The locals called it 'The Old House'. 

A generous name, to be honest, for it was not one of the oldest buildings in town. Nor was it ever intended to be a home. 

Stevan was already inside. He stood on a ledge barely wide enough for him, even for his diminutive frame, looking out one of the windows on what had once been the second story of the building. Like the building itself, the window, or rather ‘loophole’ to use its proper term, was designed at weird angles, the frame being a trapezoid form cut from the absurdly thick wall. This left the outside rectangle barely the size of a standard A5 sheet of paper while the inside frame left enough room for him to fit his whole torso in. Like he was doing now, leaning forward to look out at the peach-coloured sky as it faded almost visibly into a less rich yellow. He touched one of his oversized earlobes nervously as he considered the late hour, wondering yet again if they had not waited too long to come here.  

He was suddenly startled as something scurried in the sandy floor below him and he yelped, nearly falling off the ledge he found himself on. 

"Get a grip of yourself!" he said, sighing softly to himself as he readjusted the small camcorder Rochelle had made him wear on his shoulder. "Ghosts aren't real."  

Still, it did not stop him from checking the small device on his belt directly afterwards. Apparently, it would give an alarm should it detect a spike in the local electromechanical field, a supposed telltale sign of paranormal activity. But the stupid thing had never done anything special before and he thought of it as more of an irritation to carry around than anything else. 

He clenched his hands, before turning around to try and see what on the lower level had given him such an unwelcome fright. The wooden floor that had been this building's second floor had collapsed and disappeared long ago, leaving the two-foot broad ledge along the room’s circumference to mark its position to those who knew what they were looking at. Even the uppermost floor where the water tank had been installed was gone, leaving only a single large space inside the building. 

"Were it midgets who manned this place?" Edward suddenly asked, the larger creature having to almost crawl through the surprisingly low entranceway of the single-room building. 

"I'm guessing it is part of the defensive structure of the fortification," the always knowledgeable Stevan muttered. He smirked as Edward snorted at the powerful, dusty aroma of the room, but then hissed in annoyance with himself when he noticed his nervous tick and quickly brought his arm to his side before his old friend noticed his nerves. "Imagine trying to fight your way in here, hunched over like that!" 

"Whatever," Edward drawled, grunting as he stood straight again and stretched with unnecessary flair for a few drawn-out seconds. Done with that, he looked about himself, his thick tail flicking this way and that in mind interest as he studied the dusty interior. 

"It looks better from outside than it does in here, doesn't it?" he finally decided, tutting to himself with a disappointed shake of his head as he rubbed sand from the fur on his knees. Stevan only shrugged, unable to disagree. 

The old, crumbling stones around them remained silent as if determined to keep the secrets of what they had witnessed over the years to themselves. 

"What did you expect, Five-star accommodations?" a female voice snapped from behind Edward, causing the large oaf to scurry quickly out of the way. Rochelle entered the easiest of the three and immediately set about investigating the empty space inside with a critical eye. 

"Right then," she announced with a smirk, ears quivering and tail wagging with excitement. "We can put the tripod up there against the wall. Stevan, I like where you've taken up position, it gives me the feeling that you are very connected to the history of this place. Like you are one of the old soldiers on guard against a possible attack from Republican soldiers, trying to avenge the destruction of the local farms! I'll take up position here in the middle of the room to narrate..." 

"Why does the tiny guy get to role-play?" Edward complained. 

"He's not role-playing, love!" Rochelle said, sighing as she unconsciously readjusted her thick-rimmed spectacles on an overly large snout. "He is our expert on the war!" 

"I'm hardly an expert," Stevan pointed out drily, only to be hushed by Rochelle. 

"You've read more about it than the two of us combined!" she insisted, ignoring any further protests, already rummaging through her rucksack in search of their main camera. "Come on, you guys! Hop to it! We are losing daylight and I would prefer to have the intro to this piece in this awesome light!"  

"I think it is already too dark in here..." Stevan started to argue, but Rochelle cut him off. 

