There is no such thing as a haunted house. People are haunted by their pasts, pets, relatives that won’t go home, bad odor and so forth and so on. My point is that a house cannot be haunted. Only lived in.

However, on this particular day I was driving up to what had to have been my twenty-third haunted house. And on the day before Halloween none-the-less. This one had all the classic characteristics. It was old. It had withstood nearly a century and a half of weathering and people living in it, and the building still stood intact. Both floors had four major rooms, and each had survived the years remarkably well. The house had two chimneys stemming from the four fireplaces. Amazingly all of the windows were still intact, but the window frames had nearly rotted out from around them. I could see that once upon a time it had been painted with whitewash, most of it was gone leaving only the color gray as old cracked wood typically does. It was a typical turn of the century southern style house with two porches and four balconies, one for each side of the house.

It stood by itself on a soft country hill with more than a few dead trees around it. Even the earth around it was yellow and scarred, apparently from years of wear and the most recent dry spell. Tall scraggly oak trees reached their dead fingers into the sky on either side. Not only did the house give the classic impression of haunted, the sky was clouded over and the weather was absolutely dreary.

An impressive display overall.

"OK, we gonna get this over with or what?" Steven poked me in the side.

"Scared?" I asked.

"Of what? We've investigated nearly a hundred of these damn things and have found no hard evidence. And I don't mind saying that I don't like having to drive fifteen hours to poke around some damn shack in the middle of nowhere," Steven sighed and shook his head. "You know, when I started this, I actually thought there was such things as paranormal activity. Now I think I'll be going back to school for a real education."

"You've got to admit," I said trying to lighten his mood, "It does look spooky."

He looked at me and rolled his eyes. We both turned to look at the house again. Behind us we could hear the second van approach and come to a stop. It was Sarah and Doctor Sanz. They honked twice.

The sound of the horn startled Steven. "We're right here!" Steven shouted irritably.

"Just letting them know we're here," Sarah leaned her head out the window and cheerfully replied. For someone hunting frightening specters she sure was awful chipper.

Dr. Sanz wordlessly stepped out of the van and began checking the equipment. Dr. Sanz was funding this little excursion almost entirely from his own pocket. The University stopped its funding when Dr. Sanz stopped producing results, that and other things that descended into only rumor. Sarah, Steven and I joined Dr. Sanz only this year because his last team graduated and moved on to other things. Non-paranormal related.

Dr. Sanz had seen several paranormal events; ones he claimed were true without a doubt. With his evidence he convinced us, but we were starting to get frustrated. We were spending more time doing his research than our other studies. We had yet to encounter anything remotely supernatural.

Dr. Sanz was getting frustrated as well. If only he could get some solid evidence he could get government funding for his research. What the government had at stake I can't even begin to imagine. As it was, for the meantime he only had us.

"This is the last one," Steven said. "No more for me. This has all turned into a bunch of bullshit." Okay, just Sarah and I.

"Come on, guys," Sarah said hauling a load of equipment out of the van. "It’s almost Halloween and just look at this place. If it's not haunted, it sure would be a shame." She hefted two video cameras and a pack and started up to the house.

I shrugged and went to open the back of the other van. The vans we had were probably the oldest the University had available. It always seemed that the further away the excursion, the older and less reliable the vans were. It wasn't just our group of eccentrics that noticed this; even our basketball team (top in our division) has made some remarks on the subject. They stalled out three miles from their last game of the regular season. The University paid for cabs so they could make the game on time. I wondered if the same courtesy would be paid to our little group should something similar occur.

Steven and I had the magnetic resonance scanners and temperature gauges. We also had the new small air current detector. In these old houses there were all kinds of drafts, but with the detector we could find the source of all the currents, major, minor, whatever and whether they were caused by heat and cold or people passing through. It could detect currents caused by a sneeze in the other room. Where Dr. Sanz got this toy from, I don't know. It did not belong to our esteemed University. He had bought it himself. Steven thought Dr. Sanz was making it up when he told us about it. When asked where he got it, he was vague, "a friend of a friend" he said. In either case, it works. To an extent.

Pulling out the dolly Steven grumbled, "I can't believe I came out on this one." He put the new machine on the dolly, none too carefully, and snorted. "Sanz has got to be nuts. If there is one thing we have proved this year it is that there is no such thing as ghosts."

"Give him a break, huh, Steven? You got into this because you believed in the paranormal," I said.

He snorted again. "Ha, well I changed my mind." He started wheeling the equipment up to the house.

Dr. Sanz suddenly appeared as if he were a ghost himself.

"So Dave, do you think this is all bullshit, too?" his eyes asked more than his words.

"Doctor, I wouldn't be here if I did," I replied diplomatically.

"Why is Steven here then?" he asked. Good question. I debated how to answer that one.

