The Supernaturals (65 page)

“We had better hurry; I don’t think our host is too happy we’re not leaving. Feel it?” George asked. He pulled his coat tighter around his chest.

“It is getting colder by the second,” Julie said into her mic.

The lights flickered as a streak of lightning illuminated the outside world.

“Okay, we’ll go with John’s plan.”

As Julie Reilly explained to the television world what was going to happen, Jennifer felt a small twinge that signaled the first assault of a massive headache. Deep down, she knew what it meant.

“Jenny, what’s wrong?” Gabriel asked as John reached out to steady her.

Leaning heavily on Lonetree, Jennifer brought her right hand up to her temple.

“I think…I think we’re about to have company.” She stumbled, with John’s support, to the couch.

“Who?” Leonard asked, afraid of the answer.

“Bobby Lee McKinnon.”

Jennifer stood from
the small loveseat. She looked into the lens of the camera pointed right at her, and then looked at John Lonetree, who was holding her hand. She gave him an odd, curious look and then shook her smaller hand free from his.

“Whoa there, man. Comfort is one thing, but I’m getting a vibe that says you have a much darker intent, and at Jenny’s expense.”

John stood up so suddenly that everyone took a step back. The voice that had commented on John’s affections was deeper than Jenny’s; still feminine, but booming, as if it were coming from a male. She looked around the room.

“You people are playing with fire here. This ain’t ol’ Bobby Lee you’re dealin’ with, this is blackness,” Jenny said in that strange voice. She paced to the French doors and looked out at the storm-tossed bushes and awnings. “I knew you would get Jennifer into some kind of trouble, so I bugged out for a while.” She turned and looked into the camera which had followed her to the doors, and smiled a creepy and tired-looking grin. Jenny placed her hands into her hair and brushed it back, creating what momentarily looked like an old fashioned Pompadour with a large curl breaking free at the front.

“Oh, shit,” Leonard said, watching from his keyboard.

“Jenny may hate my guts, man,” she said, turning her blue eyes to Kennedy, “but I didn’t come vistin’ her just to see her eaten by that thing upstairs.” She snapped her fingers to a beat only she could hear. “She’s my Angel Baby. I guess you can call it an attachment of necessity. So if you don’t mind, Doc, we’re splitsville.”

They all watched—including the number one camera—as Jennifer started for the double doors of the ballroom. Julie Reilly explained in hushed whispers what was happening to Jennifer. John made a move as if to stop her, but Gabriel held a hand up. Jenny stopped at the door and looked back at the amazed faces of the others. Then she looked at the camera and winked.

“If I was you folks, I would be on the next train to music city, because somethin’s comin’ for you.’”

With those words Jennifer turned and walked out of the ballroom, this time brushing Damian Jackson out of the way just as he had done to Lindemann a moment before. Kennedy quickly followed and watched as Jenny slowly moved toward the front door, looking at the room’s décor as if she had never seen any of it before. Then she stopped at the large staircase.

“Roll over Beethoven,” she said, looking up the stairs.

“Guys, the sewing room door just opened up on three,” Harris Dalton said from the van. The live picture switched to the third floor. “The thermal imager is picking up a bright blue form standing inside the room, motionless. Hell, I swear whatever it is, is looking right at the camera.”

Gabriel slowly stepped from the ballroom, quickly followed by Julie, Kelly and the others—even Wallace Lindemann and Lionel Peterson joined them in the brightly lit living room.

Jennifer placed a hand on the banister. She seemed to be transfixed on something near the second floor landing.

“Powerful,” she said. Her words barely picked up on the parabolic microphone.

“Sound, boost your gain,” Harris called from the van. The sound man didn’t move, concentrating on the scene before him. “The figure is still in the doorway. The camera is clearly picking it up. It’s a human form, large and framed exactly in the middle of the open door.”

“Angry.” Jenny turned and looked at Gabriel. “He blames you. He wants you out.”

“He? Who are you talking about, Bobby Lee?” Kennedy asked.

“Hell man, I’m not sticking around to be introduced to this cat, he’s like—like, not of this world.” Jenny started to back away but stopped. She once more grabbed hold of the banister and then actually took a step up the red carpeted stairs.

“I’m not letting her go up there alone.” John Lonetree stepped past Kennedy and made his way to the staircase. He took Jenny’s hand, and she stopped and turned.

“Man, you’re startin’ to freak me out a little here. I don’t swing that way,” she said in her husky voice.

“Yeah, but Jennifer does,” John said, still not releasing her hand.

A look of relief came over Jenny’s features and then she nodded her head.

“Yeah, man, I hear ya. If anyone needs someone, it’s this chick, let me tell ya. But right now, if you don’t mind, it’s still creepy.” Jenny pulled her hand free of John’s and took another step up. “Man, this place feels like a prison, and up there’s the warden.”

“Stop,” John said. “Not alone. Don’t go up alone.”

“Follow if you want,” Bobby Lee said, and just as the words escaped Jenny’s lips, she collapsed.

Small, firefly-like orbs appeared, dancing in the air where Jenny had just been standing. John took a step toward the stairs and the sparkling objects moved upward. Looking apprehensively at the strange phenomenon, Lonetree pulled Jenny off the step and onto the carpeted runner at the base of the stairs.

Gabriel joined him but kept his eyes on the strange sight, taking the stairs very slowly. The entity would stop and seem to hesitate, but then keep moving upward.

“What happened?” Jennifer said when she came to.

“We don’t know. You collapsed, right after you said,” John looked up at Gabriel, and then back at her, “or Bobby Lee said, ‘up there’s the warden of this prison.’”

Jenny suddenly stood and looked up the stairs. The strange twinkling reached the second floor landing and continued to the right, toward the hallway.

