Hell House Part 9

Fischer's smile was cursory. Florence sat down. "Have you seen this couple yet?" she asked, gesturing toward the table, which was set for supper.

"No."

She smiled. "Funny if there wasn't any couple."

Fischer showed no sign of amus.e.m.e.nt. Florence glanced toward the great hall. "I wonder where the Barretts are," she said. She looked back at him. "Well, what have you been doing?"

"Scouting." Fischer lifted the cover from one of the serving dishes and eyed the heap of lamb chops. He replaced the cover.

"You should eat," she said.

He pushed the dish toward her. "Maybe we should wait," she said.

"Go ahead."

Florence waited a few more seconds. Then she said, "I'll have some salad." She served her plate and looked at him. He shook his head. "A little?" Fischer shook his head again.

Florence ate some salad before she spoke again. "Were you in contact with Belasco's son when you were here before?"

"All I was in contact with was a live wire."

The sound of footsteps made them look around. "Good evening," Florence said.

"Good evening." Barrett smiled politely; Edith nodded. "Are you feeling better?" Barrett asked.

Florence nodded. "Yes, I'm fine."

"Good," Barrett and his wife sat down, served themselves, and started eating.

"We were talking about Belasco's son," Florence said.

"Ah, yes; Belasco's son."

Something in Barrett's tone made Florence bristle. Suddenly the thought of having been subjected by him to the indignity of a physical examination galled her. The costume, those ridiculous precautions: ropes and nets and infrared lamps, hand and foot plates turning lights on, cameras. She tried to repress a mounting anger but couldn't. How dare Barrett treat her this way? Her position in this project was just as vital as his.

"Will it never end?" she said.

The others looked at her. "Were you addressing me?" inquired Barrett.

"I was." Again she tried to quell her anger, but again the vision of the physical examination flashed across her mind, the costume, the absurd safeguards against fraud.

"Will what never end?" asked Barrett.

"This att.i.tude of doubt. Distrust."

"Distrust?"

"Why should mediums be expected to produce phenomena only under conditions which science dictates?" she demanded. "We're not machines. We're human beings. These rigid, unyielding demands by science have done more harm than good to parapsychology."

"Miss Tanner-" Barrett looked confused. "What brought this on? Have I-"

"I'm not a medium for the fun of it, you know." Florence cut him off. The more she spoke, the more infuriated she became. "It's often painful, often unrewarding."

"Don't you think-?"

"It just so happens I believe that mediumship is G.o.d's manifestation in man." She couldn't stop herself. "'When I speak with thee,'" she quoted angrily. "'I will open thy mouth, and thou shalt say to them: Thus saith the Lord.'"

"Miss Tanner-"

"There is nothing in the Bible-not a single recorded phenomenon-which does not occur today, whether it be sights or sounds, shaking of the house, or coming through closed doors: rushing winds, levitations, automatic writing, or the speaking in tongues."

There was a heavy silence. Florence glared at Barrett, conscious of Fischer and Edith staring at her. Somewhere, deep inside her mind, she heard a warning cry, but fury stilled it. She watched Barrett pour himself some coffee, watched him pick up his cup. He looked at her. "Miss Tanner," he said, "I don't know what's bothering you, but-"

He broke off as the cup exploded in his hand. Edith jerked back, gasping. Barrett, frozen, gaped at the shard of handle still in his fingers. Blood was starting to drip from the cut in his thumb. Florence felt a pounding at her temples. Fischer looked around in startlement. "What in G.o.d's name-?" Barrett started.

He was drowned out as the gla.s.s beside his plate burst apart, its fragments scattering across the table. Edith jerked her hands back as her plate leaped from the table, flipping over rapidly and dumping food across the floor before it landed, shattering. She recoiled as the top part of her gla.s.s broke off with a cracking noise and jumped across the table toward her husband. Barrett, pulling out a handkerchief, twisted to the side. The gla.s.s top thudded off his arm and tumbled to the floor. Fischer's gla.s.s exploded, and he lurched back, flinging an arm in front of his face.

Florence's plate somersaulted, scattering salad over the table. She reached out to grab it, then jolted back as the plate went flying across the table. Barrett jerked his head aside. The plate scaled past his ear and landed on its edge, rolling rapidly across the floor, to break against the wall. Edith cried out as a heavy serving dish began to slide across the table toward him. Barrett jumped up, toppling his chair. He almost fell, then leaned against the table. The serving dish slid off the table edge and crashed to the floor. Mashed potatoes splattered over his shoes and trouser cuffs.

