Hell House (7 page)
Science is more than a body of facts. It is, first and foremost, a method of investigation, and there is no acceptable reason why parapsychological phenomena should not be investigated by this method, for, as much as physics and chemistry, parapsychology is a science of the natural.
This, then, is the intellectual barrier through which man must inevitably break. No longer can parapsychology be classified as a philosophical concept. It is a biological reality, and science cannot permanently avoid this fact. Already it has wasted too much time skirting the borders of this irrefutable realm. Now it must enter, to study and learn. Morselli expressed it thus: "The time has come to break with this exaggerated, negative attitude, this constant casting of the shadow of doubt with its smile of sarcasm."
It is a sorry condemnation of our times that those words were published sixty years ago-because the negative attitude of which Morselli wrote still persists. Indeed-
"Lionel?"
Barrett looked up from his manuscript.
"Can I help?"
"No, I'll be finished in a few moments." He looked at her propped against a bank of pillows. She was wearing blue ski pajamas, and with her short hair and slight figure she looked, somehow, like a child. Barrett smiled at her. "Oh, it can wait," he said, deciding with the words.
He put the manuscript back in its box, looking briefly at the title page: "Borders of the Human Faculty, by Lionel Barrett, B.S., M.A., Ph.D." The sight of it gratified him. Really, everything was going wonderfully. The chance to prove his theory, ample funds for retirement, and the book almost completed. Perhaps he'd add an epilogue about the week here; maybe even do a thin, appending volume. Smiling, he extinguished the candle on the octagonal table, stood, and crossed the room. He had a momentary vision of himself as some baronial lord crossing a palace chamber to converse with his lady. The vision amused him, and he chuckled.
"What?" she asked.
He told her, and she smiled. "It is a fantastic house, isn't it? A museum of treasures. If it weren't haunted-" Lionel's expression made her stop.
Barrett sat down on her bed and put aside his cane. "Were you frightened before?" he asked. "You were very quiet after the sitting."
"It was a bit unnerving. Especially the coldness; I can never get used to that."
"You know what it is," he said. "The medium's system drawing heat from the air to convert it into energy."
"What about those things she said?"
Barrett shrugged. "Impossible to analyze. It might take years to trace down each remark and determine its source. We only have a week. The physical effects are where the answer lies."
He broke off as she looked across his shoulder with a gasp. Twisting around, he saw that the rocking chair had begun to move.
"What is it?" Edith whispered.
Barrett stood and limped across the room. He stood beside the chair and watched it rocking back and forth. "It's likely the breeze," he told her.
"It moves as though someone were sitting in it." Edith had unconsciously pressed back against the pillows.
"No one's sitting in it, that I guarantee you," Barrett said. "Rocking chairs are easy to set in motion. That's why the phenomenon is so frequent in haunted houses. The least application of pressure suffices."
"But-"
"-what applies the pressure?" Barrett finished for her. "Residual energy." Edith tensed as he reached out and stopped the chair. "See?" His hand had withdrawn, and the chair remained motionless. "It's dissipated now." He pushed the chair. It rocked a few times, then was still again. "All gone," he said.
He returned to her bed and sat beside her. "I'm not very good parapsychologist material, I'm afraid," she said.
Barrett smiled and patted her hand.
"Why does this residual energy suddenly make a chair rock?" she asked.
"No specific reason I've been able to discover. Although our presence in the room undoubtedly has something to do with it. It's a kind of random mechanics which follows the line of least resistance-sounds Sand movements which occurred most often in the past, establishing a pattern of dynamics: breezes, door slams, rappings, footsteps, rocking chairs."
She nodded, then touched the tip of his nose. "You have to sleep," she said.
Barrett kissed her on the cheek, then stood and moved to the other bed. "Shall I leave the candle on?" he asked.
"Would you mind?"
"No. We'll use a night light while we're here. No harm in it."
They settled down, and Edith looked up at the shell design carved in the walnut ceiling panels. "Lionel?" she asked.
"Yes?"
"Are you sure there are no such things as ghosts?"
Barrett chuckled. "Nary a one."
The hot stream of water sprayed off Florence's upper chest and rivuleted down between her breasts. She stood in the shower stall, head back, eyes shut, feeling the ribbons of water lace across her stomach and down her thighs and legs.
She was thinking about the tape recording of her sitting. Only one thing in it seemed of import: that crazed and trembling voice which had told them to get out of the house or be killed. There was something there. It was amorphous, just beginning, but most compelling.
Can't you see I'm helpless?
she heard the pitiful voice in her mind.
I don't want to hurt you, but I must!
It could be part of the answer.
She twisted off the faucets and, pushing open the shower door, stepped out onto the bathmat. Hissing at the cold, she grabbed a bath towel from its rack and rubbed herself briskly. Dry, she pulled the heavy flannel gown across her head and thrust her arms into its full-length sleeves. She brushed her teeth, then moved across the bedroom with the candle, set it down, and got into the bed closest to the bathroom door. She thrashed her legs to warm the sheets, then stretched out, pulling the bedclothes to her chin. After a while, her shivering stopped. She wet two fingers and, reaching out, crimped the candle flame between them.
The house was massively silent. I wonder what Ben is doing, she thought. She clucked in distress. Poor, deluded man. She brushed aside the thought. That was for tomorrow. Now she had to think about her part in the project. That voice. Whose had it been? Beneath its threatening had been such despair, such harrowed anguish.
Florence turned her head. The door to the corridor had just been opened. She looked across the darkness of the room. The door closed quietly.
Footsteps started toward her.
