Midnight.
The screams started suddenly, as if the old house had been waiting for the appointed hour before unleashing itself upon those within. But once the first terrified cry cracked the silence, the sounds that followed shattered it completely. Gunshots... loud and thunderous... drowned out the unintelligible screams of panic and fear.
Then the rumbling began. It was a low, malicious sound that almost wasn't a sound at all. It was a feeling... a vibration that emanated from the ground. It quickly permeated everything... the air, the walls... growing louder and deeper... daring the world not to tremble in fear of it. Even the shrubs in the Garden rustled in resonance with it, their sharp leaves making sinister, serpentine hisses as the sound grew and grew and grew... finally erupting into an inhuman roar.
"My GOD, Jameson! What have you DONE!?" came a shout from the house.
The gunshots paused... and then resumed with a vengeance. They came faster and louder... Their resounding echoes wrestled with the roaring bellow of the thing, each seeking to claim dominance over the other within the old house.
Suddenly, the front door flew open, allowing light and sound and horror to spill out into the night. A lone figure streaked across the tiny courtyard and dove into the car waiting on the other side. The engine spat... coughed... then revved to live. An instant later, the car's wheels threw up clods of dirt and soil as it raced through the gate and away from the house.
Behind it, almost as if in response to the departure, the howling roar
rose to a frightening crescendo that shook the gate and cracked the asphalt
beyond... the cracks propagated down the street after the car, making a
90-degree turn and chasing the fleeing vehicle for a short distance before
finally giving up. Then the roar faded. Not slowly
or evenly, but abruptly as if stricken down at the source.
Echoes of gunshots chased it into oblivion as dark silence reclaimed the
house...
Three vehicles pulled off of the street and rolled quietly through the open gate. The line of automobiles eased down the cobblestone driveway like a funeral procession. The black Jaguar was in front... its deeply tinted windows turned both driver and passenger into amorphous dark blobs behind the glass. Behind it, the rented U-Haul truck followed at a more than respectable distance. David Wallace sat up in the passenger's seat and blinked away the last remnants of sleep. He looked around and frowned at the , unkept landscape.
"Where the hell are we?" he said.
"I think we passed through Nowhere about fifty miles back," said Anthony Moore. The short, chubby graduate student was simultaneously fiddling with the radio and trying not to run into the back of the Jaguar in front of them. The ancient radio made a few low garbled sounds, and then spat out a mangled ribbon of black tape. "This thing just ate your tape, dude."
"What!? Aw, FUCK! I just bought that!"
Anthony shrugged.
"The university owes me another goddamn tape, that's for DAMN sure!"
"I was tired of listening to it anyway," said Anthony.
"Fuck you."
"Speaking of which..." Anthony peered over the top of the Jaguar and saw the two other cars that were waiting for them in the courtyard. One was a gray Mazda, and the other brand new a station wagon bearing the symbol and colors of Chattahoochie State University. The driver was a young blonde female. She was standing at the back, leaning into the rear of the car to rummage through the boxes she'd brought with her. As she leaned forward her short skirt rose up her long, shapely thighs.
"The abominable snow-bitch," said David. "Can she be any more obvious?"
"Oh, I think so. See..."
The woman reached further into the car. Her skirt responded by sliding up even more... until it was about an inch shy of her crotch.
"Panties or no panties," Anthony mused. "What do ya think?"
"Who gives a fuck?"
"Oh, I'd love to..."
"You're about two-hundred thousand a year short."
"Oh, is that all? I thought she went for a lot more than that."
As the Jaguar entered the courtyard, the woman pulled herself out of the station wagon and turned around. She waved with one hand while adjusting her skirt with the other. Her conservative white blouse was almost transparent in the afternoon sun. The lace of her mostly-nonexistant bra was plainly visible. The Jaguar followed the edge of the courtyard and rolled to a stop. The truck pulled up next to the station wagon, and the final car... a Honda Civic with a plastic CSU frame around the soot-covered license plate, stopped just behind the Jaguar.
The Civic's door opened and a short, brown-haired man in his late thirties stepped out, carrying a tattered briefcase in one hand. He smiled the blonde woman for a moment before noticing the other car. His smile widened as he approached the Mazda.
"Good ole' doc Hixon," said Anthony. He unhooked his seat belt "Still slummin' after all these years."
The comment brought a chuckle from David.
"That must be the psychic," Anthony continued. "Female. I wonder if she's a babe. Let's see-"
One side of the Mazda sank almost to the ground as the huge woman in the driver's seat shifted her weight. She opened the door and literally struggled to get her enormous bulk out of the tiny vehicle. The woman was just short of 400 pounds, most of it concentrated around her midsection. Her stomach and breasts were one continuous bulge hidden under a ghastly yellow blouse.
"Eeeee!" Anthony winced. "Daaaaaamn."
"There ya go, Anthony. She's all yours. Think you can handle all that?"
"Daaaaaammmmnnnnn...."
"...looks like two gorillas fighting in a yellow trashbag."
"....daammmmnnnn. Look at that car... it's still rocking."
The Mazda was indeed still lurching from side to side... aftershocks from the woman's exit. Dr. Hixon approached the woman and extended his hand in welcome.
"Careful, doc," said David. "... get too close and she'll pull you right on in-"
Dr. Hixon's hand clasped the woman's pudgy palm, and Anthony made a wet slurping sound-
"thpthpthpthp! ...help meeee..." he said in a high-pitched voice. "...I'm trapped in her cleavage... hellp meeee..."
"Jesus, you're immature," said David.
"What?!? MEE!?! Oh come on! Like the 'gorillas in the trashbag' remark was the height of maturity!"
"Uh-oh. Here comes Jeffries," David pointed to the Jaguar. The door had opened, and a tall, grey-haired man was getting out. "Guess we'd better get the show on the road. Ready?"
"Let's do it."
David and Anthony flung the truck's doors open and hopped out. The both made the same dramatic pause, then walked to the rear door with the same exaggerated swagger. The blonde in the short skirt glanced at them with disdain.
"Helloooo, Lindsay," Anthony said. He'd lowered his voice a few octaves and winked at her.
"Good afternoon," she said reluctantly, then she looked away. Dr. Hixon and the woman in the yellow blouse were walking toward them.
"Uh-oh!" Anthony mouthed. He held onto the van's door-latch and pretended to strain... as if he were being pulled toward the fat woman by an invisible force. "too much gravity...losing...grip... must...hold...on..."
"Stop it," Lindsay mumbled.
"Oh, I haven't even started yet, babe..." Anthony replied... instantly going back into deep-voice mode. Lindsay flashed him a foul look.
"You wish," she said.
"Yeah, how'd you know?"
"Gentlemen?" said Dr. Hixon. "And lady," he nodded at Lindsay. "This is Ms. Sarah Bishop... she'll be joining us this weekend."
"Hello," Lindsay shook the large woman's hand.
"I see we all made it safely," said Doctor Jeffries. The man was in his mid fifties, wearing a tailor-made gray sport coat with perfectly pressed slacks. His gray hair and goatee were immaculately trimmed, with not a single hair out of place.
"I was just introducing everyone," said Doctor Hixon. "Ms. Bishop, this is Dr. Grayson Jeffries, research physicist."
"Pleased to meet you," said Dr. Jeffries
"These are two of his more talented graduate students.... Anthony Mitchel-"
"Moore," Anthony corrected
"And David Randolph. They helped bring our theories to life. Without them, all we would have are equations and lofty ideas. This is Lindsay Hilliard, of the computer science department. She developed the software we use to collect and decipher the data. And of course, you know me."
"Physicists and parapsychologists working together," Ms. Bishop said with a smile. "How often does THAT happen?"
"Once in a lifetime," said Dr. Jeffries.
"So, doc... you gonna tell us what we're here for or what?"
"We're here to become famous, David. You know that."
"Yeah, but... why HERE? What's with this place? You tell us to pack for the weekend and bring all the equipment, and then we end up in the boondocks somewhere?"
"And here I was thinking that you might actually ENJOY a field test."
"Field test?" said Anthony. He glanced suspiciously at Dr. Hixon and Ms. Bishop. "But, uhhh.... anything we can do here, we can do in the lab-"
"Ohhh, no," said Dr. Hixon. "We aren't testing psychics or probing anomalies... This time, we're after the real thing."
"Real thing?"
"Welcome to October Falls," Dr. Hixon continued. "Arguably THE most haunted location in America. What better place for science and the supernatural to intersect?"
"This is a haunted house," David said. He turned to at the house behind them. It was big... and old... but it didn't look particularly frightening. "And we're here to what? Talk to ghosts?"
"We'll be doing more than talking," said Dr. Jeffries. "Once the Sampler is up and running, we will be gathering concrete, scientific proof of life after death. The afterlife will no longer be a question of faith or religion... it'll be a matter of research, hard evidence, and indisputable fact. All of which will be due to our work here these next few days. Believe me, gentlemen... and Lindsay... the six of us are about to forge our place in history."
"Six?" Ms. Bishop pointed to Dr. Jeffries' car. "Or seven?"
A teenage boy was leaning on the hood, getting handprints all over the freshly waxed paint. He looked like a younger and messier version of Dr. Jeffries.
"Don't mind me," said the boy. "I'm just the kid." He hopped up onto the hood. The metal gave a little under his weight, making a loud-
CLUNK!
-that brought a collective gasp to everyone's lips. Especially Lindsay's.
"KYLE!" Dr. Jeffries snapped.
"What?" said Kyle as he reluctantly slid off of the hood. It popped back into shape with another *clunk* "Geez... you guys are just standing around talking-"
"Kyle is my son," Dr. Jeffries said apologetically. "His mother suddenly decided she had to go to Europe on HER weekend to keep him."
"How inconsiderate!" said Lindsay.
"That's putting it mildly."
"I'm sure he won't be much trouble," said Sarah.
"And I'm sure he WILL be," said Jeffries. "He always is. Let's get all of the equipment inside, then Dr. Hixon can get everyone up to speed. Kyle, find yourself a chair, and SIT in it. You seem reasonably good at sitting on your ass, so I know you can manage that."
"Yeah, whatever," said Kyle. The boy trudged across the courtyard while David and Anthony each grabbed a heavy box from the rear of the truck. The three of them reached door at about the same time.
"Hey, kid," said David. "You wanna help us carry this stuff in?"
"No," Kyle replied. He yanked open one of the large double doors and slipped inside. He didn't bother to hold the door open for anyone else.
"Nice kid," said Anthony as he caught the door with his foot.
"Nothing that a few ass-whuppin's won't fix."
"Hey, its dark in here!" Kyle called from inside the house.
Anthony and David joined him in a dark foyer.
"Whoa," said Anthony. He paused and looked around... at nothing. The light from outside should have illuminated at least to the end of the hall... but it didn't. The air itself seemed to swallow the light before it could penetrate more than a few feet inside the ancient house. David, Anthony, and Kyle stood in a tiny island of sunlight just inside the doorway... everything beyond that was cloaked in abysmal darkness. The sound of their footsteps on the hardwood floor continued to echo unnaturally... as if they were standing on the verge of a deep, empty cave that stretched for miles in every direction. "This... is cool."
"Does this place even have electricity?" said Kyle.
"Oh, great," said Lindsay. She joined the trio in the foyer. She was carrying a computer monitor with a keyboard perched precariously on top of it. "No lights?"
"We brought a generator and a battery-rack," said Anthony. "If you're REALLY nice to me... we'll let you plug your stuff into it."
"Fuck you."
"And women say that they can't read minds..."
"We'll all be partaking of the generator," said Dr. Hixon. The beam from the doctor's flashlight sliced through the darkness like a sword. He aimed it down the hall, where it caught the edge of a large open room... and revealed the lurking, twisted shadows of what must have been furniture. "I brought plenty of candles and flashlights as well. We'll need them. Set up in the living room there. The dining room's off to the left... we'll gather there when you get everything inside."
"Yes, sir," said Anthony. Dr. Hixon placed the flashlight on top of Lindsay's keyboard and then returned to the courtyard.
"You don't have to call him sir," said David as they started down the hall. "It's just Hixon."
"Oh yeah... right."
"This thing's heavy..." Lindsay grunted. She glanced expectantly at Kyle, who walked right past her, pausing just long enough to grab the flashlight. He swept the beam along the walls as he walked. The white paint looked relatively new. And clean... unmarked by stains or cobwebs.
"You smell that?" said Anthony.
"What?" David sniffed. "What do you smell?"
"Not a damn thing. No dust... no floor-polish or air freshener... nothing. Creepy."
"Only if you're a dweeb who watches to many horror movies," said Lindsay. "Obviously somebody's been keeping this place clean."
"With what?" said Anthony. "You smell any chemicals?"
"Chemicals would strip the floor, dude." David stomped his foot on the wood floor. "Calm down, it's just a fucking house."
"Oh yeah... well tell me this: How long have we been walking down this hallway?"
Anthony and David stopped, then looked back the way they'd come. The hallway was only fifty feet long at the most, yet it seemed like they'd been walking for ten minutes.
"What the fu-"
"Calm down," said Anthony. "It's just a house."
"Trick of the light," David replied. "Hallway's longer than it seems. That's why the light is funny in here."
"Yeah... funny."
"What's the matter?" Lindsay called back after them. She'd dropped off her equipment in the living room and was coming back for a second trip. "little boys scared of the dark?"
"I got your 'little boy' right here," said David.
"So we gonna have lights or what?" Kyle Jeffries had already planted himself in a large, overstuffed chair in the living room. His random, lazy sweeps of his flashlight revealed several another chair, some tables, and a large sofa... all were either antiques or skillfully crafted fakes. "This stuff looks old," Kyle remarked.
"Actually," said Anthony, "It all looks brand new."
David and Anthony had made it the rest of the way down the hall in a 'normal' amount of time, even though neither of them was completely sure if anything strange had been going on before. They dropped their boxes on the carpet and went back outside. Dr. Jeffries and Dr. Hixon were wandering the perimeter of the courtyard; Dr. Jeffries was going on at length about things that Hixon couldn't hope but understand. Meanwhile, Ms. Bishop stood by the door and stared intensely at the front gate. There didn't appear to be anything of any interest there, but she watched it nonetheless.
"You think the outside of this place is creepy," Anthony said as he passed her. "Wait'll you see the inside."
"I already have," she replied.
"Been here before?"
"No."
"Oooookay..." Anthony grabbed the next crate from the truck and went back inside. David was right behind him, carrying a huge cardboard box filled with long coils of wire, some extension cords, and a strange metal contraption that looked like a giant copper pineapple. As he walked past Ms. Bishop's car, the bottom of the box gave way, spilling the entire contents out onto the ground.
"Fuck!" he swore. "FUCK ME!"
"Oh, my," said Sarah. "I hope you didn't break anything."
"Fuck off." David grabbed two coils of wire and looped them over his shoulder, then tucked the giant metal pineapple under one arm. "Thanks for your help carrying this shit in..." He was leaning over to grab an extension cord when-
"AR-AR-AR-AR-AR!" A tiny black dog popped up in Sarah's car window and began barking at him mercilessly. The animal must have been asleep in the back seat when David's cursing awakened it. The dog's sudden appearance and loud, shrill voice nearly caused David to drop everything again.
"GODDAMN!" he swore, leaping away from the car and then turning around. "What the- JESUS that thing scared me!"
"Really?" said Sarah. She gave David a curious look.
"My aunt used to have a little barking rat like that. Damn thing wasn't happy until it had pissed on everything in the goddamn house. Daily. Fucking mongrel... You keep that damn thing away from me."
"I take it you don't like animals."
"Fuck no." David gathered as much of the equipment as he could carry without a box and then returned to the house. He brushed passed Lindsay on her way out.
"Excuse you-"
"Outta my fuckin' way..."
"Lovely group we have here," Sarah remarked as she wandered off to join the two doctors. "I hope I'm not interrupting anything," she said as she came up on them.
"Rescuing would be more like it," Hixon chuckled. "Jeffries was explaining some modifications he's made to the Sampler.... but physics never was my strong point."
"Perhaps it should have been," said Dr. Jeffries. "Greater challenges reap greater rewards, yes?"
"Parapsychology is rewarding enough for me, thank you."
"But when you get down to it, they're really the same thing. Searching for the same answers... just using different tools and expressing their findings in different terms. One just pays significantly more than the other."
"Yes, there is that."
"Show me the garden," Sarah blurted.
"Garden? Oh, yes! Yes, I'll give you the grand tour while the kids are unloading."
