Hell House

Hell House Page 9

"Have you read Doctor Barrett's article in which he compares sensitives to Geiger counters?" she asked as they walked along the corridor.

"No."

"It's not a bad comparison. We are like Geiger counters in a way. Expose us to psychic emanations, and we tick. Of course, the difference is that we are judge as well as instrument, not only picking up impressions, but evaluating them as well."

"Uh-huh," said Fischer. Florence glanced at him.

They started down the flight of stairs across from the chapel, Fischer pointing the flashlight beam at their feet. "I wonder if we're going to need the full week," Florence said.

"A full year wouldn't be too long."

Florence tried to make her sound of disagreement mild. "I've seen the most abstruse of psychic problems solved overnight.

We mustn't - " She stopped, hand clamping on the banister rail. "This goddamn sewer," she muttered in a savage voice. She jolted in dismay and shook her head. "Oh, dear. Such fury. Such destructive venom." She drew in trembling breath. "A very hostile man," she said. "No wonder. Who can blame him, imprisoned in this house?" She glanced at Fischer.

Reaching the lower corridor, they moved to a pair of swinging metal doors with porthole windows in them. Fischer pushed at one of the doors and held it open for Florence. As they went inside, their footsteps sounded sharply on a tile floor and reverberated off the ceiling.

The pool was Olympic size. Fischer shone his flashlight into the murky green depths of it. He walked to the end of the pool and knelt at its corner. Pulling up the sleeve of his sweater, he put his hand in the water. "Not too cold," he said, surprised. He felt around. "And water's coming in. The pool must work on a separate generator."

Florence gazed across the glinting pool. The ripples made by Fischer were gliding across its surface. "Something in here,"

she said. She did not look to Fischer for verification.

"Steam room's down the other end." Fischer returned to her side.

"Let's look at it."

The ringing echoes of their footsteps as they walked along the edge of the pool made it sound as though someone were following them. Florence glanced across her shoulder. "Yes," she murmured, unaware that she had spoken.

Fischer pulled open the heavy metal door and held it ajar, playing the flashlight beam inside. The steam room was twelve feet square, its walls, floor, and ceiling tiled in white. Built-in wooden benches lined the walls, and spiraling across the floor like some petrified serpent was a length of faded green hose connected to a water outlet.

Florence grimaced. "Perverted," she said. "In there - " She swallowed as though to rid her throat of sour bile. "In there," she said. "But what?"

Fischer let the door swing shut, the thumping closure of it echoing loudly. Florence glanced at him; then, as he turned away, she fell into step beside him. "Doctor Barrett is certainly well equipped, isn't he?" she said, trying to lighten his mood. "It's strange to think he really believes that science alone can end the power of this house."

"What will?"

"Love," she answered. She squeezed his arm. "We know that, don't we?"

Fischer held open the swinging door for her, and they went back into the corridor. "What's over there?" Florence crossed the hallway and opened a wooden door. Fischer pointed the flashlight beam inside. It was a wine cellar, all its shelves and racks empty. Florence winced. "I see this room completely filled with bottles." She turned away. "Let's not go in."

They went back up the staircase and started along the first-floor corridor. As they passed the chapel door, Florence shuddered. "That place is the worst of all," she said. "Even though I haven't seen the entire house, somehow I have the feeling .. ."

Her voice faded as she spoke. She cleared her throat. "I'll get in there," she said.

They turned into an adjoining corridor. Twenty yards along its right wall was an archway. "What have we here?" Florence walked beneath the archway and caught her breath. " This house," she said.

The ballroom was immense, its lofty, brocaded walls adorned with red velvet draperies. Three enormous chandeliers hung, spaced, along the paneled ceiling. The floor was oak, elaborately parqueted. At the far end of the room was an alcove for musicians.

"A theater, yes, but this?" said Florence. "Can a ballroom be an evil place?"

"The evil came later," Fischer said.

Florence shook her head. "Contradictions." She looked at Fischer. "You're right, it's going to take a while. I feel as if I'm standing in the center of a labyrinth of such immeasurable intricacy that the prospect of emerging is - " She caught herself.

"We will emerge, however."

Overhead, there was a tinkling noise. Fischer jerked up his arm, pointing the flashlight at the parabola of heavy hanging crystal above them. Its pendants refracted the light, splaying colors of the spectrum across the ceiling. The chandelier was motionless.

"The challenge is met," whispered Florence.

"Don't be too quick to accept it," Fischer warned.

Florence looked at him abruptly. "You're blocking it off," she said.

"What?"

" You're blocking it off. That's why you didn't feel those things."

Fischer's smile was cold. "I didn't feel them because they weren't there. I was a Spiritualist too, remember. I know how you people find things in every corner when you want to."

"Ben, that isn't true." Florence looked hurt. "Those things were there. You would have felt them just as I did if you weren't obstructing - "

"I'm not obstructing anything," he cut her off. "I'm just not sticking my head on the block a second time. When I came here in 1940, I was just like you -  no, worse, much worse. I really thought I was something. God's gift to psychical research."

"You were the most powerful physical medium this country has ever known, Ben."

"Still am, Florence. Just a little bit more careful now, that's all. I suggest the same approach for you. You're walking around this house like an open nerve. When you really do hit something, it'll tear your insides out. This place isn't called Hell House for nothing, you know. It intends to kill every one of us, so you'd damn well better learn to protect yourself until you're ready. Or you'll just be one more victim on the list."

