A night in hell house

Part 2 chapter 2

2:45 pm

Professor Vladimir unlocked the front door to the house and stepped inside.

He flipped on a light switch and the lights came on.

" good at least electricity is hooked up" he said as the others followed him inside, " my assistant doctor Henry Norris will be bringing aspirations for tomorrow but I have dinner covered for tonight."

" shouldn't we set up the spirit cabinet right now?" Asked Dr Melrose, " I think we should start as soon as possible"

" the spirit cabinet?" Said Professor Vladimir in shock, " you mean you want miss Benson to do the first reading? I think Mr Wagner it should do the first reading since he is more experienced."

Dr Melrose had strange look on his face of irritation, " Mr Wagner is a mental medium. Using telepathy to talk to ghost doesn't impress me, it would just be delusions and nothing more. Miss Benton can produce results that I can examine from myself with her own abilities."

Professor Vladimir had a nasty look on his face, "Miss Benson has never done a reading in a place like this. She has only worked under controlled situations. I don't know why the other members of the society think that we need a scientific point of view. People like you have no knowledge about the supernatural!"

Simon stepped in between them for a second hoping to break them up, "Gentleman please let's not fight. Remember we are here to work together to find out what is wrong with this place and why Mr. Crowder went insane. I will be more than happy to do a reading right now. Go ahead and prepare yourself as
well I do some brief meditation to get in the mood."

3:30 pm

Simon Wagner walked under The Arches of the stairwell and into the Great Hall.

The other members of the team we're sitting around a large circular table in the middle of the great hall and were eating soup.

"Ah Mr. Wagner," said Vivian, " professor Vladimir heat up some of his homemade chicken soup for us."

Vivian smiled at Simon, 'He's a handsome one.' She thought

" professor, " said Simon, " I didn't know you could cook."

"Yes Simon," said Vladimir, " I was a cook in the army back during the Great War."

"Here, " said Vivian as she handed him a bowl of soup, " have some soup Mr Wagner."

Simon took the soup with a smile,

" Thank you Miss Benton. I would like to eat before we begin our sitting."

Simon sat down at the table with the others.

" pardon me Dr Melrose, but if you don't believe that ghosts exist then what do you believe is in this house?"

Melrose cleared his throat, " well Mr Wagner the study of hauntings over the years have showed that these ghosts are electrical phenomenon of some sort. I am under the impression that they were just mindless energy that has been misinterpreted by lesser minds."

' lesser minds?' Though Vladimir, ' no one can possibly be that arrogant!'

" excuse me gentleman," said Vivian as she finished up her bowl of chicken soup, " but there are lots of things that I don't know about this place. I asked some of the locals back at Caribou Falls but all they kept saying over and over again is how evil and corrupted this place is. Some of them say that Mr. Belasco was a demon who is taken on human form. Do any of you know anything about this place in greater detail?"

" well Ms Benton, " said Vladimir, " not only have I read various newspaper reports about this place over the years but Mrs Crowder's had also come into possession of the diary of the second Mrs. Belasco. Also I managed to find a few records in this area as well as over and England where Mr. Belasco grow up.

"From what I understand Emeric Belasco was a very large man of 6 foot 5 with bright green eyes and dark hair with a dark beard. He was a very mysterious man and not many people knew about him.

"Mrs. Belasco's journals said that he had built this house as a kind of getting way more people would pay him huge amounts of money to stay here. Apparently Belasco was a very charming host. Belasco was said by many people do have a hypnotic like stare, and he could corrupt anyone into doing anything such as rape or murder.

"Apparently this house was designed to be a place where he could conduct social experiments. Belasco would corrupt people who came here and he would observe their behavior and see how horrible they would get among other things.

"Emeric Belasco had a hobby of destroying people, especially women. Not known as much about his childhood except that he attacked his stepsister and he hacked a cat the pieces and tossed the pieces out of his bedroom window at a young age.

" His mother had nicknamed him ' evil Emeric' because of that incident."

" that's incredible." Said Melrose fascinated by the story, " he chopped a cat into pieces? Who would do such a thing?"

" well I'm sure there's a little bit more to that story," said Simon, " I do agree that killing the cat and attacking your sister is pretty rotten behavior but somehow I don't think calling your child evil is the best way to go about it. Perhaps Mr. Belasco didn't get the proper direction at home. After all he was conceived in affair that his mother had with a married man right?"

"Yes that part is true." Said Vladimir, " his father was absent for most of the Belasco's was life. Although he did leave Belasco a lot of money when he died. "

" you said something about a plague," ask Melrose, " what happened?"

" well it happened a bunch of the guests in this house called an influenza of some kind. Belasco claim that the atmosphere outside is what causes the plague although the Mrs Belasco believed that he had walled up the windows to prevent anybody from escaping the house."

' well I still think Belasco was misunderstood.' Thought Simon, ' I would like to contact him and hear his side of the story.'