John. He closed his eyes and ordered the cameraman to get a better shot of what John was holding. In the green-tinted low light filter, they saw Lonetree hit a small switch. Suddenly the basement was filled with the sound of the banging they had heard a moment before. First the round, black object that had spilled from the toy box boomed loudly, then the one John was holding.

George smiled, but Jennifer looked angry. Lonetree threw the speaker and transmitter, smashing them into the large stove.

Harris Dalton felt his heart sink. Abe Feuerstein, over a hundred and fifty miles away, also felt his stomach churn with the whiskey that was washing around inside. Back in Pennsylvania, Lionel Peterson’s eyes widened. He laughed out loud, unable to stop himself. Kelly Delaphoy buried her face in her hands and bit hard into her left palm to keep from screaming. On the third floor, Kennedy watched Julie Reilly. There was no surprise on her face.

“Goddamn it, go to commercial — NOW!” Harris shouted.

Suddenly the phones started buzzing. Harris knew without being told that New York was on the line, screaming for his head. He looked back at Kelly Delaphoy with murder in his eyes.

“Go to the extended commercial package. We’ll need ten minutes here!”

“Sir, New York wants to know exactly what they just saw?” his assistant said, holding the phone to her chest.

“What do you think? We just saw all of our careers and possibly the entire network go under. Someone placed those goddamn speakers inside the basement!”

Lionel Peterson stood and patted Kelly on the back, then opened the door and stepped out into the night. They didn’t need him to tell them that they were as fucked as a turkey the night before Thanksgiving. Kelly had done it. Against every order from New York, she had tried to put one over on Professor Kennedy’s team, and she had gotten caught. It was just too good to believe. Nothing had happened inside the house for over three hours, and now this. It was over for the special, and he would swoop in to save the day with the alternate programming he had arranged.

Summer Place, it turned out, was nothing more than a house.

Abraham Feuerstein felt the wolves gathering at the bar at the end of the large screening room. The board members that had been backing Lionel Peterson were no longer hiding that alliance, but outwardly flaunting it. Just thirty seconds into the extended commercial break, not only had he been handed the last ratings report, but he had been informed that three major sponsors were all demanding release of their sponsorship agreement. The compartments of Feuerstein’s ship were filling with water fast and there was nothing he could do to stop the flooding.

The CEO slid his empty glass over to the bartender and nodded that he wanted it filled. He calmly sipped his drink and waited for the network wolves to attack.

Harris Dalton sat hard into his chair and tossed his headphones onto the console before him. Below his elevated platform his technical team was silent as the first of ten commercials played on the broadcast screen. The monitors were all full of the camera views coming from inside Summer Place. One of them showed Julie Reilly hurrying down the staircase from the third floor. The only other monitor showing movement inside the house was number 14 in the kitchen. John Lonetree stepped through the door, carrying the damning evidence of the hoax in his hand: two large sub-woofers and the transmitting box that had produced the loud banging and the moaning. Harris thought it would be People’s Exhibit Number One in their fraud trials.

“Harris?”

Dalton didn’t turn at the sound of Kelly Delaphoy’s voice. He ran his right hand through his graying hair and sat motionless, waiting for the ax to fall from New York. His eyes roamed over to monitor seventeen. The Boston family was sitting confused in front of their television. The father was snickering and the mother was motionless. The kids had wandered away to another room, which was merciful in and of itself. The hoax was called, and the world knew it.

“Harris, I had nothing to do with this, I swear to you,” Kelly said through the tears welling up in her eyes. “I really thought we didn’t need any gags to get through the night. I really believed that Summer Place would be the proving ground Professor Kennedy needed.”

Finally Harris turned, a thin smile on his lips. He placed a hand on Kelly’s shoulder and then took a deep breath.

“If it’s any consolation, after the broadcast test two weeks ago, I really thought this place was special too. I thought we had a chance to really prove something. I don’t blame anyone for this mess but myself.” On monitor number three, Gabriel Kennedy had just reached the bottom floor behind Julie Reilly. The lights came on throughout the house. Lionel Peterson was standing in the center of the foyer with his hands on his hips. Wallace Lindemann was walking past him toward his favorite spot in the house — the ballroom. “What’s going to happen to him,” Harris said, pointing at the image of Professor Kennedy.

“Sir, the network is on the phone. They’re pulling the plug and they want Julie Reilly to wrap things up with script describing the hoax attempt. She’s to use her own wording and try to exonerate the network as much as she can.” The assistant was unable to meet the director’s eyes.

Harris nodded his head. “Pass that along to Julie. No, wait. Kelly, take the instructions in to her. You’ll need to make an appearance, anyway. Accusations are going to be flying and I don’t want you to give one inch to that son of a bitch Peterson.”

Kelly bit her lower lip but nodded anyway.

“Explain to the new head of the network that he’s got eight minutes to do his firing. Then we’re back on the air,” Harris said. He shook his head and headed for the door for some much needed air.

Kelly slowly moved past him toward the front portico of Summer Place, now brightly lit. Other technicians were outside the production van taking a break and talking among themselves. Many were not hiding their mirth at what had happened inside the house. They assumed Harris Dalton himself had been in on the hoax.

Dalton was about to turn and walk back into the van when he heard a honking coming from the front gate. He watched a black van pull up to the gates, but shook his head, figuring it was just another nut coming out of the woodwork. Harris started up the steps of the production van just as a security officer stopped him.

“Sir, there’s a couple of gangster-looking men out here in a van that say they have information for Leonard Sickles. They say he’s expecting them.”

Harris looked toward the large front gate.

“No one gets in, I don’t care who they work for. If they have a package for Mr. Sickles, tell them you’ll take it into him.” Harris turned and entered the production van.

The security man returned to the gate and passed on his instructions. The two men cussed but knew they had to give over the yellow envelope. They admonished the security man and told him that Leonard owed them money for their work, and the security man said he would pass on that also.

The black man in the passenger seat reluctantly handed over the large yellow envelope that contained the material they had stolen from the Lindemann Foundation in Philadelphia. The package also included information from a bribed source at the Immigration and Naturalization offices in Washington.

The envelope exchanged hands. Just as the security man locked the gates once more, deep inside Summer Place, in the basement where John Lonetree and his team had just uncovered the hoax of the century, the trapdoor leading to the subbasement lifted on its hinges. The push from below was so strong that the wood cracked and the hasp and lock bent. The dust of a hundred years plumed up from the old wood as the door strained against its restraints.

Upstairs on the third floor, the sewing room door shook in its frame. The crystal doorknob turned once, twice, and then the door shook again.

Suddenly Summer Place was awaking from its sleep. Two kinds of hell wanted to be freed.

Gabriel Kennedy met his team in the large foyer, George caught Kennedy’s eye and shook his head. He stepped up to Gabriel and pulled him aside.

“Gabe, the feelings I was getting down there — I knew there was something going on. I mean, I felt the lie before Lonetree found the speakers.”

Gabriel’s attention was focused past George, trying to hear what Lionel Peterson was saying. Gabriel was surprised to see Julie Reilly arguing with him. If he heard right, she was denying the fact that she had anything to do with planting the speakers. Father Dolan had moved to the bottom step of the stairs and had sat down. Gabriel saw the Father look away, as if the conversation involved him in some way.

“Gabriel, listen to me, goddamn it!”

Lonetree and Jennifer heard George’s loud exclamation and broke away from the group. John pushed the two speakers and transmitter into Peterson’s chest, hard enough that the executive flinched.

Jennifer and Lonetree joined Gabriel and George. “Look,” George was saying, “that wasn’t all I was feeling down there. I was to the point where I couldn’t breathe.”

“What are you saying?” Kennedy overheard Peterson telling Julie that they were pulling the plug on the special. He saw that Kelly Delaphoy had joined them.

“It was like someone had thrown a ton of dirt over my face and I couldn’t get any air.” George took Kennedy by the arm. “Something is down there, Gabriel. And I don’t mean the basement. It’s deeper. Maybe in the root cellar.”

Kennedy turned to Lonetree. “Did you get any feelings down there?”

Lonetree shook his head.

“I got something,” Jenny said. “Bobby Lee popped in for a minute. I just thought it was just my memory of him, but it was like he was curious about something. It went away as soon as it appeared, but it was there.”

“And John’s a Dream Walker; he wouldn’t have picked up on what I did. I’m telling you, something is down there!”

“Professor, can you join us, please?”

Kennedy looked up and saw that Peterson was looking at them. His eyes went from the small group to his watch. Kelly was standing with her head low and Julie Reilly was fuming, ignoring the makeup girl who tried to get her face. Kennedy walked up to the group, followed by the rest of his team. He saw Leonard Sickles standing in the ballroom doorway watching curiously. Not far behind him was Wallace Lindemann, draining a glass of whiskey, content that his house had been proven clean of anything that went bump in the night. One of the security men gave Leonard a large yellow envelope, but Peterson interrupted his thoughts before he could wonder about what was inside. Leonard held the envelope at his side and returned to the ballroom with it.

“Professor, since an embarrassing hoax has been perpetrated on my network, the board has decided to pull the special from the air. Ms. Reilly here will go live and explain that we are having technical problems and cannot continue, and we will switch to alternate programming.”

“You bastard, you know I had nothing to do with this. If it was anyone, it was Kelly,” Julie said. Kelly Delaphoy didn’t make any attempt at denial at this point. Kennedy turned and looked at Father Dolan who was still sitting on the stairs. He was wringing his hands and making a point of not seeing the argument taking place right in front of him.

Julie Reilly held her ground.

“Now, I don’t believe this house is haunted, but I would not have sabotaged what may have been an even bigger story: Professor Kennedy being held responsible for his missing student’s disappearance.”

Kennedy saw Damian Jackson step away from the coat check room with his overcoat in hand, smiling from ear to ear. He stopped short of the group and just listened.

“Look, whoever was responsible, it’s a moot point at this juncture,” Peterson said. “I’m sure the board will want a full investigation — we’ve lost them forty million dollars in revenue alone. For now, let’s get this wrapped up and get the hell back to New York. I want everyone in the office at nine in the morning. And I will not be accepting any resignations.”

Julie and Kelly, along with Harris Dalton, knew then that they wouldn’t be spared. They would be fired and their careers were done.

“Okay, all non-essential personnel clear the house. Ms. Reilly you have five minutes. Father Dolan, you are excused. Please clear the area, everyone. I want our intrepid reporter to do her standup at the staircase.”

Dolan stood without looking at Peterson, and moved to the side of the staircase. Kennedy smiled, and the others of his group looked at him, clearly wondering what he found humorous about all that was happening.

“I think we have our culprit, boys and girls.” Most of the eyes in the room went to Father Dolan, who couldn’t bring himself to look any of them in the eye. “James, you and your friends were the only ones allowed into the house before the broadcast team arrived. Would you like to do a little confessing?” Gabriel asked.

“Look, we know who is responsible for this fiasco, there is no need to call Father Dolan’s reputation into question,” Lionel Peterson said.

“I thought you would come to the defense of the good Father, Peterson,” Kennedy said. He looked toward Julie Reilly. He knew she wasn’t a part of what happened in the basement, but he also knew that like a shark, she was smelling blood in the water. He was going to take advantage of that.

Julie caught the unvoiced instruction. She half turned and whispered into her microphone.

“Get the audio out to New York. Hurry.”

“The two women with you this afternoon, James, they weren’t from any paranormal society at all, were they?” Gabriel asked, stepping even closer to Father Dolan. “Or if they were, they were also experts at rigging up houses. Am I right? Is it so they can say they produce evidence?”

Father Dolan finally looked up at Kennedy. His eyes roamed from the professor to Lionel Peterson, and then to Wallace Lindemann, who stood in front of the ballroom with an empty glass in his hand.

“I see where you’re going with this, Kennedy, but you’re on the wrong tack. Our culprit is right here,” Lionel said, nodding toward Kelly.

Father Dolan shook his head. “The supernatural, these shows, people all over the world turning away from their faith. I thought that—”

At that moment, every door upstairs on the second and third floors opened and slammed against the walls. Then, all at once, they slammed closed again. The lights flickered and the house shook. Lionel Peterson, about to follow the technicians out of the house, stopped and turned. The smile on his lips was wide and mocking.

“Really, it’s a little late for that isn’t it?”

Just as the words exited his mouth, the front doors slammed shut, hitting the last of the makeup girls in the back of the head and sending her flying onto the front porch of the house.

“Good God!” Father Dolan stepped forward, his confession all but forgotten.

The lights flickered again. Then they went out, and a grunt accompanied the sound of someone falling. Then the lights started flashing on and off. In the strobing illumination, Father Dolan lay sprawled on his stomach. Gabriel and Lonetree started forward to assist the older man to his feet, but as they neared him, something took the Father by the feet and started pulling him up the stairs. The cameraman who had been following Lonetree and his group in the cellar thought fast and sprang forward almost at the same moment as Kennedy and Lonetree. He immediately started filming.

“Harris, Harris, get us back on the air, Goddamn it!” the cameraman yelled into his microphone. This was no elaborate hoax.

Gabriel and John reached Father Dolan and grabbed his hands. In the flickering light they all saw the panic on the old man’s face as he was pulled away. Finally George and the second cameraman joined the two men trying to pull Dolan back, actually throwing their bodies on top of the black-clad priest.

The tug of war continued. On the twentieth step leading to the second floor, the small red indicator on the ambient light camera started to glow red.

“We’re going live!” the cameraman shouted.

At the front door, Lionel Peterson stood motionless. Then he also sprang into action, taking Julie Reilly’s headphones from her. In front of the ballroom, Wallace Lindemann let the tumbler of ice slip from his fingers as he watched what was happening on the stairs.

“Who gave you the go ahead to go back on the air, Dalton?” Peterson shouted.

As they all watched, John Lonetree was shoved down the stairs. Gabriel was hit hard enough that his head slammed into the wooden banister. The cameraman and George Cordero were tossed back down the stairs with enough force that the gathered men and women heard bones break as they hit the tiled floor.

Kelly Delaphoy screamed. In the flickering light, she watched Father Dolan being pulled up the stairs hard enough that his head bounced against every step. It was all silent as he disappeared over the second floor landing. Then as suddenly as it had started, the house quit. Then they heard the laugh, deep and booming, coming from upstairs.

Yes, Summer Place had awakened.

TWENTY

The screening room was silent, save only for the sound of ice striking the bottom of a glass. Everyone started, turning away from the large screen for the briefest of moments to look for the source of the sound. Abraham Feuerstein looked up in mock apology and smiled, pouring his own drink for the first time in years — at least, in front of others. He nodded toward the screen.

“Inform Harris Dalton that we’ll stick with the special for the time being. Also inform Lionel Peterson he is not to leave the house, he’s to stay inside with Professor Kennedy. We do have the state policeman on hand?”

“Yes sir,” his assistant said as she helped the old man back to his chair.

“Good. That should preclude anyone calling the authorities.”

“Sir, what if—”

The CEO stared at the man who fronted for Lionel Peterson until the skinny little man closed his mouth.

“I believe our good Professor Kennedy made everyone aware of Mr. Peterson’s culpability in the basement hoax. He stays, and the special goes forward. Instruct Dalton that he has control of commercial interruption time.”

The audio and the visuals that had come in from Summer Place had shocked everyone.

“It looks like Halloween may just turn out to be something special after all.”

The men and women in the screening room had never seen the old man looking so smug.

They all heard the moan coming from upstairs. It was Kennedy who acted first, swiping blood away as he gained his feet. John Lonetree acted second, standing and eyeing Jenny, his unvoiced command making her stand in place and not follow him. Both men bounded up the stairs just as the lighting inside the house came on strong. Everyone else remained in the foyer, motionless. Lionel Peterson heard the command coming from the production van that instructed everyone to keep their places. Not only was the special to continue, it would do so without commercial interruption at Dalton’s discretion. But by far the most shocking news was the order that Harris passed on directly to Peterson himself, and this order made everyone that heard it over their headphones smile: he was to stay inside the house with the investigating teams. Peterson tore the earpiece from his ear and threw it to the ground. A soundman collected it and placed it in his own ear as he and the first cameraman bolted after Kennedy and Lonetree.

Inside the production van, Harris Dalton was practically screaming for the camera and sound men to catch up with the professor. On monitor number one, the picture was jumbled as the cameraman took the stairs in pursuit, jostling the camera about. They had switched from ambient light to regular exposure and the lens finally caught sight of the two men kneeling before a prone figure on the second floor landing. The picture jostled once again as someone pushed past the two technicians. It was Damian Jackson, who went to Lonetree and Kennedy.

“If this man is hurt because of anything you pulled, Kennedy, I swear to God I’ll place you in handcuffs in front of the entire fucking world!”

Gabriel didn’t even look up when the state policeman bumped him. He was busy feeling for a pulse. When he found it, he finally spared the lieutenant a glance.

“Shut up and help us get him out of here. He needs a doctor. I think his neck’s broken.”

All three men lifted the Father as carefully as they could. The movement made the old man moan and then there was silence. They brushed by the camera and soundmen on their way down the stairs. The others gathered around the staircase as the three men went through the foyer with Father Dolan in their arms, and on to the front doors. Lonetree let go of one of the Father’s legs and reached for the door handle. He turned the knob and pulled, but nothing happened. He looked to make sure it wasn’t locked and then tried again. This time the left side opened about six inches and was pulled closed, yanking the handle from the big Indian’s grasp. He tried again and this time had it almost all the way open with the assistance of three or four people in the front porch. The door was pulled from his grasp once more.

“To hell with this,” Damian Jackson said. He helped lower Father Dolan to the expensive carpet. Then he went to the large plate glass window on the side of the double doors. He took a large wooden chair that had flanked a small table, and with all of his strength he raised it above his head and slammed it into the window. The glass spiderwebbed, but held it shape and form. The heavy wooden chair splintered in Jackson’s hands. Nonplussed, the detective picked up the second chair from the small table set and repeated the process. This time the chair bounced backward, almost hitting the policeman on the rebound. The spiderweb cracks not only held, it looked as if they were shrinking. As if the glass was healing itself.

“What the hell?” Jackson exclaimed. The curtains blew with an unfelt breeze and, before all of them, the glass became whole again.

“It’s not going to let us out,” Gabriel said. “John, you and George take Father Dolan into the ballroom and make him as comfortable as you can.”

Damian Jackson heard the instructions, but his eyes were on the window. It looked as if he had never assaulted it with two heavy wooden chairs. Through the sheer curtain, Damian could see other people on the front porch as they tried communicating with him through the glass. Then as everyone watched, a coldness came through the first floor of Summer Place. It went past Jackson and slammed into the front wall. They watched as the pane of glass frosted over.

“Kennedy!” Jackson called. “This has gone too far. Call off your people, wherever you have them hidden, we have an injured man here.”

Gabriel shook his head as he joined Jackson at the window.

“You just won’t understand, will you? This house is waking up. Get that through your head, damn it. For now, we have to figure out what awakened it.” He turned and ran for the ballroom, followed by one of the two sets of camera and soundmen.

With the two film crews going on instinct and with no real direction, and Julie sequestered in a far corner of the ballroom to speak quietly with the production van, Gabriel checked on Father Dolan, who had been stretched out on one of the large billiard tables. Jennifer Tilden and George Cordero had the elderly priest awake and it looked like he had suffered no more than a broken right leg and possibly a concussion. In the corner, Julie cut her conversation with Dalton short when she saw that Gabriel was approaching Father Dolan. She waved the closest of the camera and soundmen toward the billiard table. Lionel Peterson saw the gathering and moved off to join Damian Jackson as he entered the ballroom.

“How is he?” Gabriel asked Jenny.

“For someone who was dragged up a flight of stairs, he’s doing remarkably well,” she said. She was wrapping the Father’s leg in one of the sheer curtains from the ballroom’s window.

“Keep him warm. In case you haven’t noticed, winter’s set in down here.” Kennedy blew out a deep sigh to demonstrate the frosting of his breath.

“Professor, I’m sorry for what I did,” Father Dolan said, struggling with his words.

Gabriel placed a hand on the man’s chest and patted it. “You just lay still, we’ll try to get you some help.”

“I have a feeling that may be more of a problem than you know.” Dolan raised a hand and pointed toward one of the plate glass windows. Wallace Lindemann was using one of the ornate barstools to smash at the glass, but every time he struck the frosted glass, the barstool would rebound as if he were hitting a pane of pure rubber.

