“Just lay the dress on the bed, please, and tell Mr. Lindemann I’ll be down momentarily.”
The maid did as she was ordered and then half bowed and left, turning to the right she walked toward the master suite. John watched her knock. She knocked again and then moved over ten feet to the door on the left—the sewing room—and knocked, looking uneasy to John’s watching eyes.
“Yes,” came a voice through the door, just as soft music was turned down.
“Ma’am, your husband is anxious for you to join him in the ballroom.”
At first there was no answer, but then the sewing room door opened a few inches. Though John tried, he couldn’t hear what was said. Then the door closed and the young girl hurried away down the hallway and past John. The soft music started again inside the sewing room. He started walking toward it, but movement from the opera star’s room caught his eye. She stood at the open closet. John felt something, or maybe he felt what Gwyneth Gerhardt was feeling; he couldn’t be sure. He moved easily into the room and watched as the woman removed a fur stole and tossed it onto the bed, then stepped further into the closet. She was feeling around at the back of the closet. Occasionally, she would stop and listen, and then feel around some more. Then John heard it—the same music he had just heard coming from the sewing room.
Now just as curious as the opera singer, John came up behind her. For a moment, John knew she could feel his presence. She stopped probing the back of the closet and turned to look right at him. Then, satisfied she was alone in the bedroom, she went back to feeling the back wall of the closet. John hesitantly reached out. He nearly touched the German star, but withdrew his hand. He wanted to feel exactly what she was feeling, but was afraid to complete a chain that linked the past with the present and that therefore might stop her from doing what she had done in that past. Waves of longing, of missing something, came out of Gerhardt as she finally found the spot she had been seeking. As she pushed in on the back of the wooden closet, it popped open like a small door. Beyond was a darkened passageway that led off into a false wall. She hesitated.
John gathered his courage and reached out and touched Gerhardt on the shoulder. She froze for a second, looking into the dark passage.
Lonetree closed his eyes, feeling what Gerhardt was feeling. She was indeed looking for something. She was looking for…for…her sister. Lonetree moved his hand from her shoulder and she seemed to relax. John watched as the opera star gathered her courage and stepped into the hidden passage. He wanted to shout for her to stop, but another wave hit him from the woman’s mind. She was here to sing, but she had only accepted the invitation because she had wanted to search for her sister. She suspected that the Lindemanns were involved, and suspected her sister was here. John was starting to get a sick feeling in his stomach again.
As the woman felt her way along the passage, the music grew louder. Finally she stopped at another doorway. John knew they were right outside the sewing room. There were two doors almost side by side, mirroring the two in the hallway: the master suite and the sewing room. As the opera star reached out in the darkness, John came close to trying to stop her. He knew that her death, or at the very least the reason for her disappearance, was right behind that thin panel of a doorway.
A sliver of light filled the small tunnel that ran in between the thickened wall of the third floor. Gerhardt stood motionless, peering inside the sewing room. John touched her again, so that he could gauge her feelings and thoughts. Suddenly, he was thrown backward. Gerhardt’s heart lurched in her chest. She panicked and, with a gasp, turned and ran back the way she had come, running right through John. He felt eyes on him, and turned. The small door had opened wider and a face was staring through him. The naked body and fierce eyes penetrated his soul as if he were looking at Satan himself, and then everything about Summer Place became crystal clear. John panicked himself and fought to gain control as he backed away from the figure. He stumbled in his dream and fell to the wooden floor of the passage. He heard Gerhardt up ahead as she gained the closet in her own room. John finally managed to get to his feet. Before he realized what was happening, he was in Gerhardt herself as she squeezed out of her closet.
John could still hear the music, and now he could feel Gwyneth’s pounding heartbeat and her terror as she stumbled to her door. John tried with all of his ability to assist the woman, who was now in a blind panic to get out. She was crying, whimpering, and John was also. She went to her knees as she reached for the crystal glass doorknob. It turned and she used it to stand, then she choked back a scream. The figure from the sewing room was standing at the door when it flew open. Inside of Gerhardt, John screamed in horror right along with her as the knife plunged down and into the opera star. The figure pulled the knife free and slammed it into the German star again.
Lonetree fell backward with Gwyneth Gerhardt. He felt the body strike the hardwood floor just in front of the large bed. She tried to roll over and crawl to safety under the bed, screaming in pain and terror. He felt the large knife plunge into her back. Then all was still as the diva was roughly rolled over. John could see the person standing over Gerhardt clearly. The naked body was sheathed in a fine sheen of sweat and its horrible, hate-filled eyes stared down. John felt his stomach heave.
John felt her heart stop beating at the moment of her death. Gabriel and the team were facing something far more terrible than just ghosts at Summer Place, he knew. The secret of the house was now in his memory and all he had to do was wake up from the Dream Walk to let Gabriel know what they were dealing with.
It wasn’t Summer Place that was evil, it was what walked there that came from hell itself. Lonetree feared it might be too late to stop it.
