At the couch, Jenny flipped on her small light and brought the beam up until it just illuminated John’s relaxed features. She watched his eyes, but they lay still underneath his eyelids. He had not entered the dream state yet.
Jennifer was hoping the pills would actually keep John from dreaming; she knew she hadn’t dreamed when she used them. Just as she was about to turn off the flashlight, she saw the first movement of John’s eyes. She felt Leonard come up from behind.
“Goddamn it’s cold in here,” he said as he shook his head.
Suddenly John’s body went rigid as a board and his hands clenched into fists. Then his long hair blew up and off the pillow, flowing off the arm of the couch as though he were standing in a strong wind.
“Do you smell that?” Leonard asked, taking a step back.
Jenny nodded. The smell was like dead winter, but there was also an odor of wet woods in the rainy season, and then the smell of a wood fire. On the couch, John moved his head left and then right. An unseen wind still blew his long hair.
Leonard turned away and paced to the static camera that had been set up on Harris Dalton’s orders to catch John’s Dream Walk. He knelt down and made sure his face was framed in the night vision picture.
“Look, if you’re hearing me, we may have to get out of here fast, so we may need help from you people. If you see us moving toward those glass doors, come runnin’.”
Inside the van, Harris smiled. He had just switched to the ballroom camera, and had caught the concern of the small black man.
As Leonard stood and turned, he saw Jenny suddenly stand and back away from the prone John. In the weak light cast by Jenny’s flashlight, Leonard could see that John had sat up and was staring at the ballroom doors. His hair was still being blown by an invisible wind.
“Shit, I sure hope you guys are getting this.”
John was in a brightly illuminated hallway. The smell of a gas lamp wafted into his nostrils as he stood before a door. It was open about a foot and John saw movement inside the dimly illuminated room. He heard the laughter of young children, possibly two girls, and then the booming laugh of an adult. As John maneuvered his head he could see that indeed it was two small girls lying in an ornate, covered bed. A man, possibly their father, was sitting on the bed’s edge and looked to have been reading to them. He had stopped and they laughed together, and John could feel the love of the father for his two daughters. The man spoke, but John didn’t understand the language. It sounded eastern European, possibly Russian. The man was well dressed and had a large beard. He reached out and tickled the two girls, who laughed uncontrollably. They looked about six or seven.
John heard a squeak behind him in the hallway and saw the door had been opened further. The father had turned and the girls fell silent. The man stood from the bed and walked straight at John, raising his hand. Lonetree flinched in his dream as the hand came down and the words exploded from his mouth. John was surprised when the hand passed right through him and struck something he hadn’t seen. When he ducked, he saw the small boy in a long nightgown. The hand connected solidly with the boy’s face and he slid to the wooden floor. The father screamed at him.
John felt badly for the boy. He wanted to reach down and help the dark-haired child to his feet. But as suddenly as the thought struck him to help, it seemed the boy’s eyes moved from the man who was obviously his father, to look right at John. The dark eyes stared at him and through him. They penetrated him. Then the father struck out again, yelling in Russian. The boy was lifted to his feet and then thrown out the door. John looked on, horrified. The girls in the bed were silent as they watched the boy’s punishment, but they both had small smiles stretched across their otherwise innocent faces.
John turned and left the room. The hallway was now dark. He leaned back into the bedroom and saw the light there was also out. The girls were sleeping soundly in their bed. Just as he started to turn, John felt the presence behind him. It was the black-haired, dark-eyed boy. He was looking right at John, and even in the darkness John could see the boy’s eyebrows were raised. The child tilted his head and Lonetree could see the bruises on the boy’s face, and knew for a fact without seeing there were even more, darker, uglier scars underneath the child’s dressing gown. The boy’s head turned but his eyes lingered on John a moment. The cold chills coursed down his spine as he watched the boy reach out and pull the girls’ bedroom door closed. He reached into his nightshirt and produced a key and locked the door. Then he moved down the hallway and inserted the key into another door. When the boy turned around he had a smile stretched across his feminine features. The boy slowly raised his hand to his face and brought his index finger up to his lips, shushing John.
John swallowed in his sleep. The boy went to the far wall of the hallway and bent over in the dark. John heard a splashing sound and the floor was doused with something wet and oily smelling. The boy looked at Lonetree with that horrible grin on his face. Then brightness filled the hallway and John flinched. He could see the flare of the match. John tried his best to swipe at the match, but the boy giggled as Lonetree’s hand passed through the flame. John knew he was helpless to stop what was happening. The boy raised his left eyebrow once more as he let the match fall though his fingers to the wooden floor. The whoosh of flame bit into the wood and held. It quickly crawled up the walls and engulfed the two doors the boy had locked moments before. The boy stared at John, who raised his arms to shield his face from the intense heat. The boy remained where he was, smiling, as if he wanted John to witness what he had done.
A feminine scream sounded in the hallway, from the far end of the house. Then suddenly John could see her. It was a woman of about thirty; her face bruised as badly as the boy’s had been. It had to be the child’s mother. She grabbed the boy and tried to reach for the door handle of her daughters’ room, but the flames licked at her dressing gown. She screamed in frustration and then turned and ran, holding the boy, into the flames and the smoke.