Dr. Hixon lead the two of them down a short cobblestone path that wound through a maze of waist-high shrubs. It took them to a large garden on the west side of the house. The garden was in disrepair... a sharp contrast to everything else on the property. The only thing that grew there were more bushes... an unpleasant species whose sharp green leaves bore tiny spikes on each tip. They looked lush and welcoming from a distance, but up close they became nature's tribute to the art of medieval torture. Without regular pruning, they had grown wild... taking on huge, twisted shapes on either side of the walkway. In some places they jutted out int the path, almost blocking it entirely. Getting past them required squeezing through a curtain of sharp greenery. The leaves pricked their skin, even through their clothes; The stiff spines jabbed them like dozens of hypodermic needles. They were especially difficult for Sarah, who's wide girth brought her into contact with more of their tiny barbs. The painful shrubs tore holes in her clothes and tangled themselves in her long hair. But the psychic plowed through them complaint... almost as if she hadn't even noticed.
"Where ever did you find this place, doctor?" said Dr. Jeffries. He plucked a few kamikaze leaves from his coat.
"It was mentioned in a few articles-"
"You and I must read different newspapers."
"It was research, actually. I was looking for a place to test the Sampler. To REALLY test it. I went back through some old journals to find places with high psychic activity. Places where other investigations failed to find a 'scientific' explanation. There were a lot of possibles... but this place just seemed to jump out at me. I contacted the owner-"
"And they agreed to let us come and dissect their family ghosts?" said Dr. Jeffries.
"Actually... I told her we were making another sequel to the Blair Witch Project."
"The what?"
"It's a movie," Sarah explained. "I think. Isn't it? I can never keep up-"
"Well, she didn't know what it was either, but she agreed to one weekend."
"Will that be long enough?"
"Ohhh, yes," Hixon smiled giddily. "The ghosts in this place are anything BUT camera-shy. We'll get some action soon. Probably tonight... with or without the Sampler."
"And what does our psychic say?"
"Anything yet, Ms. Bishop?"
"Fear," said Sarah. "Fear. And a definite sense that we aren't wanted here."
"Not wanted by who?"
Sarah shrugged.
"Hard to say. But there's something else."
"What?"
Sarah paused on the path and looked around at the shrubs that rose like walls on both sides of them. Then she looked down at the cobblestones. She frowned... then walked forward toward one of the shrubs, her eyes still fixed on the path at her feet.
"Here-" she said. She pointed to the large bush. Its foliage was too thick to see what, if anything, lay beyond. "Through here."
"Eh?" Hixon backed away from the shrub's sharp leaves. "What's through there?"
"Something."
Without the slightest hesitation, Sarah shoved through the shrubs. The leaves lashed and sliced at her skin... but she moved on through them and was quickly swallowed by the foliage. The bushes rustled for a few more seconds, and then fell still.
"Come on-" she called from the other side. "I think this is important."
Hixon stared at the imposing wall of greenery with increasing reservation.
"Challenge and reward, Dr. Hixon," said Dr. Jeffries. "Challenge and reward." The elderly man followed Sarah's path. He hissed a few times as the barbs pierced his skin through the thick material of his sport coat. Dr. Hixon was a bit more vocal as he followed.
"Ouch... dammit.... Ouch! OUCH! WHAT THE HELL-"
-and then he was through. The three of them were standing in a long-abandoned part of the neglected garden... a hidden alcove shrouded from the path by dense walls of greenery. At one time it had been a peaceful sanctum where lovers could sit on the wrought-iron benches, run their toes through the lush grass, and watch the water trickle from the huge, decorative fountain.
But now it was something else.
The grass, once full and green, was a field of bare dirt dotted with patches of unknown black fungus. The benches were rusted hulks that had long since collapsed under their own weight, and the fountain was just a pile of dangerously sharp stones. It was impossible to tell what shape it may have been. All of the pieces were there, but they'd been scattered around the sanctum as if their former form had been struck down by either an act of God or a particularly inept application of high-explosives. The space where the fountain once sat was just a ring of large, misshapen rock. The fungus grew particularly well there... probably feeding off of whatever water source had once fed the fountain. The entire place reeked of rotting flowers... sickly and overpowering. This section of the garden looked, smelled, and felt... diseased. And the sun actually made it worse. The light brought out every rotting detail of things that seemed best kept in the dark. There were no shadows to hide the rotting carcasses of old mushrooms, or the worms that wiggled out to sun themselves... perhaps suicidally... on the rocks.
"My God," Hixon gasped. He held his clenched fist in front of his mouth as he frowned. "This place is-"
"A sore," finished Ms. Bishop. "A festering, open sore. That's what this place is... A wound."
"Hmmm." Dr. Jeffries stood in a reasonably fungus-free spot of dirt and looked around as if inspecting a new car. "Perhaps we should set the Sampler up out here-"
"No!" Sarah started. Her eyes widened, and her chubby face turned pale. "No! Not here. The house. We stay in the house... inside. No one should come out here. Not to the garden... and especially not to this place."
"We're here to find ghosts, Ms. Bishop," said Jeffries. "What better place than this?"
"We'll find all we need inside," she replied. She glanced around the alcove and shook her head. "This place is too dangerous. Too... deep. Just being here makes me want to reconsider the whole thing."
"And it makes ME want to push ahead that much harder. Hixon?"
"I don't like it," said the younger doctor. "There was no mention of this... place... in any of my reading. This is uncharted territory. I think we should stick with what's inside. Based on previous history, by the end of the weekend we'll have more data than we know what to do with."
"What happened to the others?" said Sarah. She was staring fixedly at the dark stain that was once the fountain, but she was talking to Hixon. "The other group?"
"E-excuse me?" said Hixon. "What other-"
"You said you were looking for places where there no scientific explanation. That means someone must have come to this house before. What did they find?"
"Nothing conclusive."
"But what did they FIND?"
"They took lots of pictures. Documented some furniture moving around, cold spots, apparitions, voices, that sort of thing."
"Is that all?" said Sarah.
"Well they didn't find THIS place, that's for sure."
"We should get back with the others," said Ms. Bishop. "They need to know what to expect tonight. And I need to go through that house before it gets dark."
"They should be setting up the Sampler as we speak," said Dr. Jeffries.
They all went back to the bush from which they'd emerged, but Hixon grabbed Ms. Bishop before she could go through
"This garden... is this the thing that doesn't want us here?" he asked.
Sarah glanced back at the ruined fountain.
"Yes," she replied. She shoved through the foliage and vanished again. The doctors watched the leaves rustle from her passing.
"Hixon," said Jeffries. He looked down at his colleague. "Your psychic isn't a very good liar."
"No," said Hixon. "She isn't."
---
Amid and endless stream of jokes and barbs... mostly at Lindsay and Ms. Bishop... the Sampler slowly took shape. Its donut-shaped frame shoved aside the antique furniture and, piece by strange piece, slowly took over the prime floor-space in the center of the living room.
Though the windows were open, the daylight from outside never seemed to penetrate into the heart of the room where it was needed most. Instead, the students worked by the light of electric lamps that David had strung up around the work area. A rack of industrial batteries took up most of one wall, with thick power cables running to the lights... and to Lindsay's computer. The large workstation and its user had been squeezed into a far corner by the massive Sampler.
Kyle Jeffries never budged from his chair. He watched the others with mild disinterest until he realized that he could see straight down Lindsay's shirt whenever she leaned over to fiddle with the computer's connections. From that point on, Lindsay had Kyle's full and undivided attention. The almost fully-assembled Sampler sat only a few feet away from him... and he never saw it.
"What are YOU looking at," Lindsay sneered when she felt his eyes on her.
Kyle just smiled. Three feet to the right, Anthony had an identical smile on his face.
Lindsay gave them a both a middle-finger salute and then buttoned the top button on her blouse.
"Oh well," said Anthony. "Show's over, kid. At least until your father gets back. Hey... you get an allowance? Between the two of us we might be able to scrape together enough for a table dance."
"Fuck off!" Lindsay spat.
"On. Off. Sideways. Upside down. However you want it."
"Stop drooling and plug this in-" David handed Anthony one end of a cable. Anthony jammed it into a port on the side of the Sampler's frame and locked it in place with a twist-
-click-
"That it?" he said.
"Exciter's done," said Anthony. "Assemble the Emitter... do the alignments and calibrations... and we're ready to rock!"
"So what is this thing?" said Kyle.
Anthony and David both looked at him as if he'd just asked if the moon were really made of rotten cheese.
"Dude," said Anthony. "You don't even know what your father's research is about?"
"Yeah, yeah... ghosts and stuff. But what's this thing do?"
"Not ghosts," David sighed. "Physics."
"Its an ethereal sampler... sort of like a, uhhh.... quantum transistor," Anthony explained. "It takes an input signal and uses it to modulate a standing carrier field. Now, this field has six dimensions... three in OUR frame of reference and three in ANOTHER, which happens to correlate with-" Anthony saw the glazed-over look in Kyle's eyes. "Forget it. It's like a giant radio, kid. That's all."
"Yeah, that's what I thought," said Kyle.
"He must take after his mother," Lindsay added from across the room.
"Don't talk about my mother."
"Oooo... sore spot," said Anthony. "Take a note, David."
"Gotcha. The kid is a mama's boy and will be fucked-with accordingly. Count it down, Anth-"
"Three-"
"-two-"
"-one-"
"Go!"
"Hey, Kyle, your mom has crabs so bad that she put Red Lobster out of business. Dave?"
"Kyle, your mom is so nasty I called her for phone sex and she gave me an ear infection. Anth?"
"Kyle your mom can suck-start a Harley Davidson. Dave?"
"Hey, Kyle-
"STOP IT!"
"-your mom is so nasty when she does a split, she sticks to the floor."
"Hey! I'm gonna tell my father!"
"Dude," said David. "Who to you think TOLD us all these jokes?"
"Hey, now," said Anthony, "let's get off of Kyle's mom."
"Why? there's room for all of us! Plus we got the group discount!"
"Kyle, your mom is so nasty she has to sneak up on bathwater."
"Hey, Kyle, I coulda been your father, but the guy in line behind me had the correct change-"
"CUT IT OUT!"
"Kid, you're just sitting there doing SQUAT while the rest of us are working... what do you expect? Hell, even LINDSAY is doing something productive-"
"-fuck you, Anthony. Leave the kid alone."
"Yeah, when he gets off his as and DOES something!"
"I don't know anything about this shit," said Kyle.
"You don't have to know anything. Lindsay is a prime example... you think she knows what the hell she's doing? Fuck no!"
-Middle Finger-
"Here," said David. "Put this shit together." David dropped a cluster of copper rods on Kyle's lap. "Screw three pieces together to make one rod about this long-" He held his hands four feet apart. "Should be seven rods when you're done. Don't cross-thread 'em though, they're delicate and easy to fuck up."
"Then YOU do it," said Kyle. He shoved the rods off onto the floor. "I'm outta here."
Kyle got up and stormed away, taking his flashlight with him.
"Fucking kid," David growled.
"If his dad wasn't Doc Jeffries-"
"Fuck his dad," said David. "I'm kickin' that kid's ass if he throws any more of my shit on the floor. Matter of fact, I oughta go kick his ass right now." David turned to go after Kyle.
"Yeah, but we got work to do," said Anthony. "Kick his ass later. After calibration."
"Damn right." David returned to the Sampler and started screwing the copper rods together. "Fucking kids... I hate kids..."
---
"Assholes."
Kyle found himself wandering down by the bedrooms. The hall was dark... as was everything else in the house. The eerie black stillness closed in around him, retreating from his flashlight with noticeable reluctance. There were four bedrooms on the first floor. The heavy doors were shut tight and when Kyle tried one of them, he found it securely locked. The brass doorknob was warm in his hand... as if someone had been grasping it mere seconds before he arrived. He didn't try any of the others.
The hallway ended in a bathroom and a closet, neither of which interested Kyle in the least. He turned around to go back the way he'd come-
-and stopped before he could take the first step.
All of the bedroom doors were now open.
The flashlight became very heavy in his suddenly-sweaty palm, but he grasped the light tightly, as if it were a weapon.
"...g-guys?" he said in with a timid stutter. "Guys? D-did you do that?"
The silence in the hallway was uncanny. Where were they others? At the end of the hall. He should have been able to hear them... or SEE them from here. Kyle aimed the flashlight's beam straight ahead, but where there SHOULD have been a living room with Anthony, David, and Lindsay hard at work, there was now only blackness that seemed to go on forever. It was as if the whole house consisted solely of this one hallway. As if everything else he'd seen was now miles away in some OTHER haunted house.
"Guys?" he added a twinge more volume. There wasn't even an echo. Should there have been? Was there one before? He couldn't remember. "L-Lindsay?"
Kyle took one tentative step. When nothing reached out to grab him, he took another. Then another. What would happen when he reached the end of the hall? Would the living room still be there... or would he just keep walking and walking and walking...
"Anthony? David?"
"...Kyle..."
Kyle spun around. He heard his name. He KNEW he'd heard his name. He was standing in front of one of the open bedroom doors. His light glided across the bare walls and swept over the simple white curtains-
There was something there.
Just a shape... and then it was gone.
Kyle froze. He stared at the spot where he'd seen it. The window. The curtains. Whatever it was had been too fast for him to get a good look. He couldn't tell if it was in FRONT of, BEHIND, or a PART of the curtain itself.
"H-Hello?" he called.
Nothing moved. Nothing responded.
Kyle waited in the hallway... unsure of what to do next. He stared into the empty room for a few uncomfortable seconds, then looked back at the sea of darkness that lay waiting at the end of the hall.
Before he even knew that he'd made up his mind, Kyle was in the room.
He expected the door to slam shut as he crossed over the threshold, but it didn't. Instead, the curtains billowed up away from the window as if caught in some intangible wind. As they settled back down, the rippling fabric cast strange shadows in the light of Kyle's flashlight. Shadows became shapes... and the shapes became a figure that was THERE and NOT... a ghostly image projected onto the curtains from somewhere else.
Kyle froze as the little girl looked at him. She was four... maybe five... with long, flowing curls that looked unnatural on such a small head. Her dress was simple... rough. Poor. It didn't match her hair at all.... or the radiant innocence of her face. Her pale skin seemed to reflect a flickering light whose source was not present in the room. Her eyes were dark. Not cold or sinister... just dark, like her hair.
As Kyle tried to force his mind back into gear, the girl smiled and pointed at the wall to his right. Kyle turned his head slowly... as if dreading what he was going to see.
It was his reflection.
An antique mirror hung on the wall. The glass was uncracked and polished to a high sheen. Kyle could see himself clearly in it. As he looked, flowers appeared around his reflection in the glass. They outlined his face, framing him in a moving kaleidoscope of color. Reds and yellows and pinks danced around his head like a halo. The tiny swirling petals quickly grew to fill up the entire mirror except for Kyle's reflection, completely blocking out the dark background of the room. They rustled and swayed...back and forth... for a second, Kyle could almost smell them.
"Whoa..." he whispered. He kept his voice low not out of fear, but out of awe. Real or not, what he was seeing was truly beautiful. He turned back to the girl. "That was... cool. What else can you do?"
The girl gave him a curious look, as if she couldn't understand him.
"Else?" Kyle said. "Anything... you know... cooler?"
The girl raised her hand and pointed at the mirror again.
"Huh?" Kyle said as he turned to look-
But instead of the mirror, Kyle's eyes fell across the retched, burnt thing that had materialized not two feet away from him, waiting between him and the wall. The thing lunged at him, eyes flickering with red rage. Its bloody, black, and blistered skull came within inches of Kyle's face. Jaws filled with cracked teeth parted to reveal a dank, scorched throat that seemed to go on forever-
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE!!!" It screeched. Its hot, putrid breath was foul beyond reckoning... it would have certainly cost Kyle his last two meals if he'd stuck around to smell it.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!" Kyle screamed. He was out of the room in half a heartbeat... arms and legs pumping furiously as he raced down the dark hallway. The wall of darkness reached out for him- "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!"
And suddenly he was back in the living room... streaking across carpet on a collision course with the massive Sampler.
"HEEELLLLLPPPP!!!"
"HEY!" was all Anthony managed to say before David turned and threw himself into the path of the speeding teen. David brought his right arm up and around in a hard arc, hand clenched in a tight fist-
WHAM!
He clotheslined Kyle. The boy caught David's forearm across the upper chest, and his own momentum swept him right off of his feet. David slung the boy down to the floor... a bone-jarring hit worthy of a professional wrestler. Kyle's upper back absorbed most of the impact, at the cost of every ounce of air in his lungs. It was several panic-filled seconds before Kyle realized that he was still alive, nothing was broken, and that he could still breathe.
As he gasped for breath and bravery, David loomed over him with a stern frown on his face.
