Clouds covered the late October sky. A dull orange seeped through the dusk-lit curtain, matching the fading hue of the encircling oak leaves.
The text on Heather's phone was blinding in the cramped passenger seat of the well-worn sedan, which was older than both she and its driver combined. Her foot brushed aside a crumpled hamburger wrapper belonging to its absent-minded owner, too worried about frequent updates to care about car cleanliness. The younger sister, Katie, sat in the driver's seat, fingers drumming on the wheel.
Heather looked at the prematurely sent message assuring they would arrive on time. The digits at the top center of the screen disputed that claim. She looked out the window at the unfamiliar scenery.
"We're lost," Heather said.
"We are not," Katie casually responded.
"You said this was a shortcut. It's a quarter to. If you're lost, just admit it."
"I'm not lost; it's just…"
"Just what?" Heather sternly looked at her younger sister. The driver's calm exterior predictably cracked with little effort, as if she could feel the eyes on her.
"I lied, okay. I'm sorry. I'm not lost, but this was never meant to be a shortcut."
"Katie!"
"Sorry. Uncle Buck's probably still at the house. He's supposed to be out by seven, but you know he'll drag it out. So… I may have put us on the more scenic route."
Heather shook her head. "Wow! You'd really go that far to avoid him?"
Katie looked down at her phone resting in the cup holder. A page displaying a subscriber count struggled to refresh.
"Hey, eyes on the road!" Heather commanded.
The younger sister looked back out the windshield. "Sorry. I'm not good with people like him face-to-face. It's just, you tell him you work as a receptionist and he says how diligent you are. I tell him people watch me play video games and he tells me I'm wasting my life. He actually told me there was no way I'd reach a hundred K unless I took my clothes off. I'm still too far off to shove it in his face."
"You're already at seventy-five. That's impressive enough, Katie. I can't even imagine a thousand people looking at me. Mom, dad, and I are proud of you. Screw Buck!"
"I just can't stand that smug-ass face. You know he'll give me crap if I am even ten short. You know he will."
"You're deluding yourself if you think he's only critical of you. Let me tell you a little secret. The rest of us don't pay attention to a word he says. There, problem solved. Last time he was bitching to me about not living up to his expectations, I just planned out dinner. I still think back at how good that lasagna ended up. …Might have been the basil," she reminisced. "I don't remember a damn thing he said. Ignore him."
Heather searched the passing landscape. Walls of trees loomed out every window. "Seriously, though. You do know where we are, right?"
"Relax, Heath. I mapped out the entire route beforehand. Pretty soon there'll be a sharp curve by a lake."
The car performed a few serpentines through the tunnel of trees and, sure enough, there was a curve overlooking a lake at the end of a short stretch of desolate road. "Okay, there's your curve. Not bad. Do you have an ETA when we'll get home?"
"Around another half-hour."
Heather grimaced. "I'll send mom a text before she has a chance to ask for an update. That might smooth things over." She composed the minimalist message and pressed send. The processing animation continuously looped; the short, solitary reception bar flickered in and out.
She sighed and looked out the window. The woods hid in shadow, everything merged together. Everything, except an alluring light farther up the road. As they passed by, she could make out a large trailer with its tail end wide open. It practically lit up the entire driveway leading back to an obscured cabin nestled in the trees.
Heather looked back at her phone. The message was undelivered. "Damn." She attempted again as she turned to face Katie. "Look, I…" Her younger sister was staring down at the cupholder again. "Katie! Fine, I'm taking the damn—"
The impact was jarring. The front bumper was already through the flimsy safety barrier before Heather even realized what had happened. A sudden weightlessness lifted her toes to the underside of the glove compartment. The nose punched into the dark water, abruptly forcing the car to a stop.
An intense blast forced Heather back against her seat. The airbag pinned her for a flash before rapidly deflating. She peered through a mild stupor to witness water enveloping the car.
A metallic click focused her. Katie had unbuckled her seatbelt and was backing away from the water rising to her ankles.
"Get your window down!" Heather shouted as she undid her own restraints and furiously fought with the window lever, the car door having already been boxed in by the rising water. One seat over, her sister also cranked her window down. A freezing blackness flooded through the deliberate breaches. Even though the car plunged into the lake a mere twenty feet from the bridge, the sinking vehicle showed no signs of touching the bottom.
Both sisters pulled themselves through the windows only seconds before the lake's surface swept over the tail end. The shore was barely visible in the overcast dusk.
"This way," Heather called out as she swam toward the thinned vegetation of the nearby shore. The grass had grown unruly, but the signs of a once well-maintained shoreside was hard to overlook in the otherwise dense forest.
Heather pulled herself out of the cold lake. She wouldn't be at all surprised if a layer of ice formed during the night. Her clothes were soaked through. The supposed insulation of her winter jacket now acted as a sponge, trapping the freezing liquid close to her body.
Katie coughed as she followed onto the shore, just as drenched. She swayed as she stepped farther into the wild yard.
"What the hell were you thinking!" Heather yelled at her trembling sister.
Katie crossed her arms, holding them close to her body. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry," she said through chattering teeth.
Heather's sudden rage abated quickly. Seeing her sister up and about had caused her priorities to muddle, but now she could see the shivers coursing through Katie's frail frame. Heather walked over and wrapped her arms around her. With the adrenaline subsiding, she was able to speak calmer. "That was so fucking stupid… but I'm so glad you're okay." She squeezed tighter.
"Dad's gonna kill me," Katie said, seemingly oblivious to the significance of their near-death experience.
Heather gently swayed them side to side. "It's okay. You're going to be fine. Dad will… He'll understand. …That asshole turned his lights on right as he was passing. His brights no less. You let off the gas, but it was too late. Got it? We're fine."
Katie didn't respond. Heather held her at arm's length. "You are okay, right?"
"I…," the younger sister subtly rocked her head as she alternated between widening her eyes and squinting. "I think maybe that airbag recall wasn't bullshit."
