The Supernaturals

  The Supernaturals

  David L. Golemon

  Seven Realms Publishing

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook distributor and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Epilogue

  The Supernaturals

  Copyright © 2011 by David Golemon

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without the written permission of the author.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Cover art © 2011 by Christian Guldager

  Cover design by J. Kent Holloway

  Interior formatting by Stan Tremblay

  Published by Seven Realms Publishing, LLC

  4420 Carter Road #6

  Saint Augustine, Florida 32086

  www.sevenrealmspublishing.com

  For, Shaune, Brandon, Karie Anne, Tram, Kiera, Gary, and JoAnne—what can be scarier than real life?

  Author’s Note—

  Over four years ago I ran a story on my blog at EventGroupFiles.com asking my readership to send me examples of a real haunted house that I could possibly use in a story. Needless to say, the response was overwhelming. I received so many letters that I decided not to print any of them, as it would have taken most of my time to do so. I thanked everyone, then placed the project on hold, trying to put my thoughts about ghosts into perspective.

  However, there was one particular letter that that caught my attention and became a thorn in my side. It was from a family in upstate New York who wished to remain anonymous. They told me of the beauty of a house nestled quietly in the mountains. Confused as to the subject matter of this note and suspecting that the author of the letter had misread my blog, I read on nonetheless. They explained that this house, although beautiful, had something wrong with it. It was the summer home to a very wealthy and famous family with a sordid history of sorts. The family had not lived in the summer retreat since the fall of 1940. They described the house as a three-story gothic structure that sat alone in a valley of immense beauty, built in the years leading up to World War I, yet again they reiterated that there was something wrong with this gorgeous estate. Curious beyond belief, I pestered the writer until I received via “Snail Mail” the address of this estate in the mountains, on the lone condition that I not use their name or the actual house in my story, if indeed I did write one. I agreed.

  A month later I went to see this house and the hundred-acre estate surrounding it. It turned into a very tiring five-hour drive from my home on Long Island. When I arrived, expecting nothing more than a rundown shanty of a house, I was amazed to see a three-storied, yellow and white painted gabled mansion that looked as if it could have been built the week before. After seeing a “for sale” sign on the main gate, I called the real estate broker and asked if I could see the interior . My request was granted and the agent met me later that afternoon.

  Upon entering the house from underneath a large welcoming portico worthy of a fine hotel, I was amazed to see the pristine condition of this twenty-four room, one hundred and twelve year old house. Although the agent unlocked the front door for me, she informed me that she would wait for me on the porch. Thinking this odd, I entered the house on my own.

  I spent a grand total of two minutes inside the most beautiful foyer I have ever seen, before I turned on my heel and left the summer mansion. I am not a believer in things that go bump in the night—I write about them, talk about them, and in the end I laugh about them. I am a man not afraid of most things, other than maniacs running around and blowing up, or crashing aircraft into buildings, or being afraid for your kids on their first day of school. But in those two minutes, standing in that foyer and looking up at the immense staircase that seemed to travel up to the sky, I realized through my feelings alone that there was indeed something wrong with the house. I got a chill as I looked around, at the way everything in the living room looked freshly dusted, and the way the Persian rug looked as if it had just been carpet swept, and the wood of the wall paneling looked just oiled.

  Standing there I felt, and this may sound ridiculous, that the house was aware; aware I was intruding. That was coupled with that indescribable feeling of being watched by menacing eyes. With a final chill, I turned and left that house in the mountains and never returned. Now, I must remind you that I don’t believe in ghosts, or any other agent of the night that you cannot see, cannot study, and cannot feel with your hands. Even with this experience, if that is what you could call it, I am still an agnostic when it comes to ghosts and spirits. But I do believe one thing: that house in the mountains wants to be left alone. I am convinced of that.

  So, here we are. I made several enquiries about this house, and yes, it was once and still is owned by a very famous and wealthy family. Although the summer home has not been lived in since the forties, its upkeep is maintained through a private contractor and the estate is kept immaculate. That brings us to this story. I have written this tale with the elements of the supernatural as just a figment of my rather tormented imagination, but there is one thing I must stress. I attempted to bring the feeling alive from my memory of walking into that house four years ago—to pass along the feeling of dread in such a supposedly inanimate object. As I said, most elements that make up this fictional story are from the author’s imagination, but the house almost described to a “T” in the story is real. I have been there, and I will never go back after my two minute stay. The reader, that is you, can travel to this small valley in the mountains if you’re good enough to find it, because I will keep my word to the people who guided me there and never reveal it. Then you can judge for yourself just what makes you want to run from that beautiful home and its property and never look back.

  So, just this one warning: the account you are about to read is, as I said, fiction, made up, maybe overblown possibly, but there is one immutable fact that you can take to bed with you. The house depicted as Summer Place in this story—is real.

