Silence prevailed throughout the van. It remained silent even as they pulled in front of the great, dark manor. Sidney pulled the van to a halt just outside the open gate.
She couldn’t take her eyes from it, yet from the corner of her left eye she saw Sidney turn to her and speak.
“Well, we’re here,” he said. She heard rustling behind her as Dylan and Brett prepared to exit the van. Sidney kept staring at her, while she stared at the house. Then, she quickly turned her head away.
“Let’s go,” she said, opening the door and exiting the van. The slamming sounds of the van’s opposite doors followed her exit. Susan, her father, and Tahoe had emerged from Susan’s car. Cory Chase pulled in behind them, his headlights dying out only seconds before he anxiously stepped from the vehicle.
They gathered outside the property’s main entrance.
“Okay,” Dylan said. “We’ll bring along the equipment that we plan to use for most of the house, and then we’ll come back later for the larger equipment before we go down into the basement.”
All agreed, and Brett and Dylan retrieved camcorders, EVP monitors, cameras and tripods from the back of the van. Once everything was in order, they stood outside the open, arched entranceway that was met on both sides by the black iron-gate she remembered well. Now, she realized how much the main entranceway resembled that of a prison.
They stood, holding a moment of prayer before going inside. She thought for a moment as to where she’d put the cross Hollywood had given her. She’d forgotten to put it on, but she had brought it. Was it in her purse, her pocket? She was distracted by her sudden surprise at Cory standing in the background with his head hung low while they prayed and said a few words.
“Okay, team,” Susan said when they finished. “It’s time.”
Leah broke the circle and strode in front of them, leading the way through the open arch of the main entrance and onto the long, limestone walkway. She remained in front, facing the house she hadn’t laid eyes on in years. Her heart pounded so hard it stole her breath, and she felt her skin burn from the racing hot blood that pulsed harder through her veins. She realized that they all were behind her: Susan, Brett, Dylan, Sidney, her father, Tahoe, and Cory behind them.
Her eyes gazed hard upon the structure, but her third eye showed her nothing except a dark fortress standing meek and humbled, as though nothing had ever happened here, as though no secrets lay inside. As she came closer, the desolate silence it projected seemed to taunt her. Something deep inside of her snapped. She crouched down with clenched hands as the scream erupted from her.
“What do you want from me?!”
Her voice bounced back through the vast, open land and into the cold, silent night. Her eyes scanned the house that uttered no response to her. Her fearful blue eyes searched the gables, the upper windows, and then the top of the canopy in search of a black specter. She trembled as her breath became harder, faster, and then she felt Susan behind her, clutching her shoulders.
“Stay calm,” she said. “We’re all here with you.”
“Remember your strength, Leah.” The sound of Tahoe’s voice made her close her eyes, breathe deeply, and refocus.
She and the group continued to walk toward the canopied entrance until she was close enough that a vision flashed through her mind. It was of her father running through this same entrance with her in his arms. That was the last time she’d ever seen the canopied entrance. Seeing it now, as well as the rest of the house, made her realize that it wasn’t always true what they said—places weren’t always smaller when seen from an older age. Sometimes, they were just as huge and scary with adult eyes.
They walked through the canopied entrance and up to the front door, then she stepped back and let Dylan step forward; she would let him enter first. He was the one who held the key to the house; he’d picked it up earlier from Detective Goddard.
Dylan turned the key into the lock of the thick wooden door, an act that was followed by a heavy, clunk. Slowly, he pulled the door open. He turned to Leah, and she motioned for him to go first. He turned on his flashlight; Brett did the same and followed. She bade everyone to follow, and she and her father walked inside together, their arms around each other.
Four flashlights shone in different directions, but the dimness did nothing to bring back memories. She couldn’t see much outside of strands of cobwebs hanging like freshly spun cotton candy, and the colors of the spectrum beaming in circles from the four flashlights, mixing like merging rainbows.