Julie Reilly stepped up with the camera crew right behind her.

“Professor, can you absolutely rule out a set-up? You and your team members were actually in a tug of war with something on that staircase. What can you tell us?”

Gabriel smiled and shook his head. Then he looked around the room. It seemed that everyone was watching him, waiting for the explanation that would make sense of the sudden shift in Summer Place.

“Something changed in the few minutes leading up to the attack. An element may have been introduced that brought this slumbering beast to wakefulness.”

“So what is the plan for the Supernaturals, Professor?”

“First, we have to try and get Father Dolan and the non-essential personnel out of the house. Failing that, we will have to secure them in the ballroom.”

The lights flickered once more and a whoosh of wind traveled from upstairs. It hit the ballroom doors with such force that it slammed both doors closed. Wallace Lindemann was so taken by surprise that he dropped his barstool and quickly made his way over to Damian Jackson and Lionel Peterson.

“Jesus, it must be thirty degrees in here.”

“This woman, ladies and gentlemen, is the producer of Hunters of the Paranormal, Ms. Kelly Delaphoy. She has decided to join the inside team,” Julie said. The camera, with its regular light lens, zoomed in on Kelly’s face. She looked frightened, but exhilarated.

The second camera team moved closer to the detective and Lionel Peterson just as Wallace Lindemann joined them. Damian interrupted his conversation long enough to push the camera and its operator back.

“I told you, I am not to be on the air. Now get away,” he hissed.

The camera and soundmen backed away just as the lights went out, and then just as suddenly came back on. Outside the house, the harsh rumble of thunder immediately followed a flash of lightning.

“As we make plans for how to handle the sudden awakening of Summer Place, it seems we have an enormous storm cell moving into the valley. I am informed by our production crew that the winds have picked up and the sudden heavy rainfall has caught several of our support technicians off guard,” Julie explained, moving around the ballroom with her camera team in tow.

Inside the production van, Harris Dalton allowed Julie to run with it. He looked to the preview monitor and saw that they were cued up for an extended commercial run in case something happened that required them to do things they didn’t want the viewing audience to see. Thus far, New York had confirmed that they were indeed going out live and that ratings were still falling. That meant that no matter what, the CEO was telling him in no uncertain terms that they would sink or swim on what Kennedy had to say.

Harris looked around and saw the empty spaces where a half hour before Lionel Peterson and Wallace Lindemann had been sitting. Kelly’s chair was also empty and he smiled, breathing a sigh of relief. He was alone with complete control and no one looking over his shoulders. He would now go on his gut instinct, which was telling him this was his moment in the sun — the once in a lifetime event that would send his name into the stratosphere. He smiled again and spoke into his microphone.

“Julie, this is now Professor Kennedy’s show. You had your chance to put your monkey wrench in the works, and so did Peterson. Now we become believers. I think that damnable house has something to say.”

Julie Reilly knew Harris was right; this was now Kennedy’s show. She made her way back to Kennedy and pointed at his back, indicating to the camera and sound men that they should lock onto him and not leave.

“George, anything?” Gabriel asked, pulling Cordero away from his work on Father Dolan.

“I am getting conflicting thoughts, Gabe. Although we know something from up there,” he pointed toward the ceiling, “is active as hell and mean as a snake, I’m getting the feel of massive activity from below, possibly the root cellar. Not the basement, but deeper.”

Kennedy bit his lower lip. He had been expecting activity on a large scale, but not from two very different directions.

“John, how about you?” he asked Lonetree.

“You mean besides the fact that whatever is up there is strong as hell?”

“Yeah, besides that,” Gabriel said with a smile. He was aware of the camera and sound boom hanging over their heads but did his best to ignore them.

“I’m afraid you’ll have to go with what George is feeling for right now. I have nothing. If I could close my eyes for a while, I may be able to get a grasp on what’s happening.”

Gabriel patted John on the arm and then looked at Jennifer. She just shook her head, telling him without voicing it that Bobby Lee had not rejoined her.

“Professor Gabe, maybe you better see this.”

“That is the voice of Leonard Sickles, whom our viewing audience met earlier in the evening. Leonard, as you recall, is in charge of the technical side of things for the Supernaturals,” Julie explained as she followed the camera and soundmen over to Leonard, who was standing next to the large bar. He heard the name of Kennedy’s group as dubbed by Julie and smiled. He was the only team member who actually liked the comicbook-sounding moniker.

“What do you have?” Gabriel asked as the camera joined them.

With the thump of thunder and the flash of lightning outside the windows, the camera zoomed in tight on the small black man’s face. He pulled out the contents of the yellow envelope that had been delivered by his friends from Philadelphia. Gabriel could see they were photographs.

“What we have here is the photo history of the Vilnikov family,” Leonard said. He spread the stolen photos out on the bar for Gabriel and the camera to examine.

“For the benefit of our viewers, Mr. Sickles, could you explain just who the Vilnikov family is?” Julie asked.

“Uh, yeah, sure.” Leonard looked into the camera with his eyebrows bunched up, trying his best for that Clark Gable look. “The Vilnikovs are third cousins to the former Romanov dynasty from Russia. They were the family of Elena Lindemann, or so we were led to believe.”

“Explain the phrase, led to believe?” Julie asked. The camera looked over Kennedy’s shoulder as he examined the pictures.

“Put simply, we can’t find any evidence that Elena Lindemann, or Elena Vilnikov, ever existed.”

“You mean to say that there is no evidence of Elena in any of these family photos?” Julie asked. Kennedy raised one of the pictures and examined it closer. It was a father and mother, both of stern visage, and two daughters — each the wrong age to be Elena — and a son. No older daughter was apparent in any of the photos.

“The boy in the pictures is Vasily Vilnikov. There is no Elena.”

Gabriel laid the photo down and looked at Leonard, not saying anything. As he turned, the camera stayed on him, but before he could say anything to Julie, the house lights went out completely and didn’t come back on.

They were now cut off and in the dark.

Gabriel ordered the double oak doors to the ballroom closed and locked. Through his twenty years of research, he had learned that the worst thing that paranormal researchers could do was let an entity control the situation. When entities struck, they did so brazenly and with little tact. After a supernatural encounter, most people preferred to move on and not attract any scrutiny. Yet those encounters were exactly the ones that needed to be researched, analyzed and documented. Gabriel excelled where others had failed because he made those shy individuals want to tell him their stories. And now this was what they were working with tonight — his and others’ experiences.

“Okay, let’s get some battery powered lighting up and running,” Kennedy said as he surveyed the large ballroom. The Number One camera and sound crew that had been assigned to his team kept the camera on him and him alone. “We’ll use the ballroom as our starting point, and with our battery-powered lights, we’re declaring this room out of bounds to whatever is out there.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Jackson said, moving the camera’s lens from his face.

“Again, you have heard the voice of a Pennsylvania state policeman as he questions the Professor on his tactics,” Julie Reilly said into her personal microphone.

“If what’s out there is what you think it is, why the hell would it follow your rules of conduct?”

Kennedy smiled and tried his best to ignore the constant hum of the camera as it zoomed in on him. The first set of small Krieg lights came on in the corner, adjusted to shine light on Father Dolan and his injuries.

“It won’t follow the rules, but this is the best spot in the house in which to work, at least for the time being. This is where we have Father Dolan, and I don’t think it’s wise to try and move him. This is where we start.”

Damian Jackson looked taken back. He hadn’t been expecting Kennedy to have such a clear and concise answer to his question — and one that made sense.

“Professor Kennedy, why the sudden shift in the power of Summer Place? I mean, why would it come alive so fast?” Julie stood next to Kennedy, watching as he placed a rolled up jacket underneath Father Dolan’s head.

“To start with, the attempt of Father Dolan and Lionel Peterson—”

“All right, you have nothing that shows I was involved with that,” Peterson interrupted, forgetting that his denial was going out live to forty million viewers. He looked toward Wallace Lindemann who was pouring himself a drink at the bar. The small man caught the accusing look and started to protest, but he saw the camera turn his way and decided to fight for his defense another day.

“We already have his confession, Peterson,” George Cordero said. He stepped up beside Wallace and opened a bottle of water, not so gently moving the owner of Summer Place to the side with his elbow and a stern look.

“Regardless, all we’ve seen here is that the man who admitted to placing the speakers down in the basement was involved in another hoax that went wrong, and now that man is hurt.” Peterson finally realized that the camera was following him. He dipped his head and decided he may as well start fighting for his job right then and there. “There are several people in this room and in New York who have far more to lose than I.”

Kennedy shook his head. “These are all things that the network can take up tomorrow in the daylight. Right now we have something upstairs, and it became active as soon as Leonard here was brought the information on Elena. That’s the starting point. Why would the house care whether there’s history of Elena Lindemann as a child or not?”

“Working on that right now, boss. We’re trying to get an independent phone line out. All cell phone service is down. It’s like its being jammed,” Leonard Sickles said. He and three of the computer techs worked to reestablish contact with the satellites above.

“Dalton, are we attempting to enter the house from the outside?” Kennedy asked into his production microphone.

“Harris Dalton is the director in charge of tonight’s special. He is located in the network production van outside of Summer Place,” Julie explained. She went to one of the frozen windows and pulled back the thick curtain.

“Uh…yes, Professor, we have three men trying to break through the front doors and the rear kitchen door as we speak. I am surprised you haven’t heard them.”

The voice coming from the production van was but a whisper that was picked up on the air. Harris Dalton didn’t like the fact that the viewers could hear him, but they were all flying by the seat of their pants.

“Thus far, we are unable to break through. I can’t explain it yet,” Harris said.

Outside they saw another flash of lightning through the frozen glass, followed by the roar of thunder. Damian Jackson wondered why they could hear that and not the sound of men with axes trying to batter down the doors. He turned and left the ballroom and made his way out to the front doors through the darkness of the living room. Leaning toward the double doors, he thought he could hear thumping noises, but they seemed distant and far away. He pulled back and placed his hand on the frozen pane in the center of the front door. The glass was like ice. As he stepped back he could see some light passing through the glass from a lightning strike not far away. As he did, he saw the figure start to take shape as if someone were dragging a finger through the frost on the window. As he watched, he saw a rough outline of a pole, and attached to that pole was the figure of a man. A hanging man — lynched. The dark figure was hanging by a rope and as another lightning strike hit, the body attached to that rope swayed. Jackson backed away from the glass. The large room had become colder.

“What is it?”

Jackson felt his heart go into his throat. He turned and saw John Lonetree standing behind him. When he looked back at the glass to point out the anomaly, the pane of glass was completely frosted over and there was no figure etched in the moisture.

“Nothing,” he said.

“Can you hear anyone out there trying to get in?” John asked.

“They’re out there, but that’s about all I know.”

Lonetree turned back to face Damian.

“Not like your typical police investigation, is it.”

“I’m still not buying it, Lonetree. Come on, you’re a cop. You can’t believe this shit, can you?”

Lonetree shook his head. “Detective, I learned a long time ago not to question the natural world. There are things out there that our science has never touched on. There are worlds we know nothing of, and one of those worlds is alive and well and in this house. Now, that may not be the answer you’re looking for, but it’s one you better start considering. Your closed mind just may be your undoing.”

Jackson snorted.

“If your mind is closed off to those things, just how can it come up with a defense?” The big Indian moved away toward the ballroom. “And you may want to join us. Gabriel’s getting ready to explain the plan of attack.”

“Attack?”

Lonetree stopped and turned. “You didn’t think we came here just to study, did you?”

“What else would you have come here for?”

“To go to war. Did you think Gabriel was going to allow this house to kill one of his students and get away with it?”

Jackson watched Lonetree disappear into the ballroom. He turned and looked at the glass again, and then turned just as quickly away from it.

“Yeah, well in case you hadn’t noticed, he’s already down a man.”

Damian placed his hat on his head and started to follow John back into the ballroom. Upstairs he heard the sound of a door slamming shut. He wondered if it was something entering a room, or coming out. He glanced up the broad, darkened staircase, and quickened his step toward the ballroom.

Harris Dalton removed his headphones, careful to mute the microphone. He turned and looked at the lead mechanic, who was trying to explain what was happening.

“You mean to tell me you have all of this power flowing into the breaker boxes, but nothing is flowing into the house? How can that be possible?”

“It isn’t possible. It’s like the electricity is being siphoned off before it reaches the breakers.”

“Siphoned? Do you know how that sounds?” A thought slowly crept into Dalton’s mind. “Look, you stand by outside the van. You’re going to go on live with Julie Reilly, and she’ll interview you remotely from inside the house. Explain to those people inside Summer Place what’s happening out here. Tell that fireman to also stand by. I want him to explain why they can’t bust in through the windows or doors.”

“Oh, I don’t think our union will allow—”

Harris almost exploded. He took the man by his right shoulder and squeezed. It took all of his will power to calm himself. Using his most menacing voice — the one that had carried him through five Superbowl telecasts — he leaned in toward the man.

“I don’t give a good goddamn if you worked directly for Jimmy Hoffa in the day. If you don’t go on, I swear to God I will make sure you’re bundling electrical cable in Oklahoma City this time next week. Clear?”

“Yes, sir,” the mechanic said. He turned and left through the plastic strip curtain.

Harris Dalton placed the headphones back on and took a deep breath.

“Julie, you’ll be conducting two interviews after I run a three minute commercial break. One is with the lead mechanic and the other is with the fire chief.”

After Julie had her questions answered, Harris watched the monitors in front of him. He examined the ambient light cameras on the second and third floor and saw absolutely no movement on either. He changed headphones and then checked the directional microphones on those floors. All he heard was the distant sound of thunder outside. He switched to the basement microphones next, and then he froze. He pressed the headphones into his ears and waved everyone in the control room to silence. The sounds he was hearing didn’t seem to be coming from the basement, but the subbasement. They were distant and hard to define. He turned a switch and brought the sounds out through the large speakers.

“Can anyone tell me what the hell that noise is?” He tilted his head and closed his eyes as his brain worked to identify what he was hearing.

“Sir, it sounds like crying,” his assistant said.

“That’s what I get. Women, a lot of women. At least more than three or four,” said the sound engineer.

“Can you boost the gain on the basement microphone?” Harris asked..

“That’s as high a gain as we have. We need to place the microphones in a different area, like as close to the trapdoor as we can.”

“Okay. As soon as Julie finishes with her interview, we’ll see what Kennedy wants to do.”

“Maybe they can convince that asshole Peterson to go and do it,” his assistant said.

The elicited laughs told Harris that his production team was at least thinking about what was happening. And if they believed something was afoot inside Summer Place, then most of America would be believers.

“I’ll suggest just that, but don’t hold your breath. I don’t think Peterson will risk his neck for a job that won’t be there tomorrow.”

The van quieted as they all listened to the sounds. The crying was definitely female, and full of anguish.

Just as Harris was about to order the commercial break from General Motors, incoherent gibberish started to replace the crying, like a hundred voices speaking a foreign language at once. It was joined by another noise: pounding on the trap door to the subbasement.

Each pounding of the wooden door made everyone in the production van flinch.

“Julie, get Professor Kennedy on the line. Tell him to connect his microphone, damn it. And while you’re conducting the interviews, we need someone to check out the basement. We have something happening down there. We’re picking up voices…and what sounds like crying.”

The main monitor showed a man standing in front of a brand new Chevrolet Silverado, explaining why all of America should own one. Harris started counting down the seconds to the fifth hour of the Halloween special. He had been informed by the CEO himself that the show was just now climbing back to the ratings values they had anticipated, but the polls were still showing an overwhelming degree of disbelief on the part of the viewing public. They had lost the test family completely — they had given up on the show, and were now watching reruns of Family Guy on another network.

Inside Summer Place, Cordero, Lonetree and Gabriel stood in the darkened kitchen. The camera and soundman waited anxiously for their cue as Julie started her brief interviews with the men trying to get power to the house, and the fire chief who couldn’t seem to break a pane of window glass or batter down a door.

Julie Reilly was right outside the double swinging doors of the large kitchen, her remote setup complete. She started off directly with the lead mechanic first. He explained how the power was connected to the house, but that it was being lost somewhere between the breaker boxes and the distribution points. Julie asked the question everyone was thinking: was the power being used by something inside Summer Place? The mechanic laughed. It was an impossibility, to put it mildly.

Julie grimaced at the answer. She had hoped the man would be more of a team player. She then started questioning the fire chief from Bright Waters.

“Chief, what problems are you encountering trying to break into the house?”

The cameras cut to the chief, who was standing outside on the veranda of Summer Place, looking up at the house.

“It seems the storm has built up the barometric pressure to a point that—”

“Chief, we need to stop you right there. We can see the shadows of your men from the inside through the ice that has formed on the glass; they don’t seem to be doing much in the way of breaking in. Is it true you have had orders to stand down?”

The question took the chief by surprise. Even Harris Dalton and his productions team looked at one another. Harris picked up the red phone and was connected directly to the CEO in New York.

“Sir, have any orders come from New York to stop attempting to get inside the house?”

Harris listened, and his knuckles turned white on the phone’s handset.

“Damn it sir, we have an injured man inside that house. We need to get him out.” Dalton listened and closed his eyes. “Yes, sir, right now it’s a possible broken leg and a concussion. Yes, sir, a dramatic break-in in the sixth hour, I understand. Now, I also understand that it’s your orders to not get help inside the house at this time?” Harris listened and made a sour face. When he hung up the phone, he rubbed his eyes. Then he looked up at the greenish image of Julie Reilly as she ended her remote interview with the two men outside.

“I must admit, you’re damn good, Reilly. I never saw that one coming,” Harris said on cue. The preview monitor switched to the live shot of Kennedy, Cordero and Lonetree as they stood at the basement door inside the kitchen; only she could hear him.

“Yeah, well, what about Father Dolan? Are they going to get him help anytime soon?” she asked. She placed her hand on the kitchen door, wanting desperately to get inside before they started down into the basement. She listened to Harris. “The sixth hour? Has everyone here and in New York gone nuts? The fire chief will be crucified if this gets out.”

“Yeah, and in the end you’ll find out our small town chief just earned five times more in retirement benefits than he would have normally received. I don’t think he gives a flying fuck about getting fired, not after what the network must be paying him to stay out of the house.”

“Harris, maybe we should ask Kennedy to get the Father out of here. I think whatever is in this house may have a hard-on for the good Father.”

“Okay, okay, ask Kennedy if we should get him out through one of back windows or doors, so no one can see.”

“You got it. I’m going with Kennedy to the basement now.”

“Okay. Be careful what you say. They’re live in there.”

Julie pushed opened the double swinging doors, leaving her own camera crew behind. Kennedy had opened the basement door and was getting ready to enter the stairwell leading down. Julie nodded her head at the sound and camera men she had just joined. The camera stayed trained on Kennedy, following his green tinted image down into the blackness of the cellar.

Immediately, Julie started hearing the sounds that had so scared the production team in the van. The cries were getting louder and far more insistent. They were indeed women — a lot of them.

From the van, Harris Dalton informed everyone that the noises and voices were coming through loud and clear. The world was hearing what they were.

“George, are you picking up anything?” Kennedy asked. He slowly moved down the stairs in the total darkness.

“Anguish…yes, anguish. Not physical pain. It’s…it’s like a mental torture.”

Gabriel reached the turn in the wooden stairs and stopped. He could now hear spoken words mixed with the crying.

“I don’t know about you fellas, but I’m hearing German, maybe Polish, some Italian…a few other languages.”

Julie was also hearing what Cordero described.

The cameraman and the soundman, with his mic boom hanging out over Julie and Lonetree, were both nervous. The soundman was of Polish decent and knew the language from his grandmother. He leaned toward Julie and muted his microphone.

“One of them is calling out for Leana, no — begging for Leana,” he said nervously.

“And Magda,” Kennedy said. “German, although I haven’t studied it since high school. The accent is right — Magda.”

“Our sound man, David, off the air, says that one of the voices he understood was in Polish. It’s calling the name Leana. And now Professor Kennedy has confirmed a name being spoken in German — Magda,” Julie explained. She started down again, holding tightly to the handrail. Just as her feet touched the small landing where the stairs turned sharply to the right, the kitchen door above them slammed shut. The sound was like a cannon going off and made Julie almost lose her footing on the landing. She bounced off of one rail and nearly went off backwards on the rebound. George Cordero and John Lonetree reached out in the darkness and grabbed her. John switched on his small penlight and made sure Julie got her bearings.