"Come on Dave," Sarah appeared around the open door, "You just gonna stand around all day?" And she left almost skipping to the other van for another load of equipment.

I looked at her, then Dr. Sanz, then Steven as he came out of the house. I took a deep breath in preparation of giving a plausible explanation for Steven's presence on this trip.

Dr. Sanz held up his hands to silence me. "I think I understand." He went back to his van and started connecting the computers and sensors to their power source.

I grabbed a spool of cable and began running it from the van to the equipment. Sarah was setting up in the house. We had to keep the power source outside because Dr. Sanz felt that whatever spirits we were hunting were repelled by it. With carefully insulated power lines we kept the electrical radiation to a minimum.

We had just finished setting everything up when the sun started to set. Steven and I were set up monitoring in our van while Sarah and Dr. Sanz were in the other. My job was to monitor the MRS and video cameras, and Steven was to listen for what he called "spooky sounds". We also had monitors for the rest of the sensors, but Dr. Sanz and Sarah had the main lines run to their van. Steven immediately turned his back to his monitors, earphones on his head, and reclined with his feet up on the main PC. I checked our radio.

"Sarah, Doctor," I said, "You guys read me?" They had stationed themselves on the other side of the house.

"That's a big ten-four, good buddy, we got our ears on," Sarah giggled. She was way too excited about this. I think she enjoyed it as kind of a camping trip.

Steven put his earphones on and leaned back propping his feet up. "Why the hell do we always have to do this at night? You'd think the ghosties and beasties would at least be civil and show themselves during the day."

"Well then that TV show "Deep Insights" wouldn't have anything scary to show. Who wants to watch a story about Casper joining us for brunch over tea and scones?" I jibed with Steven.

"Yeah, well, who would want to watch what we do for hours on end?" Steven rolled his eyes.

"Why did you come? I know you hate this stuff, so why do it?" I asked.

"I don't know. I wasn't gonna at first. But Sarah and I got to talking, and you know how excited she can be about stuff. I guess she just sort of talked me into it," Steve shrugged and adjusted his feet on the monitor.

"You got a thing for her?" I pried. I had to know.

"I don't know. I think she just has a magnetic personality. Did you know that she has never gone more than a day without having a steady boyfriend, but has never had a boyfriend for more than six months?" Steven shifted his feet again.

"You're being a little childish, don't you think?" I leaned back in my chair as well.

"Bite me, ok? I'm gonna try and sleep, so stop talking," and he turned his back to me. Touchy touchy.

As the hours passed by Steven fell asleep and the coffee was not helping me stay awake. I checked and rechecked all the scanners and monitors and gauges. Nothing was showing, as usual.

"Sarah, you got anything?" I had to talk to somebody to stay awake.

"Sarah's sleeping," Dr Sanz answered. Sarah? Asleep? And it was only three o'clock. "As I suspect Mr. Rhodes is."

"Like a baby," no sooner had I confirmed the fact when Steven suddenly jumped up, and tumbled out onto the floor. "Make that a negative. Steven is now making like a leapfrog. What's up?" I asked Steven.

"I hear something," Steven held his earphones closer to his ears. "Beeping."

"Beeping?" I asked. What the hell would be beeping inside the house? Was our phantom a doctor? We both turned to his scanners to see what was causing a reading. "The MRS is picking up something." The meter needles were red lining. It was the warning signals from the MRS unit in the main living room, bottom floor.

"I've got a reading on some anomalous drafts," I heard Dr. Sanz report. "Wake up Sarah."

"Huh?" the muffled sound filtered through the radio.

"I'm still showing negative on the top floor," I reported. All the activity appeared to be in the main living area, first floor. Suddenly every reading peaked, and every monitor recorded movement. Then everything died.

"Everything died," I said. "Like someone turned everything off."

"We aren't even detecting the wind outside the van. What the hell is going on?" Steven was madly adjusting dials and knobs.

"Doc? Sarah? You two still there?" I called. Nothing.

"They're gone?" Steven asked worried, eyes wide.

"Radio's out," I replied giving him a 'don't be stupid' look.

"Ours or theirs?" he asked.

"Has to be theirs. Everything here checks out. One of us ought to walk around to the other van and see what's up." I suggested.

"Hell if I'm going," Steven looked at me daring me to say he should go.

I laughed at him. "Scared?" I challenged. "Are you going to let some mean gooey ghosts get Sarah?"

"Shut up," he scowled. "It could be something else. Somebody might have cut their power and turned off the equipment."

"And now he's coming for us," I teased. "The great Texas Chainsaw Power Turn Off..”

I'd be lying if I said I wasn't afraid, but I wasn't thinking of phantasms or spooks. I was thinking Dr. Sanz shorted something out and they were hurt. Ok, I might have been a little spooked.

I opened the doors and hopped out. I grabbed my windbreaker and a flashlight and started around the house. About half way around I thought I saw a light through one of the windows, but I attributed it to my overactive imagination. When I got to the other van all the lights were off and I suspected no one was there.

