The Supernaturals Page 8

  “Jesus. Close that up,” Greg said, pinching his nose at the earthy smell.

  Paul let the door fall back into place just as Kelly tuned and made her way to the stairs. The two co-hosts quickly followed. As they did, pressure from somewhere below in the root cellar made the door jump. Then it settled and lay still.

  Lindemann was waiting inside the giant kitchen when they were finished down below, this time with a drink in hand, ready to conduct the rest of the tour. The house was, as expected, gorgeous. They covered the ballroom and the family room, with pictures of functions from summers past. There were a few spots where the paint was brighter, where pictures had hung for ages and had only recently been removed. Kelly made a note to inquire about them later.

  When they had finished with the pool area, followed by the stables, they reentered the grand ballroom and waited while Lindemann poured another drink for himself—without offering any to his guests. Then they climbed the grand staircase once more and examined the bedrooms and suites on the second floor. When they stopped again at the second floor landing, Lindemann started heading down.

  “Aren’t you forgetting something?” Kelly asked.

  Lindemann drained his glass and eyed her for a moment.

  “The third floor bedrooms?” Kelly reminded him. “The famous wall of the third floor hallway, and the suite where our opera star disappeared.”

  “And also the room where that supposed assault occurred,” Greg added.

  Lindemann dipped his chin to his chest and held it there a brief moment.

  “I guess I forgot, didn’t I?” He abruptly stepped back onto the landing and made his way back down the hallway, toward the upward-leading stairs on the opposite side of the second floor.

  “Strange man,” Paul said quietly, deliberately lagging behind.

  “Strange, my ass. Did you see his face?” Kelly said, almost in a whisper, watching Lindemann’s back. “Our Mr. Silver-Spoon-Up-The-Ass needed a stiff drink before even coming up here. He’s scared shitless.”

  Lindemann paused at the stairwell after their long walk to the opposite side of the house. Then, after it seemed he had built the courage to do so, bounded up the stairs.

  When they reached the third floor landing, Kelly looked both ways down the hallway. The Persian carpet runner was centered perfectly on the hardwood floor and everything looked recently cleaned and dusted. Eunice Johansson and her daughters undoubtedly had been told that Kelly and her team would want to utilize the third floor for the show.

  “Corner suite, outside wall is where that crazy bastard said his student disappeared. The opera star’s room is directly across the hall, opposite corner. The one with the double doors. As for the silent film star’s suite, I have no idea. That was one of the blatant lies I’d never heard before. The large suite at the end of the hallway was my great-great aunt’s sewing room. Be respectful, please. She loved it there, so the stories go, and never really went anywhere else in the house when there weren’t any guests,” Lindemann said. He turned, and was already on the second riser before Kelly halted him.

  “You’re leaving us?” she asked. It was curious that she had never heard mention of any sewing room, especially one so high up in the house. A tad inconvenient, she thought.

  “I have calls to make, Ms. Delaphoy. I can’t babysit you and your crew the entire evening.” He took the steps quickly, before she could halt him with any more questions.

  “Chicken shit,” Kelly mumbled. She turned to her left and started toward the largest suite.

  Paul and Greg followed, examining the papered wall as they went. The bright yellow floral pattern, while meant to be cheery, felt very much out of place.

  “Does the wallpaper look new to you guys?” Kelly asked. She had reached the corner suite on the opposite end of the hallway from the sewing room.

  “Hadn’t noticed,” Greg said. The look he gave Paul warned him not to encourage her with a positive answer.

  Kelly paused with her hand resting on the cut glass doorknob. “I would like more input from you two. I saw you looking at the wallpaper and I know you also think it’s out of place. The other floors have solid colors, so why does this have a floral print?” She turned her head and looked at the two hosts. “Lindemann tried to add a false cheeriness to this floor, and failed miserably, when it was cleaned up after Professor Kennedy’s visit.” Kelly turned the knob and opened the door. “Get with it; I can’t do this on my own.”