  DLG

  October 3, 2010

  “Oh, very gloomy is the house of woe, where tears are falling while the bell is knelling, with all the dark solemnities that show that death is in the dwelling!”

  —Thomas Hood

  Prologue

  Jessica and Warren stood like sentinels—or at the very least, like guard dogs—next to the master’s third-floor chambers, only feet from the master bedroom suite and the sewing room. It had been three hours since the professor had ordered lights out and allowed the experiment to truly begin. Warren placed the digital recording device in the center of the Persian rug. It ran the len
gth of the blind-cornered hallway, close to a hundred feet. The 25-year-old grad student slapped Jessica’s hand away again. She kept grabbing for him every time the old house creaked or settled in some far off place. At the rate they were going they would never place all the sensitive equipment in time. The young girl wasn’t exactly ghost hunting material, and he felt sure that Professor Kennedy would end up regretting having chosen Jessica for the team to investigate the old, rambling house.

  “Look, you’re going to have to quit pulling on me every time you hear a noise or feel a draft,” Warren said. He straightened after making sure the digital recorder was working, and raised the beam of his small penlight from the recorder to shine it onto Jessica’s face. The girl was terrified. He knew asking a psychology major to join the experiment had been a mistake, but the professor wanted objective opinions; not just from the “extreme nature point of view,” but also from the human mind also—thus Jessica. “Listen.” He tried to speak calmly to the girl. “The house is a hundred years old. Boards have loosened up. Windows don’t meet their frames like they used to. The house will shake, rattle and roll. It’s not ghosts and it’s not supernatural at all…it’s just house noises.”

  “We’ve been to a lot of places with Professor Kennedy on this study, but this house is not just a house. This has nothing to do with settings inducing hysteria. If there is one place in the world that’s haunted, it’s this house, these grounds. I can feel it. You can feel it. Everyone who has ever stepped foot into this house has felt it.”

  Warren was amazed that the psych major had worked herself up into such a fear-induced frame of mind—something she of all people should have recognized.

  He shook his head. She was now an uncontrolled part of the experiment, and he knew he was going to have to report her status to the professor. Jessica could no longer conduct herself as an observer of the house. Instead of lambasting her—or teasing her at the very least, as he normally would have done—Warren nodded and placed a hand on her shoulder. The girl was shaking. He patted her shoulder and then smiled.

  “Look, I just have to place the last thermal imager down by the sewing room, and then we’re done. Why don’t you go wait on the third floor landing? That way you can still see me down the hallway, but you’ll be closer to an escape route.”

  Jessica shook off his hand and glared at his bearded features. “Just because I’m hearing things that are definitely not house settling noises, doesn’t mean I’m too scared to do what Professor Kennedy has asked of me. Go ahead and get on with what you have to do, so we can meet the others in the ballroom. We’re running behind schedule.”

  Warren smiled again, then pushed his wire rimmed glasses back up the bridge of his nose.

  “Okay, that’s the stuff. Shall we place the last imager?”

  She finally smiled in return and then gestured for Warren to proceed. As he turned away, Jessica heard the creak of a door. She stopped and once more reached out for Warren. “Listen! I just heard a door open up here.” She tried desperately to peer into the darkness of the hallway.

  “Enough is enough. You know as well as I that all of these doors are locked. The owner of the property saw to that. We don’t have access to the rooms on the third floor.”

  “Okay, they’re locked.” She grabbed his hand and directed his penlight down the hallway. Its weak beam settled on the two sets of large doors at the end. One set on the right side was the master suite; the door on the left was the sewing room. That door was standing wide open. “So why isn’t that door shut, like it was just a second ago?”

  The door was not only open, it was pinned back against the wall, as if someone was holding it there as wide as they could get it.

  “That door was triple locked, with two deadbolts and a knob-lock. And the damn thing was closed, just a moment ago.”

  “That’s what I just said, smartass. I suppose that’s the sewing room settling because it’s so old?”

  Warren shook his head. “Knock it off.” He reached for his radio with his free hand.

  “Professor, this is Warren up on three,” he said into the small radio.

  They heard a crackle and hiss, and then silence.

  “Professor, are you reading me?”

  Jessica and Warren watched the open doorway of the sewing room. They jumped when they heard the pounding. It echoed out of the sewing room as if some giant had started walking toward them. Jessica’s fingernails dug into Warren’s arm and her grip was iron. They both felt the pounding through their feet. Then as quickly as it started, the pounding footsteps stopped.

  “What the hell was that?” Warren asked, not really caring if Jessica answered him at all.

  “They had to have heard that downstairs—right?” she asked. Warren shined the light around the hallway.

