I was a night owl. Always had been.
My most productive hours fell when the world was silent and
shrouded in darkness. It was during these hours that I
wrote my stories, played my video games, and most
importantly, made my living. I worked for Uber Eats in Los
Angeles, a job that suited my nocturnal lifestyle perfectly.
This story begins on a humid summer night.
I had just finished delivering a late night pizza to a college
kid studying for his exams. As I drove back to the more
bustling part of town, I noticed a new order popping up on my
phone. It was an address I didn't
recognize, nestled in an older, less traveled part of the city.
It was a place few people ventured after dark, but an
order was an order, and I accepted it.
The order was simple, a single cheeseburger from a fast food
joint. As I picked up the order, the
server gave me a peculiar look. That's a long way to go for a
burger, she said, looking at the delivery address on her screen.
I shrugged it off, attributing her concern to the lateness of
the hour and the remote location of the delivery address.
I thanked her and headed out, the aroma of the freshly cooked
burger filling my car. The journey to the address was
eerie. The further I went, the less
familiar the surroundings became.
The vibrant, crowded streets of LA gave way to narrower,
desolate roads. Shrouded in shadows and an
oppressive silence, the city's soundscape faded into a
background hum, replaced by the haunting whispers of wind
through the skeletal trees lining the road.
As I turned onto the street, indicated by my G PS:, a
chilling sense of unease crept over me.
The houses here were old and decrepit.
They're boarded up windows and overgrown lawns, indicative of a
long abandoned neighborhood. It was as if I had stepped into
a ghost town within the heart of the metropolis.
My headlights landed on the House, matching the delivery
address. It was a dilapidated 2 story
building, the chipped paint and crumbling facade adding to its
eerie appearance. But what unsettled me most was
its windows. They were not boarded up like
the others, instead covered by old faded curtains that seemed
to shift ever so slightly. A sensible person would have
turned back, but the reality of my financial situation compelled
me to carry out the task. I got out of my car, the
cheeseburger in hand. And approached the house.
The overgrown weeds crunched under my shoes, the sound
unnaturally loud. In the unsettling silence, I
knocked on the door, the sound echoing through the hollowed out
house. As I waited for a response, a
chill ran down my spine. There was something profoundly
wrong about this place, an ominous aura that I couldn't
shake. And then the unthinkable
happened. The door creaked open on its
own, revealing an enveloping darkness within.
Hello. I called out, my voice
tremulous, swallowed up by the darkness inside and unsettling
stillness hung in the air, broken only by the distant echo
of my own words. I was about to turn around, my
instinct screaming at me to get out of there, when a voice
drifted out from within the house.
Just leave it by the door, thank you.
The voice was old and raspy and underlying tone of weakness,
evident in its timbre. Sympathy momentarily dampened my
fear. As I realized this could be an
elderly person unable to cook for themselves, I put the bag
down near the entrance, took a picture to confirm delivery, and
hurried back to my car. As I drove away, I glanced back
at the house. The front door was still open,
the burger untouched. The following night, a new order
buzzed on my phone. My blood ran cold as I saw the
same address from last night. It was the same order, A single
cheeseburger. With a deep sigh, I accepted the
order. I tried to convince myself that
there was nothing to worry about.
An elderly person in need was depending on me as I turned onto
the same abandoned St. my hands were shaking slightly.
The sight of the house bathed in the cold glow of my headlights
did nothing to ease my anxiety. Gathering my courage, I
approached the house and left the cheeseburger by the front
door. This time, no voice acknowledged
me and the door remained closed. Days turned into a week.
And every night the order from the old house came in like
clockwork. Each time I left a cheeseburger
by the front door, and each time there was no response.
My initial fear turned into an uncomfortable routine, the
mystery of the old house and its unseen occupant never leaving my
thoughts. On the eighth night, things
changed. The voice, frail and weak,
called out again as I set down the cheeseburger.