“All right,” Dylan said. “Leah and Paul, I need either of you to point me in the direction of the lights. We need to get lights on first, before we do anything.”
Paul told Dylan where to find the light fixtures, and soon, the past lit up before Leah’s eyes. The house became brighter and brighter as each fixture was turned on. She stood with her father in the immense, grand hall, and for just a moment, it was as though time had stood still, like it had never passed. And time had left Cedar Manor virtually untouched.
But she’d been right about the cobwebs, hung heavy and thick from the beams and rafters, while dust flittered through the air, caking the floor. She looked up at the hall’s chandelier that she remembered so well, the masterpiece candelabra. The cobwebs clung to it, covering up the showpiece like a bridal veil, and upon closer inspection, she saw several spiders scatter from the sound of impending intruders.
“The same candles are still up there,” she said, her voice almost fading to a whisper.
“Well, of course, sweetie,” Paul said. “Who would have changed them?”
The grandfather clock still stood in its place, against the wall, behind the chandelier. She walked over to it and wiped away the layer of dust that covered its face and hid its Roman numerals. It was silent now—an ironic display of how time had stopped here.
She gazed through the silent hall, seeing nothing, hearing nothing, except the silence of inactivity, the quiet of desolation. Could she have been overreacting? What if she was going crazy? She knew in her heart and soul that she wasn’t, but maybe that’s what the evil in this house was trying to do, make her look like a fool, make her lose her mind.
Then she turned and shifted her eyes upward to the two balconies, especially the one she and Paul remembered well. She felt him clutch her, and she grasped onto him even tighter as the vision of Janet’s swaying body entered her mind again. She shook it off and redirected her eyes beyond the balconies, scanning and searching once again for a black apparition.
She was distracted by a sound she remembered well: the banging sound the furnace sometimes made. She realized that Sidney had found the thermostat and turned it on.
“Geez, it’s like no one believes in heat around here.” Sidney made her laugh in what felt like the most dreaded moment of her life. It was what she loved about him. Sidney didn’t treat her like a doll that might easily break, or like glass on the floor that was not to be stepped on.
Soon, the warmth of heated air filled the room, cutting through a sixteen-year chill that permeated the entire house and lulled the dead into dark Elysium. They could feel the heat surround them, but not enough to remove their coats just yet. It was then that Leah could smell the strange odor, and because of it, all eyes met each other.
“That smell is from the furnace,” Dylan said. “It’s been inactive for sixteen years. The smell is awful, but it’ll pass.”
Leah remembered another smell from long ago, that rotten, burning meat type of a smell; this smell was not the same. She sighed in nervous relief.
“We need to set up camp,” Dylan said to her. “I was thinking about a dual setup. Our base camp will be here in the grand hall, and also in the drawing room.”
“That would work.” She nodded in agreement.
“We also need to get a fire going in the drawing room,” Susan said, rubbing her shoulders for warmth. “I doubt it’ll be completely warm in here for awhile.”
While Susan spoke, Leah began walking toward the
drawing room. Once she was there, she stopped outside the double doors. Susan stood behind her as she stared at the doors, wondering what would happen when she opened them. There had never been locks on the doors of the drawing room, or the dining room, or many of the rooms on the lowest floor. She knew they would open with the slightest movement of her hands.
They all stood in silence behind her.
She reached down and grabbed the knobs of both doors and flung them open wide, wide enough to bang off the wall behind and produce a gust of wind from the rapid movement. She stared into the darkness of the room. She noticed her father walk around her and into the room, disappearing to the right, and within seconds the drawing room filled with bright, electrical light.
The drawing room hadn’t changed since she’d last seen it. Her mother’s decorative style remained throughout the room: the wine-colored sofa and draperies, the glass tables she’d handpicked, even the now obsolete console television that sat against a wall. All of it was visual testament that Janet Leeds had been here. But her mother’s signature style had been usurped by the billowing cobwebs that now draped her inventions, as well as the layers of dust that stained what was once new and vibrant. The room’s contents sat lost, untouched in time, silently projecting the truth that Janet Leeds had died here.