"No running in the house, kid," David warned. "You damage any of this equipment and I'll fuck you up so bad you're gonna need an ass-transplant just to go to he bathroom. Now calm the fuck down."
"G-Go-Go-Go-Ghost!" Kyle gasped. "GHOST! I SAW A GHOST!"
"Of course you did," said Dr. Jeffries. He and Dr. Hixon had just entered the dining room... just in time to NOT see David lay Kyle out like a new suit. "Of course you saw a ghost... this IS a haunted house, isn't it?"
"But! But-"
"What's he doing on the floor?" said Dr. Hixon.
"He was running," David blurted before Kyle could say anything. He nodded at the sampler.
"Kyle?" Dr. Jeffries scowled at his son. He pointed at the chair that Kyle was sitting in earlier. "I TOLD you to SIT DOWN! If you DAMAGE any of this equipment-"
"Yeah, yeah... but the GHOST-"
"SIT DOWN before you embarrass yourself any further!"
Kyle stood up and limped back to the chair. He flopped down in it, leaned back, and stared at the ceiling.
"I saw a ghost," he said to no one.
"Whatever." David went back the Sampler and resumed his previous task... inserting the copper rods into the front of the Exciter. The rods came out at angles to form a pyramid. The apex was currently pointed down the hallway that Kyle had explored.
"Get to a stopping point, gentlemen," said Dr. Jeffries. "And Lindsay." Lindsay smiled giddily. Anthony glanced at her and rolled his eyes. "Dr. Hixon wants to fill us in on what to expect here."
"Debriefing. Cool."
"How are we going on the assembly?"
"We're about a half-hour away from having this baby put together," said Anthony. "Then we gotta run down the checklist and test everything out... that'll take another hour. Then-"
"Hey, where's the fat bitch?" said David.
Dr. Hixon looked mortified.
"What?" said David. "I'm just sayin... where is she?"
"Ms. Bishop went to her car to get her things," said Dr. Jeffries. "And David... you'll do well not to insult our guest. She's here for a reason."
"Yeah, but could Doc Hix have found somebody a little less... I dunno... huge?"
"My name is DocTOR HixON."
"Sorry, doc."
Somewhere in the house, a door opened. Then it slammed shut. The sounds echoed in strange, unexpected ways that made their origin hard to pinpoint... until Sarah Bishop walked into the living room. The sound had been her entering the house. Sarah carried an enormous suitcase and a huge overnight bag, both of which looked like doll-accessories on her gargantuan frame.
"This house has some serious energy," she announced. "Seeeerious energy. I don't think I've ever felt anything like this."
David leaned over to whisper in Anthony's ear.
"Dude... how much you wanna bet she's got food in those bags."
"...stop..." Anthony tried to suppress his giggling. "...just stop..."
"Snicker bars and Twinkies, dude. Big bags of Doritoes."
"RA!" came a tiny bark from the general direction of the front door. "RARARARAH!"
"Ahhh, hell," David sighed.
"What?"
"RARARA! rrrRRRA!"
The tiny black dog that David had seen in Sarah's came scampering down the hallway... its high-pitched, annoying voice raised in a continuous show of canine aggression. It ran right up to the Sampler, lifted one leg, and began urinating on the base of the Exciter's metal chassis.
"Aw, JEEEZ!"
David kicked the dog away-
"YIIIIPE!"
-and then looked up at Sarah, as if suddenly remembering that the dog's owner was in the room.
"...oh, shit... sorry."
Sarah just looked at him. She didn't say a word... she just looked at him as if he'd just grown a third eye in the center of his forehead. In his own defense, David pointed to the spot on the Sampler where the dog had just relieved itself.
"Eh?" he said. "You gonna clean that up? Eh? Didn't think so. And what the fuck is everybody looking at ME for?"
"Okay," Hixon clapped his hands together and pointed to the dining room table. "Everybody gather round and have a seat. Let's get this show on the road, shall we?"
"That's what we're tryin' to do," said David. "We gotta get this machine put together... clean off all the dog-piss..."
"We need to hear what he has to say," said Ms. Bishop. "We need to know."
"Fine..." David inserted one last rod into the Exciter and trudged reluctantly into the dining room. Anthony and Lindsay joined him as Dr. Jeffries sat down in one of the old mahogany chairs. Lindsay sat next to Dr. Jeffries. Somewhere along the way from the living room to the table, the top button of her blouse had managed to come undone again. Sarah Bishop paused in front of the hallway leading to the downstairs bedrooms.
She looked down the dark hallway as if watching something that was unseen by everyone else.
"Who's been down there?" she asked.
"Me," Kyle announced. "I saw a ghost! TWO of 'em!"
"And they saw you," she said as she turned away from the hall. "You shouldn't have disturbed them."
"ME!?! Disturb THEM!?!?"
"Hey, that's what we're here to do," said Anthony. "That's the whole point of us being here: we're here to find the ghosts... and fuck with 'em. Right?"
"I wouldn't put it quite that way," said Dr. Hixon. "Kyle, are you going to join us?"
"I can hear you fine from right here. I ain't movin.'"
"Suit yourself. I just thought that maybe-"
"Yeah, yeah, whatever," said Kyle. "A ghost tries to turn me inside out and nobody gives a flying damn. Now I'm supposed to be interested in what YOU got to say? Forget it."
"Let him sit there," said Dr. Jeffries.
"...long as he doesn't touch anything," David added. "So what do you have, doc?"
"Yeah, what's the run-down on this place?"
Doctor Hixon placed his briefcase on the table and opened it after a dramatic pause. He pulled out a single manilla folder and flipped briefly through its contents before closing the case.
"I knew we were going to need a place to fully test our theories," he began. "Imagine my surprise when I found this place right here in Georgia-"
"Get on with it, doc," said David.
"This building was a built as a boarding house not long after the Civil War."
"We calls that the 'Wor of Nawthun Aggression' 'roun' heah, son!" Anthony said with a thick fake southern accent.
"Can we be serious for a moment, Anthony?"
"No."
"Go ahead, doctor Hixon," said Lindsay.
"It was built by Thaddius Cole and his third wife Talia... two of the more prominent citizens of the town back then. Now, the Cole family history goes back England in the early 1500's... where they were essentially run out of the country for witchcraft and 'perversions against common decency.'"
"NOW we're getting somewhere!" said Anthony.
"The family reputation improved somewhat over the Colonial period, and they managed to amass quite a bit of wealth through means that no on can determine. Rumor had it that they used their witchcraft to aid the colonies during the Revolutionary War... for which they were handsomely compensated. Now, despite their... uhh... sinister reputation... the Coles were philanthropists of the highest order. This home for abandoned and orphaned children was one of their last contributions to the town-"
"ZZZZZZzzzzzz...." Anthony pretended to snore and wake up suddenly. "Huh?"
"It has ten rooms. Four downstairs and six upstairs... room enough for about thirty children or so, depending on age. It was open for only a few years before the Coles shut it down unexpectedly."
"Why?" said Lindsay.
"No reason was ever given. They just closed it, boarded up the doors and windows, and refused to let anyone near the place. It sat empty for decades. They finally sold it around the time of the Great Depression. The family had come upon hard times and was selling off property to keep themselves afloat. This place was literally the last place to go... they got rid of their own mansion before letting this place go. The Cole family faded into obscurity not long afterward, and the house changed hands several times over the next few years. Thats when the rumors of hauntings first started to surface. There were numerous attempt to remodel and turn this place into everything from a school to a bed-and-breakfast. Obviously, none of those things happened. Equipment was sabotaged or stolen. Work was sabotaged. Workers would leave at night and return in the morning to find that everything they'd torn down the day before was back up... as if they'd never been there. Then there were the sounds... screaming, talking and laughing coming from empty rooms. Doors opening and closing. Ghostly images floating from room to room. There's the light... we've already noticed that. Something about this place seems to absorb it like a sponge. Its worse in some places than in others... most notably in that hallway down there."
"Thanks for the advanced warning," Kyle said from the living room.
"Sometimes an impending sense of dread or fear will permeate the entire house, or certain rooms in it.... becoming so intense that at least one heart attack has been attributed to it. That person later died-"
"Of a heart attack," said David. "Not of anything freaky... just a heart attack."
"Right. But... the house was responsible."
"Bullshit," said David. "But go on."
"Eventually the building became what it is now... just another abandoned house."
"Why didn't the city just tear it down?" said Lindsay.
"I'd like to see a ghost stop a bulldozer," Anthony added.
"Boo-Yah!" said David. "No more haunted house!"
"Well... apparently the Coles, back during the height of their influence, managed to get a city ordinance passed prohibiting this place from every being demolished. Just getting the renovations approved took more time and money than most people were willing to invest-"
"Wait... these guys got a LAW passed to keep this place in one piece?"
"Yes. As far as the city is concerned, it is a historical landmark. Or something like that."
"So its a museum," said David. "That explains why its so clean in here. Tourists and shit, right?"
"Actually," said Dr. Hixon. "No one has been in this building in about 15 years."
"Bullllshit. Look at this place-"
"Now, I can't say anything about curious kids or trespassers, but the last time this place was OFFICIALLY opened was in 1986. That's when most of THESE were taken-"
Dr. Hixon opened the folder and handed several large, glossy black-and-white pictures to Dr. Jeffries. Jeffries looked at them one at a time... with Lindsay peering over his shoulder, resting one dainty hand on his arm. David and Anthony got up and stood behind her so they could see as well. Anthony was looking down Lindsay's blouse the majority of the time, however.
"In 1986, Dr. Richard Jameson from the University of Chicago parapsychology department, brought a team of researchers here to document the rumors of supernatural activity. I doubt they expected the intensity or... quantity... of what the activity they discovered."
"Just a bunch of blurry photos to me, doc," said David.
"Those are just the first few. The ghosts got bolder later on. Here... look at these-"
Doctor Hixon grabbed three pictures from the bottom of the stack and spread them out on the table. The first was a picture of a little girl standing in front of a bedroom window. The window was barely visible through her body, with the curtains billowing out on either side of her. The girl was looking directly at the camera, and appeared to be frightened by it.
"There are several pictures of her, but his is the best one," Dr. Hixon explained. "Then there's this-"
At first, the second picture looked like it was just a shadow. But on closer inspection, the dark blotch on the image turned out to be a person. A person who's skin had been totally blackened by fire. The ghastly figure was just stepping out of the shadows and turning toward the camera. The swell of a breast marked the ghost as female, but that was as much of an identification as they could make. Any semblance of a face had been seared away long ago.
"Extra crispy?"
"That's not funny, David," said Lindsay.
"What!? She's DEAD, geez!"
The third picture was of a woman running down the upstairs hallway. She was looking back over her shoulder, but her face wasn't quite visible. She was almost completely transparent.
"Why are all these ghosts female?" said Lindsay.
"Not all," Hixon replied. "There's his one-"
He grabbed another photo from the bottom of the stack. This one showed a very real-looking man standing in front of a mirror and holding a camera up to his face. The man was the photographer, taking a picture of his own image. Despite the fact that he took up most of the photo, he clearly wasn't the subject. It was the person behind him.
The man was tall and lanky... almost frighteningly so. His pants were dusty and torn, and he wore an old poncho over his body as if to protect himself from the harsh elements. The left side of it was swept back away from his hip, revealing an old-style gun holster hanging from his thick leather belt. A wide-brimmed hat was pulled down over his face... the only part of his head they could see was his jaw... thick, broad, and stern. The man was holding something in his hand, but no one could see what it was. All the photo picked up was an extremely bright glare, as if the figure were carrying a flashlight and pointing it into the mirror to blind the camera.
"What's this?" Anthony pointed to the object in the man's hand.
"I don't know," Hixon replied.
"Is this supposed to be a ghost or something?" said David. "Looks like a man wearing a halloween costume to me."
"He certainly wasn't a member of Jameson's party. And judging from the method of photography, he was only visible in the mirror. At least in this instance."
"This instance?"
"There are other pictures of him in there. Of all of them. Him, the girl, and the two women are the least camera-shy, but there are other entities as well. Jameson either couldn't get pictures of them or the pictures were lost. But from his notes, there are at least six entities in this house."
"Who were they?" said Lindsay.
"Were?"
"Who are they the ghosts OF?"
"I'm not sure. Jameson speculated on it in his notes, but nothing was ever concluded."
"Well, how'd they get here? I mean... they had to DIE here, right? I guess the girl could be from when this place was an orphanage-"
"There's no record of any children dying here during that time... although this town's records are notoriously sparse-"
"They didn't necessarily have to die in this house," said Sarah. "They could have died anywhere, at any time. If they had a strong enough emotional connection to this place, then they would have returned here to live out their lives."
"But they're dead," said David.
"Most ghosts don't know they're dead," said Sarah. "They think they're still alive, still living in whatever time they lived in when they were alive. To them, WE would be the ghosts... WE are the apparitions intruding upon what they consider to be their home."
"Maybe they're the kids that grew up here," Anthony offered.
"That would be my guess," said Hixon. "But the adults... the man and the two women... they would have had homes of their own. Families, perhaps. The man looked like he'd been out west and maybe died there. Why would they all choose to return and haunt THIS place?"
"It probably has something to do with the garden," said Sarah.
"Eh? Garden?"
"We found something in the garden," said Dr. Hixon. "Just an old fountain and a lot of fungus."
"Well let's go check it out, then!" said Anthony.
"No," said Ms. Bishop. "There's a corruption in that place. We shouldn't go there."
"Hell, we shouldn't be HERE," said Anthony. "So what's the big deal? What'd Jameson say about the garden?"
"He didn't mention it. I don't even think they went out there... their main concern was the house."
"As ours should be," Sarah added. "Speaking of which..." she glanced out the window at the setting sun. "If there's anything else we need from the cars, we'd best get it now."
"Why's that?"
"We don't want to go outside after dark."
"Why not?"
"We just don't," she warned. "Sometimes its best never to find out 'why'."
"So, that's what we have," said Hixon. "A house full of spirits... and a machine that will allow us to interact with them on OUR terms... not theirs. This should be fun."
"We'll be haunting THEM for a change."
"If you call scientific study and documentation 'haunting,' David, then yes," said Dr. Jeffries. "I prefer to think of it as ground breaking research that will make us all incredibly famous."
"Assuming your machine works the way you say it will," said Sarah. "Detecting psychic emanations in your lab is one thing. But this-"
"Second thoughts, Sarah?"
"About the experiment? No. Your machine? Maybe. About your choice of subjects? Absolutely."
"Hey, the machine works, dammit!" Anthony was clearly offended. "These are the laws of physics we're talking about. They're universal. If it works in the lab, it'll work here."
"But what if the spirits don't believe in physics," said Sarah.
"They will believe in mine," Jeffries replied.
We could upset them. Upset them further than we already have just by being here."
"They're just ghosts," said David. "No big deal."
"Dude, you never saw 'Poltergiest'?" said Anthony.
"That's just a movie. This is real."
"Exactly," said Sarah. "Exactly."
---
After retrieving the last of their belongings and equipment from the courtyard, the task of completing the Sampler raced through its final hour. By the time the sun set, the machine stood fully assembled. The Exciter... a giant coil of wire housed inside a metal doughnut, was mounted to the Controller... which was actually the largest and most complex portion of the machine. The Emitter... a horizontal pyramid of spindly copper rods with a pineapple-shaped knob at the apex, reached out from the machine like the business end of some alien weapon. Two sets of cables snaked across the carpet, creating a maze of trip-hazards that no one bothered to secure. The power cables led back out to the generator, which sat just inside the front door. The data cables ran a shorter distance to a corner of the room, where they connected to a home-made I/O module, which, in turn, was connected to the Lindsay's workstation. A rack of massive lead-acid batteries ran the powerful computer and other equipment, and had plenty of juice left over to power the lights that had been strung up over the Sampler.
Anthony was leaning into the Controller, using a meter to test connections on the inside of the machine.
"How 'bout now?" he yelled... his voice muffled by the metal shell.
"Nothing..." Lindsay replied. She had the cover off of the I/O module... a metal box the size of a small personal computer... and was using a handheld PC to run diagnostics on the motherboard. The board was buried somewhere beneath a rats-nest of multicolored wires. "Your workmanship sucks, you know that? This thing is a mess.... haven't you ever heard of using wire-guides."
"Nope," said Anthony. "Never heard of 'em. That box works; and there's nothing wrong in here. Maybe you should check YOUR shit, Lindsay."
"My 'shit' is fine," Lindsay hissed. "We've got a short somewhere, and if YOUR work wasn't such a goddamn mess we'd have found it by now."
