The Supernaturals (10 page)

“What a great place, huh?” Kyle asked as he bounced to a stop.

Kyle Pritchard was one of the best gagmen in the industry. He would be laying some of the sound effects for the EVP segments on the live broadcast. He would also lay hidden speakers for the Electronic Voice Phenomenon wherever he could, for some of the more blatant scares they had in store for their unsuspecting investigative team and the viewing public.

With the exception of the technicians in the control van and the electricians, the test group was now complete. The only staffers at Summer Place who knew that the house wasn’t actually haunted—or at least, who doubted that it was—were the five conspirators now gathered on the second floor.

“Hey, Kyle,” Greg said.

“Kelly, you or Jason better get downstairs and get the broadcast crew out of the house as soon as they’ve eaten. They’re making the owner a little nervous.”

“I’ll go,” Jason said. “Kelly, you take the guys on a set-up run for camera, audio and still photog placements. I’ll get the tech boys situated outside in the production van. The electricians will need someone to guide them through their setup. Besides, I’m starving.”

Greg had already produced a roll of white medical tape, placing a small ‘X’ on the fourth door down from the master suite. “We’ll have to use a stand for the camera, but I think this is a good angle.”

“Professor Kennedy said in his testimony that the elemental—or, stronger force—manifested on the third floor. I want cameras covering every angle. If we need to adjust, we can do it after the test. This is the time to make sure our placements for cameras, digital recorders and electromagnetic monitors are where we want them for the show.”

Greg and Paul were used to Kelly’s habit of micromanaging every aspect of setup, but that didn’t make listening to her orders any easier.

“Kyle, where do you think we can best disguise the speakers?” She took the longhaired man by the arm and led him toward the staircase opposite them.

Greg and Paul watched them leave and both wondered what bullshit they were going to try to get away with. If it was too obvious to the rest of their unenlightened team, they would be in danger of having to answer some very embarrassing questions from New York.

“Hey, remember, the rest of our team isn’t as dumb as you may think. Don’t make this too blatant,” Paul called out to Kelly.

Kelly stopped and turned. Her smile was genuine, but that didn’t make it any less creepy.

“What will sell the gag is
your
reaction. Genuine is the key. If you buy it, your team and thirty million viewers will also. You’re trusted, so get used to it.”

As she turned her back with Kyle in tow, Greg shot her the bird.

Kyle and Kelly
had been on the third floor for the past twenty minutes discussing possible placement positions for the audio test. As the sun lowered behind the mountains in the west and the light drained from each of the four windows in the corners of the hallways, it was the absence of sunlight that made the house first begin to feel less than welcoming. The antique lighting, manufactured to look like old gaslights from the 1890s, were not very efficient at dispelling the long shadows of the potted plants and small stunted trees on the floor, lining the papered walls.

“What do you think?” she asked Kyle as he stepped down from the stepladder.

“These old heating ducts are way too obvious for speakers. Besides, they would echo to beat all hell, and make the unenlightened more inclined to check them out—which, for the sake of being thorough, I assume they will anyway.” A thoughtful look crossed his face.

“What is it?”

“Actually, obvious may be what we want here. Look at the size of the iron vents. They’re large enough for me to slip my entire body inside. If the speakers were placed far enough back where the team couldn’t see them, we could have a real nice effect here. We’d only need one or two speakers. You see, all these old-fashioned vents are connected through the entire house—sideways, up, down, that sort of thing. That would make pinpointing the sound almost impossible. If we find that it echoes too much, look behind you. There’s always the dumbwaiter.”

“I don’t even want to think about climbing in there,” Kelly said. She jotted a note on her notepad. “And the dumbwaiter is too obvious. The vent will do, but as I said, you won’t find me going into one.”

Kyle smiled. “What’s wrong? Is this beautiful old house getting to you?”

“No, it’s just that I’m very afraid of tight spaces.”

 
“Oh. I don’t have a problem with it. These damn vents are bigger than my apartment in Pasadena.” He smiled at her, but didn’t get a smile in return. “Well, what do you think? The simplest gag is always the best, right?”

“I like it. No electrical lines at all, clear?” she said.

“I’ll trick out the speakers to run on batteries, with remote wireless to initiate the sounds. By the way, what sort of phenomenon you looking at?”

“For tonight, just voice. No, wait…a jumbled, very deep voice. No actual words for the network guys to keep looping to figure out what’s being said. Can you manage that for the test?”

“Yeah, no problem. I am public school educated, I can make people not understand me.”

Kelly ignored the joke and just looked at Kyle. Then she relaxed with a sigh, knowing she had to lighten up on the effects man or he would be too tense and afraid of screwing up. She needed him bold and inventive.

“Okay. Install it, but don’t let Greg or Paul see you do it. I want their reaction to be as believable as possible. They may figure it out later, but they won’t say anything while we’re streaming a live feed.”

“You got it, boss.”

Kelly glanced up toward the old iron grate in the wall and shivered. “Don’t get stuck in there.” She looked at her watch. “The broadcast test is in a little over five hours. I’ve got to check on the tech team and see where we stand.”

Kyle watched her leave without a look back. Then he stepped onto the stepladder again and examined the screws which held the cast iron grill in place. He peered into the blackness of the vent shaft through the scrolled iron leaves. While he waited for his eyes to adjust to the darkness, he thought he heard small scratching sounds from somewhere deep in the vent.

