The Supernaturals (47 page)

As he neared the pool, he wondered when the Johanssons would find the time to drain it in preparation for the winter months ahead. Their schedule had, no doubt, been thrown off by their son’s illness—brought on by the very house that sat solidly watching him from above. As he approached the Olympic sized pool and its cluster of old fashioned deck chairs and folded umbrellas, he saw the dark waters. In the daytime, the pool had sparkled. Now it looked foreboding, as if an inky blackness had replaced the chlorinated, clean-smelling waters of the day.

He stepped to the edge and looked into the pool’s depths. He closed his eyes, thinking about everything in his life that had brought him to this point, this place, this predicament. The house had ruined his life, but he knew he had brought it on himself. It had been his arrogance, trying to prove that hauntings were nothing more than people’s fierce imaginations. A haunting usually occurred around families that had financial troubles, or troubles of a far more personal nature. Money, or an uncle who liked to sneak into the rooms after a child’s bedtime. A father that beat a mother, any stress inside a family. The mind, he knew, was the most powerful instrument in the world at producing effects that looked on the surface like a haunting.

He opened his eyes and smiled. All of his theories had come to a crashing halt that night in Summer Place seven years before. Now he knew that his hypothesis of stress-created hauntings had been full of what his students called PhD bullshit. He half turned and looked at the lower floor of Summer Place. Something walked inside of that house; either that something was evil and it was caught, or it chose to stay where it was. He also knew that the very house itself supported the entity and protected it. It was as if the beams, the brick, the wood and the plaster were all a shield for what stood guard inside the house. It all came together as a grand defense for the protection of evil.

Gabriel looked away from the house and placed his hands in his pockets as he remembered that night—the experiment meant to prove that stress brought on by surroundings could manifest a haunting. His students— grounded, academically sound students—were his choice of guinea pigs. They were volunteers from his classes, and the brightest knew what they were in for. The influence of the house would be brought into play by the stories they were told of its history. Stories were relayed slowly in the days leading up to the experiment, with time enough for them to be absorbed, dissected and swallowed. Then when they arrived at Summer Place, it all came home to them. Each scenario had been documented in the stories he told them, from total non-belief to factual, “I was there” eyewitness accounts. Gabriel had known the students would be affected by Summer Place. They would be convinced by the stories they had heard, the darkness that would surround them, and the influence of the actual house that would close around them as the night wore on. Only, he had never suspected that Summer Place was alive. It came at his kids with its full power and scared them all half to death, and had also murdered one as a gift to Gabriel for his doubt. What a fool he had been to mock what he knew nothing about.

Back then it had been about the theory, the book deal and the power. It all seemed so trivial and mundane now that he knew there was a whole other world that most knew nothing about—a world that hated the world of the living, possibly to the point of open warfare.

Gabriel saw movement at the bottom of the pool—a shadow against a dark background, darker than the night. He went to one knee and watched as the darkness flitted and floated out of view. There was calmness to it that held him riveted in place; a ballet of movement that reached his soul. The shadow would dive and then rise, coming tantalizingly close the surface of the still waters, then hover for a brief moment before settling back into the depths. The form never took shape, but in his mind he felt it was female. It seemed to him like a motherly figure moving about the house as she cleaned, never really stopping to attend one thing, but gracefully moving to cover multiple tasks. It would sway left and then gently roll to the right, and then it would do a complete somersault and retreat back to deeper water.

Kennedy smiled. He reached out and touched the surface of the pool. It felt warm and inviting. He swirled his fingers through the water. He knew that if he went for a swim he would feel much better about the house and its surroundings—if only he could cover himself in the warmth of the black water. Soon his entire hand was in the water, not just his fingers, and he felt the warm, gentle grip of the dark form caressing his hand. He smiled again. He had been invited into the water so he could understand what this was all about. In an instant, he would have a clear and concise understanding of what made Summer Place so special.

The dark form brushed against his hand, and once more he felt the warmth of home. When the darkness within the water slowly withdrew to the deep end of the pool once more, Gabriel thought he heard his name being called. The voice was distant and seemed to come from another time, another place. It wasn’t inviting, like the touch of the darkness was. It was harsh and full of concern and warning. Still, Gabriel placed his hand and arm even deeper into the pool.

As his name was called again, this time by more than one person, the blackness that had coiled in the deepest part of the pool seemed to grow agitated. It swirled as if a wind had churned it into a whirlwind of anger and jealousy. It wrapped itself around and around and then finally took the humanoid form of a beast, growing ever larger. As Kennedy smiled and placed his hand deeper, the blackness charged the shallower end of the pool. The voice grew louder and more insistent, and the entity charged toward him. It was coming on with such power that the surface of the pool parted in a wave as the entity plowed through the blackness. Still Gabriel smiled and waited, even as the front of that blackness opened up like a shark ready to swallow its prey whole.

Gabriel was suddenly grabbed from behind and pulled back hard. He fell against the concrete surrounding the pool and a splash of water covered him. He heard a growl and a tremendous hiss as the water settled back into place.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” came the voice.

Gabriel snapped out of the dream-like state.

“As much as you warned us about this fucking place, you start acting like you want to swim at eleven o’clock at night.”

Gabriel shook the water from his face and then turned to see George Cordero. Coming up quickly from the barn were John, Jenny and Jason Sanborn. They all had been calling after him but it had been George, just dropped off by a taxi cab, who had been closest.

“Jesus, did you see that?” Jason Sanborn ran past Gabriel and George and looked into the settling waters of the swimming pool.

“It damn near got you!” George struggled to his feet and removed his soaked suit jacket.

“It was in the water,” John Lonetree said, staring at the pool.

