David Golemon - The Supernaturals

The tractor pulled up and the driver shut the loud diesel engine off then blithely hopped from the large machine while wiping his hands on an old red rag.

“Property’s shut down for the season,” the young man said as he stepped up to the thick wooden gate. “Hell, we’re shut down every season.” The boy brushed a lock of long, oily blond hair from his face.

Kelly rolled her window down and stuck her head out through the opening. “Are you one of the Johansson boys?” she asked.

The teenager stopped wiping his hands on the filthy rag. He appraised Kelly as if she had been a delivery and it was up to him to inspect the shipment. Greg got out and walked around the front of the van to get between Kelly and the kid who acted as though he was lord of the estate.

“Yeah, Jim Johansson. Now, who are you?” He seemed to take offense at Greg’s attempt to block his view.

“We’re supposed to meet the owner here at noon,” Greg answered before Kelly could.

The boy tilted his head to the side and smiled at Kelly from around her guardian. Facing Greg, still smiling, he spat on the ground.

“Mom and Dad never said nothin’ to me, and they would have, seeing our family’s been caretakin’ here for the past sixty-two years.”

“Well, regardless of that fact, we—”

“Jimmy, what in the Sam Hell you doin’?”

The voice that cut Greg off came from the shed on the other side of the guard shack. As they watched, the boy looked down at his shoes and then tossed the rag from hand to hand.

“Don’t you have to finish mowing? I have to winterize that damn tractor early tomorrow morning, now get to it.”

The voice belonged to an older man who stepped onto the drive from behind one of the hedges. She had the strangest feeling he had been watching them from his hidden shed the whole time they had been sitting there.

The man stood about six feet, five inches and was heavy around the middle. His denim work shirt was clean but wrinkled and his green John Deere hat was crooked at a jaunty angle on his head. A toothpick was stuck in his mouth.

“Sorry, we didn’t tell the boy that there would be comp’ny today,” the man said. The tractor engine fired up and his son drove off with one last look back at Kelly. “Wife’s up to the house with your lunch on the table. Mr. Lindemann hasn’t shown yet.” He looked around Greg toward the van. “I thought there were supposed to be more of you.”

“Yes, we have a large broadcast van and tech-crew truck coming in about an hour; could you let them in when they arrive?”

“Well, Miss, I guess I will, since that’s the job they pay me to do.”

As Greg climbed back into the van, Kelly watched as the middle aged man unlocked the thick chain holding the two halves of the wooden gate securely. His eyes never traveled over to the strangers as he pulled the chain through. It was as if he had no interest in them whatsoever. As he pulled open the left side of the double gate, which was plenty wide enough for them to get the van through, he tipped his hat as Greg pulled in.

“Thank you,” Kelly said as they passed, but the large man said nothing.

“Friendly folk out here in the wilds of Pennsylvania, I must say,” Sanborn quipped. Turning, he watched the man through the rear glass as he closed the gate behind them. Johansson looked their way, and a smile — or maybe more of a smirk — crossed the caretaker’s face as he shook his head. “Yeah…friendly folk…” Jason mumbled again, his words trailing off to nothing.

“You said the original Mr. Lindemann hunted this valley before he built Summer Place?”

“Yes, this used to be a hunting camp in the early 1880s.”

“I can just imagine this place back then. The deer had to be everywhere,” Paul ventured from the back.

Kelly, in the front seat, took the opportunity to examine Summer Place as they approached on the circular drive. As she took it all in, she felt in turn as if it were examining her. She jotted the thought down in her notebook for use in the script.

“It was an evil house from the beginning; a house that was born bad.”

“What — what was that?” Jason asked.

“Oh, just a quote from Shirley Jackson’s book,” Kelly answered, half-turning to smile at Sanborn.

The long circular drive led to massive front steps, covered by a roof that sent a high gable climbing toward the sky. A large old-fashioned wood carved chandelier hung low as the van drove under the portico and parked.

“I don’t see any valet,” Greg said, making the others chuckle in the backseat.

Kelly tossed her notebook into her bag, then grabbed her briefcase and stepped out of the van. The large veranda was laden with chaise lounges, and actual swinging bench seats hung from the thick-timbered rafters of the wraparound porch overhang.

“I have to admit, this place is something. I could see why the rich and famous would come here to get away from the grind of counting money,” Paul sniped as he stood and stretched. He turned and looked up the large stone staircase leading to the massive double doors and suddenly went rigid. A woman was standing at the top of the stone stairs, staring down at them.

Kelly had to smile. “Some ghost hunter you are.” Quickly, and with her best smile, she turned and bounded up the stone steps two at a time. “You must be Mrs. Johansson?”

“Yes, name’s Eunice. I was told you were fourteen?”

“We’re it for now. The other two vans will be along shortly.”

“Mr. Lindemann hasn’t arrived yet. I have instructions for you to start your lunch without him.”

“Thank you,” Kelly said as the tall woman started to turn away. She was dressed in regular denim jeans with a bright red blouse, and Kelly thought she looked nothing like a housekeeper of a mansion was supposed to look. She smiled, knowing that she had read too many haunted house books in her childhood. She had been expecting an old woman in a black dress who would issue dire warnings about the dark. “Uh, would you mind if I ask you just a question or two?”

The woman turned but kept walking. She was pretty, in a rough farmwoman kind of way. Kelly was having a hard time placing this attractive woman with the burly man at the front gate. She had to be his daughter, or his niece.

“Not at all, ask away,” she said. Her hand paused above the large door handle on the left.

The three men joined them at the front doors. Greg raised a brow as he took in Eunice Johansson and nodded his approval.

“I know you two,” she said looking at the show’s two hosts. “We watch your show religiously, right after Wife Swap .” She smiled, looking from Greg to Paul as if sizing them up, or as Greg was probably thinking, down . “That show’s a little spicier than yours, but you have your moments, too.” She placed her hands on her hips and looked closer at Greg. “I thought you would have been taller.”

“Camera angles,” Paul said, smiling.

“Do you and your family live on the property?” Kelly asked, getting the woman back on track.

“Yes, we live five miles down the road, in a house that was built especially for our family by the Lindemann’s.”

“So you’ve been in their employ for—”

“My family, along with my husband’s folk, have been in this valley since revolutionary times. However, we’ve only worked for the Lindemann’s since just before the war — World War Two, that is. My grandmother worked here when the house was first built, helping out with Mrs. Lindemann’s summer functions and all. That’s my husband, Charles, who let you in. You’ll also run into my four daughters and three boys around here. It takes all of us to cover the grounds and house full time during the summer months. The girls take turns going to school in the fall and winter.”