“We shouldn’t be here,” Darren said. “This place is condemned!”

I gave him by best, “Are you kidding me?” look. “Darren, how many places have we investigated that haven’t been condemned?” He opened his mouth to speak but I cut him off, “Seriously, that Bailey place in Fort Brag was literally falling down when we were there – that rafter missed Alan by inches when it broke loose. And the Orange Hill Sanatorium? The stairway that fell when we started up it?

“Look at this place,” I pointed up to the imposing Victorian looming in the darkness beyond the chain link fence and the “No Trespassing!” and “Danger: Unstable Structure!” signs, “Compared to those places, this place looks practically move-in ready!”

Darren appeared unmoved. I took the bolt cutters from his reluctant hands and cut the lock off the gate myself. The broken lock clattered loudly onto the stone driveway as the gate created open slowly on rusty hinges.

“Voila!” I said, gesturing towards the house.

Darren looked at my face, meeting my eyes for a meaningful moment before he repeated, “We shouldn’t be here. I don’t feel comfortable with this.”

“Darren, you film and I’ll explore, alright?”

Darren scowled, shook his head, and readied the SLR camera. When he was set up he nodded.

“Hey folks,” I started in my best Excited-But-Trying-To-Be-Quiet Paranormal Host voice, “We’re here at Donaldson Manor in Eagle View. This place was condemned years ago and no paranormal team has ever investigated this structure!” I dramatically looked over my shoulder at the house with the missing shingles on the Mansard roof clearly visible in the moonlight. “Join us as we seek to capture incontrovertible proof of ghosts,” I said into the camera. I paused for a moment then said, “Great, Darren, let’s get in there. We can take the drone shots on our way out – the moon will be lower then and the light will be more dramatic, I think.”

“Whatever you say,” Darren sighed and followed quickly as I strode through the overgrown yard, and up the stone stairs towards the columned porch and recessed, foreboding front door.

I shone my light across the broken boards in the porch. If I’m honest, when my flashlight beam showed the dry rot in the rotted wood, I did get a little nervous that maybe we really shouldn’t be entering this place. Boards blocked the heavy front door with several of the decorative stained glass panels broken out. I took my backpack off and pulled the crowbar out.

“Do you want me to film you?”

“Uh, let’s not put the breaking and entering part on film, shall we?” I said starting in on the first board which pulled out too easily, adding to my fears that this dilapidated structure was already a mostly digested termite feast. When the second board popped off the door creaked open to reveal the weather-damaged foyer. I kicked the boards out of the shot and said, “Okay, roll it, Darren.”  He started filming as I started taking out the EM meter and giving the room an initial reading. “We’re in,” I said dramatically. “I’m checking the levels of energy here in the foyer. So far noth–” I stopped moving because the sound of footsteps could clearly be heard coming from upstairs. “Darren?” I whispered.

He nodded vigorously, “I’ve got it, boss.”

“I’m not seeing any elevated EM levels here,” I said. “But you can plainly hear that yourself,” I motioned towards upstairs. “Let’s see if we can find the source of those footsteps!” I said and moved quickly towards the grand staircase.

“Alex,” Darren hissed, “Don’t you want to check the structural integrity of that staircase first?”

But I was already halfway up the first flight in my excitement. “Daren, you heard those footsteps!” I turned to face him, still filming. “We need to get up there to check the–”

That’s when the staircase collapsed.

In the video the whole flight of stairs cracks violently and starts to shift. The steps I was standing on broke suddenly and I drop through the staircase.

From my perspective, I felt the broken wood tear at me as I plummeted through the stairs. My legs buckled as they hit the subfloor which gave way almost immediately and I fell through that and dropped another ten feet to the stone floor of the basement. I felt my back break, but for at least a few moments I was still conscious and breathing. I had time enough to wonder how the hell Darren was going to get down to me. I even had a second to wonder how cool the footage he shot would be. But that thought vanished as hundreds of pounds of broken wood, nails, and masonry followed my path through the floor and everything went black.

I woke up in the study, laying on a moth-eaten, rotted chaise lounge. An old man in a red smoking jacket sat in a high-backed chair with one wing broken off staring at me intently.

“Wh-where am I?” I said, blinking. It was night still and moonlight shone in through the windows, but no other illumination lit the dark room.

The old man just stared daggers at me.

“Who are you?” I said, starting to sit up.

“Stupid, stupid children,” he said as a curse.

“Excuse me?”