"FUCKING MUTT!" David bellowed. David had been tightening down the bolts on the Sampler, but had been recruited to help find the problem with the computer interface. He was kneeling on the carpet and holding one of the I/O cables in his hand. A section of insulation was had been chewed on, and two of the wires inside it had been nicked. "HERE'S your short... FUCKING GODDAMN DOG!"
The dog was laying in a corner, where it had spent most of the evening after David had kicked it earlier. It raised its head and growled at David. David growled back, and the dog went back to sleep. David turned to Sarah, who was returning from 'inspecting' the upstairs bedrooms. He pointed to the dog.
"Keep that fucking thing away from the equipment!"
"What are you talking about?"
"THIS!" David showed her the cable. "Your dog did this!"
"My dog?"
"Yeah... unless you think KYLE got down here and started chewing on cables."
"Wasn't me," said Kyle. Like the dog, he hadn't moved from his spot since early afternoon. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"Look... you wanna have an annoying mutt, that's fine. But if he fucks with anything else, I'm gonna drop-kick his mangy ass right into orbit! I mean it!"
"Do you have some kind of mental problem, David?" said Sarah.
"What!?"
"I mean it. Seriously. Are you seeing a professional?"
"I ain't got no problem... as long as that mutt of yours stays in that corner."
"But-"
"Why don't you just go and... do... whatever it is that you do, okay?" said David. "We can fix this."
Sarah gave David a strange, blank look. Then went and sat down in the living room.
"There's nothing back there now, Kyle," said Dr. Hixon. He and Dr. Jeffries had been investigating the downstairs bedrooms. "Are you sure-"
"I saw 'em," said Kyle with disinterest. "The burnt lady and the little girl... down that hallway."
"Would you care to show us exactly-"
"Fuck no," said Kyle.
"Kyle!" Dr. Jeffries spat.
"What? HE can say whatever HE wants!" Kyle pointed to David, who was actively ignoring the entire conversation.
"HE isn't the son of a research physicist. HE is twenty-one years old," said Jeffries. "And YOU are... not."
"You don't even know how old I am, do you, dad?" Kyle spat.
"Of course I do."
"How old?"
"Old enough to know better than to play MIND GAMES with me, boy. You wanted us to pay attention to your little encounter in the bedroom... well, we are. But now you're too lazy to get up and walk across the damned ROOM-"
"Save it for later, folks," Anthony announced. "Cable is changed-out and we have continuity! Final calibrations are done... Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you.... The Amazing.... the MAGNIFICENT... THE One and Only... Quantum Ethereallll Saammpleerrrrrr!!!"
"Are we ready?" Dr. Hixon asked.
"That's generally what it means when I do that," said Anthony.
"Lindsay?" Lindsay snapped to attention when Dr. Jeffries said her name. "Are we ready to process data?"
"Up and running," she replied. "Been waiting on them for twenty minutes."
"You sure that thing can keep up?" said Anthony. He nodded at Lindsay's computer.
"Keep up?" she sniffed. "This is an SGI Octane. IT can keep up."
"Well lets see, then! David, crank the generator!"
"Let's hope nobody's been CHEWING on it..." David mumbled as he grabbed a flashlight and vanished down the hall. There was a pause, and then he shouted back: "COMING HOT!"
The portable generator roared to life; the rumble of its gas-powered engine filled the house.
"Is it safe to run that thing indoors?" Dr. Hixon asked.
"We're not amateurs, Dr.," Jeffries replied. "We constructed an exhaust hose to vent the fumes outside. We'll only use it to charge the batteries and run the Sampler."
"So what's gonna happen now?" said Kyle.
"We're gonna see some dead people. David?"
"Right here." David and Anthony took their positions behind the Controller, where several dials and indicators served as windows into the inner workings of the machine. They took a few minutes to make sure everything was working properly.
"All set back there, Lindsay?"
"Just turn the damn thing on before I fall asleep," she replied.
"Here we go..." Anthony warned. "Coming hot."
There was a large metal handle mounted on the side of the Controller. Anthony pulled it down, closing the power connections within the machine. In the hallway, the generator's rumble lowered a few octaves, becoming a slow, rattling growl. There was a brief, high-pitched whine as the massive coils and capacitors in the Sampler ramped up to full charge.
But when the whine faded, and everyone's ears became accustomed to the change in the generator... there was no other tangible sign that the Sampler was even operating.
"What happened?" said Kyle.
"Nothing yet," said David. "Shut up."
The Sampler was still pointing down the hallway to the downstairs bedrooms. Everyone's eyes fixed on the dark corridor... then they turned to Lindsay.
"Anything?"
"Still resolving..." she said.
"Whats that mean?" said Kyle.
"It means 'shut up'."
"Can't that thing go any faster?"
"Okay..." Lindsay sneered. "For every cubic millimeter in the target volume, i.e, the hallway, this thing has to convolve six 129600-term equations and reduce the result to a single 15-dimensional matrix.... and then SOLVE that matrix for a 3-dimensional solution. GOD couldn't calculate this stuff any faster."
"...told you she couldn't keep up."
"Screw y-"
Lindsay's workstation interrupted with a loud:
-beep-
"We got a bite."
"Hell yeah!"
Dr. Hixon and Dr. Jeffries crowded around behind Lindsay so they could see the monitor. It showed a 3-dimensional cone that represented the Sampler's target area. There was a small white shape in the upper left corner of it... a tiny white blob that was slowing moving down toward the bottom of the screen... toward them. Sarah joined them at the monitor, but was more interested in the hallway. There was nothing there but shadows, but the computer was saying otherwise.
-beep-
"Will somebody tell me what's going on?" Kyle demanded.
"History in the making." said Dr. Jeffries.
"When we turned this thing on, it became a giant ghost-magnet," Anthony explained. "And we aimed it down the hall where your two friends were hiding. Looks like we snagged one of 'em."
-beep-
-beep-
"Sara?"
"It's the girl," said Sarah. "She's scared."
-beep-
-beebeep-....-beep...
"She's pulling back," said Jeffries. "Gentlemen, more power please..."
"You got it."
Anthony adjusted a round knob on the Sampler. The generator groaned, and there was another brief whine in the air.
-beep-
-beep-
"Thaaats better," said Dr. Jeffries.
"So what..." said Kyle. "What's happening now?"
"We're reeling her in like a fish," David replied with a giddy smile. "She's hooked. She ain't going nowhere."
-beep-
"She's backing away," Lindsay announced.
"She's very frightened..."
"So what? Turn up the power, Anthony."
-beep-
"Doc?"
Jeffries nodded in agreement, and Anthony sent even more power into the Sampler. Sarah stiffened as if someone had dropped an ice-cube down her back.
"What?" said Hixon.
"Just feedback from your machine."
"I don't feel anything-"
"You're not a psychic."
"Ah."
-beep-
-beep-
-beep-
-beep-
"That got her!" Dr. Jeffries pointed at the white shape streaking down the computer screen. "She's coming in fast!"
"She's running down the hallway!" said Sarah. She pointed. "There!"
"I don't see shit!"
-beep-
-beep-
Suddenly, a high pitched scream erupted from the hall. It was the cry of a terrified child.
"EEEEEEE! MommyMommyMommyHELPMEEEEE!"
The sound echoed wildly, seeming to come from six different directions at once. New sounds quickly joined it. Another scream... this one from upstairs:
"AAAIIIIIIEEEEEEE!"
-beep-
-beep-
-beep-
-beep-
-beep-
-beep-
"Uh-oh."
-beep-
"What's happening?"
-beep-
-beep-
"Too much power!" said Anthony. "The signal is bleeding out of the target range!"
-beep-
-beep-
-beep-
-beep-
"We've got multiple targets here!" said Lindsay. "I'm getting harmonics from all directions!"
"We're pulling in every ghost in the house!"
-beep-
-beep-
-beep-
"FUCK!"
"They're upset... they're angry! They're VERY ANGRY! Turn the machine off!"
"NO!"
"Turn the POWER DOWN!"
"NO! TURN IT UP!" Dr. Jeffries shoved past Sarah and grabbed the power knob. He turned the Sampler's power up to 100%. The generator sputtered, but managed to stay online as the Sampler sucked out every scrap of power out it could provide.
The entire house screamed. Men. Women. Voices from all directions... all yelling in fear, or anger, or both. The walls shook from the unending, howling torrent of sound.
"THERE!" Jeffries pointed to the hallway. She was there. The girl... caught in the Sampler's invisible beam like an fly in a web. The ghostly child floated two feet from the grown, writhing and crying out in agony as if she were being burned alive. "THERE! We have it!"
-beep-
-beep-
-beep-
-beep-
"LET HER GO!" Sarah demanded. "YOU'RE HURTING HER!"
"We can't hurt it, it's a ghost!" said David.
"LOOK at her! You're tearing her apart!"
"FUCK THAT!"
Behind them, the dining room table started to rattle... banging violently against the floor. There was a corresponding rhythmic THUMP from upstairs that grew louder and louder...
-beep-
-beep-
"They're ENRAGED! They-"
"They aren't going to get anywhere near this machine," said Dr. Jeffries. "The closer they get, the more control WE have over them. So LET be angry... they'll get their turn in the spotlight SOON ENOUGH!!"
"What PURPOSE is this serving, Doctor?!!"
"SCIENCE!"
-beep-
-beep-
"MOMMEEEeeee...!!!"
The little girl's was fading in and out of focus as the Sampler tore at the ethereal substance of her body. Brilliant showers of sparks exploded within the ghostly form... and with each explosion the child's cries got weaker and more terrified.
"My God... look at the data we're getting," said Dr. Jeffries.
-beep-
"I thought we were going to TALK to them!" said Sarah. "Dr. Hixon!"
Dr. Hixon was speechless. Mouth agape and eyes wide, the doctor stood transfixed by the sight of the tortured ghost.
"DR. HIXON!"
"...we'll talk to the next one..."
"TURN IT OFF!"
Sarah stormed defiantly toward the Sampler.
"Turn it off NOW!"
-beep-
-beep-
-beep-
David heard her coming and turned to defend the machine from the determined psychic...
...only it wasn't her.
"GET OUT!" the angry burnt ghost howled into David's shocked face. The enraged spirit's mouth hung open like a black chasm... large enough to swallow David's entire head. Cracked and blackened teeth rattled in their sockets as the ghost screamed: "GEEEETTTTTT OOOOUUUUUTTTT!"
"That's the one!" Kyle shouted. He was standing up in his chair and pointing at the ghost. "That's The One! THAT'S THE ONE!"
"ALLL OF YOU GETTTT OUUUUT!!"
Sara backed away from the howling fiend. David drew back and-
"Fuck Off, bitch!"
CRACK!
His punch sent the ghost spinning away from both him and the Sampler. The woman's head and upper body few apart in a shower of cold ash. The rest of her body quickly followed, and the ashes quickly faded away into nothing.
Suddenly, the generator began to sputter and cough. Indicator lights on the Sampler flickered ominously.
"UH-OH!" Anthony Moore turned the power knob back down to minimum, and, when the indicator lights failed to stabilize, he grabbed the handle and shoved it back up... severing the power connections. In the hallway, the generator continued to sputter, and finally tripped offline.
The Sampler hummed... and moaned... and then fell quiet once more. All over the house, things began to return to 'normal' The screaming stopped. The table ceased its noisy dance across the dining room floor.
"EEEEEEEEeee...."
Suddenly freed of the nefarious machine's power, the young ghost vanished... retreating down the hallway and loosing itself in the darkness.
Everything was quiet. For almost a whole second.
"MR. MOORRREEE!" Dr. Jeffries bellowed. "WHAT the HELL do you think you're doing! WHO told you to shut off the POWER!"
"There was a coil fault in the machine!" Anthony threw his hands up and retreated before the doctor. "If we'd kept going we'd have melted the whole thing to slag!"
Dr. Jeffries looked at the machine. Battery power was sustaining the control boards, and their lights were still showing the massive fault inside the machine. Jeffries nodded.
"Good job, Anthony," he said.
"My God, it really worked..." Dr. Hixon gaped. "It worked."
"Of course it did," said Dr. Jeffries. "I designed it and my students built it. Of COURSE it worked."
"WHAT are we doing here?!" said Sarah. "I thought were here to-"
"Study and collect data," said Jeffries.
"You were KILLING that poor child!"
"That 'poor child' died a long time ago. What we saw was just an echo... a stain on the fabric of space-time."
"It was... IS... a HUMAN SOUL! Oh, they are SO angry with us right now..."
"So?" said David. "Fuck 'em!"
"David!" Anthony gasped. "Dude! Do you realize what you did? You swung on a ghost, dude! You fucking punched a ghost!"
"Hell yeah, I CLOCKED that crusty bitch! We need to put HER ASS in the fuckin' zone next time.... screaming in my face and shit... fuck that!"
"Mr. Randolph, please don't physically abuse the test subjects."
"Yeah, whatever man... she as fucking with me. You saw that, right?"
"What I saw," said Dr. Jeffries. "Was proof of my theory. We can physically interact with them when they are in the Sampler's field... whether they want us to or not."
"That might not be a good thing," said Sarah. "We shouldn't have done that."
"Look at this," said Dr. Jeffries. He going through the massive amounts of data on the workstation. "We've got enough data here to keep us busy for months."
"Then we're done," said Sarah. "We can leave now. Or at least in the morning."
"Done?" said Jeffries. "Done? Ms. Bishop, we haven't even BEGUN yet! THAT was just a test of the machine to see if it was working properly. Next time... next time will be for real."
"Next time?" said Sarah. "What makes you think these spirits will allow a 'next time'."
"Because they don't have a choice."
-thump-
-chink-
"What was that?" said Kyle.
"It came from upstairs."
-thump-
-chink-
"That's the sound we heard before... when the Sampler was on."
"But what IS it?"
-thump-
-chink-
The two sounds... a loud thump followed by the distinctive jingle of metal... moved together across the upstairs hallway toward the stairs. Then the 'thump' changed... becoming harder and louder... as they began to descend to the first floor.
-thump-
-chink-
-thump-
-chink-
The small black dog, which had somehow managed to stay calm in its corner until now, began to whine and shiver uncontrollably. A tiny lake of urine began to form underneath its hindquarters.
-thump-
-chink-
"What is that? Keys? A chain?"
"Chain," said David. "Yeah, right... a ghost with chains..."
"No, I've heard that before," said Anthony.
-thump-
-chink-
-thump-
-chink-
"They're...uhhh...."
-thump-
-chink-
"... spurs!"
"What?"
"SPURS! Like in the cowboy movies... you know!"
"Spurs?"
-thump-
-chink-
-thump-
-chink-
The sound had reached the bottom of the stairs, where they stopped. David shined his flashlight down the hall. He could barely make out the edge of the steps in the feeble beam. There was nothing there.
"Okay?" said Anthony.
"He's angry," said Sarah.
"Who?"
"The man in the pictures, Dr. Hixon. The man... he wants us to leave."
"Tell him to kiss my ass!" said David. "We can have this machine patched in five minutes... then he can ride my fist back to wherever the fuck he came from."
"What's he doing?" said Dr. Hixon.
"Standing there. Watching."
"Watch THIS, asshole!" David held up his middle finger. "Come get some!"
"Maybe crusty-bitch was his wife or something, dude," said Anthony. "You knocked her face off... he's probably pissed."
-thump-
-chink-
-thump-
-chink-
The sounds started moving away again. Not up the stairs, but down the hall toward the front door.
"Hey, isn't the generator down there?" said Lindsay.
"FUCK!"
David and Anthony raced down the hallway, flashlights in hand. Darkness closed in around them, but they ignored it and kept moving... they knew where they were and the knew were they were going. The darkness gave up and retreated, and then just as they heard the unmistakable sound of the front door slamming shut-
BOOM!
The sound shook the house.
"WHAT HAPPENED!" Dr. Hixon called from the living room.
"IT'S GONE!" Anthony replied. "FUCK!"
"The ghost?"
"The Generator! It's GONE! That fucking bastard STOLE THE GENERATOR!"
[To Be Continued]
David, Anthony, Dr. Hixon, and Dr. Jeffries stood solemnly in the hallway... gathered in a semicircle around the empty space where the generator once sat. David held the severed power cord in his hand. The thick cable had been snapped in half.
"He stole the generator," said Anthony.
"I didn't hear anything," Dr. Hixon offered. "If he'd taken it, then it would have made a sound, right? I didn't hear anything. There aren't any scratch-marks on the floor."
"Then where do you think the generator is, doc?" David said sarcastically.
Dr. Hixon leaned down and cautiously waved his hand around in front of him. It encountered no resistance.
"It's gone," he said.
