<strong>Caleb Hatcher -- Bloody Remembrances</strong><br/><br/>The ladies took Hatcher up on his offer for a brief adjournment, but it seemed the gentlemen intended to wait downstairs with him. Well, that was fine too; Caleb had about as much interest in being alone these days as he had in free elective dental surgery. Mr. McDermott's painfully blunt rebuttal of the notion of papal involvement was disappointing, but honestly not surprising. He'd partly suspected that genuine attention from the Vatican would be expecting too much for a mere haunting in Tennessee, even one as prolific and dangerous as this one had proven to be.<br/><br/>He also suspected that it wouldn't have killed the man to have been a bit kinder about disillusioning him. Although from the man's words, he was more mercenary than missionary, so perhaps he just wasn't the type for subtlety. McDermott's next words generally confirmed the opinion Hatcher was quickly forming of him.<br/><br/>As Owen finished, Hatcher tipped his own glass back and drained the last of his whiskey and sat quiet for a moment. So, they thought he was joking, did they? He sat the glass aside and dug through the stack of files in front of him, pulled out a particularly thick manila envelope and untied the string-catch at the lip.<br/><br/>"Gentlemen, let me tell you something. I've been to some pretty god-awful places in this world. I served three years in Iraq in the U.S. Army; I've hunted wild game in Africa. And I'm familiar with some of the worst horrors that man and beast can inflict upon humanity, and I have stood my ground against them. So believe me when I say that there is no creature that runs, flies, swims or crawls upon God's earth that frightens me. But whatever is in that house...it's<strong>not</strong>of God's earth. Allow me to assure you that this job is no joke, Mr. McDermott. It's not a scam, a con, a scheme or a prank.<strong>It. Is. Real.</strong>And if my assurances aren't enough for you, then perhaps you'd be so kind as to look over a few of these."<br/><br/>Hatcher tipped the envelope open and out spilled over two dozen records and photographs of various men and women, several in 'before and after' style. The first photos showed healthy looking, normal people; the second set displayed their remains. Many of them had been transformed into gruesome caricatures of humanity, their faces and forms mutilated in horrible ways. Some had words or pictographs carved into their flesh. Others appeared to have been mummified while still alive. A few had been reduced to nothing but chunks of charred meat or rotted bone, and a couple even looked like wax dolls that had been held too near an open flame, their features irreparably melted and blurred together.<br/><br/>As the two men rifled through the photos and records, Hatcher rattled off a few of the ones that stuck in his mind. "Jason Lambert, 37, with the original renovation crew. He vanished the first week in November; he turned up five weeks later with both of his eyes missing and the bones completely removed from his left arm. The doctors said he suffered some kind of cardiac anuerysm; he died just before Christmas. He had a nine-year-old son."<br/><br/>"Mary Beth Copeland, 26. Just a tourist passing through town on her way home in Alabama. She went missing in December. Her body was found January 14. Her skin had been flayed off and replaced -- inside out."<br/><br/>"Timothy Pendergrast, 45. A cop doing surveillance on the Manor with a state-wide task force; the cops finally got wise that something was going on in the house, but they were sure it was just some homeless psycho squatters or something. He and his partner were parked just outside the rear gate, his partner got out to go take a leak, he came back, no more partner. He still hasn't been found. As far as I know, the cops have actually given up on Harrowgate; they say there hasn't been any 'discernible activity in the area,' but they're still searching for Pendergrast's body."<br/><br/>"There are the others, too, but those aren't all. Those are just the recent ones that have been documented. There have been disappearances linked to Harrowgate since it was first built, back in the 20s. I also have the files on the Cypress Falls Seven, a few others. The place was burned down in '33, but there was still the odd disappearance through the decades. It's only really kicked up again the last couple years, though." As he spoke, one of the waitresses appeared with a refill of his glass and he downed fully half before continuing.<br/><br/>"As for the money, that's real, too. You'll each get $25,000 upon completion of the job. If...if you don't survive, it will be paid to the beneficiaries of your choice. Are you getting the picture yet, gentlemen? I caught the looks that my hesitation earned, earlier. I'm sure you probably think I'm embarrassed to be asking psychics for help, or ashamed to admit that I just don't have any rational explanation for these events. But I'm not embarrassed by this, far from it. There is<em>something</em>unearthly in that house, my friends. And whatever it is..." Hatcher paused and took another drink, setting the empty glass back on the table with a visible shudder.<br/><br/>"I'm afraid of it. I am very,<span class="bbc_u">very</span>afraid of it."