John could hear the screams of the two girls and the father as they started to burn to death.
As the flames traveled up his own legs, John placed his hands over his ears. He could not drown out the horrible screaming.
There was blessed silence. As John lowered his hand, the smell of smoke faded. He opened his eyes and saw that he was now standing on a small rise watching the snow being blown by a strong wind that carried not the smell of smoke and burning children, but the smell of forested hills. The sound was that of rain, which mixed with the snowflakes to produce a slush that penetrated the body with its cold. He felt that coldness sink deep into his soul, mingled with the relief of being out of the burning house. Looking around, he spotted the large, dark object in front of him, its skeletal ribs standing out against the blackness of early winter.
It was Summer Place, in the first stages of rising from the countryside. The house was not yet framed but the outer shell had been completed before the weather had turned. As he looked at the house, he felt it. It wasn’t evil, it had no dark intent; for now, it was just wood and nails. The moon broke through the clouds for the briefest of moments, showing the frame of the massive barn and the hole for the swimming pool. He even saw the deepest pit that would become the root cellar and subbasement. As he looked at these, he felt the first presence of something that made him afraid, as if he were staring into the bowels of hell itself. He looked away, not wanting to know the true depths of the basement and its root cellar.
He felt better when he focused on the house. Then he heard the sound of an engine. At first he couldn’t place the direction of the sound, but then he thought of his waking self and concentrated on what he knew. His gaze moved to where the front gate would eventually be built, and then beyond that to the road. It was hard to pick out because of the slushy snow that had accumulated, but he saw the carriage lights of two wagons as they came forward from the darkness beyond. They were large wagons, each drawn by six large horses.
For a reason John cou
ldn’t fathom, he stepped back and stood behind one of the large trees that lined the property. He knew in his current state he was invisible, but for a reason he knew not, he didn’t want the occupants of the two wagons to see him. The first wagon looked to be fully loaded with wood that protruded from a large tarpaulin. The second looked to be covered, like an old wagon from the westerns John used to watch as a child. The second wagon maneuvered around the first and advanced toward the incomplete Summer Place. It stopped about where the kitchen would eventually be built and the driver, a person of large size, hopped down. He stepped into the framing of the house and then stopped. The area below flared to life with light. John could see that the man had lit a lantern and was moving it around. John froze as the large man seemed to stop and look up at the small rise where he was standing. Then after a moment he turned away. The moon above was once more covered with black clouds and the snow had vanished with it. Rain started coming down in earnest as the man below moved further into the house.
John took a cautious step out from behind the tree and watched for the man to return. Three men were unloading the first wagon, placing the wood under a makeshift shed at the front of the framed house. They seemed in a hurry to be on their way. Soon they had the wagon unloaded, and the three men climbed back in. Without speaking to the occupant of the second wagon, they turned and whipped the horses forward onto the dirt road fronting the property. The lantern attached to the wagon’s front slowly disappeared beyond the bend and the second wagon was left alone at Summer Place.
The large man came back into view, carrying something John couldn’t make out. Before he could recognize the object, someone stepped down from the covered back of the wagon. This person was smaller and was bundled against the cold and rain. And John knew immediately that this person, like the one before him, was looking right up at him. The figure stayed still a moment and then turned away when a banging was heard. John quickly stepped back against the tree as the smaller person turned back in his direction. The figure stood and watched the trees, and then finally turned away.
John took a deep breath and then found the first man. He had brought the object to the pit that would become the root cellar and the basement. It was a ladder. He pushed it over until the weight was greater on the dangling end and then secured it as best he could to the dirt surrounding the hole. The second figure walked up to the hole and then nodded. Then both turned back, out of the skeletal house, and returned to the wagon. They pulled someone out of the back. The smaller person was struggling, but the two men were far stronger and quickly brought her under control. John swallowed as he watched the scene play out. He knew in real life he never would have been able to see anything from this distance, but that was the advantage to Dream Walking; he could sometimes do the impossible.
As the two men maneuvered the woman, John could see bright red hair spilling from a woolen cap on her head. The larger man struck the woman hard and her struggling calmed somewhat. John wanted to call out to stop them, but he knew from past experience that either they wouldn’t hear him, or his call would be ignored. He was meant to see this, not prevent it.
They placed the woman down on the ground in front of the hole. She was wobbly from the blow she had just received and held on tightly to the leg of the smaller of the two men. The man brushed at the woman’s hand, but it held firm. Then the man punched at the woman’s hand and she finally let go. He pulled something from his coat and John knew exactly what it was. Before he could shout out, the gunshot reverberated through the valley. The small woman fell forward into the large hole. John screamed, knowing that, as in other dreams, his voice wouldn’t be heard. As his voice joined the echo of the gunshot, the small man turned and looked in his direction. John could see the blazing dark eyes underneath the hat as they searched the woods looking for the author of the scream. John closed his mouth, and fear seized him.
