Sure enough, as we continued forward, making our way to the second-floor landing, the sounds of male voices reached us.

“Shh! Shh! Rick, be quiet!” the same voice as the one that had echoed through the house earlier was a bit further ahead. Lights from their cameras were a little ahead of us.

“I just heard footsteps. Did you hear-?”

Thud.

Nellie bumped into the edge of a cabinet in the hallway. She cleared her throat quietly. “My apologies. I keep forgetting they put that there. Old memories and such mixing in, you know,” she chuckled good-naturedly.

I shrugged as I let go of the children’s hands. “Go,” I commanded softly.

“Oh, Bret, that thud!” Up ahead I could see a man—stocky, dirty blonde, roughly thirty or so with a small mustache—turning his head to look at his companion. “We were standing completely still, man. That was-”

“Yeah, that was loud,” the man named Rick cut off his partner. He was tall, lean, and had dark brown hair that resembled a mop head greatly. He turned with his upper body, keeping his feet still, pointing his camera back down toward where all of us were standing. Based on their reactions, none of us had manifested to them on their night-vision cameras.

Walter and Alice rushed toward the two men, giggling. As the children passed them by, dodging just to the side to avoid jostling the men, the two froze.

“OH MY GOD-!”

“LAUGHING, MAN, LAUGHING!”

The two immediately rushed back several steps, nearly tripping over themselves to get away. The man named Rick turned his camera to face himself, panting to catch his breath. “W-we just heard the clear and distinct laughter of children! I swear to God if our audio didn’t pick that up!”

“Spirit box! I’m going to pull out the spirit box!” Bret announced excitedly.

The two managed to gather themselves as Bret pulled out a small, round electronic item from his pocket. It looked like a modified speaker and a small box with little lights, switches, and other such things was connected to it through a cord. As Bret turned it on, it let out white noise, the frequency shifting every few seconds. From what I knew, it was a pretty common item used by paranormal investigators. It allowed them to pick up some of our voices through the white noise. To lessen possible “contamination” incidences, the box constantly swept through different frequencies to cancel out interference and negate picking up things like radio stations.

I’d learned this from the different investigators who had come over the years, as well as some of it from Nellie who had been here even longer. She’d told me that sometimes hunters explained how for us to use the equipment they brought or about what it did so we’d be able to understand them. Personally, I was grateful. I could remember bits and pieces of my life as one of the Living, but other things were incredibly faint or distant. I had no idea if I’d been a fan of ghost shows when I’d been alive, so as far as I was concerned, all this stuff was new to me.

“Okay. Spirit box session up on the second-floor landing.” Bret held up the spirit box or SB7, as I recognized another group had called it, clearing his throat. “Hello. My name is Bret. We heard some children laughing just a second ago. Do you want to play?” He placed his hand over the top of the speaker to block out the static so his words could be heard better. Once he was done talking, he moved his hand away and held the box outward in front of him.

Walter got close to the man’s side. Bret cleared his throat. “Temp just dropped. You feel that?”

“Yes,” Rick answered, holding his camera to point toward his partner and the SB7. “I’ve got goosebumps right now. Static electricity is in the air.”

“...Hello.” Walter greeted the man happily. His young voice cut through the static for a few seconds before it returned.

Both men jumped. “Hello!” Bret quickly calmed himself, responding back. “Were you the one we heard laughing a second ago?”

Walter decided to stay quiet, returning to my side. Bret furrowed his brows in frustration before deciding to ask another question. “Is Walter or Alice Hemming here?”

Alice brushed her hand over Rick’s leg, causing him to jump in reaction, before answering in her soft, quiet voice. “We’re playing.” Her words were loud enough that they heard that with their own ears, the SB7's static never being broken while she spoke.

“Ah-Oh my...O-okay. Girl’s voice that time. Ahem. A-Alice, was that you?”

Alice giggled as she zoomed along the landing in front of them.

“Whoa! Bret, I just saw a large anomaly flash by right in front of you! Holy crap, that was bright!” Rick moved closer to his partner to point out the path Alice had created on his screen moments ago to Bret.

“The stories about how active this place is weren’t lying,” Bret chuckled under his breath.

I glanced at Nellie. “Do you plan to join the kids?”

“...join the kids…” The SB7 picked up my voice and I winced in annoyance at myself. I hadn’t meant to be heard.

“That sounded like a woman,” Rick announced, shaking his head as he stared at the SB7. “It's been a while since I’ve heard spirits so clearly or actively through the box.”

“Hello? Is there someone else here? Are you the nanny of the Hemming children that died with them?” Bret waited a few seconds to give us time to respond.

Nellie smiled cynically. “I haven’t really participated much with the last several. Why not? I’ll have some fun.”

“...I...much...not...fun…” The SB7 crackled to the sound spectrum the Living could hear.

“Huh?” Bret muttered in confusion.

“Sounds like a different voice than the one earlier!” Rick picked up, voice excited. “Is it? Could it be her? Do you think we caught her?!”