Silver Soul

Thanks to Doodlenood for his character Oliver Sterling.

I didn’t know what I was in for. I really didn’t.

I had come up with a novel method of visualizing especially small electromagnetic perturbations. A headset that lets you see when and where the EM field is different from the background. If you need it to, it can even use sound to let you keep track of a second band of frequencies. The Broad-Frequency Augmented Reality Meter. BF-ARM.

I had every intent to sell it as an industrial tool, there are a dozen industries in which something like that would be really useful. I just couldn’t get anyone to give it a chance.

All I had was a website, some cold calls, some demonstration videos. But they didn’t do me much good. I was willing to take any opportunity to get the thing over. And that opportunity landed, even if it wasn’t one I was expecting. Some bullshit ghost hunting show was after a new gadget to make spurious claims about.

Now, we all knew it wasn’t going to give them any actual evidence of ghosts. But they were willing to give me time to explain the BF-ARM in every episode. And present it as an established product that was already in common use. One that they were simply repurposing. That sounds like a win to me. Even if there wasn’t much chance that the people who’d buy it were the same ones watching that garbage. A foot in the door’s a foot in the door. And hey, it was fun to try and twist every little burst of noise or interference from the recording equipment or film crew as potential evidence of ghosts, without really saying it.

That changed when we were about to start filming at the Sterling House.

It was once a vacation home in the Green Mountains of Vermont, belonging to Conrad Haephestus Sterling. A canine who made his fortune in the field of specialized medical devices and treatments for anthromorph patients at the turn of the century. Though he never rose to the status of his human contemporaries, he was definitely one of, if not the wealthiest anthros of the time.

But for all that money, and for his remarkable brilliance in medical matters, he couldn’t save his eldest son, Oliver.

Oliver had passed in that very house, after wasting away to what we now refer to as Sterling Congenital Deficiency. A genetic condition which afflicts the muscle tissue of certain canines. It lies dormant for most of the patient’s life until around the age of 20. Then the body begins losing the ability to produce a crucial enzyme for muscle function. If it goes untreated, the sufferer’s whole body atrophies. They grow weaker and weaker, and eventually, even the heart simply loses the strength to pump enough blood.

In Oliver’s case, he went from being a perfectly healthy young man, poised to follow in his father’s footsteps, to a sickly, bedridden mess in just four months, to being dead in five. To this day, he holds the record for the fastest the condition has ever progressed. It typically takes two to three years.

Some allege that this was the product of desperate, unfounded treatments devised by Conrad. But it’s generally accepted that poor Oliver was simply unlucky.

Whatever the case, Conrad was so deeply aggrieved that he simply refused to accept that he had lost his son. He would speak about Oliver as if he were going to return someday, and even included provisions in his will to ensure Oliver would be provided for when he did, as well as pulling some strings to keep Oliver from being declared legally dead.
For the rest of his life, Conrad Sterling would devote all the time and money he could to developing a treatment for SCD.

Those efforts continued after Conrad himself had passed in 1968, and by 1975, his company, Sterling Medical had developed a drug that cured the disease entirely. Too little, too late.

In that time, the Sterling House was closed off. According to legend, Conrad would return, cloister himself away and speak to no one for hours upon hours, as if Oliver were still there.

Since Conrad’s passing, the house had been put into the hands of Sterling Medical’s charitable foundation, it’s been operated intermittently as a health retreat for the wealthy, then a museum honoring the accomplishments of anthro scientists, before finally becoming a tourist attraction, restored to its original state, which is where the film crew and I come in. Conrad’s occasional trips in memory of his son had long inspired rumors that Oliver’s ghost still haunted the house.

There were eight or so production staff, who rotated in and out so frequently, I never bothered getting to know them, they were hanging back, running the operation from outside the house. The foundation didn’t want all that equipment being lugged around and adjusted, potentially scratching the floors and bumping decorations.

As far as the audience would be concerned, the team consisted of five of us. Two were camera operators, First, a fat-ass human named Tom, who’d take any excuse to be moved to a different project, even if it was filming paint drying. He didn’t care much for the premise, and was never quite comfortable with the sheer dishonesty of the program.

Tom’s counterpart was a wiry gray tabby cat, Adam. He also didn’t want to be there, for a totally different reason. He was superstitious and extremely savvy to horror movie tropes. He was always quick to remind us he’d be the first one out of the door if we ever found real ghosts.

In front of those cameras were the hosts. Twin brothers, Dalton and Darren. Foxes, of course. But they certainly didn’t fit the stereotype. These weren’t androgynous men at all. The both of them were exceptionally fit, having gotten their start in modelling and advertising, their ultimate intent being to pivot to selling supplements and ‘self help’ literature, and who knows what else within that sphere. They viewed the ghost hunting thing as a way to build an audience.