I opened the doors and found Sarah sitting by herself shivering in absolute fear. There was no power to anything in the entire van.

"Sarah?" I asked climbing into the van. Upon entering I felt the temperature drop at least ten degrees. It was like walking into a refrigerator. She didn't respond. She only sat there, eyes closed, shivering. "What happened? Where's Dr. Sanz?" No response.

I grabbed her hands and tried rubbing some warmth into them. I was deeply concerned. Why was it so much colder inside the van than outside? Suddenly the cold left and all the equipment turned back on. Screens flashed into life and meter needles jumped back to their readings.

A voice came over the radio. "Dave, Sarah? You guys there?" Steven's voice wavered over the speaker.

I pulled a headset off the desk and answered. "Gotcha, Steve. Power's back on here. I think we've been visited. Look out the window. Can you see Doctor Sanz?"

"No," Steven said and then paused, "Wait... I can see a light in the house."

"Man, there is something weird going on. Sarah's gone nuts. She's over here scarred senseless and the Doc is gone. It must be him inside," I said.

"You said 'visited'?" Steven obviously was scared.

"Just like Doc said a visiting would feel like. A sensation of cold, but it permeated the whole van. That's why they lost power. But why Sarah's freaking out, I don't know."

"What do we do?"

"I'm going to disconnect the cables here and drive the van around to you," I said. I didn't really know what to do, but it sounded like a good plan.

"Okay."

So that's what I did. Steve jumped out of our van and into Doc's. He looked around as if expecting to see the cold that had been there earlier. Sarah had laid down on the floor curled into the fetal position as if fighting an epileptic spasm.

"Jesus, is she ok?" Steven knelt by her side.

"I don't know. She won't respond to anything," I took her pulse and found it to be racing.

"What about the Doc? If he's in the house he doesn't know about Sarah," he said.

"I'll get him." Actually all I intended on doing was standing outside the van and shouting his name.

"What the hell are you two doing?" Doctor Sanz's voice erupted from behind us. Both Steven and I bumped our heads against the ceiling. "I just went and rebooted all the inside equipment. Something must have tripped all the breakers."

"Something has got Sarah tripping, Doc," Steven dropped back down to Sarah's side.

"My God, she was fine a while ago," Doctor Sanz jumped into the van and started checking her out. "Call 911."

I grabbed the cellphone and started to dial. All I could get was a faint static hum. "Phone won't work. We must be too far from a transmitter."

"Drive," Dr. Sanz commanded. Steven closed the back doors and I jumped into the front seat. We abandoned the other van and all the equipment.

No sooner did we reach the road when I heard Dr. Sanz gasp audibly. Steven gasped too.

"Stop the car," Doctor Sanz rasped. So, I did.

I looked into the back and saw Steven leaning against the back doors gasping for breath. He was hyperventilating. Doctor Sanz sat on the floor, hand to chest, with a far away look in his eyes. Sarah set up as if from a nap.

"What's going on?" she asked confused. "Doctor, my God, are you having a heart attack?" Concern deep in her voice.

"No," he even grinned. "It passed through me," he whispered.

"I think Steven is going to pass out," I said and climbed over the other two. "Hey, Steve. Snap out of it, ok?" I slapped his face a couple times. He looked at me his eyes still wide in terror and promptly passed out.

"Did everyone go crazy?" Sarah was getting scared now. Her eyes seemed unfocused and her attention disconnected. "Where are we?"

"You don't know what happened?" I asked her incredibly.

"I... well, I guess not," again confused.

"I do," Doctor Sanz said almost inaudibly. "Let's head back to the motel."

I drove us there in complete silence.

Once back at the motel we all settled down in the room Steven and I were sharing. Steven lay unconscious on one bed while the rest of us sat at the tiny table. Doctor Sanz was smoking a Camel as if his life depended on it. Sarah held a lit cigarette, but only watched it burn. I watched the two of them silently.

"When our equipment shut down I went to go check our breakers in the van," Doctor Sanz began after lighting his second cigarette. "Those were ok. So, I took a flashlight and checked the equipment inside the house." That was the light I saw. "All of them were tripped. So I turned them back on."

I then told them what happened to my van and what I did until Doctor Sanz found us.

"So what the hell happened?" Sarah spoke up. "Was it a spirit? A ghost? A poltergeist? An alien? What?"

"I think you were possessed," Doctor Sanz
said. "When we got too far from the house, it fled out of you, through myself and Steven and went back home," he said.

"I was possessed? All I remember is feeling suddenly cold and then waking up with you clutching your heart," Sarah looked deeply concerned. "We left all the other equipment with the other van."

"We'll get it in the morning," doctor Sanz said.