“Oh, great. Rats!”

Kelly, Greg and
Paul stepped into the well-appointed barroom and found Lindemann sitting on a high-backed barstool, talking on his cell phone. Eunice Johansson was standing next to him, wiping her hands on a dishtowel. She cleared her throat when she noticed the three guests stride into the room. Lindemann half turned, then said a few words into the cell and closed it up. He put the phone into his coat and then took a large drink of whiskey from the expensive, handcrafted glass.

“Thank you, Eunice. You have a nice evening. Tell Charles not to bother locking the gate tonight. I’ll take care of it after this thing wraps up.”

“Yes, sir. Goodnight,” she said with a nod of her head.

Eunice half smiled as she passed the three of them.

Lindemann took another swallow of his drink and watched them over the rim of his glass. He then placed both of his elbows on the bar as if he were examining three strange bugs.

“Sorry, happy hour’s over,” he said with a smirk, and shook the ice in the empty glass.

“We were hoping for the rest of the tour from our gracious host,” Kelly said. She advanced into the room with what she thought was her best smile in place.

Lindemann watched Kelly as she moved. Her figure was impeccable and her clothes clung to her as if painted on. He decided that she would be worthy of his company after this joke of a show was wrapped up. He smiled at her as his eyes moved to her chest and not her smiling face.

“Well, this is my favorite room of all. I spend most of my time in here when I visit,” Lindemann said. He turned and looked over the richly paneled barroom. “Well stocked with alcohol. Except for the beer taps, it’s all ready to go.”

“I was thinking more along the lines of seeing the third floor and the basement, and then maybe a quick look at the barn and stables?”

Wallace Lindemann looked at Kelly with a momentary frown, then just as quickly turned it into a half smile. He slid the empty glass down the bar, where it came to rest near the waitress station. Kelly guessed that this was a practiced move.

“Sure. Although I normally don’t do the tour guide-thing myself, I’ll be more than happy to show you how mundane this joint truly is.”

“We thank the gallant gentleman for his time,” Kelly said. She turned and rolled her eyes at Greg and Paul.

As the four
went through the expansive kitchen, which would have made any top chef envious, Kelly saw the large door that led to the basement. A large lock secured it. Lindemann produced his keys and slid one of them into the deadbolt. The tumblers moved to accommodate the key with a loud thump which echoed on the other side of the thick door.

Lindemann turned and smiled. “The stairs are very steep and I don’t want one of the Johansson kids taking a spill. All I need is a lawsuit from the very people I already pay too much. Besides, nothing is stored in the lowest root cellar any longer. The main basement, during prohibition, stored several hundred barrels of the best Canadian whiskey in all of Pennsylvania, for distribution to Philadelphia and New York, to private concerns and very close friends of old uncle F.E., of course.”

“But, of course.” Kelly smiled at his comment about paying the Johanssons, since she knew he did no such thing. The foundation paid the family of caretakers, as Eunice told them earlier. The guy tried so hard to make them think he was in control, when they could all see he was hanging on by his fingernails.

“But alas, the romantic days of yore are past, and liquor is legal once again.” He pulled the door open with as much fanfare as he could muster. “If you don’t mind, I would rather not exert myself at this late hour for some cobwebs and dampness, so I’ll only warn you to be careful on the stairs and stay away from the root cellar. It’s the only area of the house that isn’t inspected or maintained.”

Kelly nodded and moved past Lindemann as he turned the old-fashioned light switch on the wall. Looking down, she could see that the stairs descended into darkness about fifty feet below them, and then turned away to the right. Standing at the top, she could not see the bottom. Greg and Paul followed.

As they took the old wooden steps slowly, they heard Lindemann’s footsteps lead away from the door. Kelly figured he was returning to the barroom. They finally made the turn and saw the concrete floor beneath them. Lindemann was right—the musty smell smacked Kelly hard and produced a grip that held onto her face like a hand.

As they gained the floor, Kelly could see the history of the kitchen. Many of the original appliances, including the two original woodburning stoves and three iceboxes, were lined up against the wall like a domestic museum.

“Seems like it would have been easier to get this stuff out the front doors than to negotiate those stairs to get them down here, wouldn’t you think?” Greg asked.

“Lindemann probably thought they would be worth something if he kept them, and he’s probably right,” Kelly answered. “But they’re not what I’m interested in. Basements can be a nice feel, very visual for ghost hunting. We should think about getting an infrared camera down here.”

Greg slapped his hand against one of the concrete walls.

“It will have to be recorded; these walls would never allow a live signal out. Maybe a handheld would do. We’ll definitely get down here, though. We can probably get a signal with a backpack transmitter linked to another link at the top of the stairs, if your boy Peterson allows it in the budget.”

Kelly made the notation. “I’ve already got four transmitters. They’ll be here.” She looked up with her
I ate the canary
smile, then continued writing.

“Hey, look at this.” Paul stomped his foot down on a flip-up door. A hollow sound reverberated through the basement.

“That must be the root cellar,” Kelly said.

“Damn, how deep does Summer Place go?” Paul asked. He reached down and opened the door, holding it in place as he stared into the darkness. “Doesn’t seem to be a light switch. How the hell are you supposed to see anything?”