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"What do you know about the history of the house?"
Madison had just stepped through the back door and was standing in the middle of the kitchen. The emotions running through her made it so she barely heard Jesse's question. Everything around her was so still, as if suspended in the moment right before her grandmother died. It had been a week, but everything looked as if any moment she would come walking down the stairs.
A single glass sat in the dish drainer, the kitchen curtains were open, and there was a sponge tucked behind the sink where the care provider left it on her last day of service. The house didn't feel empty even though it had been days since the cleaning crew she had hired came in and cleaned out her grandmother's bedroom and no one else had stepped foot inside since.
She sighed. There still wasn't sadness, only a strange sense of calm and finality. Jesse repeated his question and Madison jumped slightly, brought out of her thoughts and back into the moment.
"Oh. Um, not much actually. I know it's been here for a long time."
"Just a couple hundred years," Noah said from the living room where he had wandered.
"My grandmother inherited this house from her mother, but that's as far as I know. She never really talked about it much."
"Is there any electricity?"
"Yes. In most places."
She was walking out of the room and could hear Jesse questioning her response from behind her.
"Most places?"
"I was never allowed in the basement when I was younger and my grandmother told me that there wasn't any power down there. There's also a room in the back of the house that hasn't had power as long as I can remember."
"Why?"
"I don't know."
"Can you show me?"
Noah asked the question from behind her and she turned to nod him.
"Sure."
Madison led him toward the back of the house to the small room beside the library where she had spent much of her childhood curled onto the green leather chairs reading through the old books lining the shelves. Many had been there since long before she was born; some since even before her great-grandmother was born.
The small room was as dark and close as she remembered from when she was young. Noah stepped up beside her and turned on his flashlight. There were no windows in the room, so the narrow beam was the only illumination to cut through the darkness. The light danced across the desk set on one wall and the fireplace on the other. They were the only two things in the room and Madison was starting to turn to leave when she saw Noah step forward toward the fireplace.
"Did you know that this house was allegedly designed and built by a serial killer?" Noah asked, his voice low, calm, and without even a hint of trying to shock her.
She shivered slightly.
"Really?"
"Mmmmhmmm. Years before it was a school, it was his private residence. He supposedly wanted it to look completely normal to anyone who visited, but he added features that would let him conceal and do away with his victims whenever he pleased."
He was running his hand along the front of the mantelpiece, and when he stopped talking, he pressed on the center of a carving. A section of the wall beside the fireplace shifted and slid out of the way. Madison gasped. She couldn't believe that it had been there here entire life and she had no idea. Noah ducked into the space revealed by the false wall, and then stuck his head back out.
"Are you coming?" he asked.
Madison hesitated for a moment, thinking about what he said about the serial killer. She could almost hear Dianna taunting her if she admitted she was nervous about going into the hidden passage because of a story a ghost hunter told her while creeping around in the dark.
"Absolutely," she said, hoping she sounded confident.
The passage was small and tight, forcing her to nearly stand up against Noah as they inched their way along the space. He stopped short and she ran into his back. She caught herself by grabbing his muscular hips and hesitated just a second before letting him go.
"Where does this door lead?" Noah asked, flattening his hand on a thick wooden door at the end of the hallway.
She gave an exasperated sigh.
"I have no idea. I didn't even know this passage was here until about three minutes ago."
"Well, we're about to find out. Step back."
Madison did as he asked and he handed her his flashlight. Noah stepped back close to her and then lunged forward, bashing his massive shoulder into the door. She let out a startled scream and he repeated the move, hitting the door in the same place over and over until it crashed open.
"It would have been nice for you to let me know that you were going to bash down my door."
"You didn’t even know that door was there."
"It still would have been a nice courtesy."
They climbed through the broken door and Noah took the flashlight from her so he could sweep the beam around the room. There was a damp chill in the air and as soon as she started looking around Madison realized they were in the basement. She hadn't even noticed that the floor in the passageway had been tilting down, gradually bringing them beneath the house into the massive room.
"Legend has it that the killer kept some of his victims down here for weeks on end. He was only caught because one of them lost so much weight that he was able to slip out of his chains and escape."
"Chains?"
Noah stepped further into the room, following the walls with his flashlight until the light fell onto a set of shackles hanging from the stone. Her breath caught in her throat.
"Of course, that's just the story. There could be any number of explanations for that."
There was a hint of teasing in his voice and Madison felt the eerie chill down her back as he led her out of the expansive basement, up the stairs, and through the door that she knew would let them out into the kitchen again. The door had always been locked throughout her childhood, but they found a key protruding from the lock on the inside of the door. Something about that made her even more nervous.
Jesse and the other crewmembers were wandering somewhere elsewhere in the house. She could hear their voices and followed them until she got to the second floor where the bedrooms were, including one with a door she insisted remain shut.
"Why?" Noah asked when she placed her hand on the doorknob and told him that that room was off-limits for their investigation.
"I just don't want anyone going in there. My house, my rules."
He scoffed at her and walked into the room beside it. She followed and saw piles of bags and strange equipment stacked across the floor and along the white-and-yellow bedspread that had always adorned this guest room.
"Do you want to see some of the equipment we'll use for our investigation?" Noah asked.
"Sure."
He picked up a few items, describing the purpose of the EVP recorders, the spirit box, and the EMF detector. As he showed her each one, she couldn't get the "Ghostbusters" theme song out of her head, but fought to keep it inside.
"What's that?" she asked, pointing to what looked like a complicated black army jacket draped across the bed.
"This is my favorite piece of equipment," Noah said, putting down a recorder to pick up the jacket, "It detects changes in the environment as well as your vital signs to show possible spirit interference with the atmosphere."
"What does that mean?" she asked.
Noah stepped toward her and guided her into the jacket. He stepped back and Madison held her arms slightly to her sides, somewhat worried the jacket would short circuit at any second.
"The diodes on the sleeves change colors and light up in different areas depending on the temperature to show sudden changes. There is an EMF detector embedded in the side that will alert the person wearing it if there are any changes in the electromagnetic field."
"And my vital signs?" she asked.
Noah's lips curved slightly in a mischievous smile.
"There are strips in the lining that monitor respiration and heart rate." He stepped closer, "Let me show you."
Madison watched as his face drew closer and his lips touched hers. The kiss was soft at first, and then his hands slipped beneath the jacket to smooth along the curve of her waist and clutch her hips before his lips parted over hers and she felt his tongue flick prodding, encouraging her to open her mouth. When she did, the kiss deepened. Their tongues tangled and she felt herself whimper into his mouth. She was so lost in the sensation of him that she almost didn't hear the alarm emanating from inside the jacket, indicating her heart rate had suddenly spiked.
"See?" he said slightly breathlessly, smiling down at her, then walking out of the room.