  Greg shrugged his shoulders and then stepped up behind Kelly to look into the large suite.

  The room was huge. The main bedroom was occupied by one of the largest beds any of the three had ever seen. It was at least sixteenth century, and was complete with a canopy and a bedspread that looked as if it were made of mink. The oil paintings on the walls were of the surrounding Pocono valley. The walls were papered in a satin-type rose colored print with fine stripes, the type seen in boudoirs at the turn of the century. There were three very large cherry wood wardrobes, with three Japanese silk screens at the side of each. The Persian rug was of the same quality as the others they had seen in the house, only this one was far more expensive in look and texture.

  Kelly walked to the opposite wall where a large window looked out and down onto the pool and the grounds beyond.

  “So far the only creepy thing around this place is the damn owner, and I very seriously doubt if we could fill eight hours with just him,” Greg said as he opened up one of the ornate wardrobes. He suddenly jumped back from the black sequined evening gown hanging in front of him. For a moment, he thought it was an apparition.

  “What?” Kelly and Paul asked at the same moment.

  “Jesus. Ah...it’s only a dress.”

  “Yeah, I suppose it’s a sequined evening gown?” she asked mockingly.

  “As a matter of fact, yeah, it’s black and it’s sequined. It’s also the only thing hanging in here.”

  Kelly lost her smile as she stepped in front of Greg and peered inside. Her brows rose as she pulled the dress out of the closet and looked at it in the light. Years of dust fell free of the gown and a small piece fell to the rug at her feet. Moths had had their way with the old dress for nearly a century.

  “Why would they leave that here? This can’t be the opera diva’s dress, that’s just a little too farfetched,” Paul said.

  “I doubt it,” Kelly answered him under her breath, and then she quickly hung the gown back up. “If it is or isn’t, I want shots of this thing on Halloween. That’s got creep factor.”

  She pushed the silk-screened door closed, checked her watch, and moved out into the hallway.

  “We’ll try and find the actress’ room later. We’ve got to start the set-up,” she said. She looked up the long hallway, staring toward the sewing room at the far end until a voice intruded on her thoughts.

  “Look at this,” Paul said. He was kneeling on one knee and probing the wallpaper with his fingertips. He slid his hand up the wall until he had to straighten. Then he ran his fingers down the wall again.

  “What are you doing?” Kelly asked.

  Paul finally straightened, then stepped back from the wall and tilted his head. He was still staring when Greg touched his shoulder.

  “Are you going to let us in on it?”

  “The glue for the wallpaper didn’t adhere in some spots. Look.” He pushed with his index finger, and Kelly and Greg both heard the soft crackle and saw the bulge dimple inward.

  “Okay, shoddy paperhanging, I’ll call the union,” Greg said.

  Kelly stepped back against the opposite wall and looked at the spot more closely.

  “I see it,” she said.

  “See what?” Greg asked in frustration as he stepped backward to join her.

  “The place where the glue didn’t stick to the plaster? It’s in the shape of a man,” Paul said. He stepped out of the way so that they could see it better.

  Kelly could see the torso, arms and legs. The head was slightly too large for the b
ody, but it was there also.

  “Okay, now that is creepy.” Greg swallowed.

  “We need to get one of the cameras on this and make it look like an accidental finding during the show. We’ll test it tonight. Maybe it’ll get a rise out of New York and LA. We’ll need to side light it, maybe with a standard flashlight…yeah, that’ll do it. We’ll bring it out in relief, use shadow to highlight what the audience will be looking at.”

  Paul turned and looked at Kelly.

  “This isn’t where that student disappeared, Kelly. Hell, come on; this is just a fluke. Bad workmanship, that’s all.”

  “Okay, I’ll buy that, but this is something we can use, damn it. I sure as hell wouldn’t have thought of something like that.”

  “Okay, point taken,” Paul said. Kelly jotted it down in her notepad.