Fischer was on his feet now. He tried to turn from the table, but was slammed against it as his chair lurched hard against his legs. He saw his cup go leaping from the table, gouting coffee over Barrett's shirt front as it struck him in the middle of the chest. Edith's scream choked off as Fischer's plate was catapulted from the tabletop, flying closely over her head. The chair slid back from Fischer, and he crumpled to his knees, his face a mask of shock.

Barrett tried to twist the handkerchief around his bleeding thumb. The silver pot fell over and began to spin across the table at him, spouting coffee. Barrett lurched aside to avoid it, slipped on the potatoes, flailed for balance, then went crashing onto his right side. The coffeepot fell off the table, bouncing off his left calf. He cried out at the burning impact. Edith tried to stand to help him, but her chair rocked backward, throwing her off balance. A knife and spoon went flying past her cheek.

Florence shrank into her chair as another serving dish began to skid across the table, headed for Barrett. Barrett scrabbled aside with a gasp. The serving dish crashed down beside him, the edge of its cover striking his shin. Edith struggled to her feet. "Under the table!" Fischer cried. Florence slid from the chair, falling to her knees. Fischer flung himself beneath the table. Overhead, the hanging lamp began to pendulum, the length of its swings increasing rapidly.

They were barely in the shelter of the table when the objects on the monastery table against the east wall came to life. A heavy silver chafing dish arced across the room and hit their table with a deafening impact. Edith cried out. Barrett started reaching for her automatically, then went back to wrapping his thumb. A silver bowl came hurtling at them, struck a table leg, and spun around in a blur of movement. Florence glanced at Fischer. He was on his knees, eyes staring, face a frozen mask of dread. She wanted to help him but felt too dazed. There was a churning coldness in her stomach.

All of them looked up in shock as the dining table started rocking back and forth. The silver creamer landed nearby, contents splattering across the floor like a gout of ivory paint. The silver sugar bowl fell beside it as the table rocked with mounting violence, legs crashing down like pounding horse hooves. The table shifted suddenly, and Barrett had to jerk his hand away to keep from getting it crushed. The chairs began to overturn, banging one by one against the floor, the noise like rifle shots.

Suddenly the table surged away from them, sliding fast across the polished floor. It smashed against the fire screen and bent it out of shape. Above them, all the sanctuary lamps were swinging violently. One of them tore loose and hurtled sideways, creating a shower of sparks as it collided violently with the stone mantel, then crashed to the tabletop. A silver candelabrum flew across the room and landed on the floor by Barrett, thudding against his side. He fell with a gasp of pain. Florence cried out. "No!"

All movement ceased abruptly, except for the decreasing arcs of the remaining sanctuary lamps. Edith bent over Barrett anxiously. "Lionel?" She touched his shoulder. He managed to nod.

"Ben, you've got to leave this house."

Fischer turned to Florence, startled by her words.

"You aren't up to it," she told him.

"What the h.e.l.l are you talking about?"

Florence turned to Barrett for support. "Doctor-" she began, then stopped, seeing how he looked at her as Edith helped him to his feet. "Are you all right?" she asked.

He didn't answer, leaning against the table with a groan. Edith looked at him in fright. "Lionel?"

"I'll be all right." He tightened the handkerchief around his thumb. The cut was deep; it stung. There were islands of pain all over his body-his arm, his chest, his shin, his ankle, mostly his side. His leg ached horribly.

Florence stared at him. Why had he looked at her that way? Suddenly she thought she knew. "I'm sorry I spoke so angrily," he said. "But please support me in this. I think it's important that Ben-that Mr. Fischer leave the house."

Barrett clenched his teeth against the pain. "Trying to get us both out now?" he muttered. Florence looked at him in surprise. "Help me to our room, please?" Barrett asked his wife. Edith nodded faintly, handed him his cane, and took his arm.

Florence didn't understand. "What do you mean, Doctor Barrett?"

He threw a glance around the wreckage of the hall. "I should think that was obvious," he said.

Stunned into silence, Florence watched the Barretts leave. After they were gone, she looked at Fischer. "What is he saying?" she asked. "That I I-?"

Fischer turned away from her.

"Ben, it isn't true!"

He lurched away. Still moving, he glanced back at her. "You're the one who'd better leave," he said. "You're the one who's being used, not me."

12/22 6:48 P.M.

Barrett sat down gingerly. "My bag," he murmured. Edith let go of his arm and hurried to the Spanish table, lifting off the small black bag in which he kept his codeine and first-aid kit. Returning quickly to the bed, she set the bag beside him. Lionel was removing the handkerchief from his thumb with slow, careful movements, his teeth clenched at the pain.

