Not Alone In Here
Case File: 11 Oakwood Drive
We spent the next hour setting up equipment throughout the house.
Paul took the lead on placing the cameras and setting up the live feed to the laptop. Lourdes and I placed audio recorders and EMF meters in the living room, kitchen, and hallway. Claire quietly walked through the house, pausing, listening, waiting.
The house felt different now that Mary was gone. It wasn’t anything obvious. The temperature hadn’t changed. There were no sounds beyond those of us setting up for an all-night investigation. But there was a subtle shift in the atmosphere that was difficult to define.
We established our command center in the kitchen, which was the most central room of the house. The breakfast bar provided enough space for the laptops and monitoring equipment, and from there we had a clear line of sight down the hallway toward the bedrooms, as well as a full view of the living room and den.
Paul brought up the final camera feed on the laptop and stepped back, scanning the monitors, which displayed four live views simultaneously.
“Everything’s live,” he said. "Just hit this button to switch to the next four camera feeds," he continued, pointing out the function key.
Every room had at least one camera, along with audio recorders, motion sensors, and temperature sensors. If anything happened, we would have multiple ways of capturing it. For now, though, everything was quiet.
Claire stood near the entrance to the hallway, her attention fixed somewhere deeper in the house.
“Do you feel anything?” I asked. She didn’t answer right away.
“There’s something off,” she said finally. “I can’t place it yet.”
Paul glanced up from the monitors. “Off how?”
Claire shook her head, touching the crystal she wore around her neck. That was our cue to step outside and give her a little time to herself. She preferred to spend some time alone in a haunted place to get a feel for the place and attempt to connect. I liked to give her a solid hour to see what details she could pull from her intuition.
Lourdes and I stepped into the back yard to take in a little fresh air before we were cooped up in the house all night. The cool autumn light contrasted with the warm glow from the lights inside the house. I immediately felt lighter than I had all afternoon.
The property extended back into a narrow stretch of overgrown grass that gave way to a line of trees. The ribbon of woods beyond were just dense enough to block out most of the light from neighboring houses, leaving the yard in an uneven darkness.
Paul poked around the perimeter of the yard. Squatting at the tree line, he squinted at the ground and lightly scraped at the dry, sandy soil.
“Find anything?” Lourdes asked as she came up behind him.
“Just dirt,” he replied. “But if they were murdered and buried out back here, this would be the place to do it.”
“Really, Paul,” she said, rolling her eyes.
He stood up and dusted off his hands, ignoring her, still scanning the ground as if expecting to find something just beneath the surface.
I turned my attention toward a small shed that sat about ten feet to my right, up against the border of the property line. Then something caught my eye.
At the far left edge of the yard, near the tree line, there was a brief distortion—like a shimmer in the air. For a split second, I thought I saw the outline of a second structure. A small shed, red in color. Then it was gone.
I narrowed my eyes and took a step in that direction, trying to fix the image in place, but there was nothing there—just trees and brush shifting slightly in the breeze.
“Did you see that?” I asked Paul and Lourdes.
“See what?” Lourdes replied, looking in the direction I was.
I hesitated.
“Nothing,” I said. “Probably just the light.”
I turned back toward the house just as every light inside went out at once, plunging it into darkness.
“Did we lose power?” Lourdes asked.
A second later, a loud sound came from inside—sharp and sudden, like a door slamming hard somewhere down the hallway. My radio crackled.
“Guys,” Claire’s voice came through, tight with urgency. “I’m not alone in here.”