  “Now, let’s check out the sewing room,” Kelly said. When there was no immediate answer, she looked up with her pen poised above the paper. “What?” she asked. She was starting to get annoyed at her team’s hesitation. Then she saw both men looking to their left. Her eyes followed theirs. The door to the sewing room was standing wide open. It looked as if the room was welcoming them.

  “That door wasn’t opened a moment ago,” Paul stepped back and brushed against the wall with the outline in its paper. He took two quick steps forward, away from the outline.

  “Lindemann must have opened it on his way back down,” Kelly said.

  “Lindemann went the opposite way back to the stairs,” Greg said. “We need to get downstairs; we’ll check that room out…later. Maybe during the test.”

  “I don’t know about you guys, but I’m going to grab a sandwich and start helping with the setup. I’m not used to working with an entire production van and a director.”

  “What the hell is wrong with you two?” Kelly asked. The two hosts shrank from her gaze. But they ignored her the best they could and turned for the staircase as if she weren’t even there.

  “Yeah, and of all the directors it has to be Harris Dalton, for Christ’s sake,” Greg added without a backward glance at Kelly.

  “Isn’t he the one that started with…like, Monday Night Football or something?”

  Kelly finally shook her head at both men’s timidity. They were afraid not only of a wall, but of a room where a mother once darned socks and made dresses for her daughters. She shook it off and followed the two men toward the stairs.

  “He’s supposed to be a real prick,” she heard Paul say.

  “He’s not God, but we better get going nonetheless,” Kelly said, looking back at the wall and the sewing room one last time. She scribbled another hasty note and then underlined it. The one hundred and thirty-second entry in her notepad read: Check out the sewing room after the test!!!

  Paul also looked one last time at the flaw in the wallpaper. He decided he would give the stand-up shot to Greg and one of the assistants. He didn’t want to be too near the strange outline.

  As Kelly stepped up next to her partners, she glanced back and her eyes widened. The sewing room door was closed.

  three

  Kelly, Greg and Paul stepped into the large broadcast trailer that sat on leveled blocks behind the Peterbilt truck. They sat in various chairs around Jason Sanborn, who was huddled with the director, Harris Dalton, watching the sixteen screens arrayed on the wall of the trailer—one for each of the cameras throughout the house. For Kelly, this was a reward of sorts, a standard none of the Hunters of the Paranormal production team was used to. Usually they ran control from the back of a Ford van with just enough small computer monitors to cover the live action cameras. Almost everything on their show was run from a small laptop. This van had enough equipment to rival a NASA remote station.

  “This shot here, that’s no good.” Harris Dalton tapped the screen with the taped letterhead CAM-RMT-ONE. “You must have placed the camera too close to a wall conduit or something. We have a serious picture degradation issue,” Dalton finished, placing his headphones on.

  “Damn, that’s the camera in the opera lady’s suite on three,” Greg said. Static lines coursed through the green-tinted infrared picture. He knew he would have to move it.

  “And this one here—Number Twelve—what the hell do you have that aimed at?”

  “That’s the first floor ballroom,” Paul answered.

  “We’re getting too much of a fisheye effect. The camera is covering far too much space. Either place another one, or only take a partial view with the camera you have. As is, we won’t be able to see anything unless someone walks right up to the lens. In addition, the infrared camera on the second floor landing is cocked at an angle and we can only see the first five or six rooms. I suggest you don’t point it at any of them, but just center it on the hallway. Forget the rooms.”

  Kelly wrote the instructions on her notes and shot Greg a look that said he should have known better. Dalton was the best at getting the most out of every piece of equipment.

  “All right...We have ten digital sound recorders going and seven still photog stations. We’ll need sound tests. Is our direct link to the recorders operating?”

  One of the five techs turned a knob. “Yeah, we have our mics placed next to the recorders. We should hear what it does, unless it’s an EVP.”

  They had a stock footage shot of Greg and Paul explaining what an EVP was, for the television audience. Electronic Voice Phenomena were sounds or voices that could only be heard by the digital recorder and not by the human ear.