  A door creaked, but it wasn’t a sound one would associate with a door opening. It was more like someone was placing a stupendous amount of pressure against the wood. They could hear the cracking of the grain. Warren moved the penlight to his right, where the door to one of the larger bedrooms only feet away was bent outward. It seemed the wood of the thick door couldn’t withstand the pressure being placed on it. Then it rebounded, as if whoever was on the other side relinquished their assault.

  “We have to leave,” Jessica said as she tried to pull Warren away.

  He shook her off and raised the radio to his lips. “We have to get the professor up here,” he said and pushed the transmit button.

  “Pretty boy.”

  The voice that came from the radio made Warren freeze. He swallowed the lump that had formed in his throat the best he could, but the strange statement hung in the dark, cold air of the hallway.

  “Get on there and tell whoever is screwing around to knock it off,” Jessica said angrily.

  “Pretty girl,” said the feminine voice over the radio.

  Warren looked down at the radio. The bedroom door next to them rattled in its frame, and then something on the other side hit it hard enough to shake the cut crystal doorknob. Once more, the door bulged, and this time the impact was so fierce that Warren and Jessica backed away, half expecting the wood to explode outward. Then once more, the door relaxed and went back to its normal shape, only this time with something akin to a deep breath, as if the exertion of bending the door outward had taken too much energy. A voice, different from the one they had just heard, came over the radio.

  “Run,” came the whispered order. “Run, NOW!”

  Warren started to turn, but his eyes fell on the sewing room at the far end of the hallway. A large area to the left side of the door bulged outward, sending plaster and wallpaper snapping off in small chips to fall to the Persian rug down the center of the hallway. The bulge moved a foot, stopped. It looked like a chest, inhaling and exhaling as it moved. It came on again, this time surging three feet before it stopped.

  Warren backed away, pushing Jessica as he went.

  “Get out of here,” he said as loudly as he dared. All thoughts of contacting Professor Kennedy in the ballroom had vanished.

  “Go!” came the whispered voice from the closest bedroom.

  “Pretty boy, pretty girl, babies, babies, please come home,” this time the voice wasn’t coming from the radio, but the large pulsing bulge in the wall. It was only ten feet away now. “You’re mine!”

  That was all Warren could take. He turned and pushed Jessica down the hallway just as the plaster on the wall bulged once more and came on like a shark cutting through water. Just as Warren neared the third floor landing, something grabbed him. It was as if an iron giant had grabbed his shoulder. His arms flailed and the penlight and radio went flying. The light spun crazily in the air and then hit the carpeted runner. Jessica stopped. The light had aligned perfectly with Warren’s legs. She screamed when she saw a large, dark, smoke-encased hand reach out from the bulging wall, shearing the wallpaper away as it grabbed hold of Warren.

  “Help,” he screamed.

  Jessica couldn’t mo
ve, she looked to the right, toward the bedroom door. It was still and silent, as if its warning earlier had never been. She looked at Warren and his fear filled eyes, and knew that she couldn’t stay. She had to run.

  Warren was yanked hard into the wall. Half of his body was embedded in the plaster and wood. Then he was yanked again. This time his body went rigid and then he almost vanished completely. His eyes were pleading for Jessica to help him. His arms reached for her. She slowly reached out and her fingertips touched Warren’s, but with another sharp jerk Warren was pulled completely into the wall, his glasses flying free. Jessica heard the crunch of bone and the shattering of his arms. She collapsed to the floor, unable to move.

  She didn’t know how long she remained on the floor. She was aware of the smell of plaster and mildew, even the dust as it formed and then scattered in the dark around her. She finally reached for the penlight on the Persian runner and then slowly raised it to the spot where Warren had been. The papered wall was intact. Not one mark showed; not one bit of evidence that Warren had ever been there. Jessica started shaking.

  The sewing room door swung closed. Slowly, with the same penetrating squeak she had heard a few minutes before the house had turned on them. Jessica knew she was starting to lose consciousness, but through her daze she heard the softer, far gentler voice come once more through the bedroom door. This time it seemed as if the voice was tired, exhausted, but persistent nonetheless.

  “Get out, NOW!”

  Whatever walks there, walks alone

  The men and women sitting around the large conference table watched as she slowly placed her files and large case on the table before her. The movements seemed deliberately slow, and everyone knew the man sitting at the head of the conference table was the object of those deliberate actions. The man himself sat stoically with his manicured nails of his right hand propped neatly against his chin and cheek, and didn’t mutter a word. His eyes never left Kelly Delaphoy—everyone in the company knew the young woman was after his job. That in and of itself wasn’t too surprising. After all, when you swim with sharks, there’s bound to be at least one in the water with designs on biting your ass. As everyone summoned to this meeting knew, there were no waters more shark-infested in the world than Hollywood.