Lunar Park

Walking quickly back to Miller’s side, I realized that this was the quietest the house had ever been.

During this thought all three EMF meters started beeping—instantly, in unison.

According to the flashing red digital numbers I saw a reading jump from 0 to 100 in what seemed like less than a second.

Immediately the cameras sensed something and started whirring, moving in a continuous circular motion atop the tripods.

“We have liftoff,” I heard one of the guys whoop from upstairs.

The beeping suddenly became more insistent.

The cameras kept flashing as they turned.

The locks on the French windows in the living room made a cracking sound.

Another cracking sound and the windows swung outward, causing the green curtains to start billowing even though it was a cold, still November afternoon.

But then they stopped billowing.

The curtains weren’t there last night, the writer said. Don’t you recognize them? the writer asked. Think back.

Air gusted over us, and the faint sound of something being pounded echoed throughout the house.

The pounding continued.

It was moving through the walls and then into the ceiling above us.

The pounding was competing with the sounds from the EMFs but the pounding soon overtook it.

I shut my eyes, but the writer told me that the pounding culminated when a huge puncture appeared in the wall above the couch in the living room.

(Later, the writer told me that I had screamed while standing perfectly still.)

And then: silence.

The EMF monitors stopped beeping.

“Hoo-ah!” This from one of the guys upstairs.

The other whooped gleefully again.

They had been on this ride before.

Miller and I were breathing hard.

I didn’t care if I appeared afraid.

“I’m sensing a male presence,” I heard Miller murmur, scanning the room.

“The lights are flickering, Bob,” Sam called down from the upstairs hallway.

From where Miller and I stood we looked up and could see the flickering lights of the sconces reflected in the massive window near the top of the stairs.

It seemed as if something knew we had noticed this and the flickering stopped abruptly.

Miller was now standing in front of the freshly punctured wall.

He stared at it, humbly.

“An angry man . . . someone very lost and angry . . .”

I was so afraid I could not feel myself. I was just a voice asking: “What does that mean? What’s going on? What does it want? Why is it stopping?”

Miller scanned the ceiling with his EMF.

“Why did it stop?” I kept asking.

Miller answered quietly.

“Because it knows we’re here.”

This was part of his performance. He was trying to project self-assurance, confidence, a sense of command, but there was one lucid fraction within me peering through the fear that knew whatever resided in the house was going to defeat us all in the end.

(I flashed on: You resided in this house, Bret.)

“Because it knows we’re here,” Miller murmured again.

Miller turned to me.

“Because it’s curious.”

We waited for what felt like eternity.

The house seemed to grow darker as time passed.

Finally, Miller called up. “Dale—anything?”

“It’s quiet now,” Dale called back down.

“Sam—anything?”

Sam’s answer was interrupted when the EMFs resumed beeping again.

This was followed by the cameras whirring.

And then a sound announced itself that unnerved me more than the pounding or the noise emanating from the meters.

A voice was singing.

Music began playing throughout the house.

A song from the past, flowing from an eight track on the long drive up the California coastline to a place called Pajaro Dunes.

. . . memories light the corners of my mind . . .

“Did we unplug the stereo?” I asked, wheeling around in the semidarkness.

. . . misty water color memories . . .

“Yes, we did, Mr. Ellis.” This was Miller, holding his EMF as if it was guiding him toward something.

. . . of the way we were . . .

The living room instantaneously became hot. It was a greenhouse, and the smell of the Pacific slowly traced itself in the muggy air.

. . . scattered pictures of the smiles we left behind . . .

Suddenly, from upstairs: “There’s something here,” Sam called. “It just materialized.” Pause. “Bob, did you hear me?”

. . . smiles we gave to one another . . .

“What is it?” Miller called up.

Sam’s voice, less enthusiastic: “It’s, um . . . it’s a human form . . . skeletal . . . it just exited the little girl’s room . . .”

Actually, the writer informed me, Sam was wrong. It came from Robby’s room, since Robby is, in fact, the focal point of the haunting.

Not you, Bret.

Did you grasp that yet?

Not everything’s about you, even though you would like to think so.

From Dale: “I see it too, Bob.”

“What’s its location now?” Miller called up.

. . . the way we were . . .

“It’s moving toward the staircase . . . it’s gonna head downstairs . . .”

Their excited cries were suddenly replaced by what sounded like a choked awe.

“Holy Christ,” one of them shouted. “What the fuck is it?”

“Bob.” This was Sam, I think. “Bob, it’s coming down the stairs.”

The song stopped midlyric.

Miller and I were facing the grand staircase that flowed into the foyer and the adjacent living room.

There were clicking noises.

(I am not going to defend what I’m about to describe. I am not going to try to make you believe anything. You can choose to believe me, or you can turn away. The same goes for another incident that occurs later on.)

The only reason I witnessed this was because it happened so quickly, and the only reason I did not immediately turn away was because it seemed fake, like something I had seen in a movie—a prank to scare the children. The living room might as well have been a screen and the house a theater.

It was lurching down the staircase, pausing on various steps.

It was tall and had a vaguely human form, and though it was skeletal it had eyes.