13. LO
LO
F or the first time since moving into my haunted house, I scream.
It’s a deep-from-my-gut scream that barely sounds like it’s coming from my own body.
My throat burns, and the air feels physically squeezed out of my lungs.
I scream until I don’t have any breath left and then keep going.
I don’t even know what I was screaming for or about; it isn’t going to scare off whatever the fuck is standing in the corner in my living room.
And I can’t scream for help—Stevie is already here with me, in the same exact position as me, the only difference being that I’m frozen in place on the floor and Stevie is scrambling for the door.
As soon as she realizes I can’t move, she comes back and pulls me up from the ground, yanking me to come with her.
I don’t know if I want to cover my eyes and pretend it isn’t real or if I want to stare and make sense of what I’m looking at.
The logical part of my brain is throwing out all kinds of options—a weird shadow, a trick of the eye.
But I know the truth. I didn’t make up getting choked.
And I definitely didn’t make up whatever the fuck Stevie’s flashlight had found in my living room.
Getting one last look over my shoulder as Stevie physically drags me out of the room, I try to make sense of the figure.
I will never forget what it looks like—the looming shadow, the distinctively human figure, the way it doesn’t have any features that I can see, but I just know it’s looking at me.
As we run, I move past the freeze phase and go onto something else entirely—a sickening, heavy feeling that makes me think I really might throw up. Or cry. Or maybe just scream some more.
“What the fuck was that!” I shouted. My chest heaves as we cut across the living room and go to the front door. I don’t care if there’s an episode to film or if this is the coward’s way of handling things—I do not want to stick around here.
I reach for the handle and yank on it, but it won’t budge. I try everything I can think of, using all of the muscle and strength I have. The handle is so stuck that it won’t even turn; it’s like someone is on the other side holding it in place.
“Oh my god,” I whine, too scared to care about how pathetic I sound.
“Let me try,” Stevie says and quickly takes my place. She does the same thing I did, desperately yanking on the door handle. She slaps her hand to the wood, either out of frustration or fear. I can’t tell.
“We have to run. We’re not getting out of here,” Stevie says and takes my hand.
We scramble down the hallway, and I think over the options we have for safety. Is hiding in a closet enough to stop a ghost? In a bedroom with the door locked? The only solutions I can think of are more for slasher films than for something that has the ability to go through walls.
“Shit.” Panic is taking over, and it’s hard for me to think logically—or think at all. The only thing my brain is telling me to do is run. Leave it to Sunniva to somehow bring the scariest ghost ever into this house.
The kitchen offers the first hint of safety that I can think of. Something about being in a small, compact space feels safer than hiding in a giant room that allows a ghost ample opportunity to fuck with us.
I grab Stevie by the arm and go into the smallest enclosed area of the house—the pantry.
I pull us both inside and then shut the door.
It’s dark and compact and clearly not meant for two full-sized adults to hide in, but it works fine enough.
We sit down on the floor, and I pull my knees to my chest. Stevie’s shoulder pressed against mine is a comforting reminder that I’m at least not doing this alone.
“Do you think it’ll get us in here?” I whisper.
“I think our best bet is no longer being inside the house, but maybe that’s just me,” Stevie says dryly. It’s so dark that I can’t even make out my own hand in front of me, nonetheless Stevie’s expression.
“But earnestly, do you think we’ll be okay?” I ask. “Expert opinion.”
“I’m sure we’ll be fine—“
“I’d really like something more certain than that. Some facts or something. Like, oh, actually, ghosts can’t come into pantries because it explicitly violates some kind of ghost code.”
“I don’t think that’s how that works.”
My heart rate isn’t slowing down from when we were running earlier. If I keep this up, I’m going to start hyperventilating. “Please tell me something that will calm me down.”
“It’s…all imagination. It was a figure. We made it up. If we go back out there, nothing will happen to us,” Stevie says like she’s reading off of a list. There’s a question marked tacked on at the end of each statement, like she’s just trying different ones out to see what’ll land.
I can make out Stevie’s figure in the dark now, my eyes slowly adjusting. “Anything else?”
Stevie sighs and does the best she can by throwing her hands up in the tight space. “I don’t really know.”