"Nonsense," she stated. The camera she had retrieved switched on with a jolly jingle and she grinned up at him for a moment while she waited for the display to start up. "This blue hour light is perfect! Much spookier than the boring grey scale of infra-red or the harsh light of mid-... oh, no!" 

"Too dark?" 

"Oh, shut up!" 

"What about the flashlights?" Edward asked from the side where he was setting up the tripod he had carried on the indicated spot.  

"I don't think they will be bright enough for the camera," Stevan pointed out, leaning against the oddly angled frame of the window. “And if they were, the light shining through the loopholes would be noticeable from town!" 

"I was thinking we can use them to light our faces!" Edward suggested, as determined to make this work as Rochelle seemed to be. "It may even give a camp-fire-story feel to the video?" 

"That... is actually worth a try!" Rochelle said with a smile, making the big man grin. "But still, we should be careful not to shine any torchlight onto the windows facing the town. We cannot afford anyone knowing we are here!" 

"You are still sure this is a good idea?" Stevan asked again in a tight voice, rubbing his ear again as he watched the other male appraise his work with the tripod. 

"I thought you didn't believe in ghosts!" Edward snickered, earning a half-hearted slap to the shoulder from Rochelle. 

"I'm not scared of ghosts!" Stevan insisted, folding his arms and huffing in annoyance. "But this place is closed after sunset for a reason. And if we are caught here, we will be facing very real-world problems!" 

"Sure, sure!" 

"Stop wasting time, you two, and get ready to record!" Rochelle said, shaking her head as she screwed the main camera onto the swivel of the tripod. "My followers expect my blog to be of the more unknown ghost stories, not friends arguing!" 

"You have like, five followers!" Stevan said softly with a headshake of his own as he walked along the ledge, intending to investigate a strange series of scratches that stood out in the harsh flashlight beam on a stone a bit away from him. 

"Which is why we are here tonight!" Rochelle insisted as she leaned over the tripod. The camera gave another beep and she stood back with a wide smirk. "No risk, no reward, right? Anyway, we’ve started rolling so get your game faces on! And Stevan, stop moving all over the place! You're going to be in the initial shot, you'll make editing the footage impossible if you walk around so much!" 

"Sure, it's just..." Stevan frowned as he leaned towards one particular stone, brushing at its surface to confirm what he saw was there. But then he shook his head and quickly returned to his original position by the narrow loophole. "You know what, never mind!" 

"It is just, what?" Edward asked, the genuine curiosity in his voice catching the other man by surprise. 

"Dates," Stevan admitted before he could stop himself. He sighed, immediately realising how their self-appointed director would react. But the cat was out of the bag and he might as well share his find with the others. "The years leading up to the war are carved into the stone there, next to lines at varying distances from each other. 

"Didn't you say this place was built in the second year of the war?" Edward asked with a dubious frown. 

"I did." 

"Sweet! So, this place has an older history?" Rochelle asked, the recording camera momentarily forgotten as she glanced up at Stevan. "What do you think it means?" 

"No idea!" Stevan said shrugging and he repositioned himself in front of the narrow window where he had been when Rochelle first entered. "But it may be worth looking into later. It may be tracking changes over a few years but whatever that may have been, is leaving me stumped." 

"We definitely need to work that into the blog!" Rochelle agreed with enough excitement that Stevan thought for a moment she was drooling. "I feel it is an important clue! Your eyeline-cam was on, right? Hopefully, we got a good shot of those inscriptions. Otherwise, the infra-red shot will have to do! 

"Now, everyone take your positions!" she suddenly announced, turning towards the camera again. "We are losing the light too fast for my liking and as cool as the campfire idea is, I would prefer not to be just a floating face on the screen!" 

The other two respectfully kept quiet, allowing her the moment to prepare herself. 

"Welcome to another episode of Rochelle's Riveting Reflections," she said in an assertive voice as she addressed the camera, "where together, we reveal recondite recollections and rouse scary skeletons in the secret recesses of time! 

