The Supernaturals (58 page)

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.
    

New York City

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.

Bright River, Pennsylvania

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.