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showed it to Matthew. “One of these people here is your friend.”
    Without missing a beat, he pointed at Timothy and said, “That one?”
    After the episode aired, some viewers pointed out that Matthew was asking, as if he weren’t sure. But it was a photo of Timothy Shirey in his twenties. He was in his midthirties when he died, which is how I assume Matthew would see him. If you knew someone at a certain age, then saw a photo of them ten years younger, would you be immediately sure who they were, or would you ask, as Matthew did, “Is that him?” It seemed to me the natural response.
    It’s not absolute proof. Matthew could’ve somehow seen photos of Timothy, or been coached, but for me it comes down to what’s easier to believe. It’s much harder for me to think that this stressed-out family would use their son that way. To me, it strongly suggested that Matthew really saw Timothy, that he could well be the real deal, a clairvoyant.
    Accepting that possibility also explained a number of other things. The mists may have been drawn to Matthew because of his ability to see them. Timmy and Matthew, meanwhile, shared a childlike quality. Matthew might be someone Timothy could relate to, and vice versa.
    Having done all we could in terms of research, the next step was to try to communicate with any spirits. The best hours for psychic contact are generally considered to be between 9:00 P.M. and 6:00 A.M., in other words, in the dark. After being involved with demonic cases, I also learned that 3:00 A.M., specifically, was significant. It is considered the antihour—opposite the time Christ is believed to have died on the cross—as if an evil entity’s presence on the earth at that time mocks that moment.
    Due to those extreme cases we’d faced prior to the pilot, we were all very much in a warrior phase. I, in particular, still felt surrounded by what I’d call, for lack of a better word, malevolence. Some of that comes across in the episode, which I imagine is difficult to understand without knowing where we’d been.
    But the situation also gave us reason for concern. Voices were telling Matthew to harm himself and others, and I was increasingly convinced his experiences were real. We all felt there might legitimately be a demonic layer to this case, so we decided to try to communicate at 3:00 A.M.
    The funny thing is that at PRS we never called it Dead Time before the show. Back when I wrote that short outline, I’d jotted down “3 A.M. . . . Dead Time.” It wasn’t a reference to spirits. I just wanted the crew to turn off all their electronic equipment, to keep the house as dark and empty as possible. Dead meant silent .
    When the producers saw “Dead Time,” they loved it and it’s been part of the language of the show ever since.
    For our first “official” Dead Time, I split everyone into three teams. Serg was in the basement monitoring the walkie-talkies and cameras. Eilfie took a team to the field where Timothy’s body was found. I stayed in the house with Shelly and Bryan.
    Though Matthew was the key to the activity, we never considered having him present. If the spirits weren’t real, seeing his parents confront them might be confusing. If they were real, it could be dangerous for him.
    As a standard part of the process, we each took turns trying to speak to the spirits, hoping to elicit some response—an unexplained sound, a voice.
    Shelly put out a lot of energy, warning any evil entities not to try to influence her son. After about forty minutes, she told me she sensed a presence. I asked what it was like.
    “Nothing good.”
    She felt it move right in front of her. Several of us heard loud breathing.
    When I’m in the presence of the paranormal, I’ll sometimes get what we call “that feeling.” It’s not simply a sense of being watched, but more like an instinctive sensation that a predator is stalking you. When Adam announced that he saw something moving in the basement, I got