  Dalton checked the strength of the signal that emanated from the telescopic tower on the back of the production trailer. “Okay, we’re getting a good signal from the tower,” he said. The tower, in turn, sent the signal to a satellite. “Send out an audio test to New York, please. This is where you will learn how to do a live feed. Obviously you have yet to work with a qualified director, so pay attention.”

  Kelly hated being spoken to like an amateur, but Harris Dalton was the best in the business and had the Emmys to prove it. She bit down on her reply and resigned herself to putting up with his arrogance.

  The lead audio technician, a woman Dalton had worked with before, pushed a large red button and sent a signal out—just five beeps and three dashes in electronic language.

  “Bright River, this is New York. We have a 100% audio signal from the satellite. It is bouncing well to New York and LA Thank you—we show audio test complete and A-okay.”

  “Thank you, New York. We are on schedule for nine o’clock sharp,” Dalton said, looking at the digital readout on the large monitor in front of him.

  “Okay. If our hosts will get to their places, we can start,” Kelly said, stepping in to give her team direction before Dalton could have a chance to do so.

  Dalton shot Kelly a harsh look. “Take note that all camera angles are subject to change. Handheld number one, are you ready?” he said. It was a not-so-subtle barb, and Kelly caught it. He was reminding her that her placement sucked.

  “Mobile camera one, up and ready,” a voice answered over his headphones. The camera man stood in front of the small theater. “It’s really dark in here, and that pure white screen is going to give off one hell of a bright reflection. I think—”

  “They pay me to think, they pay you to listen. Just don’t point anything directly at the damned movie screen. Now, number two—infrared handheld—Billy, are you ready?” Dalton asked, again shooting Kelly a look. She supposed he wanted her to have covered the silver screen in the theater with a blanket or something.

  “Camera two, on the second floor. Ready,” came the late reply.

  “Then say so, goddamn it. Third floor, John, camera three?”

  “Handheld three, ready for the fun.”

  Satisfied that all of his handheld cameras and their accompanying sound techs were ready, Dalton nodded. “Soundboard, how are you reading your soundmen?”

  “Loud and clear, strong signal,” the audio technician answered three chairs down.

  “Okay,
boys and girls, we queue with the standard Hunters of the Paranormal opening narrative and credits, and then Kelly will take the test over, and then we’ll follow Greg and Paul on the tour. Let’s keep chatter to a minimum during the test and only talk when we have a technical issue. I want the recorders started now for detailed tech review later. Let’s do this thing.” Dalton adjusted his headphones and moved his mic close to his well-trimmed, graying beard.

  Greg and Paul exited the large van. Summer Place stood before them. With all the interior lights on and the exterior landscape lights burning bright, the house and grounds looked warm and inviting. They were going to have a hard time selling this thing as haunted.

  Upstairs, in a second floor bedroom that overlooked the front yard, Jimmy Johansson watched the van below through a space in the ornate drapes. He had almost been caught looking at Kelly earlier on their brief tour, when the door had creaked and one of the men had turned and looked his way, but he had managed to close the door just in time. Jimmy had snuck into the house after telling his parents he would be late for supper. He loved the way the woman’s ass moved and was excited to see her panty line through her black slacks. Now it looked as if she was going to stay in that big van and not come back out. Bummer, he thought.

  Jimmy turned away from the large window, narrowly avoiding the large bed in the semi-darkness. As he felt his way toward the door, the hairs on the back of his neck began to stand on end. He shook it off as he reached out for the glass doorknob and glanced back at the window and the soft nighttime light coming through the space between the two curtain halves. He suddenly felt as if he were not alone in the room.

  He had been in the second floor bedrooms a thousand times before and had never felt uncomfortable. He swallowed and turned the knob. He felt his heart skip—the door was locked. He jiggled it and then turned it harder. Still locked. He closed his eyes and calmed himself, and then reached down and turned the ancient key in the plate beneath the handle. He let out a relieved sigh. He must have accidentally turned the key when he closed the door.