David and Anthony looked at each other. Dr. Jeffries shook his head.
"Well then," said Jeffries. "We'd best get started."
"Started?" The wood floor creaked painfully as Sarah waddled down the hall toward the men. "Started with what?"
"Finding the generator, of course."
"I don't think that's a good idea."
"How else do you intend for us to run the equipment? Science has come a long way, Ms. Bishop... but we have yet to find a way to pull electricity out of thin air. We need the generator for the experiment to continue."
"Maybe it shouldn't continue."
Dr. Jeffries gave her an impatient look.
"They don't want us here," Sarah continued. "We've hurt them and now they're frightened. We should leave them alone."
"Why?" said Jeffries.
Sarah stammered over her words for a moment. Clearly she was not expecting to be asked for an explanation.
"We came here to study ethereal remnants," Jeffries continued. "And that's exactly what we're going to do."
"These 'remnants' are human souls, doctor. Your machine is hurting them. No WONDER they took the generator!"
"You're speaking as if these 'ghosts' of yours have some sort of prior rights over and above our own," said Jeffries. "They do not. They aren't alive; they are merely quantum vibrations in space-time that molded themselves to the thought patterns of the people who used to live here. They have no right to exist; they have no right to remain undisturbed, and they MOST CERTAINLY have no right to OUR generator!"
"Maybe its still here," said Dr. Hixon. He was still crouching down, staring at the empty space on the floor and occasionally waving his hand through it.. "Maybe they shifted it out of our reality and into theirs-"
"Or maybe dude just opened the door, picked up the generator, and carried it the fuck outside!" said David "We heard the door open and close. And this power cord isn't 'shifted'... it snapped in fucking half, dumbass!"
"Do you know how much force it would take to snap-" Anthony began.
"-NOW we're just standing around here like a buncha pussies? Fuck that. I'm gettin' our shit back!" David reached for the door.
"WAIT!" Sara shouted. "DON'T GO OUT THERE!"
"Uhhh... why is she shouting at me?" said David.
"I told you! It isn't safe to go out there!"
"Riiiiight. Okay, well we'll just wait for the generator to come back to US, then. That'll work. Sure."
"She may have a point," said Dr. Hixon. "I mean... this is a strange town. At night. I'm sure half the town knows we're staying here. Just because this house is haunted doesn't mean that it was a GHOST that stole our generator."
"That isn't what I-"
"Hixon's right," said Jeffries, with a barely-concealed tone of surprise. "We shouldn't go off alone. David, with me. We'll search the garden. Anthony, you go with Dr. Hixon and search the back. Sarah, you and Lindsay and Kyle stay here and make sure nothing ELSE gets taken. Lindsay can start analyzing the data while we still have SOME power."
"I dunno, doc," said Anthony. "Without that computer on, we could have enough juice left to power the lights 'til morning."
"Yes, but then we'd be behind schedule. We need that initial test data to make the final adjustments to the machine. When we have that, THEN we'll worry about the lights. Speaking of which.... KYLE! Bring us the flashlights!"
"Awww, c'mon dad-"
"GET OFF YOUR ASS AND BRING THE DAMNED LIGHTS!"
A minute later, Kyle trudged down the hallway with flashlights for everyone... except himself, of course.
"I'm not going, am I?" he whined.
"Hell no," David mumbled.
"Make yourself as inconspicuous as possible, boy. Don't disturb Lindsay, and don't touch anything."
"Yes, sir."
"Let's go." David opened the door and stepped out into the dark courtyard. His light illuminated the vehicles parked in front of the building, but not much else. The other three searchers soon joined him. If there was a moon in the sky, it was cloaked by clouds that only allowed a few stars to shine through the gaps..
"Sure is dark out there," Anthony remarked.
"Stay away from that place, Dr. Jeffries," Sarah warned. "You know the one. Stay away from it."
"What's that about?" said David as he and Dr. Jeffries made their way toward the garden. "What's she talking about?"
"You'll see in a few minutes."
---
"So... can you read my mind?" said Kyle. The boy returned to his chair in the ancient living room and propped his feet up on the edge of the Sampler's control panel. Lindsay was still parked in front of her workstation, frantically trying to coax a detailed analysis out of the machine before the batteries gave out.
"No," Sarah replied. "I can't."
"Why not? You're a psychic, right?"
"There are lots of different kinds of psychics, Kyle. I'm not the mind-reading kind."
"What kind ARE you, then?"
"A sensitive. I sense feelings. Strong emotions. See and hear things that others can't."
"That's all?"
"That's enough."
"Can you teach me to do it?"
"It can't be taught,"
"Naw... see, I heard Dr. Hixon say that all that stuff is like... latent and shit. That anybody can learn how to do it."
"Dr. Hixon is wrong," said Sarah. "About quite a few things. And don't curse... it's rude."
"But Anthony and David-"
"Are not the people you should be modeling yourself after."
"You're not my dad!" Kyle folded his arms across his chest and huffed defiantly.
"And neither are you," said Sarah. "That's the problem."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Sarah?" said Lindsay. "Could you come here a minute?"
"Yes?" Sarah looked over the young co-ed's shoulder and squinted at the indecipherable rows of numbers scrolling across the computer screen. "What is this?"
"It's data from the test we just did."
"Yes, I know, but... I have no idea how to read any of this."
"Okay, give me a second to graph it out..." Lindsay hit a few keys and the screen went blank for a second. It was replaced by a chart with numbers running across the bottom and left side. A single green line slowly snaked its way across the chart, reaching a sharp peak somewhere near the middle of the graph.
"What am I looking at?" said Sarah.
"This is the girl," Lindsay replied.
"A human soul... reduced to a line of numbers on a computer screen. My, how far we've come."
"Okay, save the attitude and watch for a minute, okay?" Lindsay hit another key. Six more lines appeared. They were roughly the same shape as the first, but were much lower on the graph. "These are the other entities we measured. Now, their energy registers lower because the Sampler wasn't aimed directly at them. Okay so far?"
"Keep going."
"Now... watch this." Lindsay hit another key. Nothing happened.
"Did I miss something?"
"There's a new line on this graph. We just can't see it because its off-scale. But watch what happens when I do a log plot-"
With a few more keystrokes, Lindsay redrew the graph with a different scale. The previous lines were still there, but they were shaped differently and were now all crammed together at the bottom of the chart. The rest of the image was taken up by a NEW line: a bright-blue streak that sat on the axis like a wide plateau.
"What is that?" said Sarah.
"At first I thought it was a glitch, but I re-ran some of the numbers and they still came out the same. The numbers are right. This thing-" Lindsay tapped on the screen. "Measured SEVEN orders of magnitude higher than anything else in the house. And THAT was just a tangent reading. If the machine were aimed straight at it, then it'd probably be closer to ten or fifteen-"
"But what IS it?"
"I don't know," said Lindsay. "I was hoping you could tell me."
---
"So, doc, are you gonna hit that or what?"
"Excuse me?"
Dr. Jeffries was leading David through the garden, trying to remember the path that he'd taken earlier with Sara and Dr. Hixon. He made all of the turns in all of the right places, but the landscape offered very few cues to reassure his memory. Every square foot of garden looked the same as every other square foot: Dark and ominous. He was trying to decide which patch of greenery lead to their destination when David interrupted his thoughts.
"Ah, c'mon, doc. YOU know what I'm talking about."
"I'm afraid I don't, David. But I assume it has something to do with finding the generator?"
"Lindsay."
"Ms. Hilliard? What about her?"
"She's into you, man. Big-time."
"If you say so, Mr. Randolph."
"Oh, come on! She's done everything but throw her panties in your face! You gonna tag that ass or what?"
"Mr. Randolph... one doesn't get to be one of the premier research physicists in the country by not remaining focused on one's true objectives. I don't have time for dalliances with immature co-eds."
"Don't let Anthony hear you say that. That'd break his heart... he'd loose all respect for ya."
"Besides," said Dr. Jeffries. "Younger women tend to become overwhelmed by my... credentials."
"Ohh, I think Lindsay's got some credentials of her own!"
"This way..." Dr. Jeffries pointed to a seemingly impassable wall of shrubbery. "Its through there. Follow me."
Covering his eyes with one arm and holding his flashlight out in front of him with the other, Dr. Jeffries pushed his way through the razor-sharp leaves to the place beyond.
"Aww, what the HELL..." David hissed as he followed. "Ouch! FUCK! These things are sharp! Gimme some fucking warning next-"
David's words caught in his throat when he saw the garden's dark heart. The place still reeked of fungus and rotting things. Pale, translucent worms wiggled in the thick mud, their bodies glowing eerily in the darkness. The remains of the fountain rose from the sanctum's center like a shattered gravestone.
"Interesting," Dr. Jeffries mused. He aimed his light at the base of the fountain, where worms were oozing out of the muck in a slow, but continuous stream. It was as if the darkness beneath the stone was giving birth to them. The doctor's light moved from the stones to the lake of mud surrounding it. "Very interesting. Has it rained since our arrival here, David?"
"No."
"Then I wonder where this mud is coming from. It wasn't here before."
"What the fuck is this place, doc?"
"Ms. Bishop seems to think this is the heart of some kind of ethereal corruption. I figured that there was a better than average chance our generator would be here.... but I was wrong."
"Oh, well," said David.
"But then there was my other reason for bringing you here."
"Yeah?"
"Be thinking about a place to set up the Sampler. We're bringing it out here tomorrow... I want to see what sort of energies THIS place is hiding."
"What's chunky-style gonna say about that?"
"Something ridiculous, I'm sure. But we won't let her stand in the way of science, will we?"
"Fuck no."
"Good. Let's take our search elsewhere, then." Dr. Jeffries stated back through the bushes. "Now... tell me again about Ms. Hilliard's 'credentials'?"
---
"Do you believe in ghosts, Mr. Moore?" said Dr. Hixon.
"Be kinda strange of me to BE here if I didn't, doc," said Anthony.
"Oh, I don't know. A lot of people believe without even knowing it. No reason that the opposite can't be true as well."
"Does it matter?"
"No, not really. Just making conversation."
"Stop."
"I'm sorry."
"No... stop!"
Anthony grabbed Dr. Hixon by the shoulder and yanked him to a halt. They'd just rounded the corner and were staring at the wide stretch of land behind the mansion. Every inch of it was overgrown with waste-high weeds that stretched as far as their flashlights' beams would reach.
"I ain't going out there," said Anthony.
"It's just grass-"
"Fuck that. Looks like the fucking discovery channel out there! Snakes and shit!"
"We're in a haunted house, with ghosts that can carry off a half-ton generator without making a sound... and you're afraid of snakes?"
"No, I'm afraid of something sneaking up on me and taking a CHUNK outta my ass! You ever been bitten by a snake, doc?"
"No."
"I have! And you know what? THAT SHIT HURTS!"
"Anthony, it's dark. Snakes sleep at night. We'll be fine."
"Really?"
"Absolutely. And we HAVE to find this generator or we'll all be sleeping in the dark tonight."
Dr. Hixon started out into the grass. Anthony followed reluctantly.
"Of course," said Dr. Hixon. "I'm just a parapsychologist. I don't know squat about snakes."
"Aww, FUCK!"
Anthony turned around and marched back toward the house. Dr. Hixon held him back by the arm.
"Come on, Anthony."
"That shit wasn't funny, man!"
"You and David have been cracking jokes all night. I figured I owed you one."
"Oh yeah? Well.... doctors aren't supposed to be funny, so chill."
Anthony and Dr. Hixon spent the next few minutes wandering around the back yard, eyes cast downward, searching for any sign of the missing generator.
"I don't think we'll find anything in these weeds," said Hixon. "They're too tall. If its out here, its gonna take more than the two of us to find it."
"I wonder if Jeffries and David have had any luck."
"Jeffries has had a lot of luck," said Hixon. "But there's no telling if they've found the generator or not."
"What's that supposed to mean?
"What?"
"What you said about Jeffries."
"Oh, you know. Famous researcher.... Nobel price nomination. He's just a very lucky man."
"He got all that because he's a genius, doc. Luck didn't have anything to do with it."
"You don't have to get defensive, Anthony... it was just a remark, that's all. I didn't mean anything by it."
"Naw, what you MEANT was that when a man busts his ass to get ahead, everything he gets is due to luck and not hard work. That's what you meant."
"Hard work? The man sits around and solves equations all day.... now he's got more money than most people can count and he's got women like Lindsay throwing themselves at him... hard work? I don't think so. Plenty of people work hard and they don't have anything like that."
"Like you?"
"Me? No, I was just speaking in general-"
"Uh-huh. Whatever, doc. Lets go back inside; something's starting to smell bad out here."
---
"Nothing."
"We looked everywhere."
"It could be out back," said Anthony. "But the grass is too high. We'll never find it in the dark."
"Ditto for the garden. That place is a maze."
"At least the past few hours haven't been a COMPLETE waste of time," said Dr. Jeffries. "Lindsay has some amazing results from our test-run."
"Just in time," said Lindsay. The lights in the room were already dim, and now they'd begun to flicker... on the verge of going out completely. The computer's uninterruptable power supply kicked in with a loud 'beep,' indicating that they had only a few more minutes before the powerful machine shut down completely. Dr. Jeffries was unconcerned. He studied the information on the screen, using the last few minutes of power to copy some of the juicier tidbits of data onto a notepad.
"This is amazing," he mused.
The power supply beeped again.
"Maybe you should email that data back to the university," Dr. Hixon suggested.
"That would require an internet connection," said Lindsay. "I haven't seen any phone or ISDN jacks around here, have you?"
"Oh."
"Besides, I've already burned the data onto disks." Lindsay tapped the stack of CD-Roms sitting on the table beside her.
"That's all well and good," said Anthony. "But what are we gonna do for POWER, eh? Without that generator we might as well just go home."
"I'm not averse to that idea," said Dr. Jeffries.
"What?"
Everyone looked at Dr. Jeffries as if he'd just announced that he enjoyed wearing women's underwear.
"Not home, of course.... but I'm certain this town has a hotel of some sort. We could return here just before dawn and commence a proper search for our missing equipment. There's no use in staying here if we can't do anything."
"That sounds reasonable," said Hixon. "Don't you think so Ms. Bishop?"
Sarah Bishop continued to stare into the air for a few moments before acknowledging that someone had spoken to her.
"Yes," she said finally. "I think we should leave. And I don't think we should come back."
"...yeah, whatever..."
"But what about the equipment," said David. "You want us to tear all this shit down and set it back up in the morning?"
"No, that would be an unnecessary waste of effort." said Jeffries. "The machine is assembled and calibrated... it should remain that way until we're done."
"But we can't just LEAVE it here."
"Actually, we can. As long as someone stays behind to watch it."
"Ohhhh... I KNEW that was coming," said Anthony. "And lemme guess who' that's gonna be."
"Anthony? David? This machine is your handiwork... you should want to stay and make sure nothing happens to it."
"So we get to make like a cheap reality TV-Show while the rest of you get toilets and running water. Sounds about right."
"Leaving them here by themselves-" Sarah began.
"Oh, shut up," David snapped.
"You're gonna have to move your truck so I can get my car out," said Lindsay.
"Here-" David tossed her a set of keys. Lindsay caught them... barely... and looked at them as if she'd never seen keys before.
"I don't know how to drive that truck-"
"Oh, JESUS CHRIST! FINE! I'LL move the damn truck!" David snatched the keys back and headed outside. Everyone else grabbed their belongings and followed him, except for Anthony. He plopped down in Kyle's chair and sighed.
"...juuust great..."
The last person out of the mansion slammed the door. It made a low, muffled sound...not quite as loud as it should have been, yet Anthony could still hear the footsteps on the cobblestones outside. He heard car doors opening and closing. Silence. More car doors opening and slamming shut. Footsteps... headed back to the mansion?
The front door flew open-
"FUCK!" David swore. "God-DAMMIT!"
"What happened!?"
"The fucking CARS won't start!"
"The batteries are dead," said Dr. Hixon. He and the others were now filing back into the mansion. "All of them."
"Oh, shit!"
"I can NOT believe this shit!"
"It isn't like you were going anywhere anyway, David," said Dr. Hixon. He pulled a cell-phone from his pocket and raised the antenna. "Just calm down; I'll call AAA."
"This doesn't make any sense," said Lindsay. "How could they all go dead at once?"
"You KNOW what happened!" said David. "Fucking ghosts.... YOU THINK THIS SHIT IS FUNNY!? HUH!?! I'LL KICK YOUR FUCKING ASSES!!!"
"I thought these ghost wanted us out of here?" said Anthony. "Why are they sabotaging our cars if they want us to leave?"