Julie mouthed, “Thank you.”

The camera had been jostled as it tried to focus on Julie’s face. She grimaced and nodded toward Kennedy as he was nearing the bottom steps. She felt embarrassed at her near misstep and feared she would now be perceived as a klutz by the viewing audience. She would have to redeem herself below.

Kennedy paused at the bottom of the stairs, allowing his eyes to adjust to the pitch black basement. He heard the door open at the top of the stairs, and suspected that Damian Jackson was joining them. He ignored the heavy footsteps that descended the steps slowly and carefully.

Gabriel turned toward the root cellar door, moving forward so that Lonetree, George, and the camera crew could step onto the concrete flooring.

“The voices and the weeping have started to fade down to almost nothing,” Kennedy said as he listened.

Damian Jackson joined them on the floor and looked around. He was only able to make out the camera crew in front of him. He pressed his earpiece into his right ear and listened to what the professor was saying to the live audience. He shook his head. Kennedy was having a field day with this fiasco.

Gabriel finally switched on his small light and shined it toward the far side of the basement, illuminating the trapdoor. He started forward.

“Gabe, I’m registering a massive temperature fall-off on the digital thermometer,” Lonetree said. He moved the small device around, taking readings. “It’s colder around the center of the room.” John stepped toward Kennedy. “Okay, it just dropped another ten degrees.”

George joined them with the thermal imager. The camera zoomed in on the screen of the handheld box-like device. The blue wave it caught seemed to be flowing freely from the cracks around the edges of the sub-basement door. George held the imager out for Kennedy to see.

“Professor, could this image be caused by much colder air rising from below, as would be natural for a deep root cellar?” Julie asked in a whisper.

“A normal drop-off would be a three to five degree difference. But as you can see on the thermal imager, we have a massive drop of over thirty degrees. Unless the root cellar is refrigerated, no, this is not normal.”

Julie heard a small snicker of laughter from behind her. When she turned, Damian Jackson held up his hand in apology.

Julie knew that Kennedy was scoring points off her. She was starting to understand that he was out to get her now.

Gabriel squatted and examined the old lock.

“The owner of the property gave the professor the key to the lock earlier, with the dire warning that no one has been down in the root cellar since the Lindemanns last stayed at Summer Place back in 1940. Whatever we see down there hasn’t been seen in over seventy years,” Julie informed the viewing world.

From somewhere up above them a loud bang sounded. Then another, and then another.

The ballroom doors had been standing wide open, and then they both slammed shut. They opened and then slammed again, then yet again. Leonard Sickles looked up as everyone in the room fell silent. Even the injured Father Dolan came up on one elbow and looked toward the doors. Jennifer Tilden took Leonard’s arm and nodded in the light of the computer monitors. Leonard nodded in return. The camera team joined them just as Leonard pushed the mic button on his belt.

“Professor Gabe?”

As Kennedy answered from below, the camera zoomed in on Leonard’s face. Then it caught Jenny as she leaned in with a small device, the same one that was being used down in the basement. She held it so Leonard could see.

“We have a temperature drop of nearly twenty-five degrees up here. The ballroom doors just slammed closed three times on their own. We also—”

The computers shut down without warning and they lost the light from their monitors. The camera man immediately switched to his ambient light camera.

“Stay with the ballroom,” Harris Dalton said from the production van.

“Okay, we lost power in here,” Leonard said as he started checking the connections.

As they waited for Gabriel to comment, a pounding started from upstairs somewhere. Everyone in the ballroom turned their heads to look at the ceiling above.

“It sounds like its coming from the third floor,” Jenny whispered. The camera had her framed, and all the world could see that Jennifer was frightened as the pounding started to take on the sound of footsteps.

At that moment in the production van, Harris Dalton looked over at preview monitor five and his blood froze. Everyone around him stared at the ambient light picture coming from the third floor hallway.

“Okay people, we have activity up on the third floor. Both the sewing room and the master suite doors are standing wide open. I suspect that’s where the pounding originated.”

Indeed the heavy pounding sounded as if it were moving from the far end of the third floor toward the center of the hall — toward the landing.

In the cellar, the temperature was rising and the voices and crying had disappeared completely. Kennedy pressed his earpiece in tighter just as Jackson had done just a moment before. He shook his head and straightened and then started moving for the stairs.

“Something is happening upstairs and team one is now moving to investigate,” Julie said. She scrambled to keep up with Kennedy, who was taking the dangerous steps two at a time. Jackson, who had stepped out of the way to allow everyone to pass by him, shook his head at the dramatics.

“This is getting good,” he said as he turned to follow.

“Go to Two,” Harris said as he watched the monitor that showed Preview, and then he switched to the live shot of Kennedy running up the darkened stairs. “Okay, back to One.” The shot moved from Kennedy’s camera team to the ballroom just as the camera moved from face to face. The soundman was picking up the heavy pounding heading toward the third floor landing. Harris thanked God they had left a team inside the ballroom.

“Camera One, great job. Now turn eighty degrees to your left and get that little shit Lindemann in the shot.”

The cameraman zoomed in on the owner of Summer Place, who had stood from his seat at the bar and was watching the doors, the drink in his hand forgotten. He didn’t know he was on the air live, but the man next to him did. Lionel Peterson shook his head and tried to move away from the live shot.

“Don’t let Peterson slip away. Get him!” Harris said excitedly into his microphone.

The camera caught Peterson and he froze. He tried his best to look as if he was the man in charge, placing his hands on his hips. He stood stock still, watching the ballroom doors. Even in the blackness around him, he could see the camera frozen on him.

“Okay, get a shot of the ballroom doors. Audio, you’re doing real good, but move over into the shot and get your mic boom close to the door. Camera one, make sure you get him doing it.”

In New York, most everyone was impressed with the way Harris Dalton moved from shot to shot with the same kind of quick thinking that had won him all of his Emmy awards. Abe Feuerstein smiled and took a deep swallow of his whiskey. On the large screen, the greenish image of the soundman placed the sound boom as close to the door as possible.

The footsteps moved to the third floor landing and then they stopped. The silence was even more frightening than the noise had been. The cameraman caught the Father crossing himself.

“Great job, One, that was a once in a lifetime shot there.” Harris said.

Kelly Delaphoy moved over toward Lionel Peterson. Although it was dark, she could feel the anger radiating off of him in waves.

“Convinced yet?” she whispered.

“Fuck off,” he hissed, not really caring if the sound equipment heard him or not.

“Go to Camera Two. Kennedy is at the top of the stairs,” Harris said quickly.

The camera view switched with a fluidity that made Harris proud.

Gabriel slammed into the door that lead back into the kitchen. The camera lost him for a moment as the technician pushed past George and Lonetree, but finally focused on him just as he turned the cut glass doorknob. Nothing happened. Kennedy tried it again.

“It’s locked from the other side.” He pressed his shoulder against the door and pushed. This time the door opened a few inches and then was suddenly thrust back, shoving Gabriel away from the door.

Lonetree stepped past the camera and sound men and placed his large bulk against the door. Then, as one, they pushed. This time the door opened about a foot, and the camera caught both men struggling to maintain the opening. They could see the resistance on the other side of the door. Then they all heard the sound at the same time, right along with the live television audience. The growl was deep, as if it had come from a tunnel, and it made Kennedy and Lonetree lose their battle with the door. The force on the far side pushed it closed once more.

“What the hell was that?” Harris said into his microphone.

“Jesus!” the experienced cameraman said. His lens focused on the door in front of Gabriel and John.

“Goddamn it Camera Two, we can hear you!” Harris hissed into his mic.

His assistant patted his arm. “Take it easy. That was intense, and I doubt TV-land minded at all.”

Dalton knew she was right. Like it or not, the camera and sound men were now a part of the show, no longer just technicians in the background, they were now living this right along with the team down there.

In the green darkness on the screen, they could see Kennedy place his hand on the door about midway up, and then quickly withdraw it.

“Freezing,” he said, moving back to allow Lonetree to feel it for himself. “George, what are you feeling?” Gabriel asked Cordero.

“Scared, damn it.”

“Nothing else?” Kennedy asked.

Breathing heavily, Cordero stepped up to the door and held his hand out without touching the wood. His fingers closed into a fist as he gathered himself, and then they spread again as his hand moved closer. He came within an inch of the wood, then suddenly withdrew his hand and stepped back, making Gabriel and John do the same. The night vision camera zoomed in on Cordero’s features. The man looked around like a trapped animal.

“What?” This time it was the soundman who said the word. The technicians were scared and the whole world now knew professionalism was being overridden by that most basic, overwhelming sense.

“That’s not a ghost out there. Whatever it was, it was never human.” George took a step back off the landing and onto the first stair, nudging Julie Reilly out of the way.

The cut-glass knob turned and the door slowly opened a foot. Everyone stepped back, their eyes turned toward the darkness beyond.

Every person in the screening room stood as the basement door creaked open. Abe Feuerstein lowered his crystal glass. His assistant knelt by the CEO’s large chair and shoved a printout in front of him.

“Ratings have shot through the roof. Word is spreading fast. The general consensus is still that this is all a put-on, but they don’t seem to care.”

“Of course they don’t. This is goddamned good television!”

They watched the door open. Gabriel felt it first, but it was John who voiced it.

“The cold is gone.”

“It’s not there anymore,” George agreed.

“Our team leader has indicated that the presence beyond the door has left us,” Julie said as the camera turned in her direction.

Kennedy reached out and gently pushed the door open. He suddenly flinched when the loud boom sounded. They could all tell it came from the direction of the ballroom.

“Go to Camera One, now!” Harris said.

Inside the ballroom all eyes were on the giant, thick ballroom doors. The pounding on the wood started almost at the moment the basement door opened and the cold vanished.

“Professor Gabe?” Leonard said into his battery-powered mic, “Temperature fall-off of,” his eyes widened. The pounding was growing louder, more insistent, “Jesus, forty degrees.”

Then the pounding stopped. The doorknobs on both ballroom doors rattled and turned.

“Camera One, tighten up on that shot!” Harris said.

The cameraman zoomed in on the ornate door handles as they both turned, slowly at first, then with more persistence.

Sudden motion blurred past the camera. Jennifer shot forward and reached the doors before anyone knew what was happening. She turned the old skeleton-style key in the lock and then backed away. The pounding started again. Whatever was out there, it was angry that she had locked the doors. Jennifer and the others threw their hands up and covered their ears. Leonard was flinching every time the doors were struck. The pounding was so hard that plaster from the ceiling started to cascade down. The boom mic picked up Father Dolan’s prayers.

The pounding stopped and the doors started bending inward with a loud crack that froze everyone in place.

“Holy fuck,” Lionel Peterson said. His words went out live over the air, making legal execs flinch in New York.

Part of the oaken left door cracked and splintered with a loud pop. It was bent inward so far that the wood could endure no more.

Wallace Lindemann’s drink slipped through his fingers and hit the carpeted floor. No one, not even Lindeman himself, noticed.

The right-side door cracked as it bowed inward. They could all hear heavy grunting and breathing above the din of cracking wood. Jennifer was pulled back suddenly by Leonard, who was staring at the double doors. They were being pushed beyond what they could take. The grunting became louder still.

Suddenly the doors relaxed and sprang back to their original shape and position.

“Feel it?” Leonard asked.

Everyone did. It was over and they all knew it, even as Wallace Lindemann fainted dead away.

The cold was gone.

Suddenly the pounding started again, but this time it was miniscule compared to before. The doorknobs rattled and turned. Leonard ran to the doors and turned the ancient key in its lock.

“No!” Lionel Peterson shouted out. Most could hear Kelly Delaphoy’s snicker even over his loud exclamation.

Everyone in the van smiled. Lionel Peterson seemed to be quickly becoming a believer in the supernatural.

Leonard threw open the left door and leaned heavily against the door frame when he saw Kennedy and the others standing in the dark.

“Everyone okay?” Gabriel asked as he pushed into the ballroom, quickly followed by Lonetree, Cordero and Julie Reilly. Damian Jackson came in after the camera and sound men. “I think it’s over for now,” Gabriel said. He looked around at the terrified faces framed by the dim glow of their flashlights.

“Professor Gabe?” Leonard said as he quickly closed the ballroom doors.

Kennedy turned. The camera men had each of the two framed, so that Harris could choose the shot he wanted.

“I think you have a real haunted house here.”

“Fade to black, commercial in two, one, go,” Harris said into his mic.

On the screen, a rabbit was smiling and rolling a roll of toilet paper down a grassy hill.

“Tell New York I need ten minutes here to sort things out. Tell them to line three four-minute spots,” Dalton said as he sat heavily into his chair. “I want to be able to go back ASAP if something happens, so be ready to cut into the spots if need be.”

On the screen labeled “preview,” Kelly Delaphoy stepped into the picture and looked into the camera lens.

“What news is coming out of New York, Harris?” she asked, pressing her earpiece to her ear.

“All quiet on the Eastern front at the moment, but I think you’ll have the rest of your special,” Harris said. He paused and downed an entire bottle of water. When he finished, he looked at Kelly, who was smiling. “What’s so funny?”

“I knew this would work.” She lowered her voice, looked away and then back at the camera. “Did you hear Lionel scream when Sickles went for the door?”

“Yeah, we saw, along with the rest of the world. But before you start getting too thrilled over Peterson’s state, you better get a hold of yourself and start making a plan with Kennedy, because I think you’ve got a real problem.”

“What in hell can be a problem now?” Kelly asked.

“In case you haven’t noticed, you’ve all been herded into one place. On Camera Five, up on the third floor, something isn’t right.”

“What’s that?” she asked, her smile fading.

“The doors to the sewing room and the master suite are now closed. That means whatever was down near the basement and the ballroom more than likely came from the third floor.”

“I get you, Harris.”

“No, I don’t think you do.”

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“We can see the lights on in both rooms, even though the power has been out for the last fifteen minutes.”

The network ad executives were on the phone throughout the ten minute break in live programming. The din in the screening room was music to Abe Feuerstein’s ears — they were now actually turning down requests from the main sponsors of Hunters of the Paranormal to add additional time to their commitment.

The CEO watched as the men and women who had supported Lionel Peterson in his coup also scrambled to try and save their positions. As they attempted to approach Abe one and two at a time, he simply held up his hand and waved them away. Several left the screening room altogether. The night was his, and he only wished Lionel was here himself to see his complete and utter failure.

“Sir, all indications are that we are now nearing a fifty percent share on the night. The late night audience is just now tuning in and the sequence of events at Summer Place could not have come at a better time.”

Feuerstein nodded and shook his glass which contained nothing but melting ice. The young lady took the glass and the meaning but stayed as she needed to say something else.

“What is it?” he asked.

“Our legal department is concerned about what’s happening. I guess they are now believers themselves and—”

“Tell them to shove their concerns.”

“They would like all nonessential personnel out of that house, Father Dolan especially.”

Abe smiled and tapped the glass the young assistant held in her hand.

“The good Father stays. I believe he and Lionel Peterson need to be in on the finale, don’t you?”

The assistant turned and went to refill the CEO’s glass.

On the main viewing screen, a brand new Chevrolet Malibu shot down a Rocky Mountain highway. The scroll at the bottom of the screen warned the viewing audience that Hunters of the Paranormal would resume in five minutes. Abe smiled as he accepted his whiskey.

“Yes sir, this is television.”

With the storm breaking in earnest outside the walls of Summer Place, the occupants inside of the ballroom were becoming concerned. The men, including Lionel Peterson and the very frightened Wallace Lindemann, were crowded in front of the massive oaken doors. They had been trying to open them and the smaller side door for the past ten minutes, to no avail. It was as if the ballroom had been encased inside a concrete block. Kelly Delaphoy and Julie Reilly were standing next to the sofa where they had moved Father Dolan, while Jennifer Tilden and Damian Jackson tried in vain to smash the glass at the French doors in the front. Chair after chair met a similar fate to those in the living room an hour before.

“How about taking one of the doors off at the hinges?” one of the camera men asked as he zoomed in on the greenish figures standing at the doors.

Gabriel looked at John and tilted his head, then smiled. “I guess they didn’t cover everything at Harvard, did they?”

Lonetree looked at the camera man and nodded, as if to say, “one for you.”

One of the sound men reached into his bag and tossed Gabriel a large screwdriver.

In the front of the ballroom, Jackson stopped swinging the barstool at the ornate glass of the French doors, out of breath. Jennifer patted him on the back.

“Still think things around here are rigged, Lieutenant?”

“I’m not ready to admit to anything yet.” He tossed the stool away and reached into his coat. He pulled out a two way radio, winking as he brought it to his lips. “We’ll see how this place stands up to a ten ton battering ram on wheels.”

Jennifer gave him the faintest of smiles, as if she knew what was going to happen.

A flashlight illuminated Jackson. He and Jenny were joined by Wallace Lindemann and Lionel Peterson.

“Thank God someone’s thinking around here,” Peterson said. He pulled over the same sound man who had produced the screwdriver for the men working at the large doors and yanked the headphones from the man’s head. He placed them on and started to call Harris in the production van just as Jackson, after giving Peterson a distasteful look, initiated contact with the state police.

“State Police barracks seventeen, do you copy, over?”

“Harris, this is Peterson, get every technician and firemen you can and get those fucking front doors open. We’re coming out now!”

At the same moment, a voice came over both the technician’s headphones and the police radio — one that didn’t originate at either the production van or the state police barracks. The voice was deep and booming and brought everyone in the darkened ballroom to a complete and utter standstill. The sound was not only coming from the radio and the headset, but from the powerless stereo speakers and ornate jukebox in the far corner, which had illuminated to its full glory. Everyone in the ballroom smelled the odor at the same time, as if it had flooded into the large room and clung to everything and everyone. It was the smell of lilac.

“You cannot have them, they are mine!”

Jackson figured it was more interference and technical wizardry from Kelly Delaphoy, Kennedy or even Peterson himself. Both camera teams were now on the small group by the French doors. Jackson tried again. “State Police barracks, this is Lieutenant—”

“Get out!”

With that chilling, dark voice still echoing inside the ballroom, the lights came on and the tall doors clicked and then slowly opened. The smell of lilac immediately vanished as if it had never been there. Then they heard the cracking of the glass: the French doors, which Damian Jackson had struck time and time again, and also the plate glass windows in the living room. A few of the small panes of glass were weakened enough that they gave way and fell outward onto the large front porch.

Peterson slowly removed the headphones and let them fall from his hand. Jackson lowered the radio and shook his head.

“Amazing what happens when we threaten to bring my colleagues in, isn’t it, Professor?”

Gabriel looked at Jackson and the small smile told him it was a nice try at goading him into a statement. Instead of saying something to the state policeman, Gabriel quickly walked over to the small couch and leaned down to Father Dolan.

“Let’s get you out of here. I don’t think our host cares very much for your profession.”

“I would prefer to stay.”

“Not a chance. We may have enough legal problems on our hands,” Peterson said. His fearlessness was returning brighter than the lights now illuminating the ballroom. “It’s time we shut this thing down.”

“I don’t think you have that authority anymore, Lionel,” Julie Reilly said as she gathered up her microphone and headset. “As a matter of fact, I’m not sure you work at this network any longer.”

Peterson looked over at the camera and saw that it was still trained on him. “Get that off of me!” He shoved the lens away from his face.

Gabriel and John assisted Father Dolan to his feet. Then Gabriel looked at the camera team that was free at the moment and gestured that they should take Dolan outside for help.

“Gabe,” John leaned toward him just as Jenny and George walked up beside them. “Have you noticed the cold is still here?”

Gabriel nodded. He turned to face the others in the ballroom.

“Regardless who works at the network or not, we need to clear the house of everyone except my team, Ms. Reilly and one camera and sound man. Everyone else needs to leave — for your own protection.”

“What?” Kelly stepped forward.

“You heard me, Kelly. There is still activity in this room,” Kennedy said as he adjusted the small microphone to his mouth. “Harris, what have you got on the third floor?”

There was a burst of static and then Dalton came through loud and clear from the production van.

“The hallway lights played hell with the infrared and low light cameras, they’re just now clearing up. Wait, okay it looks like the master bedroom suite is — yes, its closed, but the sewing room door is still wide open. Now it’s the only light on that floor that’s out.”

Gabriel nodded and looked at Jackson.

“This is not a good place for a nonbeliever, Detective.”

