The Supernaturals (48 page)

Julie slid off the stool under Kelly’s glare. She turned and made her way back to the door, where she gathered her things, and then chose an empty cot in the far corner of the ballroom beyond the billiard table, out of sight of the producer.

Kelly watched until she couldn’t see Julie any longer, and then closed her eyes. Her attack on both the cameraman and Julie left her with a bad taste in her mouth. She knew she was gathering so many enemies into Peterson’s corner that they would fall on her like a pack of hungry hyenas if she failed. If the special went down, her entire career would go down with it and would never make it out alive. And that was exactly why she would not, could not, leave anything to chance.

Kelly looked around the ballroom and was tempted to reach for one of the bottles and break her own self imposed rule about drinking; instead she looked over at one of her assistants—an intern who had witnessed the small confrontation at the bar. Her certificate said that she was a qualified make-up artist; she was also an associate of Kyle Pritchard’s. Kelly gathered her clipboard, turned and made her way from the bar. On the way by the young tech, she allowed her pen to fall from her hand.

“Three o’clock,” she whispered as she stooped to retrieve it.

Kelly continued to the cocktail table where Harris Dalton was working on his notes. She sat down, smiling, and greeted Harris with all the enthusiasm that had been missing from her act for the past two weeks.

All Dalton could do was wonder why the circling vulture had settled on him.

At 12:30 am
, Kelly stood at the open double doorway of the ballroom and stared out into the expansive living room. The twenty-foot-wide fireplace was cold and empty. The sixteen couches, chairs and loveseats were arranged neatly and covered with fine white linen in preparation for the yearly ritual of winterizing the interior. Kelly placed her arms over her chest and watched the house as if she were studying a potential ally, or an enemy.

Her eyes settled on the stairs, wide at the bottom and narrowing as the staircase rose to the heights of the second floor. At the base of the wooden banister two electric lamps burned, but all they managed to do was cast eerie shadows on the risers that made their way to the ominous floors above. Kelly was trying to get a visual on how she could play the darkness to the advantage of the show. She smiled, leaning forward until she could see halfway up the broad staircase. She knew the low-light cameras would pick up the way the scene stretched away and then vanished after a certain point. They could use that angle to good effect. Her eyes roamed to the portraits lining the living room walls. Most were brightly painted and colorful—too damn cheery. However, there were several old black and white photos in old fashioned bubble-glass frames that she could get good angles on; possibly get some warped reflections of Kennedy and Julie Reilly off of those for a chill or two.

“Can’t sleep?”

Kelly flinched. She wanted to scream out loud when the voice came from behind her, but she knew she couldn’t admit to any fear, even just fear caused by being caught off guard. Harris Dalton’s hair was a mess and his ever-present vest was missing, leaving only the rumpled flannel shirt that always seemed a part of him.

“Are you kidding? I won’t sleep until I get the ratings in.”

“No matter what happens, I think people are going to tune in. If not to see a ghost, then to see a large network screw-the-pooch and fall all the way from number one to laughing stock.”

“That’s real encouraging,” she said sourly.

“I’m not here to blow smoke up your ass, Kelly, I’m here to direct a show, that’s all.”

Kelly stared at the staircase that rose before them across the room. “In case you don’t, or choose not to realize it, Harris, your reputation is also on the line. You’re a major part of this, and if it fails you’ll go down with the ship. All they’ll know at corporate is that it was you who steered the ship into the iceberg.”

“I think I can handle anything corporate has to throw at me. Besides, dear, they can only fire me, they can’t eat me like they can you.” Harris stepped by Kelly and into the expansive living room. Hands in the pockets of his khaki pants, he looked around and then up into the blackness of the ceiling three hundred feet above. He felt the producer step out with him and stand at his side.

“Still, you have to admit that this place has angles for some great shots, and you’re the one who can pull it off,” she said.

Harris smiled. He didn’t favor Kelly with a glance, or even a typical roll of his eyes.

“I can make looking at rocks entertaining, Kelly, just as long as that’s what the viewer tuned into see.”

Kelly Delaphoy smiled at the mischievous way Harris toyed with his words.

“Look, you were here and you know what this house is capable of, so why don’t you give the magnanimous director thing a rest; at least when it’s just us.”

Harris nodded. “I need you to change the opening of the script. The house has to be the star, not Julie Reilly. I called in a favor to a friend of mine and he’s going to record a voiceover in Los Angeles tomorrow morning. He’ll recite the history of Summer Place as we show angles of the house, never the full frontal view. We’ll record those instead of doing it live. I’ll have the camera crew out before the sun comes up in the morning and get the shots for editing later. I don’t want the audience to get a full view of Summer Place during the narration scenes, only snippets. That will solve concerns about the damn place not looking haunted.”

Kelly was stunned. She almost panicked when she realized she didn’t have her clipboard or notepad to write Dalton’s ideas down.

“So you are on board, you want to make this work. That is a marvelous opening. Who did you get for the voiceover?” She loved the fact that the opening monologue had just been taken away from Julie Reilly.

“Our retired anchor, John Wesley, is doing it as a favor—but I had to give up my Super Bowl ticket allotment for it,” he said, looking at Kelly sternly.

“I’ll get you a damn suite for the game if we pull this off.”

“You’re damn right you will.”

Both continued to examine the downstairs. Dalton was wondering when Kelly was going to broach the subject heading upstairs, at least to the second floor landing. He didn’t have to wait long.

“Why don’t we see what kind of angles we can get on the stairs? I think that’s a creep factor we’ve yet to explore.”

Harris laughed.

“Well, that didn’t even take as long as I thought it would. We’re staying right here. You couldn’t get me up there tonight with a platoon of fucking Marines backing me.”