"Well, at least we've got the initial reading recorded," I said. Steven made a noise and we all looked at him. "And I think we've made a believer out of Steven."

"How do we know he's not possessed?" Sarah asked.

"He's not trembling like you were. I think he just hyperventilated," Doctor Sanz said.

"Let's get some sleep. We'll figure it all out tomorrow, ok?" I suggested. So we lay in our beds staring at the ceiling for the rest of the night.

I for one was just a little afraid. This was why I had joined the team. I expected this. But after twenty-two nothings, this was quite an abrupt change.

When I first became interested in investigating paranormal activity I was still a child. I saw all the right movies and was an avid watcher of Sightings and X-Files. As a boy I even had a paranormal experience myself. Nothing like that of what happened this night. My neighbors lived in a house where things tended to roll uphill. It was unpredictable and happened only rarely.

I honestly didn't believe it. That is until the object rolling up hill was me. The house was well built, but had started sinking on one side. Our neighbors got quite a deal in rent for it. One day, while playing with my friend that lived there; I started sliding to one wall. It was like down had suddenly shifted and pertained only to me. I will never forget that experience.

Dr. Sanz found my experience interesting. We went to study that sight on one of our expeditions, but found that the whole block had been renovated into a mini-mall. There were no reports of any abnormal changes in gravity.

When I joined Dr. Sanz's team I had hoped to find some answers. But so far I had uncovered only disappointment.

At breakfast the next morning everyone gathered at the local Kettle. Carefully sipping my coffee I noted that we all looked like a bunch of refugees. In abandoning our van, Steven and I had left our supplies and our change of clothes. Sarah and Dr. Sanz wore fresh clothes, but didn't look any better. As a matter of fact, Sarah looked terrible. She didn't eat and hung her head allowing her hair to fall uncontrolled.

The blue rings around Sarah's eyes and the drawn look on her face spoke of the many nightmares she had. Steven, although having rested peacefully, did not look much different. Myself, I didn't sleep at all. Dr. Sanz wrote furiously into his journal.

"Um, Doc," Steven said rubbing his forehead as if he had a hangover," how about telling us what the hell happened?"

Dr. Sanz set his pen down and took a sip of his coffee. He then looked at us one by one. "Well I do have a theory."

We waited silently.

"I think what we have here is a location entity. It's somehow locked in that house and can't stray far from it," he looked back at his notes. He took a long pause.

Again we waited. Only Steven looked like he was getting impatient. I was just getting tired enough I probably could have gone to sleep. Sarah kept her head tilted forward as though she was looking for answers in her cup of coffee. It was then that I noticed for the first time in our twenty-three escapades that Sarah was drinking coffee. She had remarked on one occasion that she never needed the stuff no matter how tired she was, she had a natural energy reserve. Where was that energy now?

"I think that the presence, whether one or many, I don't know, sensed our electronic equipment and followed the cable to my van. I left the van after it left the house, but before it arrived at the van. When I got inside the house I found every circuit breaker tripped. So I had to go to each room to reset them all.

"While I did that the presence entered the van and Sarah possessing both. When David entered the van part of the presence either fled or it went into Sarah completely. When we left the property it fled her body and had to pass through mine and Steven's to get back to the house," he explained.

"Why? Why did it have to 'pass through'? I thought these were ghosts, capable of materializing and dematerializing anywhere," Steven asked.

"Apparently this one has some physical hold on this world. The shortest distance between two points is still a straight line. You and I were simply in the way," he said.

"I remember cold, being very cold," Sarah said, her voice low and raspy.

"There have been numerous cases where a cold sensation was accompanied with a paranormal presence," he said.

"Yes but only by a couple of degrees," I said. "This was easily ten degrees colder than air temperature."

Dr. Sanz shrugged. "We'll have to study it more carefully."

"No way! I am not going back," Steven said holding out his hands and shaking his head.

"We have to," I said, "we left our stuff in the other van."

"Man," Steven said with obvious disappointment.

"I wonder if this was why the original owners left and no one else moved in," Sarah said.

"Most likely," Dr. Sanz said.

"Wait... What?" Steven held out his hand as though stopping traffic. "What do you mean only the original owners lived there? You said this house is over a hundred years old. Surely someone else lived there at some time."

"Oh yes, some have, but only for a short period of time. The current owner is an investor that lives in California. He bought it thinking it would make a nice summer home, but plans changed and he decided to rent it out," Dr. Sanz was again flipping through his notebook. "Mr. Yasuaki, I believe is his name, yes here it is. Mr. Benjamin Yasuaki bought the house six years ago. When he couldn't move down he rented to a family of four. Mr. and Mrs. Wakesfield. They had a son and a daughter. Both children died. After which the Wakesfields left. I wasn't able to locate them for questioning. They never gave a reason for leaving. He next rented to a Japanese couple, relatives I believe, and they stayed for only two weeks. It was then that he suspected something was wrong. He did some research himself to discover that no one had lived there for the twenty years prior to his purchasing the property."