Jackson shook his head and placed the radio back in his coat. “I think I’ll see it through, Professor.”

“You can’t say I didn’t warn you.” Kennedy looked around the room at the faces looking back at him. “Now, did everyone take note of the smell of perfume?”

“Why do you say perfume and not flowers?” Kelly Delaphoy asked.

“The odor was too powerful for flowers. No, that was perfume. When the voice finished what it had to say, the smell left, and the doors opened at the exact same moment. It went whenever the entity did when it left the ballroom.”

“Whatever we’re dealing with is slowly getting stronger,” George said. He stepped to the bar and eyed the bottle of whiskey. He grimaced and then turned away, much to Kennedy’s relief.

“Professor Gabe, you better look at this,” Leonard said from the large work table. He waved his three technicians up and out of their chairs, and then told them to vacate the house. “Go on, do what the professor says. Get while the getting’s good.” The technicians did as they were ordered.

Kennedy looked at the nearest monitor. The woman’s face was clearly made out, and then the picture changed to that of another, this one equally mysterious. Then another face appeared, this one a full length picture. She was dressed in turn of the century clothes, and the picture must have been over a hundred years old. Then another, and another — all dressed in the same period clothing. Some had husbands or other family members in the shots, others were alone.

“Where are these coming from?” Gabriel asked Leonard.

“It’s from the same program my people were running just before the power was sucked out of here.” He typed more commands. “These are Ellis Island shots. We were running employee records for the Lindemann sewing machine company and the textile companies.”

“Why is it doing that?” Julie Reilly asked as she and the others started crowding around the table holding the computer monitors.

“It’s doing it on its own,” Leonard answered.

Julie and Kelly simultaneously shoved the first team camera man in front of the table.

“Harris, are you picking this up?” Julie asked into her headset.

“We’re getting it. I don’t know what we’re getting, but it’s going out clean to the rest of the country.”

On the monitors a picture flashed, then the revolving show stopped. The lights flickered but stayed on. All eyes were on the pretty young woman framed on the monitors. She was dressed in the same clothing style as the others and she looked to be about seventeen, eighteen at the most. She was sitting at a small table with an old fashioned sewing machine and she was looking at the camera and smiling shyly.

“The happy workers of the Lindemann Textile Company,” Leonard read the caption, “Taken from the New York Post, February 3^rd, 1925.”

“Gabriel, we’ve seen that face before,” Jenny said.

Gabriel sorted through a stack of folders until he found the one he was searching for. He opened it and studied something for a few moments. When he looked up, he wasn’t focusing on anyone in the room..

“Professor, we are live,” Julie reminded him.

Kennedy finally turned back to face the camera, and brought out an old eight by ten glossy photograph — a reproduction of a promotional still. The heading was in German, but everyone focused on the face alone. They all saw it at almost the same time.

“Gwyneth Gerhardt,” John Lonetree said.

“The opera singer who disappeared,” Julie said to the camera.

“No, but a relative. Maybe a sister. The resemblance is too close,” Gabriel said. He nodded for Leonard to do his thing.

Sickles leaned over and started typing his commands. While he did so, Kennedy waved George Cordero over to his side. On the computer monitors, the picture of the pretty girl was replaced by a very old-looking employment record.

“You hit it on the head. Magdalena Gerhardt, eighteen years old. She worked for the Lindemanns for eight months. Gerhardt was her maiden name. She married Paul Lester, a foreman at the mill, three months after arriving from Germany.”

“Her sister, I’ll bet anything on it,” Gabriel said. “Now, did she leave the company after she married?”

“She left, all right,” Leonard answered, “but it doesn’t say why. Her husband, too. Wait, here’s a note from the personnel office. It seems they both quit without notice.”

“George, I saw that look on your face. What are you feeling?” Gabriel asked.

Cordero cleared his throat and then looked away, as if he was reluctant to answer.

“George?” Kennedy asked again, this time with force. “Whatever it was, made you want a drink.”

Cordero shrugged the camera gently away with an annoyed look and raised hand. But then his eyes met Kennedy’s own.

“I’m not picking up much. It’s like looking at a scene through a bowl of milk. It’s the opera star’s sister, you’re right on with that. And I think, I feel, Leonard’s computers are being manipulated from… from—”

“The sewing room,” Kelly said, not being able to hold back, much to Julie Reilly’s annoyance.

“The basement. Or more accurately, the subbasement,” he finally said, moving his eyes from Gabriel’s.

“George, is that all?” Gabriel asked.

“The presence earlier, the voice…it was male…I think.”

“We all heard it for Christ’s sake, of course it was male. I have to hand it to you, Professor, your people don’t miss a trick.” Peterson walked toward the bar and retrieved his raincoat, pushing Wallace Lindemann to the side.

“I don’t know if it was…male. It had, I don’t know, an acting quality to it. Hell, Gabe, I don’t know.”

“Maybe it was old man Lindemann, my great granddaddy. That would be my bet,” Wallace said. He sipped his drink.

“Okay, let me know if you pick up anything else. For right now, Wallace here may have something — it’s a start, anyway.”

George nodded, knowing that he didn’t convey his true thoughts the way he would have liked.

“Look Gabriel, we’re kidding ourselves if we think we can get the answers here. The house hides its secrets well,” John Lonetree said. He looked from Kennedy to Jenny. “I have to go under. You know it, and I know it.”

“I don’t think this is the environment for it, John. You’ve never Dream Walked in anything like Summer Place. I don’t trust it — or, more to the point, I don’t trust whatever lives here.”

“What if Summer Place clams up? What if it goes dormant again?” John asked. Jenny took his arm and shook her head no.

“Then it goes dormant,” Gabriel said, feeling the camera on him and knowing the CEO and others were cringing at his words. “I’m not losing anyone here tonight.”

“I’m not a student, and I’m going into this with my eyes — well, while not open, they will be aware. I’m doing it.”

The rumble of thunder ripped outside almost on cue. In the corner, Damian Jackson listened to the men. He didn’t understand anything that was being said, but he did see one thing: for the first time, Professor Gabriel Kennedy looked scared. Of what, Jackson didn’t know, but he saw the defiant professor vanish, replaced by a man with memories of a night long ago etched on his face.

“Jenny, do you still have the sleeping pills I gave you at the hotel?” Gabriel asked.

Jennifer was silent. While she thought about what was being proposed, Kennedy turned to Kelly Delaphoy.

“Call Dalton and tell him to get to that EMS truck. Get me thirty CC’s of adrenalin and two one-milligram doses of epinephrine or atropine, whichever he has. Bring in the defibrillator, also.” He looked up at the others. “We may have to bring John out of his deep sleep fast, and I don’t know if his heart will be able to take it,” he explained. His eyes locked on Jenny’s. She reached into her bag and angrily pulled the small bottle of pills out, and tossed them to Gabriel.

“We had better hurry; I don’t think our host is too happy we’re not leaving. Feel it?” George asked. He pulled his coat tighter around his chest.

“It is getting colder by the second,” Julie said into her mic.

The lights flickered as a streak of lightning illuminated the outside world.

“Okay, we’ll go with John’s plan.”

As Julie Reilly explained to the television world what was going to happen, Jennifer felt a small twinge that signaled the first assault of a massive headache. Deep down, she knew what it meant.

“Jenny, what’s wrong?” Gabriel asked as John reached out to steady her.

Leaning heavily on Lonetree, Jennifer brought her right hand up to her temple.

“I think…I think we’re about to have company.” She stumbled, with John’s support, to the couch.

“Who?” Leonard asked, afraid of the answer.

“Bobby Lee McKinnon.”

Jennifer stood from the small loveseat. She looked into the lens of the camera pointed right at her, and then looked at John Lonetree, who was holding her hand. She gave him an odd, curious look and then shook her smaller hand free from his.

“Whoa there, man. Comfort is one thing, but I’m getting a vibe that says you have a much darker intent, and at Jenny’s expense.”

John stood up so suddenly that everyone took a step back. The voice that had commented on John’s affections was deeper than Jenny’s; still feminine, but booming, as if it were coming from a male. She looked around the room.

“You people are playing with fire here. This ain’t ol’ Bobby Lee you’re dealin’ with, this is blackness,” Jenny said in that strange voice. She paced to the French doors and looked out at the storm-tossed bushes and awnings. “I knew you would get Jennifer into some kind of trouble, so I bugged out for a while.” She turned and looked into the camera which had followed her to the doors, and smiled a creepy and tired-looking grin. Jenny placed her hands into her hair and brushed it back, creating what momentarily looked like an old fashioned Pompadour with a large curl breaking free at the front.

“Oh, shit,” Leonard said, watching from his keyboard.

“Jenny may hate my guts, man,” she said, turning her blue eyes to Kennedy, “but I didn’t come vistin’ her just to see her eaten by that thing upstairs.” She snapped her fingers to a beat only she could hear. “She’s my Angel Baby. I guess you can call it an attachment of necessity. So if you don’t mind, Doc, we’re splitsville.”

They all watched — including the number one camera — as Jennifer started for the double doors of the ballroom. Julie Reilly explained in hushed whispers what was happening to Jennifer. John made a move as if to stop her, but Gabriel held a hand up. Jenny stopped at the door and looked back at the amazed faces of the others. Then she looked at the camera and winked.

“If I was you folks, I would be on the next train to music city, because somethin’s comin’ for you.’”

With those words Jennifer turned and walked out of the ballroom, this time brushing Damian Jackson out of the way just as he had done to Lindemann a moment before. Kennedy quickly followed and watched as Jenny slowly moved toward the front door, looking at the room’s décor as if she had never seen any of it before. Then she stopped at the large staircase.

“Roll over Beethoven,” she said, looking up the stairs.

“Guys, the sewing room door just opened up on three,” Harris Dalton said from the van. The live picture switched to the third floor. “The thermal imager is picking up a bright blue form standing inside the room, motionless. Hell, I swear whatever it is, is looking right at the camera.”

Gabriel slowly stepped from the ballroom, quickly followed by Julie, Kelly and the others — even Wallace Lindemann and Lionel Peterson joined them in the brightly lit living room.

Jennifer placed a hand on the banister. She seemed to be transfixed on something near the second floor landing.

“Powerful,” she said. Her words barely picked up on the parabolic microphone.

“Sound, boost your gain,” Harris called from the van. The sound man didn’t move, concentrating on the scene before him. “The figure is still in the doorway. The camera is clearly picking it up. It’s a human form, large and framed exactly in the middle of the open door.”

“Angry.” Jenny turned and looked at Gabriel. “He blames you. He wants you out.”

“He? Who are you talking about, Bobby Lee?” Kennedy asked.

“Hell man, I’m not sticking around to be introduced to this cat, he’s like — like, not of this world.” Jenny started to back away but stopped. She once more grabbed hold of the banister and then actually took a step up the red carpeted stairs.

“I’m not letting her go up there alone.” John Lonetree stepped past Kennedy and made his way to the staircase. He took Jenny’s hand, and she stopped and turned.

“Man, you’re startin’ to freak me out a little here. I don’t swing that way,” she said in her husky voice.

“Yeah, but Jennifer does,” John said, still not releasing her hand.

A look of relief came over Jenny’s features and then she nodded her head.

“Yeah, man, I hear ya. If anyone needs someone, it’s this chick, let me tell ya. But right now, if you don’t mind, it’s still creepy.” Jenny pulled her hand free of John’s and took another step up. “Man, this place feels like a prison, and up there’s the warden.”

“Stop,” John said. “Not alone. Don’t go up alone.”

“Follow if you want,” Bobby Lee said, and just as the words escaped Jenny’s lips, she collapsed.

Small, firefly-like orbs appeared, dancing in the air where Jenny had just been standing. John took a step toward the stairs and the sparkling objects moved upward. Looking apprehensively at the strange phenomenon, Lonetree pulled Jenny off the step and onto the carpeted runner at the base of the stairs.

Gabriel joined him but kept his eyes on the strange sight, taking the stairs very slowly. The entity would stop and seem to hesitate, but then keep moving upward.

“What happened?” Jennifer said when she came to.

“We don’t know. You collapsed, right after you said,” John looked up at Gabriel, and then back at her, “or Bobby Lee said, ‘up there’s the warden of this prison.’”

Jenny suddenly stood and looked up the stairs. The strange twinkling reached the second floor landing and continued to the right, toward the hallway.

“Bobby Lee, it’s bad. Don’t go up there,” she called out.

The camera and soundman were slow to react to Jenny, still trained on the entity that was Bobby Lee as it disappeared into the hallway above. Soon the camera had Jennifer framed and the soundman was recording and sending out her scared voice to the nation. On live television the screen was split in two, showing both Jenny and the orbs as they moved to the opposite stairway.

The roar of thunder shook the house and the lights dimmed once more.

“Okay, everyone has to leave with the exception of the first team. Kelly, take Peterson and Lindemann out of here. Detective, you and Jason Sanborn had better beat a retreat on this one also,” Gabriel said as he left John and Jenny’s side, “John, you’ll do your Dream Walk in the ballroom with Jenny, Leonard and George, with the doors locked.”

“And your plan is?” Damian Jackson asked, still looking up the staircase at the spot where the strange gleaming orbs had vanished.

“I’m going to do what I came here to do, Detective Jackson — I’m going ghost hunting.”

“I’ve been waiting for you to say that, Professor,” Julie Reilly said.

Detective Jackson watched as Gabriel went toward the ballroom followed by John, Jenny, and the camera team. “Exactly my thoughts,” echoed Jackson. He removed his nine millimeter automatic from his shoulder holster and made sure the safety was on.

Gabriel stopped at the doorway and looked at Jackson and then the gun.

“I don’t think that will do much good with what we’re up against, Detective.”

Jackson smiled, and then brushed past Kennedy and entered the ballroom.

“For what I’m hunting, it will.”

TWENTY-ONE

John stretched out on the largest of the four sofas. Jenny tried one last time to talk him out of doing the Dream Walk, but he only smiled and placed his giant hand on her cheek.

“This is what I do,” he said, and then lay back against the hand-stitched throw pillow.

Gabriel entered the room while looking back one last time at Kelly Delaphoy, Jason Sanborn, Lionel Peterson, and Wallace Lindemann, who were standing just outside of the two large ballroom doors. Only Lindemann and Peterson looked anxious to be on their way. Kelly Delaphoy stepped forward.

“I think one of the producers should be on hand for whatever happens.”

“Forget it Kelly, get these people out of here,” Kennedy said. He nodded at Leonard, who moved to close the double doors. An ominous streak of lightning flashed through the French doors and lit up the shadowed room brightly.

Kennedy reached into his coat pocket and brought out the small bottle of pills that Jenny had returned to him. Just four of them would be enough to send John into a coma; five would stop his heart. He took a deep breath and shook out two of the sleeping pills. George Cordero came over with a glass of water from the bar. Gabriel smiled as he looked down at his oldest friend. He held out his hand and dropped the two small pills into John’s own.

“Is this enough?”

Kennedy nodded his head. “Jenny, do you feel anything from upstairs?” he asked to break the tension. Kennedy could feel the camera on him and knew the microphone picked up his question.

Jenny shook her head.

“I do,” George said as he looked away from Lonetree. “Bobby Lee is terrified. I think he’s moving closer to the third floor, but I can’t be sure. For a ghost, he seems to have a fear of something worse than the death he faced when he was alive. I’m not sure, but I think Bobby Lee’s backed off and is hiding…yes, he’s stopped.” George opened his eyes. “That’s all I’m getting.” The camera zoomed in on his dark countenance. A rumble of thunder accented his foreboding words.

John squeezed Jenny’s hand and popped the two pills into his mouth.

“I haven’t had this much anticipation about pills since an acid trip in college,” he whispered so only Jennifer could hear. She didn’t smile. John drank from the glass that George had given him, and then handed it to Kennedy.

“Good luck, buddy.”

“Listen, maybe you should hold off on this third floor trip until I find out what we’re dealing with.”

“Before my last visit, there had never been one documented case where an entity hurt a human being.”

“Just my thought exactly,” Jackson said. “I believe your earlier excursion into this house a few years ago was also a human on human encounter.”

Just at that moment, the lights in the ballroom went dark. The cameraman switched back to his ambient light settings and everyone in the ballroom moved silently toward the couch. Thunder rumbled the floorboards under their feet.

“I don’t think whatever’s up there is going to give you the time, John. But with us up on three, we may be able occupy it long enough for you to get some answers.”

“People, we have activity up on the third floor,” Harris Dalton said from the production van. “The lights in the hallway are acting like strobes, playing hell with the camera view. We also have what sounds like mumbling coming from the recorders, both on three and in the subbasement.”

“Time to go,” Gabriel said. He pressed his hand to his ear so he could hear Harris better. “Dalton, did Kelly get the people outside?”

“What?”

“Did Kelly get—”

“I heard what you said; our outside cameras have not shown anyone leaving the house.”

“Damn it.” Kennedy straightened from John’s side and looked at Jenny, and then to Leonard. “Watch him close.” He looked at his watch. “He’ll be out in about two minutes. Leonard, lock the big doors after we leave, and if something gets in here, don’t be a hero. Get everyone out, any way you can.”

“Don’t worry about that. I’m thinking about splitting as soon as you’re out that door, Doc. If that thing up there wants in, it’ll get in.”

“He’s right,” George said. “Its power is building. It’s getting stronger.”

Gabriel looked at the dark faces around him. He switched on his penlight and studied each member of his team in turn.

“Let’s go.”

Kennedy, Julie, Jackson and Cordero left the ballroom preceded by the camera and the soundman. The large living area was dark, with only the brief flash of lightning illuminating their view of the staircase. Gabriel moved the small light around. Wallace Lindemann stepped through the swinging doors from the kitchen, his face slack and white as he hurried to the front door. The camera man sped to the front doors and zoomed the ambient light lens onto Wallace as he tried the doorknobs.

Kennedy followed the camera team as Lindemann started pulling on the door. As he did, Lionel Peterson came through the kitchen doors, far more calmly than Lindemann, but in a hurry nonetheless.

“Where are Kelly and Sanborn?” Gabriel asked.

Lionel shied away from the camera’s lens and joined Wallace at the door.

“The damn thing won’t open,” Lindemann cried. He slammed his body into the thick door.

“Calm down and turn the handle, you idiot,” Peterson said as he leaned in and tried the handle himself. It turned in his hands and he even felt the click of the locking mechanism as it gave way, but the doors remained tight to their frame. He pulled, as did Lindemann, but the doors were frozen shut.

“Where is Kelly?” Kennedy repeated more insistently.

“She and Sanborn went down into the basement. She said she would call Harris and let him know what’s going on. Now help us get these doors open.”

“The basement?” Kennedy asked, turning from the two struggling men bent on escape.

“Gabe, feel it?” George asked as he looked around the room.

Kennedy turned toward the staircase. The room had once more gone ice cold, making everyone’s breath fog as if they were deep in a winter frost.

“Detective, tell that madman to get this door open. We’ve had enough of this,” Peterson said. He gave up and turned around, pulling his coat closed around him and shoving his hands under his arms.

Jackson didn’t respond. He was also looking toward the stairs. The coldness almost seemed to roll down them, like a slow moving waterfall. The darkness mostly hid the staircase, but the image was one Jackson would take to his grave. For the first time, he was wondering if Kennedy may have been telling the truth; he could not figure out how Kennedy could have pulled off the sudden freeze without a refrigeration unit the size of Yankee Stadium upstairs.

“Okay people, we have the sewing room door closing and the cold image we were seeing is now gone,” Harris reported from the van. “The lights on three have gone completely out and the night vision and thermal imaging cameras have stabilized. We have a good view of the hallway.”

Kennedy ignored the noise that Wallace Lindemann was making at the double front doors. He pulled up his coat collar and took three steps toward the staircase.

“What about Kelly and Sanborn?” George asked in the dark.

“They’re on their own for now. Harris can hear them in the production van and when they reach the basement he can see them on camera.”

Gabriel took two more cautious steps toward the staircase. He felt Julie step up to his side. The air was actually growing colder.

“Still think your gun’s going to help?” Kennedy asked as he moved by the detective.

This time Jackson had no snappy comeback. He just watched Kennedy move by him as the house grew quiet. Even Wallace Lindemann gave up and turned away from the door.

“Damn you, Kennedy. Tell whoever is helping you to open this goddamn door!” Wallace said, almost in a child’s cry. “I’m going to sue every one of you sons of bitches!”