"Perhaps they weren't the ones that did it," said Sarah.
"Well it wasn't ME!" said David. "Hell, we've all been sitting in this room all night!"
"And when we went out, we went out in pairs," Anthony added. "Nobody fucked with anything."
"So if it wasn't the ghosts and it wasn't us... who was it?"
"Something else," Sarah replied. "There's something else here."
"Oh, NOW she tells us," Anthony sighed.
"I wasn't sure at first. There's so much energy here that it all sort blends together... hard to separate one thing from another. But after the machine.... I think it stirred up something. I got a hint of it then, but it wasn't clear until I saw the lines on the computer-"
"The data," said Jeffries. "What about it?"
"The spike on the Q-E graphs," said Lindsay. "Is that what you're talking about?"
"Yes. That spike... it wasn't a ghost. I think it's masquerading as a ghost... but its really something else. Some OTHER kind of entity. The spirits in this house want us gone, but this OTHER thing... it wants us to stay."
"Why?"
"Is it dangerous?"
"The cowboy," said Anthony. "It snatched the generator and drained the batteries."
"I don't know. It's still very confusing."
"Well what DO you know! Dammit, what the hell are you even HERE for if you can't TELL us shit!"
"David, why are you so angry?"
"Fuck you."
"Uhhh...," Dr. Hixon began. "We've got another problem. My phone's got no signal."
"Cheap phone," said Anthony.
"I've got the same problem," said Dr. Jeffries. He had his phone out as well, but the display indicated that there was no signal. "There is no service here. It seems that circumstances have made the decision for us... we'll be staying here tonight after all," said Jeffries.
"With no electricity."
"We have the flashlights and lamps I brought," said Hixon. "Candles. Plenty of light."
"I suggest we take the rooms upstairs," said Sarah. "They are less... active... than the ones down here. And I don't think we should sleep alone."
"I don't think Lindsay was planning on doing that anyway-"
"Shut up, Anthony."
"Somebody should stay here and watch the equipment-"
"And I think THIS dude should take first watch-" Anthony pointed at Dr. Hixon.
"Fine. That's fine. I'll take first watch. No problem."
"The women will be together," said Jeffries. "Kyle will be with me-"
"Oooo, tough luck, Lindsay."
"Fuck off."
"That leaves Anthony and David. We'll all take adjacent rooms. The ones nearest the stairwell. Everyone brought their own blankets and pillows... try to get some sleep, we'll start tomorrow at dawn. That's about four hours from now. If we can't find the generator, then we'll have to purchase another one."
"So, uhhhh... exactly what am I supposed to do if something happens down here?" said Dr. Hixon.
"Shout really loud," Anthony replied. "Really, really loud. Think you can manage that, doc?"
"Six years of undergraduate work... a doctorate in parapsychology... only to be a glorified car alarm. Great."
"We'll be right upstairs," said Jeffries. "After a couple of hours, come and get one of the others."
"Ah, let him stay down there the whole night," said Anthony as they walked up the stairs. "Its not like he'll be doing anything constructive tomorrow."
"...if he knocks on MY door I'll kick his ass..." David added.
---
Sleep was a restless domain filled with screams and smoke... and of the Sampler's high whine mingled with something else... a dark, ominous rumble that rose from the ground as if the earth itself were enraged. David pulled the bedroll tightly round him as if to block out the sounds, but they kept coming. Wave upon wave of wailing and gnarling... and growling. He shuddered in his sleep, and, in doing so, managed to shake himself awake. The sounds faded slowly. He could still hear them for the first few seconds after waking... echoing reminders of something that his conscious mind had already forgotten. But even as they faded, the baneful chorus was replaced by something else:
"RAH!"
David groaned as the sound took shape in his mind.
"rrrr.... RAH! Rah! RahRahRah!"
The dog.
"RAH!... rrrrrRRAHRAH!"
It was outside, and, from the sound of it, the tiny fiend had planted itself right underneath the bedroom window so that they could all appreciate its post-midnight serenade.
"rah! rrr... RAHRAHRAH!"
"...aww, dammit..."
"RAH!"
David shuddered once more, this time in growing annoyance at the incessant barking that went on and on and on and on...
"RRRRRAH! RAH! RAHRAHRAHRAH! rrrrrrr..."
"...oh, come ON!"
"RAH! RAHRAH!"
"Oh, COME THE FUCK ON!!" David growled as he threw the blanket back and jumped to his feet. He stomped over to the window and looked out. The clouds had receded somewhat, allowing some moonlight to illuminate the landscape. The window overlooked the garden, but there was nothing below but shadows and cobblestones.
"RAHRAHRAH!"
The barking was coming from further away than David thought... from somewhere in the garden. But it sounded for all the world as it the mutt were barking right into his ear.
"RAHRAHRAH!"
David leaned out the window and shouted.
"SHUT THE FUCK UP, ALREADY!"
"Rah! RAHRAH!"
"GIVE IT A FUCKING BREAK, OKAY! JESUS CHRIST!"
"David, would you shut the fuck up!" Anthony moaned from his corner of the room. David heard his friend roll over and mumble under his breath.
"Dude, do you HEAR this fucking shit!"
"Man, this isn't funny any more... just go the fuck to sleep, okay?"
"Damn RIGHT it ain't funny! I can't sleep with all that fucking-"
"RAH!RAH!RAH!RAH!RAH!RAH!RAH!RAH!RAH!RAH!RAH!!"
"HEY!" David hollered out the window at the top of his lungs. The barking paused for a few seconds... and then-
"RAH!RAH!RAH!RAH!RAH!RAH!RAH!"
"HEEEEEY!! Fuck this!" David stomped over to the wall and pounded on it with his fist. Lindsay and Sarah were sharing the room next door. "HEY! HEY, get the fuck up and go get your FUCKING DOG!"
"HEY!" Lindsay's shrill voice called from the other side of the wall. "I don't care what you two fags are doing to each other there, just stop POUNDING ON THE GODDAMN WALL, okay!"
"What the f-... BITCH!"
"....oh, geez..." Anthony mumbled. "And I thought the nightmares were bad..."
"GO GET THAT FUCKING DOG!"
There was a merciful period of silence that lasted about ten seconds. And then-
"RAH!RAH!RAH!RAH!RAH!RAH!RAH!RAH!RAH!RAH!RAH!!"
"FUCK THIS!" Anthony snatched jacket from the floor and thrust his arms into the sleeves. He yanked his sneakers onto his feet and grabbed his flashlight. "I'll go get that fucker my goddamn self!" he said as he stomped out of the room. "Kick his ass over the wall like a goddamn football!"
He slammed the door behind him and stormed down the hall, pausing just long enough to pound his fists on Sarah's door.
"WAKE UP, BITCH! If I can't sleep, NOBODY fucking sleeps!"
"FUCK YOU!" Lindsay screamed in return.
David continued down the hall. He took the stairs two and three at a time, without regard for the long shadows that reached out to snare his feet. He reached the bottom and headed straight for the front door, not bothering to glance back into the living room or investigate the strange chill that followed him down the hall. He reached the door and went out into the courtyard. The beam from his flashlight became visible in the late-night mist... it slashed too and fro in the darkness like the blade of a enchanted sword.
"RAH!RAH!RAH!RAH!RAH!rrrrrr!RAH!!"
"Uh-huh." David turned toward where he thought the sound was coming from, but he couldn't be sure. He waited.
"RAHRAH!"
"Gotcha!" David marched off toward the garden as the barking continued.
---
Dr. Jeffries was reading by candlelight when someone knocked on the door.
"Who is it?" he snapped. While he wasn't doing anything vitally important, he still hated to be interrupted just on general principle.
"Dr. Jeffries?"
It was a woman's voice. Sarah Bishop.
Dr. Jeffries sighed and put he journal down, then checked on Kyle. The boy was sound asleep in a corner of the room.
Jeffries tied his robe tightly around him, he got up and answered the door. Dr. Hixon's psychic stood patiently in the hallway, dressed in the same clothes she'd been wearing all day.
"Ms. Bishop?"
"I need to talk to you," she said. "About your students."
"Anthony and David?"
"Yes. How well do you know them, Dr. Jeffries?"
"Why?"
"Please. This is important."
Dr. Jeffries glanced back at Kyle, then stepped out into the hall with Sarah.
"What's going on, Ms. Bishop?" he demanded.
"That's exactly what I'm trying to find out."
"Is this something that can wait until morning?"
"No. Tell me about your students, Dr. Jeffries. Please."
Jeffries gave her a suspicious frown.
"They're brilliant," he said in a guarded tone.
"I don't doubt that," Sarah replied. "But that's not what I'm asking."
"What ARE you asking?"
"How well do you know THEM... WHO they are?"
"I stay out of my student's personal lives, Ms. Bishop... just as I expect them to stay out of mine. They're brilliant students and hard workers. That's all that matters to me."
"Then you may have just doomed us all."
---
"RAHRAHRAHRAHRARARARARAH!"
"KEEP barking you little mutherfucker!" David seethed. "Keep riiiiight on barking!"
The dog's maddening voice lead David through the garden as surely as a signal flare on a dark sea. He navigated the maze of cobblestone walkways, winding ever-nearer to the source of his anger. On either side of him, the razor-leaved shrubs hissed and swayed in an unfelt breeze, but he paid them no mind. The barking continued. And each annoying blast of sound spurred David on that much faster...
...until finally he realized that he was moving AWAY from it.
"RAHRAHRAH!"
"What the fuck?" David turned around and listened.
"RAH!"
He backtracked a few yards. Then he remembered where he was.
"Gotcha NOW, ya little FUCKER!"
"RAHRAH!"
David plunged into the wall of shrubs on his right and fought his way through to the other side. The ground became soft and spongy with every step, until finally it was sucking at his sneakers like a thing alive.
"Fuck!" David swore when he almost lost a shoe. He changed his gait to an odd, shuffling motion that only served to throw the filthy muck up onto the legs of his pants. "FUCK!"
Finally he emerged.
The old sanctum was now an ocean of worm-infested mud surrounding a single tiny island of rock. The smashed fountain rose from the filth like a tiny mountain... and perched precariously on top of the tallest peak was the psychic's dog.
The animal was terrified. It shook visibly as it peered down at the muck below. It growled.. then its tiny mouth opened-
"RAHRAHRAH!"
It was barking at the worms. They were everywhere, but there was an enormous mass of them had clustered around the old fountain, where they wiggled and squirmed with unnatural vigor. They were tiny worms, but their numbers were so great that David could actually HEAR them squishing around in the mud. And their intent was obvious: they had surrounded the poor dog, and they wouldn't let him go.
"...Jesus..." David gasped. His anger pulled back for a moment-
"RAHRAHRAH!" the dog barked.
-and then it was back again.
"Well how the fuck did you get OVER there, then!" David snapped.
"RAH!"
The animal looked at David with tiny, fear-filled eyes. It whined.
"Fuck you. Stay there."
"RAH! RAH!RAH!RAH!RAH!RAH!"
"Fuckit..."
David took a step toward the fountain. One step. His foot sank down in the mud... and it kept sinking... and sinking...
"WHOAH!" David pulled his leg back out of the sinkhole. It made a loud, wet sucking sound. Mud coated his pants leg up to mid-calf. "DAMN!"
"RAH! RAHRAH!"
David glared at the dog.
"RAH!"
"Just shut the fuck up."
"RAH!"
"Shut UP!"
"RAH! RAH!RAH!RAH!RAH!RAH!RAH!RAH!RAH!RAH!"
"SHUT UP!"
David looked around the edge of the sanctum and saw a few loose stones that has so far escaped the ever-growing tide of mud. He sloshed over to a patch of them and snatched one of the smaller rocks.
It was a sharp, nasty-looking stone.
"RAHRAH!"
"NNNRAH!"
David hurled the rock at the dog.
KAK!
The stone bounced off of the fountain, missing the animal entirely. It did get the dog's attention, however. The animal looked incredulously at David, as if not believing what had just happened.
"Hell YEAH!" David shouted. "BARK one more time!"
"RAH!"
KAK!
David sent another rock hurtling toward the dog. Again, he missed.
The dog whined. He looked down at the worms, then at David. It shivered.
"Bark," said David, already holding another stone ready to throw. "BARK! You wanted to bark all goddamn NIGHT, right!? So FUCKING BARK!"
The dog made a quiet, tentative 'yip'
"GOOD ENOUGH!"
David threw the rock-
"YIIIIPE!" The dog screamed as the stone struck it in the center of the skull. The impact knocked the small animal off of its perch and sent it tumbling into the mud. It landed with a single, ominously muted 'plop'....
...and then there was nothing. No sound. No struggle.
Silence.
"Heh, heh, heh."
---
"What on earth are you talking about, Ms. Bishop?"
"There are a lot of things wrong in this place, Dr. Jeffries. Lots of negative energies... but not all of it was here before we came. We brought some of it with us. I think that energy has awakened something. At first I thought it was the Sampler that started it... but now that I've had some time to think-
"Ms. Bishop, please... go spin your yarns to Dr. Hixon."
"You don't believe me."
"Oh, I believe you," said Dr. Jeffries. "I just don't care. I'm here to do research... not to psychoanalyze my students."
"You don't have to care, Dr. Jeffries... just help me. I'm here to help YOU with YOUR precious research... could you please help me with mine?"
Dr. Jeffries sighed.
"Anthony and David are two normal young men," he said. "David has a bit of a problem with his temper, but that's never interfered with his work."
"Has he ever been treated for any kind of mental illness?"
"David? No. Not that I know of. But then, I WOULDN'T know... I'm a teacher, not a parent. Why? Certainly you're not suggesting-"
"Perhaps. He's acting very strange, and it's getting worse. Ever since we arrived, David has had a... fixation... with my dog."
"Your dog."
"Yes. Just a little while ago he was carrying about the barking and-"
"Good night, Ms. Bishop. If this is some kind of joke, it isn't funny. Try again in the morning and maybe I'll indulge you... for now, think I'll finish my reading."
Dr. Jeffries turned back to his room. He opened the door, but Sarah called after him:
"I take it that your reaction means you've noticed the same thing that I have?"
"And what would that be, Ms. Bishop?" said Dr. Jeffries as he paused in the doorway.
"That I don't have a dog."
---
David stared stonily as the patch of mud and worms where the dog had vanished. Then he nodded. Then he smiled.
"Goddamn mut." David started back toward the bushes.
-bloop-
A single, tiny bubble rose to the surface of the mud near the fountain. Two more followed it... and then another. The fourth was larger and further away from the rocks. Closer to David.
"You still alive down there?" said David, already casting around for more rocks.
-bloop-
Another bubble burst... this one large and close enough to splatter tiny specks of mud onto David's face.
"What the f-"
SPLASH!
Something burst out of the mud two feet in front of him. Something HUGE! David didn't get a chance to see what it was, because at that very instant the ground beneath him gave way. It was as if a carpet had been snatched out from underneath his shoes. David's legs shot forward and he fell... but instead of hitting solid ground, he sank beneath the cold mud. The black and brown filth clamped down over his face like a giant fist. David felt the muck sucking him down... he would have HEARD it as well, if his ears weren't already host to a dozen mud-worms trying to squirm their way into the soft warmth of his tissues. His limbs flailed wildly, but the more he struggled, the deeper he sank. He felt things squirming violently across his lips and tightly-closed eyelids... easing under his fingernails and up his mud-filled nostrils.
"MMMMMMMM!!!!!" He shouted through closed lips. "MMMMMM!!!!"
Oxygen-starvation added the strength of desperation to his struggle. He tried to claw and kick his way to the surface, but his every movement took him lower... deeper. Finally, his brain would have no more of it. It over-rode his will and threw open eyes, lips, and throat in one desperate, convulsive gasp. Worm-infested mud flooded down into his lungs and stomach, but even as his innards railed against the unbreathable intrusion... his eyes...
...even in the pitch blackness of the depths... even through the worms and the muck...
They could see...
They could see it coming...
Dear GOD, they could SEE!
---
Anthony shivered slightly within the confines of his sleeping bag. He could still hear it. The last echoes of David's angry slamming of the front door. They were still there, haunting him like every other sound in the house.
The shadows. The ghosts. The eerie 'too dark' darkness that clung to every corner. Those were bad enough, but the one thing that Anthony couldn't stand about the house was the sound... the way it played and toyed with them... turning the slightest noise into something malicious. Every sound. Every voice. Every footstep had a dark and sinister overture. A settling foundation on the far side of the building sounded like something trying to scratch up through the floorboards underneath him. The echoes of a slamming door became gunshots that steadfastly refused to fade, and instead bounced around the mansion for far, far longer than nature itself would allow.