He knew those dark eyes had found him. For the first time in a Dream Walk, he knew it was far more than a dream; he was actually there, and as vulnerable as the woman who had just been murdered.
On the second floor landing, Gabriel paused and examined the ambient light camera that had been placed on a swivel base to roam the left and right of the hallway. The movement of the remote camera was stopped and it was facing to the right, which meant that it had detected movement in that direction sometime in the last few minutes. He checked the motion sensor and found the small blue light blinking, meaning it was still working properly. Gabriel pressed his hand over his earpiece and called Harris Dalton.
“Has the production team picked up any movement on the second floor in the past five minutes?”
“Negative. If there had been movement, we missed it. Hell, everything was so active a few minutes ago we would have missed a train coming through. Sorry, we’ll keep a sharper eye out.”
Gabriel straightened and looked at the darkened faces around him. He nodded at George Cordero. “Go ahead and activate the laser systems here and on the third floor.”
“Professor,” Julie said in a low voice. “Can you explain what this laser system is?”
Kennedy closed his eyes for a moment in frustration, but decided shaking off the question wasn’t an option. He really did want the country to take interest in what was happening. Gabriel reached down and plucked a small object off the floor. It was the size of a basketball and weighed more than six pounds.
“This is a laser grid generator. These small holes are laser emitters. Each device has two hundred small lasers, the power output of a small laser pointer. Once turned on, each laser light will create a grid in each of the two hallways. In order for us to see the light more clearly, each designator also has a built in fogger that will spread a veil of mist.”
“And what does this accomplish?” Julie asked.
“In theory, anything moving through the lasers will possibly become visible. With these lasers, coupled with our ambient light cameras and the new motion sensors that detect the movement of air, heat, cold, even dust particles, we should be able to avoid being surprised by anything near us.”
Kennedy didn’t wait for another question from Julie. He turned and placed the laser designator back on the floor as George Cordero switched on the devices with the remote control placed by the camera stand. Suddenly red, green and blue lasers shot free of the round battery driven orb. The grid it laid down covered the hallway from floor to ceiling, left and right of the landing. Another emitter at the far end illuminated, as did another two on the opposite side of the house on the far hallway. George then made sure the motion sensors lining the hallways were activated. This was confirmed by a beep as he switched the sensors on and off, and then on again. He nodded at Gabriel.
“This way to the sewing room,” he said. The team fell in line and continued up the stairs. Gabriel again pressed his hand to his ear and spoke into his small microphone. “Harris, what do you have on Kelly and Jason?”
“Nothing. They’ve hit the blind spot halfway down the stairs. We should be picking them up visually in a moment. We have them on audio walking down the stairs.”
“Any word from the electrical people outside?” Gabriel asked.
“The power company says it’s not in their lines. Our own people have confirmed that power is being directed into the house, but that’s where it ends. It’s like something is sucking up the juice.”
Damian Jackson frowned. It was more likely the storm had blown the breakers. He shook his head, but continued to follow the professor.
“How are John and the others in the ballroom?”
“Mr. Lonetree is out like a light, but we do have activity. It was like a windstorm had erupted inside the ballroom, but things are a bit calmer now. Leonard Sickles just let Wallace Lindemann inside and he’s at his usual spot at the bar.”
“Keep an eye on Kelly. She and Sanborn should be your priority. If anything starts to happen, pull them out until we can all get down there. Order her if you have to.”
“Yeah, all I h
ave to do is threaten to kill her live feed. She’ll comply,” Harris said. There was a momentary pause as Harris asked something of Julie. Gabriel picked it up on his earpiece and thought about the answer to the question he knew the reporter was about to ask.
“Professor, for the sake of our viewers I want to reiterate...Before your experiences in Summer Place seven years ago, you were not a believer in the supernatural, is that correct?”
Kennedy paused. This was not the question Harris had just asked Julie to relay to him.
“No. At the time I believed most hauntings revolved around living people. The human mind is capable of many things, including creating things inside a person’s head that would make it seem they are dealing with the paranormal.”
“You’ve stated mass hysteria as one of those causes, is that correct?”
“Yes,” Kennedy said. He wondered where Julie was going with the questions.
“Before we continue our journey to the sewing room and the third floor, Professor, I am sure the viewers would like to know your opinion on what’s happening here tonight. Are we dealing with the theory of mass hysteria?”
Gabriel looked at the others. They waited silently, and in the darkness he could feel them anticipating his answer. He saw a brief reflection of the red, green and blue laser lights off the ambient camera lens and knew that many others, the people Julie and Harris Dalton were playing for, were waiting also.
“This is no mass hysteria, Ms. Reilly. In my opinion, we are dealing with something that has never happened before in the annals of supernatural activity. A haunting such as this, the activity we have experienced tonight, has never been documented before. We may be dealing with an entity that is powerful beyond reason. No, Ms. Reilly, not mass hysteria. Something doesn’t want us here because we are a danger to it. It knows that unlike other visitors to this house, we can cause it harm.”
The Supernaturals Page 48