"Oh my god! Did you hit your head?" Heather steadied her sister, inspecting her face. There was no blood, but even under the waning light she could make out a possible reddish mark just below her sister's hairline.
"I'm cold."
"I am too, but I need you to focus. Did you hit your head?"
Katie blinked excessively. "I… I can't remember. I think so. I feel foggy. I need to sit down."
"Katie, I want to let you rest, but it's getting dark. We have to move right now. I don't want to freak you out, but if we don't get warmed up soon, we will freeze to death. I saw a house back there with a trailer out front. There was a light on so somebody has to be home. I'll help you there."
Heather slung Katie's arm over her shoulders and assisted her forward. Even with their bodies pressed close together, their soaked clothes and chill surroundings overpowered any hope of warming each other with body heat.
The house was shaded by tall trees populating the backyard. From the road, the home appeared to be only one story high. Now from the back, Heather could see the hill sloping down, exposing the lower floor. The whole backside of the house was covered in large windows. It would make for quite the breathtaking view on a sunny day, but the fact that no light leaked through the glossy mirrors had the elder sister worried.
They stepped onto the concrete of the back patio. Katie balanced herself on chair headrests as the duo trailed water to the sliding door. Heather knocked on the cold glass. A phantom of a reflection was the only thing she could see. No lights came on. No one answered. She reached down for the door and tried it to no avail.
"What are you doing? You can't just walk into someone else's house," Katie said, trying to maintain balance. She sounded faintly delirious.
"I'd like to avoid getting shot for trespassing, but we have to get inside." She leaned against the glass, cupping her hands around her brow. Inside there was only a still darkness. She stepped back frowning.
Heather looked to her sides. Leading off the right patio, a path curved around the house and led up a narrow set of stairs. She led them both to the base, her sister gradually becoming able to support her own weight. The stairs were too narrow to go two at a time, and the hill was too steep to climb in Katie's condition.
"I can do it myself," Katie said.
Heather hesitantly slipped out from under Katie's arm but firmly kept holding her hand. The elder sister took to the dark steps first and guided the younger up. The jagged incline would have been completely hidden if not for a strange glow coming from over the hill's crest.
Katie wobbled up the stairs and they both circled around to the main entrance. The entire building was constructed from sturdy logs. The wide porch creaked as they walked across the wooden planks.
Before trying the house, Heather towed Katie over to the large truck parked to the side of the short driveway connecting to the main road. It was hard to imagine not even ten minutes ago they were driving down that road blissfully ignorant of coming events.
The trailer was large but mostly empty. At first Heather had wondered if it was someone moving, but the inside appeared to be more of a mobile control center than for storage. Four fixtures of fluorescent lights shined from the ceiling, leaving little space for shadows. A pair of large doors were spread open on either side of the tail, allowing a hydraulic ramp to lead up to two metal shelving units on the left side of the trailer. Just past that was a desk with a computer tower and dual monitors. The right wall had four mounted LCD panels, one of which displayed a floorplan. There were cameras on a shelf, a rack with a single tripod strapped in at the far end, and other gadgets and gizmos. At first glance it appeared to be equipment for one of those house flipping shows that she'd watch from time to time. However, the thing she focused on most was that no one was inside.
Heather brought Katie over to the front door. All lights on the first floor were off. The sun had completely set in the time it had taken them to escape the lake and reach the front door. The only thing she could see was the harsh reflection of the open trailer behind her.
She knocked several times while simultaneously searching for a doorbell. The dark porchlight provided no assistance. After waiting as long as her patience and trembling skin would allow, Heather tried the brass knob. It turned, and she slowly pushed the door forward. "Let's go."
"I want to wait here," Katie said, cowering near the porch railing.
"I understand you're freaked out, but I can't let you out of my sight. I don't want you passing out here in the cold all by yourself." She faced the house and stepped through the entryway.
"Hello?" Heather called out, taking another step inside. "Hello? I don't mean to barge in, but my sister and I were in an accident down by the bridge. We need help." The dark rooms offered no response.
Heather turned around to a repeating click. Katie was flipping the light switch up and down. She stopped her attempt and embraced herself for warmth as she leaned against the wall.
"How are you holding up?"
Katie's speech was choppy. "The world's… barely spinning now, but I'm… still freezing."
"I am too. Hang on; I'll find something." Heather took a step forward, accidently kicking something small a few feet across the wood floor. She bent down and felt through the shadows. Her fingers stumbled onto something. "Yes!"
After a few flicks of the spark wheel, Heather held out the small flame of a lighter. It emanated little heat, but at least now she could see several feet in front of her.
The warm shimmer revealed an open area. The interior walls matched the log cabin motif of the outside. The main entryway would have normally been impressive, but the spacious layout made it quickly and abundantly clear that the furnace had not been operated in a while. The open floorplan presented only minor relief from the outside cold.
"Hello?" Heather called out again. She kept an eye on the ground as she moved deeper into the house. A few paces ahead, odd artifacts lay in a small pile. She could easily identify a hand-sized crucifix, but some of the other supernatural looking paraphernalia was less obvious.
Katie crouched down and picked up the metal cross. "It's so cold."
"Then put it back."
"Like hell I will," Katie stubbornly responded, gripping it tighter. The house creaked. "What was that?"
"It was the house. They do that." Heather wandered over to a door exiting to the right off the main entryway. She quietly opened it, this time more hesitant to call out to the home's owner. The light switch once again did nothing, but below, an old-fashioned candelabra rested on a small table. She danced the flame from wick to wick until the room was mostly visible.
At the opposite end of the room, a large bed took up a fair chunk of floorspace. A collapsible privacy screen was off to the side. Heather approached the old wooden divider. As she had hoped, a modest dresser had been just out of view of the doorway.
She opened the drawers. Nothing inside met her usual tastes, but the clothes seemed clean and, above all, dry. She dug through and pulled out some of the thicker choices, carrying them over to the bed.