Were Anthony more awake than he was, he would have tried to calculate, derive, and solve for the true physics behind the phenomena. But he wasn't quite awake enough for that... so all he did was listen. And wait. He didn't know if he were waiting for dawn, or for David's return, or for the next eerie echo to send a chill down his back. In truth, he hoped to be asleep before either one of those things happened.
And he almost was...
<knock>-<knock>
Anthony frowned so deeply that his face hurt. Was someone knocking on a door? Was someone knocking on HIS door, or was it one of the other rooms? Or perhaps it wasn't knocking at all. Perhaps it was something else entirely.
<Knock>
His door.
"hhhhuuhhh?" Anthony moaned. He opened one eye and stared at the dark rectangle on the opposite side of the room. He couldn't actually see the door... but he tried anyway. His right hand felt around in the sleeping bag for his flashlight. "Who's there?"
Anthony heard the latch turn. The door opened, and light spilled into the room from a single, feeble flashlight held by a dark figure that remained in the hall.
"Whozzat?" Anthony finally found his own light. He clicked it on and aimed it at the figure in the doorway. It was Lindsay. The young woman wore pink jogging pants with a matching sweatshirt... hardly the night-ware that Anthony envisioned for the sexy graduate student. But then, she probably saved the good stuff for rich professors and researchers. Anthony figured that he didn't rate high enough for the Victoria's Secret lingerie... just the K-Mart sweatsuits.
Too bad. Even in bulky cotton, the swell of Lindsay's curves was more than enough to stir the loins. Anthony wondered what she was wearing underneath. If anything.
"Hey," he said. It was all he could come up with, and, between the rising lust and the fading sleep... he was lucky he got THAT.
"Where's your friend?" Lindsay replied.
"Damned if I know. Why... did 'Heavy-D' send you here to ask? She worried about his 'vibes'?"
"No," Lindsay said, still standing out in the hall. "Can I come in?"
"I dunno... how much is it gonna cost me?"
Lindsay flashed him an exasperated look and made an almost imperceptible move away from the door.
"Hey!" Anthony blurted. "Hey, I'm sorry." He wasn't. He STILL thought it was funny. "Yeah, come on in."
Lindsay closed the door behind her and padded softly over to where Anthony lay. He bare feet made soft, comfortable sounds on the wooden floor. Anthony sat upright and leaned his back against the wall as Lindsay sat down just a few feet away. She sat cross-legged, with knees spread wide. Anthony couldn't help but glance at her jogging pants, which were pulled tight against her crotch. The mere thought of-
"David."
"Huh?" David's gaze snapped back up to Lindsay's face. "What's up?"
"This place," said Lindsay. "I don't like it. I think we should leave."
"Wow, Lindsay... that must be the first original thought you've had all day! No, wait... Sarah's been saying that since we got here."
Lindsay rolled her eyes. She started to get up-
"Heeeyyy... hey, now," said Anthony. "Sorry. Reflex."
"Why do you guys give me such a hard time?"
"Hard time? Well-"
"I'm serious. All you've done is talk and make jokes about me. Why?"
"Well, let's see..." Anthony was tired, sleepy, a unnerved, and he knew he didn't stand a chance in hell with the woman sitting in front of him, so he may as well tell the truth. He held up his hand and started counting on his fingers as he spoke, "There was Dr. Richards. Dr. Soloman. That junior VP from IBM. The SGI research coordinator-... do you see a pattern here?"
"No."
"Lindsay. Now, don't take this the wrong way, but the minute anybody who smells like money steps on the campus, you're on 'em like roaches on Corn Flakes."
"That's not true."
"Lindsay, have you SEEN our school? We've got like SIX people in the whole student body. Word gets around, ya know?"
"You think I'm a slut."
"Slut? No."
"Whore?"
"Why are you asking me this shit? We're trapped in a haunted house, and all you wanna talk about is your reputation?"
"Reputation is important."
"Ordinarily, I'd say you were shallow... but see, I've got you figured out."
"Oh, really?"
"Yeah. It's reconnaissance. YOU wanna know what Dr. Jeffries knows, so you can plan out your tactics. So you figure you'll pump ME for information. Sorry. No dice."
"Dr. Jeffries doesn't have anyth-"
"Ohhhh, plleeeeease," said Anthony. "Famous physicist? Research grants that could buy a small country? You've been on his dick since the second he came to the campus. My FIRST day as a grad student, I go to meet with the doctor for the first time and WHO do I see camped outside his office?"
"Okay... so maybe that was a bit obvious." Lindsay smiled.
"A bit."
"But I think you're jealous."
"Of Jeffries?"
"No, of me."
"Oh, is this another gay joke? Look, that was just a STORY that this little undergraduate bitch started when she found out I was fucking her roommate, okay. That shit she said... I did NOT-"
"When a man wants something, he has a lot of different choices of how to go about getting it. Lots of different ways to get what he wants. When a WOMAN wants something, she has all those same options... PLUS one that he DOESN'T have."
"'Scuse me, but... uhhh... what the FUCK are you talking about?"
"Using what you have to get what you want. Everyone does it. But women have one thing at their disposal that men don't, and some men are jealous."
"You've got this shit down to a philosophy, eh? The Zen of Gold-Digging. It's like a science to you."
"It has to be. I want a lot of things."
"And getting a degree and working for is just too much of a hassle or something?"
"That," said Lindsay. She eased forward slightly, bringing herself closer to Anthony. Her cotton-clad leg brushed briefly against his. "And not as much fun."
"Oh, well at least there's fun involved," Anthony replied. He reached out to straighten the blanket, then left his hand resting on his knee... which was just an inch away from Lindsay's thigh. "I mean... I'd hate to think you slept your way through the Campus Rich and Famous just for the cash."
"Cash is enough," said Lindsay. "But if I couldn't have fun getting it then I'd be... well... like you."
"Hey, physics is fun." Anthony made a lame attempt to stroke Lindsay's leg while pretending to scratch his knee. Lindsay said nothing... so he did it again, this time without the pretense.
"Maybe." Lindsay leaned forward and spoke in a soft, deep whisper. "But does it get you everything you want?"
"Not yet." Anthony's fingertips traced a long, slow path along Lindsay's outer thigh... slowly making their way upward and inward... "But there's always hope."
"So what is it that you're hoping for?" Lindsay's body came closer to Anthony. He felt her warmth... smelled the faint traces of powder and perfume. Anthony searched for that expectant look in her face, but instead he found an intensity that turned him on even more. His tongue danced briefly across his suddenly dry lips, moistening them. She repeated the gesture, but her lips were already wet. Her tongue slid between them slowly before vanishing into back into her mouth.
"I think you already know," said Anthony. His left hand, which had been slowly snaking its way up her left thigh, now switched legs as Anthony moved forward to bring his face close to Lindsay's.
"Do I?" Lindsay whispered. Anthony listened to her sultry breath. He was close enough to feel it on his face. His hand sat poised and ready on her thigh... his lightly stroking fingertips just inches away from her crotch. Her hand appeared on his leg, but it didn't move. It just waited. "Maybe you should tell me again."
Anthony paused. Not for fear or nervousness, but because it was the way things were done. He basked in the heat of his own lust for a moment... honing it to a razor's edge... then tilted his head and leaned in those final few inches to press his lips against hers. Their lips parted, and their tongues met in that passionate in-between that was neither his mouth nor hers. They did not meet timidly or tenderly... but instead, they tasted each other's mouths with an urgent, lustful hunger. Anthony's hand moved back to Lindsay's left leg, where it slid boldly up to the joining of her thighs and caressed her crotch with one long, slow stroke.
Lindsay moaned into Anthony's mouth as his fingers stoked the heat of her sex, pressing the tight cotton against her flesh. She eased her hips forward and began to move rhythmically against his fingertips. Her hand moved up his leg, leaving a trail of heat behind it as it approached his thigh. Using his free hand, Anthony pulled the blanket away from him, exposing his bare skin to her touch. Then he brought his hand to her side and slid under the hem of her sweatshirt. Her skin felt both cold and warm to his fingers as they made their way up her torso... stroking her stomach and side... feeling the rise and fall of her increasingly urgent breaths.
She continued to grind herself against him... harder now... and then faster. Her fingers left his skin as they traced across the thin cloth of his boxer shorts... still moving upward. Anthony encountered the swell of Lindsay's braless breasts under her sweatshirt. Their mouths parted slightly, but their tongues continued to dance in the open air. Their hands reached their destination at the same time... Anthony filled his hand with the shape of Lindsay's breast while her fingers snaked into the gap of his boxers and gently grasped him. He brushed his fingers across her nipple... one finger at a time... and they both moaned.
The sweatshirt was halfway off by the time the moan ended. Lindsay released him just long enough to slide out of the garment, then he was back in her slow, stroking grasp once more. Anthony's fingers returned to her breasts... he hefted one of the succulent orbs and leaned down to take the nipple into his mouth, but Lindsay would have none of it. She planted one hand on his chest and... gently... eased him back until he was flat on the floor.
He looked up into her hungry eyes as she kneeled beside him... lust-soaked skin gleaming in the light of the discarded flashlights. With one hand she teased his manhood free of his shorts. Her other hand grasped Anthony's and brought it to the waistband of her jogging pants. Anthony eased the pants down past her hips, slowly exposing her beauty. When they reached her knees, Lindsay discarded them with a quick shuffle. Anthony beheld her nakedness, discovering with lusty glee that she either wore no panties, or they had vanished along with the pants. His left hand slid up her thigh and danced across the naked skin of her sex, but before he could tease her any further, she thrust his hand away and threw one of her long legs across his stomach, straddling him.
She leaned backward, briefly stretching her breasts toward Anthony. His hands found them instinctively. Then she reached behind her and took him in her hand. Supporting herself on knees, Lindsay slid back ... paused seductively,... and then thrust herself down onto him. She mounted him like a champion, and immediately began to ride him with a fierce and urgent tempo.... thrusting her hips upon him faster and harder... then slower and softer.... and all while her sex massaged his like a lover's tender hand. But there was no love in this. Only lust. And the only thing that Anthony could do was try to keep up. Every time he tried to establish his own rhythm... every time he tried to move his hips to compliment her own pleasureful thrusts... she flash him an annoyed look and jerk her thighs together sharply in silent notice that she KNEW what she was doing... that he was to just lay there and enjoy it.
And enjoy it he did. The pleasure rose so high, so quickly, that it was all he could do to not embarrass himself. But he needn't have worried. It was as if Lindsay were plugged in to his mind. Every time he neared the pinnacle, she altered her tempo just enough to keep him back. And when he adjusted to the new rhythm, she changed it again. She was in charge of his pleasure as well as her own, and she would not be finished until SHE was ready. And when that moment came, Lindsay's chest and neck flushed a deep red as her mouth locked open in a silent scream. Anthony felt the hot pressure of pure ecstasy grasping him in hard, angry rhythms, continuing to stroke him even though the woman herself was frozen solid with pleasure. She raced over the edge and dragged him screaming along with her. Eyes shut, mouth open, Anthony's whole body became a solid iron bar of pure orgasm. The only thing keeping him on this side of consciousness was the realization that, if he passed out, he'd be missing the last few spasms...
Lindsay collapsed on top of him and panted her hot breath into his ear. She eased her hips forward and removed herself from his manhood almost as an afterthought.
"...whoa..." Anthony said between gasps of breath. He didn't know why he said it or what it meant... it just came out of his mouth for no reason. And then it happened again. "...whoooa..."
"So what do you want NOW?" Lindsay whispered. She followed the whisper with the tip of her tongue... gently tasting the curves of his ear.
"I want... I want five minutes."
Lindsay nibbled on his ear for a moment...
"...and then what?" she said.
"Round Two," Anthony replied.
"Ohhhh...." Anthony could feel her smiling against his face. He could feel the weight of her body against him... the heat of her sex as is rested on his stomach. She pressed her mound against him, and his lust began to stir once more.
"...or maybe I only need one minute-"
Suddenly, Lindsay sat bolt upright. She was still straddling his stomach, but now her knees were digging painfully into his sides. Her head turned toward the door.
"He's here!" she gasped.
"Huh?" said Anthony. He looked at the door... he listened. And for ONCE he didn't hear a damned thing. "Who's here? David?"
"I shouldn't be here!"
"What are you talking about?"
Lindsay leapt to her feet and glanced down at Anthony. She met his confused stare with a look of pure terror.
"It's COMING!" she screamed. And then she ran from the room... she ran...
...right through the wall.
Anthony sat up and blinked repeatedly, not wanting to believe what he'd just seen. Not wanting to accept the ramifications of what he THOUGHT he saw...
"...wh...wha...what... What the FUCK!?!"
Lindsay had run through the wall as if it wasn't even there. And Anthony was right behind her... only he had sense enough to use the door. He burst out into the hallway and looked up and down the dark aisle of rooms. He shined the light toward the stairs, expecting to see nothing.
But there she was, looking back at him. Only it wasn't Lindsay.
Anthony knew the dark-haired woman only from the photographs that Hixon had shown them. A photograph of a ghost, who looked exactly like she did now... right down to the wall that was plainly visible through her almost transparent form. She stared at Anthony with wide, dark eyes.
"Get out!" she screamed. Her voice was high and loud, yet distant. But it was clear enough for Anthony to read the emotion behind it... clear enough for him to know that her words weren't a threat. They were a frantic and sincere warning. She started to speak again, but then she turned toward the wall beside her. She looked at it fearfully, and then she ran screaming down the stairs.
"HEY!" Anthony shouted after her. He ran for the stairs-
BOOOM!
The impact shook the entire house. Every room, every hallway... every nail in every piece of wood... But it wasn't an earthquake or explosion, no, it was as if something huge had risen up and slammed its unholy fist into the house with every bit of infernal anger that it could muster. One tremendous impact... and of everyone in the house, Anthony alone knew where it was...
Because he was looking right at it.
The wall adjacent to the stairs buldged outward like some obscene growth. Something outside had struck it, but instead of breaking or shattering, the wooden beams flowed and twisted out of shape... warping far beyond nature's intention, yet still remaining intact enough to keep the source of the impact from passing through.
But it was not over.
Before Anthony could take one step back, the wall began to crack. Jagged slivers of darkness radiated out from the impact-zone, propagating along the twisted surface... and then making sudden 90-degree turns when they encountered the floor, ceiling, and the adjacent walls. They made a sound was like a large tree slowly falling... its fibers snapping one by one...
...and they were heading straight for Anthony.
All of them. Every single crack, of which there must have been hundreds, raced down the hallway... turning the walls, floor, and ceiling into an evil spiderweb of miniature chasms. And the closer they got, the faster they came--
crrraaaaack.... snap...crrrrrack...crrrr....
"Guys?" Anthony said as he backed away. He pounded on the first door he came to. "Guys! SOMETHING'S HAPPENING!"
Now came the low growling of something dark... something evil. Something huge. It was just waking up, and it was reaching for Anthony with hundreds of dark, jagged fingers.
"DOCTOR JEFFRIES! MS. BISHOP!!!! SOMEBODY!"
There was no response. He was in the house by himself... he didn't know HOW he know this, but he did... just as he knew that this was not a dream. Anthony backed away faster. HE wanted to turn and run, but he couldn't take his eyes away from what they were seeing.
"DAVIIIIDDD!!! OH, GOD, HELLLP!!!"
The sinister cracks doubled their speed and began to converge on him. Anthony turned to run-
WHAP!
His face sank into the dusty, solid chest of the thing that had been standing behind him. Instinctively, Anthony looked up. The thing wore a man's face and body... it wore a dusty hat and tattered poncho... it wore a scent of heat and sweat, and a belt with two silver six-guns hanging from their holsters... but it was no man by any stretch of the imagination. Its eyes gave it away. Two glowing THINGS set so far back into their sockets that their light seemed to have traveled miles just to bathe Anthony in their angry glare.
The gunman's frowned, the skin of his dusty brow bunched up like a meaty tentacle perched above his eyes. His head tilted slightly to the side as he breathed a blast of hot, fetid air into Anthony's face. The man's teeth were like two rows of shattered tombstones set into withering black soil.
Anthony screamed.
He tried to turn and run, but only ended up stumbling backward, arm's pinwheeling wildly as he tried to catch his balance. The gunman snatched both revolvers from his waist. He held one at his side while pointing the other straight ahead... aiming it at the sweaty notch between Anthony's eyes. He eased the hammer back...
-cli-click!-
"NO! Oh, PLEASE NO!!!" Anthony begged. "NOOOO, please, GOD, NO!"
The gunman lowered the weapon, but as he did, his finger pulled back on the trigger-
BLAM!