Kennedy, without turning back around, intent on the steps ahead of him, smiled. He knew Julie was doing the same next to him, but it was George who said it out loud. This, the soundman did pick up, and Harris Dalton hissed a silent curse in the production van.

“God, what a dick.”

Leonard was just starting to feel the coldness as it wafted through the bottom of the doorjamb. He looked back at Jenny, who was on her knees by John Lonetree, who closed his eyes. Leonard looked back at the large double doors and thought about how easily they had been bent inward by whatever walked upstairs. He had tried the French doors twice and failed to open them. The ice had reformed on the glass and was thickening. If he had to, he thought, he could smash his way out — but that would have to be with the largest Indian he had ever seen in his life heaped over his shoulder and the smallest haunted woman by his side. The prospects of breaking out looked dim.

At the couch, Jenny flipped on her small light and brought the beam up until it just illuminated John’s relaxed features. She watched his eyes, but they lay still underneath his eyelids. He had not entered the dream state yet.

Jennifer was hoping the pills would actually keep John from dreaming; she knew she hadn’t dreamed when she used them. Just as she was about to turn off the flashlight, she saw the first movement of John’s eyes. She felt Leonard come up from behind.

“Goddamn it’s cold in here,” he said as he shook his head.

Suddenly John’s body went rigid as a board and his hands clenched into fists. Then his long hair blew up and off the pillow, flowing off the arm of the couch as though he were standing in a strong wind.

“Do you smell that?” Leonard asked, taking a step back.

Jenny nodded. The smell was like dead winter, but there was also an odor of wet woods in the rainy season, and then the smell of a wood fire. On the couch, John moved his head left and then right. An unseen wind still blew his long hair.

Leonard turned away and paced to the static camera that had been set up on Harris Dalton’s orders to catch John’s Dream Walk. He knelt down and made sure his face was framed in the night vision picture.

“Look, if you’re hearing me, we may have to get out of here fast, so we may need help from you people. If you see us moving toward those glass doors, come runnin’.”

Inside the van, Harris smiled. He had just switched to the ballroom camera, and had caught the concern of the small black man.

As Leonard stood and turned, he saw Jenny suddenly stand and back away from the prone John. In the weak light cast by Jenny’s flashlight, Leonard could see that John had sat up and was staring at the ballroom doors. His hair was still being blown by an invisible wind.

“Shit, I sure hope you guys are getting this.”

John was in a brightly illuminated hallway. The smell of a gas lamp wafted into his nostrils as he stood before a door. It was open about a foot and John saw movement inside the dimly illuminated room. He heard the laughter of young children, possibly two girls, and then the booming laugh of an adult. As John maneuvered his head he could see that indeed it was two small girls lying in an ornate, covered bed. A man, possibly their father, was sitting on the bed’s edge and looked to have been reading to them. He had stopped and they laughed together, and John could feel the love of the father for his two daughters. The man spoke, but John didn’t understand the language. It sounded eastern European, possibly Russian. The man was well dressed and had a large beard. He reached out and tickled the two girls, who laughed uncontrollably. They looked about six or seven.

John heard a squeak behind him in the hallway and saw the door had been opened further. The father had turned and the girls fell silent. The man stood from the bed and walked straight at John, raising his hand. Lonetree flinched in his dream as the hand came down and the words exploded from his mouth. John was surprised when the hand passed right through him and struck something he hadn’t seen. When he ducked, he saw the small boy in a long nightgown. The hand connected solidly with the boy’s face and he slid to the wooden floor. The father screamed at him.

John felt badly for the boy. He wanted to reach down and help the dark-haired child to his feet. But as suddenly as the thought struck him to help, it seemed the boy’s eyes moved from the man who was obviously his father, to look right at John. The dark eyes stared at him and through him. They penetrated him. Then the father struck out again, yelling in Russian. The boy was lifted to his feet and then thrown out the door. John looked on, horrified. The girls in the bed were silent as they watched the boy’s punishment, but they both had small smiles stretched across their otherwise innocent faces.

John turned and left the room. The hallway was now dark. He leaned back into the bedroom and saw the light there was also out. The girls were sleeping soundly in their bed. Just as he started to turn, John felt the presence behind him. It was the black-haired, dark-eyed boy. He was looking right at John, and even in the darkness John could see the boy’s eyebrows were raised. The child tilted his head and Lonetree could see the bruises on the boy’s face, and knew for a fact without seeing there were even more, darker, uglier scars underneath the child’s dressing gown. The boy’s head turned but his eyes lingered on John a moment. The cold chills coursed down his spine as he watched the boy reach out and pull the girls’ bedroom door closed. He reached into his nightshirt and produced a key and locked the door. Then he moved down the hallway and inserted the key into another door. When the boy turned around he had a smile stretched across his feminine features. The boy slowly raised his hand to his face and brought his index finger up to his lips, shushing John.

John swallowed in his sleep. The boy went to the far wall of the hallway and bent over in the dark. John heard a splashing sound and the floor was doused with something wet and oily smelling. The boy looked at Lonetree with that horrible grin on his face. Then brightness filled the hallway and John flinched. He could see the flare of the match. John tried his best to swipe at the match, but the boy giggled as Lonetree’s hand passed through the flame. John knew he was helpless to stop what was happening. The boy raised his left eyebrow once more as he let the match fall though his fingers to the wooden floor. The whoosh of flame bit into the wood and held. It quickly crawled up the walls and engulfed the two doors the boy had locked moments before. The boy stared at John, who raised his arms to shield his face from the intense heat. The boy remained where he was, smiling, as if he wanted John to witness what he had done.

A feminine scream sounded in the hallway, from the far end of the house. Then suddenly John could see her. It was a woman of about thirty; her face bruised as badly as the boy’s had been. It had to be the child’s mother. She grabbed the boy and tried to reach for the door handle of her daughters’ room, but the flames licked at her dressing gown. She screamed in frustration and then turned and ran, holding the boy, into the flames and the smoke.

John could hear the screams of the two girls and the father as they started to burn to death.

As the flames traveled up his own legs, John placed his hands over his ears. He could not drown out the horrible screaming.

There was blessed silence. As John lowered his hand, the smell of smoke faded. He opened his eyes and saw that he was now standing on a small rise watching the snow being blown by a strong wind that carried not the smell of smoke and burning children, but the smell of forested hills. The sound was that of rain, which mixed with the snowflakes to produce a slush that penetrated the body with its cold. He felt that coldness sink deep into his soul, mingled with the relief of being out of the burning house. Looking around, he spotted the large, dark object in front of him, its skeletal ribs standing out against the blackness of early winter.

It was Summer Place, in the first stages of rising from the countryside. The house was not yet framed but the outer shell had been completed before the weather had turned. As he looked at the house, he felt it. It wasn’t evil, it had no dark intent; for now, it was just wood and nails. The moon broke through the clouds for the briefest of moments, showing the frame of the massive barn and the hole for the swimming pool. He even saw the deepest pit that would become the root cellar and subbasement. As he looked at these, he felt the first presence of something that made him afraid, as if he were staring into the bowels of hell itself. He looked away, not wanting to know the true depths of the basement and its root cellar.

He felt better when he focused on the house. Then he heard the sound of an engine. At first he couldn’t place the direction of the sound, but then he thought of his waking self and concentrated on what he knew. His gaze moved to where the front gate would eventually be built, and then beyond that to the road. It was hard to pick out because of the slushy snow that had accumulated, but he saw the carriage lights of two wagons as they came forward from the darkness beyond. They were large wagons, each drawn by six large horses.

For a reason John couldn’t fathom, he stepped back and stood behind one of the large trees that lined the property. He knew in his current state he was invisible, but for a reason he knew not, he didn’t want the occupants of the two wagons to see him. The first wagon looked to be fully loaded with wood that protruded from a large tarpaulin. The second looked to be covered, like an old wagon from the westerns John used to watch as a child. The second wagon maneuvered around the first and advanced toward the incomplete Summer Place. It stopped about where the kitchen would eventually be built and the driver, a person of large size, hopped down. He stepped into the framing of the house and then stopped. The area below flared to life with light. John could see that the man had lit a lantern and was moving it around. John froze as the large man seemed to stop and look up at the small rise where he was standing. Then after a moment he turned away. The moon above was once more covered with black clouds and the snow had vanished with it. Rain started coming down in earnest as the man below moved further into the house.

John took a cautious step out from behind the tree and watched for the man to return. Three men were unloading the first wagon, placing the wood under a makeshift shed at the front of the framed house. They seemed in a hurry to be on their way. Soon they had the wagon unloaded, and the three men climbed back in. Without speaking to the occupant of the second wagon, they turned and whipped the horses forward onto the dirt road fronting the property. The lantern attached to the wagon’s front slowly disappeared beyond the bend and the second wagon was left alone at Summer Place.

The large man came back into view, carrying something John couldn’t make out. Before he could recognize the object, someone stepped down from the covered back of the wagon. This person was smaller and was bundled against the cold and rain. And John knew immediately that this person, like the one before him, was looking right up at him. The figure stayed still a moment and then turned away when a banging was heard. John quickly stepped back against the tree as the smaller person turned back in his direction. The figure stood and watched the trees, and then finally turned away.

John took a deep breath and then found the first man. He had brought the object to the pit that would become the root cellar and the basement. It was a ladder. He pushed it over until the weight was greater on the dangling end and then secured it as best he could to the dirt surrounding the hole. The second figure walked up to the hole and then nodded. Then both turned back, out of the skeletal house, and returned to the wagon. They pulled someone out of the back. The smaller person was struggling, but the two men were far stronger and quickly brought her under control. John swallowed as he watched the scene play out. He knew in real life he never would have been able to see anything from this distance, but that was the advantage to Dream Walking; he could sometimes do the impossible.

As the two men maneuvered the woman, John could see bright red hair spilling from a woolen cap on her head. The larger man struck the woman hard and her struggling calmed somewhat. John wanted to call out to stop them, but he knew from past experience that either they wouldn’t hear him, or his call would be ignored. He was meant to see this, not prevent it.

They placed the woman down on the ground in front of the hole. She was wobbly from the blow she had just received and held on tightly to the leg of the smaller of the two men. The man brushed at the woman’s hand, but it held firm. Then the man punched at the woman’s hand and she finally let go. He pulled something from his coat and John knew exactly what it was. Before he could shout out, the gunshot reverberated through the valley. The small woman fell forward into the large hole. John screamed, knowing that, as in other dreams, his voice wouldn’t be heard. As his voice joined the echo of the gunshot, the small man turned and looked in his direction. John could see the blazing dark eyes underneath the hat as they searched the woods looking for the author of the scream. John closed his mouth, and fear seized him.

He knew those dark eyes had found him. For the first time in a Dream Walk, he knew it was far more than a dream; he was actually there, and as vulnerable as the woman who had just been murdered.

On the second floor landing, Gabriel paused and examined the ambient light camera that had been placed on a swivel base to roam the left and right of the hallway. The movement of the remote camera was stopped and it was facing to the right, which meant that it had detected movement in that direction sometime in the last few minutes. He checked the motion sensor and found the small blue light blinking, meaning it was still working properly. Gabriel pressed his hand over his earpiece and called Harris Dalton.

“Has the production team picked up any movement on the second floor in the past five minutes?”

“Negative. If there had been movement, we missed it. Hell, everything was so active a few minutes ago we would have missed a train coming through. Sorry, we’ll keep a sharper eye out.”

Gabriel straightened and looked at the darkened faces around him. He nodded at George Cordero. “Go ahead and activate the laser systems here and on the third floor.”

“Professor,” Julie said in a low voice. “Can you explain what this laser system is?”

Kennedy closed his eyes for a moment in frustration, but decided shaking off the question wasn’t an option. He really did want the country to take interest in what was happening. Gabriel reached down and plucked a small object off the floor. It was the size of a basketball and weighed more than six pounds.

“This is a laser grid generator. These small holes are laser emitters. Each device has two hundred small lasers, the power output of a small laser pointer. Once turned on, each laser light will create a grid in each of the two hallways. In order for us to see the light more clearly, each designator also has a built in fogger that will spread a veil of mist.”

“And what does this accomplish?” Julie asked.

“In theory, anything moving through the lasers will possibly become visible. With these lasers, coupled with our ambient light cameras and the new motion sensors that detect the movement of air, heat, cold, even dust particles, we should be able to avoid being surprised by anything near us.”

Kennedy didn’t wait for another question from Julie. He turned and placed the laser designator back on the floor as George Cordero switched on the devices with the remote control placed by the camera stand. Suddenly red, green and blue lasers shot free of the round battery driven orb. The grid it laid down covered the hallway from floor to ceiling, left and right of the landing. Another emitter at the far end illuminated, as did another two on the opposite side of the house on the far hallway. George then made sure the motion sensors lining the hallways were activated. This was confirmed by a beep as he switched the sensors on and off, and then on again. He nodded at Gabriel.

“This way to the sewing room,” he said. The team fell in line and continued up the stairs. Gabriel again pressed his hand to his ear and spoke into his small microphone. “Harris, what do you have on Kelly and Jason?”

“Nothing. They’ve hit the blind spot halfway down the stairs. We should be picking them up visually in a moment. We have them on audio walking down the stairs.”

“Any word from the electrical people outside?” Gabriel asked.

“The power company says it’s not in their lines. Our own people have confirmed that power is being directed into the house, but that’s where it ends. It’s like something is sucking up the juice.”

Damian Jackson frowned. It was more likely the storm had blown the breakers. He shook his head, but continued to follow the professor.

“How are John and the others in the ballroom?”

“Mr. Lonetree is out like a light, but we do have activity. It was like a windstorm had erupted inside the ballroom, but things are a bit calmer now. Leonard Sickles just let Wallace Lindemann inside and he’s at his usual spot at the bar.”

“Keep an eye on Kelly. She and Sanborn should be your priority. If anything starts to happen, pull them out until we can all get down there. Order her if you have to.”

“Yeah, all I have to do is threaten to kill her live feed. She’ll comply,” Harris said. There was a momentary pause as Harris asked something of Julie. Gabriel picked it up on his earpiece and thought about the answer to the question he knew the reporter was about to ask.

“Professor, for the sake of our viewers I want to reiterate…Before your experiences in Summer Place seven years ago, you were not a believer in the supernatural, is that correct?”

Kennedy paused. This was not the question Harris had just asked Julie to relay to him.

“No. At the time I believed most hauntings revolved around living people. The human mind is capable of many things, including creating things inside a person’s head that would make it seem they are dealing with the paranormal.”

“You’ve stated mass hysteria as one of those causes, is that correct?”

“Yes,” Kennedy said. He wondered where Julie was going with the questions.

“Before we continue our journey to the sewing room and the third floor, Professor, I am sure the viewers would like to know your opinion on what’s happening here tonight. Are we dealing with the theory of mass hysteria?”

Gabriel looked at the others. They waited silently, and in the darkness he could feel them anticipating his answer. He saw a brief reflection of the red, green and blue laser lights off the ambient camera lens and knew that many others, the people Julie and Harris Dalton were playing for, were waiting also.

“This is no mass hysteria, Ms. Reilly. In my opinion, we are dealing with something that has never happened before in the annals of supernatural activity. A haunting such as this, the activity we have experienced tonight, has never been documented before. We may be dealing with an entity that is powerful beyond reason. No, Ms. Reilly, not mass hysteria. Something doesn’t want us here because we are a danger to it. It knows that unlike other visitors to this house, we can cause it harm.”

Julie Reilly swallowed. She heard the prompt from the production van and hoped her voice didn’t crack when she spoke.

“On that note, we’ll take a brief commercial break.”

Inside the production van, the number one monitor faded quickly to black and was replaced by a small green lizard selling auto insurance.

“Jesus, give me a break. That’s some scary shit, Gabe,” George Cordero muttered, pulling his coat tighter around him.

“If I were you, I would have stuck with the mass hysteria theory, Kennedy. When my lawyers get done with you and the CEO of this company, you’ll need a good story to keep your ass out of litigation,” Lionel Peterson said, stepping up from the darkness below. He tilted his head back and took a drink from a silver flask. His earpiece was hanging free, so he didn’t know they weren’t going out live.

Gabriel had already turned down the second floor hallway, toward the stairs to the third floor. He stopped as he felt the breeze of cold air grow even colder. The presence was out of the sewing room and waiting for them — he knew it. He also knew the others could feel it as he stopped and turned. He nodded at each. Then his eyes lingered on the large state policeman.

“Don’t accidentally shoot me with that thing,” he said, nodding to the gun at Damian Jackson’s side.

Jackson looked at the cameraman. He saw that, for the moment, the camera was concentrating his view on the bend in the hallway a few steps away. He didn’t know they were in a two minute commercial break. He smiled at Kennedy.

“If you have someone in a bedsheet up there, Professor, I would warn him that I am just a tad jumpy at the moment. I never said you didn’t have a gift of the narrative.”

Kennedy returned the smile. For the first time, he felt relief that Jackson was along.

“If we come across someone in a bedsheet, Detective, give me the gun and I’ll shoot him.”

Kelly Delaphoy stopped no more than ten steps from the bottom. It had taken almost five minutes to get down the steps in the darkness. The small flashlight only served to cast dangerous-looking turns and drop-offs on the steep stairs. Jason had twisted his ankle, misjudging the turn halfway down. He had to sit and rub his ankle a while before he was sure he was okay to continue, but thus far he hadn’t said a word in complaint.

She stood still, looking into the darkness, seeing the even blacker outline of the audio and visual equipment in the middle of the room pointing toward the trapdoor she knew was there. The hulking shapes of the old kitchen appliances ringed the basement, just as they had before, but they looked far more ominous now. She swallowed and reached behind her, taking Jason’s hand in her own. His, as hers, was ice cold to the touch, but it still felt good to know she wasn’t alone. She used her free hand to adjust the earpiece and then contacted Harris in the van.

“Okay Harris, we’re a few steps from the bottom of stairs. We can see into the basement. Are you picking up the audio?”

“We have you, just a second and we’ll adjust the camera to pick you up as you step into the basement. We’ll lead with you after the break in fifteen seconds.”

“Okay.” Kelly squeezed Jason’s cold hand even tighter, and he reciprocated. “Well, here we go.” As she took another step down the steps, she heard the whine of the small motor on the camera tripod turn the lens their way. “I hope this was a good idea,” she said. Jason didn’t answer, just squeezed her hand tighter.

“Okay,” Harris called out. “We’re back in five, four, three, two…Camera Five, basement…go!”

On the green tinted picture, everyone watching — from the production van to Mr. and Mrs. America — saw Kelly take the first step onto the basement floor. She stood motionless, allowing her eyes to adjust to the darkness. She moved her small penlight to the far wall, and then over to the trap door. The basement was silent as a morgue as she took another tentative step. As she moved, she felt Jason become hesitant about going forward, but just as she was about to say something, he squeezed her hand almost to the point of breaking it.

“Hey, Jason, take it easy.” She took another step toward the center of the room. The whine of the tripod motor sounded lightly as it followed her. “Come on, Jason, you’re breaking my hand!”

Inside the production van, everyone watching the monitor froze. Harris tried to speak but couldn’t. He fumbled with the small switch on his mic but missed. Everyone watching the television special saw what they were seeing, but few really picked up on the horror of the moment as Kelly, with her arm behind her, came clear of the wall that had blocked the camera’s view.

“What did you say?” came Jason’s voice from the stairs.

Kelly froze. The pressure on her hand was becoming unbearable. A whimper escaped her lips.

Jason finally made the bottom step and froze. Kelly was standing in front of him with her arm trailing behind her, and holding her hand out.

The black entity was just behind Kelly, and part of that darkness was connected to Kelly’s outstretched hand. The obsidian blackness was enormous, far darker than its surroundings. The illumination of his small penlight penetrated through the towering darkness. Jason saw Kelly slowly turn around and open her eyes wide.

The hand she was holding was not Jason’s.

The small penlight and the power to the camera went out just as Jason and Kelly both screamed.

Gabriel stopped at the top of the third floor staircase. He looked around and made sure the laser designators were working. George Cordero moved up the stairs and stood by Kennedy.

“Gabe, do you feel it?” George said just as Harris Dalton started his countdown for coverage to begin again. “It’s warmer now. I’m not getting the black feeling like I was a few minutes ago.”

Kennedy did feel it. As he looked at the others he saw that there were no more shivers due to the cold.