There was just one problem. They were unfortunate enough to have been born with patterns on their heads that very strongly resembled a balding human. Sometimes they’d color the white fur to match the orange, but most of the time, they’d just cover it up. Even going so far as to have custom baseball caps with cutouts for their ears in what should have been the front, just so they could wear them backwards. Only backwards.

And then, there was myself. Ryan McInnes. Human. 26. Master’s degree in Electronics Engineering. Nagged by regret that marketing skills took no place in that process. Reduced to playing the ‘Egon’ in this group of opportunistic misfits.

As usual, as soon as we were on the grounds of the Sterling House, Adam couldn’t help but reiterate “Man, if this one’s real. I’m fuckin’ outta here, man. I’m not here to get skewered poking around at some funny noise. I don’t get paid enough. You fuckers can deal with that.”

I tried to get him to give it a rest for once. “Come on. Even if there was a ghost here. We’d have no reason to believe it’d hurt us. People have been coming and going from this place for decades, and it’s not like it’s some abandoned shack, either. It’s still being managed by the same people as ever. If something was in the mood to be killing people, aside from this whole charade being redundant, we’d never be allowed to film here.”

If there was one thing Tom did enjoy about working with the crew, it was needling Adam, in this case, at my expense. “What if we’re the first ones to piss it off, smartass? What if he don’t like your fancy-pants headset?”

For a moment, I was worried that point would be enough to leave us with just one camera for this episode, but Adam had never actually made good on his promise to bail before, for a while, that appeared to hold true. It wouldn’t last, and he’d be the one who spooked the rest of the crew away, leaving me at the house on my own, but that comes later.

The twins knew better than to throw in with the squabbles the rest of us could have. To their credit, Dalton and Darren were all business. They only played insufferable assholes on TV,

The Sterling House wasn’t some grand manor, but by no means was it small, either. It was situated on a sizable plot of otherwise untouched natural land, nestled among low hills and ancient, weathered mountains. Despite having only two accessible levels, the wide gables and high peaked roof pushed the boundaries of what construction methods were capable of at the time.

Darren took the crew aside in the main hall to explain the floor plan to us, and what our itinerary would look like for this shoot. “Alright. Two floors. Four big ones down here on the bottom, Main hall, You are here. Establishing shots, lead-in, first chills.”

There was a narrow staircase off to one side, in addition to the large main staircase that led up to the second floor. Darren didn’t pay it any mind, and I had to know why. “What about Conrad’s walled-off old lab? Shouldn’t we play that up for Frankenstein points?”

“Nope.” Darren regretfully informs us. “Foundation doesn’t want us to draw attention to it. Thanks for reminding me, actually. We gotta keep that staircase outta frame. They got a bug up their asses about anything that makes ol’ Conrad look bad. Apparently it’s fulla mercury and shit down there, and they don’t want anyone trying to get in.”

That was news to Dalton, somehow. “Ah, fuck. First we can’t even entertain the theory that the old man put the kid outta his misery, then we can’t even dick around with the real hook? Why are we even here?”

“It’s an old creepy house in the middle of nowhere and a tragic story.” Darren wasn’t having the negativity. For being twins, they were almost never on the same wavelength. “It was either this, or another dirty old bar someone’s trying to turn into a tourist trap. We still have plenty to work with.”

That issue addressed, Darren continued with the gameplan. “On the left here, big dining room, huge kitchen behind it. Stills, B-roll. We’re not spending much time on either.

“Other side. We got a cozy little den. Fireplace, stocked bookshelves, fancy furniture. There’s a small personal library attached to the back of it, and an oversized patio that used to pull double duty, Mr. Sterling had a bunch of medicinal plants growing out there, and it’s also where he’d plop the boy to get his ‘prescribed’ sunlight and fresh air.”

“Let me guess.” Tom preempted the assignment. “I’ll be the one babysitting the IR and thermal cameras out there in the cold, while you assholes LARP in here, in the nice, bright, warm house. Sure. Fine by me.”

He wasn’t kidding. Tom detested the theatrics and technobabble that much. Getting to sit around, freezing his ass off looking for flickers, dust particles and camera noise was worth it in his mind to not have to listen to the rest of us pretending to be on edge.

Dalton didn’t let him rethink the decision. “Hey, you volunteered. No taking it back. Don’t bitch about it later.”

Satisfied with the delegation of duties, Darren continued the gameplan once again, but with an utterly exhausted look that made it clear he wasn’t in the mood for any further interruptions. “Upstairs, left to right again. Master Bedroom, they added a bathroom to it, all the way back in the health retreat days. Before that, this place was a lot more rustic. Almost all the electrical fixtures were later retrofits, too. Oh, and there’s a guest room directly across from it”

“In the middle, there’s a viewing room, with a huge window that looks out through the forest. Conrad did most of his personal writing there. I guess it was to help him keep track of time more than anything else. I get the feeling he knew he’d coop himself up downstairs if he didn’t do it that way.”

