The golden hour stretches on, lasting a lifetime. The sun bathes the landscape in lovely light and paints the clouds with pink and orange colors as it sinks. It also gets in my eyes, blinding me while I scan for threats.

The load bearing vest sits there on the chair, mocking me, telling me that this is stupid. The vest contains a combat load of ammo for the battle-ready rifle that sits propped up against the chair.

The other two aren’t as skeptical, having spent the whole walk back talking about our grisly find in the woods. What could it mean? Hell if I know. Probably just an inexperienced hunter that wondered onto the wrong land, didn’t know how to properly field dress his kill.

Daniel is killing time by looking over the DVD cabinet that is sitting in the gap between the outer wall and the entertainment center. Jerry is in his office, messing around on the internet, which I’m surprised that they have out here. He got off the phone with his wife a few minutes ago; she reported that they had made it safely to her sister’s place. The way that he said goodbye had a weight to it that reminded me of just how scared he is.

I am randomly pacing around the house. Ya, I’m a pacer. I know that people hate that shit, but I can’t help it, makes me feel better.

I can still see his face, or what was left of it. The nose and ears gone, hair too. Deformed lids over half-dead eyes. And the rough, twisted skin.

The crooked mouth tried to smile at the platoon as he greeted us.

Why him? Why him, and not me?

Coyotes yip somewhere on the property, probably not more than an acre away.

I wonder out of the kitchen, turn right down the hall and end up back in the living room, to find the paranormal guy reading the back of a DVD. The way the house is set up is that the living room protrudes out of the front, with a front door and a side door to the carport. The coffee table, couch, and entertainment center are over on the side opposite this door. There is a big ass window here.

I check the front door, looking out the peephole and seeing little, as the glass seems to be a bit warped. Then I walk over to the one that leads to the carport, glancing outside and checking the lock. Still restless, I wonder back down the hall, going all the way to the end so that I can check the backdoor. There is a bathroom on the left, which the kids normally use.

At about the halfway point the hall branches off to the right. I head that way. On the right and left there are two doors sitting opposite each other. The one on the right is covered in stickers of modern-day cartoons, all of it anime inspired. The other bares a metallic pink nameplate with the word Mikayla on it, pink and purple construction paper hearts surround it. I open the door, walk over to the window, examine the big tree out back.

The investigator has set up a little webcam looking thing on the window seal. So much effort for something so silly. But hey, if he really does get something, he will be rich and famous. So maybe it is worth it after all.

I go back out into the hall. The master bedroom is at the end. before that, there is the door to the other bathroom. One the right you got a short hallway that leads out to the tiny utility room. I head in, checking the door to the carport. As I leave, I step into the door that is on my right side. Jerry is still on the computer.

He looks up at me, “Do you think that it will come back tonight?” he asks, before glancing out across the room. A pile of boxes and crap sits in front of a window, out of which I can make little out from this distance.

“To be honest, I’m still not sure that what you saw was anything other than some kind of hallucination. Maybe you just fell asleep.”

“You still think that? Even after finding that thing in the woods?”

“Ya. I guess that I am too much of a skeptic,” I nod toward the pile of junk, “That the stuff from the barn?”

“Some of it. That wooden box there was grandpa’s.”

I instantly recognize the OD green crate as a soldier’s footlocker. I glance at the window again as I stroll over to the box. Opening it, I see all of the stuff that one would expect in a Vietnam vet’s footlocker. Those stupid elbow flashlights with the different colored lenses. An old set of dog tags. Some kind of metal ashtray of local manufacture. Photographs of young men clad in green and smiling past the pain and fear.

Daniel wonders in, asks if we should keep a watch in shifts, or just sort of randomly check outside.

On the inside I picture us all passed out by about two in the morning, if not sooner. I tell them that we should all keep a vigil all around the house, switch windows so that we don’t get too board.

The three of us wonder into the living room. A few birds chirp. I glance out the front door, seeing only long shadows.

“What’s the scariest thing that you ever seen?” Jerry asks Daniel.

“Seen, nothing, I haven’t seen a damn thing. Well, I did see ball lightening once, when I was a kid.”

I start to ask him what ball lightening is, but before I can, Jerry blurts out, “Not even a UFO?”

“Sadly, no,” he thinks for a second, “Whispers in the dark, in this abandoned insane asylum, one of the old places that they shut down back in the seventies.”

“Sounds spooky,” I say, “I would have probably ran for it.”

“I’m not gonna lie, I wanted to. I stayed, didn’t pick it up on any recording devices. I was pretty disappointed. But then I didn’t feel like such an idiot anymore.”

“Well then, what is the scariest thing that you have heard of?” Jerry askes.

Somewhere between amused and excited, he begins, “That deer we found. I told you about the mutilation of cows. That is only the beginning. You see, it isn’t just limited to cattle. They’ve done it to people, too. There was this one guy. He was alive and aware during whatever happened to him. Parts cut away. Anus cored out, if you believe that, kidneys cored out too. Skin stripped away; lips and eyes removed. Genitals cut off. Holes punched into him so that they could suck out the intestines and stuff, suck out, some muscle tissue too, sucked out of his body.

“They said that he died of pain. Not of organ failure or blood loss. The guy died because the pain was that bad.”

It is then that there is a loud crash outside.