“Are you saying that the entity has left this floor, Mr. Cordero?” Julie asked for the benefit of the live audience.

“No, I’m just saying something’s different.”

Gabriel thought for the briefest moment. In his earpiece, he heard the order to go to Camera Five, the static camera in the basement. He stepped onto the third floor and looked down the laser-lined hallway. The sewing room door was standing wide open. He could see the blackness beyond, as if it was a gateway that soaked up the possible, leaving only the impossible behind. He continued down the hallway.

As the others followed, they each heard the static in their earpieces — soft at first, but growing louder and stronger as they moved toward the sewing room and the master suite next to it. Julie tapped her earpiece.

“As we move down the hallway, our electronic equipment is starting to malfunction,” she explained to the audience, just hoping her words were going out to the van clearly.

“How surprising,” Lionel Peterson mumbled at the back of the group.

Damian Jackson looked at Peterson with the laser grid spread out over his features. He could see in the multicolored light that the entertainment president was getting drunk.

Suddenly the static became unbearably loud. Each of them grabbed at their ears, pulling the cords and letting them dangle. As a result, they missed the few discernable words from the production van — Harris Dalton screaming Kelly’s name.

“We have just lost communication with our production facilities outside,” Julie said. She shook her head, trying to clear the ringing in her ears.

An alarm sounded from the staircase. Gabriel ran back to the landing and looked down onto the first floor. In the blackness, he saw the first of Leonard’s motion sensors go off. The lights tracked something up the stairs a few step and then stopped. Again the lights on the banister registered movement as whatever it was moved five more steps up. Whatever it was, it was stopping to peer upward at the group gathering at the landing. It would take a few steps upward, then stop, look, and then continue.

“What are you feeling?” Gabriel asked George as the cameraman moved forward and switched to infrared. The soundman pushed his boom microphone out over the banister.

“I’m picking up footsteps,” he said quietly to the others. “Heavy freaking footsteps.”

“This is the thing that lives here, and it’s pissed, that’s what I’m feeling. This thing wasn’t human, it couldn’t be. It has grown in strength. It isn’t even close to what we were experiencing before,” George answered. His breath was starting to fog once more.

As Damian Jackson watched the red lights illuminate, following the movement up to the second floor landing, he swallowed. He had to give Kennedy and his team credit — if it was an intentional trick through electronic means, it was a good one. He could see the ply on the stair runners actually being depressed in the beam of the professor’s flashlight.

Lionel Peterson watched the blinking lights as they progressed up the stairs. Then he capped the flask and tossed it away.

In the freezing ballroom, John Lonetree was sweating as his head tossed from side to side on the pillow. With shaking hands, Jennifer wiped the cold sweat from John’s brow, wanting to say calming things to him but knowing that her voice could wake him from his Walk — something he had warned her not to do. She wasn’t even supposed to be touching him. Leonard reached out and pulled Jenny’s hand away, shaking his head.

They both turned at a noise in the ballroom. Wallace Lindemann, using only his free hand because a sloshing drink was in the other, was tossing wood into the massively large fireplace. Leonard rushed to him and pulled a piece of wood out of his hand, shoving him away from the fireplace.

“Get your ass back over to the bar and stay there. In case you haven’t noticed, asshole, we have a situation going on here.”

Lindemann shot Leonard a dirty look. “Keep your hands off me you nig—” he started, but saw the look on the small man’s face.

“Go ahead. Say it, rich man, and see what happens.”

Lindemann turned and weaved his way back to the bar.

“You better lay off that shit. You just may need your senses about you later,” Leonard said. John took a deep breath and tensed up on the couch, scaring Jenny so badly she nearly fell backward.

It was hot, summer possibly. John tried to get his bearings. At first, it seemed he was in a small room that had no windows. Then, very slowly, light started to filter into the world he had stepped into. There was noise, a lot of it, resolving into the sound of machines — possibly hundreds. He tilted his head as his vision cleared. There were windows, possibly a thousand of them. Some were open, some closed. The ones that were open were not producing enough of a draft to even begin to cool the large room.

John took a tentative step forward into the room and saw row upon row of small tables. On the tables were sewing machines, and above them were thousands of strung threads — threads of all colors and thickness. Working the machines were women dressed in very old clothing and Lonetree knew immediately where he was. He saw the room’s foreman moving around the women, who tensed when he walked past, allowing only their eyes to glance at the large man as he passed behind them. Lonetree felt the women’s dread and knew the shop foreman was a scoundrel of the first order. They were all afraid of him. It was only during the summer months in the city that they were afraid, because the rest of the time the Lindemann family stayed close to the factory. The man always was a model citizen when the Lindemanns weren’t away at their retreat; Summer Place.

John heard a commotion in the back of the large room. A woman screamed, and the noise from the sewing machines dwindled to almost nothing. A young woman had collapsed at her machine and was being picked up by two of the women closest to her. John could see the poor thing was dripping with sweat and was very much pregnant. The shop foreman was soon standing over the girl, who looked embarrassed and was white as a sheet. The kerchief she had on her head to cover her hair was soaked through with sweat. John took a few steps forward between the rows of machines, where the women watched the scene before them. He felt their tenseness.

“I was afraid of this. I warned Mr. Lindemann about keeping you on. Your work has slipped and now you’re costing me time and money.” The man with the thick moustache turned to the hundred women in the room. “Get back to work you lazy swags,” he shouted in a deep Irish brogue.

“The Lindemanns kept her on because she’s pregnant and without a man,” said one of the women who was helping the young girl. Her Irish was as deep as the foreman’s.

“Well, the Lindemanns ain’t here, are they, swag?” the foreman said with his hands on his hips.

John felt anger rising up in him, but knew he was helpless to do anything.

“Tis all right, Molly, I just got a little dizzy is all,” the girl said.

“Yeah, well you’ll not be causing a shut down with your dramatics again, you lazy slug.”

“You can’t fire her. What will she do?” the older woman supporting the girl asked.

“Your only concern is how long I’m going to stand here and not fire you, Miss Big Mouth.”

“The last I heard I was running this company, Mr. Coughlin.”

The women and the foreman turned to see a smallish man in a very expensive suit standing at the door. He also had a moustache and long sideburns. He removed a very expensive hat and looked on toward the back of the room. His German accent was there, but after years of trying the man had fought to limit the sound and tone of his German and English; he found here in America it was far better to speak as one of them.

“Why, Mr. Lindemann, I thought you were vacationing in Pennsylvania, sir,” the foreman said.

“I can very much see your belief in your actions.”

F.E. Lindemann tossed his expensive hat on one of the work tables and stepped forward. He reached the young woman in ten very quick steps. He took her arm and looked her over.

“She fainted and was causing the others to stop work, I was just—”

Another stern look shut the Irishman’s mouth.

John wanted to laugh at the worried look on the foreman’s face. He wanted to slap old F. E. Lindemann on the back — he obviously hated bullies.

“My dear, you are obviously too far along to be working in this heat,” Lindemann said as he helped the girl forward. He paused for a moment, letting her to get her bearings.

“Yes, sir, but I need the money, at least for the next two weeks; I’ll be traveling to Baltimore to stay with my aunt. That’s where my baby will be born.”

Lindemann reached into his pocket and pull out a roll of bills.

“Now you ladies, staring at me is not conducive to making me any money, so I suggest you return to your sewing.”

Most of the women smiled at the polite little man. They didn’t understand the word conducive, but did as he asked.

“Take this. It’s more than a month’s salary for you, and more than enough to get you to Baltimore by train to have your child.”

“Mr. Lindemann, I couldn’t, I would—”

“You can and you will, young lady.” Lindemann placed the rolled bills into the girl’s hand. “Now, you listen. As I am more than likely to sever Mr. Coughlin’s services, I suggest you take that train to Baltimore this very day.” Lindemann looked back at the large Irishman, who was still standing arrogantly with his hands on his hips watching the exchange. “I trust him not to pay you a visit for causing him to be exposed.”

The young girl looked back at the foreman and nodded her head. She understood the threat.

“Good. I’ll see you to your room, and then to the train.” He pulled out a gold pocket watch and examined it. “If I don’t return to Summer Place by tomorrow evening, Mrs. Lindemann will eat me for dinner.”

John watched Lindemann pull the girl away. He saw the smirk on the shop foreman’s face. John wondered when Lindemann was going to fire the man, but allowed his mind to ease when he felt the girl’s tension fade. Lindemann helped her toward the door, and toward a new life in Baltimore.

John felt the dream starting to fade, but was startled by the look in the foreman’s eyes. It was not one of embarrassment at being caught being an overbearing and cruel man — it was one of a job satisfyingly done. John realized he had been watching an act of some sort on the foreman’s part.

The light and the heat faded as the girl and Lindemann walked toward him. John tried to step out of the way, but the strangest thing happened. The girl acted as though she saw him. Her blue eyes looked right into John’s. She smiled and maneuvered at least three steps over to her left, pulling the smaller Lindemann with her, and then she passed right through him. John felt a jolt of electricity, something he had never felt before in any dream walk. He felt the girl pass through him. He felt the growing child inside of her, he felt the sweat on her face and brow. Then she was through, and he wanted to collapse. As she reached the door, she turned her head and looked in John’s direction once more; as if she were apologizing to someone she couldn’t possibly see. John raised his hand and wanted to say something, but the dream faded and then he was gone into the dark void that was his dreamscape.

The pain made him sit straight up on the couch, but in his dream he was sitting on a large hardwood floor. He turned his head as the sharp pain came once more, his body shaking as though the pain were so bad he couldn’t bear it any longer.

He heard the cry of a baby, then another ripping pain. Then a cloth was placed over his mouth and nose and pressed down firmly. He managed to raise his head slightly in the brightly illuminated room. He saw an old wood burning stove and, most shockingly, he saw his own blood-covered legs and ripped open belly. He knew for a fact that he wasn’t looking at his own body. It was the body of a young woman, kicking out from the excruciating pain. He tried to focus on the faces above him, but the girl’s body wouldn’t cooperate. He knew somehow that they had tried to put the girl out with chloroform but it hadn’t taken.

“This crap isn’t working anymore,” said a husky voice with a Russian accent. Then a fist slammed down into John’s face, then again. Then the chloroformed soaked rag once more.

“Never mind, just take her below and dispose of her. Give me the child. No, no, watch its poor head. There, there,” the Russian voice said, “it’s all right now.”

John felt his legs rise into the air and then he was being pulled across the tiled floor.

“You’re dragging blood all across the kitchen!” the voice said angrily. Somewhere, the cry of a baby started.

There was silence from whoever was dragging him. His legs were tossed down and then heard the sound of a door opening. He was once more pulled away and into the semi-darkness of another room. Then, with searing pain coursing through his body, he was dragged down a flight of stairs. His head hit every one of them. Then he was dragged onto a concrete floor. He tried to scream, and this time he did. It came out not as his voice, but the voice of a young woman.

“Stop it, please stop it. Please, I cannot stand the screaming!”

John recognized the voice that had spoken, even though his host body kept screaming. Through the pain-seared voice of the girl he heard the click. It was loud and he knew exactly what the noise was. The gunshot sounded and John felt the impact of the bullet as it sunk deep into his skull, and then there was blackness. When he screamed next, it was his voice. The sudden scream nearly took ten years off the life of everyone in the ballroom, and those who were watching on national live television.

The Dream Walk continued as the battle upstairs began.

Lionel Peterson bumped the cameraman at the banister on the third floor landing. According to the string of motion sensors and laser designators, the dark mass vanished as it made the turn into the second floor hallway. That meant the next time they would have any indication of where it was, would be when it came to the base of the third floor staircase. Peterson, for one, didn’t relish waiting until then to make a decision on what to do. After all, the staircase was their only avenue of escape.

“Kennedy, I hope you have a backdoor to this floor.” Peterson stared fixedly at the base of the staircase.

“I have a better idea, Professor. Why don’t you just call off your dogs? Enough is enough,” Detective Jackson said. He turned from the banister and saw that Gabriel wasn’t even close enough to hear. He was a few feet away, using his small penlight to examine the wall. He was running his hand over the flowered print wallpaper. In frustration, Jackson moved toward the small light.

“See it?” Gabriel asked, tracing a bulging outline along the wall.

“Yes,” George answered, and swallowed. His heart beginning to beat faster.

“This wasn’t here when we first stepped onto the landing. I remember looking this way.” Kennedy straightened. “Ms. Reilly, can you place your hand right here?” Kennedy ran his fingers along the wall about four and half feet up from the carpet runner. “Tell me what you feel. George, you do the same, then allow our intrepid detective to do so.”

“Shit,” the soundman muttered.

Julie made sure the cameraman had turned and zoomed in on her. She didn’t know what the professor was angling toward, but for dramatics, she nodded. She slowly reached out and placed her small hand on the wall.“Higher,” Gabriel said. He took a step back so the large cameraman could get closer with his night vision lens.

Julie looked at Kennedy but did as he asked. She moved her hand up the wall about a foot, then suddenly froze. She felt the chills course down her spine as she pulled her hand away and took a step back, her eyes never leaving the bulging area of the wall.

“Professor Kennedy has just pointed out an anomaly in the plaster of the third floor hallway, the very same spot where his student reportedly vanished over seven years ago. When I placed my hand on the exact spot, I felt…I felt a…beating heart.” Julie swallowed, her mouth suddenly dry. She wiped her hand on her slacks, trying to get the feeling of the beating heart off her skin.

George decided he didn’t need to feel the wall. However, Damian Jackson roughly shoved his hand against the wall as if by mere bravado he would dispel the truth of what was there. After all, this was the part of the story that had made him Kennedy’s enemy seven years before.

“This is foolishness. In case you forgot, you have two people down in a very dangerous and darkened basement, I suggest we—”

Damian Jackson froze just as his hand came into contact with the wall. At first he thought he was only feeling his own pulse, but he quickly realized that it was indeed coming from the wall. He wanted to pull his hand away just as Julie had, but it was because of the temperature difference that he kept his large hand in place — the wall was growing warmer.

As Damian felt the heartbeat in the wall, the soundman suddenly turned, pressing his right earphone into his head. He swung the boom mic around, searching for a sound that at first was flitting, and then constant. The others watched the soundman as the boom swung first one way and then the other. Finally he moved a few feet down the hallway and raised the mic toward the old iron grill. Gabriel swung his light up and the small beam illuminated the ornate grill work where the special effects man had disappeared over two weeks before. The soundman looked at his audio gain. The noise was growing stronger. He took a step back.

“Jesus, what could be in there?” he muttered.

“What are you hearing?” Julie asked. Her eyes locked on the grill. Now she could hear the sounds coming out of the vent. It sounded like someone crawling inside, their weight moving toward the grill. “Come on, what did you hear?”

“Listen,” the soundman hissed between his teeth. The camera zoomed in on the black painted grill.

“Run.”

“Oh shit,” the cameraman said, panicked. He wanted to do just what the voice ordered.

Damian Jackson turned around. He had stood in front of this grill just after the disappearance of the special effects man during the broadcast test and had never felt a thing — at least nothing as strong as some of his troopers had felt that night. Now he was hearing something for himself. This voice, coupled with the beating heart in the wall, was adding up to him starting to believe Kennedy had every right to believe in ghosts. The evidence seemed to be piling up right before his eyes and ears.

“Run!”

This time the voice was more insistent and far closer. If Gabriel were tall enough, he would have aimed the light into the vent and tried to get a glimpse of the owner of the voice. He knew it was Kyle Pritchard warning them to get the hell out of there.

“Oh, damn, what in hell is that?”

Everyone, including the camera and soundmen, turned toward the landing and the banister where Lionel Peterson was staring down.

“What in God’s name—” Damian Jackson started to ask.

“God has nothing to do with that, Detective,” George said. They looked down upon the large black shape standing in the light of the sensor at the base of the third floor stairs. The laser cast a red glow to its inky darkness. “Gabe, it’s grown in power, I feel its…hatred…no, his hatred.”

Kennedy looked at the entity and knew it was looking directly up at them.

“Is it Lindemann, George?”

“I…I…think so…no…Yes, it’s a man, definitely a man.”

Damian raised his gun but Kennedy placed a hand on the detective’s and lowered it.

“Come on, what the hell do you think you’re going to hit with that?”

Jackson was breathing deeply, hearing Kennedy’s words but also hanging onto the gun and its aim, simply because it was real, it was solid, and he could believe in it.

“Oh, man, listen to it,” the soundman said. He swung the boom mic over the edge of the banister.

Below them, the black shape stood its ground. It rolled like a thundercloud, turning its midsection into a jumble of mass, and every time it moved its chest area, they heard the ragged breathing. It was a deep, foreboding sound. They could make out the neck and the head. They all knew it looked up at them with extreme hatred; they could feel it.

“Temperature reading is twenty-five degrees and falling,” Gabriel said as he checked the thermometer on his digital watch.

“May I suggest that we move away from the landing,” Peterson said. He took a step backward, brushing by a frozen Damian Jackson. “I think Professor Kennedy has proven his point.”

As Julie Reilly stepped back from the railing, she heard a crack and the wall gave way, hitting her hard and pushing her forward into George Cordero. The cameraman turned just as the skeletal remains of Warren Miller fell across Julie’s backside. She screamed and George, who had turned, also froze just as Jackson just had at the landing. Gabriel moved first and pulled Julie out from under the body of his former student. He was shaking and almost screaming. As soon as Julie was free, he angrily turned back to the third floor banister. He gripped the rail, moving slowly at first, then faster, to the stairs.

“You son of a bitch!” he shouted at the thing staring up at him. The movement sensors flashed upward as the entity took a step up. “Is that what you’re good at, scaring and killing kids?”

“For God’s sake, you fool, what are you doing?” Peterson yelled, trying to pull the professor back from the stairs.

“MINE!” came the roar from the second floor as the thing took another two steps upward. The sensors illuminated brightly as it moved.

Gabriel shook himself and then looked at the faces lined in the green, red and blue laser grid. They were looking at him for an answer. For the first time, he knew he had a house full of believers. He turned back to the stairs.

“F.E. Lindemann, we know who you are!” he shouted.

The laughter came immediately — thick, full of spite, and accompanied by the smell of putrescence, as though a graveyard had opened and spilled forth its corpses.

“You’re mine!” the entity bellowed. The sound boomed, as if it had originated in hell and not twenty steps just below them.

Julie was trying to keep the bile down as she stared at the skeleton of Kennedy’s lost student. The voice called from the grill again.

“RUN!”

Only Julie and George Cordero heard, and then saw, the door three rooms down slowly open.

“The room…” Julie actually spit some of the bile from her mouth as the cameraman swung to his right from the entity to Julie as she spoke. “The room where the German opera star vanished close to a century…ago, has opened.” She quickly pushed George forward, and then the soundman. Then she screamed for Jackson and Peterson. Gabriel turned, and with one last look at the entity roiling and shifting three steps up from the bottom, turned and followed the others into the lost diva’s room.

“NO!” the entity screamed. The sensors illuminated the mass as it shot toward the third floor landing. The boom of footsteps sounded inside Summer Place and the house was shaken on its foundation.

As Gabriel and Jackson slammed the thick door home and bolted it, the entity slammed into the opposite side. The door bent inward but held. Jackson didn’t care any longer — he again pulled the gun and quickly fired two bullets through the door.

“Don’t do that! That door’s barely strong enough to—” Peterson started. The entity struck the door again, creating not only a dent in the wood, but a boom as if it had been struck by a cannonball. In the blackness of the room, they all gasped each time the mass struck the door. Damian was slowly backing away.

“Jesus, that thing wants to actually kill us!” the soundman screamed.

“Listen!” Gabriel said.

Out in the hallway, just as the entity struck the door a tremendous blow, they heard the deep and booming footsteps moving back down the hallway — in both directions.

“George?” Gabriel asked. He stared at the door as the beast outside hit it once more, shaking the thick wood in its frame.

“It’s still there…No; wait…Part of it is going to the sewing room, and…and—”

“What goddamn it?” Peterson screamed.

George tilted his head and closed his eyes. “Part of it is going to the ballroom…and another part is going outside!”

“Good God, it’s going for John and the others,” Gabriel said.

“But why outside?” Julie asked.

“The production van,” George said, his face draining of all color. “It wants to stop it all.”

Julie once more put the static filled earpiece into her ear and started calling a warning out to Harris Dalton and the production team outside.

