Gethsemane Hall (13 page)

“What is it?” Hudson asked.

“Nothing.”
Think this through
. Pertwee was watching him carefully. He could see the wheels turning in her head.
She knows,
he thought. She could smell victory.
Well, let her wait a bit longer. Let’s do this carefully
. If he speculated aloud, she’d be calling in the bulldozers before the hour was up. “So,” he looked at Crawford, then at Pertwee, “I realize my brain is very fascinating and all, but where do you begin the actual investigation?”

“The crypt,” Pertwee said.

Crawford nodded. “I also want to take some readings elsewhere in the house. Try to establish a control, if possible. I want to know if the mean strength of the magnetic field in the crypt is different from the rest of the house.”

Corderman returned half an hour later, and the set-up began. Gray, Meacham, and Hudson followed the teams of Pertwee and Corderman, Crawford and Sturghill, as they moved through the Hall. As he recovered from the helmet trip, Gray found his sense of irony returning. Crawford and Pertwee weren’t simply using much of the same equipment for opposite ends, they were treating their devices in the same way. As they set up sensors and meters, cameras and recorders in the crypt, in the Great Hall, in the bedrooms, and in the drawing room, they treated the digital messengers with kid gloves. They placed them in rooms only after gridding the spaces and choosing spots with the care of fanatical Feng Shui consultants. They were priests and acolytes handling the Host, Gray thought. The disposition of the technology was along patterns as rigid and formal as any pentagram or mystic circle.

They were back in the crypt. Crawford directed Sturghill’s placement of a sensor. Pertwee was setting up a camera with an infrared trigger. Corderman was moving back and forth in front of it, first closer, then farther away in stages, until he was standing in the recess. Pertwee had the camera covering a field of view that went diagonally through the cold spot to that corner. All four of them were speaking very quietly. Gray was standing beside Hudson at the entrance to the crypt. He heard Hudson mutter, “Likewise after supper he took the Cup; and, when he had given thanks, he gave it to them, saying, ‘Drink ye all of this; for this is my Blood of the new Covenant.’” So he had picked up on the ceremonial atmosphere, too.

“Be nice,” Gray whispered, surprised. “Show some respect.”

“I am,” Hudson answered. There was no sarcasm in his tone.

The ritual was complete by late evening. Gray braced himself for what might be summoned.

the trace of anger

The scream jolted Meacham awake. She lay, eyes big-O wide against the dark, body vibrating with shock.
I dreamed it,
she thought. She had time to repeat this to herself, but not enough time for her heart to believe what she told it, before she heard the scream again. It tore itself out of the wall behind her bed, slammed into the window, bounced back and shrieked in her face, then rushed up through the ceiling. Silence slammed the echoes down. The room was taut, quivering. Meacham’s hands had turned into claws around the sheets and blankets. Old instincts, forgotten but now revived, drew the covers over her face.

The scream erupted once more, too loud and mobile to be human. It rose from the floor, from under her bed where the monsters lived. It blasted up through her. It scraped her nerves like a metal claw over harp strings. It whirled around the room once, then blew through the door. Meacham half-expected the sound to shatter the wood. And the noise was here again, but now she realized there were two different screams, coming in pairs. The first was a howl of agony and fear. It was the despairing cry of prey being brought down. The second scream was sharper, more aggressive.

Meacham had always been a city girl, but when she was ten, the family had stayed with one of her father’s drinking buddies out in the country, where the boys could bond and kill things. The first night in the Maine woods, she had heard a fox hunting. At first, she thought she was hearing a woman screaming, and she had come within a hair of wetting herself from the horror. But the cry had repeated at too steady a rhythm, each repetition identical to the last, the howl too short to be coming from a person’s lungs. The scream she heard now made her think of that fox. It wasn’t an animal’s hunting cry (she should be so lucky), but it had that quality. The scream was rage and pursuit. It was predator. When it doubled back to roar in her face, it was making her a victim, not begging for her help. She disappeared under the blankets.

The screams, hunter and hunted, came back twice more, then stopped. The room lost its tension. Meacham stayed under the covers until she thought she was going to suffocate from the heat. She poked her head out, gasping. The bogeyman wasn’t hovering overhead, waiting to grab her. She reached to her left and turned on the bedside lamp. It created a small island of light around the bed. That was just enough for her to jump out onto the floor and scramble for the wall switch. The ceiling light still left shadows in the corners, but they were a sullen brown, and weren’t big or deep enough to hide anything dangerous. Meacham leaped back into the bed and curled up in the centre. She watched the walls. She waited for the horror.

She stayed like that for hours. She didn’t feel silly at all. She was operating on an atavistic level. Shame and logic were irrelevant. Dawn finally came, the window turning from a black pane to grey. She began to relax. The grey grew lighter. The shadows diminished, retreating to bide their time until night would come again. Meacham allowed herself to lie down again. She was exhausted. Enough hours had gone by that she could almost kid herself into believing she’d had a nightmare. She tried the theory out. It wouldn’t fly. She tried to close her eyes and sleep again. She couldn’t. The idea of being woken again the same way kept her revved up and wide awake.
What was that?
she thought.
What the fuck was that?