Heather walked over to an adjacent door and peered inside. "Well, at least some things are going our way." She walked into the small bathroom and took a towel off a pile. The top fold was caked in dust. She left it balanced on the rim of the porcelain tub and took two towels that had been resting underneath.
She returned to the bedroom and tossed Katie a towel. "All right, dry off and get changed."
"I'm not comfortable putting on some stranger's clothes in some stranger's house," Katie argued.
"And I'm not comfortable with my little sister freezing to death. Put them on. If anyone gives us crap, I'll handle it."
The sisters dried themselves off in the candlelight and changed into fleece sweaters and sweatpants. Unfortunately, there were no shoes in either of their sizes, so they had to double up on socks. Katie tugged at her baggy pants. "Grandma obviously stopped giving a shit living out here in the middle of nowhere."
"You're in sweatpants literally half the times I see you."
"That's part of my character. I'm the quirky-streaming-gamer-girl," she said with a slightly melodic playfulness.
"Well then I'm sure you must feel right at home in this place that I doubt has ever even seen a computer." Heather walked up smiling and stroked Katie's shoulders. "How are you feeling?"
"Will you stop asking me that?"
Heather stared her dead in the eye. "No."
Katie averted her gaze. "Better. Still cold. Still dizzy."
Heather guided Katie to the foot of the bed and sat her down. She grabbed the cuff of the comforter near the headboard and pulled the whole thing back, draping the thick material over the younger sister's shoulders. "Better?"
Katie nodded while pulling the edges of the comforter around herself and drawing her knees under her chin. "Nice and dusty."
Heather grinned at her ball-of-a-sister. She shivered before performing a few light stretches to get some warmer blood flowing. Then she walked to the doorway and rubbed her hands near the lit candles. "Okay, now that I've got you bundled up, I'm going to peep in the neighboring rooms real quick. I'll be back in a minute. Try not to fall asleep."
"I don't want to be alone in here!"
"Relax. Count to sixty and I'll already be back."
Heather ignited the lighter and reentered the main entrance. She crossed the room to the other side. There she found a small dining area. An expensive looking digital camera sat on a tripod in the far corner. It was plugged into a nearby outlet. Another check of the lights solidified the uselessness of trying any more switches.
There was a door to her right. She passed through the dining room and opened it. She found herself in another bedroom. It lacked personality compared to the other, most likely making it a guestroom. The right wall had an open door leading back into the main entryway. Just past the door's range, an open book with weird writing sat on a coffee table. Her main concern was finding another person or a phone, so she pressed on.
As she wandered through the dark house, she began to hear an odd noise. Electronic. It was some kind of steady tone. She tried to follow it, but the noise seemed to bounce around the large rooms. Eventually, she found herself at the top of a staircase. The tone was unmistakably coming from the pitch-black depths. She stared downward in a trance. The sound stopped. It didn't matter; she didn't particularly care to travel down by herself anyway. She headed back.
Katie was still snuggled up at the foot of the bed. "Did you find anything?"
"Short answer, no. Long answer… maybe. Feeling up for a walk? We need to go into the basement."
"Basement? Why would we wanna do that? Correction. Why do you want to do that? I know I don't want to do that."
"We can't just stay in this room until morning."
"We could try."
"Look, the main thing your big sis needs to do right now is get you to a hospital. This has to be done, and I don't want to lose sight of you for that long. And… and I'm scared, okay? I don't want to go into the dark basement by myself."
Katie sat at the edge of the bed for a moment. "Okay. Okay." She crawled out of her burrow and approached her older sister while still clinging to the cross. "I'm garbage at horror games, just so you know. I even try to cover my eyes in VR."
Heather smirked. "Wait, is that how you got that scratch on your headset? Who knows? Maybe you'll be able to impress all your fans with this."
Katie returned the smile. "Too bad my phone decided to go for a dip, or I could have recorded all this."
"Listen. I know this is creepy. I'm still just hoping we end up finding the owner totally baked off their ass in a beanbag chair listening to headphones somewhere. I'd also like to find the breaker or generator so we can get some of these lights going. The quicker we do this, the faster we can get the hell out of here."
Heather walked back out of the room. Katie followed close behind holding the candelabra. "I can go first," Katie timidly said.
"No. It's okay. Just stick close by."
They approached the top of the stairs. Heather waited for a moment.
"Do you hear something?" Katie asked.
The tone was absent. "No. I heard something down there earlier. I don't hear it now."
"You heard something? When were you going to tell me?"
"It was just an electronic buzzing. It's not like I heard whispers or anything."
"Whispers. Why did you have to say whispers?"
"I said I didn't hear any whispers."
The sisters stared hesitantly down the stairs, every step vanishing farther below the light's reach. Heather took a deep breath and started her descent. Her shadow swung from wall to wall as Katie followed close behind.
The concrete floor of the lowest level reinvigorated the chilled tremors up through Heather's socks. It was almost like being back outside. The staircase led out into a hallway that worked to the back of the house. At the far end, Heather could see the large windows she had knocked on earlier from the other side. The room enclosing the sliding glass door was a humble workshop. A large black mat lay just below a workbench with a circular saw. Just above was a pegboard of assorted hand tools. Heather took a hammer off its hooks and motioned for Katie to get behind her as she faced back into the darkness of the house.
"Hello?" She called out loudly. "Is anyone home? I'm sorry we came in without permission, but we were in a car accident and need help." Again, silence.
Katie gripped the cross and candlestick tighter. "I don't think—"
The tone started again. Katie nearly dropped the items in her hands. "What's that?"
"That's what I heard earlier. It's probably just something warning it's on battery power."
"Then why hasn't anyone fixed it yet?"
Heather held the lighter out in her left hand and readied the hammer in her right. The constant tone drew them closer. They rounded a corner, and the sound lost the muffled filter of the basement walls. It was now directly ahead.
She carefully moved forward, the light etching out lumps on the floor in front of her. Another step forward. Another. After one last stride, she could confidently rename the lumps.