New York
CEO Feuerstein stood from his chair as the sound inside of Summer Place went down. They could still see the live picture of Kennedy’s team as they ran for the open doorway of the bedroom. The basement camera was dark and had shown nothing since the attack on Kelly Delaphoy. The ballroom camera was blank but they were receiving sound.
“Sir, the ratings are skyrocketing and the advertisers want to extend their time. The phone lines are going down due to overload. Most of the callers want to know if this is on the level or a practical joke. The news division wants more reporters on site, and the Pennsylvania state police want to know why they weren’t informed about the live broadcast,” Feuerstein’s assistant said from his side, “and I have Harris Dalton on line one.”
Feuerstein, without taking his eyes off the screen, reached for the phone and pushed the flashing light connecting him with Harris Dalton in the production van. He placed his hand over the receiver and leaned toward his assistant.
“Inform our sponsors that we are not going to break. They’ll get a scroll at the bottom of the screen.” Feuerstein thought a moment as his assistant scribbled furiously on her notepad. Everyone in the room could hear Harris Dalton at Summer Place screaming into the phone. “Tell the news division to dispatch their news team from Bright Waters, and also please inform the state police that we have a detective lieutenant from their Philadelphia barracks in attendance, and that he is thus far reporting that everything is under control.”
The assistant stopped writing and her eyes flicked to the large screen. The door of the third floor bedroom that had once been used by Gwyneth Gerhardt slammed and locked with Kennedy and his investigative team inside. She looked back to the CEO, and his glare told her she had better get moving at once.
Once the assistant was gone, Feuerstein raised the phone to his ear. “Dalton, you are putting on one hell of a show. The phone lines are going down due to the volume of calls. I want to—”
“We need the state police out here in force, and don’t hand me any crap about ratings! We have people in serious danger in that house!”
“Now, now, why don’t we let the good professor continue the experiment? After all, we haven’t really seen anyone get hurt, so why—”
“If you don’t allow us to call
for help, I’m shutting this goddamned thing down!”
“You will do as you are told. We have several police officers standing by in Bright Waters. Until ordered otherwise, you will keep this show going.”
All eyes in the screening room were on the CEO, whose face had just turned murderously red. Deep down, they also wanted the show to continue; each and every person in the room, with the exception of Peterson’s people, were feeling the drag of money in their pockets.
“Now you listen, Dalton, you know how many millions we have riding on this special. It’s a smash success thus far. If you jeopardize what we have—”
The CEO froze as the phone line shut down. The light was still active on the phone console.
Suddenly, in the phone’s receiver and the overhead speakers of the screening room, a deep and booming voice escaped from Summer Place loud and clear, chilling everyone who heard it.
“They are MINE!”
Harris threw the phone down into the row of technicians operating the monitors. The voice was so loud it hurt. He quickly turned to one of the assistant producers.
“Call the goddamn police—now!”
The woman nodded and held up the phone. “I did five minutes ago, and I don’t give a shit if they throw me in jail.”
“Good girl,” Dalton said as he placed his headphones back on. “Now, let’s see if we can get the damn camera operating inside that basement to see if Kelly is still alive.”
“Jesus, oh man, look at Camera Seven,” one of the technicians called out.
They saw the motion sensors on the bottom floor light up, just as the black mass hit the last few steps of the staircase. “I didn’t notice on the other static cameras before, it was coming down the stairs the whole time,” the tech said, half-rising from her chair.
“Sit down, and let’s at least start doing our jobs!”
As they watched Camera Seven and its ambient light picture, the entity once more split in two. One black mass headed straight for the ballroom and the other for the front doors. The camera couldn’t follow both, so it kept its motion activation motor on the closest segment of the oozing and towering mass—the one that was heading for the large double doors of the ballroom.
“It’s going for Lonetree and the others. Try to get some communication up and warn them,” Harris said as calmly as he could. “Get Camera Five to get ready outside. Tell him they are on the clock again, and to train all eyes on the front doors. We may have company.”
The camera team that had been ordered out when Kennedy ordered Father Dalton evacuated didn’t have to be told anything; they already had camera and sound trained on the front of Summer Place because of the banging and booming noises coming from the inside. The cacophony rivaled the booms of thunder that were inundating the small valley, almost as if bombs were going off inside the house.
Harris’ relief was short-lived. The front doors exploded outward and landed somewhere just in front of the production van. The camera and soundmen were knocked from their feet and the camera went in the opposite direction.
“Oh, God!” Harris cried, watching the mass exit the house. Even though the camera had fallen far from its operator, it was still trained on the front of the house. It was on its side, skewing the picture, but still functional.
“Go to Five, go to Five!” Harris shouted. The picture switched from inside the living room to the live view of the entity as it crashed through the open space where the thick front doors had been. All over the country, viewers got their first clear look at evil. The black, swirling mass stopped at the top of the stone steps, just under the portico. Suddenly a tendril of inky blackness shot out from the still form and went south into the storm-tossed night.
“Oh, shit,” Harris said aloud.
“Is it—is it coming at us?” one of the technicians called out worriedly.
On the screen that showed a sideways view of the mass, it started down the stone steps, smashing the bottom of the giant wooden portico as it came on.