Then she thought,
Why are you alone?

The corridors would be light enough, now. They should be clear of monsters. She threw on some clothes and went looking for company. She chose Sturghill and Crawford. She needed rationalism right now. She didn’t want to hear about ghosts and their needs from Pertwee or Corderman. She wanted to hear that there were no ghosts.

Sturghill had the lights on too. She opened the door when Meacham knocked. “You heard it?” the magician asked. She was wearing an oversized Betty Boop T-shirt, and to Meacham, she suddenly looked about twelve years old. When Meacham nodded, Sturghill said, “Tell me what you heard. Precisely.”

Meacham did. Sturghill began to smile as she spoke and was visibly more relaxed by the end. “What?” Meacham asked. She didn’t see what was so goddamn reassuring about mobile screams.

“I heard exactly the same thing.” Sturghill started to say more, but there was movement and the sound of low male voices coming from the next room. “It’s okay, boys,” she called out. “Come on in and join the slumber party.”

The connecting door opened. Crawford and Hudson poked their heads around, looking sheepish. Crawford was in T-shirt and boxers, but Hudson had the whole pyjamas-and-dressing-gown thing happening. He was the only one in the room who fit with the decor.

“Let me guess,” Sturghill said. “Screams that chased each other around your rooms.” The two men nodded. Sturghill asked Crawford, “And your explanation is?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Magnetic fields don’t necessarily cover this, do they?”

“Well ...”

“I thought you were on the side of the skeptics,” Meacham said.

“I am.” She spoke to Crawford again. “Sorry, Jim. Just marking my territory a bit.”

He waved off the apology. “Fix me up so I can go back to sleep, and all is forgiven.”

“Would you mind explaining what you’re talking about?” Hudson asked, and Meacham seconded the motion.

“We all experienced the same thing. Probably at the same time. That’s the big mistake.”

“Whose?” Meacham asked.

“I’m not positive, but my money’s on Gray. He had the opportunity, even though I can’t figure the motive. So look. Louise, if you were the only one who heard the screams, this might be a bit more convincing. A
bit
. A big, loud noise audible to only one person is plenty mysterious. But all of us? With the same movement of sound? Too easy.” She paused.

Can’t take the theatre out of the girl,
Meacham thought. “So?” she prompted and waited for the climax.

“Speakers,” Sturghill said. When Meacham looked around, she added, “In the walls, probably. Not that hard. I don’t need to tell
you
that. Set up a halfway decent surround sound system in each room, connect them all to a computer, load up your FreakyScreams.mp3 and presto. Instant house of horrors. Now, if I were running the show, I would have had the scream migrate from one room to the other. Have us chasing the sounds like Scooby and the gang. That would have been classic. Maybe he ran out of time.”

Hudson was shaking his head. “Richard was never one for practical jokes. Especially not recently. And when would he have had time to install the speakers? He would have had to do that before Pete Adams arrived, and Richard wouldn’t have had any reason to pull that kind of a prank.”

“I didn’t say this was a joke,” said Meacham. “This is too serious. Too involved. Way too much work.” She thought of the scream Adams had recorded.

“So why would he do it?” Hudson was sounding more and more upset. When no one answered at first, he turned a pleading gaze on each face, one after the other, looking for an ally.

When Meacham’s turn came, she said, “He’s your friend. You know him best. You tell us.”

Hudson shook his head, but Meacham thought there was uncertainty in his frown. “There’s no good reason....” he began and trailed off miserably.

“His might not be good ones,” Meacham said, prodding. Gray pulling some sort of crazy scare stunt was a messy explanation, and the papers would love it almost as much as real ghosts. But it was a kind of messy that would be short-lived and containable. She could work with it.

Hudson stared into the middle distance, thinking upsetting thoughts. He tried to rally. Meacham saluted him for his loyalty. “What about yesterday?” he demanded of Crawford. “What about what happened when he tried your helmet?”

Crawford’s tone was quiet, free of judgment, and devastating. “We only have his word he saw what he did.”

Hudson slumped down on the bed. “That wasn’t what you suggested yesterday.”

“I wasn’t hearing screams in my bedroom last night.” He looked at Sturghill. “Can you follow up on your theory?”

Sturghill was already off the bed and examining the walls. “Tricky. They’re well hidden. I can’t see any sign of recent work on this side.”

“Plenty of picture frames,” Meacham said.

“Yup. I’ll find the gear, but it might take a while. I also don’t need him breathing down my neck, suspecting what I’m up to. He could hide the evidence so I’ll never find it.”

Meacham nodded. “We’ll make sure you have some alone time.” She kept watching Hudson. He was looking more and more depressed, as if following a bleak but watertight logic. “What is it?” she asked him.

