Free Ghost Hunt 2: MORE Chilling Tales of the Unknown by Jason Hawes, Grant Wilson Page B

walked to the chair and lifted it off the floor. Then she turned and carried it to the fireplace.
    “Here,” she whispered. “Won’t you please sit down?”

     
    “The flashlight went out,” Grant told the TAPS team. “And the room got icy cold.”
    A hush fell over the long conference table. The team members leaned forward, eager to hear every detail. It was the next day at a nearby hotel. Time to review what had happened.
    “We didn’t see anything,” Grant continued. “But there was energy all over the place.”
    “As soon as I put the chair down, the energy changed,” Lyssa said. “The levels dropped back down. Not like the entitydisappeared, but like he… relaxed somehow. I wondered if maybe he lived in the house at one time. If maybe that spot by the fireplace was his favorite corner.”
    “We couldn’t see him,” Grant said. “But we
knew
he sat down in the chair when Lyssa brought it over. Somehow, we could just tell. It was really pretty remarkable.”
    “All the action was clearly in the living room,” Mike said. “Compared to you guys, Jay and I had a totally quiet night.”
    “Maybe the recorders picked up something,” Lyssa suggested.
    All eyes turned to Jen. She had her laptop all set up, ready to play back any evidence the cameras and voice recorders picked up the night before.
    “I’ll cut right to the chase,” she said. “The video cams didn’t pick up a thing. Except for all you guys, of course. Not so much as a shadow.”
    “Well, that’s disappointing,” Mark commented.
    “Yes. That’s the bad news. But here’s the good news,” Jen said. “Listen.”
    She pressed a key on the laptop and the audio began to play back. Lyssa leaned forward. She could hear what had to be Grant’s footsteps and her own. Then came Grant’s voice saying their names, setting a base reading for the audio recorders. She heard the conversation she and Grant had while investigating the room.
    Then:
    Step, drag. Step, drag. Step.
    Lyssa jerked straight up in her chair. The footsteps had been captured on the audio recorder!
    No one said a word.
    And then they all heard a whispery voice from the laptop:
    “My leg… so tired.”
    Lyssa felt her whole body begin to tingle.
    “Man, oh, man,” Jason said softly. “That’s him. The ghost! We caught it on audio!”
    Grant added, “I think he just explained the scraping footsteps, Lyssa.”
    “Unbelievable,” Lyssa murmured. “Do you think he was walking all that time just looking for a place to sit down? He just wanted to rest?”
    In silence, the team listened to the rest of the playback. Then Jen punched off the sound.
    “You know, Lyssa, for somebody who
didn’t
hear what that guy said, you did a pretty great job of coming up with just what he needed,” Jen observed.
    “I just wish we knew who he was,” Lyssa replied.
    “Actually,” Mark Hammond chimed in, “I might have a little information. I think there’s a pretty good chance he was a soldier during the Revolutionary War.”
    “Excuse me?” Lyssa exclaimed. “How on
earth
could you figure a thing like that out?”
    “It’s all in the research,” Mark answered with a smile. Heopened a folder and pulled out a map. On it, he’d drawn several yellow lines.
    “A couple of the biggest battles of the Revolutionary War were fought in this area of New York. In 1776, not long after the Declaration of Independence was signed.”
    “I didn’t know that,” Jen said.
    “Things didn’t go so well for the colonial troops,” Mark went on. “They had to make a run for it.”
    “Did any of this happen near the Sandstrom house?” Lyssa asked.
    “That’s what I’m thinking.” Mark nodded. “My research shows that the Sandstrom house was once the biggest farmhouse in the area. There wasn’t really a town. The farmhouse would have been the only building for miles around.”
    “Which would have made it an ideal place to shelter wounded soldiers,” Lyssa added. She sat back.