“What’s that?” someone said.
“The haunted furnace,” Gelbaugh said. “Digger did a great job of setting that one up.”
“I haven’t been down here yet,” Wayne said.
“Maybe one of your minions. Paranormal activity or your money back.”
A flashlight clicked on and the beam bounced as its owner fled toward the stairs. “It touched me again,” said the K-II operator. “I’m done.”
“Touch me,” Amelia implored, addressing any spirit in the vicinity, desperate for attention.
“Careful,” Wayne hollered after the fleeing man, whose feet banged up the wooden steps. He switched his light back on and aimed it at the man’s back.
“A broken neck and we’ll have a new legend,” Gelbaugh said.
Cappie, who had become Gelbaugh’s ally in skepticism, added, “Let me guess. The door is locked from outside.”
The K-II operator hammered at the door. “Let me out,” he said.
“Shakespeare said, ‘All the world’s a stage,’” Gelbaugh said. “And that was long before the age of reality shows.”
A couple of the others turned on their flashlights, illuminating the K-II operator as he rapped his hairy hands on the door.
“You serious?” a woman said.
“Great,” Amelia’s husband said. “Spending the night down here when we’re paying a hundred and fifty a night for a bed.”
“Don’t worry,” Wayne said. “I’ll get maintenance.”
As he clicked on his walkie-talkie and removed it from his belt, he tried to picture how the door could have locked itself. It was key-operated from either side, and didn’t have a latch or button like a privacy lock would. Mechanically, the door was designed against accidental locking. But the White Horse now seemed intent on breaking the rules.
“Burton?” he said into the walkie-talkie.
“Here’s where they wait five seconds for dramatic effect,” Gelbaugh said.
“You’re a jerk,” Amelia said to him, which elicited a bark of derisive laughter.
“Cody?” Wayne hoped the teen—and Kendra—were now back in the control room.
“Whoa, we’re really locked in,” someone said. “They won’t hear us until the bar closes, and knowing this place, that could be four in the morning.”
Wayne tried again, not wanting the hunters to panic. “Jonathan? Anyone from SSI?”
The K-II operator was nearly in a state of panic now, tugging on the door handle and pounding the wood with the base of his flashlight. Cappie lit a cigarette and headed up the stairs. “Easy, man,” he said. “No need to break your gear.”
Wayne tried the walkie-talkie again, glancing at the furnace. Is the fire brighter now?
If someone had built a fire, it should be dying down, not growing larger. But the bed of red embers pulsed in time with the bass notes, growing brighter as it drew oxygen. The brusque aroma of sulfur and coal smoke was overwhelmed by Cappie’s cigarette.
“Flashlights off,” came Wayne’s voice, but he wasn’t the one who said it.
The flashlight in his hand went dead, as did the others.
“Hey,” somebody said. “I didn’t do anything.”
The furnace roared to life with a whoosh, flames illuminating the rusted metal and open grate. The fire cast fingers of yellow light along the slick walls.
“Whoa,” Gelbaugh said, trying to maintain his acerbic ennui. “Did anyone bring marshmallows?”
“How’s it doing that?” a man said, shielding his eyes against the brightness. “There’s no wood in it.”
“As long as it stays in there, we’re fine,” Wayne said, though the metal was now ticking from the heat. Had he ordered the group to turn off flashlights? He couldn’t afford to become disoriented.
“What are you sensing?” Amelia’s husband asked.
She closed her eyes, her face pink, shadows crawling across it like small rodents. The group fell silent and waited, even the man at the door, who had given up on the lock.
“The one from the Ouija session,” she said.
Wayne swallowed, wondering if Beth was making an encore appearance. Despite his denial, her memory—her possibility—had fueled him with anxiety, and that was part of his eagerness to leave the White Horse. Promises were lies to comfort the dying, and everyone was dying, all the time, moment by moment.
I’ll never drink again, I’ll take good care of Buttercup, I’ll meet your spirit at the White Horse Inn. I’ll love you forever.
Amelia turned slowly, as if homing in her inner radar to a weak and distant signal. Her mouth opened, and the words that issued forth were from a different, younger voice.
“In the walls,” she said.
“Who are you?” asked her husband, obviously trained to coax out the spirits Amelia channeled.
“You know,” Amelia said.
“Why are you here?” he asked.
“To feed the fire.”
“The fire in the furnace?”
“Yes.”
“Did you make it burn?”
“Yes.”
“Congratulations, we’ve solved the energy crisis,” Gelbaugh said, drawing a snicker from Cappie. “While I have you here, can you give me some tips on the stock market?”
Amelia’s response was drowned out by the roar of the furnace, which vomited a wave of flames toward the group. The heat wafted across Wayne’s face, not hot enough to burn but plenty enough to get his attention.
A couple of people shouted, and someone dropped a camera to the dirt. Most of the group headed toward the stairs, but the flames were already rolling back upon themselves, like a tidal wave that had smashed against a cliff, and the fire drew back into the furnace.
It glowed almost white for a moment, condensing into a shrinking globe, and then winked out, leaving the basement pitch black.
Chapter 41
“Okay,” Kendra said, more bravely than she felt, kneeling over Cody. “Come on out.”
She shined the light around the attic. Dust swirled from all the activity, and something fluttered in the distant eaves, a disturbed bat or bird. Cody’s breathing was heavy but even, so he wasn’t too seriously injured. But she’d have to lead him out of the attic before the Brat Pack played any more of its games.
“That boy,” Cody wheezed. “He’s the leader.”
“Rochester,” she called out. “Are you a scaredy cat?”
He appeared three feet in front of her, smirking, his hands behind his back. “Cat? I thought I was a rat.”
He brought her sketch pad out from behind his back and opened it to her drawing of him as the Rat-Faced Boy. “Not bad, but I think my whiskers are a little longer in real life.”
She blinked, as his face seemed to sharpen for a moment, drawing his nose to a point and exaggerating the size of his two front teeth.
“Cody,” she said. “Are you seeing this?”
“Be cool,” Cody replied, still too weak to stand. “Demonic haunting.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” she said, trying to remember Dad’s lessons on the various classifications of paranormal activity. She had tuned them out as yet more Digger blabber, but it didn’t take a genius to figure out that “demonic” was not good.
If I live through this, I’ve got one hell of an idea for my next character. How would Emily Dee handle this?
Well, Emily Dee wasn’t a ghostbuster or a priest, more of a ninja Goth, and this situation didn’t really call for a flying skull kick. And she’d already tried screaming for help. That left relying on smarts. She stood and faced Rochester, figuring that the best approach was to show no fear.
“Help me out here, Cody,” she said. “What do demons want, exactly?”
“Different things,” he said.
“Like my soul?”
“Maybe.”
“Hey, Stick Figure, why don’t you ask me?” Rochester said.
“Because you’re acting childish,” she said.
“I am a child. I just happen to be dead, so I’ve been one for a long time.”