The Supernaturals (68 page)

Kelly froze. The pressure on her hand was becoming unbearable. A whimper escaped her lips.

Jason finally made the bottom step and froze. Kelly was standing in front of him with her arm trailing behind her, and holding her hand out.

The black entity was just behind Kelly, and part of that darkness was connected to Kelly’s outstretched hand. The obsidian blackness was enormous, far darker than its surroundings. The illumination of his small penlight penetrated through the towering darkness. Jason saw Kelly slowly turn around and open her eyes wide.

The hand she was holding was not Jason’s.

The small penlight and the power to the camera went out just as Jason and Kelly both screamed.

Gabriel stopped at
the top of the third floor staircase. He looked around and made sure the laser designators were working. George Cordero moved up the stairs and stood by Kennedy.

“Gabe, do you feel it?” George said just as Harris Dalton started his countdown for coverage to begin again. “It’s warmer now. I’m not getting the black feeling like I was a few minutes ago.”

Kennedy did feel it. As he looked at the others he saw that there were no more shivers due to the cold.

“Are you saying that the entity has left this floor, Mr. Cordero?” Julie asked for the benefit of the live audience.

“No, I’m just saying something’s different.”

Gabriel thought for the briefest moment. In his earpiece, he heard the order to go to Camera Five, the static camera in the basement. He stepped onto the third floor and looked down the laser-lined hallway. The sewing room door was standing wide open. He could see the blackness beyond, as if it was a gateway that soaked up the possible, leaving only the impossible behind. He continued down the hallway.

As the others followed, they each heard the static in their earpieces—soft at first, but growing louder and stronger as they moved toward the sewing room and the master suite next to it. Julie tapped her earpiece.

“As we move down the hallway, our electronic equipment is starting to malfunction,” she explained to the audience, just hoping her words were going out to the van clearly.

“How surprising,” Lionel Peterson mumbled at the back of the group.

Damian Jackson looked at Peterson with the laser grid spread out over his features. He could see in the multicolored light that the entertainment president was getting drunk.

Suddenly the static became unbearably loud. Each of them grabbed at their ears, pulling the cords and letting them dangle. As a result, they missed the few discernable words from the production van—Harris Dalton screaming Kelly’s name.

“We have just lost communication with our production facilities outside,” Julie said. She shook her head, trying to clear the ringing in her ears.

An alarm sounded from the staircase. Gabriel ran back to the landing and looked down onto the first floor. In the blackness, he saw the first of Leonard’s motion sensors go off. The lights tracked something up the stairs a few step and then stopped. Again the lights on the banister registered movement as whatever it was moved five more steps up. Whatever it was, it was stopping to peer upward at the group gathering at the landing. It would take a few steps upward, then stop, look, and then continue.

“What are you feeling?” Gabriel asked George as the cameraman moved forward and switched to infrared. The soundman pushed his boom microphone out over the banister.

“I’m picking up footsteps,” he said quietly to the others. “Heavy freaking footsteps.”

“This is the thing that lives here, and it’s pissed, that’s what I’m feeling. This thing wasn’t human, it couldn’t be. It has grown in strength. It isn’t even close to what we were experiencing before,” George answered. His breath was starting to fog once more.

As Damian Jackson watched the red lights illuminate, following the movement up to the second floor landing, he swallowed. He had to give Kennedy and his team credit—if it was an intentional trick through electronic means, it was a good one. He could see the ply on the stair runners actually being depressed in the beam of the professor’s flashlight.

Lionel Peterson watched the blinking lights as they progressed up the stairs. Then he capped the flask and tossed it away.

In the freezing
ballroom, John Lonetree was sweating as his head tossed from side to side on the pillow. With shaking hands, Jennifer wiped the cold sweat from John’s brow, wanting to say calming things to him but knowing that her voice could wake him from his Walk—something he had warned her not to do. She wasn’t even supposed to be touching him. Leonard reached out and pulled Jenny’s hand away, shaking his head.

They both turned at a noise in the ballroom. Wallace Lindemann, using only his free hand because a sloshing drink was in the other, was tossing wood into the massively large fireplace. Leonard rushed to him and pulled a piece of wood out of his hand, shoving him away from the fireplace.

“Get your ass back over to the bar and stay there. In case you haven’t noticed, asshole, we have a situation going on here.”

Lindemann shot Leonard a dirty look. “Keep your hands off me you nig—” he started, but saw the look on the small man’s face.

“Go ahead. Say it, rich man, and see what happens.”

Lindemann turned and weaved his way back to the bar.

“You better lay off that shit. You just may need your senses about you later,” Leonard said. John took a deep breath and tensed up on the couch, scaring Jenny so badly she nearly fell backward.

It was hot
, summer possibly. John tried to get his bearings. At first, it seemed he was in a small room that had no windows. Then, very slowly, light started to filter into the world he had stepped into. There was noise, a lot of it, resolving into the sound of machines—possibly hundreds. He tilted his head as his vision cleared. There were windows, possibly a thousand of them. Some were open, some closed. The ones that were open were not producing enough of a draft to even begin to cool the large room.

John took a tentative step forward into the room and saw row upon row of small tables. On the tables were sewing machines, and above them were thousands of strung threads—threads of all colors and thickness. Working the machines were women dressed in very old clothing and Lonetree knew immediately where he was. He saw the room’s foreman moving around the women, who tensed when he walked past, allowing only their eyes to glance at the large man as he passed behind them. Lonetree felt the women’s dread and knew the shop foreman was a scoundrel of the first order. They were all afraid of him. It was only during the summer months in the city that they were afraid, because the rest of the time the Lindemann family stayed close to the factory. The man always was a model citizen when the Lindemanns weren’t away at their retreat; Summer Place.