Leah realized that no one had made any attempt to preserve the house or its contents after her mother’s suicide. Nothing was covered, and everything was left, abandoned to suffer the assaults of time and inactivity. She knew why that was. Outside of the police in 2008, no one would come here. Even in the face of widespread curiosity, there had been no looters, no squatters, and only the daredevil likes of Jimmy Nort had been crazy enough to try.
She brushed a floating web from her face and noticed Cory Chase had been taking notes almost furiously. Dylan and Brett began to set up the cameras and tripods in the hallway and in the drawing room. Cory had been somewhat following them, observing what they were doing.
Once their equipment was set up, they conducted a brief observance outside, where Jimmy Nort had fallen to his death. The outside areas told them nothing: the exact spot where his body had hit the stone platform below, the area atop of the canopied entrance where Hollywood and Snake had pinpointed the apparition, even the bushes alongside the house—nothing. Soon, they were back inside the drawing room, where the fire now blazed.
Dylan began to instruct the team.
“We’re going to continue in here, and in the hallway, with the EVP monitors,” he said. “We’ve brought updated ghost-box technology that should be ideal for this investigation. Hopefully, we’ll be getting some interesting results.”
His words were the last thing Leah heard before the loud BANG came from above, sounding like an enormous weight had fallen on the upper floor. All eyes met as everyone felt the house tremble. Leah thought of large, invisible hands shaking a doll’s house. It wasn’t violent, but hard enough that bits of plaster fell from the ceiling above. And then, it stopped.
Leah looked up at the ceiling, where small cracks had the let the plaster sift through.
“I think we’re getting results now,” she said, brushing plaster from her hair. “It looks like someone or something knows we’re here.”
* * * *
Cory couldn’t believe what he’d just seen. Tonight, he’d come well prepared to expose any antics as carefully planned and coordinated shenanigans orchestrated solely for his benefit. But, whatever the hell had just happened was real. He felt the floor below him not just quiver, but shake. He’d watched as a few minor cracks opened up in the ceiling above, shaking loose grains of plaster that filtered down into Leah’s hair.
“What the hell just happened?” His words conveyed his thoughts.
“What you’ve just seen, Mr. Chase,” Susan said, “is the presence of poltergeist activity. It takes some getting used to, but if you’re not up to it, I would suggest—”
“...that you leave.” Sidney Pratt finished the sentence for her.
“Yeah, you might want to hurry before the snow starts up again,” Dylan said.
“Nice try,” he said. “But if this place is half as haunted as everyone thinks it is, this story is going to be book material.”
Cory pulled his voice recorder from the inside pocket of the coat he was still wearing. He was about to press the red record button and speak, when Dylan’s hand shot out and clenched his wrist.
“No recorders, outside of our own,” he said.
“Why? I have every right to document, under the freedom of information act.”
Cory didn’t appreciate the way Dylan had reached out and grabbed his wrist, which he writhed and twisted back and forth in an angry response. The two men now struggled for the recorder.
“I should have made that clear, but it interferes with our equipment and any sounds that may occur.” Dylan emphasized each word as his and Cory’s hands became locked in a tense tug-of-war.
Cory’s red-faced anger blistered, and so did Dylan’s. The next thing he knew Dylan had ripped the recorder from his hands, and as he did, it flew across the room, where the sound of crashing metal had ended the debate.
Cory pointed in his face.
“You owe me a new recorder,” he said.
“The society will provide you with another, Mr. Chase,” Susan said. “Since Mr. Rasche is right, he should have told you that beforehand.”
“Look, could we please stop this?” Leah said. “This isn’t making anything better.”
Cory felt his blood boil, his face steam in rage, but now was not the time to punch Dylan Rasche’s lights out. He would remember to do so later.