“What, not used to comforting people during paranormal encounters? Everyone’s too cool and experienced for that?”
“Uh, not necessarily? I guess?”
“Stevie, genuinely—what the fuck does that mean?”
“I—“ she groans. “I’m not actually a paranormal investigator, okay?”
I blink, certain she’s making some kind of joke. “So, what are you? Like, ghost hunter instead? It’s all technicalities?”
“No, I mean, like, the show is usually fake. We do this all for TV. It’s scripted.” She sighs. “I—I’m sorry. I don’t have anything to say because I don’t know anything. None of it was ever real before this. I can’t comfort you or myself or explain what’s going on.”
“What do you mean none of this is real?” I can feel my voice going shrill. I bring it back down to a whisper. “You don’t actually know how to use any of the equipment? You’re not actually tracking anything?”
“I don’t know, it’s all just been like…us. It’s a producer thing. We buy shit from, like, Amazon. I kind of thought everyone knew these shows were staged, at least to a certain degree.”
“No! I messaged you because I thought you could actually help me!” I put my hands to my face and groan. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”
“I mean, we didn’t really have to lie to you. The only thing we lied about was that we’d had experience ghost hunting before. But even then, I don’t think we ever claimed to be, like, experts or anything—”
“Using that you lied by omission as your defense right now is not helping your case.” I shake my head. “God, this is so annoying . So you guys are just as oblivious as I am? You literally don’t know anything?”
“I guess we’ve learned some stuff over the years but not, like, a lot,” Stevie says, letting her sentence fade out.
When she sees the expression on my face, she quickly presses her lips together.
“I’m sorry we lied, okay? But everything that’s been happening here is one hundred percent real.
We’re not causing any of this. We might’ve lied a little bit—”
“More than a little bit! And to a whole lot of people!”
“Okay, we might’ve lied— period —but it was never meant to hurt you.
We just knew the exposure would be good for our show.
We weren’t expecting your house to actually be haunted.
But I do think this has changed things for us.
I don’t know if I’m really a believer now or not, but I am starting to think that there’s more to this show than us having to fake everything. ”
I tilt my head against the wall, staring up at the ceiling of the closet. “Oh my god.” I take a deep breath. “You’re taking advantage of people. You’re like who I thought Sunniva was before she actually did bring a ghost into the house.”
Stevie’s quiet for a beat. “Ouch,” she says. It’s so genuine that I immediately feel bad for throwing a stone like that. “You really think I’m like Sunniva?”
I take a breath and then sigh. “No. I don’t think you are. You’re both doing it for money, but she’s intentionally taking money from people who are grieving.”
“We’re also definitely not making nearly as much money from lying as Sunniva is,” Stevie says, and I exhale the world’s smallest laugh through my nose. “I can’t tell if I’m making it better or worse,” she says.
“I can’t either,” I admit, throwing my hands up.
I take in everything Stevie’s saying, trying to think about it objectively.
I can see where she’s coming from—I am great exposure.
My name carries weight. And even though I wished they’d told me from the beginning they weren’t actually ghost hunters, it hasn’t really caused me any direct harm.
I also can’t fault someone in what is technically reality TV for tricking me—that’s kind of their whole shtick.
I also always knew, even before meeting them, that a ghost hunter wasn’t going to be able to get rid of my ghost; all they’d ever do is confirm that there is one.
And enough has happened in my house to confirm that even without the help of fancy technology and a team of actual paranormal investigators.
It’s the classic issue of someone doing a math problem wrong but still somehow finding the right answer.
“Are you mad at me?” Stevie asks.
“I don’t know,” I say and then sigh. “No. I’m not. I might be annoyed, but I’m finding it really hard to be mad at you right now, even if you did lie to me.”
Maybe I’m too forgiving by nature or maybe Stevie is just really hot or maybe this whole thing has been too scary to ever let anything bother me again, but I can’t bring myself to hold a grudge.
“It wasn’t intentional. And that’ll be my last lie. I promise,” Stevie says. She sticks out her pinkie finger. “ First and last.”
I look at her face and then down at her hand. I bite back a smile as I loop my pinkie around hers. “You are so annoying.”