David Golemon - The Supernaturals

“That door is locked for a reason, Ms. Delaphoy.”

Kelly jumped and Jason let out a girlish yelp, spilling his water on his blue shirt.

Standing five feet away, making Greg and Paul wonder how he had approached without any of them aware of his presence, stood Wallace Lindemann. He wore a black suit with a scarlet tie over a silken white shirt. His blond hair was combed straight back and cruelly parted on the right side. He stood only five-foot-six, but commanded a presence of a man much larger. He looked directly into Kelly’s eyes. One hand was in his coat pocket and the other twirled a set of keys.

“You scared us. We were just—”

“Snooping on your own?” he asked, though he clearly had no expectation that they might answer truthfully. He stepped forward with the large set of keys and unlocked the large doors of the master suite. “As I said, this room is locked for good reason.” He swung both doors open and gestured inside. “There are many valuable pieces of furniture and paintings in this room, of which my family is very fond.”

As Kelly and the others stepped inside, they could see the truth of his words. Kelly saw several paintings, one of them an original Rembrandt. The furniture was antique, with names had never heard of, but just by looking at the rich polished wood she knew them to be old-world and expensive. The large twin beds were spaced ten feet apart and the Persian rugs were worth more than the combined salaries of Kelly and her crew.

“We didn’t mean to—”

“Yes, you did. You come with a reputation, Ms. Delaphoy, and even before you signed the papers for the rental of Summer Place, I had you checked out. You’re used to following your own rules. But here, I call the shots and make all the rules.”

“Well, I just—”

“Just follow the parameters of our agreement and this little transaction should go off without a hitch.” He waited for them to vacate his great-great-uncle and aunt’s room, and then locked the doors again. “The only reason I am allowing you in Summer Place is that I can’t get rid of this property, thanks to the reputation it garnered after I rented it to Professor Kennedy and his students. Therefore, I may as well try to make the best of a bad situation and get what I can out of this place. Who knows? When you find nothing here, maybe I will be able to clear up some of the misconceptions surrounding this property and get it sold.”

“It really is a beautiful house, Mr. Lindemann, really not at all what we expected,” Greg said. Kelly appreciated the way he tried to ease the tension.

“It is splendid,” agreed Paul. “I can’t wait to set up and run the transmission test.”

“Your technical crew is here. I directed them to the main foyer.” He faced Kelly once again. “We do understand each other? There will be no damage inflicted upon the house; the insurance you bought will not adequately cover anything here for its real value. Whatever fallacies you intend to lay on the American public are your concern, but I stress again: no damage .”

“No damage to the house. Will you be staying for the test feed?” Kelly asked with her best and most condescending smile.

“If I may. Maybe from your control van, if that’s all right?”

“Yes, of course,” Kelly answered.

“And you should be safe here, Ms. Delaphoy, as I’m afraid everything that you’ve heard about Summer Place is a blatant lie. The house has been, and always will be, a wonderful place to stay. Now, since you have decided to forgo your lunch, maybe I should let you get to work.”

“How many times have you personally stayed at Summer Place, Mr. Lindemann?” Kelly asked, watching his face.

Wallace twirled the set of keys once, and then a second time.

“I’ve never spent one night in the house,” he said finally. “I’m more what you would call a city boy.”

Kelly started to ask why, but Lindemann had already turned away. After a few feet, he slowed and turned back.

“As I said to you in New York, you have the complete run of the place, except for those locked rooms where family keepsakes are stored.”

“Wait. You mean we’re denied total access to the house? We never agreed to that,” Paul said. He turned to Greg for support.

“That’s right, we—”

“This is not your normal house, gentlemen. Summer Place is my house, and certain private areas will not be exposed to the public.” He looked at his wristwatch. “The day grows short. If you have any questions, I’ll be in the bar until dark.”

The four watched Wallace Lindemann walk down the expansive hallway and then turn at the staircase. Before they could look back at each other, a man with long hair and a beard bounded up the steps, nodded at Lindemann, and then smiled when he saw Kelly, Paul, Greg and Jason.

“What a great place, huh?” Kyle asked as he bounced to a stop.

Kyle Pritchard was one of the best gagmen in the industry. He would be laying some of the sound effects for the EVP segments on the live broadcast. He would also lay hidden speakers for the Electronic Voice Phenomenon wherever he could, for some of the more blatant scares they had in store for their unsuspecting investigative team and the viewing public.

With the exception of the technicians in the control van and the electricians, the test group was now complete. The only staffers at Summer Place who knew that the house wasn’t actually haunted — or at least, who doubted that it was — were the five conspirators now gathered on the second floor.

“Hey, Kyle,” Greg said.

“Kelly, you or Jason better get downstairs and get the broadcast crew out of the house as soon as they’ve eaten. They’re making the owner a little nervous.”

“I’ll go,” Jason said. “Kelly, you take the guys on a set-up run for camera, audio and still photog placements. I’ll get the tech boys situated outside in the production van. The electricians will need someone to guide them through their setup. Besides, I’m starving.”

Greg had already produced a roll of white medical tape, placing a small ‘X’ on the fourth door down from the master suite. “We’ll have to use a stand for the camera, but I think this is a good angle.”

“Professor Kennedy said in his testimony that the elemental — or, stronger force — manifested on the third floor. I want cameras covering every angle. If we need to adjust, we can do it after the test. This is the time to make sure our placements for cameras, digital recorders and electromagnetic monitors are where we want them for the show.”

Greg and Paul were used to Kelly’s habit of micromanaging every aspect of setup, but that didn’t make listening to her orders any easier.

“Kyle, where do you think we can best disguise the speakers?” She took the longhaired man by the arm and led him toward the staircase opposite them.

Greg and Paul watched them leave and both wondered what bullshit they were going to try to get away with. If it was too obvious to the rest of their unenlightened team, they would be in danger of having to answer some very embarrassing questions from New York.

“Hey, remember, the rest of our team isn’t as dumb as you may think. Don’t make this too blatant,” Paul called out to Kelly.

Kelly stopped and turned. Her smile was genuine, but that didn’t make it any less creepy.

“What will sell the gag is your reaction. Genuine is the key. If you buy it, your team and thirty million viewers will also. You’re trusted, so get used to it.”

As she turned her back with Kyle in tow, Greg shot her the bird.

Kyle and Kelly had been on the third floor for the past twenty minutes discussing possible placement positions for the audio test. As the sun lowered behind the mountains in the west and the light drained from each of the four windows in the corners of the hallways, it was the absence of sunlight that made the house first begin to feel less than welcoming. The antique lighting, manufactured to look like old gaslights from the 1890s, were not very efficient at dispelling the long shadows of the potted plants and small stunted trees on the floor, lining the papered walls.