Haunted Encounter Turns Violent
“What do you see, Paul?” I asked.
“Just get down here!” he shouted.
The Lourdes, Claire, and I left the kitchen and rushed down the stairs into the basement. At the bottom, I found Paul kneeling in the middle of the floor. There in front of him was one of our cameras, lying broken on the carpet.
I moved closer and took a photo of it where it had landed.
“The tripod mount is busted,” Paul said, crouching beside it, careful not to touch anything until I finished documenting it. "I don't think that would just...happen."
I looked at the position of the camera. It had landed several feet away from where we had originally set it up. The tripod was still standing.
In ten years of paranormal investigation, I had seen equipment malfunction, fail completely, and even get knocked over under unusual circumstances — but I had never seen anything like this.
“Did we get this on video?” I asked.
Paul shook his head. “We’re not filming our own cameras.”
Claire stepped up behind me.
“There’s something very powerful here,” she said quietly. “Something dangerous.”
Both Paul and I looked up at her. Claire closed her eyes for a moment, clutching the crystal she wore around her neck.
“It’s a heavy energy,” she continued, eyes still shut. “Angry. It feels agitated. Like it’s reacting to us being here.”
I glanced around the basement, suddenly more aware of the confined space we were in.
“Maybe this is a warning,” Paul said. “Like get the hell out or you’re next.”
I started to respond, but realized Lourdes wasn't with us. I looked around again.
“Where’s Lourdes?” I asked. I had seen her follow us toward the basement. I was sure of it.
“She’s upstairs,” Paul said. “I think.”
That didn’t make sense. Paul had called all of us down. Why would she stay behind? Claire was already moving toward the stairs and we followed her back up into the kitchen.
“Lourdes?” Claire called out.
There was no response. The kitchen was empty, as was the living room. The whole house was quiet.
“Where is she?” Paul said, moving toward the laptops. He stopped suddenly, staring at the screen.
“Oh shit,” he said. “She’s in the bedroom.”
He took off down the hall. Claire and I followed. Lourdes stood motionless in the master bedroom facing the bed.
“The EMF is off the charts in this room,” she said. She held the meter in her hand, but she wasn’t looking at it. Or us.
Claire grabbed my arm and pressed something into my hand — a cord with a small pendant attached to it, etched with unfamiliar symbols.
“Put this on,” she said. "Quickly." She handed another one to Paul.
Claire always carried a satchel of tools — pendulums, crystals, herbs, various objects I never fully understood — but this was the first time I had seen her use them with urgency.
“Put these on,” she said. “I’ll explain in a second. We shouldn’t stay here any longer than we have to.”
She handed a third pendant to Lourdes.
“Hey, when did Mary say the activity started?” Paul asked suddenly, leaning into the walk-in closet.
“Two weeks ago,” I said.
“Yeah,” he said, more to himself than to us. “That tracks.”
“Paul,” Claire said sharply, “don’t go through their things!”
“Yep, I think I know what’s going on here!” Paul exclaimed. He pulled a fist full of photographs from somewhere in the closet and set them on top of the adjacent dresser. He went back into the closet but then launched himself backward yelling and grimacing in pain.
“Guys...” he said, holding out his arm. Three long red marks ran down his forearm, raised and already beginning to swell.
“I didn’t see anything,” he said. “I just...then I felt it...”
Claire grabbed his arm and examined the marks closely.
“Oh shit,” she said under her breath.
Without saying anything, Lourdes picked up the photographs from the dresser and walked out of the room.
“Where is she going?” Paul asked, still wincing and holding his arm.
I called out to her but she continued down the hall without answering or looking back. Claire stood up slowly, her face pale.
“This is worse than I thought,” she said. She bent down and picked up the pendant she had handed Lourdes. It was lying on the floor. Claire held it up for me to see. “She didn’t take it.”
I felt my stomach turn cold. My head spun as I tried to piece together what was happening.
Claire looked at me. “We can’t leave now," she said, looking toward the hallway where Lourdes had disappeared. “We can’t leave her here.”