"Hold on. The kids died there?" Steven asked trying to follow.

"Um... no. They died at a hospital in St. Paul. Both had come down with some sort of wasting disease." Dr. Sanz looked at his notes.

"What was it the Japanese relatives said was wrong with the place?" I asked. Surely they had some theories of their own.

"Probably the chi was all wrong," Steven remarked.

“Shut up.” Sarah wasn’t much in a playful mood.

"They never specified. They didn't just move out though; they moved back to Japan. Anyway, Mr. Yasuaki met with a colleague of mine at Berkley, Dr. Jonathan Edwards. John does psychological research, the typical stuff. How he met up with Yasuaki, I don't know. The point is John called me with what he said might be a hot tip. He's loved this sort of stuff since he was a kid, but decided to take the practical side of science. You should have seen him when we were roommates back in college..."

"Umm, Doc?" Steven lifted a finger.

"Oh, yes, sorry, I digress," Dr. Sanz pushed his glasses back up on his nose.

"To say the least," Steven muttered.

"Anyway, John did the research on the original owners. In 1868 an English immigrant, William Jones, moved here and purchased all this land, even the land this town is on. He met an American woman named Ruby and married her in Georgetown. To commemorate their marriage, he had a modest Southern home built in 1869. The original manor had servants’ quarters in the back, but it burned down in 1909. The Jones' had six children altogether, four girls and two boys. William died in 1945 apparently of natural causes. Ruby died only nine months later, also of apparent natural causes. The youngest son took over the mansion then. His name was Leonard Jones. He also had a wife, but only three children. All girls.

"In 1952 the eldest, Angela, committed suicide. She died from self-inflicted wounds to the neck. Leonard's wife, Matilda, died giving birth to their third child in 1953. She had to have been much younger than he to be bearing children in 1953," Dr. Sanz surmised.

"Hold on," I interrupted, "How old was Leo?"

"He was born October 5, 1874," Dr. Sanz flipped through his book.

"So he was eighty years old when he had his third daughter?" I was surprised.

"Wait, how old was the daughter who killed herself the year before?" Steven asked.

“Twenty-five,” Dr. Sanz answered.

"Maybe he was married twice," Sarah suggested. Her head had moved down to rest on her folded arms on the tabletop.

"John didn't dig that deep. Only that all his daughters and wife had died before he moved out in 1955," Dr. Sanz looked through his bag for another notebook.

"You said the original owners moved out twenty years before Yasuaki bought the place. Who took over the manor when Leo left?" I asked. It seemed strange that all the women in his family died and that he should be starting a family at such a late age.

"Leonard's nephew Christopher took it over after Leonard's trial. Apparently the man had been accused as the cause for his wife's death, but he was exonerated on all accounts. John couldn't find how the other two daughters died. Only that they died in the year following their eldest sister's suicide. I inquired locally, but no one here really knows. Which is surprising with such a small community, stuff like that usually sticks in people’s minds, especially when there is murder involved..."

"Doc," both Steven and I interrupted.

"Yes, well, Christopher never married. He did have plenty of servants, however. He was a wealthy banker and after retiring he moved back to the house in 1962. He sold the house to a friend who never saw the place. He sold it to Yasuaki six years ago," Dr. Sanz closed his notebook. "And that is all we know."

"That's it?" Steven asked incredulously. I had to agree. Under normal circumstances Dr. Sanz researches his subjects exhaustively before going out to the site.

"I was afraid Yasuaki might turn over the property or even hire some shenanigan psychic before I had a chance to study the place," Dr. Sanz explained.

"You mean we are here without permission?" I asked. This was most unlike Dr. Sanz.

"You knew something like this was going to happen," Steven accused. He was furious. He even started to stand.

"No, I didn't. I knew this was the hottest lead I've ever had, and I couldn't let it go. I needed this case," Dr. Sanz wouldn’t look anyone in the eye.

"The University is pulling your budget," I concluded. Only something so drastic would make him so drastic.

The table went silent. Steven felt shamed for his outburst, Sarah because she had fallen asleep, and me because I couldn't think of a single thing to say.

"I want to go back tonight, only this time I want to be inside the house," Dr. Sanz finally said.

"Hell no, not only am I not going back, but there is no way you are going in that house. Even I have enough sense to stay away. We are going to need more stuff, more monitors and shit. Hell no. No no no no no, " Steven was shaking his head.

"Hold up," I had a good idea. "Let's set up half the equipment in the house, run it to one van and set the rest of the equipment up to monitor the van. Then we can monitor both from the road where we know it can't go."

"What if its still there now?" Steven asked.

"I think it's a nocturnal spirit," Dr. Sanz said.

"What? How do you know? We don't have enough data to make that kind of judgement." Steven said.