They looked at each other in silence for a long time. Finally she touched his hand. "'But he who buried his talent -  '" she began

"Oh, shit." Turning on his heel, he stalked away from her.

6:42 P.M.

The dining hall was sixty feet in length, and as high as it was wide - twenty-seven feet in both directions. There were two entrances to it - one an archway from the great hall, the other a swinging door leading to the kitchen.

Its ceiling was divided into a series of elaborately carved panels, its floor polished travertine. Its walls were paneled to a height of twelve feet, stone-blocked above. In the center of the west wall was a giant fireplace, its Gothic mantel reaching to the ceiling. Spaced at intervals above the length of the forty-foot table in the center of the hall hung four immense sanctuary lamps, wired for electricity. Thirty chairs stood around the table, all of them constructed of antique walnut with wine-red velvet upholstery.

The four were sitting at one end of the table, Barrett at its head. The unseen couple from Caribou Falls had left the supper at six-fifteen.

"If no one objects, I'd like to try a sitting tonight," Florence said.

Barrett's hand froze momentarily before continuing to spoon himself a second portion of broccoli. "I have no objection," he said.

Florence glanced at Edith, who shook her head. She looked at Fischer. "Fine," he said, reaching for the coffeepot.

Florence nodded. "After supper, then." Her plate was empty; she'd been drinking only water since they'd sat down.

"Would you care to sit in the morning, Mr. Fischer?" Barrett asked.

Fischer shook his head. "Not yet."

Barrett nodded. There; it's done, he thought. He'd asked and been refused. Since his part in the project required the services of a physical medium, Deutsch couldn't object to his sending for one of his own people. Excellent, he thought. He'd get it settled in the morning.

"Well," he said, "I must say that the house has scarcely lived up to its reputation so far."

Fischer looked up from the scraps of food on his plate. "It hasn't taken our measure yet," he said. His lips flexed briefly in a humorless smile.

"I think we'd be mistaken to consider the house as the haunting force," Florence said. "Quite evidently, the trouble is created by surviving personalities - whoever they may be. The only one we can be sure of is Belasco."

"You contacted him today, did you?" Barrett asked. His tone was mild, but Florence sensed the goading in it. "No," she said.

"But Mr. Fischer did when he was here in 1940. And Belasco's presence has been documented."

"Reported," Barrett said.

Florence hesitated. Finally she said, "I think it might be well for us to lay our cards on the table, Doctor Barrett. I take it you are still convinced that no such things as ghosts exist."

"If, by that, you mean surviving personalities," said Barrett, "you are quite correct."

"Despite the fact that they've been observed throughout the ages?" Florence asked. "Have been seen by more than one person at a time? Been seen by animals? Been photographed? Have imparted information that was later verified? Have touched people? Moved objects? Been weighed?"

"These are facts in evidence of a phenomenon, Miss Tanner, not proof of ghosts."

Florence smiled wearily. "I don't know how to answer that," she said.

Barrett returned her smile, gesturing with his hands as though to say: We don't agree, so why not let it go at that?

"You don't accept survival, then," Florence persisted.

"It's a charming notion," Barrett said. "I have no objection to it, so long as I am not expected to give credence to the concept of communicating with the so-called survivors."

Florence regarded him sadly. "You can say that, having heard the sobs of joy at seances?"

"I've heard similar sobs in mental institutions."

" Mental institutions? "

Barrett sighed. "No offense intended. But the evidence is clear that belief in communication with the dead has led more people to madness than to peace of mind."

" That isn't true," said Florence. "If it were, all attempts at spirit communication would have ended long ago. They haven't, though; they've lasted through the centuries." She looked intently at Barrett, as though trying to understand his point of view.

"You call it a charming notion, Doctor. Surely it's more than that. What about the religions that accept the idea of life after death? Didn't Saint Paul say: 'If the dead rise not from the grave, then is our religion vain'?"

Barrett didn't respond.

"But you don't agree," she said.

"I don't agree."

"Have you any alternative to offer, though?"

" Yes." Barrett returned her gaze with challenge. "An alternative far more interesting, albeit far more complex and demanding; namely, the subliminal self, that vast, concealed expanse of the human personality which, iceberglike, inheres beneath the so-called threshold of consciousness. That is where the fascination lies, Miss Tanner. Not in the speculative realms of afterlife, but here, today; the challenge of ourselves. The undiscovered mysteries of the human spectrum, the infrared capacities of our bodies, the ultraviolet capacities of our minds. This is the alternative I offer: the extended faculties of the human system not as yet established. The faculties by which, I am convinced, all psychic phenomena are produced."

Florence remained silent for a few moments before she smiled. "We'll see," she said.

Barrett nodded once. "Indeed we shall."

Edith looked around the dining hall. "When was this house built?" she asked.

Barrett looked at Fischer. "Do you know?"

"Nineteen-nineteen," Fischer answered.

"From several things you said today, I have the impression that you know quite a bit about Belasco," Barrett said. "Would you care to tell us what you know? It might not be amiss to" - he repressed a smile - know our adversary."

Amused? thought Fischer. You won't be when Belasco and the others get to work. "What do you want to know?" he asked.

"Whatever you can tell us," Barrett said. "A general account of his life might be helpful."

Fischer poured himself another cupful of coffee, then set the pot back on the table, wrapped his hands around the cup, and began to speak.

"He was born in 1879, the illegitimate son of Myron Sandler, an American munitions maker, and Noelle Belasco, an English actress."

"Why did he take his mother's name?" Barrett asked.