Bodies. Human bodies. Three to be exact. Two were wearing head-mounted cameras, and all three had an assortment of electronics scattered around them. It appeared that at least one of the victims had had his head forcibly turned to a precarious angle. Ignoring their pale skin, Heather guessed that they hadn't been there more than a day or two.
She tried to step forward to investigate, but her body wouldn't move. She tried to run back, but her body wouldn't move. A half hour earlier she had been on her way to see her parents, and now she was staring at three dead people in the cold, dark basement of a stranger's house.
The lighting of the room suddenly shifted, darkened. She turned to see her sister in mid-sprint heading the opposite direction. "Stop! Don't leave my sight!" she said in a firmer tone than she had even thought herself capable of under the circumstances. Katie froze then tentatively turned back to face her. Heather quickly checked behind herself before attempting to calmly address her frightened sister. "We don't know what's going on. There could be traps or something here. Don't run off."
"We have to get out of here!"
"And go where? Run through the freezing cold, in the dark, with candles and a lighter? Only wearing socks with no idea where the closest person is for miles? If whoever did this was still here, they would have come after us before they lost the element of surprise."
The electronic kept droning. "And what the hell is that?" Heather turned back to the bodies. A rectangular device lay face down on the hard floor. She picked it up and turned it over. It looked like a type of stud finder with five little lights running across the top. Four of them were lit, ranging from green on the left to orange on the right. The last light remained dark.
She switched off the device and the basement was silent once more. "Look, …Katie." She spoke as quietly and deliberately as she could. "I don't know what to do. I'm completely blanking right now. However scared you're feeling, I swear to you that I feel the same way. But if we just run out the front door and keep running, we could freeze to death. I'm not shitting you. We have to think about this… calmly … and rationally."
Katie held the cross close to her heart and stepped toward her sister. "What do we do?"
Heather stared at the floor, crouched next to the bodies. "I don't know! Um…" Her mind grasped for answers. "The trailer. It had lights. Maybe we can drive it out." She turned toward the bodies. "I have to check if any of them have the keys."
"Maybe they're in the truck," Katie suggested.
"If they aren't, do you really want to come back? We're here; might as well check." She extinguished the lighter and set it down with the hammer. "Can you bring that light over, please?" Katie inched toward the grisly scene.
Heather took deep breaths as she steered her fingers over the bodies. She thought that it was the fear raising her hair on end but realized that wasn't the only thing as a small cloud escaped her mouth. Her fingers trembled as she discovered one empty pocket after another.
Finally, she found a thin rectangle in one of the jackets and pulled it out. The cellphone was ice cold. She tried to turn it on, but it was unresponsive. She pocketed it in the hopes that there was a charger in the trailer.
She nudged one body to its side. Underneath was a flashlight. It turned on, but it wasn't what she had expected. A weak bluish-purple light came out, hardly bright enough to even help examine the bodies. She tapped it a few times. The light was stable; apparently, that was how it was supposed to look.
Katie set down the candelabra on the concrete near the bodies. She leaned over and picked up a second flashlight. "Ugh, it's slippery. Feels like it's coated in ice." She turned it on. The thick beam pierced the darkness to the backwall, revealing a small bathroom. She turned the handle and dropped the flashlight when she discovered that it wasn't ice melting on her hand. The light collided with the floor and sharply went out with the sound of cracking glass.
The younger sister screamed and ran for the bathroom. Heather looked around anxiously to identify the problem. The dim light swept across the broken flashlight, its handle shining a bright green.
In the bathroom, Katie turned on the sink as she whimpered. "It's so cold!" She furiously scrubbed her hands under the sputtering sink. Suddenly, the clear water became murky. "Shit!" She turned off the sink and ripped the hand towel off its rack.
Katie wiped her hands as she stepped back into the hall. Heather had been too shocked by the sudden commotion that she hadn't even bothered to step away from the bodies. She could only hold the pitiful light up to witness her sister's pandemonium. She hadn't even managed a word as her sister came stumbling back. Another breath-cloud obscured her vision. "Are you okay?"
"You keep asking that."
"There have been a lot of reasons to lately."
Katie made eye contact. Her features were blank as her body shivered. She opened her mouth to speak as she looked above her sister… and stopped. Her eyes widened as she dropped the towel. Her lips quivered, and she erupted into a high-pitched scream.
Heather whipped the light around. It settled on the empty hallway behind her. She wished she could believe the emptiness she saw, but her mind wouldn't let her. She knew that as she was turning, for just a split second, she caught something out of the corner of her eye. Then she blinked and it was gone. Her sister kept screaming.
The elder sister sprung up and grabbed the younger by her hand. She barreled down the currently unrestricted hall, dragging her panicked sibling. Before either could comprehend the previous events, they were already sprinting out the front door.
The moment Heather released her sister's hand, Katie kept running toward the road. Heather lurched forward and wrapped her arms around her. She pulled them both to the driveway and held on. Katie landed in her lap, desperately struggling to break free. "Stop! Katie, Stop!" She pleaded on the verge of tears. Katie stopped flailing, but her breathing sounded like she might hyperventilate. Heather strengthened her embrace. "Please. Please calm down. I don't think I could handle it if you lost it out here."
The younger sister's breathing steadied. "I saw it." Katie's knuckles were turning white as she clutched the cross. "I saw it. Did you? Please, tell me you saw it."
Heather rested her chin on her sister's shoulder. "I don't know what I saw. It was too quick. But yes, …I saw something."
"This place is haunted. We have to get away."
"Yes, we need to leave. But we can't just run off. I forgot the lighter and we don't have shoes."
Heather could hear an electrical humming coming from the trailer. The light was steady and comforting. "Let's get inside the trailer. Okay?"
Katie meekly nodded. "Okay." They both stood and walked up the metal ramp.
The inside was painfully bright. Heather switched off the useless flashlight and dropped it on one of the shelving units. She looked over the oddities on the other shelves as Katie walked to the far end of the trailer. There were short range radios, basic digital cameras, and other electronics. There were also cans of salt and bottles that looked like prescription pills. She hadn't thought much of it when she first caught a glimpse earlier. But after recent events, the strange collection had taken on a different meaning.
