Page 28 of Haunted By the Mountain Man
"He needs familiarity," Shane countered. "This place, as broken as it is, is the only home his mind recognizes."
"We'll figure it out," Neil said. "Like we should have two years ago if you'd told us."
"I thought I could handle it," Shane said tiredly.
"You did handle it," Sam said. "For two years. But you don't have to anymore."
As darkness fell and Walt finally settled into sleep after his medications, we prepared for the investigation. My cameras were recording everything, though I couldn't stream without internet. My subscribers would have to wait for the edited version.
"Everyone ready?" Kevin asked over the radio. Each team had one.
"Ready," Shane confirmed, standing beside me in the dining room.
"I’m going to start with the EVP?" I said.
"EVP?" he asked.
"Electronic Voice Phenomena. Basically, we ask questions and see if anything answers."
Shane looked skeptical but nodded. I set up my digital recorder and began.
"This is Raven from Dark Places, Deep Secrets. I'm here in the main dining room of the Wildfire Ridge Lodge with Shane.If anyone is present who wishes to communicate, please make yourself known."
Silence.
"We know about Rebecca and Jimmy," I continued. "We know what happened to you wasn't right. Walt talks about you. He’s sorry."
For several minutes, nothing. Then my thermal camera showed a gradual temperature drop near the bar—three degrees over five minutes. Could be a draft from the broken window twenty feet away. Could be something else.
"Did you hear that?" Shane whispered.
I rewound my audio, amplifying it. There—a sound like whispering, or maybe it was just the wind. When I isolated the frequency, it almost sounded like words: "...ault..."
"Fault? Walt?" I couldn't tell.
"Shane, Raven, we're getting odd readings in the lobby," Neil's voice crackled over the radio. "Temperature dropped six degrees near the staircase. Kim says there's a draft from upstairs."
"Pool area's showing EMF spikes," Sam reported. "But there's also old electrical conduits in the walls here. Could be residual charge."
I moved my EMF detector slowly across the room. It chirped sporadically—not the steady reading you'd get from active wiring, but not necessarily paranormal either.
"There," Shane pointed to my thermal display. A cold spot had formed near the corner, roughly human-sized but shapeless, shifting like smoke.
"Air current from the chimney," I said, but made a note. "Or..."
A door slammed somewhere in the building. We all jumped.
"That was the kitchen door," Jess reported. "Wind caught it. This place is full of drafts."
For the next hour, we documented everything. Temperature fluctuations that could be explained by the building's decay. EMF readings that might be old wiring or might be something else. Sounds that could be wind, settling wood, or animals in the walls.
But then around midnight something happened.
I was reviewing audio when I caught it—clear as day for just two seconds. A young woman's voice, no mistaking it for wind: "Tell Walt..."
But tell Walt what? The recording cut to static.
"Play that again," Shane said.
