Chapter 2
Caruthers House
Disney still owns Kim Possible and it still vexes me!
A huge shout out to CajunBear73, for his mad Beta skills.
A big thank you to those of you who reviewed the first chapter: daccu65, Kim's 1 fan, Sentinel 103, Michael Howard and CajunBear73. Thanks also to those who read it but didn't review. I hope this second chapter meets with your approval.
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"Go Wade,"
Kim replied to the familiar four tone signal of her Kimmunicator as she sat before her home computer. Wade's face appeared on the screen before her, clutching his ever-present slupster.
"I have some news for you about your mystery house Kim. Is Ron there?"
"Here Wade."
Ron replied from where he was sitting on Kim's bed as he got up and walked to the computer screen. He put his hands on Kim's shoulders as he studied his friend on the screen.
"Ok first, there are no recent records of any house being built there."
"It did look pretty old and delpasted when I went there with Kim" Ron remarked.
"Think you mean dilapidated Ron." Wade corrected.
"Whatever; it looked old and rundown to me." Ron replied
Kim had to bite back a denial when Ron had mentioned the house's apparent age. She was sure that, the first time she saw that house; it was in a much better condition than when she went back there with Ron the next day.
"Anyway, I went back as far as I could with the oldest records I could find in the county records office. The earliest records I could find dated back to the 1880's... Kim I think you may have found the old Caruthers House!"
"Caruthers House? Why does that name sound familiar?" Kim wondered out loud.
"The disappearing house?" Ron asked, beginning to get agitated. "The house where people were found dead? The cursed house? That house?"
"Ron! Chill!" Kim admonished.
"See Kim, I told you so! A Haunted house! Five hundred miles of bad road!"
Kim could see that Ron was rapidly approaching freak out mode and took steps to calm him down. She got up from her chair and turned to face him; dodging his rapidly flailing arms she gently cupped his face with her hands and began to stroke his cheeks with her thumbs while she looked into his frantic eyes.
"Ron," she began in a calm and soothing voice, "Chillax."
Ron looked into the calm, emerald eyes of his girlfriend and noticeably calmed down.
"You ok now?" She asked with concern in her voice.
"Yeah, sorry for the minor freak-out there KP" Ron responded, breathing out to relax himself.
Satisfied that her partner wasn't going to stroke out on her, Kim turned back to the monitor and sat back down to face Wade again.
'How sure are you of this Wade?"
"Well the location of your car does match the last reported sighting of the house. It also matches old survey records and land titles for the area."
"Can you give us a rundown on the legend, please and thank you?"
Kim placed her elbows on her computer desk and placed her chin in her hands. Ron, meanwhile, leaned in a bit closer to listen while beginning to massage her shoulders in a nervous gesture.
"Aaron Caruthers came out West in 1849 for the California gold rush. While in California; he struck it rich, not as a miner, but as a grocer and livery stable owner. He provided mining materials for hopeful prospectors, sold supplies to them; he even had a service to wash clothing for the residents in the town. He made a fortune at that until some of the grubstakes he took in lieu of payment suddenly started hitting high grade ore of gold, silver, and other metals.
He became one of the wealthiest men in the West at the time. He took his money and moved to San Francisco to live the good life. Now, according to newspaper accounts and his butler's personal journal, he began to live a lavish lifestyle. He spent millions on every conceivable luxury and indulgence..."
"Indulgence is that like ..." Ron trailed off his question.
"Doing whatever you want because you have the money and the influence to do it," Kim answered. "Now shush!"
"Right, well according to his butler, Aaron was having a great time spending his money, that is, until he contracted pneumonia and almost died because of it. That illness caused him to rethink his lifestyle completely. He cut out all of the extravagances, wild living and such. He devoted his still, vast fortune, to any and all kinds of medical research. That close brush with death instilled a fear of dying in him. He was becoming obsessed with any or all treatments or cure that would prolong his life, cheat death and gain eternal life.