"Look at this," Katie called from farther down. She was standing in front of dual monitors on a desk at the back. The left monitor, which propped up a webcam, displayed the weary pair in a large window. A timecode rapidly counted up. The right monitor was a night vision live-stream of the porch.
Katie moved the cursor to the left monitor and pressed the red square below the window spying on them. A message popped up: would you like to save changes? Katie clicked yes. "Might as well." The window minimized, revealing an open folder of video files. There were only a few different file names, but each name had different numbered entries.
"Can you reach anybody on this thing?" Heather looked around at the electronics. She couldn't see any other communication devices or a phone charger.
"Doesn't look like it. It's a closed circuit. What's this?" One of the video files was labeled, "Watch first." Katie opened it.
A man appeared on the screen in the same location the two of them were standing. Heather didn't recognize him from the basement. She looked down at the timeline. "This video is seventeen hours?"
The man started speaking. "Hey, I'm Riley Cooper. Host of the aspiring ghost hunting show Third Mark from Beyond. I'm here with my four-hunter crew investigating a paranormal claim. I've seen many things before, so I'm not surprised that we found something. What I am surprised at is how aggressive this ghost is. The rest of the team is inside trying to confirm what she is and to retrieve a lost item. We have been operating under the assumption she's a mare, but we have yet to obtain definitive proof. Things are getting too dangerous and we need to pull out. Unfortunately, on my last run, the ghost weaseled my keys away from me. They're somewhere in this house, and we can't leave until we find them. All coms are out so we can't call for help, and no one knows we're here. That's an oversight I won't be making in the future. In order to get the keys, we've been trying to coax her out of hiding to find her centralized hunting ground. If we can't get the keys, we might have to wait a few hours until morning. I haven't seen a single car pass by throughout the whole night, so we'll probably end up having to travel thirty miles to the nearest phone. If we do have to hoof it, I just hope cell reception comes back online before we have to make the full journey. The thing about this ghost is she—"
Riley looked to his side, presumably at the other monitor. "She… uh, she…." He picked up a radio and frantically spoke. "Tilly… Tilly watch your back; she's coming at you! She… Christ!" Riley dropped the radio and disappeared off screen. A frenzy of clattering and cursing echoed in the trailer before the audio dropped off entirely.
The two sisters continued to watch for several seconds. Riley never returned to the screen as the circle slowly crawled across the timecode. Heather had the feeling that the next few seconds would be the same as the next seventeen hours. Katie must have felt the same because she closed the video.
"So, we wait for sunrise and try to flag down a car?" Katie sheepishly suggested. She teetered slightly and shook her head, trying to regain balance.
Heather kissed her on the forehead and brought Katie's face down to her chest. She rested her chin on Katie's soft hair as she embraced her younger sister's head. "Ghost or not, we have to get you to a hospital."
"I'm fine." Katie's voice was muffled. "We can't go back in there. I'm sorry. I saw it. I can't go back. I can't."
Heather looked up at a whiteboard across from the computer setup. "You're not fine. And we won't be going back in there."
Katie stepped back. "What do you mean?" She saw Heather's attention on the whiteboard and read the bottom message. Seems to primarily respond to people in groups. Katie looked back at her. "You can't…"
Heather attempted a smile. "It'll be okay. This place looks like it was designed to keep those things out. You'll be safe in here."
"I'm not fucking worried about me!" Katie grabbed Heather's wrist. "I'm not letting you go in there!"
"How would you feel if I was the one who hit my head and the only way to help me was to go inside there?"
"That is exactly what's happening here! My sister is telling me she's going to be fine when she plans on walking into a haunted house with a human meat locker in the basement!" Katie wobbled and fell to her knees. Her grip loosened.
Heather marched over to a pair of walkie talkies on a shelf. She tested them and returned to her sister's side. She bent down and dropped one in Katie's lap before tenderly squeezing the younger sister's leg. "I'm sorry, but I don't have a choice. Stay in contact with me. I need to know you're awake."
She picked up the odd flashlight; it was better than nothing. Then she hurried to the tail of the trailer and looked back. Katie was struggling to support herself on the computer desk. "Please just stay here and take it easy. I'll be back soon. …I love you." She hurried down the ramp and jogged to the front door.
(***)
Katie leaned against the desk. "Shit!" She could see Heather on the front porch surveillance. Her older sister stalled at the doorway briefly before eventually entering.
The younger sister sat and curled up on the black mat floor. The sweater was warmer than her post-lake outfit, but the shaking wouldn't stop. The dull thumping in her head constantly threatened to elevate to a full-blown pounding.
"Head's up!" Katie was suddenly buried under a heap of quilts and blankets. Before she even had time to crawl out from underneath, she could hear the soft patter of her sister's footsteps heading back down the ramp. Katie draped a few layers over herself and stood before the computer setup again.
She felt helpless. Her knees were weak. She was terrified, but she glued her focus on the monitors. A click of the mouse button swapped the outside feed to a different camera. The picture was static. Katie pressed the button again, cycling to a new camera. A three of seven took up the right-hand corner of the screen. Another click and the screen read four of seven. Every camera showed static. She pressed one last time, already sure of the result, but was surprised when seven of seven had a picture. The camera displayed the same color scheme as the front entrance. There was no motion on screen, and she couldn't tell what room was shown.
Katie looked around. Below the whiteboard at her back was a fold down chair locked in its upright position. She tilted it down. It was too far from the desk, so she felt under the seat. She found two buttons and pushed them in while pulling the cushion outward on a short track. She sat down and stared at the still monitor.
"Katie?"
The sudden transmission startled her. She fumbled around for the transmitter. "Yeah, I'm here."
"I'm about to head to the basement. Wish me luck."
"Good luck. And thanks for the blankets. Please be safe."
She hated this. One of the few people she had known her entire life was in a house of horrors, but just the thought of entering that place again made her knees lock. She was disgusted with herself.
