"Uh, Lan." Derek said into the phone.

Back in sunny Florida, Lan was stretched out on the couch, her laptop on her lap. The phone had been moved to the coffee table, where it was a convenient distance from her hand. It was on speakerphone now. Lan could hear the clanking behind Derek and the odd noises.

"Where are you?" She asked.

"Well, we're sorta…." He looked to his right and saw Sue sitting on one of the chairs, bored. She had her bags packed beside her. The next bus that came through the town was arriving in half an hour.

"You're not in jail again, are you?" Lan asked, and stopped typing.

"Not exactly." He said, but cast a look at the yellowed door of Janine Dobbs' office. "You won't believe what we saw."

"What?"

Derek didn't know how to say it. He wasn't even sure if he remembered it all. He pulled out the camera and rewatched the footage he had caught before, for the 5th time.

"I got out of the tunnel right? And the next room, it had all these paintings, and there was blood on them, Lan. Just dripping down from the paintings. And we were the only people in the house." He said. "Or, I think we were the only ones."

"Wow." She said. She shuddered. "Blood?"

"Well, it looked like blood. It could've been some kind of prank, you know? But it's just weird anyways. And the curator has Jason in her office. She's pretty pissed."

Lan sat up. "No kidding."

The door opened then and Jason walked out. Derek said goodbye to Lan and hung up.

"Thank you, gentlemen." Janine sighed. "Well, the blood wasn't blood. It was red paint. The police are saying that someone came in and did it. One of the paint cans is gone, the painters left them for the job."

"So you know that we didn't do it." Derek said slowly.

Janine nodded. "Yeah, we've got enough evidence to take you two off the list. Are you sure that you didn't see anyone?"

Derek and Jason nodded. They both looked over at Sue, who was almost comatose.

"Well, I'm sorry to cut your investigation short." Janine said.

Derek handed her a card that had his name and his phone number, as opposed to the normal FreakyLinks.com eye. "If you find anything-"

There was a honking outside and Sue jumped up. Adjusting her short dress, she gathered up her bags and left without saying goodbye. And to tell the truth, Jason didn't mind.

"Sorry man." Derek said quietly. Jason shook his head. They walked outside into the sunlight.

"Not a problem. Somethin's up. Have you talked to Lan?"

As they walked to the Freakmobile, Derek nodded.

"Yeah, I didn't have time to tell her a lot." Derek looked at the sky. It was quickly becoming windy, despite the sunshine. "it's going to storm soon." He said. He looked at his watch. "We should just stay in town until tomorrow."


Lan sat next to the phone. The laptop was sitting on the coffee table, unused. She stared at the phone, wondering if she should call Derek.

There was a knock at the door and Chloe walked in, carrying a few books and papers.

"Hey, Chloe." Lan said.

"Hey. I found some stuff that might help the guys." She said, piling the information onto the table.

She looked at Lan, sitting on the couch. "What happened?"

"Nothing." She said, throwing her hands up. "Absolutely nothing. Derek called like half an hour ago, talking about how they saw something in the mansion. But then, as usual, he hung up."

"I did some research on the house." She said. "I uh, found some medical journals talking about it."

Lan frowned. "Medical journals?" She said. "Why would it be in there?"

"That's the thing. Huddleston, the guy who built the mansion, he was supposedly insane. He threw a lot of parties for noblemen and their families in the house but there were always rumors around the town that he was insane and he held occult practices in his mansion."

Lan read from one of the papers Chloe had brought. "You found this in a medical journal?"

"Huh?" Chloe said. Then she shook her head, her hair flinging around. "No, no. The stuff about him being insane was from the journal. This stuff about the occult practices, that's from this book I found in the library."

She could imagine the look on the librarian's face as she brought the large worn volume up to the counter. The psychiatrist who looked up books on Filipino vampire myths was back again…

"Okay, so J.E. Huddleston was this big loony. So what?" Lan asked.

"So, I think that what the house might have been built on an old burial ground."

"Of what?"

Chloe smiled. Her eyes shined. "The Huddleston family."



"So what are you saying? That J.E. Huddleston killed people and buried them under the house?" Derek said.

"No, no, no. Not at all. He didn't bury the people under the house. He built the house on the people.' Chloe said.

"But the times don't match up then. The house was built before the people started disappearing." Derek said.

"I know, but according to this, there are two Huddleston Mansions." Chloe said, not without triumph.

Derek sat up. "Two?"

"Two what?" Jason asked, walking into the hotel room.

"Chloe says that there's two Huddleston Mansions." Derek said, placing a hand over the speaker. He pressed a button on the phone and the call was put on speaker.

"Hey girls." Jason greeted. Lan shouted a hello from the kitchen.

"What do you mean, there's two mansions?" Derek asked, getting back on subject.

"The one you went to was built after the first one was supposedly condemned. Actually, it was said by the health department to be unsafe. But of course, no one really believes that since it's still up." Chloe said.

"Why didn't the curator say anything? And how did we not know?" Derek asked.

"Not a lot of people did. The older mansion was built before Huddleston became immensely rich. The mansion was a lot smaller and in a very remote area. He didn't have any neighbors that could talk about his place." Lan said, walking in with tea. She handed one to Chloe. "From what we've dug up, the man did a lot of occult practices at the old mansion, and when it was mysteriously fated to be abandoned, he was a rich guy and built another one."

"And that's when the people started to disappear. So what does the old mansion have to do with his family burial ground?" Jason asked, sitting on the bed.

"So J.E. Huddleston seemed to be this recluse right? Not that much. He had a family that lived with him in total seclusion. He eventually became insane. The old house was built on the Huddleston family graveyard, and when they moved out, they left the family."

"So?" Derek said. "This is confusing."

Chloe sighed. "Here's what we have so far. Huddleston built two mansions. The first one is right here in Florida. He built it right on top of the Huddleston family graveyard. Then when he moved out, he built one in Georgia, the one you're at. Now, here's something new. When he built the old mansion, his family moved in and one by one, they started becoming sick. The most anyone lived was the age of 29, with the exception of him and his wife. Both of them didn't die until they were 96 years old. He died even later, when he was 99. But none of this children or anyone who lived in the old mansion lived to be 29."

"It's like a curse." Derek said, pondering.

"Pretty much. And when they moved into the new house, the family deaths stopped. But then the dinner guests started to drop."

"A curse." Jason said. "But why?"

"Well, there was this theory floating around that this guy was obsessed with immortality. He wanted his legacy to live forever, but he wanted even more for himself and his wife to live forever. It was suggested that he had practiced the occult in an attempt to reach immortality." Chloe flipped through a few pages of her book.

Lan sipped her tea. "See what a few candles and a big book can do?" She said.

"This is a trip." Derek said, laughing. "We'll probably be heading back tomorrow. Uh, about the other house-"

"I'm sending the directions now. We'll meet you there tomorrow." Chloe said, grinning. "Good night."

"Goodnight." Jason and Derek said, and hung up.

Derek grinned and turned the light off.