“Use the camera to warn them,” Gabriel shouted, “and pray it’s still transmitting a live feed!”

Just as the words escaped Kennedy’s mouth, the door cracked straight down the middle.

The entity laughed, and then began screaming a single word that was heard all the way into the ballroom and the production van two hundred feet away.

“Mine, Mine, Mine!”

TWENTY-TWO

John’s breathing would go shallow one moment and then he would gasp for air the next. Jennifer and Leonard were both becoming worried that he was too far under. The way Lonetree and Gabriel had explained the Dream Walks, he never went so deep that his own movements wouldn’t wake him. But now he was thrashing, screaming and whimpering.

“Maybe we should try to wake him?” Leonard said.

Jennifer swallowed and bit her lower lip. There was a chance they would have to do just that.

John stood in the middle of the brightly lit ballroom watching men and women in formal attire roam the room with drinks while a string quartet played. People coursed in and around the rows of chairs that had been set up in front of the small stage. There were close to a hundred people of varying ages, and their dress was obviously from the twenties or thirties. John quickly stepped back as a small woman in a maid’s outfit walked right through him. He gasped as he felt the woman’s thoughts and feelings. When he turned around she was offering a glass of champagne to a couple who accepted without a thank you. She was angry that she had to perform two jobs during the night. As he watched, the small woman headed toward the crowded bar and placed the tray of filled glasses on the end. Then she wiped her hands and made her way toward the large double doors.

“Leanne, what has become of Mrs. Lindemann? She needs to be down here with her guests.”

The man was the same one whom John had seen at the factory in New York. It was F.E. Lindemann, and he looked none too pleased. His tuxedo was of the finest cut and he grinned as he asked the girl the question, but John could see he was seething underneath. Now he knew now who the girl was. She was one of the maids from the nearby village, and was also the spitting image of Eunice Johansson. He thought a moment — Leanne Cummings, if he remembered right. She was the last person to see the German opera star, Gwyneth Gerhardt, alive.

“Yes, sir, she had a last minute alteration to her dress. She is in the sewing room, she shouldn’t be but a moment.”

“And Miss Gerhardt?” Lindemann asked.

“The staff re-ironed her dress and I am on my way to deliver it now, sir.”

“Be off, then, and tell them both to hurry. Our guests are waiting.”

The girl half bowed and made her way quickly from the ballroom. John followed.

As he stepped aside to avoid two guests who nearly passed through him, he saw the girl disappear through the kitchen’s swinging doors. Looking from the moving doors to the staircase, he played a hunch and started to climb the stairs. In the wink of an eye, John found himself on the third floor landing, and then across the hallway to the far side of the house where he was looking straight at the master suite and the sewing room. Both doors were closed. He stopped and looked at the wall where almost a century later Gabriel’s student would disappear. This wallpaper was different than the current wallpaper in the hallway. He felt the wall and found it just that: a wall, normal and cool to the touch.

Suddenly a door opened down the hallway. A woman stuck her head out and scouted down the hallway before stepping out so that John could see her. She looked right at him, and then through him. She was wearing a dressing gown and slippers, and her hair was coiffed to perfection. John could see her stocking as she stepped from the room. Her eyes seemed to meet his for the briefest of moments before she started across the hall. She moved like a cat, with her eyes firmly placed on the sewing room and the master suite next to it. She stepped into the room across from hers, and then quickly closed the door behind her.

John didn’t have to follow. One moment he watched the woman disappear into the bedroom, and the next moment he was standing next to the bed in that very same room. He watched the robed woman go to her knees and look under the neatly made bed. She straightened onto her knees and crawled to the closet, then stood, pulled open the door and quickly rummaged inside. It looked as if the woman were looking for something. While John watched the woman’s strange behavior, he kept feeling his stomach. He could still feel the pain from the previous Walk. John found he was still shaking from the pain of the murder he had endured.

The woman stepped from the closet and then stopped cold as if she had heard something. She went to the bedroom door and cracked it open. She then quickly hurried out into the hallway. John followed this time as she made her way to the next room and tried the knob, but at that moment the maid came around the corner. She was carrying a dress in her hands, held out as if she were carrying a baby. The black sequined gown shimmered brightly in the lights lining the hallway.

“Oh, I was just looking for you,” the woman in the dressing gown said. She released the handle of the door to the next bedroom she had been about to search. Her words were spoken in a heavy German accent. John knew then who he was looking at — the opera star, Gwyneth Gerhardt. The diva was about to disappear from Summer Place and John’s Dream Walk had placed him right at the center of the action.

“Yes, Ma’am, Mr. Lindemann has requested that you join the party as soon as possible,” the young maid said as she went to Gerhardt’s room and opened the door. The diva moved into her bedroom, followed by the maid carrying the dress. John stepped over but didn’t enter the room, he just watched from the hallway.

“Just lay the dress on the bed, please, and tell Mr. Lindemann I’ll be down momentarily.”

The maid did as she was ordered and then half bowed and left, turning to the right she walked toward the master suite. John watched her knock. She knocked again and then moved over ten feet to the door on the left — the sewing room — and knocked, looking uneasy to John’s watching eyes.

“Yes,” came a voice through the door, just as soft music was turned down.

“Ma’am, your husband is anxious for you to join him in the ballroom.”

At first there was no answer, but then the sewing room door opened a few inches. Though John tried, he couldn’t hear what was said. Then the door closed and the young girl hurried away down the hallway and past John. The soft music started again inside the sewing room. He started walking toward it, but movement from the opera star’s room caught his eye. She stood at the open closet. John felt something, or maybe he felt what Gwyneth Gerhardt was feeling; he couldn’t be sure. He moved easily into the room and watched as the woman removed a fur stole and tossed it onto the bed, then stepped further into the closet. She was feeling around at the back of the closet. Occasionally, she would stop and listen, and then feel around some more. Then John heard it — the same music he had just heard coming from the sewing room.

Now just as curious as the opera singer, John came up behind her. For a moment, John knew she could feel his presence. She stopped probing the back of the closet and turned to look right at him. Then, satisfied she was alone in the bedroom, she went back to feeling the back wall of the closet. John hesitantly reached out. He nearly touched the German star, but withdrew his hand. He wanted to feel exactly what she was feeling, but was afraid to complete a chain that linked the past with the present and that therefore might stop her from doing what she had done in that past. Waves of longing, of missing something, came out of Gerhardt as she finally found the spot she had been seeking. As she pushed in on the back of the wooden closet, it popped open like a small door. Beyond was a darkened passageway that led off into a false wall. She hesitated.

John gathered his courage and reached out and touched Gerhardt on the shoulder. She froze for a second, looking into the dark passage.

Lonetree closed his eyes, feeling what Gerhardt was feeling. She was indeed looking for something. She was looking for…for…her sister. Lonetree moved his hand from her shoulder and she seemed to relax. John watched as the opera star gathered her courage and stepped into the hidden passage. He wanted to shout for her to stop, but another wave hit him from the woman’s mind. She was here to sing, but she had only accepted the invitation because she had wanted to search for her sister. She suspected that the Lindemanns were involved, and suspected her sister was here. John was starting to get a sick feeling in his stomach again.

As the woman felt her way along the passage, the music grew louder. Finally she stopped at another doorway. John knew they were right outside the sewing room. There were two doors almost side by side, mirroring the two in the hallway: the master suite and the sewing room. As the opera star reached out in the darkness, John came close to trying to stop her. He knew that her death, or at the very least the reason for her disappearance, was right behind that thin panel of a doorway.

A sliver of light filled the small tunnel that ran in between the thickened wall of the third floor. Gerhardt stood motionless, peering inside the sewing room. John touched her again, so that he could gauge her feelings and thoughts. Suddenly, he was thrown backward. Gerhardt’s heart lurched in her chest. She panicked and, with a gasp, turned and ran back the way she had come, running right through John. He felt eyes on him, and turned. The small door had opened wider and a face was staring through him. The naked body and fierce eyes penetrated his soul as if he were looking at Satan himself, and then everything about Summer Place became crystal clear. John panicked himself and fought to gain control as he backed away from the figure. He stumbled in his dream and fell to the wooden floor of the passage. He heard Gerhardt up ahead as she gained the closet in her own room. John finally managed to get to his feet. Before he realized what was happening, he was in Gerhardt herself as she squeezed out of her closet.

John could still hear the music, and now he could feel Gwyneth’s pounding heartbeat and her terror as she stumbled to her door. John tried with all of his ability to assist the woman, who was now in a blind panic to get out. She was crying, whimpering, and John was also. She went to her knees as she reached for the crystal glass doorknob. It turned and she used it to stand, then she choked back a scream. The figure from the sewing room was standing at the door when it flew open. Inside of Gerhardt, John screamed in horror right along with her as the knife plunged down and into the opera star. The figure pulled the knife free and slammed it into the German star again.

Lonetree fell backward with Gwyneth Gerhardt. He felt the body strike the hardwood floor just in front of the large bed. She tried to roll over and crawl to safety under the bed, screaming in pain and terror. He felt the large knife plunge into her back. Then all was still as the diva was roughly rolled over. John could see the person standing over Gerhardt clearly. The naked body was sheathed in a fine sheen of sweat and its horrible, hate-filled eyes stared down. John felt his stomach heave.

John felt her heart stop beating at the moment of her death. Gabriel and the team were facing something far more terrible than just ghosts at Summer Place, he knew. The secret of the house was now in his memory and all he had to do was wake up from the Dream Walk to let Gabriel know what they were dealing with.

It wasn’t Summer Place that was evil, it was what walked there that came from hell itself. Lonetree feared it might be too late to stop it.

CEO Feuerstein stood from his chair as the sound inside of Summer Place went down. They could still see the live picture of Kennedy’s team as they ran for the open doorway of the bedroom. The basement camera was dark and had shown nothing since the attack on Kelly Delaphoy. The ballroom camera was blank but they were receiving sound.

“Sir, the ratings are skyrocketing and the advertisers want to extend their time. The phone lines are going down due to overload. Most of the callers want to know if this is on the level or a practical joke. The news division wants more reporters on site, and the Pennsylvania state police want to know why they weren’t informed about the live broadcast,” Feuerstein’s assistant said from his side, “and I have Harris Dalton on line one.”

Feuerstein, without taking his eyes off the screen, reached for the phone and pushed the flashing light connecting him with Harris Dalton in the production van. He placed his hand over the receiver and leaned toward his assistant.

“Inform our sponsors that we are not going to break. They’ll get a scroll at the bottom of the screen.” Feuerstein thought a moment as his assistant scribbled furiously on her notepad. Everyone in the room could hear Harris Dalton at Summer Place screaming into the phone. “Tell the news division to dispatch their news team from Bright Waters, and also please inform the state police that we have a detective lieutenant from their Philadelphia barracks in attendance, and that he is thus far reporting that everything is under control.”

The assistant stopped writing and her eyes flicked to the large screen. The door of the third floor bedroom that had once been used by Gwyneth Gerhardt slammed and locked with Kennedy and his investigative team inside. She looked back to the CEO, and his glare told her she had better get moving at once.

Once the assistant was gone, Feuerstein raised the phone to his ear. “Dalton, you are putting on one hell of a show. The phone lines are going down due to the volume of calls. I want to—”

“We need the state police out here in force, and don’t hand me any crap about ratings! We have people in serious danger in that house!”

“Now, now, why don’t we let the good professor continue the experiment? After all, we haven’t really seen anyone get hurt, so why—”

“If you don’t allow us to call for help, I’m shutting this goddamned thing down!”

“You will do as you are told. We have several police officers standing by in Bright Waters. Until ordered otherwise, you will keep this show going.”

All eyes in the screening room were on the CEO, whose face had just turned murderously red. Deep down, they also wanted the show to continue; each and every person in the room, with the exception of Peterson’s people, were feeling the drag of money in their pockets.

“Now you listen, Dalton, you know how many millions we have riding on this special. It’s a smash success thus far. If you jeopardize what we have—”

The CEO froze as the phone line shut down. The light was still active on the phone console.

Suddenly, in the phone’s receiver and the overhead speakers of the screening room, a deep and booming voice escaped from Summer Place loud and clear, chilling everyone who heard it.

“They are MINE!”

Harris threw the phone down into the row of technicians operating the monitors. The voice was so loud it hurt. He quickly turned to one of the assistant producers.

“Call the goddamn police — now!”

The woman nodded and held up the phone. “I did five minutes ago, and I don’t give a shit if they throw me in jail.”

“Good girl,” Dalton said as he placed his headphones back on. “Now, let’s see if we can get the damn camera operating inside that basement to see if Kelly is still alive.”

“Jesus, oh man, look at Camera Seven,” one of the technicians called out.

They saw the motion sensors on the bottom floor light up, just as the black mass hit the last few steps of the staircase. “I didn’t notice on the other static cameras before, it was coming down the stairs the whole time,” the tech said, half-rising from her chair.

“Sit down, and let’s at least start doing our jobs!”

As they watched Camera Seven and its ambient light picture, the entity once more split in two. One black mass headed straight for the ballroom and the other for the front doors. The camera couldn’t follow both, so it kept its motion activation motor on the closest segment of the oozing and towering mass — the one that was heading for the large double doors of the ballroom.

“It’s going for Lonetree and the others. Try to get some communication up and warn them,” Harris said as calmly as he could. “Get Camera Five to get ready outside. Tell him they are on the clock again, and to train all eyes on the front doors. We may have company.”

The camera team that had been ordered out when Kennedy ordered Father Dalton evacuated didn’t have to be told anything; they already had camera and sound trained on the front of Summer Place because of the banging and booming noises coming from the inside. The cacophony rivaled the booms of thunder that were inundating the small valley, almost as if bombs were going off inside the house.

Harris’ relief was short-lived. The front doors exploded outward and landed somewhere just in front of the production van. The camera and soundmen were knocked from their feet and the camera went in the opposite direction.

“Oh, God!” Harris cried, watching the mass exit the house. Even though the camera had fallen far from its operator, it was still trained on the front of the house. It was on its side, skewing the picture, but still functional.

“Go to Five, go to Five!” Harris shouted. The picture switched from inside the living room to the live view of the entity as it crashed through the open space where the thick front doors had been. All over the country, viewers got their first clear look at evil. The black, swirling mass stopped at the top of the stone steps, just under the portico. Suddenly a tendril of inky blackness shot out from the still form and went south into the storm-tossed night.

“Oh, shit,” Harris said aloud.

“Is it — is it coming at us?” one of the technicians called out worriedly.

On the screen that showed a sideways view of the mass, it started down the stone steps, smashing the bottom of the giant wooden portico as it came on.

Harris couldn’t open his mouth as the entity, or the part that was outside, came right at the production van, scattering emergency personnel in its path. He and the others turned toward the clear plastic curtain that sectioned them off from the heavy steel door at the front of the trailer. Harris pulled the curtain back and ran to the double steel doors. He slammed home the large lock just as the entity struck the thick doors, bending them and warping them in their frame. The large van shook as it was knocked from it stabilizing blocks, knocking Harris backward.

In New York, the first inkling of panic began to set in inside the screening room.

The six state police cruisers received their orders to move on Summer Place. They screamed out of the small town and took the curves of the wet road at breakneck speed, making the other cars fall behind. Suddenly, eight miles out of town and only three miles from Summer Place, the woods lining the roadway lit up as if an explosion had rent the forest. The bright green flash made the lead driver flinch, but he recovered quickly and kept going. As he accelerated back up to speed, a brief flash of movement caught his attention. A deer had shot from one side of the road to the other, barely missing the cruiser. The state trooper figured the hard storm with its lightning strikes was spooking the animals. Then as that thought struck him, another large buck sprang from the woods to the cruiser’s right and stopped right in the middle of the road. The headlights picked out the large deer, just standing its ground against the police cruiser. Suddenly the animal started forward, first at a trot and then at a full gait. The state trooper turned his wheel, hitting his brakes and putting the heavy cruiser into a spin. The deer struck the car in the rear quarter panel and flew into the roadway, dead. Then another deer jumped in front of the spinning car, smashing the headlights. As its body was tossed underneath the car, the rear wheels struck it. Then the cruiser was airborne. It came down on its top, crushing the flashing lights, and skidded down the center of the road.

The second car in line took the corner dangerously fast. The driver saw the wreck and tried to turn, but he was too late. His vehicle slammed into the first at over seventy miles an hour, bursting into flames. The third cruiser in line actually had a chance to avoid the disaster ahead, but just as the driver tried to apply his brakes and turn the steering wheel, a large owl slammed into the windshield, shattering it and momentarily throwing off the trooper’s concentration. The bird was thrown clear just as the third car slammed into the first two. Flames were spreading fast in the downpour of rain, illuminating the woods, but the false light wasn’t enough to prevent the pile-up that followed and the next three cars ended in a similar, disastrous fate.

As men and cars burned in the stormy night, the fires lit up the woods. Standing six and seven deep in those woods, thousands of scared animals regained their wits and turned and fled back into the forest.

The part of the entity moved over the burning, screaming men in the cruisers, absorbing their pain and anguish. Then, stronger than before its assault on the roadway, it rose up and entered the woods.

The black and shimmering mass was returning to Summer Place, and the men and women trapped there were now on their own to face hell itself.

Gabriel pushed his weight against the door and was soon joined by Damian Jackson and even Lionel Peterson. The entity slammed into the door for a second time and the wood actually splintered down its center. In the far corner of the room, George Cordero and Julie Reilly were trying frantically to open one of the bedroom windows. They struggled with the lock, but it wouldn’t budge.

Damian Jackson tossed his nine millimeter away and placed his hand over the crack that had formed in the door. Suddenly the state policeman screamed and then pulled his hand away. Even in the dark Jackson knew that at least two of his fingers were missing.

“The goddamn thing bit my fingers off!” He threw his weight against the door.

“Hell of a special effect, isn’t it?” Gabriel said as the door bulged inward once more.

“Yeah, just about as good as your theory that ghosts never really harmed anyone!” Jackson screamed back.

“You got me there,” Kennedy said as he strained against the wood.

“Jesus, what the hell is that thing?” Peterson whined. He slid down the door and pushed his back to it, keeping pressure on it.

George and Julie turned from the window. The psychic grabbed a chair and slammed it against the glass. The wooden chair bounced back and struck Julie in the arm. She let out a small yelp.

“It’s not a ghost,” George said, out of breath. He examined the glass, which hadn’t broken into a thousand pieces like he thought it would. He tried to catch his breath. “It may have been, once…and it may have also been human…but not now.” He straightened, pulling Julie further away from the window, and once more picked up the wooden chair. “No one has ever dealt with anything like this. Nowhere in the annals of the supernatural is anything like this mentioned. Its power is building from our fear of it, I can feel it. It wants out of Summer Place and it’s going to go through us to do it!”

“He’s right,” Kennedy said. The entity laughed out loud in the hallway, bringing a spate of shivers to the people trapped inside the room. The laugh was booming and hardy, as if it was amused by what it was hearing. “The goddamn thing has evolved into something that’s never been seen before.”

“Well, may I suggest we get the hell out of here and allow it to go on its merry way?” Jackson said, cradling his mutilated hand.

“Where? We’re trapped!” Peterson screamed as the mass struck the door again, this time breaking the crystal doorknob from its stem.

A tendril of mist entered the room through the crack in the door and slapped Kennedy away. With his weight off the door, the entity was able to push the thick wooden door inward by three inches, breaking away a portion of the frame.

As Gabriel crawled hurriedly back to the door, the roar of an enraged animal sounded from the hallway. They knew that the next time it struck the door it would give completely.

Whatever walked the halls and rooms inside of Summer Place was mad and very hungry. It was tired of hiding amongst the wood and mortar of the old summer retreat and wanted to break away for good.

The entity smashed into the production van from the side, bulging the thin steel inward and shorting out several of the monitors. Harris Dalton threw himself over a production assistant just as the overhead fluorescents shattered, sending the van into darkness with the exception of the few still-functioning monitors left. With all thought of the Halloween special purged from his mind, Dalton went into a mindset he thought he had forgotten. Just as when he’d been on assignment in Afghanistan, it was now time to try and stay alive.

The entity had smashed a large hole in the center of the ballroom doors in its attempt to get inside and stop the only being in the world that could cause it harm — John Lonetree. Leonard Sickles was throwing anything he could find at the large double doors; he was terrified, and that was the only action he could think of to take. Wallace Lindemann was sitting behind the bar with his hands over his ears, rocking back and forth, his mind slowly leaving him.