Katie looked at the open end of the trailer. This was all because of her damn phone! She was the reason her sister was now facing life or death. She looked up at the ceiling and squeezed the cross. "Please, God. Let her come back to me. I swear I will never even talk on my phone when driving ever again."
A small blip of motion brought her attention to the right wall. A graph on the lower right panel labeled "Activity" seemed to be updating in real time. There were numbers on the left counting from zero at the bottom up to ten. A bold red line hovered at three for a few refreshes before flatlining.
The screen to its left was blank. She followed up to the top right LCD. It was labeled "Sound Sensor," but nothing appeared on the graph. The screen on the left had a floor plan. It looked just like the pattern of rooms inside the ghost house. She noticed a curious button to the left of the screen and pressed it. A new floor appeared. Three green dots huddled in a hallway. Another moved away from the staircase. Katie looked at the radio in her hand.
The dot continued down the main hallway. A red bar stretched the width of the passageway ahead. The moment the dot crossed, the bar turned green and beeped. Katie tensed but calmed when the circle proceeded forward without hesitation. It was a motion sensor.
She checked the map once more and discovered another marking. It was a box with a lightning bolt inside. Her eyes widened. She grabbed her radio. "Heath? Turn around and go back two rooms."
"What are you talking about?" The staticky voice spoke through the speaker.
"Trust me. I can see you on the map thingy. I think the fuse box is two rooms back." The dot stopped then advanced in the opposite direction. It entered the room. "Okay, now check the wall on your left toward the far corner."
"Yeah, I see a little red light."
Katie looked back at the monitors and saw motion. Heather walked across the screen. The older sister's back obscured what she was doing in the corner. Nothing seemed to happen.
"The light's green. Does that mean it's back on?" Heather asked.
Katie walked to the ramp and peeked her head out of the trailer. The porch light emitted a soft glow. "Yeah, I think that did it."
Katie returned to the monitors and sat. The screen was washed out in white. Her sister had turned on the light, blinding the sensor.
The right monitor displayed key commands at the lower left of the screen, instructing how to alternate night vision mode. Katie changed to standard view. The picture was dark, grainy, and missing Heather.
Katie instinctively cycled the cameras again, knowing most didn't work. The front porch view was useless, so she continued forward to the first static screen. Only, it wasn't static. The right monitor showcased the dining room she had seen from the main entrance earlier.
She skipped to the next monitor. The room had wooden floors, so she assumed it was also on the first level. Flipping the breaker had supplied power to the cameras previously set up by their unfortunate owners. The next two feeds remained static. The second to last showed the hallway out to the backyard. It was overpowered with light like the following screen.
"No keys in the breaker room. It's nice to have some proper lights now. How you holdin' up?" The radio chimed.
"Lightheaded, but watching over you."
"How does it feel to be on the other side of the camera?"
"Surprisingly terrifying. Please hurry."
Katie looked over at a small printer on the left side of the computer desk. She took the single page that rested in the tray. It was a checklist of supernatural activity. There was fine print at the foot of the page advising to check the journal for further details.
She looked around the computer setup. On a pile of books under the desk, one looked different from the rest. She picked it up and browsed the handwritten pages. Strange names were written at the top. A few she recognized. Spirit. Poltergeist. …Demon.
Each page had a writeup describing characteristics and methods for tracking the featured apparition. The evidence portions matched the printed-off checklist. Perhaps if she were able to figure out what type of specter haunted the remote cabin, she could be of greater help to her sister.
Katie tried to think back at the events she had witnessed. One of the criteria was freezing temperatures. That would be hard to verify since it was beginning to feel like the dead of winter just outside the trailer.
Another point of interest was EMF activity. She had no idea what that was supposed to mean. She continued through the journal until she found notes describing the details of each verification method. She periodically checked the monitors as she perused the journal. Heather wandered in and out of frame as she investigated the basement.
"Katie? Katie, I need you to keep talking to me."
"Sorry. I've just been going over some of the stuff in this trailer."
"Anything interesting?"
"I guess that's a word you could use. I'd say unnerving. Earlier today if you had showed me this stuff, I would have thought it was related to some video game."
"Yeah. I'm in the basement and I'm still having trouble believing it," Heather responded.
Katie saw the monitor turn dark. "Did the power go out again?"
"Uh… Christ! The light switch was turned off!"
"Leave it."
"What?" Heather exclaimed.
Katie switched the camera back to night vision. "There's a passage in this journal that says to hide in the dark with your flashlight off if the ghost attacks. I think they have trouble seeing you in the dark. It might actually be safer to leave it off."
"Easy for you to say! You're not the one stumbling around with this shitty… Wait, I think I see something. Hey, I found an actual flashlight. Now I can get rid of this crappy one."
"Wait," Katie urged. "Hang onto it. It might come in handy. There are all sorts of ways to identify the type of ghost we are dealing with. That's a UV flashlight. It can reveal things normally invisible to the naked human eye."
"I'm not sure I want to see anything like that."
"It was your choice to go back into the murder house. Please, let me help you anyway I can."
"Fine. I'll hold onto it."
"Thanks. Oh, Heath? Have you seen a little black box lying around? Probably looks like a small radio."
"I've already got all these lights. I'm not made of hands you know. Give me a sec. Yeah. There's something like that right here."
"Try turning it on and talking into it."
"What should I say?"
"I'm not sure." She confirmed the name on the whiteboard. "It looks like the ghost's name is Peggy Higgs. Try calling out and asking where she is." Katie waited.
"No, nothing," Heather responded. "Do you know how long I should—"
"There." A crackly, unfamiliar voice interrupted Heather.
"Jesus!" The older sister blurted out. "Did she just say there?"
"It was hard to make out. I want to hear it again. Keep the comms open and ask again."
"Okay. …Peggy Higgs? Where are you?"
A sharp screech came through the walkie. "Did you hear that!" Heather panicked.