"I have recorded several other events like this, even experienced one. We did not read any disturbances until after 3 am. The moon set at 2:58. With the cloud cover and no moon, the night was at its darkest. But..." he paused.

"But what?" we all chimed in stereo.

"I don't know if the presence there is just picky, or photosensitive," he said.

"What is the difference?" Steve said.

"If it's picky, it's intelligent. Which means we might even communicate with it. That also means that it could decide to play with us. Screw with our equipment, or decide to hide. Sometimes these things are childlike," Dr Sanz seemed far too excited about this.

"And if it's photosensitive?" I asked.

"Then it’s something we don't want to mess with," Dr. Sanz was reluctant to elaborate. "It's subject to physical terms. It must consume energy. It is animalistic. It will attack if it feels it is in danger. However, there have been no documented cases of such. I believe the entity is intelligent."

"Well, let's find out," I stood up and downed the last gulp of my coffee.

Dr. Sanz and Steven stood up but Sarah was completely unconscious. We took her back to the motel and let her sleep. She had been through an awful lot.

The rest of us went out to the house. It was a good forty-minute drive and when we arrived the sun was shining brightly but the house still had that spooky look to it. Steven shivered. I have to admit that I was kind of excited. This is what I had been looking forward to my whole life.

The van and house were exactly as we left them. We had been afraid that the morning dew might have damaged some of the electronics, but after a cursory check everything turned out to be fine.

We placed two cameras inside the house, one upstairs and one downstairs. Both pointed out the windows to the van we were going to leave as a decoy. All other sensors were set up inside and around the van. We set up two power sources as well. We had a battery set up in the van and one actually on the porch of the house. We used up the last of our cables running the lines out to the van. The cables didn't allow us to base our van at the road, but Dr. Sanz felt it was far enough away.

As we were working the cellphone rang. I answered.

"Hello?" it was Sarah.

"Are you guys at the house?" she asked sounding more like her old self again.

"Yeah, we're almost ready for tonight, you going to come out?"

"Yeah, after I get something to eat. I'm starving," she said.

"Bring us something, too," I requested.

After hanging up Dr. Sanz took the phone and began inspecting it.

"It didn't work last night," he said. "Too far from a transmitter relay you said?"

"It's what I thought," I said.

"Why do you suppose it works now?" he asked. I hated it when Dr. Sanz started getting into the educational part of his work. He sounded so, I don't know, convinced of his superiority. I think that perhaps that was how he thought he was supposed to sound, even though deep down he respected us as fellow scholars.

"Let's experiment," Dr. Sanz headed towards the house. "I'll call the car phone, we'll see if it works from where we tried using it last night."

When Dr. Sanz reached the dead oak next to the house he dialed. The carphone rang and I answered.

"I'm going into the house," Dr. Sanz said.

"Gotcha," I watched as he entered. "Still there?" I asked.

"I'm going into the basement," and his voice faded into static. Suddenly I lost the connection. I dialed his number, but all I got was the recording saying he was out of the transmitting area.

"Why do you suppose only the trees around the house are dead while the rest are still green?" Steven asked studying the house.

"It's fall, Steven. The green trees are evergreens," I didn't even look.

"So are the trees at the house," Steve pointed out. "Those are live oaks. Live oaks are evergreens." I looked this time.

I thought for a moment. All the plants around the house were dead. Even the weeds. Brush and weeds grew along the road, but not around the house.

"Well, Dr. Sanz did say if this thing was photosensitive, it was partly physical. And all physical beings require energy. Maybe this thing sucked all the life out of the trees," I suddenly became afraid.

"Maybe that's why Sarah was so tired," Steven looked at me. "She was exhausted. That thing was eating her energy."

Realizing this we both broke into a run towards the house. The sun didn't shine into the basement and we had lost contact with Dr. Sanz. Even Steven had lost all his fear in concern for the doctor.

Just as we reached the house Dr. Sanz stepped out. Steven and I skidded to a halt.

"What?" Dr Sanz looked at us. "You two racing?"

We told him what we figured out.

"That would explain the extreme sensation of cold. I found the basement to be cool, but no more so than any other basement. We might have had disruption due to the location and not any magnetic disturbance," Dr. Sanz sat down on the porch deep in thought.

"Huh?" Steven and I looked at each other.

"Entropy, boys. The speed at which molecules move. If they spin in the same direction a magnetic field can be generated. It takes heat, energy that is, to make them spin at all. Enthalpy. Living things need food to create this energy. We, as mammals, are able to generate our own enthalpy, thus entropy. We are capable of generating our own heat.

"There are other animals, reptiles for example, that cannot generate their own heat. They need heat from a source. Which is why lizards like hot rocks in the sun," he explained.

"Are you suggesting that this creature consumes... what? These trees, the grass, all dead. And Sarah only slept the day away, she's fine now," I said.

