"Sure in hell did, Doc," Sinclair stated, excited. He clapped his hands together with the excitement of a small child who had suddenly been allowed to tell a great secret. "Man, that was whack! Hey, Doc, what's with this place? I mean, where I come from, a dead rat stays&you know&dead."
How could Holzer answer? He had seen the rats after first entering the mansion's kitchen. Only a few looked freshly dead-the majority appeared long dead, almost mummified. There was no way, according to the laws of science-or God, for that matter-that he could even come close to a sensible explanation.
Teresa and Miranda soon joined in. Holzer could see that both women, especially Teresa, had once more regained their composure. Whatever had scared the young psychic was now buried and in the past.
Holzer couldn't have been prouder.
Sinclair broke the mood by laughing out loud, changing the tape in his digital camera. "Shit! I almost need a new pair of pants here, Doc."
Miranda, hearing the rustling of the hanging plastic, started to get a little nervous. She and Teresa started to head back toward the main staircase.
"I hate to break up this rather fascinating talk the two of you are having," Miranda said, motioning up the stairs. "Perhaps we should explore the rest of the house, since we are not leaving."
All silently agreed.
Holzer, irritated, started to look at his watch. His mind was turning toward thoughts of his missing team member. What was keeping him? He wasn't all that far away from Atchison the time Holzer had contacted him. Why wasn't he there yet? Had he run into some unforeseen danger? Was the path to the mansion too much for him?
At the last thought, Holzer chuckled.
"Too much for him?" he said out loud, not really caring if anyone heard or understood his outburst. "Nothing is too much for him."
Teresa soon noticed Holzer's worried look at his watch, and drew everyone's attention toward the professor.
No one had heard what he was saying.
"Is something wrong, Professor?" the psychic meekly inquired.
Holding back a laugh, Holzer suddenly became quite embarrassed. "You mean except for being attacked by undead rats?"
Sinclair laughed. "You think the doc can explain all this away?" He held up his camera. "Hell no! I got it all on tape. Stan Winston would shit twice and die if he saw this stuff. This is Oscar-winning material here, kiddies."
Miranda gave Sinclair a hard glance. Holzer once more noticed that silent tension between the two.
"Would you please go crawl inside a hole and have the good sense to die," Miranda said, controlling her rising anger. Her British accent seemed to magnify both the dangerous levels of her emotions and her desire to insult the man.
Sinclair, however, only became aroused.
"Well, I'm free Saturday night," the cameraman stated, looking the young woman over. "Know of a hole that I can&crawl into?"
Holzer closed his eyes, waiting for the fight to begin. Then something unexpected happened: Miranda walked away from Sinclair in a huff of frustration. She did absolutely nothing. It was quite a miracle.
Again, Holzer allowed his mind to wonder. Where was his missing team member?
"Jonathon?" Miranda inquired, touching his hand. "What's the matter?"
"Our last member is running a little late," Holzer explained. "This is rather disappointing, considering he would find all these incidents to his liking."
"To his liking?"
Holzer soon started to notice the confusion he was getting from the team and laughed dryly. If they only knew what he knew about their missing man.
"He is trained for such things."
Holzer and his team walked deeper into the mansion.
No one seemed to really be paying attention towards the innocent-looking sheets of plastic hanging from the walls.
They were moving without the aid of wind.
Conscious.
Aware.
* * *
The cobwebs of the dusty interior of Manchester House's attic proved more inviting than the rest of the forgotten home. Ironically, the attic seemed to be the only place in which there was no water damage or hanging sheets of plastic. Why this was proved itself to be an intriguing mystery to Holzer. Since there was water dripping almost everywhere in the mansion, it would be assumed that the roof would be a disastrous shambles-it was not. And almost every room in the house seemed to have at least one hanging sheet of plastic. The only exceptions were the kitchen and now the attic. Why these two rooms? That was something Holzer would have to discover on his own. Mysteries inside of mysteries.
Holzer, upon entering the attic, got the impression that no one had been up in the room for a great many years. Even though occupied several times in the last half-century, and failing miserably to keep its guests, the attic still appeared to be the less-visited room in the house. In part, this could explain why the room was not all that damaged.
The dripping water.
Was it really water?
As Holzer scanned the room with both his EMR and negative ion detector, he saw many items littering the floor. Among these items, he saw several upscale cooking utensils. Again, something to do with cooking. What was the importance? Mysteries!
"Good heavens, Professor," Miranda said, coughing away the dust. "This is worse than some of the digs I have been on."
"Yes. I was told that the attic was bad."
Teresa brushed a few cobwebs out of her hair, not at all thrilled about doing so. In this room, she appeared calmer.
"Bad isn't the word for it," the psychic said.
Holzer's negative ion detector started to blink. Unlike the EMR device, which was accompanied by a high-pitched beeping noise, the negative ion detector only blinked. Quiet.
Holzer kept his eyes on Teresa.
As the team continued their investigation, Holzer noticed the impressed look coming from the psychic. She was rather moved by the variety of cooking utensils scattered throughout the attic.
"Professor, was this house owned by a cook of some kind?"
"What would make you say that?" Holzer smiled, feeling it best not to inform the others about his detector's response.