The reports grow sketchy after that. He fired his butler, sold off all his assets and disappeared for years. Then in 1880 he reappears in the Colorado Territory. He buys twenty thousand acres of land, that will encompass all the future cities of Lowerton, Middleton, and Upperton by the way, and then he establishes a community of natives, settlers, trappers, and wanderers to which he promises a new order of things and eternal life to any who 'give up their concept of life and death to embrace the beginning of a new age.' According to reports he gathers a pretty large following for the population of the area, builds a compound and erects his house right in the middle of it. I even have a copy of the floor plan."
"How did you manage that?" Ron inquired.
"Well Colorado was pretty sparsely populated at that time. To build his compound and house Aaron Caruthers had to get help from Denver. The foreman of the project made a floor plan for himself which was published after they found the bodies."
"Who found the bodies Wade?" Kim asked.
"Some trappers were in the area and stopped by to sell or trade for supplies with the people in the compound. When they got there the gates were open and there were bodies everywhere. The strange thing about them was, according to the eyewitnesses, were all shriveled up and dried out like mummies. When the local law enforcement investigated they found bodies everywhere. They were unable to identify most of the corpses and they couldn't find Aaron Caruthers anywhere. The locals avoided the place for years. Years later someone claiming to be a descendent of Aaron Caruthers appeared, sold off most of the land, and refurbished the old house. He turned it into an orphanage and ran it for years. Then reports started filtering back to town of strange things happening out by the house. The local Sheriff investigated and found everyone dead, the bodies all shriveled up and dried out; just like the first time."
"When did the second round of deaths happen Wade?"
"The bodies were found on Saturday November 1, 1924 All Saints Day."
"So that means that they most likely died on..."
"...Friday October 31, 1924, All Hallows Eve, eighty four years ago next Friday." Wade finished the sentence for Kim.
Kim closed her eyes and leaned back as Ron continued to rub her tense shoulders. 'Too many questions and no answers to speak of.' Kim mused to herself.
"Kim there is something else about that house, rumors mostly."
"What's that Wade?"
"Well there are reports that the house can't normally be found where it's supposed to be."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Kim asked with a puzzled voice.
"After the first time, people went to see where all the people had died and nobody could find it. After the second time the Sheriff who investigated the deaths went back to gather more evidence and couldn't find the house."
"Did he know the area well?"
"Born and raised around here." Wade answered.
"So to summarize: we may or may not have a house that is over a hundred years old, that people may or may not be able to find, that a lot of people may have died in?"
"Pretty much, there are also some pretty strange stories regarding the area the house is supposed to be in."
"More than disappearing houses and massive amounts of dead bodies weird?" Ron chimed in.
"Much weirder Ron, there is a lot of mystical rumors about that area. People disappearing, strange lights reported and a rumor that that area is supposed to have a massive concentration of Ley lines."
"Ley lines? What's that?" Kim inquired.
"Ley lines are lines of 'supposed' magical power that connect holy area's or places of power." Ron answered, much to the surprise of both Kim and Wade.
"Should I ask how you know that?" Kim inquired with a raised eyebrow.
"'Stories of the Unknown', the Knowing Channel." Ron replied with a trace of smugness.
"Ron's right," Wade confirmed. "According to various theories I have read on the 'net anyway."
"What's your take on this Wade?"
"Kim this is magic we are talking about. I'm not too sure about the whole mystical magic thing."
"And yet I'm getting a ferociously good shoulder massage by a mystical monkey master." Kim responded to Wade while leaning back to enjoy Ron's personal attention he was giving her tense muscles.
"Believe me Kim; the idea that Ron has control over any magic at all is odd. The fact that I can't explain it is frustrating".
"Hey I'm unexplainable to a super genius. The Ronman is unique!"
"You have always been unique to me Ron." Kim sighed as she leaned into the relaxing shoulder rub he was giving her.
