Peaceful Wolverine I take a deep breath as the doors at the back of our work van creak outward, and my partner heads out down the ramp. Her boots crunch on the gravel driveway, and I double-check my tools once more: The crucifix dangling from my belt, elaborate and heavy and reassuring; a high-powered flashlight (always a struggle not to test it by turning it on and looking directly into the beam); and an electromagnetic field (EMF) reader.
Another deep breath, and it’s out the back of the truck, and we head for the farmhouse we’re here to investigate. We work in the dark — it’s a few minutes before 3 a.m. — and this night is helping out, with heavy clouds shutting out even the dim possibilities from a waning moon.
“Some stars would have been nice,” I mutter to my teammate as we reach the front steps. “Seeing as we’re in the countryside.”
“Agreed,” she says loudly. She’s nervous, and that emotion always animates her personality into the opposite of my own quiet withdrawal and hunched defensiveness. “I mean, here we are at a lovely rural farmstead, no light pollution to worry about, and it’s a cloudy night!”
She guffaws as we climb the steps, fumbling with the set of keys our clients handed over during the meet-up yesterday. This home’s owners aren’t planning on returning (who would?), and their recent, extended hotel stay had no doubt exacerbated their anxiety: Pale faces, nervous tics, tired eyes. Our usual customers, in other words.
I’m looking up at the house, now. Mansion, rather… Yeah, this isn’t really a house.
“I was thinking it would be quaint…” I trail off, taking a moment to appreciate the size and antiquity on display. The house is aged and well-kept, built in that heavy way that tends to signal old wealth. The railings of the covered porch that apparently circles the entire edifice are hand-carved, I note, playing my flashlight over the intricate surfaces. My partner is chattering in the background, something about her last investigation, something funny that happened. I struggle to pay attention. She knows what she’s about — she’s got the digital thermometer, reminiscent of COVID days, her camera, and a bundle of incense, and she usually takes lead — but, of course, it’s natural to be frightened given the circumstances.
She finds the right key among the jumble, a task complicated by competing unlockers that presumably match up with vehicles, mailboxes, outbuilding padlocks, and so on. The huge, heavy double doors open at last. She falls silent.
We look into the darkness, as thick as curtains and as empty as the void of space.
“Love this part!” I say, injecting false cheer. Inside the house, somewhere, something clatters — I make a note of the sound’s direction. To the left, probably? Near the back? The current inhabitant will have a favourite part of the structure, and finding it is step one if we want to secure a positive ID.
Our flashlights play over furniture sets that cost more than my used SUV as we begin our wanderings. The foyer is bigger than the entire upper floor square footage of most suburban dwellings. Everything seems to be heavy and wooden and upholstered with elaborate woven fabrics. Maybe they’ve got gold thread in them. I don’t know. There’s no plastic or Ikea compromises, that’s for sure.
“I’m feeling mildly resentful,” I note, my voice emerging tremulous and thin in the vast salon. Our lights illuminate a lectern that probably came from Oxford or something, and books bound in ancient leather.
“It’s really, really, really giving ‘spooky old mansion’,” my partner sighs, “which is just so unnecessary.”
“Icing on the cake,” I venture, but her laugh cuts off as a loud groan reminds us we are not alone. It’s a tearing, agonized sound, and it’s coming from right next to me. I grit my teeth and deliberately swing the beam of my torch around, in a not-panicky manner, to see if there’s anything more to this particular manifestation.
The light shows nothing, but as the sound ends a red, glistening reflection catches my eye. “Bone,” I announce, crossing the room toward a solitary armchair that would be giving off afternoon nap vibes under different circumstances.
My partner snaps a photo next to me, and I jump slightly and give her a scolding side-eye for sneaking up. “Ew,” she says matter-of-factly.
It’s part of a human pelvis, sitting exposed and bloody on a rug that is likely worth it to professionally clean at some point. “Uh. Yeah,” I agree, surveying the mess of frayed viscera.
“We need to find the breaker,” she says, turning away, “and stop wandering around in the dark. Bad for our sanity.”
“I like the dark!” I reply sarcastically. The breaker is on the second floor, and we still haven’t found the stairs. “It’s reassuring, like, ‘don’t worry, there’s nothing you need to worry about seeing right now—’”
I am cut off by a sudden flickering of the beams of our flashlights. We freeze as a steady, thudding heartbeat grows in volume, coming toward us from a wide hall on the left. My EMF reader screeches and protests, and my partner raises her camera.
The apparition is an older man, blinking in and out of visibility as we stand, frozen, waiting. Hairless, heavyset, wearing a bloody leather butcher’s apron and wielding a matching cleaver, advancing on us, scalp torn and dripping, expression distorted with rage. The lights flicker faster, and the camera clicks.