Teresa started to tiptoe around the many cardboard boxes. Her hands seemed to be swimming in the air around her, picking up all kinds of strange vibrations and insights. She was working the room.
"Well," Teresa started to say, taking off her gloves, "all these cooking supplies. My father owns a restaurant. These machines do not come cheap."
Holzer had noticed the bitter flash of emotions that had crossed Teresa's face upon mentioning her father. He long theorized that her pain and betrayal from her parents was at the root of her abilities. Who better to seek out the emotions of others than an individual used and betrayed? Pain finds pain. Simple as that.
"As a matter of fact, several years ago this very home was the headquarters of a famous TV chef," Holzer said. "He used to live here. Hence the impressive find. I believe that is also why the kitchen is so well designed."
"Someone needed to tell him about the rats." Sinclair laughed, turning his camera back on.
Holzer paused, giving Sinclair a hard look. The cameraman, seeing this stare, turned his attention towards his camera and its maintenance.
"Do you always have to be so ironically blunt, Mr. Sinclair?"
The cameraman shrugged his shoulders nervously. Sinclair knew that he had crossed the line of good taste and tried to save face by remaining calm and quiet.
Holzer took off his glasses, wiping the dirt off his lenses. Everyone was listening to what he had to say.
"Funny thing about the chef that lived here." Holzer returned to the subject at hand, glancing away from Sinclair.
"Oh?" Miranda asked, investigating the many cardboard boxes. "And what was that, Professor?"
Holzer placed his glasses back on, adjusting his eyes to the sudden change in focus. "The chef was the mansion's longest living resident. He lived here almost five years before&" He paused, h
olding back a controlled look of disgust. "Well, let's just say he ended badly."
"What happened to him, Professor?"
"Poetic justice, from what I can tell."
Holzer tried to escape certain questions about this last victim of the mansion by continuing his investigation of the attic. In truth, what he wanted was to leave Teresa alone with the objects on the floor, hoping that she could absorb the vibrations from them, answering questions long sought by both him and the entertainment world. What had really happened to the famous Manchester House Chef? Everyone knew the gruesome end. Everyone knew how he died. No one knew the why. No one except the Atchison Police Department-and they were not talking.
As Holzer had hoped, alone, Teresa started to focus her attention on a small box filled with kitchen cookware.
* * *
:Stop! Stop it! You are not supposed to be here.:
Teresa closed in on a yellow electric mixer-the kind seen in a restaurant's kitchen. She noticed that the device was as dirty and covered with cobwebs as the room it sat in.
"What's this little treasure?" Teresa gasped, talking to herself.
She bent down to pick it up.
:That is mine! Leave it alone!:
Terrible images flashed through Teresa's mind. At first she couldn't control them. Haunting. Powerful. Perverse in nature. But, like most psychics, she had the ability to block the thoughts. Like the flooding gates of a dam, she closed herself to all impulses until she was ready. For now, however, she just enjoyed the moment of her fantastic find.
Looking at the electric mixer in her hands, Teresa gave it a loving smile, as if she knew the model quite well.
"I can't believe it!" she shouted, showing the device off to her fellow team members, explaining. "This is a Lex 5000! My mother owned one of these when we lived in New York. Made the greatest cakes." She laughed. "A great many memories I had with one of these things. The only happy moments of my life, in fact."
All in the group started to give Teresa a curious glance. Embarrassed, she placed the mixer back into its box. She was allowing too much of her real personality to be seen by those she cared about.
It was time to get serious.
"Just haven't seen one in a long time," Teresa explained.
Placing her hands on several other boxes, Teresa started to breathe deeply. She let herself go, slowly. The floodgates of her mind were now being allowed to explore.
Her eyes closed, Teresa could sense that the rest of the team had formed a curious circle around her. Sinclair no doubt was filming everything.
Teresa Gonzalez's mind's eye descended into hell.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Teresa's mind flashed several images from the distant past. Of yelling business meetings that went far into the night. Of beautifully cooked meals with no passion or feeling behind them. Of ego clashing with decency. And of children losing their innocence. Of youth wasted. Of ungodly things best left for godly people to explain.
Teresa could see the electric mixer, new, bright, and in use. Concentrating her mind's eye she pulled away from the mixer, allowing her to once more notice the mansion's kitchen. The decorations were different, depicting a different era.
:I will not have you robbing me of my treasures, little child. Stop!:
Teresa shook the feelings away, continuing. The house was strong.
Teresa found the image of Gilbert Lex, a once famous television chef. Her muscles tensed. Her heart started to beat terribly fast.
She became aware.
* * *
Fall, 1985&
Gilbert Lex was a vain man, overweight, selfish, hateful of others, and seemed to know that he was becoming a man of power and this did not improve his negative impulses of which he had many. If anything, his fame and fortune had made him more negative-perverted.
He watched the mixer on the kitchen counter whirl into a cake-making frenzy.
Lex hated cake.
Lex was making the cake as a means of keeping up his image. Having just returned from a buying trip in Europe, the TV cook was having some movers deliver several pieces of furniture that he had acquired while on his travels.