After a hesitation that went on so long Meacham didn’t think he was going to answer, Hudson said, “He was very angry after his wife and daughter died.” His voice was almost inaudible, the words so quiet they denied their own existence.

“That’s not surprising,” said Sturghill.

“Very angry with God,” he continued as if she hadn’t spoken. “He used to be a man of great faith.”

“And he’s lost that faith?” Meacham asked.

“Not in the sense of becoming atheist. I think, if anything, he might believe in God more than ever. But he hates Him now. He feels betrayed. He’s been acting out on his anger. Pulling funding from our organization. He wants revenge. I think ... I think ... if he made me question my own faith, he might feel he’d achieved some form of revenge.”

“What about the rest of us?” Sturghill asked.

“Anna has her own faith, and he’s not open to optimistic world-views right now. Plus she’s been on his case. You too,” he said to Meacham. “So nobbling her and you might be something that would give him satisfaction.”

“Which makes you and Kristine collateral damage,” Meacham told Crawford.

The theory sat over them all in silence for a few minutes. Meacham stood up and walked over to Hudson. She put a hand on his shoulder. “I guess you don’t really want to hear this,” she said, “but I think you might be right.”

Hudson didn’t look convinced by his own argument. “But why would he do that to Adams? He wasn’t angry then.”

“You must have seen plenty in Darfur to shake a man’s faith.”

“He wasn’t
angry
yet.”

“Are you sure?”

Hudson didn’t answer.

“Let us help you help him,” Meacham lied. If Gray was working a con, she’d pin him to the wall and leave him wriggling there for the jackals. She knew she would have some sleepless nights, though not over Gray. Enemies that fell in combat weren’t worthy of mourning. It was the desperation in Hudson’s eyes that would, she knew right now, bother her. She was setting up a betrayal. It was part of the job. The trashing of the innocent shouldn’t be, but Christ knew how often it was. And she would trash ten more of the guiltless if that shored up her explanation, dispelled the screams, and reaffirmed the world as it should be.

She decided she didn’t want company anymore. She yawned. “Thanks for dispelling the bogeyman, ladies and gents. If we’re going to flush him out in the morning, I need a bit more sleep.” She headed for the door.

“I’ll walk you back,” Crawford said, and was at her side before she could decline offer. “Keep the monsters at bay,” he joked.

“Thanks,” Meacham said, dry as sticks.

When they were out of earshot of the others, Crawford said, voice low, “The night before we came here, did you have a nightmare? I mean a sleep-destroying monster.”

“Why do you ask?” The dream was a void. The memory of its impact had lost some of its edge, but it could still draw blood.

“Kristine and I both did. I can’t remember the details, but it was a doozy.” Crawford’s face had the pinched look of a man wrestling with new and unwelcome uncertainty.

Meacham needed him focused. She would hoard the doubts, let them eat at her peace of mind for the sake of the agenda. Work to be done, folks. Narratives to be tidied up. “No,” she said. “Slept like a baby.” Fluttering in her gut. The bogeyman wasn’t so far away. The doubts went to work.

Pertwee had heard the screams. She and Corderman were up and had the lights on before the first cycle had finished. The next screams, hitting with the room lit, were worse, the monsters under the bed and in the closet not banished by the retreat of the dark. As the silence rang, they stared at each other from across the room. Corderman had been sleeping in the bed, Pertwee on a chesterfield. Corderman had wanted to be chivalrous, but Pertwee had insisted they flip a coin and take turns. Now she joined Corderman on the bed. His eyes were dancing around the room. He looked as if he wanted to be held as badly as she did.

“That wasn’t good,” Corderman whispered. “That was very, very not good.” He turned to Pertwee, pleading for the explanation that would make everything right again. “Why were they screaming? That wasn’t right.”

No, it wasn’t. Pertwee knew there were some tortured places in the world. She had studied some of them, though she hadn’t visited them herself. But Gethsemane Hall wasn’t of that number. It couldn’t be. “This is probably not what it seemed,” was what she came up with, and she knew how lame it sounded.

“
What?
” Corderman exploded. “What is it then? What’s the good thing that makes walls scream?”

“That might have been a cry of mourning,” she said, and oh, she was ad-libbing, she was bullshitting as fast as she could speak, there wasn’t a single legitimate thought coming out of her mouth. “The spirits might be calling out to those who are alive and in pain, who are resisting the peace of the house.”
Do you believe that?
she thought.
Do you believe the tiniest portion of that?
No, but Corderman calmed down just a bit. That was good enough. If he bought in to the point that he wasn’t freaking out, then that would help her keep calm, too. Calm was the only way to examine the evidence, make a judgment. The screams couldn’t be a sign of hostile or tormented spirits. That flew in the face of everything she knew about the Hall. So the screams meant something else, and she could find out what that was only by being a scientist, not a shivering cavewoman.