The heartbeat thumps once more before the man vanishes, and the scene is normal again — sort of. We’re just in a pitch-black haunted house looking for the stairs. My EMF reader falls mercifully silent, and I curse silently as I realize I forgot to scan the screen for the strength of the event. Distracted.
“Got a picture,” my partner says, her voice only slightly shaky. ”… That was quick, though.”
“It was too quick,” I agree. I feel grim. It would have been nice to have ten minutes of wandering to get to know the place, first.
We find the stairs and climb, creaking and squeaking as if the steps resent our feet. The second floor is no less fancy, some bloody handprints on the wall notwithstanding. A tiny three-legged table dubiously supports an expensive-looking vase, expensive-looking paintings with gilt frames line the passageways, and I feel guilty for not taking my boots off to walk on the exquisite carpets underfoot.
“Did you have to pick a location we don’t know?” My teammate growls at me. “And it’s huge.”
I say something chirpy and sarcastic back, chuckling under my breath. We take one turn, then another, hit a dead end, turn back. As we head to the back of the house, a heavy painting leaps off the wall next to us and crashes to the floor. We are being tracked, as usual.
We’re both relieved after finding the breaker, tucked away in the back corridor that leads to the attic stairs. I’m mildly reassured to find imperfection — the corridor is unfinished and undecorated, with piled debris and abandoned cans of paint from forgotten renovations.
“I vote we skip the attic,” I say innocently, looking at the dusty, cobwebbed circular steps leading upward.
“Let’s go back downstairs and turn some lights on,” my teammate says firmly, and we head back to the stairs.
But we’ve taken too long. As our feet leave the last step to return to the ground floor, the sound reaches us of the front door slamming in the distance. The sound of it locking follows. Oh, shit.
I drop my flashlight immediately, then the EMF reader. The crucifix can stay, but it won’t help now that the hunt has already begun. I look around frantically, as if the now-complete darkness will suddenly sprout hiding places I’ll find from pure intuition.
“Badger!” I hiss, choking on my too-loud voice. However, she has also dropped her tools, and I hear her scrambling away on hands and knees. She is, definitively, not going to help me.
Heavy footsteps and gasping, furious snarls from above us. It’s on the second floor, but it’ll be coming. It’ll be coming down the same stairs I am still right next to.
“Shit, shit, shit,” I say as quietly and fiercely as possible. I’m doomed, I realize dimly. I drop to my hands and knees and crawl away. Fast, banging into furniture, feeling ahead of me with sweaty, desperate hands. I need a corner to cower in! My internal voice wails.
“Aaaggghhh,” the ghost screams. Its footsteps are on the stairs, now, speeding up as it descends. The fractured, harsh sounds of its search are much louder.
I’m growing resigned. There’s no way I survive this, I know, but that doesn’t stop me crawling.
But it isn’t me. Not this time. The sounds are heading away from me! It’s hunting the other direction! HAHA!
My partner’s despairing wail reaches me, followed immediately by the choked, awkward sounds of her death. Her body thuds to the hardwood floor.
I immediately stand and begin racing around, hands still blindly out in front, until by some beautiful coincidence I find the front door.
It’s unlocked. I’m out!
This story is from the gaming adventures of the Peaceful Wolverine and the Meditative Badger.
“That. Sucks!” My teenage stepdaughter snaps from beside me. We are playing Phasmophobia on PC, safe at home in our small converted office space. The game still generates tension, but I can tell you, dear reader — I am always quite glad that I’m not actually in that situation!
The goal of the spooky, atmospheric, co-op horror game is to identify just what kind of vengeful spirit is occupying the site. If, for example, the ghost has freezing temperatures + ghost writing + a habit of communicating through our purpose-built ‘spirit box’, it’s a hantu. Or something else, I can’t remember. Maybe it’s a banshee, or a demon.
We also need five unique photos, five unique videos, and three unique sound recordings. And it helps not to die. Easier said than done: When a ghost starts a hunt, you have about five seconds to recognize that fact, drop anything you’re holding, and find a hiding place. If you do not succeed, this freaky-looking apparition will find you, approach you (again, it’s creepy), and keel you.
(Badger’s irritation was warranted… she bought most of the equipment, and dying drained her in-game funds… and it was my idea to try the farmhouse, lol.)
I love to play video games with my stepdaughter. Perhaps I’ll share more of our adventures!
Stick around for more stories — fact, fiction, history, imagination, and as much pathos as I can convey… For example, I might share the stories of the several real-life exorcisms I have personally conducted. I don’t believe anymore — but at the time, in my early 20s, those did feel very real. Threatening, dark, otherworldly. And I was, in fact, an ordained priest, with every qualification necessary from the relevant religious institution.