The sight of the deep, blood-oozing cut made Edith hiss. "It's all right," Barrett told her. Reaching into the bag, he took out the first-aid kit and opened it. Removing a packet of sulfa powder, he tore it open. "Would you get me a gla.s.s of water, please?"

Edith turned to the bathroom. Barrett drew a box of gauze from the first-aid kit and started to break the seal on its cover. When Edith returned, he handed her the box. "Would you bandage it?" he asked. She nodded, giving him the gla.s.s of water. Taking his container of pills from the black bag, he got one out and washed it down.

Edith winced as she started bandaging. "This needs st.i.tches."

"I don't think so." Barrett gritted his teeth, eyes narrowing, as she wrapped the gauze around the thumb. "Make it tight."

When the thumb was bandaged and taped, he eased up his left trouser leg. There was a dark-red burn on the calf. Edith looked at it in dismay. "You have to see a doctor."

"Put some Butesin picrate on it."

She looked at him for several moments indecisively. Then, kneeling beside him, she spread the yellow cream across the burn. Barrett hissed and closed his eyes. "It's all right," he muttered, knowing she was looking at him.

Edith wrapped some gauze around his leg, then helped him lie down. Barrett groaned and shifted onto his left side. "I am one gigantic ma.s.s of bruises," he said, trying to make it sound like a joke.

"Lionel, let's go home."

Barrett took another sip of water and handed her the gla.s.s. He slumped back on the pillows she had propped behind him. "I'm all right," he said.

"What if it happens again?"

He shook his head. "It won't." He looked at her a moment. "You could go, though."

"Leave you here?" you here?"

Barrett raised his right hand as though making a pledge. "Believe me, it won't happen again."

"Then why should I leave?"

"I just don't want you hurt."

"You're the one who's hurt."

Barrett chuckled. "That I am. It had to be that way, of course. I'm the one who angered her."

"You're saying"-Edith hesitated-"she did all that?"

"Making use of the power in the room," he said. "Converting it to poltergeist-type phenomena directed at me."

Edith thought about the violence of what had happened. The gigantic table rocking back and forth, then hurled across the floor like an express train. The whipping movement of those ma.s.sive hanging lamps. "My G.o.d," she said.

"I made a mistake," Barrett told her. "I accepted her genial att.i.tude toward me at face value. You can never do that with a medium. You never know what's underneath. It might be absolute hostility, and if it is"-he blew out breath-"by making unconscious use of their power, they can inflict tremendous damage. Especially when that power can be amplified a hundredfold by the kind of energy that fills this house." His smile was grim. "I'll not make that mistake again."

"Is it so important that we stay?" she asked.

Lionel answered quietly. "You know it means everything to me."

Edith nodded, trying to suppress the rise of panic in herself. Five more days of this Five more days of this, she thought.

12/22 8:09 P.M.

As she paced restlessly, her mind kept going over it again and again. Was Barrett right? She couldn't make herself believe it. Yet the evidence was there. She had had been furious with him. The poltergeist phenomena been furious with him. The poltergeist phenomena had had been directed primarily at him. Her body been directed primarily at him. Her body did did feel enervated, as it always did after psychic use. feel enervated, as it always did after psychic use.

She turned and crossed her room again. I was angry with him, yes, she thought, but I wouldn't try to hurt him just because our views are different.

No. She wouldn't accept it. She respected Dr. Barrett; loved him as a fellow human being, as a fellow soul. She'd die before she'd harm him. Truly. Truly!

With a faint sob, Florence knelt beside the bed and bowed her head to rest it on tightly clasping hands. Dear G.o.d, please help me. Show me the path to follow. I am yours to lead. I consecrate my heart and soul to your exalted works. Dear Lord, I beg you for an answer. Reach down your hand and lift my spirit, help me to walk in your light, along your blessed way.

She looked up suddenly, eyes opened. For several moments she was frozen to the spot, her expression one of indecision. Then a radiant smile pulled back her lips, and standing eagerly, she crossed the room and went into the corridor. She glanced at her wrist.w.a.tch; they would still be awake. Walking to the door of the Barretts' room, she knocked four times in quick succession.

Edith opened the door. Across her shoulder, Florence could see Dr. Barrett sitting up in bed, his legs beneath the covers.

"May I speak to you?" she asked.

Barrett hesitated, his face drawn with pain.

"I'll only be a moment," she said.

"Very well."

Edith stepped aside, and Florence crossed the room to Barrett's bed. "I know what happened now," she said. "It wasn't me. It was Belasco's son."

Barrett looked at her without response.

"Don't you see? He wants to separate us. Disunited, we are far less of a challenge to him."