Could you Could you come in and place it on the table?
I'm not feeling well. Against my better judgment, I
pushed the door open and stepped into the house.
The air was stale, heavy with the smell of decay and damp
wood. I strained my eyes to adjust to
the darkness, flicking on the flashlight on my phone.
The narrow beam cut through the shadows, illuminating A pathway
strewn with old tattered furniture and cobwebs.
I placed the burger on a rickety table and backed out, not daring
to explore further as I drove away.
The feeling of unease was stronger than ever, the image of
the decaying interior imprinted in my mind.
The house was not fit for habitation, yet someone was
living there, surviving off of a single cheeseburger every night.
But who were they, and why did they choose to live this way?
And most importantly, why did I feel an uncanny sense of dread
every time I stepped foot on that property?
As the nights wore on, I realized I was about to discover
answers that I may not be prepared for.
My nights became plagued by nightmares, the old house,
taking on monstrous proportions in my sleep, battled mind.
I would be back in the decaying living room, the weak voice
whispering unseen, leading me deeper into the bowels of the
house. I would wake up drenched in
sweat, the echoes of the whisper still resonating in my ears.
And still the orders kept coming.
I started to dread the pings on my phone as night fell, knowing
that inevitably one of them would lead me back to the old
house. Each visit felt like I was
intruding into a story I wasn't meant to be a part of, an
uninvited character in a slowly unfurling horror tale.
On the 12th night, my worst fears came to pass.
As I laid the cheeseburger at the front door, the voice
drifted out, sounding weaker than ever.
Can you please bring it to me? I hesitated at the entrance,
every instinct screaming at me to refuse with the pleading tone
in the voice tugged at my humanity.
Swallowing hard, I stepped into the dimly lit interior.
The house seemed to groan around me as I walked deeper, following
the voice that was now a barely audible whisper.
My heart pounded in my chest as I moved past rotting furniture,
the beam of my phone's flashlight bouncing off peeling
wallpaper and bare wooden floors.
Finally, I reached a dilapidated door at the end of a long,
narrow hallway. With a trembling hand, I pushed
the door open. Inside was a figure.
Huddled under threadbare blankets on an old bed, the room
reeking of decay and neglect, over here the figure lifted A
frail hand, gesturing to a bedside table.
I placed the burger there, my eyes never leaving the shadowy
form under the blankets. As I turn to leave.
The voice stopped me. Thank you.
Something in the tone, a mix of relief and sorrow, rooted me to
the spot. I found myself asking the
question that had been gnawing at me for days.
Who are you? There was a pause, the silence
stretching on until it felt unbearable.
Then the figure under the blanket stirred, just an old man
waiting to be forgotten. I left the house that night with
a heavy heart, the sadness in the old man's voice haunting me
as I continued to deliver the cheeseburgers night after night,
I began to feel a sense of duty, a need to ensure that this
lonely soul was not forgotten, but with each visit.
The atmosphere in the house grew more oppressive, the sense of
dread escalating into tangible fear.
I started to hear things. Whispers in the silence, sighs
in the creaking wood, laughter in the rustling wind.
The house was alive, it's malignant energy growing
stronger with each passing night.
Until one night the cheeseburger order didn't come in.
Nor the next night, nor the night after that.
I found myself driving past the house anyway.
A sick feeling of worry gnawing at me on the 4th day, I summoned
the courage to enter the house. The silence inside was
deafening, the usual whispering voice absent.
I moved towards the room, my heart pounding as I pushed open
the door. The sight that greeted me made
my blood run cold. The bed was empty, the room
colder than ever. But what truly terrified me was
the state of the room. It looked untouched, unused for
years. No sign that the frail, dying
man had ever been there. In my heart, I knew I'd been
delivering meals to a ghost, a lingering spirit tied to the old
house, and I was part of his unfinished story.
Fear took a backseat to an overwhelming sadness as I
realized the truth. The urban legend of the old
haunted house wasn't just a legend after all.