Harris couldn’t open his mouth as the entity, or the part that was outside, came right at the production van, scattering emergency personnel in its path. He and the others turned toward the clear plastic curtain that sectioned them off from the heavy steel door at the front of the trailer. Harris pulled the curtain back and ran to the double steel doors. He slammed home the large lock just as the entity struck the thick doors, bending them and warping them in their frame. The large van shook as it was knocked from it stabilizing blocks, knocking Harris backward.
In New York, the first inkling of panic began to set in inside the screening room.
Bright River, Pennsylvania
The six state police cruisers received their orders to move on Summer Place. They screamed out of the small town and took the curves of the wet road at breakneck speed, making the other cars fall behind. Suddenly, eight miles out of town and only three miles from Summer Place, the woods lining the roadway lit up as if an explosion had rent the forest. The bright green flash made the lead driver flinch, but he recovered quickly and kept going. As he accelerated back up to speed, a brief flash of movement caught his attention. A deer had shot from one side of the road to the other, barely missing the cruiser. The state trooper figured the hard storm with its lightning strikes was spooking the animals. Then as that thought struck him, another large buck sprang from the woods to the cruiser’s right and stopped right in the middle of the road. The headlights picked out the large deer, just standing its ground against the police cruiser. Suddenly the animal started forward, first at a trot and then at a full gait. The state trooper turned his wheel, hitting his brakes and putting the heavy cruiser into a spin. The deer struck the car in the rear quarter panel and flew into the roadway, dead. Then another deer jumped in front of the spinning car, smashing the headlights. As its body was tossed underneath the car, the rear wheels struck it. Then the cruiser was airborne. It came down on its top, crushing the flashing lights, and skidded down the center of the road.
The second car in line took the corner dangerously fast. The driver saw the wreck and tried to turn, but he was too late. His vehicle slammed into the first at over seventy miles an hour, bursting into flames. The third cruiser in line actually had a chance to avoid the disaster ahead, but just as the driver tried to apply his brakes and turn the steering wheel, a large owl slammed into the windshield, shattering it and momentarily throwing off the trooper’s concentration. The bird was thrown clear just as the third car slammed into the first two. Flames were spreading fast in the downpour of rain, illuminating the woods, but the false light wasn’t enough to prevent the pile-up that followed and the next three cars ended in a similar, disastrous fate.
As men and cars burned in the stormy night, the fires lit up the woods. Standing six and seven deep in those woods, thousands of scared animals regained their wits and turned and fled back into the forest.
The part of the entity moved over the burning, screaming men in the cruisers, absorbing their pain and anguish. Then, stronger than before its assault on the roadway, it rose up and entered the woods.
The black and shimmering mass was returning to Summer Place, and the men and women trapped there were now on their own to face hell itself.
Summer Place
Gabriel pushed his weight against the door and was soon joined by Damian Jackson and even Lionel Peterson. The entity slammed into the door for a second time and the wood actually splintered down its center. In the far corner of the room, George Cordero and Julie Reilly were trying frantically to open one of the bedroom windows. They struggled with the lock, but it wouldn’t budge.
Damian Jackson tossed his nine millimeter away and placed his hand over the crack that had formed in the door. Suddenly the state policeman screamed and then pulled his hand away. Even in the dark Jackson knew that at least two of his fingers were missing.
“The goddamn thing bit my fingers off!” He threw his weight against the door.
“Hell of a special effect, isn’t it?�
� Gabriel said as the door bulged inward once more.
“Yeah, just about as good as your theory that ghosts never really harmed anyone!” Jackson screamed back.
“You got me there,” Kennedy said as he strained against the wood.
“Jesus, what the hell is that thing?” Peterson whined. He slid down the door and pushed his back to it, keeping pressure on it.
George and Julie turned from the window. The psychic grabbed a chair and slammed it against the glass. The wooden chair bounced back and struck Julie in the arm. She let out a small yelp.
“It’s not a ghost,” George said, out of breath. He examined the glass, which hadn’t broken into a thousand pieces like he thought it would. He tried to catch his breath. “It may have been, once…and it may have also been human…but not now.” He straightened, pulling Julie further away from the window, and once more picked up the wooden chair. “No one has ever dealt with anything like this. Nowhere in the annals of the supernatural is anything like this mentioned. Its power is building from our fear of it, I can feel it. It wants out of Summer Place and it’s going to go through us to do it!”
“He’s right,” Kennedy said. The entity laughed out loud in the hallway, bringing a spate of shivers to the people trapped inside the room. The laugh was booming and hardy, as if it was amused by what it was hearing. “The goddamn thing has evolved into something that’s never been seen before.”
“Well, may I suggest we get the hell out of here and allow it to go on its merry way?” Jackson said, cradling his mutilated hand.
“Where? We’re trapped!” Peterson screamed as the mass struck the door again, this time breaking the crystal doorknob from its stem.
A tendril of mist entered the room through the crack in the door and slapped Kennedy away. With his weight off the door, the entity was able to push the thick wooden door inward by three inches, breaking away a portion of the frame.
The Supernaturals Page 51