“Then, there’s the important one. The room Oliver actually died in. They haven’t let anyone other than the staff in there in decades. We’re getting special treatment, so don’t fuck it up.”

We all understood our assignments and went our separate ways.
Tom had the easiest part in the shoot. Most locations we filmed, he’d be lugging the IR and thermal equipment around, but since we’d have plenty of light for once, he didn’t have much to do but get everything calibrated and wait for the sun to start setting, which wouldn’t be too long.

Adam, on the other hand, was under time pressure. We needed daylight shots of the viewing room, Then after that, the guest room, dining room and kitchen. All that effort for filler. Then again, in this case, none of it was going to see the light of day anyway. ‘Prime Material’ or otherwise.

Darren remained in the entrance hall, rehearsing the introduction he’d be giving, pacing back and forth at different speeds, making tweaks to his delivery so small I couldn’t tell the difference.

Dalton wandered around the house with a microphone trying to find interesting and spooky sounds in the floorboards, doors and walls to foley together, before retiring to a quiet corner to mumble and wheeze out sounds into a cheap voice recorder to be passed off as ‘EVPs,’ Electronic Voice Phenomena. Total nonsense, but you couldn’t have a show like ours without them.

As for me, I had to find some especially interesting keys to jangle with the BF-ARM. I knew there’d be something to see with it. This was an old building, with functional wiring that was only slightly newer. There were extremely EM sources everywhere. In fact, I expected the challenge to be finding settings that didn’t make the trick embarrassingly obvious.

For a while, that’s exactly what I was faced with. Bright, flashing streaks up and down the walls, filtering out everything at multiples of 60 Hertz took care of that.

Then, it was just a matter of hoping the cacophony of commercial and amateur radio signals and background noise were being twisted by interference and various metallic objects into shapes that Darren and Dalton could pretend were humanoid figures.

To that end, I began exploring the house, starting with the den. A room characterized by accents of dark wood and subtly striped mauve wallpaper, which had no doubt been darkened some time ago by the emissions of the large fireplace recessed into the far wall, That fireplace was surrounded by a sparse half circle of chairs with velvet upholstery.
It was a very nice arrangement, if not a little fixated on the Sterlings’ themselves. The walls were almost exclusively adorned with painted portraits and primitive photographs of Conrad and his wife, and strangely, nothing of their second, third or fourth sons. And nothing of Oliver, save a single portrait above the fireplace.

I knew it had to have been one of the last contemporary images of Oliver, as he appeared to be withered, exhausted and altogether miserable in it. I had even considered that it might have been painted posthumously, his body propped up as a reference for the artist. But that didn’t seem to be in keeping with the profound level of denial that made the Sterlings’ story so compelling. Would Conrad have kept a permanent reminder of his son’s mortality on display here? If that were the case, why would he go to all that effort to prevent Oliver from being declared dead?

Whatever the case, that painting weighed on me. Made Oliver more real to me than he had been up to that point.

In that moment, he wasn’t just a tragic story anymore. He was a promising young man who had his life ripped away from him.

Gray fur, almost white. Ears that gently flopped forward, curling over themselves. Hair that was maybe only a shade or two darker than his body, brushed back into a peak that divided his head evenly, left longer in the back, tied up and tucked away discreetly behind him.
His snout met his face at a nearly 90 degree angle, eyes sunken with prominent dark circles below them. They were almost glazed over, staring at nothing in particular. Capped off with a subtle, tragic frown, It read as a serious effort to remain stoic, one that was nevertheless foiled by the magnitude of his quiet suffering.

I had also noticed, curiously, he was wearing a fairly heavy wool coat, with a ruffled white silk shirt just peeking out of it. That coat was noticeably too large on him. And even if it weren’t, it seemed like an unusual thing to be wearing while having his portrait painted. He wouldn’t have been outside.
It occurred to me that both of those observations could imply that Oliver had contracted some sort of illness on top of the final stages of SCD. He might have been experiencing an intense fever, and have lost a significant amount of weight in a short time, which would serve to explain his rapid deterioration without invoking foul play or rumors of a mercy killing.

I couldn’t help but feel like it was appropriate to speak to the portrait as Oliver’s father had allegedly made a habit of doing. “I’m sorry we’re making a spectacle of your pain, Oliver. I know you’re not here to see it, but you weren’t just some urban legend. You were here. The least I can do is make sure we’re telling people the truth.”

I knew that was foolish, but getting to feel a connection to a place and the people who inhabited it was something I hadn’t experienced the whole time I was working with the crew.

But, to be honest, it wasn’t totally selfless. There was a chance that I could’ve gotten on the Sterling Foundation’s good side by being the one to flip the narrative. And if I was on the Foundation’s good side, I’d be on the good side of Sterling Medical proper, too. And that would have meant I’d finally get the time of day to actually sell the BF-ARM to someone.