Anthony's crotch exploded in a splash of brilliant red. A giant flower of blood blossomed across his boxers like a crimson magnolia as the slug shredded his delicate flesh.
Anthony clamped his hand over the wound and tried to scream... but his lungs would draw no air. His mouth hung open, frozen in an "O" of fear and pain as he dropped to his knees. He felt blood spraying out from between his frantically clutching fingers... the sudden warmth made it feel as if he were urinating on himself. He smelled the blood. He could smell his own blood.
Still unable to draw enough breath to scream, Anthony looked up at the gunman.
"...why..." the boy said in a high, weak voice.
The gunman's only response was an unintelligible sound. It was neither the hiss of a cat nor the rattle of a desert snake... but rather a little of both. And then both the sound and the apparition that made it were gone.
Both hands still clamped to his empty, bleeding crotch, Anthony leaned to the side and finally fell over. When his shoulder hit the floor... then... THEN he screamed:
"AIIIIIEEEGGGAARRR!!!"
Bedroom doors flew open on both sides of the hall. Dr. Jeffries and Ms. Bishop came storming out into the hallway.
"Oh, my God!" Sarah gasped. She rushed over to Anthony and knelt beside him... she tried to pull his hands away from his crotch, but they wouldn't budge. They were fixed so tightly in place that the muscles were beginning to tremble. "SOMEBODY HELP HIM!"
"What happened, son!" said Dr. Jeffries. "Who did this!"
"...he shot me... he shot me... he shot me..." was all that Anthony could say.
"I know some first aid," said Sarah. "Help me get his hands away-"
"What's going on?" Kyle called from Dr. Jeffries room.
"Get back in there, boy!" Dr. Jeffries ordered "This
isn't for you to see!"
"Yeah, okay," said Kyle as he stepped out in the hall to get
a closer look.
As did Lindsay. She wore a familiar pink sweatsuit that drove Anthony into paroxysms of terror when he saw her.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!" he bellowed. He removed one hand from his shredded loins just long enough to point a bloody finger at Lindsay. "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGET THAT FUCKING BITCH AWAY FROM ME!!!"
Lindsay saw the blood and stifled a scream.
"He's lost a lot of blood!" Sarah shouted. "Must have severed an artery!"
"I've lost more than BLOOD! That Fucker SHOT MY NUTS OFF! Ohhhhh GOD!""
"He's going to BLEED to death if we don't' stop it! Somebody HELP me here!"
Jeffries stood back... well out of the way of the rapidly spreading pool of blood.
Lindsay hesitated for a moment, then knelt beside Anthony and tried to grab his wildly flailing hands... both of which were furiously trying to push her away.
"NO! NO! NO! DON'T TOUCH ME! GET AWAY! GET AWAAAAYY!!!"
"He's hysterical," said Sarah. With Anthony's hands occupied in trying to push Lindsay away, the psychic now had clear access to the boy's crotch. She tore at the thin, bloody fabric of his shorts and-
"...what?" she said "What's going on?"
Sarah moved back so that everyone else could see. There, nestled in the bloody cloth, were Anthony's privates... intact... without a single wound, mark, or scar on them.
"Ewwwww..." said Lindsay. "Was this some kind of fucking JOKE to show us your dick!?"
Despite the bloody evidence to the contrary, there was no wound, gunshot or otherwise.
"What? WHAT!?!" Anthony sat up and examined himself. Not believing what he saw, he examined himself again. And again.
"Now he's playing with himself," Lindsay sighed.
"But.. but it was REAL! Look!!" Anthony pointed to the blood that was all over everything, including Sarah's hands. "Blood! Where'd the blood come from?"
"Is it real blood?" said Kyle.
"Smells real," Sarah replied.
"It WAS real!" said Anthony. Suddenly bereft of pain, he got to his feet and tucked himself back into what remained of his boxers. "IT WAS REAL... that COWBOY MUTHERFUCKER SHOT MY BALLS OFF!"
"Your balls are fine-
"I FELT it! HE SHOT OFF MY FUCKING BALLS!"
"It didn't happen, Anthony-"
"The HELL it didn't! That bastard... that.... that..."
Anthony's raging hysteria finally played itself out as the facts caught up with him. He hadn't been shot. There were no injuries. He wasn't in any pain. There was plenty of blood, but if that much blood had come out of HIM, he certainly wouldn't be walking around screaming about it. He'd be in shock, or dead.
"Okay," he said as he caught his breath. "What... the FUCK... just happened to me?"
"Maybe you should tell us," said Sarah.
"Okay.... okay, i was in my room... I was in my room trying to get back to sleep... and Lindsay comes in-"
"I did NOT come into your room," Lindsay protested.
"Well SOMEBODY did! It was that fucking GHOST bitch from the pictures.... but she LOOKED like YOU! We had sex and then-"
"You come running out here screaming and yelling because you had a wet dream!?"
"It was REAL!"
"Like when you were shot?"
"YES! I mean... uhhh.... I was AWAKE, okay! It was NOT a dream! DREAMS don't bleed! DREAMS don't SHOOT people in the FUCKING NUTS!!!"
"I think this is all just a fucking joke. You and that other asshole..."
"Where IS David?" said Dr. Jeffries. He looked around, and peered into Anthony's room. "Where is he?"
"He left," said Anthony. "He went outside."
"What!? WHEN!?" said Sarah.
"What do you mean, 'when'? You didn't HEAR him? C'mon, he slammed every goddamn door in the house!"
"I didn't hear anything," said Jeffries.
"Me neither," said Kyle.
"I heard him screaming and pounding on the wall," said Lindsay. "but after that it just got quiet; I figured you two were in there fucking or something-"
"BITCH, I will-"
"Calm down, Anthony."
"If he went outside, then Dr. Hixon would have seen him," said Sarah. "Dr. Hixon!" she shouted toward the stairs. There was no reply.
"He's supposed to be watching the equipment," said Lindsay
"HIXON!" Jeffries yelled.
Nothing.
"DR. HIXON!"
Again, nothing.
"Ohhhhh, shit," said Anthony.
Sarah was the first one at the stairs. She started down, with Dr. Jeffries and Kyle right behind her. Lindsay was next, and Anthony brought up the rear. He paused to look at the wall... it was perfectly normal now. The bulge and the cracks were gone. Like nothing had ever happened.
"...fuuuuck..."
"Anthony!" Jeffries called from downstairs.
"Coming!"
Realizing that he was alone on the second floor, he sprinted down the steps and joined the others in the living room. They were gathered around the comfortable chair that was Kyle's usual spot. Dr. Hixon was sitting in it now, however... sound asleep, and snoring heavily.
"Oh, you've gotta be fucking kidding," said Anthony. "He's ASLEEP!?!"
"Hixon-" Dr. Jeffries grabbed Hixon's shoulder and shook it gently. Dr. Hixon's eyes popped open.
"Huh?" he said. He slowly sat up straight in the chair and squinted at the crowd gathered around him. "Heeeeeeyyyy..... howw ya'll doin?"
"Ya'll?"
"Hixon?"
"My God, look at his eyes-"
Dr. Hixon's eyes were bloodshot to the point of looking unhealthy.
"Wha...?" Hixon slurred. He pawed at his eyes with limp, uncoordinated hands. "Waz wrong wi' my eyez? I don' see nuttin' wrong..."
"Doctor Hixon's drunk!" Kyle announced..
"Drunk, hell," said Lindsay. "He's shitfaced!"
"I'mmm snot drunk," Hixon protested. "I'mmm ferflekly ssober."
"Drunk!?" Anthony started looking around Hixon's chair. "You got some shit in here, doc!? Where ya hidin' it?!" Finding no hidden bottles, Anthony stared filing through Hixon's coat pockets.
"HEEEEY!!!" Hixon tried to pull away, and nearly fell out of his chair.
"I need it more than you do, doc! I got shot in the fucking nuts an all you got hit with is GUARD duty! Now GIVE IT HERE!"
"I ain' got nuttin!" Hixon slapped Anthony's hands away, and ended up hitting himself in the face accidentally. "Ouch. Stop hittin me!"
"Stop It," said Sarah. She stepped between Anthony and Hixon. Dr. Hixon looked up at her-
"Heeeey," he said. "You're fat."
"He's not drunk. Something else is wrong."
"Goddam, you're fuckin' HUGE!"
"Well, there's nothing wrong with his eyes," Lindsay mumbled... just loud enough for Anthony and Kyle to hear.
"Shh!" Sarah demanded. She grabbed Hixon by the shoulder and shook him violently.
"HEEEEYY!!" Hixon protested. "HEEEEY Lemme GO! Let GO a' me!"
"Get OUT!" Sarah shouted into Hixon's face. "GET OUT! LET HIM GO!"
"Aaaaaa..." Hixon's half-hearted scream was almost comical. "Aaaa... she's gon' crazy! She's try'n ta SHAKE me ta death! PLEASE don' let her SIT on me!"
Sarah ignored the plea and shouted at Hixon as loud as she could... punctuating each syllable with a violent jerk.
"LET him GO!!!"
"Sarah!" Dr. Jeffries protested.
Suddenly, Dr. Hixon convulsed. Every muscle in his body clenched at one giant spasm tore him from Sarah's grasp and threw him onto the floor.
"OUT!" Sarah commanded.
Hixon rolled over onto his back... his chest and abdomen lifted up off of the floor, then dropped back down again.
"OUT!"
Hixon's mouth opened and he began to gag.
"Roll him over!" said Jeffries. "He'll choke on his own vomit-"
"I ain't touching him!" Kyle replied, backing away.
"Stay back!" Sarah demanded.
Hixon spasmed again. His stomach clenched violently, and the convulsion expelled a huge cloud of light-brown smoke from his mouth.
"Oh, my God," said Lindsay.
The thick haze poured out of Hixon's mouth and nose in a continuous stream. It gathered in the air above him like a miniature storm cloud until all of it had been forced out. It hung there for an instant longer... and then shot out of the room like an arrow, leaving the stench of stale vomit and fresh whiskey in its wake. It flew down the hallway to the bedrooms and vanished in the darkness.
"ohhhhhh..." Dr. Hixon groaned. "...what happened..."
"It was a ghost."
"Naww, FUCK that!" said Anthony. "I get SHOT in the balls and this guy gets a fucking BUZZ!?!? What kinda shit is THAT!?! I'm OUTTA here!"
Anthony marched down the main hallway to the door.
"Anthony you can't go out there!" Sarah shouted after him.
"The hell I can't!"
"Where are you going, the cars don't work!"
"I'll WALK!"
Anthony slammed the door behind him, leaving the others to deal with the echoes. He trotted across the courtyard, trying to get as much distance between him and the house before someone came after him. When the front door opened, he wanted to be out of sight and well on his way to the front gate.
It was a long jog to the exit. In the dark and on foot, the path seemed a lot longer than it had when they'd driven in this afternoon. Anthony slowed his jog to a quick walk, but saved enough energy for a mad dash if the need arose.
The shrubs lining both sides of the path rattled... hissing loudly as they yielded to some wind that Anthony couldn't feel.
Anthony stopped. So did the bushes.
"David?" he called. "David, is that you?"
Nothing.
"Hey, I'm getting out of here, man! C'Mon... let's go!"
Nothing.
"David! YO, man... this place is fucked up! Stay here if you want! I'm gone!"
The darkness around him responded with a single sound... a light, faint crack, like a pebble skipping across cobblestones.
"David?"
Anthony peered into the blackness... the blackness that seemed less intense just a second ago... and saw no sign of anyone.
"Screw this."
Anthony started walking again, and his first footstep was touchstone that caused all hell to break loose. Something roared in the darkness... a deep, horrible sound that Anthony remembered all to well. He broke into a run, but stopped cold as the cobblestone path ahead of him erupted in a network of deep, dark cracks... miniature chasms that tore through the stone like tiny serpents zigzagging their way straight toward him.
"AAAAAAA!!!!!"
Anthony turned back and ran for the house. The roar faded, but the infernal crackling behind him got louder and closer and CLOSER with every step he took. It was after him! He didn't know what it was, but it was coming and it was coming FAST!
"HEEELLLLLPPPPP!!!!" Anthony ran for his life... chased back toward the mansion by the animate cracks in the cobblestone. He burst into the courtyard. Lindsay and Sarah were standing just outside the front door, both shining flashlights and calling his name.
"INSIDE!" Anthony warned as he streaked past the cars. Sarah looked past him and saw... something. Her eyes widened in terror. The psychic moved back inside the house, but Lindsay didn't. Anthony couldn't see the cracks behind him, but he could HEAR them. He could hear them gaining... He could feel the ground beginning beneath his speeding feet...
"LINDSAY, GET INSIDE!" Anthony screamed. She started to back away, but was too slow. Anthony threw his arm out to the side and caught her around the abdomen as he raced past... yanking her along with him. The impact knocked the air from Lindsay's lungs... she gave a startled yelp as they both collapsed on the floor inside. Anthony rolled over and looked through the open door... he saw the sea cracks tearing across the last yard between them and house.
SLAM!
Anthony kicked the door closed, then got up and threw himself against it.
WHAM!
The house shook as something slammed into door. The door cracked... and kept cracking... long, thin fingers of darkness began crawling across the surface.
Anthony looked back to the others, who'd gathered in the hallway behind him. Dr. Jeffries was pulling Lindsay to safety.
"GO!" Shouted as the door became a spider-web of cracks. Something pushed hard against it... Anthony pushed back. "GO! GET AWAY! GET OUT!"
"Anthony-"
"FOR GOD'S SAKE, RUN, YOU STUPID MUTHERFUCKERS!!!!"
Again, something huge and powerful rammed into the door. Again, Anthony held it back. Sharp pieces of splintered wood rained down on him as the door began to disintegrate from all the fractures riddling its surface. He couldn't hold it long. He closed his eyes and prepared for the inevitable...
...but it never came.
Everything stopped. The cracks in the door disappeared... the force that had been pushing against Anthony vanished.
Anthony backed away... eyes fixed on the door.
"You... you saw that, right? Somebody please tell me you saw all that."
"I saw it," said Sarah.
"We all did," said Jeffries. "I suggest we move away from the door... and abandon any further plans for sleeping tonight."
"It wouldn't let me out..." said Anthony. "I was leaving... it wouldn't let me go. Oh, God.. DAVID is out there! DAVID!"
Sarah shook her head.
"What are you shaking your head for! He's OUT there! He's out there with that THING!"
"If he is-"
"Nobody saw him leave," said Jeffries. "He could still be-"
"He's OUT THERE! OUT-FUCKING-SIDE! I HEARD him leave!"
"W-what are we going to do now?" said Lindsay.
"David-"
"I'm not going out there to look for NOBODY!" Kyle announced. He was promptly ignored. They all returned to the living room, where the Sampler sat quietly. Dr. Hixon, who looked very, very hung-over, plopped down in a chair and tried to rub the redness out of his eyes.
"Ohhhh... my head," he moaned.
"So what are we going to DO!?" Lindsay repeated.
"Nothing," said Sarah. "We'll wait until morning. It might let us out then."
"It? WHAT 'it,'" said Anthony. "What IS this thing!?!"
"I don't know."
"Well HOW do you know it'll let us go in the morning!"
"I don't. It might not. But at least we'll have a fighting chance."
"Fighting chance!? A chance to fight WHAT!?!?! Without the Sampler, we are FUCKED, okay! FUCKED! These ghosts can come in here and FUCK US UP THE ASS whenever they fucking FEEL like it!"
"Anthony," said Jeffries. "You're getting hysterical again."
"HELLOOO! I GOT SHOT IN THE FUCKING BALLS!!!"
-creaaak-
"...what the fuck?"
Everyone turned to look down the hallway leading to the door.
"Ummm...," said Lindsay. "did anybody LOCK that door?"
-SLAM!-
"Uh-oh."
Footsteps began to echo down the hallway. Everyone slowly got to their feet as the sounds drew nearer. Something was coming.
"Who...who's there?" said Lindsay.
"Who the fuck do you think!?" said David. He stepped out of the shadows and into the living room. The boy was completely covered with dark, foul-smelling mud. The stench of it filled the room instantly. Thick globs of it slid off of his clothes and splattered onto the carpet. "What's everybody staring at?" he said.
"David?" said Anthony. "What...uhhh..."
"Don't ask," said David. He tried to wipe his face clean, but only ended up smearing the mud over his already coated face. Finally he gave up. "Oh, by the way," he said. He jerked his thumb back to the front door, the motion sent more mud splattering over the floor. "I found the generator."
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copyright 2001 by Dark Icon (Marc Washington)
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