"Today, we are exploring a story that’s surprisingly close to home. We are visiting the blockhouse on the hill just east of town where legend has it, the infamous 'Burning Ghost' can be encountered on nights when there is no moon!" 

"It is hardly 'infamous'," Stevan pointed out from the side when Rochelle paused her introduction long enough. 

"Oh, shut up!" she retorted before turning to him with a rude twist of her snout. "Why don't you rather tell us a bit about the history of the war, and of blockhouses in particular?" 

"Well, er, as-as everyone is aware, the war at the turn of the previous century is usually divided into three distinct phases," Stevan started awkwardly despite having rehearsed his pitch several times that day, fighting not to fidget nervously with the hem of his shirt. "The first phase saw the Republican Army defeat the invaders, pushing them back in a series of stunning victories. In the second, the Imperial Forces steamrolled over the defenders in their unstoppable march, capturing the capitals barely a year after the war began. Then the last is famous for the insurgencies from bitter-ender Republican fighters and the Imperial countermeasures against attacks on vital infrastructure. 

"While most of the focus is on the more spectacular destruction of local farmhouses, we easily forget that the Empire also built an extensive system of blockhouses at this time," Stevan continued more confidently as he twirled a hand about his head, indicating towards the ever-silent stones about them even though the gloom within the bowels of the building most likely meant the gesture would not be visible on the final recording. "Many, like this one, still stand today even. They were erected to guard important positions or to restrict enemy movement when it became clear the Republicans were not interested in surrendering any time soon. Sure, many of them had surrendered and were shipped off..." 

"What about this blockhouse in particular?" Rochelle prompted patiently before her old friend could go off on a tangent again. "When and why was it built?" 

"Oh, well, this particular one was built to protect the local railway bridge across the river, which was a vital supply line for the influx of a vast number of Imperial troops at the time!" he stated, looking around at the masonry around him for a moment. "And the fact that it is built from local stone rather than the more popular cement and corrugated iron that appeared later on, indicates that it is one of the first to be erected." 

"Are you sure they used local stones here?" Edward suddenly chipped in, ignoring the irritable sigh Rochelle gave. "It is darker than what we saw outside on the hill." 

"Pretty sure," Stevan stated, scratching at a stone next to him and forgetting the recording camera completely in the moment. "I'm no expert, but I'd say it is fire damage you are looking at." 

"So, this fort was attacked?" 

"Doubtful," the smaller male said, sighing as he shook his head. "The focus of the Republicans at this time of the war was to avoid set-piece battles and fortified enemy positions as much as possible. The blockhouses are mostly mentioned by surviving accounts as positions where the guerilla troops had to be extra careful whenever they moved from one hideout to the next. Though, this one in particular seems to have earned a bad reputation as being easy to slip past on particularly dark nights." 

"So where did the fire come from then?" Rochelle asked a little too eagerly. "Could it have something to do with the ghost? It is said to be 'Burning' after all!" 

"After all this time, I doubt..." Stevan hesitated when he saw her frown up at him. "Sure, I... guess?" 

"You guess?" she asked through an exasperated sigh. "Come on, you've got to do better than that for the viewers!" 

"Do you honestly expect them to believe that these stones will still retain evidence of fire after more than a hundred years?" Stevan countered, sighing when Rochelle didn't want to budge. "Okay, fine!" He cleared his throat before acting for the camera despite his better judgment. "There is clear evidence of fire damage on the stones the blockhouse is built from, which links us back to the ghost of tonight's story!" 

"Thank you," Rochelle said, smirking satisfied as she turned to Edward. "Edward, you're the one who first brought the story to our attention, so why don't you retell it to our viewers?" 

"Right!" Stevan practically chirped with excitement as he quickly stepped up to where Rochelle had vacated the camera's view, eager for his moment in the spotlight. 