I moved on to inspect the patio. If nothing else, Tom’s equipment would give us interesting returns, and they’d be in one of the ‘Hero’ locations, which would be another plus.

Tom hadn’t quite finished setting up, and he wasn’t in any hurry, either, distracted by something or other on his phone. But not so distracted he’d miss the opportunity to give me a hard time.

“You find a real ghost with that thing yet, Einstein? It’d be nice if I could coast on the fifteen minutes of fame I’d get by association.”

“Nope, just some grandfathered in construction practices.” I replied.

At the same time, I glanced out over the lawn, towards the production van parked out front. “But it looks like there’s something promising over there!”

There was a mostly stationary and unusually clear oblong blob positioned almost exactly halfway between us and the van. “Nah, I’m just kidding. It’s probably just a hotspot from the van…”

“Or some radiation leaking from Conrad’s lab.” I joked.

“Radiation?” Tom didn’t catch on. He yanked the headset off of me and took a look at it himself. “Man, there’s nothin’ there. You’re just fuckin’ with me. Get the Hell outta here.”

I took the headset back, and sure enough, that blob was gone. Since it seemed to bother him, I had to set the record straight. “Well, there was really something there, but the radiation leak was a joke too. Ionizing particles are just about the only things I can’t see.”

As I went back inside, Tom muttered “I’m gonna end up with cancer for a damn TV show one of these days. Fuck.”

If I hadn’t planted that idea in his head, he might have stuck around with me after the others bailed. I might have regretted it if he hadn’t joined them.

A quick cursory search of the dining room and kitchen turned up nothing, as expected, but I did mention what I had seen on the patio to Adam, who was still dutifully panning over decorations on the walls at various angles and speeds.

“I think we’ve finally got a winner with this one.”

Adam’s ears perked up and he stopped what he was doing. “What? Like a real ghost? I-I ain’t falling for that.”

He was especially jumpy on this shoot, maybe he did feel something different. I tried to calm him down. “No, just a hotspot out on the lawn, but it was pretty clear. That’s going to be good footage, if it comes back.”

“It disappeared after you looked at it? Shit. That’s exactly what a ghost’d do.” My effort was in vain, he was more agitated than before. “Why’d you have to let it know you could see it? If you piss it off again, it’s gonna start throwin’ furniture at us or something, Or it’s gonna fly into that thing you’re wearing and take over your brain-”

He was spiraling over nothing, I had to put a stop to it. “Jesus Christ. Odds are it was just from the crew in the van messing around! They were right there. Just relax. Once I’m done with the walkthrough, I’ll see if I can get them to reproduce it. I’ll even let you see it for yourself, if you want.”

It placated him for the moment, but he stayed on edge. “God, that’s how it always goes. You say, ‘Ah it’s nothin’.’ Then bad shit starts happening and we all end up gray husks with our souls sucked out our buttholes or some shit... God, and this guy’d do that, too. I heard- I heard he was a fruit, and that’s why his dad killed ‘im. Can you believe that shit?”

I wasn’t going to get anywhere with Adam just by talking. He’d already convinced himself. I was just going to have to do what I said I was going to do and prove to him that it was all totally mundane.

I returned to the main hall and let Darren and Dalton know about the potential new wrinkle in the schedule, much to their frustration. “Adam’s spooked. Worse than usual. I’ll probably be able to get him to snap out of it, but I hope you have a backup plan ready.”

Darren blames me immediately. “Goddammit, you were fucking with him and went too far, didn’t you? We can’t afford this bullshit, Ryan. What’s wrong with you?”

I defended myself. “I just told him I actually got some promising readings. I even said they were probably from something in the van outside. I didn’t think he’d jump to us all getting killed in here like it’s some horror movie. Nothing I said had anything to do with an actual ghost. His head’s full of rumors about this place, and I bet that’s what’s bugging him out. I’ll handle it after I see what we’ve got to work with upstairs.”

Dalton wasn’t any more understanding. “You better. If Adam bails, we’ll need Tom to do everything, and that means he won’t be able to get our thermal and IR shots. We’ll have to find something else to fill that run time on the spot. And he’ll be pissed off, too.”

I wasn’t concerned with Tom’s potential frustration. He was always harmless.

I couldn’t help but flip a sarcastic remark back at them as I ascended the stairs. “It wouldn’t be the end of the world to miss out on those shots… But getting on Tom’s bad side? Now that’d be a nightmare. I’d be wishing there really was a ghost here. Much easier to deal with”

I started my scan of the upper level with the Master bedroom. Inside were furnishings much newer than much of the rest of the house. The original bedframe and dressers, and just about everything else in the room except the wallpaper and door were replaced.

My first instinct was to feel disappointed that we were going to miss out on yet another authentic part of the house. But I didn’t let that stop me from poring over everything with the ARM, on the off chance there’d be an even better amorphous shape for the joint masters of ceremony to go wild over.

