Ghost Hunting

I knocked on the wooden door and dropped the bag in my left hand to the ground. A guy opened the door and gave me a grin. “Bring the stuff?” I rolled my eyes and said of course. He picked the bag up and let me in. I flopped down on the couch and put my feet up on the table. Jase walked out from the kitchen area and sat down next to me. He handed me a file which I started to flick through. The other boys took my bag into the back room and started to set up. Jase ran me down on the information, telling me I needed to take the recorder with me and that I wouldn’t be alone during the sessions that everyone would pair up. I rolled my eyes and smiled reassuring Jase that I knew the drill. There was another knock at the door and he got up to open the door. I flicked through the rest of the file and slowly got myself off the lounge to head to the door to see who was there. One of the boys came in carrying a baby. After apologizing numerous times he headed into the spare room and put the baby down to sleep. Jase walked over to me and asked me if I was ready. I tossed the file onto the lounge and grabbed my voice recorder and camera and we headed towards the back room. We went through the kitchen and down the hallway to the right before turning right again into the back room. The room was dark and smelled musty. The walls had panels of wood placed sporadically around the room. The thick curtains were drawn to ensure no light could enter. I sat down on the bed and placed the voice recorder next to me. Holding the camera in my left hand I began to walk around the room. The room itself had an eerie feeling around it. I could feel something in the room besides Jase and myself but unfortunately couldn’t see anything. Jase tapped me on the shoulder and pointed to a picture behind the door. I walked over it, the camera pointed in the direction as we I walked over there. The picture was framed in a strange coloured timber. The image itself was frightening. It appeared to be three or four faces all merged together with three or four different images surrounding it. The picture seemed to distort and change before my eyes, giving off a faint eerie glow. I couldn’t help the feeling of being overwhelmed and overcome with something I could not explain.  The image seemed to warp and move off the canvas. I stood there stunned as a scream broke out from the other side of the house. Jase grabbed my arm and dragged me from the room. Leaving the room it felt as if a heaviness had lifted as I headed in the direction of the scream. Heading into the front room where we started the guy who had brought the baby in sat on the lounge, his head in his hands, shaking back and forth. He seemed to be speaking but I couldn’t understand anything he was saying so I headed off to find the baby. I went back through the kitchen and saw two of my friends sitting on the table. They both had metal bowls on the table and were pulling at something in the middle of the table. The bowl itself seemed to contain something that looked like a cross between shredded paper and shredded bits of a barbecue chicken. I watched them for a minute, the methodical movement back and forth. Then one of them stopped and picked up the bowl. She walked over to the firewood oven and tossed the contents in to the fire. A thick smoke filled the room. She smiled, even though her eyes looked lifeless, and then walked back to the table, sat for a moment and continued. I left the room, feeling an odd chill as I moved to the spare room to find the baby.

Ignoring the camera that was set up to the left of the room, I moved in the darkness in an attempt to find a source of light. I reached out in the darkness in an attempt to stop myself from bumping into anything, not that it helped as I stubbed my foot on the corner of what felt like the bed. My hand grasped at some material and I yanked backwards but nothing happened. Letting go of the fabric I continued to walk in the direction of the slight light peeping from the side of the window sill. I grasped at the thick curtain and again pulled backwards. The moon outside illuminated the room filling it with a white light. I turned to look in the crib and the baby was sleeping soundly in it. I picked the baby up to take outside and turned to face the bed. The boy who had opened the door was sprawled out on the bed. He was covered with a thin white sheet. I reached for the sheet and pulled it down. He was staring out the window unmoving. I waved my hand in front of his face but he didn’t move.  I poked him to get him to stop acting like an idiot, but again he didn’t move. I turned and backed out of the room. Heading back through the kitchen I noticed the smoke was getting thicker and I covered the baby’s face with the blanket as I headed into the main room. Handing the baby to the father I sat down next to Jase and told him what was going on. We walked back into the kitchen. Jase looked at me and asked me if I was going to deal with this. I looked at him and he said “well do you really want another 5000 ghosts tramping their way round this house?”

I walked over to my friends who were still pulling at something in the middle of the table which I couldn’t quite make out through the smoke. Grabbing my friends shoulder I pulled her away from the table as Jase grabbed my other friend. I slapped her hard across the face, waking her from her trance. I asked her what she thought she was doing and she cried that she just wanted to see her dead relatives again. I slapped her again, hard. She started to cry and slumped to the floor. My other friend had a similar reaction as I slapped her hard to wake her from the trance. She kept screaming I wouldn’t understand because I couldn’t see. But I could see. I could make out figures standing in the room, surrounding us. Figures which I knew were actually in this room. I headed for the kitchen cabinet and pulled it open. I threw a bunch of ingredients on the table and told the girls to get to work if they wanted to make it through the night. I watched as they grinded up Rosemary, Garlic and Rock salt together into powder and instructed them to seal all the entrances and exits with a line of the mixture. Jase and I headed to the room with a small wooden bowl of the same mixture. “Ready?” he said with his hand on the knob of the door. I took in a deep breath, nodded and he swung the door open. A sickening smell escaped from the room into the hallway, surrounding everything in a pungent odour that only reminded me of death and blood. Repulsed by the smell I forced myself into the room and pointed to the bed. The boy laid still, the sheet just covering his stomach downwards.  An old lady was standing over him, her hair white and her skin pale. She looked up as we entered the room and brought a finger to her lips. “Shhh” she whispered as she pat his hair, “you’ll wake them up”. “Wake who up?” I said to her, and she stared at me... or was it behind me? I felt someone shift behind me and turned. Jase was standing next to me so it couldn’t be him. The smoke had begun to pour into the room and I could make out figures standing behind me. Turning to tell Jase we had to get out, I noticed there were also figures standing beside him, staring at me. The look on his face told me it was the same behind me. I turned to face the old lady, and more and more figures seemed to appear in the smoke as it began to fill the room. She looked at me and said “told you”. Then I woke up.