“Bobby Lee, it’s bad. Don’t go up there,” she called out.

The camera and soundman were slow to react to Jenny, still trained on the entity that was Bobby Lee as it disappeared into the hallway above. Soon the camera had Jennifer framed and the soundman was recording and sending out her scared voice to the nation. On live television the screen was split in two, showing both Jenny and the orbs as they moved to the opposite stairway.

The roar of thunder shook the house and the lights dimmed once more.

“Okay, everyone has to leave with the exception of the first team. Kelly, take Peterson and Lindemann out of here. Detective, you and Jason Sanborn had better beat a retreat on this one also,” Gabriel said as he left John and Jenny’s side, “John, you’ll do your Dream Walk in the ballroom with Jenny, Leonard and George, with the doors locked.”

 
“And your plan is?” Damian Jackson asked, still looking up the staircase at the spot where the strange gleaming orbs had vanished.

“I’m going to do what I came here to do, Detective Jackson—I’m going ghost hunting.”

“I’ve been waiting for you to say that, Professor,” Julie Reilly said.

Detective Jackson watched as Gabriel went toward the ballroom followed by John, Jenny, and the camera team. “Exactly my thoughts,” echoed Jackson. He removed his nine millimeter automatic from his shoulder holster and made sure the safety was on.

Gabriel stopped at the doorway and looked at Jackson and then the gun.

“I don’t think that will do much good with what we’re up against, Detective.”

Jackson smiled, and then brushed past Kennedy and entered the ballroom.

“For what I’m hunting, it will.”

twenty-one

John stretched out on the largest of the four sofas. Jenny tried one last time to talk him out of doing the Dream Walk, but he only smiled and placed his giant hand on her cheek.

“This is what I do,” he said, and then lay back against the hand-stitched throw pillow.

Gabriel entered the room while looking back one last time at Kelly Delaphoy, Jason Sanborn, Lionel Peterson, and Wallace Lindemann, who were standing just outside of the two large ballroom doors. Only Lindemann and Peterson looked anxious to be on their way. Kelly Delaphoy stepped forward.

“I think one of the producers should be on hand for whatever happens.”

“Forget it Kelly, get these people out of here,” Kennedy said. He nodded at Leonard, who moved to close the double doors. An ominous streak of lightning flashed through the French doors and lit up the shadowed room brightly.

Kennedy reached into his coat pocket and brought out the small bottle of pills that Jenny had returned to him. Just four of them would be enough to send John into a coma; five would stop his heart. He took a deep breath and shook out two of the sleeping pills. George Cordero came over with a glass of water from the bar. Gabriel smiled as he looked down at his oldest friend. He held out his hand and dropped the two small pills into John’s own.

“Is this enough?”

Kennedy nodded his head. “Jenny, do you feel anything from upstairs?” he asked to break the tension. Kennedy could feel the camera on him and knew the microphone picked up his question.

Jenny shook her head.

“I do,” George said as he looked away from Lonetree. “Bobby Lee is terrified. I think he’s moving closer to the third floor, but I can’t be sure. For a ghost, he seems to have a fear of something worse than the death he faced when he was alive. I’m not sure, but I think Bobby Lee’s backed off and is hiding…yes, he’s stopped.” George opened his eyes. “That’s all I’m getting.” The camera zoomed in on his dark countenance. A rumble of thunder accented his foreboding words.

John squeezed Jenny’s hand and popped the two pills into his mouth.

“I haven’t had this much anticipation about pills since an acid trip in college,” he whispered so only Jennifer could hear. She didn’t smile. John drank from the glass that George had given him, and then handed it to Kennedy.

“Good luck, buddy.”

“Listen, maybe you should hold off on this third floor trip until I find out what we’re dealing with.”

“Before my last visit, there had never been one documented case where an entity hurt a human being.”

“Just my thought exactly,” Jackson said. “I believe your earlier excursion into this house a few years ago was also a human on human encounter.”

Just at that moment, the lights in the ballroom went dark. The cameraman switched back to his ambient light settings and everyone in the ballroom moved silently toward the couch. Thunder rumbled the floorboards under their feet.

“I don’t think whatever’s up there is going to give you the time, John. But with us up on three, we may be able occupy it long enough for you to get some answers.”

“People, we have activity up on the third floor,” Harris Dalton said from the production van. “The lights in the hallway are acting like strobes, playing hell with the camera view. We also have what sounds like mumbling coming from the recorders, both on three and in the subbasement.”

“Time to go,” Gabriel said. He pressed his hand to his ear so he could hear Harris better. “Dalton, did Kelly get the people outside?”

“What?”

“Did Kelly get—”

“I heard what you said; our outside cameras have not shown anyone leaving the house.”

“Damn it.” Kennedy straightened from John’s side and looked at Jenny, and then to Leonard. “Watch him close.” He looked at his watch. “He’ll be out in about two minutes. Leonard, lock the big doors after we leave, and if something gets in here, don’t be a hero. Get everyone out, any way you can.”

“Don’t worry about that. I’m thinking about splitting as soon as you’re out that door, Doc. If that thing up there wants in, it’ll get in.”

“He’s right,” George said. “Its power is building. It’s getting stronger.”

Gabriel looked at the dark faces around him. He switched on his penlight and studied each member of his team in turn.

“Let’s go.”

Kennedy, Julie, Jackson
and Cordero left the ballroom preceded by the camera and the soundman. The large living area was dark, with only the brief flash of lightning illuminating their view of the staircase. Gabriel moved the small light around. Wallace Lindemann stepped through the swinging doors from the kitchen, his face slack and white as he hurried to the front door. The camera man sped to the front doors and zoomed the ambient light lens onto Wallace as he tried the doorknobs.