Unfortunately, I found no such thing. For a moment, it appeared like I had. A slowly pulsing signal in a distinct band of frequencies was coming from inside of the far wall, almost like the beating of a heart.
After some poking around at the molding along the floor, a panel fell open where the signal originated. That panel was so flush with the wall, and so perfectly aligned with the rest of the wallpaper that I wouldn’t have been able to tell it was there if it weren’t for the hint I had inadvertently received.

In a sense, it was no wonder that the signal pulsed like a heart. It was coming from an oblong brass capsule with a gold pad on one side. I suspected it was a prototype for a long term test of a sort of primitive pacemaker. Or maybe a battery for an entirely artificial heart?

That it had been secreted away like that, and that it had functioned so long without outside intervention both suggested to me that whatever it was, it was likely powered by some radioactive source. Which, if it held true, meant that Conrad was either a serious pioneer in the field of radioactive materials, or that he had developed this device much later in his life, long after he had stepped back from an active role in his company.

In any case, as interesting as it was, I wasn’t going to risk putting both our cameramen even more on edge. I was just going to seal it back up and quietly let the Foundation know it was there once we finished filming.

The guest room, also long since converted, and thus nearly identical to the master bedroom, had nothing of particular interest, even though I did check for corresponding secret passages and hollows.
I was thankful I could move on to Oliver’s room without having to make any mental notes, or hide any more dubious mechanisms from the rest of the crew.

We would be the first people to set foot in that room, aside from members of the Sterling family and employees dedicated to the upkeep of the house, in almost 60 years. Or more accurately, I was. It was a privilege we weren’t expecting the Foundation to offer us. Even when they first opened the property to the public, Oliver’s space stayed Oliver’s space.

It wasn’t hard to figure that they were actually counting on our show to finally put the onerous rumors circulating around the house, and Oliver’s life and death, to rest. We all implicitly knew that they’d more than subtly nudge the final result in that direction, and I was more inclined to agree with that sentiment than ever.

The door had been left unlocked. Somehow, I hadn’t believed that it would be.

As morbid as this detour in my career had been up to that point, it still didn’t feel right to intrude upon a sort of sacred space. To parade it around for cheap attention from superstitious people. There was generational grief bottled up in that room. Not just urban legends.

I didn’t really have a choice. I convinced myself I was being uncharacteristically sentimental, and I pushed the door open to reveal something I hadn’t been expecting at all.

The room was surprisingly small. A bed, writing desk, and narrow bookshelf were all crammed into a space that may well have been smaller than the closet attached to the master bedroom.
Everything framed a sizable window on the far wall, and it was clear that this room wasn’t built for luxury and comfort like the rest of the house.

On the desk was a small leatherbound journal with a clasp, sitting there, open to its middle pages and left askew as if it had just been written in. Even it may have gone undisturbed for all this time.

I didn’t dare touch it, but I did read what was already visible.

An entry from April 9th, 1904, presumably written by Oliver himself.

“9th April, Nineteen-Hundred and Four. — The first sign of the wasting sickness that often afflicts our kind has befallen me. The tremors have begun in short fits. I had dared to hope I would be spared, as I had passed my eighteenth and nineteenth years without event. Father assures me that it shall not take me. He would be certain of that. Though, to this point, no physician has devised any measure of cure. O. S.”

While it didn’t tell me anything I didn’t already know, it did give me a sense for how Oliver lived.

The opposite page had another entry to complement the first, this time in much less refined handwriting.

“8th June, Nineteen-Hundred And Four. — I have been occupied with all manner of strange treatments over the last month, each of little consequence. I grow weaker by the day. I fear Father’s confidence was misplaced and my time may be coming to an end despite his efforts. Perhaps God has ordained this as the Due Penalty for some great flaw in my nature. O. S.”

The mention of ‘some great flaw’ made me wonder if there was some insight into what he was referring to buried in the earlier pages. Fortunately, I was able to resist the curiosity. I knew there was a chance I’d damage the journal if I touched it, and an even greater chance that I’d find something that I’d have been better off not knowing.

It was at that moment that an extremely rough audio signal came through the headset. vr-vrrw-vrm-vvv-mvv

At first, I was startled, then just confused. It followed the pattern of someone speaking, but I had already filtered out AM/FM radio signals and the amateur bands. For a second, I reasoned that it must have been some unlicensed idiot playing with a handheld unit somewhere nearby.
Then it happened again. vvr-vrrw-vvrrdvm-vvy-vvmmv This time, it rose at the end, like a question. It was at this point that the pervasive feeling of closeness became one of dread instead. I was ready to believe there was something lurking behind me, and I didn’t want to be proven right.

For one final time, another signal buzzed in my ear. vm-vw-vr-vvyvm-vw I was just barely able to make out the word ‘frighten,’ which made me fairly confident that this was someone taking the opportunity to get under my skin. I was wrong, of course. But it was enough to get me to turn around.

