“Disturbances?” Jason Sanborn asked as he pulled his pipe from his mouth.
“It seems they can’t keep a staff there because they scare off too fast.”
“Wonderful. Not one, but two haunted locations,” Julie stood and started putting on her coat.
“Yes, it seems Summer Place has a long reach, as we discovered this afternoon in your offices.”
Julie looked at Gabriel and then without preamble, walked from the meeting room. Kelly scrambled to gather her things and also left the room, in a hurry to catch her ride.
“Good luck working with her. Talk about wrapped too tight,” Leonard said.
“I think we all may be wrapped too tightly, young man,” Jason said, “because I have the distinct feeling that is exactly what our good professor here is banking on.”
THIRTEEN
Bright Waters, along the Bright River, had rolled up its sidewalks at eight o’clock that night, as it had on every other night for the past two hundred years, so it was no wonder that there were so few witnesses to the strange events that took place as the hour hand struck twelve. It was a lone man in room number 17 of the Bright Waters “Come As You Are” motel that heard the arrival of Summer Place into the town.
As Detective Damian Jackson lay in bed, he studied the case file he had opened on Gabriel Kennedy seven years ago. His eyes were locked on the photo taken of Kennedy back in his USC days, before that night here in Pennsylvania. His beard was gone now, and the eyes without his glasses on looked far more…how would he put it? Dark. Yes, he thought. They were darker now.
Jackson closed the file folder and placed his large hands behind his head, staring up at the ceiling. It had been six hours since he had requested background checks on the people Kennedy had assembled for his foray into that damnable house. Thus far his superiors hadn’t asked the dreaded questions about why he wanted these people checked out and the far more worrisome question as to why he would want them checked out while he was on vacation. Jackson had been specifically warned about not pursuing anything having to do with Professor Gabriel Kennedy on his personal time. The State of Pennsylvania wanted to keep distance from the goings on in Bright River. They were trying to live it down, while Jackson was busy tearing away at the old wound in his effort to reopen it.
As he lowered his eyes away from the bland ceiling of the room that had been his for the past two weeks, Jackson reached out to turn off the bedside lamp. As he reached the old pull chain, he felt his bed vibrate. He stopped and wondered how many of the motel’s old pipes ran right under his bed, and if one of those pipes were about to give way. He shook his head at the thought of drowning thirty-six miles away from any appreciable body of water, and again reached for the light. Another tremor shook his bed. This time it was powerful enough to make him throw back his covers and stand up. The bed was indeed moving. As he placed a hand on the mattress, the movement stopped as suddenly as it had started.
He watched the bed closely and was about to place his hand on the mattress again when the loud blaring of a car horn made him jump almost out of his pajamas. Jackson cursed himself for being so skittish. He looked out into the dark night but all he saw was the single stop light at the intersection. It was blinking yellow — its normal green to red operation ended at nine o’clock every night. His eyes moved from the light to the diner across the street. The road and sidewalks were empty and for some reason Jackson felt exposed as he stood in the window.
“Goddamn ghost town,” he mumbled. He was just getting ready to let the curtain fall back when a flash of lightning streaked across the sky, followed closely by a loud clap of thunder. Looking back at the bed, he shook his head. That was the vibration he had felt — the far-off sound of thunder. A storm had not been forecasted for the area. He had heard the weather reports all night long on the cable access channel on TV. “Goddamn good detective.” Out of curiosity, he turned back to the darkened street outside.
Rain had started to fall. With its coming, something settled into the small berg that happened to be the nearest settled town to Summer Place. It was like knowing you’re about to have company for no other reason than you just knew. Jackson shook his head. He had been reading the report on Kennedy too long, and it was starting to creep him out. That was all. As he let the curtain go, he saw movement across the street just in front of the old diner. He grabbed the curtain and pulled it back once again. A man was standing right in front of the twin glass doors. He was haggard, that Jackson could see, but the rest of the man was darkened by shadow and distance. Damian narrowed his eyes. When the traffic light flashed yellow, he saw something at the man’s feet. His heart froze in his sizable chest for a moment; the man was standing over a downed body. His heart pounded loudly. He knew the man was looking right in his direction.
Jackson let the curtain go and started dressing. He threw on his pants over his pajama bottoms and slipped into his shoes. He slipped his trench coat on and then his hat. He found his holstered gun on the nightstand. Pulling his door open, he was met with a cold blast of wind-driven rain. He hesitated. The man was still there, still looking right at him. Jackson pushed off from the door and leapt into the arms of the gathering storm. He splashed his way to the parking area directly in front of his room. In the flashing of the lone traffic light he saw that the man had raised his arm and was beckoning Damian forward. With gun in hand, Jackson crossed the street.
Damian raised the gun but was careful not to aim it. He stopped fifteen feet from the man’s back-lit form and shielded his eyes as the rain blasted past his fedora.
“Who are you?” Jackson shouted. He glanced momentarily from the standing man to the body at his feet.
The man said nothing. Jackson could see scraggly long hair silhouetted against the light, but not the man’s face. He raised the gun a little more.
“What are you—?” Jackson started to shout, but the man stepped forward, moving easily over the person lying under the diner’s awning.
“An offering,” the man.
“Your name, give me your name!” Damian shouted against another roll of thunder.
“We are an offering, that’s all I know. I’m hungry, we’re both hungry.”
“Yeah, well, we’ll take care of that, but I have to know who you are first,” Jackson shouted, becoming nervous as the man kept walking toward him.
“It was dark, and we didn’t know. It won’t allow what is to happen, to happen. Its home…don’t defile its home. It won’t allow that. We are meant as a warning.”
“All right, you have to stop right there.” Damian cocked the nine millimeter and aimed. “Who are you?”
The dark, bedraggled figure slowly turned and went back underneath the awning, where he stood like a sentinel over the prone figure at his feet.
“I have to go now, but you are left this as a reminder not to return to my soil.”
Damian Jackson saw the figure stoop low to the ground and then swipe at the figure lying on the sidewalk. The gesture was quick and the detective had very little time to react. As the dark figure raised his hand once again, Jackson saw the gleam of a knife in the flashing yellow from the traffic signal. At the same moment, lightning streaked across the sky and thunder ripped apart the rain-laden darkness. Jackson fired his weapon. The bullet caught the man in the right shoulder and spun him around. He flopped against the front doors of the closed diner.