“John dreamt Gabe was being pulled under the water. He woke up just a moment before we heard you, George, the first time you called out.”

George tossed Jennifer his wet jacket.

“Good thing I came back, huh? Mr. Dream Man here was a little slow.”

Jason Sanborn turned away from the pool “If that thing can do this out in the pool, what kind of power does it have inside there?” he asked, pointing harshly to Summer Place.

Gabriel shook his head and cleared it as best he could. He then reached out and took Cordero’s hand.

“Thanks, buddy. I was in a dream state, or hallucinating I guess.”

“My ass. I saw what was coming after you, and it sure as fuck was no hallucination. The goddamn thing had teeth!”

“Teeth?” Jason sat heavily into one of the deck chairs.

“It seems its power was enhanced this afternoon, not cleansed. I guess Father Dolan and the others only pissed it off.”

They all looked at Gabriel Kennedy, then turned as one. The many windows of Summer Place stared down at them, as blank and foreboding as before, but now there was a kind of sheen to the glass that made the house look as if it were smiling.

“What about the others—the ones inside?” Jason asked, concern showing on his face.

“Let’s hope they have their cameras ready. I think this monstrosity likes to fuck with people.”

They looked away from the house. They all knew that Cordero was right.

Kelly watched as
the section of her crew that volunteered to stay inside of Summer Place made up their cots and used the five downstairs restrooms. Luckily for the fifteen men and women, there were also four showers located on the ground floor. The commissary kept hot coffee on the long mahogany bar, and several trays of sandwiches were available for those who could not sleep. Kelly chose to stay awake. Although frightened of the house, she knew she had too much work to do.

A small man with glasses and long black hair tied in a ponytail strolled up to the bar and slapped his hand on the top of it. Kelly looked up from her notes with her eyebrow raised.

“Bar’s closed, through the duration of the shoot,” she said as she lowered her eyes to her clipboard.

“Then I’ll just take one of these,” the small man said as he took a sandwich from the tray before him. He took a bite, grimaced and then leaned forward and spoke low so only Kelly could hear. “Harris assigned me to watch you. I see the way you keep looking at the doors. I hope you’re not planning to take a little tour on your own tonight when most of us go to sleep?”

Kelly looked up from her notes. “Howie, isn’t it?”

“That’s what they call me.”

“You’re one of Dalton’s boys from his sports and entertainment division, right?”

“The best field camera jock the network has,” Howie said. He took another bite of the tuna sandwich.

“Then you know what it’s like to get knocked on your ass, right?”

“I’ve been ran over a few times.”

“If I decide to leave this room and you follow me, I’ll yell rape at the top of my lungs. How’s that for getting knocked on your ass, you macho jerk?”

Howie stopped chewing and eyed the woman, who looked at him as if he were a bug under scrutiny. He tossed the sandwich half in the waste basket behind Kelly, sneered as best he could under the circumstances, and turned from the bar.

The producer watched him leave, and then caught sight of Julie Reilly in the double doorway looking right at her. She let her heavy bag and blanket slip from her arms. She nodded at some of the nervous greetings she received from those making up their cots for the night, and then continued toward the bar. She sat at one of the stools, facing Kelly.

“What was that about?” she asked, watching Howie stalking toward Harris Dalton.

“He’s one of Harris Dalton’s spies. He didn’t like the way I would handle a certain situation,” Kelly said. She pretended to make notes on her clipboard.

“I see,” Julie, like the cameraman before her, reached over and took a sandwich from the tray. Unlike him, she turned her nose up at it and put it back. “Howie’s a good jock. Nice to have in a finesse situation if the chips are falling against the house.”

“And now I suppose this is the veteran field reporter warning the novice about treating her people with respect so they’ll respect you. That right?”

Julie didn’t say anything.

“Let me tell you something. I’ve been through so much with this show, I’ve seen things you would never believe, and now because of one incident I’m labeled a fraud.” Kelly placed the clipboard on the bar and leaned forward. “So when the day comes that I take advice from a person who climbed the ladder the same way, you’ll excuse me if I tell you to go to hell. I’m the best at what I do. My show is the number one rated program at the network—most likely, it contributes more than half of that inflated news salary of yours. I have the CEO backing me, and when this is over I’m going to use the popularity of this special to slam those ladder-climbers back down to earth. And Ms. Reilly, you fall into that category.”

Julie smiled and leaned as far forward as she could. “You want me, you take your best shot. I earned my stripes from Iraq to Afghanistan, from Iran to Saudi Arabia. If you think I’m frightened by your little spook show here or your power with the CEO, you’re highly delusional. You can push me down the ladder, but you’ll beat me to the bottom, because I know you’re going to try something to boost your hypothesis of this place, and I’ll catch you in the act.”

“And on the way, you’ll expose Kennedy for the fraud that he is?”

The sudden change in tactic almost stopped Julie from answering, but she gathered her composure.

“If Professor Kennedy is anyway involved with fraud, I’ll bring him down just as readily as you, or the network.”

“That won’t do much for your personal life, will it?”

Julie was stunned at the comment, but Kelly kept her eyes locked on hers. She had never in her life met anyone with as much gall as the woman before her. Julie could now see that Kelly was indeed as formidable as everyone said she was. She could also see that Lionel Peterson was in way over his head.

“You bitch; I can’t believe you would stand there and accuse me of not separating my job from my personal life.”

“I’ve seen the way you look at Kennedy, any blind person could. I bet it took all of your willpower to come into the house tonight, didn’t it? The desire to keep an eye on me pushed you into it, or you would be out in that horseshit barn right now, wouldn’t you, Ms. Field Reporter?”