Chapter 6
“Where is this guy?” Ike said, glancing at his watch.
Olsen shrugged. “I don’t know. He was supposed to be here at nine.”
The two men stood on the weedy grass in front of the house, still sipping coffees that had gone cold long ago. After a few rough patches, preproduction on the show and preparations on the house were going more or less smoothly and it looked as if they might even be ready a few days ahead of schedule. But, as with any production, there were always tiny glitches and problems that needed to be sorted out on a daily basis.
Like this morning’s meeting.
They had arranged to meet with a man named Feroze Mohammed, a parapsychologist who had written several-best-selling books on the subjects of hauntings and poltergeists and currently served as the public information and media consultant to the American Society of Psychical Research. All he was supposed to do was drop by the set, take a tour of the house, act as if there were some real ghosts haunting the place, and then say as much in an on-camera interview.
At first Ike hadn’t been crazy about having a so-called real-life “ghost buster” involved with the production because it would make it seem as if they were desperate to give the project some credibility. But the network had insisted on using a parapsychologist so they could market the show as a kind of documentary after its initial run as a reality television show was over. Eventually, Ike came around to the network’s way of thinking, realizing that having a known parapsychologist appear on camera to tell people that the house was genuinely haunted was exactly what the show needed, especially if they could convince the man that he’d look best surrounded in shadows and lit from below. That would make him look creepy enough, and then all they’d have to do was add the right music and a few quick inserts from inside the darkened house, and they’d be able to convince people about anything they wanted.
Ike glanced at his watch again. “He’s already on the payroll as a consultant, right?”
“Yeah, for the past five days.”
“And he knew we were meeting him here today?”
Olsen nodded. “I spoke to him last night and he assured me he’d be here by nine.”
“Well, it’s after ten.”
Olsen sighed.
“How long will it take you to find another expert?”
“Well, there’s a graduate parapsychology program at John F. Kennedy University in Orinda. Maybe I can get a professor from there to come out and have a look at the house.”
“Fine. Do that,” Ike said. He poured out the rest of his coffee onto the grass and started heading for his trailer.
“Gentlemen.”
Ike and Olsen turned around and saw a midsized middle-aged man with dark skin, a thin beard, and a head of graying hair cut with a number two all around, standing on the front porch of the house. He wore a short-waisted leather jacket, tan pants, and suede soft-soled shoes. He removed his wire- rimmed glasses, then took a cloth from the black bag that was slung over his shoulder and gave the lenses a wipe.
“Who are you?” Ike asked.
He stepped off the porch, pocketing the cloth and returning his glasses to the bridge of his nose. “I’m Feroze Mohammed.” He shook Ike’s hand first, then Olsen’s. “I’ve been spending some time in the house… you know, to get a feel for it.”
He spoke with a slight accent that Ike couldn’t place. From his name and complexion it should have been Middle Eastern, but he sounded almost English. And he was fairly cheerful, which wasn’t what Ike had expected considering that the man’s area of expertise was investigating and communicating with the dead.
“How long were you inside?” Olsen asked.
He glanced at his watch. “Oh, six or seven hours.”
“Why didn’t you let someone know when you arrived?” Olsen asked. “We could have put you up in a trailer for the night.”
Feroze shook his head. “Oh, no, no… You see I needed to wander the house alone. If you knew I was here you would have been looking over my shoulder the entire time, wanting me… no, willing me to find something in the house, and that’s no way to do my job.”
“Okay, fair enough, but now that you’ve spent half the night in the house, can we at least get you a coffee or something to eat?”
“Oh, yes, thank you. That would be wonderful.”
“Never mind that right now,” Ike cut in. “What I want to know is… do you think the house is, you know, haunted?”
Feroze nodded. “Oh, most definitely.”
Ike turned his head to one side in disbelief. He almost couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “What?”
“Yes, the house is haunted by several spirits. I can’t be sure how many, but they’re definitely inside there. Maybe even outside, too.”
Olsen gently clapped his hands together. “All right.”
Ike still didn’t believe it. There had always been a fear in the back of his mind that the parapsychologist would determine that the grounds weren’t haunted at all and there was nothing to fear inside the house, but this… this was exactly what he wanted. It was almost too good to be true. “You sure?”
“Oh, yes.” Feroze nodded. “In fact, the spirits seem very disturbed by all the activity that’s been going on in the house.”
Ike smiled. “Really?”
“Yes. And if I might make one suggestion it would be that you cancel this production right away and find another house—one with more receptive spirits—in which to film.”
The smile was gone from Ike’s face in an instant.
Olsen looked incredulous.
Ike put a hand on the man’s shoulder, then said, “Let’s get you that coffee. I think we need to talk.”
“You do this for a living then, Doctor?” Ike asked, pushing a cup of coffee across the table in the catering trailer they had set up on the site.
“I’m not really a doctor of anything.”
“But you do make your living from this, right?”
“Yes, it is my profession. But, my living is derived more from books I’ve written and talks I give across the country. There’s really no money in haunted houses…” His voice trailed off and he laughed. “Maybe there is for movie producers, but not for parapsychologists like me.”
“So you’re a real-life ghost buster,” said Erwin, who had joined his brother and Olsen in the trailer.
“A funny movie, but an unfortunate label to be stuck with. I prefer the term parapsychologist.”
“Sure, okay.” Ike nodded. “That’s what we’ll put on the super… Feroze Mohammed, Parapsychologist”
“That would be fine, thank you.”
Olsen slipped a plate with a danish in front of the man.
“Now,” Ike said, “tell me about the house.”
Feroze took a bite from the danish and sipped his coffee. “Well, first of all let me say that the job you wanted me to do was very unlike my normal investigative work. When someone first calls me to investigate a poltergeist or haunting, there is a five-step procedure I usually go through, the very last step being an on-site investigation…”
“This is television. We like to work fast,” Ike said.