Manchester House had almost been restored to her full glory. After living at the place for over four long years, going now on his fifth, the Atchison City Council had started to relax, the police were easy, and Lex couldn't care less-he never understood why there had been such a fuss to purchase the cursed place.
The house suited him well.
Two movers were trying to take a huge dresser up the main staircase. The piece was a lovely French design that had once been owned by Benjamin Franklin. In a huff of exhaustion, one of the movers lost his footing.
"Watch out!" one of the movers yelled, wiping sweat off his brow.
The dresser started to tumble down the stairs. Not damaged but a little worse for the wear, the ancient piece of furniture landed on its side near the kitchen door. Both movers darted down the stairs, doing their best to gather up the damage.
Frustrated and completely oblivious to the personal exhaustion of the hired movers, Lex thundered out of the kitchen, angry. He cared not for the people of Atchison. Only that they were cheap and mentally useable toward his purpose. Money talked, and he had a lot of it.
"What's going on here?" Lex yelled, noticing the damaged dresser for the first time. An annoyed ache appeared on his face, remembering the small fortune he had paid for it. "I hired you men to move my furniture. Now move it!" He paused, looking at his watch. Time was money. "Don't think that I'm going to pay you double after five, either."
With a huff he re-entered the kitchen.
:They are laughing at you. Can't you see that? Foolish man.:
Entering the kitchen, Lex didn't notice that he was being watched. An evil Shape looking like the timid frame of an innocent farm girl stood glaring at him with angry eyes. Staring at him from the staircase, looking down into the kitchen. Eyes forever piercing down at him. Through a veil of rotted, matted hair. Dead hair. A corpse's hair.
The movers did not see the Shape.
Lex, wiping a layer of sweat off his forehead, tried to pretend that he didn't.
:Pick up a knife. Show them that you are a man! Blood. Give me blood.:
"Come on, guys," one of the movers said. An older gentleman, obviously the one in charge. "We have a job to do."
Lex fought to look back, doing his best to remain calm.
The Shape was nowhere to be seen. Gone.
"My imagination," Lex tried to say, comforting himself into a delusion of safety.
The kitchen started to turn cold. Lex started to react to the draft, shivering. He absently started to run his hands together. "This house is going to send me to an early grave. Cold as a tombstone in here."
Lex absently looked around, noticing a stack of plastic tarps and duct tape. Grabbing a roll of tape and a tarp, the cook proceeded to tape up one of the windows. Suddenly something started to attack the plastic. Something unseen. Something invisible to the eye.
Something.
The plastic started to rattle and bulge. A phantom hand of some kind started beating away at the plastic, wanting to pull away from the window. It was as if some force was aware or became aware of the sudden application of the tarp to the window and ended up trapped between the open air and the tarp. Like a fly stuck between window and curtain, the force waged its battle, wanting to be free.
"Get away from me!" Lex shouted, dropping the roll of duct tape.
The kitchen turned still.
The rattling stopped.
Lex found himself looking into the confused and terrified eyes of the two movers who, upon hearing the panic in his voice, had stopped their work, fearing the worst. Both movers soon left, thinking Lex insane.
Both refused payment.
Lex did not eat that night. Nor did he bother to fix anything to eat for two days. His phone continued to ring. He refused to answer it.
The house wouldn't let him.
; :I will take care of you. I will see to your needs. Your sick, delicious needs.:
Lex started to cry.
He completely forgot about the cake.
* * *
One week later&
The young girl couldn't have been more than sixteen years old. Lex could see that as she bravely approached the mansion. The chef was impressed. Most children had the good sense to stay away. Or at least had a stern parent that would whip them if they even tried to venture toward his home.
"What is this tasty morsel?" Lex found himself saying, looking out a peephole toward the girl. He had to stop himself from leering.
The girl was a local child, of that Lex was quite certain. He had noticed her before as he watched her walk down the aisles of the Atchison country store. She was very delightful to look at. Very skinny. The way he liked them.
:If you want her, I will make her yours.:
Lex started to flush, his male excitement clearly visible.
The girl, as Lex had observed, was indeed a local child who was canvassing door-to-door, hoping to sell candy for a local school fund. Lex noticed that she was holding a small cardboard box in her hand which contained candy bars. A dog could be heard barking somewhere in the distance as the girl approached the house.
:She is a sweet morsel, isn't she?:
"Oh, yes, she is!" Lex huffed, licking his lips. The chef's face pressed hard against the front door's peephole. His hands started to sweat.
The Candy Girl was in her teens, quite attractive for her age, and clearly scared. Lex got the impression that although young, she was aware of the reputation of the house she was approaching. Still, she seemed to believe in her cause and continued onward despite her fears. Admirable.
All this escaped Lex at the moment. He was too busy thinking about her young pink body. Of bare breasts glistening in the sun. Of peachy parts of the forbidden areas of the body, giving up the fruits of all they possessed. Of young flesh being touched. Of innocence becoming his again. Oh! The sweet ecstasy!
:If you listen to me, I will make her yours. Listen&to&me!:
Lex blinked.
His will was no longer his own.
It took the Candy Girl ten minutes to gain enough courage to ring the doorbell.
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