"And pretty much unexplainable to everybody." Wade chimed in.
Ron ignored the reply from Wade as he continued working the tense muscle knots out of his GF's shoulders.
Ron was not fooled by Kim's increasingly relaxed posture. Years of friendship gave him a unique perspective on her behavior and he had a bad feeling about what Kim was planning.
"Kim you're not going back to that house tonight are you?"
"Of course not Ron." Kim replied. "It's too late today and we have a game Friday. We'll go Saturday."
Ron stopped his massage long enough to regard his GF's face as it was reflected in the monitor before her. He saw her eyes open, intent, and focused on the goal she saw ahead of her. He had seen that look too many times on too many missions not to know it now. Kim had set her mind to solving this mystery and there would be no way he could talk her out of it.
"Bad Road." Ron murmured, "Five hundred miles of very bad road."
Wade's voice cut through Ron's ruminations and he began to focus on the young genius' words again
"... there are more legends and rumors about that place and area than you can ever guess. The rumors of buried treasure and a fortune in jewels that were never recovered drove a lot of people to find that house. Nobody ever could despite several written articles that had the location pretty well documented."
"I'm telling you KP, bad idea going back to the haunted house."
"Relax Ron; we're going back in the daylight. We should be safe."
"I hope that doesn't come under the 'famous last words' thingy.
Kim reached back and grabbed Ron's hands, which were still resting on her shoulders.
"We'll be fine Ron. What are the odds that anything will happen to us?
"Never anger the odds Kim." Ron replied darkly as he looked out of Kim's attic window into the deepening night.
On a hilltop outside of town, two figures stood. One, an older woman with round glasses, the other a young child, stood patiently. The child glanced at the older woman and a flash of red gleamed at the base of her neck, revealing a jewel-like stone hanging from a chain.
The height of the hill allowed them to see the city of Middleton, spread out before them. This was lookout point, a favorite of teenagers for years for its isolation from prying eyes and parental restraint.
The pair turned to the North East as a green flash momentarily lit up the night sky. They were not able to see the other four flashes that had occurred at the same time but, they knew it had happened. A myriad of lines flashed briefly, a deep violet color against the dark background. Then the color lightened and began to glow a lighter blue, then to pulsate, as if in response to a great heart. The lines seemed to throb with an unnatural energy, pulsating and twisting along its path; all of then centering on a deserted house, in the middle of a dead clearing, surrounded by a twisted glen.
Kim Possible tossed and turned in a restless, fitful slumber, dark images flittered across her subconscious mind; disturbing visions driven by unseen forces invaded the teen hero's sleep. Shadows lengthen, twist and dance within her bedroom, dark patches of nightmare separated from the night, shadow fingers stretch forward seeking the warmth of the young woman before them. Just before contact, their potential victim's eyes snap open, her normal emerald eyes glow a soft azure blue that strengthen until the whole room was bathed in the radiance. The shadows retreat, driven out by the light, their wordless cries of pain echoing into the night, her eyes close slowly, she relaxes and drops off into a normal, restful sleep.
Two blocks away Ron Stoppable sleeps, his dreams undisturbed and untroubled by dark visions of past events. His bedroom filled with an azure light. Rufus levitates just above his human's bed, his small body in the Lotus Position, eyes open and filled with the light of the Mystical Monkey Power. He stands guard over his humans from the danger he sensed earlier.
On the hilltop, not far from where Kim and Ron have spent some quality time together, the old woman smiles. Kim's sleep deepens; no more dark visions intrude into her rest, and Ron's eyes slowly change from deep blue to chocolate brown. Satisfied Rufus drops his guard and curls up next to his human. A last check reveals no danger and he drops off into a restless sleep; haunted by dreams and omens that no mole rat has ever experienced.
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A/N; Yeah I know not much action unless you count Kim getting a shoulder rub from Ron but I had to explain the house and its history. It get better next chapter I swear!