Hell House

by Richard Matheson

Chapter 25

  4:27 P. M.

  Somewhere there was music playing, slowly, tenderly; a waltz. She was dancing to the music, gliding through a kind of mist.

  Was she in the ballroom? She could not be sure. Her partner's face was indistinct, yet she felt certain it was Daniel's. She could feel his arm around her and his left hand holding out her right. It was warm. There was a scent of flowers in the air; roses, she decided. A summer dance. A small string orchestra performing. Florence danced in languorous circles with her partner.

  "Are you happy?" he asked.

  "Yes," she murmured. "Very. "

  Was she on a set? Was that it? Was she making a film? She tried to recall but couldn't. Still, how could it be a film? It was all too real; no camera, no banks of lights, no fourth wall missing and the crew in sight, the sound man at his board. No, it was a real ballroom. Florence tried again to see her partner's face, but couldn't focus her eyes. "Daniel?" she murmured.

  "My dear?"

  "It is you," Florence said.

  She saw him then, his grave face very handsome, very gentle. His arm drew tight around her. "I love you," he said.

  "And I love you. "

  "You'll never leave me? Always be beside me?"

  "Yes, my darling, always; always. "

  Florence closed her eyes. The music quickened, and she felt herself being swept around the ballroom floor. She heard the rustling of a hundred skirts, the ballroom filled with dancers, lovers. Florence smiled. And she loved, too; loved Daniel. Daniel held her safely as they danced. She scarcely felt her feet; she seemed to float.

  She felt a scented breeze across her face and smiled again. He'd danced her out onto the wide veranda. Overhead, the sky was filled with stars, like diamond fragments sprinkled on black velvet; she didn't have to look to know that they were there.

  The moon was full, pale silver, glowing. It shed soft radiance on the garden just beyond. She didn't have to look; she knew.

  Had she been drinking wine? She felt intoxicated. No; it was intoxication of the spirit. It was joy and love, sweet music playing in the distance as she waltzed with her beloved Daniel, around, around, dancing slowly toward -

  He shouted. "No!"

  Florence gasped in shock, all senses flooded. Daniel stood before her in the mist, white-faced, frightened, gesturing for her to stop. Icy water numbed her feet and ankles, cold wind scored her face, the smell of rot assailed her nostrils; crying out, she staggered back and fell. Something seemed to rush away behind her. Florence thrashed around and caught a momentary view of someone very tall and dressed in black vanishing into the mist.

  She shuddered as the freezing air sliced deep into her flesh. She lay beside the tarn.

  She had been walking into it.

  With a sound of sickened dread, she pushed up, started running for the house. Her shoes were wet, the bottoms of her stockings. Shivering, she dashed along the gravel path. The blind face of the house loomed darkly from the mist. She ran across the gravel, up the steps. The doorway yawned. She ran inside and slammed the door, falling back against it.

  She was shaking from the cold, from fright. She couldn't stop herself. She'd almost walked into the tarn. The knowledge horrified her.

  She started as a figure hurried down the hallway from the kitchen. It was Fischer, with a glass in his hand. Seeing her, he stopped a moment, then advanced again. "What happened?" he asked.

  "Is that whiskey?"

  Fischer nodded.

  "Let me have some. "

  He handed her the glass, and Florence drank, choking as the liquor scalded down her throat. She handed back the glass.

  "What happened?" Fischer asked.

  "He tried to kill me. "

  "Who?"

  " Belasco," she said. She clutched at his arm. "I saw him, Ben. I actually caught a glimpse of him as he left me by the tarn. "

  She told him what had happened, how Belasco had made her think she was dancing in the ballroom with Daniel, while he'd led her to the tarn to drown her. How Daniel had warned her at the moment she was going in.

  "How did Belasco get control of you?" he asked.

  "I must have dozed off. I was tired after sitting, after everything that's happened today. "

  Fischer looked ill. "If he can get you in your sleep now - "

  " No. " She shook her head. "He won't again. I'm warned now. I'll retain my strength. " She shivered. "Can we go in by the fire?"