Behind me was that same strangely clear oblong shape from outside, except much closer this time, and without a reasonable explanation to brush it off.
There was something here.
Oliver - was still here.
Somehow.

At this distance, I could see two dark rhombuses inside the glowing shape, and within each of them was unmistakably an eye. Cold blue eyes, wide, staring right back at me, even though my face was obscured.

After a few moments in shock, trying to make sense of what I had seen, the sound of lightbulbs blowing cascaded from Oliver’s room, spreading throughout the house. Then the power failed entirely, and even the BF-ARM shut down. Between the low light and the partially reflective layer, I was left essentially blind. I had no choice but to take it off and try to regroup with the others downstairs.

There was just enough light coming in from outside through the window for me to make it back to the hallway without stumbling over anything, but from there, I was in the dark.

I had to trace my way back to the stairs by following the wall, all the while wishing I had brought a normal flashlight with me instead of presuming the one I had built into the headset would be sufficient.

Thankfully, I didn’t have to try to make it down the stairs under those conditions, The rest of the crew had already gathered at the bottom.

Darren guided me down, though not without some harsh words. He seemed to believe I had been responsible. “What the fuck, Ryan? I hear ‘POP, POP, POP, POP,’ coming from up there, then the power goes out and all our shit dies? What the Hell were you doing?”

I didn’t know how I was supposed to explain what I had seen, so I just pretended it didn’t happen. “I-I was just checking out Oliver’s room and all the lights blew up. I probably would’ve had an idea of how it happened, if I didn’t have to filter out all the useful information I actually built the ARM to pick up.”

“So, you’re sure you had nothing to do with it? 100% sure?” Dalton asked, unwilling to see it as a coincidence.
“I’m sure.” I insisted. “I was just in that room looking around when the lights started going. I found an old journal we could get some value out of, and a return that’ll work out great in the final cut, if I can salvage it.”

“Uh, I don’t think there’s much to salvage.” Tom regretfully informed us. “The original gameplan’s shot. The infrared and thermal cameras are just dead. And I don’t know about Adam’s, but my main camera’s out too.”

“Oh, God.” Adam groaned. “I’m not falling for it. Fuck this.”

None of us had any clue what he was afraid of ‘falling for,’ so he had no choice but to elaborate.

“Look. My camera’s working, and yeah, we could probably get by with just one camera. But that’s not fucking happening. I’m not some idiot.”

“The lights all blow up in a row.” He points in the general direction of each. “I watched it happen. And they started with where this guy just happened to be?”

“The guy who’s just here to bullshit about some doodad he’s trying to sell, never gave a shit about the show. Suddenly, he’s stumbling out here to tell us ‘We can salvage this, you all just need to stay in the creepy, dark house with me. There’s something good here.’ I bet he saw something up there. And he’s brainwashed, or possessed or some shit. I’d rather cut our losses than see all the signs that we’re in a fucking horror movie and still charge headfirst into that woodchipper willingly.”

Darren wasn’t happy with the superstitious outburst. Adam had had moments like that before, but never so bad. “Come on. None of that garbage is real. And we can turn this disaster into a good thing. Present it right, and it’s got the audience even more engaged. And we don’t have to worry about them catching on, because hey, it’s actually true that we’re running on improv.”

As good as his point was, it didn’t make Adam budge. “Nope. I’d rather be called a paranoid little bitch than end up splattered on the walls. I’m out of here. I don’t even give a fuck if that means I’m done for good. I gotta trust my gut here, man. I’m sorry.”

“Well then. I guess this has all been a waste of time.” Darren responded, in that restrained, half-through-his-teeth tone that said ‘I’d start raising Hell if I could, but I know it won’t help anything.’

I was still mostly concerned with my own interests, my misgivings hadn’t quite won out yet. I knew what I had seen in Oliver’s room would be the biggest chance we would ever get.

“Maybe not. We could take a found footage angle, right? It’d be a shame to let what I found go to waste.”

Dalton was willing to hear me out, but his patience was short. “Ugh. Fine. What, exactly did you get? More streaks, flashing lights? If it’s anything less than a silhouette walking around, we can’t lean on it, shapes and static can’t fill half an hour, no matter how much you like them.”

I wasn’t going to overstate it. That feeling of certainty I had. It faded quickly once I had to explain myself. “Well… It wasn’t that clear. But I’m pretty sure you could make a case that there was a pair of eyes in there. Weird ones, in the middle of dark spots. A-And- And even if it’s not there anymore, there’s still some kind of old machine hidden in the wall of the master bedroom. It looks good on the meter too.”

The mere mention of that device was enough to make Tom cash out. “I bet that’s real safe to be around. Count me out. Maybe Adam’s right. Something here’s made you different? I don’t like it, whatever it is.”