"Our story starts during the war itself," he started, much more in his element than Stevan had been moments before. "This blockhouse may have been built to watch over the local landscape, but shortly after its construction, it had earned an unfavourable reputation among the occupying soldiers. In the eighteen months or so of operation, there were no less than twelve court-martial cases against various units stationed here: Seven Dereliction of duty, four Desertions and even a Murder when one soldier had been suffocated whilst on duty. 

"While the available Imperial Army records do not give us any further information, that is not the case with later police reports!" Edward grinned knowingly at the camera, pausing for unnecessary dramatic effect. "After the war had ended, a total of seven more deaths on three separate occasions are reported to have happened inside this building. And according to autopsies, they all died of acute smoke inhalation. 

"Only one person is known to have survived an encounter with the ghost, telling the chilling story we are going to share with you tonight! There, how was that?" 

"See Stevan, that is how you do it!" Rochelle said, smirking broadly as Edward bowed out again. 

"Sure," the small man on the ledge drawled. She ignored him, instead walking up to the tripod from where she started to reconsider her next angle. 

"So, where did you say the ghost is usually seen?" she asked Edward, picking the tripod up without even stopping the camera's recording. "I think it will be best to tell the story while we focus on that spot!" 

"You are aware a simple web search is all that is needed to learn that they were all homeless people who tried to find shelter in here, only to be overwhelmed by the smoke of their fire?" Stevan asked, shifting the beam of his flashlight about as he started to look for a way down from his ledge. 

"They weren't all beggars!" Edward quickly pointed out as he indicated Rochelle towards the crumbling stairs. "The eyewitness was part of a group of students, who majored in physics!" 

"And we all know what students get up to when they camp out illegally like this!" Stevan countered unphased. 

"Then tell me this, wise guy?" Edward challenged him with an angry growl. "How can a simple campfire suffocate anyone in here? Neither the door nor those windows up there can close to trap the smoke inside the building, can they?" 

"I," Stevan hesitated, finger held up for an awkward moment before he had to concede the point. "I don't know." 

"Come on guys, do you always have to argue whenever we make these videos?" Rochelle asked annoyed, shifting the tripod around to a more central position. "We are running out of time. Even with the flashlights, the light is for all intents and purposes, gone. Sure, the actual ghost-hunting is best done in night mode, but I want the infodump as much in colour as possible!" 

"Not to mention, the longer we spend in here, the more likely we will be caught!" Stevan complained, slowly making his way along the ledge back to the crumbling excuse for stairs that was now the main focus of the camera. "I don't know about you guys, but I'd prefer not to..." 

His complaining was cut short by the sudden, ear-splitting "WhzzzzzzzzzzzzzzZZZZT" emitting suddenly from the little gadget on his belt just as he passed the spot where he had seen the inscribed dates. 

"What the hell?" Edward asked after a couple of seconds of awkward silence that followed when the rude bit of equipment had been turned off. "Dude, was that your EMF Meter?" 

The diminutive man checked the little box dangling from his belt again, as if unable to comprehend that the thing actually went off at all. 

"What did the reading say?" Rochelle asked excitedly, before cursing under her breath as she realized she had the main camera pointing in the wrong direction. 

"I didn't check," Stevan admitted awkwardly, glancing at the now-dead little screen. "I switched it off, just wanted to quiet it down!" 

"Um, guys?" Edward asked from the side, but Rochelle cut him off with a wave of her hand, too focused on her perfect shot to pay the large male enough mind. 

"Why didn't..." She scowled for a moment, pinching her snout again as she considered possible next steps. "What about your eyeline-cam? Did you get something usable there at least?" 

"It is on as you had asked, but we will have to wait and see if it is usable," Stevan said a little annoyed. "I wasn't exactly thinking of the best camera angles for you at the time." 

"You know what, it doesn't matter," she decided, twisting the tripod so that the main camera was recording Stevan still standing on his ledge. Her face lit up as she opened the flip-screen to start fidgeting with the settings. "Redo your movements so that we can get the shot properly this time. Remember to act as surprised to hear it go off as you were just now!" 