"I'm not sure yet," Dr. Sanz said. "Let's wait 'till after we get our results in the morning."

We finished all our preparations and proceeded to explore the rest of the property. For what used to be a prosperous ranch house there was no evidence of any outlying buildings, not even a fence to indicate there were once animals here. Inviting to say the least.

As I walked back to the van I saw Sarah drive up in Dr. Sanz's old Buick. When she stopped she didn't get out, however. I approached the car a little concerned and hoping she brought something to eat. We had been out there all day with nothing in us but the poor breakfast we had that morning.

"Hey, Sarah," I said as I walked around. "Bring food?"

Then I saw the most shocking thing I have ever seen in my life. Sarah calmly got out of the car and handed me a bag. Smelled like roast beef. Sarah broke out sobbing.

Sarah's once dark hair was now steel gray and the crow's feet at the corners of her eyes were not from exhaustion. For a woman who had yet to have seen her twenty-fifth year, she resembled a woman approaching her fiftieth.

I hugged her close to me until she had cried herself out. I called Dr. Sanz on his cellphone. I saw him running over the hillside. I had never seen Dr. Sanz run before.

He looked Sarah over quickly. There wasn't anything he could really determine without doing blood tests. Sarah was feeling disconnected, so Dr. Sanz suggested she sit down in the van. Steven joined her.

"It's a vampire," Dr. Sanz could hardly believe he was saying it. "It sucks the life out of everything. That's why there are no fences around. So that animals and whatever can approach the home freely. We walked right into it."

"Is it permanent?" I asked. We continued our talk outside.

"I don't know," he shook his head and ran his fingers through his hair. "The signs of age seem to be only skin deep. I'm pretty confident her skin will regenerate, but I don't know about her hair."

"Sun's going down," I said.

"Send Steven and Sarah back into town. It will be just you and me tonight."

"Maybe we should call in some help," I suggested. "Maybe Doctor Swenson's team. They might be able to make it here by Wednesday."

"We can do it. All we are going to do is watch. We are at the limit of its extension. Look, you can see it in the grass," Doc pointed.

So we sat and waited. A million things were going through my mind. Among them the fame at being the first to discover a true paranormal source that acted vampirically. Well, probably not the first to discover it, but certainly the first to document and study it scientifically.

Time passed slowly. It seemed every minute was a lifetime in eternity. Sarah may have aged twenty something years on the outside, but I felt as though I were aging as much on the inside. I could only marvel at the nature of this creature, thing, or whatever it was. How could something like this exist? Was it the ghost of Leo, the amazing eighty-year-old man able to conceive children? I fantasized that this man had figured out how to live forever. That he had killed his family in some satanic ritual but something had gone terribly wrong and now he was left in this condition doomed to haunt his old home. I berated myself for being stupid. If the story I concocted were true I'd have to have myself committed. I even debated the existence of God with myself that night. Dr. Sanz was just as quiet, deep in thought as well. I couldn't imagine what was going through his mind. He did check to verify that all the DVRs were recording. Repeatedly.

"It's three o'clock," Dr. Sanz noted. I began fine tuning the instruments again.

"MRS is picking up something," the needles started twitching.

"So is the draft detector," I adjusted it one more time.

"Decoy had lost power," Dr. Sanz switched the monitors to the house cameras. We could see the van from both above and from the side.

"Temperature inside the decoy has dropped to... Jesus," Dr Sanz said. "Almost forty degrees."

The van decoy began rocking. "What the hell is it doing?"

Suddenly my whole control board died. "All breakers to the decoy have been tripped. It'll know we're here now."

"It can't reach us," Dr. Sanz said confidently.

Suddenly the decoy van leaped ten feet into the air flipping over onto its side.

"Oh Christ, it's pissed off." Fear gripped my heart.

"My God, it's stronger than I thought," Dr. Sanz exclaimed.

The MRS monitor began going wild. What was a soft blue glow around the decoy grew three times its original size turning a bright red illuminating the hillside. The draft detector jumped off the scale. The decoy, now on its side, began spinning wildly as if a tornado were forming.

"Uh, maybe we should go," I started to get into the driver seat.

"No, it can't get to us," Dr. Sanz actually got out of the van to get a first hand look.

Abruptly the decoy van launched into the air and smashed into our van. Sparks and glass flew everywhere. I smacked my head against the driver side window managing to split my scalp.

"David, are you all right?"

"Yeah, I'm bleeding though," I got out of the van. I must have been delirious, or perhaps I just couldn't grasp the situation. I had never seen anything like it before or since. I still feel my heart quicken when I remember what happened next.

A sudden howling filled the night air. It was a frightfully human cry of anger, anguish and desperation. The tornado that threw the van doubled in size and strength and enveloped the house. Every window shattered, and the shards exploded away from the house striking the vehicles with astonishing force.

