They Are Mine.
The words were an affront to him. One student had been taken from him, and the others were now lost in a world that no longer made sense to them, because of an entity the likes of which was unprecedented in the field of…Here, Kennedy always laughed. It was hard to find the words for what he was dealing with. Everything sounded too fantastical to be true.
He stared at the words through the plastic.
His doorbell rang, making him blink. He realized he had been transfixed for the span of several minutes. Worse, he couldn’t remember a single thought he’d had while he stared at the journal’s last page.
Kennedy slammed the journal closed and stood. He took a deep breath and then tossed the battered journal down onto the table. He knew who was at the door, but he opened it anyway, returning to the kitchen without a word.
“I only have one chair to offer,” he said over his shoulder.
Kelly and Julie looked around the small but tidy apartment. Kelly started to speak, but Julie placed a hand on her arm, silencing her question before it could be spoken. She watched the professor sit down at the table and pick up a journal.
“Tell me, has either one of you ever seen this?” He slid the book across the table.
There was a Pennsylvania State Police evidence tag still stuck to its cover and a larger plastic bag sticking out of the back pages somewhere. Gabriel opened it and turned the journal upside down so they could read the three words below the last entry through the plastic.
They Are Mine.
“I’ve never seen the actual journal, no. Only photographs,” Julie said. She placed her bag on the kitchen counter and took the only available chair.
“I only saw a copy, too,” Kelly seconded. Finding nothing to sit on, she leaned against the kitchen wall.
Kennedy pulled the journal back toward him and closed it.
“I have read and touched those words so many times. Do you know what happens when you touch the letters that make up those three words?”
Julie and Kelly waited. Kennedy had the reins now. They were there just to witness his turn of faith, and fate.
“Not a fucking thing. No insight into who — or what — wrote them. No magical epiphany that explains the mockery or the malice. It was a statement of fact. Whatever wrote it was in complete control.”
Julie wondered now if Kennedy really was in control or not. His deep blue eyes looked haunted as he lowered them to the closed journal.
“Now you want to go back into a place controlled by something that can kill?”
Kelly again started to speak, but Kennedy’s eyes said that the question had been rhetorical.
“This house,” he tapped the pile of research before him on the table, “is the haunted house. The one house that inspired every horror writer in the country to write about haunting, and the funny thing is, most never knew it even existed. Most still might not know. It’s like Summer Place travels through people’s minds and then they magically forget all about it, even though most of the literature on the subject of ghosts may be based upon this property, and this property alone.”
“You’re speaking of Shirley Jackson?” Kelly asked.
“Before her, there were ghost stories, but none that truly grabbed the reader and said, yes, there are things that go bump in the night. There is an unknown thing under your bed, and most definitely a horror in your closet. It preys on your mind and it knows exactly what scares you. It knows because whatever it is, it was once one of us.”
“Ghosts?” Julie asked.
“Ghosts, spirits, whatever you want to call them,” Kennedy said. “They protect something, maybe a dark secret. I think what makes this entity in Summer Place so evil, so insane, is the fact that it’s hiding a secret from the world that it will kill to keep.”
“Is that why anyone who goes in there runs a risk of encountering — it?” Kelly asked, mesmerized by Gabriel Kennedy’s intense gaze.
“It’s in here somewhere,” he said, tapping the pile of research. “It’s in the house’s past.”
“Can you find it?” Julie asked.
“I don’t know if I want to. Probing around has already cost one boy his life, and it’s cost five others, including myself, a life that makes sense. And now, as I understand it, two of your people are missing, and one young man may have lost his mind. The gamble is too great, I think.” Kennedy placed both hands on the table as if he was done with a lecture. The gesture seemed to say, I hope you wrote that down, because that’s all you’re going to get.
“But can we—”
“One million dollars and the right to choose my investigative team, and they get two hundred thousand dollars for their services — each,” he said firmly.
“Done,” Julie said. Her eyes held his as if she were challenging a bluff in a card game.
“The people I need, well, some will be hard to find; others, not so hard. However, I’ll warn you now, there is one thing they’ll have in common with me: they won’t like the two of you, one bit. They won’t like who you work for, and they most assuredly won’t tolerate any interference.”
“You got it,” Julie said.
“Wait, Ms. Reilly, this part concerns you directly.” A small smile creased his lips.
She arched her eyebrows, waiting for the drama to end.
“Lieutenant Damian Jackson will have to be on the team. There will be no negotiation. Without him, the deal is off.”
“We can’t guarantee his cooperation,” Kelly said. “He hates and despises you.”
“Not my problem,” he answered, still staring at Julie. “He’s your…” he smiled without humor, “co-conspirator in the ruining of my career. So, get him.”
“Despite the undeniable desire to tell you to go fuck yourself, Kennedy, I’ll just say instead, somehow I’ll get Lieutenant Jackson, if only for the reason that Kelly already stated. He’ll want the opportunity to finish tying the knot in the rope he placed around your neck seven years ago.”
“Also, have that weasel Wallace Lindemann handy during the show. He may be useful,” he said, ignoring Julie’s threat.
“Is that all?” Kelly asked. She looked up from the list she’d made of Kennedy’s requests, grimacing at each written word.
“It’s still not enough,” Gabriel said. He started writing a list of names. “If one person on my list doesn’t enter the fight, the deal is off.”
The word fight wasn’t lost on them.
“Okay, Professor. I can give you what you ask for, but I need an answer to a question that our principles back at the network will be certain to ask.”
“Why I changed my mind?”
Julie Reilly’s silence told him he was correct.
“When I look at you two, I see the world for what it really is. Or at least, what it’s become. I figure, why not join the rest of the human race and become as big an asshole as both of you.”
“Not buying it.” Julie smirked.
Kennedy leaned forward. “Then how about this: I’m going to destroy whatever it is that walks inside that house. If I have to use you and every one of the people backing you to do it, I will.” He settled back, then gave the two women a smile and a wink. “In other words…Unlike in the movies, ladies, if you trip and fall when the monster is chasing you, you’ve had it.”