“And cheap,” added Erwin.
Ike shot his brother a harsh glance.
“Well, since last Friday I’ve been researching the history of the house, and as you probably already know, there are several reasons why this house could be haunted.”
Olsen slid into the chair next to the parapsychologist. “We’ve documented the back story pretty well.”
“Yes, I’m sure you have. And you wouldn’t be here if there hadn’t been some reports of hauntings in the house over the years… so that basically took care of step one.” He took another sip of coffee. “Step two requires that I question about why you might want me to investigate the house. Well, that was obvious, but sometimes people want their home to be haunted by loved ones, or they’re looking to get rich with a story about a ghost and need someone like me to give some credibility to their claims.”
“Like The Amityville Horror.”
“Precisely,” said Feroze. “A complete and utter hoax.”
“You mean that never happened?” asked Erwin.
“That was a terrific franchise.” Ike nodded, ignoring his brother’s put-on. “I think there were at least four of those movies.”
“More like eight,” offered Olsen.
“Exactly why people in my profession must be careful.” A pause. “The third step requires that I determine if there is a need for an on-site investigation. Now, since you boys paid me, of course I had to come out here, but then comes number four in which I contact witnesses to any strange events that have occurred in the house.”
Olsen looked surprised. “Did you find any?”
“One—a woman named Wallace Calverley. She lived in the house as a teenager, and, well… I have copies of her statement for you.” Feroze pulled a few photocopied sheets from his bag and handed them out. “Basically when she turned sixteen she awoke each night with the feeling of a great weight on top of her. At first she would merely shake it off and go back to sleep, but the weight would always return, until she eventually opted for sleeping on the floor… sleeping quite comfortably through the night.”
“This is great,” Ike said, picking up one of the papers and giving it a quick scan. “Where did you find her?”
“She’s a patient at the Saybrook Institute in San Francisco—and I must say, quite mad.”
“Really?” Ike was thinking they might be able to interview her for the show. “How crazy is she?”
“She drools from the corners of her mouth, is prone to using foul language as a child might use baby talk, and she bites anyone who steps inside her ‘danger’ zone, the boundaries of which only she knows.”
“Oh, okay, never mind.”
Feroze let out a sigh. “All of which leads me to my being here today. Step five, which is the very first, and perhaps only thing you wanted from me, an on-site investigation.”
Ike stopped reading. “Tell me about it, what did you find?”
“Well, first of all, understand that my own abilities of psychokinesis are rather limited, so I might not be getting the whole or even an accurate assessment about what’s going on. If I had more time… say six months to a year, I would bring in a few of my colleagues and do a proper study of the house.”
Ike leaned forward, closer to Feroze. “What did you find?” he repeated.
“As you know, there were several grisly murders committed in the house. That’s fact, so it’s not outrageous to think that there might be a few apparitions roaming the halls.”
“You mean ghosts.”
“Not exactly ghosts, not at the moment at least. They’re… apparitions, the unsettled spirits of those who lost their lives on the property—”
“Where’s Dunbar?” Ike looked around the room. At some point the writer must have entered the trailer because he was there, standing in the corner like a part of the furniture. “Are you getting this?”
Dunbar lifted his notepad so Ike could see it.
“They’re here in the house, because their energy will always be here. And for some of them the events of their lives—and deaths—are being replayed over and over again night after night, like a movie on a continuous reel.”
“Oh, this is great,” Erwin said, leaning forward over the table to get as close to the parapsychologist as he could.
“Go on,” Ike said.
“What you’re doing with this production is disturbing their world, entering their time and space… and they don’t like it.”
Ike smiled. “They don’t?”
“No, they don’t and they’re asking to be left alone.”
Ike sat up straight. “You’re kidding me, right?”
Feroze shook his head. “I assure you, I am not.”
“Do you have any idea how much money is riding on this production? What’s at stake?”
“I imagine several million dollars, the entire assets of your production company, and the filmmaking careers of you and your brother.”
“Exactly, that’s why we’re doing this show a week from now. Rain or shine… ghosts or no ghosts.”
Feroze’s shoulders slumped slightly. “That’s truly unfortunate, and I’m sorry you feel that way. This house has been vacant for decades and in that time the apparitions have built up strong levels of psychokinetic energy. Strong levels—” He stopped abruptly and looked Ike directly in the eye. “I understand a worker was injured here several days ago.”
“Work-related injury. Nothing to do with the house.”
“Perhaps, but I propose to you that the work being done on the house has awakened a set of spirits that have been dormant for many years. They are not pleased about the intrusion and they wish that you would go away and leave them alone. Furthermore—and I don’t say such things lightly, so pay very close attention—if there are raw emotions unleashed in the house, such as anger or hate, or if these emotions manifest themselves in the form of violence, or if there is a physical reminder of the atrocities that have been committed inside the house—such as the spilling of blood—then it might very well fully awaken the spirits, and rekindle their desire for revenge and retribution. Obviously I can not be certain exactly what affect all these things might have on the spirits, but whatever it is, I assure you that it will be bad. Very bad.”
The inside of the trailer was silent for the longest time.
“Whoa,” Erwin gasped.
“That’s fantastic!” Ike said, feeling a chill travel down the length of his spine. He rubbed his hands over his forearms to get rid of the goose bumps that had bubbled up onto the surface of his skin. “Would you mind saying all that again for us on tape, just they way you said it now?”
Feroze nodded. “You are going on with the production then, despite my warning?”
“Well, yeah.” Ike managed to stop himself from giving the man a “Duh!” thinking it might offend him.
Erwin, on the other hand, had no such reservations. “Duh!”
Feroze inhaled a deep breath and let out a long sigh. “Then I absolutely insist that you record my words for posterity.”