After a couple hours of driving, Steve eventually pulls up to a large abandoned house out in the middle of nowhere. It is in a clearing of trees in the middle of a dense forest and dozens of miles away from any other buildings.

 

The house itself more specifically appeared to have been built sometime during the 1800s. It is a two story wooden building that was twice as wide as it was tall. Even though the house was still standing it also had a lot of obvious fire damage made apparent by a lot of the wood being burned black and a couple of holes in the roof and walls which seemed to have been completely burned through.

 

“So, care to fill us in on what our current mission is?” Will asks as he glances towards the house.

 

“Our intel detected potential paranormal activity in this location. Our job is to investigate the premises and neutralize anything dangerous that we might find inside.”

 

“Can you be more specific than just paranormal activity? That could mean just about anything.” Jacky says as she places her arms behind her head.

 

“If I were to hazard a guess, I’d bet on it being a ghost.” Steve said as he lit another cigarette.

 

Jacky excitedly starts punching the air.

 

“I suppose specific supernatural phenomena don’t exactly have to be located in the places that are expected of them as anything can be anywhere, but if you were to tell me to imagine a haunted house this is exactly what I’d picture.” Rose says as she rummages through her backpack to get the supplies she thinks that they’d need for a ghost hunt.

 

“Mind if I ask how exactly we were able to obtain this information? As far as I understand, we haven't sent anyone else to this location to investigate yet.” Will asks.

 

“If you really must know, we've got satellites all around the world loaded with powerful EMF meters and thermal cameras. If there is something somewhere that seems off somewhere on this planet I can guarantee you that PSI is aware of it.”

 

Casey takes a step near the house, closes their eyes, and reaches out their hand.

 

“Oh, so it is a ghost.” Steve responds to a question that wasn’t heard.

 

“How do you know it’s a ghost?” Will inquires.

 

“Casey just told me.”

 

“...but Casey didn’t say anything…”

 

“Not verbally.” Steve says as he turns to Will and taps the top of his own head.

 

“Wait!” Jacky shouts out excitedly. “You have psychic powers?”

 

Casey nods yes.

 

“...but you aren’t going to communicate with me psychically, are you?”

 

Casey shakes their head no.

 

“Why does Steve get special privileges then?”

 

“Because the main reason Casey is here is because we thought that their psychic abilities would be able to help us with our work.” Steve says as he takes another drag on his cigarette. “It’s their job to psychically relay me information. They aren’t obligated to talk with any of the rest of you.”

 

“Alright!” Rose says as she starts passing out the ghost hunting equipment. “I’ve got flashlights, walkie talkies, EMF meters, and cameras with thermal, night vision, and regular viewing options, and also this device I’ve been working on that should theoretically allow me to catch a ghost.”

 

“That just looks like a vacuum.” Jacky says as she cocks her head to the side.

 

“It is a vacuum, but for ghosts.”

 

“Alright, now that we’re all suited up let’s get going.” Steve says as he throws his cigarette on the ground and stomps it out before walking towards the door of the house.

As the group walked into the house the first thing that they noticed was a large staircase at the back of the large entrance area that leads up to the second floor. Each of the two floors of the house had four rooms each. The entrance area itself seemed to function as both a living room and dining room with a kitchen on the left of the staircase.

 

The fire damage also seemed to be more noticeable on the right side of the house than the left.

 

“Nothing’s showing up yet. I guess that means there aren’t any ghosts in this area.” Rose says as she uses her EMF meter to scan the room.

 

“That makes sense. It’s probably a lot more likely that a ghost would be tethered to their own room of the house if they were stuck somewhere.” Will says with a hand on his chin.

“Okay, this is what we’ll do.” Steve says as the group takes in their surroundings. “Casey, Will, and I are going to search the bottom floor. Jacky and Rose, you two go upstairs.”

 

Rose divided the equipment among the two teams. Everyone had a walkie talkie (besides Casey who didn’t need one), Jacky and Steve had flashlights, Will had an EMF meter, Casey had a camera, and Rose had all the rest of the supplies for her group.

 

“Will, Casey, follow my lead.” Steve says as his team begins to search the bottom floor of the house.

 

“Race you to the top!” Jacky shouts out as she quickly makes her way towards the stairs.

 

“Wait! Be careful! These stairs are old!” Rose says as she scrambles to keep up with Jacky.

 

Luckily for them the stairs hold as the two girls make their way to the top floor.

 

“So, Paranormal expert, what’s the plan?”

 

“I think that we should slowly and methodically check each room together. If we don’t find anything on our first round then we should check in with the others before making another round.”

 

“And if we do find something?”

 

“Then I am going to try to catch the ghost!”

 

“As long as you let me punch it first!”

 

“Shouldn’t we wait to see if the theoretical ghost that we might or might not find is violent before we decide if we want to punch it or not?”

 

“Same applies to catching a ghost!”

 

“...Touche…” Rose says as the two girls start to head down the hall and into their first room.

 

They slowly yet surely approached the first door on the left of the stairs.

 

“Make sure to open the door slowly. We don’t know what exactly we're dealing with here.” Rose says as Jacky grips the doorknob.

 

“Yeah, yeah. Don’t want to scare off the ghosts. Right?”

 

Rose nods and Jacky slowly turns the knob and opens the door to the room…

 

…Which ended up just being a bathroom…

 

“...Huh…if I were a ghost I don’t think I’d want to spend eternity in a bathroom.” Jacky says as Rose quickly scans the room.

 

“...Nothing…”

“Alright, let’s keep looking.” Jacky says as she closes the door.

 

The second room on the left was a fairly barren bedroom. Another quick scan didn’t tip them off to anything unusual.

 

After that the girls make their way over to the right of the stairs to check the first room on that side. Jacky grabs the doorknob and attempts to turn it to enter the room.

 

“...Huh…That’s strange…”

 

“What’s strange?” Rose inquires.

 

“The door won’t budge. I think this room is locked.”

 

“That is strange.” Rose says as she points her EMF meter towards the door. “I’m not seeing anything show up on the scanner.” She quickly checks to see if anything comes up on the camera as she flips through her viewing options. “Nothing on the camera either. Let’s go check the last room. We can come back to this one with some more tools later if we need to open it.”

 

The two girls walk towards the final room on the top floor to their right.

 

Jacky opens the door with ease and it is immediately obvious to the both of them that this room belonged to a child. The bed was much smaller than that of the other rooms, there was a wooden chest at the foot of the bed, and toys littered the entire floor of the room.

 

“Alright let me check the…woah…”

 

“Wait, is there something in here?” Jacky quickly responds.

 

“...Come take a look for yourself…”

 

Jacky walked over to look at the EMF meter and the needle was moving. It wasn’t all the way to the right or anything extreme like that, but it was noticeably in the lower end of the yellow section of the meter.

 

“Let me check the thermal camera!” Rose says as she scrambles for the camera in question around her neck.

 

All of a sudden, the door slams behind the two girls.

 

“AAAHHH!” They both scream in unison.

 

Jacky is frantically pointing her flashlight around the room to see if she can find any explanation for what just happened.

 

Jacky sees a ball roll across the floor and knock into the side of a tower of letter blocks which ends up toppling over.

 

Rose finally manages to turn the camera on to the right setting and points it towards where the ball just rolled from.

 

“...Hey Rose…do you see anything?”

 

Rose doesn’t say anything. She was seemingly too stunned to speak.

 

Jacky walks over to Rose and takes a look at the thermal camera.

 

In the center of the frame is a dark red figure.

 

Jacky and Rose slowly turn to look at one another.

 

“WE FOUND A GHOST!” They scream in unison.