Hell House

12:45 P.M.



Barrett snapped his watch cover shut. "It's done."



Edith's face was without expression. Barrett started feeling disappointment at her lack of response, then realized that she could not conceive of what had taken place inside the house. Reaching across the seat, he patted her hand, then turned.



"Fischer?"



Fischer was still slumped over Florence, holding her body against himself. He looked up slowly.



"Will you go back in with us?"



Fischer didn't speak.



"The house is clear."



"Is it?"



Barrett wanted to smile. He couldn't blame the man, of course. His claim did sound preposterous after what had taken place this week. "I need you with me," he said.



"Why?"



"To verify that the house is clear."



"What if it isn't?"



"I guarantee it is." Barrett waited for Fischer's decision. When nothing happened, he said, "It will take only a few minutes."



Fischer stared at him in silence for a while before he edged away from Florence's body and, shifting carefully to a kneeling position on the floor, lowered her to the seat. He looked at her for several moments, then withdrew his arms and turned to the door.



They came together in front of the car. D��



j��vu, thought Edith. It was as though time had been reversed and they were about to enter Hell House for the first time. Only the absence of Florence prevented the illusion from being complete. She shivered, drawing up the collar of her coat. She felt numb with cold. Lionel had run the engine and heater for brief periods of time during their wait, but minutes after he switched off the engine each time, the cold had returned.



The walk to the house was eerily reminiscent of Monday's arrival: their shoes ringing on the concrete bridge; her glancing back to see the limousine being swallowed by the mist; the circling trudge around the tarn, its hideous odor in her nostrils; the crunch of gravel underneath their shoes; the cold penetrating flesh; her feelings as the massive house loomed up in front of them. It was no use. She couldn't believe that Lionel was right. Which meant that they were walking back into a trap. They'd gotten out somehow; three of them, anyway. Now, incredibly, they were returning. Even realizing that Lionel had to know the effect of his Reversor, it was impossible to comprehend the suicidal folly of their move.



The final yards along the gravel path. The approach up the wide porch steps; the click of shoes on concrete again. The double doors ahead of them. Edith shuddered. No, she thought, I won't go back inside.



Then Barrett had opened the door for her, and without a word she'd entered Hell House again.



They stopped, and Barrett shut the door. Edith saw that the vase had fallen to the floor and shattered.



Barrett looked at Fischer questioningly.



"I don't know," Fischer said.



Barrett tensed. "You have to open up." Was it possible that Fischer had no extrasensory perception left? The thought that he might have to bring another psychic all the way to Maine before finding out was appalling to him.



Fischer moved away from them. He looked around uneasily. It did feel different. That could be a trick, though. He'd been fooled before. He didn't dare expose himself like that again.



Barrett watched him restively. Edith glanced at her husband and saw how impatient he was. "Try, Mr. Fischer," he said abruptly. "I guarantee there'll be no trouble."



Fischer didn't look around. He walked across the entry hall. Amazingly, the atmosphere had changed. Even without opening up, he could sense that. Still, how much had it changed? How much faith could he really have in Barrett? His theory had sounded good. But Barrett wasn't just asking him to believe a theory. He was asking him to put his life at stake again.



He kept on walking. He was passing through the archway into the great hall now; he heard the Barretts' footsteps following.



Entering the hall, he stopped and looked around. The floor was littered with broken objects. Across from him, a tapestry hung askew on its wall. What had the Reversor done? He wanted very much to know but was afraid to try to find out.



" Well? " asked Barrett. Fischer waved him off. I'll do it when I'm ready, he thought angrily.



He stood immobile, listening, waiting.



On impulse then, he dropped the barriers. Closing his eyes, he spread his arms, his hands, his fingers, drawing in whatever might be hovering in the atmosphere.



His eyes jerked open, and he looked around in bafflement.



There was nothing.



Distrust returned. He whirled and darted past them. Edith looked alarmed, but Barrett grabbed her arm, preventing her from panic. "He's startled because there's nothing to pick up." he told her.



Fischer ran into the entry hall. Nothing. He raced down the corridor to the chapel, shoved the door in violently. Nothing. He turned and ran to the steps, descending them with avid leaps, ignoring the pain in his head. Straight-arming through the pool doors, he raced to the steam room, pulled open its door, braced himself.



Nothing.



He turned in awe. "I don't believe it."



He sprinted back along the pool and out into the corridor. He ran into the wine cellar. Nothing. He dashed back up the stairs, gasping for breath. The theater. Nothing. The ballroom. Nothing. The billiard room. Nothing. He raced along the corridor with frenzied strides. The kitchen. Nothing. The dining hall. Nothing. He charged across the great hall, back into the entry hall.



Barrett and Edith were still there. Fischer rocked to a panting halt in front of them. He started to speak, then broke into a run for the stairs. Barrett felt a rush of exultation. "Done," he said. "It's done, Edith. Done! " He threw his arms around her, pulled her close. Her heart was pounding. She still couldn't believe it. Yet Fischer was beside himself. She watched him leaping up the staircase, two steps at a time.



Fischer ran across the corridor to the Barretts' room. He plunged inside. Nothing! Spinning with a dazzled cry, he ran into the corridor again, to Florence's room. Nothing! Along the corridor to his room. Nothing! Over to Belasco's quarters. Nothing!



