I shut my eyes, but the writer told me that the pounding culminated when a huge puncture appeared in the wall above the couch in the living room.

(Later, the writer told me that I had screamed while standing perfectly still.) And then: silence.

The EMF monitors stopped beeping.

"Hoo-ah!" This from one of the guys upstairs.

The other whooped gleefully again.

They had been on this ride before.

Miller and I were breathing hard.

I didn't care if I appeared afraid.

"I'm sensing a male presence," I heard Miller murmur, scanning the room.

"The lights are flickering, Bob," Sam called down from the upstairs hallway.

From where Miller and I stood we looked up and could see the flickering lights of the sconces reflected in the ma.s.sive window near the top of the stairs.

It seemed as if something knew we had noticed this and the flickering stopped abruptly.

Miller was now standing in front of the freshly punctured wall.

He stared at it, humbly.

"An angry man . . . someone very lost and angry . . ."

I was so afraid I could not feel myself. I was just a voice asking: "What does that mean? What's going on? What does it want? Why is it stopping?"

Miller scanned the ceiling with his EMF.

"Why did it stop?" I kept asking.

Miller answered quietly.

"Because it knows we're here."

This was part of his performance. He was trying to project self-a.s.surance, confidence, a sense of command, but there was one lucid fraction within me peering through the fear that knew whatever resided in the house was going to defeat us all in the end.

(I flashed on: You resided in this house, Bret. resided in this house, Bret.) "Because it knows we're here," Miller murmured again.

Miller turned to me.

"Because it's curious."

We waited for what felt like eternity.

The house seemed to grow darker as time pa.s.sed.

Finally, Miller called up. "Dale-anything?"

"It's quiet now," Dale called back down.

"Sam-anything?"

Sam's answer was interrupted when the EMFs resumed beeping again.

This was followed by the cameras whirring.

And then a sound announced itself that unnerved me more than the pounding or the noise emanating from the meters.

A voice was singing.

Music began playing throughout the house.

A song from the past, flowing from an eight track on the long drive up the California coastline to a place called Pajaro Dunes.

. . . memories light the corners of my mind . . .

"Did we unplug the stereo?" I asked, wheeling around in the semidarkness.

. . . misty water color memories . . .

"Yes, we did, Mr. Ellis." This was Miller, holding his EMF as if it was guiding him toward something.

. . . of the way we were . . .

The living room instantaneously became hot. It was a greenhouse, and the smell of the Pacific slowly traced itself in the muggy air.

. . . scattered pictures of the smiles we left behind . . .

Suddenly, from upstairs: "There's something here," Sam called. "It just materialized." Pause. "Bob, did you hear me?"

. . . smiles we gave to one another . . .

"What is it?" Miller called up.

Sam's voice, less enthusiastic: "It's, um . . . it's a human form . . . skeletal . . . it just exited the little girl's room . . ."

Actually, the writer informed me, the writer informed me, Sam was wrong. It came from Robby's room, since Robby is, in fact, the focal point of the haunting. Sam was wrong. It came from Robby's room, since Robby is, in fact, the focal point of the haunting.

Not you, Bret.

Did you grasp that yet?

Not everything's about you, even though you would like to think so.

From Dale: "I see it too, Bob."

"What's its location now?" Miller called up.

. . . the way we were . . .

"It's moving toward the staircase . . . it's gonna head downstairs . . ."

Their excited cries were suddenly replaced by what sounded like a choked awe.

"Holy Christ," one of them shouted. "What the f.u.c.k is it?"

"Bob." This was Sam, I think. "Bob, it's coming down the stairs."

The song stopped midlyric.

Miller and I were facing the grand staircase that flowed into the foyer and the adjacent living room.

There were clicking noises.

(I am not going to defend what I'm about to describe. I am not going to try to make you believe anything. You can choose to believe me, or you can turn away. The same goes for another incident that occurs later on.) The only reason I witnessed this was because it happened so quickly, and the only reason I did not immediately turn away was because it seemed fake, like something I had seen in a movie-a prank to scare the children. The living room might as well have been a screen and the house a theater.

It was lurching down the staircase, pausing on various steps.

It was tall and had a vaguely human form, and though it was skeletal it had eyes.

Rapidly my father's face was illuminated in the skull.

And then another face replaced it.

Clayton's.

I was stunned into rigidity.

My panting could not be heard above the meters or the cameras.

The skeleton-thing was now standing at the bottom of the staircase.

It was making the clicking noises with its teeth.

Within the skull were eyeb.a.l.l.s.

Suddenly, it launched itself toward us.

Miller and I quickly backed away and when we did, the thing stopped.

It began raising its arms, extending them upward.

The arms were so long that finger bones sc.r.a.ped the ceiling.

I was moaning.

What were we waiting for? I didn't understand what we were waiting for it to do.

My father's face flashed on again, followed by Clayton's.

As the faces rapidly interchanged, sharing the skull, the resemblance between the two men could not be questioned.

It was the face of a father being replaced by the face of a son.

It kept clicking its teeth, as if chewing something invisible.

Its fingers started trailing across the ceiling as it moved toward us.

When it started lowering its arms, both Miller and I noticed something.

It was carrying a scalpel.

As it lunged toward us I braced myself, my eyes locked open.

"I hear you," I whispered. I whispered. "I hear you." "I hear you."

And then the lights in the house flickered for a moment.

When the house was suddenly reborn with light the thing stopped and tilted its head before swirling into a cyclone of ash.

Sam and Dale watched this from the top of the stairs.

The moment the house burst into light they raced toward us.

Miller was asking me, "Did you turn off the fuse box?"

"Yes, yes."

Miller breathed in. "There are two spirits at work here-"

At the moment Miller said this, the door to my office-visible from where we now stood-flew off its hinges with such force that it sailed across the room and dented a wall.

(I did not see this because I was staring at the ash that had sprayed across the generator. The writer described it to me later on the plane.) The ceiling above us suddenly cracked open in a long, jagged strip, dusting our hair with plaster.

(I don't remember seeing this but the writer insisted I had. The writer said, You were gaping. You were gaping.) Paint began to peel and curl in waves off the walls.

No one knew where to look.

And as I watched this in a dream, I saw that underneath the paint was the green-striped wallpaper that had covered the walls of the house in Sherman Oaks.

When I whispered to myself the words "I hear you" "I hear you" the house was again plunged into darkness. the house was again plunged into darkness.

Outside, I stood on the lawn, dazed, muttering to myself.