"Guys?" 

"What about the story itself?" Stevan asked, fidgeting with the annoying gadget once again to turn it back on. "Didn't you say we are losing..." 

"I know what I said!" Rochelle dismissed him with an impatient wave. "But we can redo that later if we have to. This is real ghost-hunting stuff we have here!" 

"Guys?" 

"The field is gone!" Stevan suddenly announced. 

"What do you mean, gone?" Rochelle asked confused, blinking up at the smaller male. "We all heard..." 

"I mean, there is no signal anymore!" The small man shook the gadget around a bit before taking another reading. "All I'm picking is the standard background level we've seen outside!" 

"How is that possible..." 

"GUYS!" 

"WHAT?" Both Stevan and Rochelle rounded irritably on the large man in the corner. 

"Is it just me, or do you also smell smoke?" 

He was right. The sour scent of burning grass was faint, but now that their attention had been drawn to it, the smell was definitely noticeable. 

"Is there a wildfire outside?" Rochelle asked, for once not thinking of her blog as she shone her beam up at the window close by Stevan. 

"I don't see anything," Stevan commented, glancing out through the nearest loophole, "but that isn't to say there isn't one just around the ridge!"  

"Ooohhhh!" Edward whispered hauntingly before chuckling to himself. "So, we have rumours of a burning ghost and now, the smell of smoke..." 

"Did you start a fire outside to scare us?" Stevan accused him, his voice tight as he glared down at the man standing still standing by the stairs. 

"I hope you didn't!" Rochelle agreed with the smaller male, much to Edward’s irritation. "That will bring the authorities here before we can get any good footage for the blog!" 

"Don't be ridiculous!" Edward challenged them right back. "When would I have had the opportunity to do so? But you have to admit, that would be a good prank." 

"Then where is the smoke coming from?" Stevan insisted, shining his flashlight down onto the larger male. By now the smoke was starting to become more noticeable, enough even for thin silvery wisps to reflect in the beams of light as they flashed this way and that. Rochelle suddenly snorted, waving a hand in front of her face to clear the foul air. Something was indeed burning somewhere, and it wasn't mere grass anymore. Instead, there was a definite acrid addition to the smell. 

"We need to leave!" Steven decided for them, urgently heading around the ledge to the stairs that lead down to what had once been the lower floor. "We can come back and finish this another time when there isn't a fire to worry about..." 

"I'm already behind on posting something to the blog!" Rochelle argued. "We can still do this..." 

"We'll be fine in here!" Edward quickly agreed with her, but then he grinned up at Stevan. "Anyway, do you really think it is the ghost trying to smoke us out? I thought you didn't believe in the supernatural!" 

"I don't know where this smoke is coming from and don't care!" Stevan snapped, "Supernatural or not, this smoke is real enough and we need to get out of here before we become trapped! Didn't you say people have suffo... urg!" 

"Whzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzuh!" The smaller man's EMF meter suddenly started to scream shrilly again, whining down only when he backed away again. But as he did, Steven raised both arms in front of his face protectively as he started to cough violently. 

"Steve!" Rochelle called out in alarm. "What's wrong?" 

"Hot..." was all that he could get out though, doubling over and heaving for fresher air which was starting to become surprisingly short in supply. 

What do you mean?" she asked, shifting her light beam across the ledge where the small man had staggered backwards. "I don't see... what?" She turned towards Edward, shining her flashlight directly in his face and making the larger man flinch away from the blinding light. 

"Hey, stop that!" he snapped, raising a large hand to shield his eyes. "I didn't do anything!" 

"I heard you complaining!" she accused him. "If you have something to say, speak up!" 

"I didn't say anything!" Edward insisted, shining his own flashlight at her face which finally made her lower her own beam. The two was still glaring at each other when the sound echoed suddenly around them. It was faint but unmistakable, a pained moaning that seemed to emanate from the stones itself, a feral sound that carried absolutely no intelligence whatsoever.  