God Almighty! Nothing! His head was pounding, but he didn't care. He raced along the corridor, flinging open doors to all the unused bedrooms. Nothing! Everywhere he went, nothing, absolutely nothing! Jubilation burst inside him. Barrett had done it!



Hell House was clear!



He had to sit. Staggering to the nearest chair, he dropped down limply. Hell House cleared. It was incredible. He thrust aside the knowledge that he'd have to alter everything he'd ever believed. It didn't matter. Hell House had been cleared, exorcised by that fantastic - what? - down there. His laugh broke hoarsely. And he had called it a pile of junk. Jesus God, a pile of junk!



Why hadn't Barrett kicked him in the teeth?



He slumped against the chair, eyes closed, regaining breath.



Reaction came abruptly. If shed lasted one more hour. Just another hour! He felt a sudden, anguished rage at Barrett for having left her alone.



It wouldn't last. It was overpowered by the awe he felt for the physicist. Patiently, doggedly, Barrett had done his work, knowing that they'd thought him wrong. Yet he'd been right all the time. Fischer shook his head in wonderment. It was a miracle. He inhaled deeply, had to smile. The air still stank.



But not with the reek of the dead.



2:01 P.M.



Fischer braked a little as the Cadillac moved into another pocket of impenetrable mist. He'd decided to keep the car and sell it if he could, splitting the take with Barrett. Failing that, he'd drive the damn thing into a lake; but Deutsch would never see it again. He hoped that Barrett had some way of getting the Reversor out of Hell House before Deutsch could get his hands on it.



It had to be worth a small fortune.



Reaching forward, he turned on the windshield wipers, his eyes fixed on the road as he drove through the dark woods, trying to dovetail the pieces in his mind.



First of all, Barrett had been right. The power in the house had been a massive residue of electromagnetic radiation. Barrett had negated it, and it had vanished. Where did that leave Florence's beliefs? Were they totally invalidated now? Had she, as Barrett had claimed, created her own haunting, unconsciously manipulating the energy in the house to prove her points? It seemed to fit. It shook his own beliefs as well, but it fitted.



Still, why had her unconscious will chosen to effect a type of phenomena she'd never effected in her life? To convince Barrett, to whom physical phenomena were the only meaningful kind, the answer came immediately.



All right, there really had been a Daniel Belasco, he thought. He'd been bricked inside that wall alive by someone, probably his father. That much Florence had picked up psychically, reading the house's energy like the memory bank of a computer.



That Daniel Belasco was, therefore, the haunting force had been her mistaken interpretation of those facts.



Why had she carried it to such suicidal extremes, though? The question baffled him. After a lifetime of intelligent mediumship, why had she literally killed herself to prove that she was right? Was that the kind of person she'd really been?



Had her outward behavior been entirely a deception? It seemed impossible. She'd functioned as a psychic for many years without incurring harm; or inflicting it, as she apparently had on Barrett. Had the power of Hell House been so overwhelming that she simply hadn't been able to cope with it? Barrett would undoubtedly say yes; and it was true that, facing it that single time yesterday, he had almost been destroyed by its enormity. Still . . .



Fischer lit a cigarette and blew out smoke. He had to force himself back to the unassailable fact that the house was clear.



Barrett had been right; there was no denying it. His theory made sense: shapeless power in the house requiring the focus of invading winds in order to function. What had the house been like between 1940 and last Monday? he wondered. Silent?



Dormant? Waiting for some new intelligence to enter? Undoubtedly - since Barrett was correct.



Correct.



He tried to fight away encroaching doubts. Damn it, he'd been in the housel He'd run from room to room, completely opened. There'd been nothing. Hell House had been clear. Why were these stupid qualms assailing him, then?



Because it was all too simple, he realized abruptly.



What about the debacles of 1931 and 1940? He'd been in one of them and knew how incredibly complex the events had been. He thought about the list Barrett had. There must have been more than a hundred different phenomena itemized on it.



This week's occurrences had been staggeringly varied. It simply didn't make sense that it had all been radiation to be turned off like a lamp. True, there was no logic to back up his misgiving, but he could not dispel it. There had been so many "final answers" in the past, people swearing that they knew the secret of Hell House. Florence had believed it of herself and had been lured, by that belief, to her destruction. Now Barrett felt he had the final answer. Granted that he had what seemed to be complete verification of his certainty. What if he was wrong, though? If there'd been any recurrent method at all to the house, it had been that at the moment when a person thought the final answer had been found, the house's final attack was launched.



Fischer shook his head. He didn't want to believe that. Logically, he couldn't believe it. Barrett had been right. The house was clear.



Abruptly he recalled the bloody circle on the chapel floor, the "B" inside it. Belasco, obviously. Why had Florence done that? Had her thoughts been blinded by the imminence of death? Or crystallized?



No. It couldn't be Belasco. The house was clear. He'd felt it himself, for Christ's sake! Barrett had been absolutely right.



Electromagnetic radiation was the answer.



Why, then, was his foot pressing down harder and harder on the accelerator? Why was his heart beginning to pound? Why was there an icy prickling on the back of his neck? Why did he have this constantly increasing dread that he had to get back to the house before it was too late?