  When they were sitting in front of the fire, her shoes and stockings off, her feet propped on a stool, a new log crackling on the fire, Florence said, "I think I know the secret of Hell House, Ben. "

  Fischer didn't speak for almost half a minute. "Do you?" he asked then.

  "It's Belasco. "

  "How?"

  "He safeguards the haunting of his house by reinforcing it," she said. "By acting as a hidden aide for every other haunting force. "

  Fischer did not respond, but she could tell from the sudden flare of interest in his eyes that she had gotten through to him. He sat up slowly, as though uncoiling, his eyes fixed on hers.

  "Think of it, Ben," she said. " Controlled multiple haunting. Something absolutely unique in haunted houses: a surviving will so powerful that he can use that power to dominate every other surviving personality in the house. "

  "You think the others are aware of it?" he asked.

  "I don't know about the others. All I know is that his son is. If he weren't, he couldn't have saved my life.

  "It all fits, Ben," she said. "It's been Belasco from the start. He's the one who's kept me from the chapel. He's the one who tried to keep me from discovering Daniel's body last night. He's the one who made it seem that Daniel had bitten me, the one who possessed the cat. He's the one who caused the poltergeist attack on Doctor Barrett, trying to turn us against each other.

  He's the one who's keeping Daniel's soul imprisoned here.

  "Think of what fantastic power he possesses, Ben. To actually be capable of keeping another's spirit from progression, despite a consecrated burial. Maybe it's because Daniel is his son, but, even so, it's incredible. "

  She leaned back in her chair, looking at the flames. "He's like a general with his army. Never entering the battle, but always controlling it. "

  "How can he be hurt, then? Generals don't get killed in war. "

  "We'll hurt him by decreasing the size of his army until he has no one left, until he has to fight his war alone. " She looked at him with challenge in her eyes. "A general without an army is nothing. "

  "But we have only till Sunday. "

  Florence shook her head. "I'm staying here until the job is done," she said.

  She closed the door and moved immediately to her bed. Kneeling beside it, she offered up a prayer of gratitude for the enlightenment which had been given her, a prayer of request for strength to deal with what she had discovered.

  When the prayers were ended, she rose and moved into the bathroom to cleanse her ankles and feet; there was still a residue of odor from the tarn on them. As she washed and dried them, she thought about the massive project which lay ahead: to release the earthbound spirits from this house, against the will of Emeric Belasco. It almost seemed too much to accomplish.

  "But I will," she said aloud, as though Belasco listened. She'd have to be alert, though. What Ben had said was true. "You've been fooled before," he'd said. "Make sure you aren't fooled again. "

  "I'll be careful," she'd replied.

  She would. She recognized the sense in what he'd said. How thoroughly she had been fooled last night into believing that, perhaps, she'd been responsible for the poltergeist attack on Dr. Barrett. How thoroughly she had been fooled this morning into thinking that Daniel was responsible for the bites and for the cat's attack on her. She must not allow herself to be fooled again.

  Daniel had not been responsible for any of those things. He was tormented, not tormentor.


  Florence closed her eyes, hands clasped in front of her. Daniel, listen now, she whispered in her mind. I thank you, with all my heart, for saving my life. But don't you see what it means? If you can thwart your father's will in that way, you can also thwart it by departing from this house. You don't have to stay here any longer. You're free to go if only you believe. Your father has no power to hold you prisoner. Ask for the help of those beyond, and it will come to you. You can leave this house.

  You can!

  Florence opened her eyes abruptly. Moving to the Spanish table, she opened her purse. She took out a pad and pencil, laid the pad on the table, picked up the pencil, and held its point against the paper. Instantly it started moving. She closed her eyes and felt it writing by itself, tugging her hand this way and that. In seconds it stopped, and the feeling of control drained from her hand. She looked at the pad.

  "No!" She tore the top sheet off and crumpled it into a ball, flinging it to the floor, "No, Daniel! No!"

  She stood beside the table, trembling, staring at the paper, the words engraved on her mind.

  One way only.