John heard a commotion in the back of the large room. A woman screamed, and the noise from the sewing machines dwindled to almost nothing. A young woman had collapsed at her machine and was being picked up by two of the women closest to her. John could see the poor thing was dripping with sweat and was very much pregnant. The shop foreman was soon standing over the girl, who looked embarrassed and was white as a sheet. The kerchief she had on her head to cover her hair was soaked through with sweat. John took a few steps forward between the rows of machines, where the women watched the scene before them. He felt their tenseness.

“I was afraid of this. I warned Mr. Lindemann about keeping you on. Your work has slipped and now you’re costing me time and money.” The man with the thick moustache turned to the hundred women in the room. “Get back to work you lazy swags,” he shouted in a deep Irish brogue.

“The Lindemanns kept her on because she’s pregnant and without a man,” said one of the women who was helping the young girl. Her Irish was as deep as the foreman’s.

“Well, the Lindemanns ain’t here, are they, swag?” the foreman said with his hands on his hips.

John felt anger rising up in him, but knew he was helpless to do anything.

“Tis all right, Molly, I just got a little dizzy is all,” the girl said.

“Yeah, well you’ll not be causing a shut down with your dramatics again, you lazy slug.”

“You can’t fire her. What will she do?” the older woman supporting the girl asked.

“Your only concern is how long I’m going to stand here and not fire you, Miss Big Mouth.”

“The last I heard I was running this company, Mr. Coughlin.”

The women and the foreman turned to see a smallish man in a very expensive suit standing at the door. He also had a moustache and long sideburns. He removed a very expensive hat and looked on toward the back of the room. His German accent was there, but after years of trying the man had fought to limit the sound and tone of his German and English; he found here in America it was far better to speak as one of them.

“Why, Mr. Lindemann, I thought you were vacationing in Pennsylvania, sir,” the foreman said.

“I can very much see your belief in your actions.”

F.E. Lindemann tossed his expensive hat on one of the work tables and stepped forward. He reached the young woman in ten very quick steps. He took her arm and looked her over.

“She fainted and was causing the others to stop work, I was just—”

Another stern look shut the Irishman’s mouth.

John wanted to laugh at the worried look on the foreman’s face. He wanted to slap old F. E. Lindemann on the back—he obviously hated bullies.

“My dear, you are obviously too far along to be working in this heat,” Lindemann said as he helped the girl forward. He paused for a moment, letting her to get her bearings.

“Yes, sir, but I need the money, at least for the next two weeks; I’ll be traveling to Baltimore to stay with my aunt. That’s where my baby will be born.”

Lindemann reached into his pocket and pull out a roll of bills.

“Now you ladies, staring at me is not conducive to making me any money, so I suggest you return to your sewing.”

Most of the women smiled at the polite little man. They didn’t understand the word conducive, but did as he asked.

“Take this. It’s more than a month’s salary for you, and more than enough to get you to Baltimore by train to have your child.”

“Mr. Lindemann, I couldn’t, I would—”

“You can and you will, young lady.” Lindemann placed the rolled bills into the girl’s hand. “Now, you listen. As I am more than likely to sever Mr. Coughlin’s services, I suggest you take that train to Baltimore this very day.” Lindemann looked back at the large Irishman, who was still standing arrogantly with his hands on his hips watching the exchange. “I trust him not to pay you a visit for causing him to be exposed.”

The young girl looked back at the foreman and nodded her head. She understood the threat.

“Good. I’ll see you to your room, and then to the train.” He pulled out a gold pocket watch and examined it. “If I don’t return to Summer Place by tomorrow evening, Mrs. Lindemann will eat me for dinner.”

John watched Lindemann pull the girl away. He saw the smirk on the shop foreman’s face. John wondered when Lindemann was going to fire the man, but allowed his mind to ease when he felt the girl’s tension fade. Lindemann helped her toward the door, and toward a new life in Baltimore.

John felt the dream starting to fade, but was startled by the look in the foreman’s eyes. It was not one of embarrassment at being caught being an overbearing and cruel man—it was one of a job satisfyingly done. John realized he had been watching an act of some sort on the foreman’s part.

The light and the heat faded as the girl and Lindemann walked toward him. John tried to step out of the way, but the strangest thing happened. The girl acted as though she saw him. Her blue eyes looked right into John’s. She smiled and maneuvered at least three steps over to her left, pulling the smaller Lindemann with her, and then she passed right through him. John felt a jolt of electricity, something he had never felt before in any dream walk. He felt the girl pass through him. He felt the growing child inside of her, he felt the sweat on her face and brow. Then she was through, and he wanted to collapse. As she reached the door, she turned her head and looked in John’s direction once more; as if she were apologizing to someone she couldn’t possibly see. John raised his hand and wanted to say something, but the dream faded and then he was gone into the dark void that was his dreamscape.

The pain made
him sit straight up on the couch, but in his dream he was sitting on a large hardwood floor. He turned his head as the sharp pain came once more, his body shaking as though the pain were so bad he couldn’t bear it any longer.

He heard the cry of a baby, then another ripping pain. Then a cloth was placed over his mouth and nose and pressed down firmly. He managed to raise his head slightly in the brightly illuminated room. He saw an old wood burning stove and, most shockingly, he saw his own blood-covered legs and ripped open belly. He knew for a fact that he wasn’t looking at his own body. It was the body of a young woman, kicking out from the excruciating pain. He tried to focus on the faces above him, but the girl’s body wouldn’t cooperate. He knew somehow that they had tried to put the girl out with chloroform but it hadn’t taken.