And the ghost, the lonely old man, was finally at rest as I
left the house for the final time.
It's a prestigious institution with a rich history and I
decided to stay on and try to work on a master's.
My major is in physics with a specialism in electrical
engineering, and towards the end of my 4th year I spent a lot of
time networking and socializing with doctors and professors
hoping to land a good graduate program now a few decades ago.
Some Brightspark, who had somehow got himself to be
university president, decided that administration would be
much easier if the departments were alphabetized rather than
grouped by faculty. He reorganized half the campus
before the end of his tenure. He left physics in place since
the building has had significant work to be suitable for the
subject, and now physics is next to psychology, parapsychology,
and paranormal studies. Go figure.
This meant that the cafeteria, A minute's walk from the physics
building, also serves those other departments, and it can
often be hard to discern somebody's subject by looking.
At least that's my excuse for when I met Doctor Caruso.
I got chatting to him in the line for lunch and mentioned
that I was an electrical engineer looking for a master
supervisor. Caruso's eyes lit up.
He was a tall man, thin and wiry.
He claimed to be a Bostonian Italian, but he had no accent,
and I doubt he could have pointed to Italy on a map.
He told me he had a project he was working on, a new type of
battery, and he really needed an electrical engineer to help him.
He even had a budget that would stretch to my entire tuition.
I said yes almost immediately. He brought the paperwork to my
lab the next day and we signed. He wanted me to start right
away, but I hadn't even finished my finals, and besides, I wanted
a break from studying. Reluctantly, he agreed that if
he could send me over some specifications for me to think
through. He could wait until August, so
that's what I did. I really did want to break, but
when I and a few friends took off to Europe for a couple of
weeks after exams, I downloaded the specs to my tablet and ended
up studying them for a couple of hours most days, sometimes in
our hostel room, sometimes by a pool or a cafe.
What Caruso wanted was mostly very sensible.
Unusual, but logical. Essentially, it was a way of
collecting energy from work, converting it into electric
current. And storing it in a battery.
What made it weird was that he wanted to collect energy from a
large number of tiny fluctuations, and those
fluctuations were varied. Normally you would choose one
convert the motion of a fluid with a turbine, extract, work
from a heat differential with a Stirling engine, convert
pressure into electrical current via the piezo electric effect,
and so on. Caruso wanted all of these and
more, but in a tiny package an inch or two across.
Essentially it looked like he was trying to squeeze every last
bit of available energy out of the environment at micro scale,
but with the capability of scaling up to an arbitrary size.
While I was on holiday, I was determined not to call Caruso or
even e-mail him. I still managed to fill 3
notebooks of diagrams and calculations before I got back
to the US in the middle of August.
So excited was I to get working on this project.
It was a lot of work. And I spent months tinkering
before a problem arose. Jenny, one of the administrators
in the physics department, called me into her office.
She asked me about the procurement forms I've been
submitting and who they were for.
I explained, showing her the paperwork I had with Caruso
signature on it. It was only then that I learned
Caruso was, in fact, not a physicist.
He was in paranormal studies. We'd met in the lab plenty of
times and had meetings and discussions in the cafeteria.
But I realized I'd never actually been to his office.
I excused myself and called my supervisor, asking him to
explain himself. He arrived at Jenny's office
about 20 minutes later, apologized for the
misunderstanding, and arranged for money to be transferred over
to cover the costs. Jenny was happy, but I was not.
I asked him to come to the lab to check on something, close the
door, and gave him an earful. I don't think the closed door
did much for privacy. I showed none of the respect,
usually due to your supervisor, and even the radio astronomers
on the roof could probably hear me.
Surprisingly, Caruso was not upset or angry.
He didn't raise his voice. He just waited until I'd run out
of steam, which took quite a while.
Then he looked at me, said I'm sorry, and invited me to his
office in Para. I'd never actually been to the
Paranormal Studies building, for all its spooky reputation and
the occasional weird rumors coming out of there.