“The front door is boarded up. There’s a goddamn fence around the place. There’s signs on that fence declaring ‘No Trespassing’ and ‘Unstable’ and yet you idiots come anyway,” he gestured wildly. “Well, how’d that work out for you? Hmm?”

“Uh,” I started, “Pretty good if I’m still here…” I said, then noticed that I wasn’t feeling any ill-effects of that plummet through the stairway. I looked at my hands… and saw right through them. “Oh shit,” I said. “Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit,” was all I could repeat.

“That’s right, it got you killed. Idiots!”

“Oh my God, I’m dead!” I said agog.

“He gets it in one,” the man waved his arm. “Brilliant soul, this one!”

I struggled to get my breathing under control – or at least what I thought was my breathing. I mean, I guess there wasn’t actual panic breathing going on. “Who are you?”

“Andrew Donaldson,” he said getting to his feet and walking to the window. As he moved I heard his footsteps.

“Those were your footsteps I heard!”

He laughed and looked over his shoulder, “Brilliant deduction, kid. Welcome to the afterlife.”

We both remained silent for a long time.

Finally, I said, “Actually, this is great!”

“Come again?”

“If I’m dead, then surely some other paranormal team will come along and I can make contact with them – this is my chance to actually communicate to the living!”

“Heh,” Andrew said, “You think you’re the first person to have that idea?” he shook his head. “Knock yourself out, kid.”

Turns out, I didn’t have to wait long.

Though it felt like no time had passed between falling through the floor and waking up in the study, it turns out several months had passed. In that time, police showed up, and construction workers cut their way into the basement from the back of the building and recovered my body. Services were held, my friends mourned. Life moved on. Darren showed the footage with some friends, and someone uploaded it. The clip of me falling through the staircase went viral and the YouTube channel of our paranormal investigator group shot to the top of the algorithms. Darren had millions of views and tens of thousands of subscribers on his hands.

I was standing at the window of the study looking out when I saw the flashlights come up the hill. They stopped at the fencing before continuing forward. “They’re here!” I said to Andrew who sat in his chair.

“Who’s here?”

I squinted at the figures making their way towards the stone stairs. “That’s Darren!” I said. “I’m going to make contact!” I started out of the study.

“Yeah, you do that, kid!” Andrew waved after me.

I had learned I could just disappear and reappear anywhere on the grounds, but that still felt, well, unnatural. I preferred to “walk” the proper route even if my feet didn’t actually make contact with the ground. I hurried down the stairs, avoiding the hole I fell through even if I could no longer fall through.

I reached the foyer just as Darren pushed open the door, his flashlight beam shining right through me. “Darren!” I yelled. “It’s so good to see you!”

He kept silently shining his light around as he stepped inside.

“Umm,” the person behind the camera started, “Is that, uh, the staircase?”

“Yeah, Leti, that’s where Alex fell through, God rest his soul,” he crossed himself.

“I’m right here, Darren!” I yelled inches from his face.

“Do you hear that?” Leti asked.

“Those are the same footsteps we heard when we were here before – the ones that led Alex upstairs,” Darren said.

“That’s Andrew,” I said loudly. “He’s a little crotchety, but he’s a good guy.”

“I heard that!” Andrew yelled from upstairs.

“Come on, Darren!” I jumped up and down. “I’m right here! Check the EM meter! That things gotta be off the chart!”

“What’s the EM readings look like,” Leti asked.

“Yes! How spiked is that EM meter, Darren?” I asked encouragingly.

Darren pulled his handheld meter out of his backpack and turned it on waving it around. “Nominal,” he said finally, a little disappointed.

“Are you kidding me?!” I yelled.

Darren and Leti cautiously padded through the main floor checking EM readings and noting minor temperature fluctuations. They did capture Andrew walking around upstairs, but nothing of me screaming at them waving my hands violently, trying to move objects.

“Let’s head back outside,” Darren said.

“Yeah, it’d be nice to go upstairs, but…” Leti trailed off.

“Yeah,” Darren shuddered at the memory of me falling through.

Outside, down the stone steps with the building – my new permanent home – looming in the moonlight, Darren stared into the camera. “Well, that’s it for my emotional return to the Donaldson Manor. You all have been asking for it, and here we are. As you can see, we captured some of the same footsteps Alex and I heard, but that was about it. No elevated EM readings, no other paranormal activity. If Alex is still here…”

“I am! I am, Darren!”

“…He wasn’t interested in making contact. Thanks for watching. Hit the like and subscribe buttons and we’ll catch you on our next paranormal investigation.”