Read 2 A Haunting In Oregon for Free Online

you. You’re guests here,
and you don’t deserve the way I’ve acted toward you. My father values your
opinion. I don’t want to stand in the way of that. But you have to see my side
of this. If we have a virus here, it needs to be eradicated. If it’s not a
virus, we need to know what it is so we can rectify it and move on. There’s
nothing I can do about ghosts.”
    “But don’t you see,” Pete said to
Sarah, “they can. Roy knows what he’s doing. I need you to give them a chance.”
    Sarah placed her hands on either
side of her plate. “You’re not going to change my mind on this,” she said. “I
don’t believe in spooks and spirits, and I’m not going to start. But I won’t
stand in your way. If you want to continue on with this charade, please
proceed, but just leave me out of it.”
    “Well, that’s good enough,” Steven
said. “We can work with that.”
    Sarah stood and took her plate
with her as she left the room.
    -
    Pete unlocked a large heavy door
and swung it open, revealing a staircase leading down. He flipped a light
switch and they heard the pop of a series of fluorescent lights turning on down
below. “Now this is quite interesting down here. Follow me,” he said and
descended the wooden stairs.
    The basement was extensive. It was
essentially a long series of rooms that opened into each other. Parts of it
were finished, others were not. As they passed from room to room it seemed as
if the basement mirrored the expansion of upstairs but without any attempt to
harmonize the styles of the old and new areas.
    “Do people come down here much?”
Steven asked.
    “No, usually just me,” Pete said.
“I have a little workshop over there, and the furnaces and water heaters are
all down here. Laundry is done upstairs, so maids never come down here. We use
this place for storage – you can see there’s more than enough room. Much of it
is empty.”
    Roy began moving through the
various rooms of the basement, marking them out in his mind. “Do you have a
chair down here I can use?” he asked Pete. “And a flashlight?”
    “Sure, right over here,” Pete
said, going into his workshop to retrieve them. He sat the chair in front of
Roy and handed the flashlight to Steven.
    “Pete,” Roy said, “you’re welcome
to say if you want. I’m going to try and contact some of the ghosts that haunt
this room. It can get a little strange and if you’re at all squeamish it would
be better if you went back upstairs and didn’t watch.”
    Pete seemed excited at the
opportunity, but then he hesitated as he furrowed his brow. “Is it dangerous?”
he asked.
    “It can be,” Steven offered. “I
stay awake while Roy goes into a trance. I watch him to be sure he’s safe. He
communicates while he’s in the trance. Once he comes out of it we’ll learn if he
was successful. But I’ve seen some bizarre things while he’s in the trance. You
can’t speak or shout out while it’s going on.”
    Pete seemed to be going through a
pros and cons list in his head. “If I go back upstairs will you tell me what
happened after you’re done?” Pete asked.
    “Absolutely,” Roy said, sitting in
the chair.
    “Then,” Pete said, relieved, “I’ll
leave you to it with no interruptions from me and wait for you to come up.”
    “Would you turn out the light on
your way up?” Steven asked.
    “Sure,” Pete said and turned to
leave. Steven wrapped the blindfold around Roy, and after a moment the light
clicked off.
    Twenty minutes passed.
Occasionally Steven heard a footstep overhead, but most of the time it was
extremely quiet and still. He must have the furnaces turned off, Steven
thought. When he did hear a sound, it was very different than upstairs. The
multitude of connected rooms amplified some sounds while dampening others.
    He let his eyes slowly adjust to
the darkness of the basement. There were no windows, so it was extremely dark.
Little lights from devices began to appear – the red glow of a