“Okay, let’s see what’s through door number two,” Kyle said, crossing the living room and grabbing the doorknob on the other door.

The door was swollen with moisture and stuck in the door jam. Kyle had to pull hard on the doorknob to get it to open. When the door finally came free, a plume of dust erupted from the floor, kicked up by the sudden motion. A figure was outlined in the dust right in front of Kyle. At first he didn’t realize what he was seeing as he was more focused on waving the dust away and trying not to breathe it in. By the time he did notice, the dust was almost settled again and the figure was only visible for a moment.

“Whoa!” Kyle cried out and leapt back.

The figure was gone now.

“Did you guys see that?” Kyle gasped, still trying not to cough on the dust. “There was something there. Looked like a person. Or the outline of one.”

He was a little unsure of himself now. He hadn’t expected to experience anything like this in here. Just look around, maybe find some cool stuff left behind, then say he was going to bed after setting up his timelapse. Then he’d leave and come back in the morning to collect his camera. He wasn’t actually planning on sleeping in here. It was way too gross. Still, if he’d caught that on camera then it was certain to get him some views.

“Hey, before we get too much further into this house, let me set up my timelapse. Don’t want to miss anything.”

In reality he was trying to postpone going any further into the house. Seeing that figure had really shaken him and he shut the door before he moved to the far side of the living room.

“I should be able to capture anything that goes on from here,” he said as he pulled his other camera out of his back pack. It took a moment to set up the tripod and then position the camera so it could see the majority of the room. He started the time lapse, making sure the camera was set to night vision, and then turned back toward the door he’d just left. He still didn’t want to go through it and the growing unease in his stomach told him he should leave now, but what kind of video would that make for? He couldn’t chicken out now. He needed views and for that he needed a solid video.

“Okay guys, we’re going through that door now.”

He walked forward, uncomfortably aware of his own body with every step. He grabbed the doorknob and pulled the door open. He hadn’t shut it all the way before so it wasn’t as hard to open this time and he didn’t kick up any dust. The beam of his flashlight revealed a ruined dining room. The table and chairs were all rotted and collapsed in the middle of the room. An empty fireplace sat in the far wall. Another door on the wall to Kyle’s right was ajar and he could see into the kitchen beyond.

“This house is so old it doesn’t have a bathroom,” Kyle said to keep his nerves calm. “My grandma said when her parents were growing up they’d use an outhouse in the back and had a big tub in the kitchen to wash in. I bet there used to be an old outhouse in the back yard here. It’s probably collapsed now and only the hole’s left. That’d be an unlucky find to stumble into. Gross.”

He chuckled as the fear began to ease. It was possible he’d just been seeing things. His subconscious could have been playing tricks on him. He was talking about ghost stories and how this house was supposed to be haunted and his mind had just filled in the gaps. That was a lot more likely than the house actually being haunted.

“Doesn’t look like there’s much to see in here,” Kyle went on, more relaxed now as he patted himself down to remove the last of the dust. “Let’s see what’s in this kitchen.”

Stepping around the broken pieces of the dinning set, he reached the door to the kitchen and pushed it the rest of the way open. A wood fired oven sat on the wall to his left. A counter and cabinets ran around the entirety of the kitchen with an island in the middle. A hand pump and sink were in the back corner of the kitchen and there was a large basin on the floor beside it.

The room was actually bigger than he’d been expecting. There were shriveled remnants of vegetables or maybe meat hanging from a rack on the ceiling. They were gray with dust and Kyle had no desire to wipe them off so he could further identify them.

“Imagine living without electricity and running water,” Kyle said. “I mean, I guess they sort of had running water, but it was all cold. They had to heat it up themselves if they wanted a hot bath.”

The counters were bare but as he opened the cupboards he found they were still full of dishes and cookware.

“I wonder if any of this stuff is worth anything?”

He picked a bowl up and turned it over. It was less dusty than everything else in the house since it was in the cupboard and protected from the majority of the dust. The floral pattern around the rim of the bowl looked hand drawn but well done. He put it back on the shelf and moved on through the room.

“Yeah, here’s what they would have used for a tub,” he said as he reached the basin beside the sink. “Imagine just taking a bath in here while people are trying to cook. Not me.”

Something crashed back in the living room. It sounded like his camera. Kyle spun around but hesitated, shining his flashlight ahead of him and searching for the figure he’d seen before even though the air was relatively clear of dust now.