"Yes?" she said.
The footsteps kept approaching, muffled on the rug. Florence started reaching for the candle, then withdrew her hand, knowing it was not one of the other three. "All right," she murmured.
The footsteps halted. Florence listened carefully. There was a sound of breathing at the foot of the bed. "Who's there?" she asked.
Only the sound of breathing. Florence peered into the darkness, but it was impenetrable. She closed her eyes. Her tone was even, undismayed. "Who is it, please?"
The breathing continued.
"You wish to speak to me?"
Breathing.
"Are you the one who warned us to get out?"
The sound of breathing quickened. "Yes," she said. "It
is
you, isn't it?"
The breathing grew more labored. It was that of a young man. She could almost visualize him standing at the foot of the bed, his posture tense, his face tormented.
"You must speak or give me some sign," she said. She waited. There was no reply. "I wait for you with God's love. Let me help you find the peace I know you hunger for."
Was that a sob? She tightened. "Yes, I hear, I understand. Tell me who you are, and I can help you."
Suddenly the room was still. Florence cupped her hands behind her ears and listened intently.
The sound of breathing had stopped.
With a sigh of disappointment, she reached to the left until her fingers found the matchbook on the chest of drawers. Striking one, she lit her candle and looked around. There was still something in the room.
"Shall I put out the candle?" she asked.
Silence.
"Very well." She smiled. "You know where I am. Anytime you want-"
She broke off, gasping, as the bedspread leaped into the air and sailed across the foot of the bed, then stopped and settled downward flutteringly.
A figure stood beneath it.
Florence regained her breath. "Yes, I can see you now," she said. She estimated height. "How tall you are." She shivered as Fischer's words flashed across her mind.
"The Roaring Giant," he was called
. She stared at the figure. She could see its broad chest rise and fall, as though with breath.
"No," she said abruptly. It was not Belasco. She began to rise, easing the bedclothes from her body, gazing at the figure. She let her legs slide off the mattress, stood. The head of the figure turned, as though to watch her while she drifted toward it. "You're not Belasco, are you? Such pain would not be in Belasco. And I feel your anguish. Tell me who-"
The bedspread suddenly collapsed. Florence stared at it awhile, then leaned over to pick it up.
She reared with a gasp as a hand caressed her buttocks. Angrily, she looked around the room. There was a chuckling- low-pitched, sly. Florence drew in a shaking breath. "You've proved your sex to me, at any rate," she said. The chuckling deepened. Florence shook her head in pity. "If you're all that clever, why are you a prisoner in this house?"
The chuckling stopped, and all three blankets flew from the bed as though someone were pulling them away in rage. The sheets went next, the pillows, then the mattress cover. In seven seconds, all the bedclothes lay in scattered heaps across the rug, the mattress shifted to the side.
Florence waited. When nothing more occurred, she spoke. "Feel better now?"
Smiling to herself, she started gathering up the bedclothes. Something tried to pull a blanket from her hands. She jerked it back. "That's enough! I'm not amused!" She turned to the bed. "Go away, and don't come back until you're ready to behave."
As she started to remake the bed, the corridor door was opened. She didn't even look around to watch it shut.
I'm afraid not." Barrett drew his foot from the water. "Maybe it'll be warm enough by tomorrow morning." He dried the foot and pulled his slipper on again. Pushing to his feet, he looked at Edith with a rueful smile. "I could have let you sleep."
"That's all right."
Barrett looked around. "I wonder if the steam room works."
Edith pulled the heavy metal door and held it open for him. Barrett limped inside and turned to watch her follow. The door thumped shut. Barrett raised his candle and peered around, then leaned forward, squinting.
"Ah." Setting down his cane and candle, he eased himself into a kneeling position. He reached underneath and tried to turn the tap wheel of the steam outlet.
Edith sat across from him and leaned against the tile wall, straightening as the chill of it pierced her robe. She stared at Lionel sleepily. The flickering of their candles and his bobbing shadow on the walls and ceiling seemed to pulse against her eyes. She closed them momentarily, then opened them again. She found herself beginning to appraise the shadow hovering on the ceiling over Lionel. It seemed, somehow, to be expanding. How could that be? There was no movement of air in the room; the candle flames burned straight up now. Only Barrett's shifting as he labored with the tap wheel was reflected on the walls and ceiling.
She blinked and shook her head. She could swear the edges of the shadow were extending like a spreading inkblot. She shifted on the bench. The room was still except for Lionel's breathing. Let's go, she thought. She tried to speak the words aloud, but something kept her from it.
She stared at the shadow. It hadn't gone across that corner before, had it? Let's get out of here, she thought. It's probably nothing, but let's go.
She felt her body going rigid. She was sure she'd seen a patch of lighted wall go black. "Lionel?" The sound she made was barely audible, a feeble stirring in her throat. She swallowed hard. "Lionel?"
Her voice came so abruptly that Barrett jerked around with a gasp. "What
is
it?"
Edith blinked. The shadow on the ceiling looked normal now.
"Edith?"
She filled her lungs with air. "Let's go?"
"Nervous?"
"Yes, I'm… seeing things." Her smile was wan. She didn't want to tell him. Still, she had to. If it did mean something, he would want to know. "I thought I saw your shadow start to grow." He stood and picked up his cane and candle holder, turning back to join her. "It's possible," he said, "but following your sleepless night in this particular house, I'm more inclined to think it was imagination."
They left the steam room and started back along the pool edge. It
was
imagination, Edith thought. She repressed a smile Who ever heard of a ghost in a steam room?