“All right,” he said, offering up the palms of his hands in a plea of truce. “But, I do have a few questions, and then I’ll be out of your hair.”
“Ask away, Mr. Chase,” Susan said.
“My question is for Mr. Leeds,” he said. Paul looked up at him with a blank expression, seeming to hold back what he really thought of him. “I’m a little confused, if this strange man lived in this house all of these years and was suspected of murder, why would you move in here? I mean, why would your wife be so attracted to this house?”
“It was never known that Angus Marlowe was suspected of murdering anyone. The police only questioned him because he was rumored to be involved in cult activity that could have been connected to the body found not far from the house. The police were never allowed to mention Marlowe because there was no physical connection to him at that time. The family lawyer had also threatened them with civil lawsuits.”
“So, no one ever knew the police had originally suspected him until the bodies were found in 2008?” Cory found this to be logical, especially in the predawn of DNA evidence.
“You got it.” Paul’s answer was quick and smart assed, his eyes still staring him down.
“If you need filled in on the history of the house or Angus Marlowe,” Susan said, “you might want to consult with Mr. Pratt. He’s our researcher in that area.”
Cory turned his back for just a moment as he spoke.
“That’s fine, because I would really like to know more—”
He stopped where he was standing, facing out into the hallway. He heard his voice cease to speak, and all thought was lost when he saw whatever it was. His photographic memory snapped pictures in his mind of a moving black shadow as it passed right before him. His eyes expected a human form, but there was no visible form; there was only darkness, a mass of black that lumbered down the hallway.
He fought to find his voice, though no words came from him. He felt Leah grab him from behind and turn him around to face her.
“What did you see?” She was adamant, convinced, though from where she’d been standing, she couldn’t have seen it also. “What did you see? Tell me!”
He couldn’t tell them; they would think he was fueling a story. And, if this was all for his benefit, which it was looking more and more like it wasn’t, he wasn’t going to make an ass of himself. H
e knew what he saw, but he wasn’t going to lose composure. His heart pounded hard in his ears, and he felt his knees slightly weaken, though he tried not to show it.
His voice returned; he uttered only one word.
“Nothing...”
Chapter Fifteen
While Cory Chase managed to avoid an assault of questions, Brett walked out into the grand hall, where he would begin the search for EVPs. Once everyone was assembled in the hall, and Brett had everyone’s attention, he began.
“As Dylan said earlier, we’re using an updated form of ghost-box technology. The equipment that we’ve set up not only records any possible sounds that may occur, but amplifies them in real time. So, the slightest EVP will be picked up loud enough that we may hear it, while it’s being recorded simultaneously.
“And, Sidney, since you’re our clairaudient, you’ll be asking the questions. You may hear something that we don’t, and of course, you may provoke answers heard by all of us here on the amplifiers.”
“Gotcha,” Sidney said, and on that note, a quick, high-pitched hum reverberated through the hall when Brett tinkered with the equipment, signaling the sound of amplification.
“Is anyone here with us?” Sidney asked a question aloud, after Brett motioned him to begin. No sounds came back, only the soft hollow hum of the amplifiers.
“Can you hear me?” Sidney said, in his spirit-coaxing tone. “I’m sure you know why we’re here. Why don’t you speak to us?”
Again, not the faintest sound responded to Sidney’s call. He spoke louder.
“I ask—who among the dead is with us?”
Leah had remained silent with her eyes to the floor, but now she lifted her head and called out in confrontation.
“Why don’t you answer him? You know who I am, don’t you? Why don’t you respond?”
Seconds of silence passed.
Then, a low rumbling sound gathered itself almost like the storm outside. It grew louder and louder, rumbling, churning, and then gurgling, its volume building like a rolling snowball as the sound seemed to travel. Soon, it was everywhere: above them, beside them, in front of them, and around them.
The Third Eye of Leah Leeds Page 18