Luckily we were protected by the van, but our feet were not. We both fell to the ground our ankles bleeding. The howling in the air seemed to take on a voice. I could have sworn it said something like 'blood', but my views were turning quite biased at this point.

The howling we heard then was actually the wind. Somehow the tornado that enveloped the house either moved or expanded towards us. Leaves and dirt sprayed everywhere biting into our skin and eyes. Doctor Sanz shouted at me, but his voice was lost despite our close proximity. To be perfectly honest, I didn't care what he said. I only wanted to get away. Keeping low to the ground, I crawled towards the road.

When I looked back, a rather brave move on my part, I saw the doctor standing, taking full force of the wind against his body. He seemed to be in a trance.

Then I noticed the glow. A soft indigo light surrounded the wind torn house. It was as though the house had somehow come alive.

Dr. Sanz suddenly fell to the ground as if his feet had been pulled out from under him. Clawing the ground Dr. Sanz screamed, his face a picture of terror. My body reacted before my mind did, which is a good thing for Dr. Sanz because that part of my brain that directs fight or flight was switched to 'run-like-hell-as-if-Satan-himself-were-on-your-heals'. Instead, I ran back to Dr. Sanz and using every ounce of strength that normally would have been used for setting Olympic records I pulled him away. When Dr. Sanz was able to stand again we got as far from the house as we could.

From the woods across the road we watched the torrent that was an otherwise calm house. Our vans got caught in the wind, but the house was sucking them in. The light around the house began pulsing and lightening fired from it striking the ground and shooting into the sky.

We both took cover and waited the storm out. It raged for the better part of an hour before it started to calm down. Dr. Sanz and I waited until dawn before we moved from our spot.

"I guess we walk now," I said rubbing my legs. Our ankles had long since stopped bleeding. The cuts were only mild skin lacerations. Nothing our socks couldn't soak up.

"Steven and Sarah will know something is wrong when they can't reach us by phone," Dr. Sanz said stepping out into the road. "Let's see what happened to our vans." He certainly was a brave old guy. My heart clutched just at the thought of going back to the house.

"Don't you think we should wait?" My nervousness was apparent.

"I don't think it can come out at day. I fear that my theory of photosensitivity is correct. Just as the false dawn approached, the winds calmed down and I think the beast went back inside," Dr Sanz began walking back towards the house. "It sleeps by day."

"Doctor, there is no way we can really know for sure," I caught his sleeve. "We underestimated its strength and range before. This is something beyond our knowledge, our research, and our expertise. There is nobody alive that is capable of telling us what this thing is."

"That is why we must study it," Dr. Sanz looked at me seriously.

"Yes," I agreed. "But carefully. We can't just approach this thing unprotected."

"But we are protected," Dr. Sanz pointed at the sun. "Besides, I have no intention of going inside. I only want to look around."

"Alright," I relented. "But I'm going with you. If we don't find anything, we walk."

Dr. Sanz agreed with a nod and we approached the property without speaking. We made slow spiraling circles around the house until we reached the dead live oaks outside it. There was no evidence of last night's storm whatsoever. All the house's timbers were in place and every window was intact. No broken glass anywhere. My itching ankles couldn't believe it.

As a matter of fact, there was no evidence anyone had been there in the last forty years. All our equipment had vanished including the two vans. Dr. Sanz and I stood in stunned silence.

"Do you think it did this to all the outlying buildings and fences, too?" I asked him, my voice seeming loud on that hushed countryside.

Dr. Sanz only nodded. I could see it in his eyes that he wanted to go inside. Despite our near death experience he was excited and eager to study the whole thing. His eyes were seeing all sorts of experiments that would occur, new equipment, and a huge staff. I hated to disappoint him.

"We have no evidence this happened at all Doctor," I said. "How can we possibly get funding for more research?"

"I have connections," he answered simply. "And excellent credit."

In the distance I could see a dust plume indicating a vehicle traveling at high speed. Presuming it to be Steven and Sarah I began walking to the road. Dr. Sanz fell in step behind me.

We returned to town. Dr. Sanz made dozens of phone calls. Sarah was in a better mood, but looked no different. Steven was shocked and speechless by our report. Dr. Sanz finally did make that call to Dr. Swenson. After briefly telling him about our experience, Swenson said he could be out there in 24 hours.

I later decided it was time to go home. Dr. Sanz was disappointed but didn’t try to make me stay. Steven made as if he were going to leave too, but changed his mind. He said he really wanted to know what that thing was. Sarah tried to convince me to stay. It was to her I said my final good-bye’s as I stepped onto the bus. She promised to keep me updated. I occasionally get a letter from her with a report on their research.

What made me decide to stop? I’m not sure. I had joined the team in the first place because I wanted to know one thing. Is the paranormal real? Well, I guess my curiosity had been satisfied and that was why I left.