"That was just reverb from you holding the walkie too close to the spirit box."
"No! It said there again!"
"Try holding the microphone farther from the speaker."
"Peggy Higgs, where are you?"
There was another pause. Katie tried to listen closely through the static hiss as Heather walked back into view of the basement hallway camera.
"There." Katie definitely understood words that time. Before she could contact her sister, the message continued. "You are."
"I am what?" Heather's voice was laced with fear. "Peggy? Peggy Higgs? I am what? Katie, are you sure you have the name right?"
Katie read over the message on the whiteboard behind her shoulder. "Yeah. It says right on the whiteboard. Peggy Higgs… responds to groups… Fuck! Stop saying her name!"
"What?"
"Sorry. It looks like saying her name will piss her off!"
Katie looked at her sister on the monitor. Heather was searching around wildly.
The voice came through the speaker once more. "There… you are."
The older sister flung the small electronic off screen. "I'm sorry. I need to come back for a few minutes. This is too much." Heather's light began to flash.
"Heath, you all right? Your light seems to be spazzing out."
Her sister neglected to respond. Something appeared to have caught her attention and she left view of the camera. Katie approached the map. The green dot lingered in one spot off screen for several seconds before it traveled down the main basement hallway. The motion sensor beeped. This time the younger sister was prepared for the tone. The dot continued past. "Heath?" Suddenly the motion sensor triggered again. This time for seemingly nothing.
"Heath, it's right behind you!" There was no response. "Heath? …Heather?" Katie looked down at the lower right LCD screen. The activity monitor had plateaued at ten and wasn't dropping. "Answer me!"
She returned to the computer monitors and furiously cycled through the inside feeds, her eyes trying to take in every detail in a blink. All the images were too tranquil considering she knew her sister should be passing through. The darting between the LCD screens and monitors was making her woozy, but she tried to soldier on.
She ran back to the LCD wall. Heather's dot was gone from the map. She pressed the button repeatedly, cycling between the two floors, but the icon had completely vanished.
"Katie!" Heather came running up the ramp. Katie practically jumped to the ceiling, then immediately rushed over to hug her older sister. "I got 'em!" Heather held out her hand and let the keys dangle from her fingers. "They were in a frickin' bowl on a table near the… bodies. Let's get the hell out of here!"
Katie nodded and raced out the back, heading off toward the passenger side. Heather hung back and punched away at random keys on a number pad fixed to the wall near the tail, attempting to raise the ramp. As the younger sister climbed into the tall truck, she heard "Screw it!" come from behind.
Katie was already fastening her seatbelt when Heather hopped into the other seat. The engine roared to life; the headlights exposed a thick oak tree three feet ahead. Heather shifted to reverse. …Nothing happened. A small digital panel near the radio controls flashed a warning message. "Cannot reverse when gate is down."
"No, no, no, no!" Heather hysterically muttered. She jumped out of the cab.
Katie undid her seatbelt and followed to the back of the truck. Her sister was already scouring the trailer. Just above the number pad, a small slip of paper taped to the wall read Til's B-Day.
Heather skimmed books before tossing them aside. "There's got to be something!" She switched her focus to the computer and sifted through the programs on the left screen. She clicked on a calendar app. She was greeted with a first-time user screen. "Shit! Maybe a different journal. Or an address book. Or …driver's license." Her shoulders slumped as she stepped away from the monitors. She backed against the right wall, missing the fold down chair, and slid to the truck bed. She pulled her legs in while burying her face in her hands and began to sob.
Katie kneeled alongside and hugged her sister's fetal posture. After a few moments, Heather opened up and returned the hug. The sisters held each other and wept.
(***)
Heather sniffled a few times then leaned her head back against the wall. She took a few deep breaths and gazed up at Katie, who had spent the last several minutes sitting in front of the left monitor. She smiled. "This night really sucks." Katie looked down at her and they both chuckled.
"Yeah. Dealing with Uncle Buck barely feels like an issue anymore." Katie looked back at the screen. "I've been checking everything I could think of. There were no purses or wallets back here or in the cab. I'll keep looking through the video files."
Heather slowly stood. "I appreciate it," she put her hand on her younger sibling's shoulder, "but we both know the surest way."
"I… I could go this time. It's only fair." Heather could feel Katie trembling under her fingers.
"I love you so much. Thanks. But you've been doing great out here. I'm not really suited for the-man-in-the-chair role. I don't want you any more stressed than you have been. I can't imagine all this is healthy in your condition. It'll be faster and safer if I go."
"I'm sorry for being such a burden," Katie said, glumly.
"Stop. I haven't thought that once. Besides, I personally don't want to be here any longer than I have to be. Okay?" Heather sighed, picked up her dual flashlights, and walked to the other end of the trailer. "I'll be back before you know it." She plodded down the ramp into the cold night.
"I love you, too," the walkie reassured her as she stepped toward the ominous glow of the porch.
Heather stood in the doorway. "Please let this be the last time," she whispered to herself then crept inside. The main entrance was as unwelcomingly cold as ever. She only made it a few steps before she was interrupted.
"Hey, can you check through that door just past the dining room?" Katie came through over the radio.
"Why?"
"I checked some of the video files and that Riley guy was looking at something over there before he… Um… I don't think it was the ghost, but something had his attention."
"Yeah. Hang on." Heather pushed the door clear to the wall. She saw the journal with the strange symbols that she had noticed earlier.
"What do you see?"
Heather stepped up to the book. "I've got a journal here. There's strange writing. Symbols."
"It seems like we have ghost writing. Let me just check if that narrows it down enough."
"Wait," Heather said. "It's dated two months ago. It looks like the investigators were reusing the book. The next pages are empty. This isn't from this haunting."
"Well, …I'll do my best not to think about the implications of that. That must not be what he was looking at. Is there anything else around?"
Heather searched the table. "No."
"Check with the UV."
She shined the purple beam across the wood surface. "Nothing."
"Gimmie a sec." There was a brief pause in the transmission. "Try the door."