Jennifer was shaking John as hard as she could, but all Lonetree was doing was shaking his head and sweating cold moisture from his pores.

“John, wake up!” Jenny cried.

At the large double doors, Leonard froze with a barstool raised as the top half of the left door smashed inward and flew into the ballroom. The stool slowly slipped from his grasp as the entity showed its face. It grabbed both sides of the opening with its black swirling hands and leaned its head through the opening. Leonard stumbled backward as the beast roared in animal triumph. Its obsidian eyes settled on John.

John felt Jenny shaking him, but he knew if he ended the Dream Walk now the beast would get them all. It would become powerful enough to leave Summer Place forever.

John watched the scene in the hallway. The entity was smashing into the large door over and over again. He heard his friends inside. Suddenly the beast turned its black eyes on John. He couldn’t see it in the darkness, but he knew it was staring at him. It roared like an animal and John knew it was about to spring at his dream-self. John closed his eyes and remembered what he needed to remember. When he opened them again, the entity was gone — not far away, but not after him any longer. He knew what he had to do. He had to help Gabriel and George, and then he needed to get help. There was only one place that he knew of that could provide it. He reached out with his hand and pushed.

“Look!” Julie Reilly called out.

Gabriel, still helping to hold closed what was left of the door, looked up in time to see the large closet door slowly swing open. Warmer air permeated the cold room. He knew immediately it was John.

“George, put that chair down and get inside that closet. Feel around. I think Lonetree is trying to tell us something!”

Cordero slammed the chair against the window one more time. As it bounced off, he turned and ran for the closet. He also felt the large Indian’s presence, and shoved aside the aging black sequined gown on its lone hanger. As George struck the back wall of the wooden closet, he felt something give. He heard a squeak and then he felt a draft of even colder air. He reached out just as a loud boom sounded from the bedroom.

“George, we’re running out of time here!” Kennedy shouted. “I think old F.E. Lindemann wants this bedroom!”

“In here! There’s a passage of some sort.”

“Julie, go!” Gabriel shouted. The door gave another two inches inward.

The reporter scrambled over the bed and hit the closet and without hesitation. She ducked inside.

“Peterson, get in there and follow,” Gabriel said. He grimaced with the effort of keeping the entity out.

“You don’t have to tell me twice. Good luck!” Peterson scrambled to his feet and vanished into the dark closet.

“Don’t even say it, Kennedy. You get out of here!” Jackson screamed over the grunting and roaring of the beast outside of the bedroom.

“I wasn’t going to say anything. Neither of us can leave without Mr. Wonderful coming inside and chasing down the others. I’m afraid we’re pegged to be the heroes here.”

“You could have at least argued for me to leave,” Jackson said with a snarl.

The entity crashed into the door, and this time it gave way.

John moved back out into the hallway. He didn’t know exactly how to get the mass of darkness to pay attention to him, but that became a moot point as he felt the black mass back away from the door. It had finally succeeded in cracking the wood to splinters. It turned toward John and roared. Forgetting all about the bedroom, it turned and came forward. John backed away. Then the beast roared in anger and came at him in earnest.

“Now, Gabe. Run, get to the sewing room, the answer is in there!” he shouted as he ran for the staircase.

Gabriel pushed broken shards of wood off his hurting body and turned his attention to Damian, who was covered in the remains of the door. When they both heard the call for them to run, they didn’t hesitate. They covered the floor to the closet in moments and smashed inside the dark space that was their escape.

Once inside the passage, Gabriel searched his pockets for his penlight. “Damn it, the flashlight’s back in the room!” he hissed.

Jackson pushed by him in the tight passageway.

“Well, go back and get it, but don’t mind if I don’t go with you.”

Kennedy had to smile as he turned on his heels and followed the detective.

They traveled along the passage until Damian, not being able to see clearly in the dark, bumped into Peterson, who let out a scream.

“This door or that one,” George asked in the darkness as Gabriel caught up.

“John said the sewing room. If I have my bearings straight, that’s the one to your right.”

George tried the panel in front of him. It didn’t move.

“Try sliding it,” Julie said at his shoulder.

George placed both hands on the panel and pushed to the left — nothing. Then he tried to the right and the panel moved. He pushed it all the way open and then slowly and cautiously stepped into the sewing room.

As they all joined George, Gabriel brushed a small table and bumped against something. He picked it up to examine it and some liquid splashed in his hands — kerosene.

“Anyone got a light, a match, anything? I have a storm lamp.”

Suddenly the room flashed brightly as Lionel Peterson lit his lighter. Gabriel raised the glass chimney on the storm lantern and Peterson lit the wick. Kennedy closed the chimney and adjusted the flame.

The sewing room was laid out neatly. There were three sewing machines, half body mannequins and old bolts of materials of all colors and make, strewn across the room. All covered in a thick layer of dust. This was one room Eunice Johannson never touched in her daily cleaning of Summer Place. The dust and disarray made the room seem frozen in time. The many closets in the room were all locked with small padlocks. Damian Jackson noticed them just as Gabriel did.

“I guess Mrs. Lindemann took the security of her wardrobe seriously,” Jackson said. He walked up to one and grasped the old brass lock with his uninjured left hand. The big state policeman pulled down as hard as he could. The lock held, but he heard a small cracking of the wood that the hasp was attached to. He pulled again and this time the old wood gave way and the lock and its hasp came off in his hand. “Oops.”

Gabriel came forward with the lamp as Damian pulled open the closet door. Several items hung inside. Jackson took a step back in stunned silence. Julie mustered all of her courage to keep the sickness she felt from exiting her stomach.

“My God, what are those?” Peterson asked. Now they knew who they were dealing with, and what was walking the hallways of Summer Place.

John had made it to the second floor landing, but he felt the entity close behind. The flashing of the motion sensors and the beeping of the laser grid told him the beast had gained the second floor and was just across the house from where he was. He knew beyond a doubt that if the entity could catch him in his dream state, it could kill him just as surely as if it was confronting his real body.

John held his ground on the landing, waiting for the black mass to reach the corner of the hallway, baiting it away from Gabriel and George. The black force rounded the corner, and John knew he could lead it away successfully — his bait had worked.

Suddenly, as he turned to run down the stairs in his dream, a cold splash — or flash, really — struck his face. It was so cold that he gasped for breath. Then, to his horror, he opened his eyes. The entity roared in pure animalistic anger and turned back the way it had come. John knew it had figured out where Gabriel and the others were.

“No, it’s going back to the third floor — it’s going to the sewing room!”

He tried to scream at the retreating entity to regain its attention, but just as he opened his mouth in his dream state, another splash of freezing cold struck him. Like the witch in the Wizard of Oz, he began to dissolve.

John opened his eyes and tried to catch his breath. He was coughing and spitting as the cold water ran down his throat and windpipe. A pair of reaching arms helped him to sit up.

“John, are you okay?”

John tried to clear his head, shaking cold water from him and slinging his long wet hair around. He managed to draw in a deep breath. He finally opened his eyes and looked around. Shaking, he saw Jennifer standing over him. She was holding a large glass that still dripped water.

“You…you woke me,” he said as he rubbed his swollen eyes. “I wasn’t done.”

“You were dying, John. You were breathing too hard and your pulse was racing. You were about to go into cardiac arrest, or have a stroke.”

Before John could say anything, a crash at the door brought his head around. The entity, or the part that took occupancy near the ballroom, had smashed the left side of the door to splinters. Leonard Sickles was still throwing anything he could through the large opening at the roaring beast.

“We’re out of time here!” Leonard shouted as he threw a computer monitor through the door.

“I have to get to the subbasement!” John stood. “Can we get out of one of the French doors?”

Jenny shook her head. “We’ve been trying ever since you went under.”

“Damn it, we’re going to lose them if I don’t get to the basement!”

Jenny suddenly felt weak. She sat on the edge of the couch. At first, John thought the situation was just overwhelming her, but then he saw her eyes roll into the back of her head. Her entire body shook and then she moaned deep in her throat. She suddenly stood and looked down at John.

“I didn’t think that bitch would ever let me squeeze though that hole,” Jenny said, her voice decidedly male.

“Bobby Lee?” John asked.

Jenny looked up at the large Indian and shook her head in wonder. “Well, it ain’t Chuck Berry. Look, you don’t have the time.” Jenny touched her own cheek. “And my Jenny girl doesn’t, and believe me, that’s the only reason I’m turning into Gary Cooper here.”

“What are you—”

“Shut up man. Listen, you tell Jenny I never meant no harm. I loved her and that’s why I chose her. That’s why I stayed and that’s why I made her life hell. This is my make up to her. You’ll know when to run, Tonto. Now get her ready to go, get to your basement and kill this fucking thing. It gives ghosts a bad fucking name.”

Jennifer fell forward into John’s arms. She moaned and started to come around almost immediately. She had tears in her eyes, as if she knew exactly what her personal ghost was going to do for her.

John looked up at the exact moment that Leonard Sickles was pushed out of the way by an unseen force. Leonard hit the Persian rug on his back and watched as a sparkling wave of light shot through the exposed hole in the large door. Suddenly the beast roared in anger and the pounding stopped. The only sound in the ballroom was the crying coming from Wallace Lindemann at the back of the bar.

The doorway on the left side slowly opened. Leonard ran, with John carrying Jennifer close behind.

Bobby Lee McKinnon was giving them the time they needed.

Harris Dalton and the fifteen technicians, assistant directors, and producers split into groups, hoping to keep the thing they had sought earlier in the television special out of the production van. All of the enthusiasm they had shown in the beginning had vanished now that the scenario facing them was real. If the thing now punching five- and six-foot dents into the trailer’s steel frame got inside, they would be devoured. All of them knew it.

“I think it’s drawing power from our electronics. What if we get outside somehow and kill the generator?” Nancy, his assistant director, asked as she picked herself off the carpeted deck.

“Okay, I’m game. Do you want me to open the door and you just squeeze by whatever the fuck it is that’s out there and make a run for the genny?” Harris shouted. He watched a corner of the steel door pull outward from the trailer’s frame.

“Oh man, look at that,” Nancy said. There was no way past the thing that was outside.

A large flash of lightning illuminated the grounds and they saw a large arm, mist-shrouded and black, reach in and take a swipe at the closest technician, striking him in the chest and sending him flying. Harris reached for the phone and placed it to his ear, trying desperately to punch in the numbers for New York. As the tones sounded, he heard laughter through the phone line. “They’re mine…they’re mine…they are MINE!”

The corner of the large door peeled down from the hinge that held it in place.

“Oh, crap,” Harris said.

When the door to the sewing room bent inward, Gabriel knew that the entity had discovered their whereabouts. Each person took a step back from the discovery inside the closet that had unnerved them all. Gabe turned the storm lamp toward the open closet one last time to absorb what he was seeing.

The door was slammed again. Damian Jackson saw to his horror that the lock was unlatched. He dove for the door and tried desperately to slam the lock home with his good hand, but the door bent inward with such force that the wood cracked and splintered. Julie saw what he was trying to do and reached for the lock herself, finally getting a hold on it and ramming it home. The beast outside seemed enraged that Gabriel and the others had managed to penetrate its inner sanctum. The pounding and thrashing became more intense, slinging splinters of wood off the cracked door into the interior of the sewing room.

Gabriel moved to the closet and ran his hand over the garment at the front. It looked to be a bodysuit of some kind. Made of white cloth, it was knee length and ended at the collar. To his horror, it was complete with breasts — cloth, to be sure, but full and ample breasts. And it had many companions. Some were heavier than others, but all came equipped with breasts. Gabriel quickly counted twenty bodysuits, each one meticulously hand sewn. Worn underneath a dress, no one would be able to tell that they were false forms for a woman who wasn’t a real woman at all.

“It’s all fitting together.” Gabriel hurried from the open closet to the door. He held the lamp high. Jackson, George and Peterson had their weight firmly planted against the wood, trying to keep the entity at bay.

“We know…” Gabriel shouted. “We know who you are. We know why you weren’t in any of the pictures of your family. You weren’t one of the girls; you’re the son, Mrs. Lindemann!”

The beating against the door stopped. A screech followed, shattering the standing mirror closest to the door.

“You were born a boy. You became a woman!”

The scream of rage came again and the entity came at the door with its full force behind it. The door bent, cracked halfway up, and sent Damian Jackson flying back into the room. George and Lionel Peterson were thrown to the floor. The door was there for the taking, and the entity took full advantage of it.

As John, Jennifer and Leonard ran through the smashed door to the right and the door that Bobby Lee McKinnon had opened to the left, a battle was taking place in the living room. Bobby Lee, a sparkling, shimmering version of him, was in the air, on the back of the dark mass that had been attacking the ballroom. Jennifer stopped and gaped in wonder as the black entity tried desperately to dislodge the pest that had planted itself on its back, roaring in anger and shock that an entity it had no knowledge of was stopping it from its goal.

“Go!” came Bobby Lee’s voice, tired and frightened. The swirling black mass finally managed to rake its dark claws across his shimmering form, sending him flying from its back. The black entity charged at the downed ghost of the former musician.

Jennifer screamed but John pulled her away. The swirling and pulsating mass attacked to kill. Leonard helped John and actually lifted Jenny off her feet, sprinting through the dark toward the kitchen. They slammed into the swinging doors without noticing the smashed front doors or the storm outside. They failed to hear the screaming of those trapped in the barn and the production van. John lost his breath as he slammed into the door at the far end of the kitchen. Jenny and Leonard couldn’t stop their momentum and slammed into his back as he tried to open the basement door. Finally he pushed them out of the way and opened the door. The blackness of the stairwell opened up before them.

“Inside — hurry!” John cried out.

Jenny went first and then Leonard, just as a man’s scream was heard from the living room. John knew that Bobby Lee was done for. He had given his false afterlife for them, and it wouldn’t go to waste. John entered the stairwell and slammed the door closed, locking it from the inside.

Leonard and Jenny stumbled down the dark steps. John started down behind them, knowing full well that if he lost his footing he would break every bone in his body on the concrete floor below. As he forced himself to slow down, he heard the smashing of the door far above him. The entity was on its way down to stop him from doing what had to be done.

John hit the turn on the stairwell just as Jenny and Leonard hit the bottom. Lonetree took a chance and started taking the invisible stairs two at a time, nearly breaking his ankle on the last step before touching firm, flat concrete.

“The trapdoor, we have to open it!”

Jenny was crying but still trying to function. She ran toward where she remembered the door to be. Her foot kicked something on the floor and then suddenly a bright beam of light illuminated the floor as the flashlight spun in a circle. Jennifer picked it up, not knowing it was same flashlight that Kelly had been holding when she was attacked just thirty minutes before. She located the subbasement trapdoor and then sighed.

“The lock’s been removed and then bent back into position. We’ll never get it open!”

As John and Leonard joined Jenny at the trapdoor, it started to rattle in its frame. The concrete cracked around it and the door actually bent outward, rattling violently. Jenny could swear she heard voices of desperation from the other side.

“Jesus, it’s already in there!” Leonard said as he backed away.

“No, but something is that can help us I think,” John said. He ran to the far wall and one of the old wood stoves that lined it. “Help me. Hurry!” He pushed against the quarter ton stove.

Leonard and Jenny immediately saw what he was attempting. They joined him and started pushing the wrought iron stove toward the trapdoor. John tilted the heavy stove on end and flipped it over onto the thin, wide door. The weight disintegrated the trapdoor and the stove hurtled down, smashing and breaking the wooden steps as it fell to the deepest part of the house.

Above them they heard the black entity storming down the stairs, cracking the wooden steps as it came.

Suddenly the basement filled with light. Shades of colors never thought imaginable emanated from the dirt lined subbasement, accompanied by the gentle smell of young girls. Wisps of curling streamers came out of the hole and they all heard the screams of torment. The room filled with the sound of women screaming their horror at what had happened to them.

“Who are they?” Jenny asked. She ducked as several of the tendrils whisked by her head.

“Mothers…they’re mothers,” John said, as if in a daze.

The entity coming down the stairs had stopped and was screaming in outrage as the real secret of Summer Place spilled out of the bowels of the house. The swirling multicolored tendrils of spirits that had been tormented for close to a hundred years hung momentarily in the air around John, Jenny and Leonard. Then, with the roar of outrage from the stairs sounding again and the sound of the beast retreating, the tendrils of rainbow-colored spirits screamed their own indignity and shot forward and up the stairs.

“Get her,” John said as if to himself.

The entity was caught as it reached the doorway to the basement. Lightning flashed throughout the house as tendrils of color struck the beast. It roared with pain. The tendrils curled in and out, around and through the black mass, and every time the beast screamed, it weakened. The ghosts of the women who had met their end at Summer Place vented their revenge. They split apart, scattering throughout the house.

The black mass smashed through the door. It lifted Gabriel high into the air closing around his throat and squeezing the air out of him. He clawed at his throat, fighting to breathe, but broke one hand free and waved the others out of the room.

Damian pushed Julie, George and Peterson out the door. He was about to turn and help Gabriel when a powerful wind slammed into him and knocked him down. Gabriel was thrown hard into the wall. His body slid down and thumped onto the carpet. Jackson went to him and started pulling the professor out by the arm. The multicolored wisps of smoke were all over the black mass, which was screaming out in pain. Parts of it were being torn free to vanish like smoke in the wind. Jackson finally managed to get Gabriel’s still form out of the room, just as the beast roared in newfound pain. Then as suddenly as their rescuers had appeared, they vanished. The black mass had vanished also. The air warmed, until Jackson could no longer see his breath.

Gabriel moaned and tried to sit up.

“Take it easy, Professor. You have two broken legs.”

Gabriel opened his eyes and looked up at Jackson. “Now tell me I don’t know how to throw a Halloween party.”

Jackson smiled for the first time in what seemed like many years. He patted Kennedy on the shoulder and sat down beside him. “I think I’ll skip your next party. I’m way too old for this shit.”

Outside, the night became silent with the exception of the falling rain striking the production trailer’s smashed and battered exterior. Harris Dalton picked himself up off the floor and looked around as the power came back on. The others in the trailer were all right — they slowly raised their heads.

“Is it…is it over?” Nancv asked.

Harris didn’t answer. He stood in stunned silence as the night returned to normal. Lights were flashing on the phone terminal. He took a deep breath and reached for the cracked instrument, then pushed one of the flashing buttons.

“Dalton,” he said as calmly as he could.

“Damn it, man, where have you been? We’ve been showing nothing but dead air for the past twenty minutes!”

Harris pushed the main screen button, bringing online the camera that lay on its side in the rain. The view showed the smashed front doors of Summer Place and to Dalton’s horror, several people lying on the wet ground. To his relief, several of them were moving, starting to pick themselves up.

“What the hell happened out there?” Feuerstein raged.

Harris looked at the men and women looking at him. They were all flushed and most were shaking badly. He shook his head and looked away, placing the phone back to his ear.

“Before I tell you what you can do with your special, Feuerstein, I’ll say this, and I think I speak for the rest of my crew: I quit. Now you have a happy Halloween, you son of a bitch!”

John looked down into the hole that was the subbasement. Jenny knew what he was going to do and reached out with a shaking hand to stop him. He smiled and touched her arm.

“There’s nothing down there that can hurt us. We have to look for Kelly and Sanborn. They could be hurt down there.”

Jenny whimpered but let go of John’s arm. Leonard came over when Lonetree looked his way and placed his arm around Jennifer. He nodded that John should go.

Lonetree shined the light around the darkness below and saw that he could shimmy his way down the broken staircase where the stove hadn’t demolished it.

After three minutes and almost falling to his death five times, Lonetree hit the dirt floor of the subbasement. He shined the small penlight around and saw the stove which he had used to free the trapped entities. Then he froze as he saw some of the barren earth move to his left. A hand pushed its way through the dirt. He grasped it and pulled. Kelly Delaphoy came free of the soil with a gasp, trying desperately to breathe. John left her laying on the hard packed floor as he searched for Jason Sanborn. It didn’t take long — he heard the associate producer moan as he too broke free of the spot where the black mass had buried him alive.

Kelly was spitting dirt out of her mouth and crying. John assisted Sanborn to the wall and helped him to sit.

John looked around as they recovered from their premature burial, and he noticed the designs on the wall. Pentangles and other demonic designs were etched into the hard earth walls beneath Summer Place.

“God almighty.”