"Do-do you think there really is a ghost?" Edward asked, all fun and games now gone. His voice cracked and he swung the beam of his flashlight this way and that with frantic urgency as he tried to illuminate every possible dark corner that caught his attention.   

"Who, are you?" Rochelle asked the reproachful stones around them, not focusing on any one in particular. "What-what is it you want to say to us?" 

The answer was one they didn’t want to hear. Still lacking any form of intelligence, the mysterious groaning intensified to a shrill scream for help, unmistakeably filled with mortal anguish and fear. Stevan, still coughing, decided to completely forego the stairs he had used to get up onto the ledge and instead opted for the faster route down. He leapt from the dangerously high elevation and unsurprisingly, screamed as he hit the ground, collapsing to the sandy floor when his foot rolled painfully under his weight. 

"We need to get out of here!" he whizzed, struggling to put weight on his sprained ankle only to fall over again, knocking the tripod over and sending their main camera crashing to the ground where most of the image it continued to record was of coarse gravel. 

"Whzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz!" 

Edward yelped and dropped his flashlight as he whirled about in fright when his own EMF scanner started to sound a warning. His torch clanged against a section of masonry rubble that had broken off years ago and with a soft plop, something in the wiring broke. The hard white light blinked out and for the first time, the trio noticed an aura of pale blue light emanating from the stairs directly behind the big man. It quivered as if cast by a sickly candle flame, and sure enough, when Edward squinted at it, he thought he could see small licks of flames starting to rise up from the bare stone. 

The smoke was starting to get thick now, reflecting even off the spectral blue fire which, now that it was noticed, was quickly spreading to engulf the entire upper story. Even the beams from the two working flashlights failed to banish it anymore. The smoke was overpowering by now, all three were coughing and retching as the distinct smell of burning meat reached frantically flaring nostrils. 

"Screw this!" Edward yelped and he rushed for the exit only to find that, with the other two already there, the small entrance which had been designed to keep the enemy out also did an adorable job of keeping the fleeing ghost-hunters inside. 

They were still busy shouldering each other in a desperate attempt to escape through the too small door when the ghost screamed again, the bodiless voice now brimming with true mortal terror as it begged for help that, after more than a hundred, would still not come. Despite having read the obscure description of what he would see, Edward still looked over his shoulder back to the stairs. He had not really believed the fantastic tale himself when he first learnt of it but now, what he saw there on the stairs nearly made his heart stop. Filled with all-consuming terror, he lost all sense of moral propriety and driven by the feral desire to survive, he shoved Rochelle as hard as he could out of the way. He fled outside into the clean, clear air as fast as his awkward crawling allowed. Yet, he had barely reached the fresh air outside when the terrible scream of his girlfriend drove him further, pushing him to run in a blind panic down the steep, dark hill for the safety of their car. 

   * * *  

The trio never returned to the blockhouse to complete their story properly ever again. Edward remained evasive about the incident and Stevan refused to get out of bed, claiming he needed time to recover. Only Rochelle dared to venture back two days later, but only to retrieve their abandoned belongings. 

In the middle of the day. 

With the sun full out. 

Two weeks after the incident, a quickly spliced-together video of their disastrous investigation appeared on Rochelle's blog. It was not nearly the quality she had originally dreamt of, though. And to her dismay, there was no real evidence to speak of. Sure, the smoke can clearly be seen in the footage, but there was no clear image of the spectral flames or the terrible shape on the second floor. The best shot they managed to get could just as well be dismissed by critics as some electronic artefacts on the largest camera's footage, most likely caused by the damage the sensor received when the tripod was knocked over.  

But despite the terrible execution of their hunt and the toll it took on their once close friendship, this video would be the first on her blog where the view count climbed well above her sad, all-time high of twenty-three watchers. 

And as for the secret of The Old House? 

Well, that will have to wait for someone else to unravel that particular mystery. 

    end.