“This place has gotten to you, hasn’t it?” Kelly asked, amazed that this man who had been all over the world, was frightened by Summer Place.

Harris looked around, and his tired eyes settled on Kelly’s. “Frightened, yes. Let me tell you something, in case your exterior has grown so tough that you haven’t noticed, or in case you’ve faked so much ghost crap that you’re immune to your own senses: this place is wrong. It’s like touring a battlefield after the fact, and believe me I’ve done that a lot. There is death here, past, present and future. I can feel it. If you brought a combat veteran in this house, he would feel it also. It’s a sense that you’re being watched and the watcher wants nothing more than to do you harm.”

“You’re right. I don’t get that sense. That’s what worries me about tomorrow night. Summer Place could fuck us all and be as dormant as your grandma’s house.”

Dalton removed his hands from his pockets and strolled over to the giant fireplace. He stared into it.

“This place is like an animal; a wild predator I think. It may go all night and just watch, or it could explode into a violent attack against what it may perceive as a threat, even though it’s not hungry. Either way, this place is ruinous Kelly, don’t you understand that? If I hadn’t heard all the stories, I still would have felt it.” He turned away from the cold fireplace. “The one thing I’m not prepared for is for the full potential of this black hearted house to reveal its secrets. I can see Kennedy feels the same and if it weren’t for his missing student seven years ago, I bet he wouldn’t come within a state of this place—ever.”

Kelly was about to respond when they heard a door creak open. She looked at Dalton with her brows raised.

Harris turned away from the fireplace and made his way across the living room to the entrance hall. The front doors were closed and secure. He grimaced, then moved through past the coat check stall and into the passageway that led to the huge kitchen. He pushed open the right side of the swinging doors and stepped inside. The smells of old meals still hung in the air. As his eyes adjusted to the semi-darkness, the black and white checkerboard tile stood out as if it were painted in neon bright colors. Everything else was solely illuminated by the light that came through the open door. He felt Kelly behind him, trying to peek around his large frame.

“Look,” Kelly said, squeezing past him.

The basement door, once locked, was standing wide open. The lock that had been used to secure it—the one that Kelly had witnessed Wallace Lindemann remove himself during the tour—was sitting on the large butcher’s block next to the door. “That door is always locked. Lindemann said so himself. He was afraid one of the Johanssons would take a tumble down the steep stairs.”

“Well, obviously things have slipped while Eunice and her husband have been away.” Harris allowed the swinging door to close as he stepped into the large kitchen. He felt around for the old fashioned light switch and turned it on. The light fixture on the ceiling flared to life, casting a brilliant glow over the old appliances and counters. The kitchen was decorated with checkered tile floors, red countertops and white paint on the walls with a belt of black tile halfway up. “I think I would have modernized the paint scheme in here,” he said, stepping toward the basement door.

Kelly followed, watching as Dalton took the old crystal door handle and moved the thick wood door back and forth. It made the exact same squeak they had heard in the living room. Harris looked at Kelly and her brows rose questioningly. Dalton stepped to the open doorway and looked down into the blackness. He reached in and felt around but could find no light switch.

“It’s a string above your head,” Kelly said, remembering Wallace Lindemann clicking on the lights for the tour.

“There’s no string here, or light switch, or fixture,” Harris said.

“It’s there. I saw it the other day,” Kelly said in exasperation as she stepped into the landing.

“Yeah, well tell me where it—”

The loud bang from far below stopped the rest of the words cold in Dalton’s mouth and made both of them jump. The sound reverberated through the kitchen.

“That was the root cellar door,” Kelly said. She quickly stepped away from the steep staircase.

“How do you know?” Harris asked.

“I just do.”

Harris grabbed her by the arm as he heard the first foot fall far below on the staircase. Then suddenly the draft hit him and its force made the hair on his arms stand up. Goose pimples formed across his exposed skin. The landing, the doorway and the entire kitchen felt like a door had been opened to the North Pole. Their breaths fogged in the air before them. Something had changed inside Summer Place, and this time it originated from far below.

“Listen!” he hissed, cocking his head to the right.

Kelly stopped and listened. There was a second step, and whatever was down there stopped. It was as if it were listening to see if it had been heard.

“Okay, that’s it, back to the ballroom.” Dalton pulled on Kelly’s arm. She tried to shrug off his grip but it was like iron. Then she froze as the footfalls started again. This time it seemed they were coming on with a purpose.

“Jesus.” Harris yanked Kelly off the landing and through the door. He slammed it shut and then bent over for the lock as the footsteps rose toward the landing. Kelly could tell that they had rounded the bend in the staircase and were just below in the blackness, just out of her sight. Harris retrieved the lock and fit it into the latch, slamming the mechanism home. A moment later, something that sounded like a bowling ball struck the door from the far side. Harris and Kelly jumped back and watched wide-eyed as the door rattled. The cut glass knob turned rapidly.

“Shit,” Kelly mumbled.

Suddenly the door, just like the one in the network meeting room a few days before, started to bend inward, cracking. Harris knew that if they stayed where they were, they would soon see what was creating such force. He knew that if they left, the power would die.

“Let’s get out of here, now!” Dalton pulled Kelly back through the kitchen door. It swung as he backed out, and he could see that whatever was on the other side of the basement door gave one last powerful push inward. On the swinging door’s rebound, Harris saw that the door had held. Then the door came to a rest, closing the view for good.

Harris didn’t let go of Kelly until they were well away from the kitchen. They passed the coat check station and backed into the large living room. He finally stopped as he felt the heat return to his system. He let go of Kelly and placed his hands on his knees, trying to catch his breath.

“What the fuck was that?” he managed to get out.