And with that, any hope there was for putting anything to tape was gone. And worse, I was dangerously close to burning my bridges, if I hadn’t already.

Dalton offered me a deal he probably had no expectation of honoring. “We’re cutting our losses, Ryan. But I’ll tell you what, the property manager doesn’t know that, and to be frank, I don’t want to be the one to call him up in the middle of the night to tell him the house is fucked up. If you stick it out the rest of the night, and let him know in the morning, I’ll make sure whatever you give us makes it into the final cut somehow, and we’ll keep you on the project for the rest of the season.”

The rest of the crew shuffled out of the house in defeat, and before long, they and the production team were gone, and I was on my own, at the peak of my curiosity, and no less conflicted between getting the BF-ARM the attention it deserved, and respecting the Sterling House and its former inhabitants,

I was lucky the damage to the ARM proved mostly trivial. Whatever caused the problem only blew out the battery pack, of which I had multiple spares on hand.

With nothing more important to do, and no one to judge me for it, I decided my best course of action was to make one final, decisive test of Oliver’s presence, fully believing I’d prove myself wrong and I’d be consigned to wait in the dark for another eight hours.

I sat down in the same chair Conrad had, years before. I looked up at the miserable, sickly portrait of Oliver, and for the sake of an outside chance of an outside chance that I’d be heard, I apologized to him, for anything and everything I could think of.

“If you’re here, Oliver, I’m sorry. I’m sorry so many people intrude on your space. I’m sorry I was the worst of them. I’m sorry your story gets twisted more and more every year. I’m sorry people like us are so desperate to benefit from your pain. I’m sorry they couldn’t save you.”
“And if you really are here right now, however it works, I’m sorry you can’t rest.”

For a moment, nothing happened, just long enough for me to feel foolish for having tried in the first place.

I was startled back into the seat, just as I was rising from it. A clear, refined voice, with just the slightest hint of flamboyancy came through the headset. “My God. It’s been some time since I’ve been subject to lamentations on my behalf. I would have wagered they were done with when Father passed.”

At first, I thought one of the crew had stayed behind. Were they staging this as a last ditch effort? No, it couldn’t have been. I had never heard that voice before.

“Oh, I apologize! I seem to have frightened you again. I suppose that is the wont of an earthbound soul. I assure you, I mean no harm, I seriously doubt I could cause much, even if I had the inclination.”

That was enough confirmation for me, and I was flooded with adrenaline. Strangely enough, not in fear, but in revelation. I knew that this had huge implications for the wider world. Ones I didn’t feel prepared to take responsibility for. More than anything, I just wanted to know more.

“Was that you upstairs?” I asked. “I couldn’t have guessed you’d be watching over my shoulder while I read your journal. I shouldn’t have invaded your privacy like that, even though it’s been so long.”

“It was.” Oliver responded. “However, I am not terribly eager to show myself to you again. Foremost, it seems as though our eyes meeting through that queer helmet of yours had some adverse effects. Though I suppose it’s possible the blame lies with me. Perhaps it was my straining to be heard and seen by you that upset the lights.”

It seemed like that wasn’t his only point of apprehension. I kept the conversation going. “There’s no harm in trying. I don’t think you could make things any worse, and even if you do blow the battery again, I have another spare, we’ll still be able to talk.”

He was counting on having that excuse. Without it, he started sounding flustered. “Ah. Well. Perhaps this was meant to happen. A… A test for me. To. Tooo- To finally be purged of the sin that may well be keeping me in this personal Purgatory. If such is the case, as I’ve suspected.”

“What sin?” I couldn’t believe it. A sickly young man like him couldn’t have had much opportunity to do something to weigh so heavily on his conscience, over a century later.

“The form my soul has taken mocks me. In life, for most of my teen-age years, I was dominated by unclean thoughts. I longed to be desired by other men. Like some catamite in old Greece. I could not put it out of my mind. I am forced to confront it, what seems like every day.”

He elaborated on the details, with a sad desperation, maybe even frustration in his voice. “Made up like some whore plying the street. My body filled with girlish volume in tender places. With no modesty, where it’s of consequence. The tragedy of it is that even to this day, in the depths of my heart, it still pleases me. I have not learned yet to put it aside. I fear I may not join Father and the others until I can rid myself of that feeling. And I fear that showing it to you, who would not care to see it, would nonetheless stir some measure of pride in me. In that way, I may have already failed.”

He was being tortured by guilt over being gay. Held over from a world that couldn’t accommodate it.
I had the chance to put him at ease. Maybe I wouldn’t be able to do it in one night, but I had to try. “That can’t be it, Oliver. I know people in your time would have hated you for it. Probably done awful things to you. But now. Now, most of us don’t even blink at it. You have nothing to feel guilty about. And to tell you the truth, I know how you feel. I like to be close to men like you.
I wouldn’t just tolerate you, I’d love to see what you look like. Maybe what’s keeping you here are unrequited feelings, the grief of a life unlived?”