Heather aimed her light. An unmistakable green handprint glowed at the center. "I've got a handprint."
"All right, that's fingerprints and spirit box confirmed."
"What are we dealing with?"
"Not a hundred percent on that yet. It looks like they typically need at least three types of evidence to reach a decision."
"Do I still need this other flashlight?"
"I think we got what we need. You should be safe to leave it."
Heather tossed the light onto the open journal and left the room. She didn't know where Riley had ended up, but she was fairly confident the person she was looking for was one of the three in the basement. If they weren't… She shook her head. No, they had to be.
She descended into the remote countryside tomb. The dark basement was becoming way too familiar. She quietly retraced her steps.
Back at the massacre, she searched the bodies with new purpose. There was one man and two women. Heather quickly located the man's wallet in his back pocket. She cringed. She was leaving her fingerprints all over dead bodies. Hopefully the trailer had collected enough evidence to clear her and Katie of suspicion. Normally she might have panicked over the prospect of being interrogated, but simply thinking there would be events to follow her departure from this hell gave her an odd peace of mind.
The name on the ID didn't seem suitable, but she held onto it all the same. She was about to check the women but decided against it. Earlier when she had found the breaker, she noticed some personal effects in the room gathered near the camera tripod. She hadn't seen any car keys, but she thought she might have seen a license or two.
Her light flickered. She frantically switched it off and stood flush against the wall. She had difficulty concealing her staggered breaths escaping her nose. Heather tried to mute her sniveling as a ghastly moan floated by in the dark. The bitter aura of the passing menace chilled her to the bone.
After a long silence, she finally regained the strength to press on. She made her way to the end of the hall and entered the room.
"Are you okay?" Katie's wavering voice sounded like she had just been crying. "I saw it on the camera. You stopped moving. I didn't know what to do."
Heather tried to steady her frazzled nerves to not spook her sister. "I'm fine. One ID down. Two to go." She walked over to the purses leaning against the wall at the feet of the tripod. Her search was swift, and she managed to recover all three cards. She stepped in front of the camera and held them up.
"Good. Get your ass back here," Katie ordered.
Heather peeked out of the door and entered the dark hallway. She continued down to the main corridor and rounded the corner. She stiffened.
At the end of the hall, a semi-transparent form blocked the way. Even from the back, Heather could identify the decrepit posture of an old woman. The being slowly turned to face her. It seemed to hover in place, guarding the way out.
The elder sister leapt back around the corner in the nick of time. The raspy breaths of Peggy Higgs prowled closer. Heather looked around. She was trapped. A louvered closet door caught her attention. In a last-ditch effort to throw off her stalker, she took the dead cellphone she had been carrying and whipped it at the other end of the hall. As it smashed against the wall, she slipped inside the small closet. She grabbed her walkie.
"Can you hear me?" Heather held her palm over the speaker after she spoke.
"Yeah," a muffled voice came through.
"I'm trapped in a closet. I hear it in the hallway." Heather shuffled through the IDs. William Sutton, March third. Grace Harper, January tenth. Virginia Tilbury, September eighteenth. "Try nine eighteen on the keypad," she whispered. "September eighteenth."
Her flashlight began to flicker. The radio spit bursts of static. "Katie? Katie?" No response. She looked out the slits of the closet. The specter had disappeared, but her light kept strobing.
She just had to get up the stairs. If she could get to the top, then that thing would be behind her and she could sprint to the door. Heather gripped the IDs tightly. At the very least, if she could get the licenses closer to the front door, even if the ghost ended up catching her, Katie wouldn't have to put herself in as much danger to retrieve them.
Heather flung open the door and bolted for the stairs. Her path was lit in bursts as she darted through the freezing basement. She took to the stairs two at a time.
The wood floor creaked as she dashed toward the exit. Only her own rapid footsteps echoed through the large rooms, but she wouldn't risk slowing her pace until she was out the front door. Through her adrenaline-fueled tunnel vision, she could see the beckoning entrance.
Only a few strides from freedom and the door almost hit her as it slammed in her face. The change was too abrupt, and momentum carried her face first into the door. She cried out as she fell backward, dropping her flickering light. Her nose burned, but she was undeterred. She stood, holding her bleeding nostrils with one hand, and attempted the knob with the other. It was stuck.
An intense pressure squeezed on her neck. She reached for the assailant. Her blood-smeared hand brushed her throat, passing straight through the dead fingers wringing out her life. Her vision was blurred and darkening. She was terrified, but with her last bit of energy, she threw the IDs to the floor and tried to kick them closer to the door. The darkness enveloped her.
A muffled crash burst through the window near the door. A metal cross bounced off the floor. A blurred arm slipped through the hole. Suddenly she felt thousands of small grains sweeping across her. The fingers on her neck loosened, and she fell to the floor coughing. Some of the salt had entered her wound, the pain spiking her alertness. She rose back to her feet as the front door swung open.
"Come on!" Katie shouted. Heather hobbled outside.
With the back end of the truck already raised, Katie took to Heather's side before briefly glancing at the night sky. "I'm sorry," the younger sister said guiltily. She looked back down to the path ahead and assisted Heather to the cab and pushed her to the passenger seat. The younger sister took the helm.
"I should drive," Heather protested.
"You can barely stand. I'm getting us the hell out of here. If you want to trade after that wraith bitch is far behind us, fine."
The sisters strapped in. Katie turned the key, lighting up the oak tree once more. She yanked the shifter down and slowly backed toward the house; the wood siding was bathed in a bright red. Katie switched gears, and the truck rolled forward and turned onto the road.
The ghost house disappeared into the black of the rearview mirror. Heather was unsure of her sister's familiarity with large trucks, but she suspected there may have been other factors relating to why Katie absolutely crawled around the curve overlooking the lake. They safely passed the obliterated section of fence and continued into the night. Heather switched on the heater and held her nose. She sunk back into her seat listening to the rumble of the engine.
Katie looked over at her with a smile. "So, who's first in line at the ER?"