“Sounds like someone didn’t like my little setup,” Kyle said, trying to sound calm and failing. “I hope they didn’t break my camera.”

The thought of his new and relatively expensive camera being damaged finally motivated him to begin making his way out of the kitchen. Before he could reach the door, however, it slammed shut. More dust flew into the air and Kyle leapt back with a cry, colliding with the sink. The plume of dust slowly worked its way across the kitchen. As it did, more and more figures were outlined within it. None of them moved but they were clear in the cloud of dust as Kyle turned his flashlight back and forth. All of them were turned towards Kyle as though they were watching him.

“Oooookay,” Kyle breathed out shakily. “Looks like we have ourselves some friends here.”

He was just talking to keep from screaming. He was so scared he couldn’t move, though where he’d go he wasn’t sure. There was no other way out of the kitchen besides the door that had just been flung shut and he was already about as far away from it as he could get. For a moment he was afraid the dust would reach him but its progress across the kitchen halted about halfway into the room. Slowly, it faded away and with it went the figures. At no point did any of them do anything and Kyle was grateful for that. He was pretty sure he would have lost his mind if they’d started moving towards him.

It took what felt like ages for the dust to finally settle back down to the ground and when it did, Kyle still didn’t move towards the door. Just because the dust was gone didn’t mean the figures weren’t still there. In fact, as he shone the light around on the floor it revealed the footprints of those figures.

“I’m just gonna step around everyone,” he said, his voice still constricted.

It was like one of those games you played as a kid, trying to walk around an obstacle course, as he wove his way around and between the different sets of footprints. He worried there would be one blocking the door but thankfully that was clear. It was, yet again, jammed. He pushed hard and he felt the wood bow. The door shuddered but didn’t open. He pushed again, putting his shoulder into it and the wood cracked slightly but still did not open.

Behind him, the hand pump began to work, squeaking loudly after long years of disuse. When he turned back to look at it he noticed that all of the cupboards were open as well. No water came out of the pump but it didn’t stop, it’s handle moving up and down while the metal whined.

Kyle threw himself into the door and it shattered. He stumbled into the dining room, casting up yet another plume of dust. He didn’t wait to look for where there might be figures and instead rushed out of the dust and into the living room. As expected, his camera and tripod were knocked over. He scooped them up, not bothering to check and see if they were damaged, and leapt for the window. He didn’t care about the quality of his video any more. All Kyle wanted was to get out of here as quickly as he could.

Pain erupted in his face as he collided with the sturdy boards that blocked the window. The force of his collision sent him reeling backward and he landed, sprawled on the ground a few feet away from the wall. Had he gone for the wrong window? He wasn’t sure but it had to be the case. He was dazed slightly and it took him a few seconds to right himself. Once he’d gathered his wits, however, he was back up on his feet in a flash. He’d dropped his flashlight but thankfully it hadn’t broken. He stumbled over to it as his nose began to bleed and picked it up.

The shadows moved.

Kyle froze. Had the movement come from moving the flashlight or had something actually moved? He wasn’t sure. Ignorance was bliss, he thought, so he didn’t test any theories. Instead, he spun on the spot and shone the light at the wall with the window. That was the window he’d come in from, he could see the marks in the dust from where he’d climbed in, but it was fully boarded up now. Just in case he was somehow mistaken he turned the flashlight to the other windows, revealing boards covering all of them.

The shadows moved again, this time he was sure of it. His mind didn’t let him think and instead just threw himself at the window, trying to bust out the boards and escape. He felt something in his shoulder shift painfully as he hit but he didn’t care. The board shuddered and a small gap opened up. Kyle repeated the action, working like a cornered beast in his frantic effort to get out.

Something terribly cold touched him on his other shoulder, numbing his whole arm at once. Kyle screamed, looking back even though he knew he’d regret it. Shadows, as tangible as if they were solid, stood all around him, filling the room. One by one they laid a hand on him, sapping away his strength and filling him with a chilling numbness. The sound of his body hitting the floor was muted in his own ears. It was getting hard to think as more and more of the shadows crowded in around him.

All he wanted was to be a famous YouTuber. This was supposed to be his big start. Ghosts weren’t supposed to be real. The last figure placed a hand on his eyes and everything went black.