“Dear God, it is a test!” Oliver cried, “What you say speaks to me. I must finally be at the end. I must resist it. Lest I set myself back, or worse, condemn myself to Hell, once and for all.”

I had one shot to convince him to change his mind. One shot to free him from his struggle. I had to choose my words carefully. “You’ve hated yourself for almost 120 years, Oliver. If that doesn’t get you into Heaven, if the urge doesn’t subside after all that time, if you can’t convince yourself that it’s really wrong, maybe it never was.”

“Pshh, Fine.” He huffed. “If you’re so assured of your righteousness. Why don’t you do me a favor and tell me what I’ve missed? And why don’t you let me judge your character for myself?”

I had no problem with either proposition, I should have known he’d have antiquated sensibilities, It was a mistake to lead by challenging those directly. I had to win back some ground. Just talking to him on his own terms would make him a lot more comfortable.

“Sure, what would you like to know?”

“Your name, for one. I always put quite a stake in names.”

“Ryan, Ryan McInnes.”

“You’ll have to forgive me, I never could keep the distinctions between Scots and Irish in order. And- Ah-ha- Were your family founders, or are you fresh arrivals?”
“Uh, I think it’s Irish, It never mattered much. And if I recall correctly, my great-great grandfather came over just before your time. Hypothetically, you could have met him? I think?”

We went back and forth with small talk of that nature for a while. He’d ask me a question about myself, one he thought had some relevance, I wouldn’t be able to give a totally satisfying answer, and we’d move on to something else.

Eventually, having exhausted all his questions about my familial history to little effect, he moved on to personal ones that I was much better equipped to answer.

“You built that contraption yourself, correct? How does it work?”

“I wouldn’t say I did it all myself. Not in the way inventors did things back in your day. We’re a lot more specialized now. I have a Master’s degree in engineering, specifically the engineering of what we call “electronics.” Devices that use relatively small quantities of electricity to perform tasks, usually with specially etched wafers of silica and components with unique alloys and chemical substances. You simply buy those things off the shelf in most cases.

“The device I’m wearing has many small sensors, and something akin to cameras as you may have been familiar with them, but with no need for film, or a long exposure time. All of these together, make it possible for me to see and hear you,”

“Father was much the same way, Though, he did much of his work himself, novel chemistry and mechanical pursuits.”

That was how I’d gain his trust. I knew Oliver had a lot of respect for his father and the work he did. If I could prove my character to him, show him I was cut from a similar cloth, he’d relax, and maybe, start to take my words to heart.

“You’ll be glad to know, Conrad dedicated himself to putting an end to the illness that took your life, Oliver. He didn’t manage to solve it himself, but his company did, just a few years after he passed.”

“What?” Oliver’s tone suggested a feeling of shock and betrayal on his part. “I begged him to give his time to anything else. Not to deprive the world of more useful things. Not in my memory. There were too many people suffering and dying of much worse. Much worse.”

He believed SCD was too rare to be his father’s priority. “There were only five others. Five others before me. I was the sixth to be diagnosed. They hadn’t even agreed upon what to call it. And it was no new discovery at the time. Father made a promise. If I allowed him to continue that pursuit for the rest of my life, such as it was, he’d move on to less frivolous matters the very next day. He lied to me…”

“That’s why you were never declared dead.” The answer to Oliver’s greatest mystery hit me like a revelation. “He let his reputation suffer, let all kinds of rumors crop up, just so he didn’t break that promise to you.”

He took offense to my sudden conclusion. “No. No. Father wasn’t one for playing games like that. He detested them in business. He wouldn’t even think to do such a thing in a personal agreement. Particularly where I was the only other party involved. If what you say is true, it must have been a clerical error. Nothing else.”

Oliver’s loneliness overpowered any desire he might have had to put an end to the technological seance. Or rather, deep down, he knew it was wishful thinking.

“If that’s settled, I’d like to move on to other matters. Promptly.”

I had no reason to push it. I was on thin ice as it was. I’d have to bring his guard down some other way.

“Other matters? Such as?”

“I’d still like to get a sense for your background, Mr. McInnes. You’ve been very reluctant to say much.” For some reason, Oliver assumed I was being evasive,

The truth was, I didn’t have much information to offer. Not like someone in his time would have. Those things just don’t matter so much anymore.

I had begun to slouch in the seat, becoming all too comfortable with what should have been a distressing experience. With profound implications, But, it was just too easy to treat it like any old phone call.

“I’ve told you everything I can, as far as family goes. I’m sorry it’s not what you want. If you want to know what I’m really like, I can tell you about my last relationship. But I doubt you’ll want to hear that.”

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Pub: 09 Oct 2025 02:32 UTC

Edit: 01 Nov 2025 22:40 UTC

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