It looked very respectable. I don't think the building had
been redecorated since the department had moved there in
the 80s, but it was clean, well kept, and a lot tidier than most
of the physics building. If you didn't read the titles of
the books on the shelves, it could have been mistaken for
psychology or mathematics, or even an accountant's or lawyer's
offices. Caruso's office was much the
same. He had an old but nice wooden
desk with a desktop computer and half a dozen books pulled from
the shelves behind it. But apart from 1/2 empty coffee
mug, everything was very clean. He even had a couple of
armchairs in there. In physics, you're lucky to get
an office chair with wheels. He took one chair and I took the
other, and I felt like we should break out smoking pipes and
discuss classic literature. Of course, that's not what we
did. Caruso apologized again and
promised to tell me exactly what he was doing.
It was about ghosts. It took every ounce of restraint
in my body not to roll my eyes. I resolved to let him finish
talking the same courtesy he had granted me half an hour earlier,
and then make up my mind. Ghosts, he explained, may or may
not exist, but that wasn't the point.
Alleged hauntings most certainly do exist and exhibit physical
manifestations, whether they are environmental or paranormal.
These effects are real. And ghost hunters have been
measuring them since the 19th century, But until now nobody
has thought to harness them. People who claim to have
experienced hauntings describe sudden changes in air
temperature, strange sounds, and feelings of dread.
More macroscopic effects might include wind or even objects
moving of their own volition. All of these, Caruso told me,
could be harnessed to provide energy, feelings of dread.
I asked, breaking the promise to myself not to interrupt.
Caruso explained that skeptics have written this off as a
number of different phenomena, but are generally keen on
infrasound sound at a frequency too low for human hearing.
But that can nevertheless be sensed.
Back in the 80s, a British researcher had experienced a
haunting in a lab has had several other people who work
there. He eventually traced it down to
a faulty extractor fan emitting infrasound.
He got it fixed, and the haunting stopped.
This was a physical phenomenon with a simple explanation, but
still one that could be used to extract energy.
Caruso continued. Like this For some time, I was
getting increasingly skeptical about the work.
You could make an interesting gadget for party tricks, but I
couldn't see how our device could possibly draw enough
environmental power to charge a phone, let alone supply an
entire house. Caruso urged me to continue the
work. Replying that even if it didn't
result in anything practical, I'd still come out with a
master's thesis, So I kept going.
It was well into my second year before I had something really
usable, a square of miniaturized electronics 2 inches wide that
could at best draw 0.3 megawatts of power from the environment.
And so, last November, I carried my equipment to Caruso's office
for a demonstration. Despite its age, Paranormal
Studies has much better environmental controls than the
physics labs. We control the environment in
small containers for our experiments.
They control the environment for the comfort of their staff.
This is nice, but it meant my galvanometer barely went above
0.1 megawatts. Still, this was enough for
Caruso to let out a little shriek of excitement.
When can we test it in the field?
I told him that a single module had a maximum power rating of 20
megawatts. It was a prototype and far from
optimized, but I'd done some calculations that showed that to
power a typical US household, at best we would need so many of
these connected in parallel that the final product would be the
size of a large fridge. Caruso pointed out, quite
correctly, that this is exactly why he'd recruited an electrical
engineer. And that's something.
The size of a fridge was a good trade off for having electricity
and fuel bills of 0. But I replied, even if I could
get the maximum power up, there simply wasn't the energy
available in the environment to reach anywhere near that
maximum. Caruso gave me a sly look, The
kind of look your coconspirator might give you, except I wasn't
in on the conspiracy. Just work on the electronics,
have it ready by March 1st. I'll sort out the environmental
problem. Well, this guy was paying my
entire tuition, and the budget he'd arranged with Jenny was
several times higher than most grad students in physics.
Over the next few months, I worked on an improved prototype,
figured out how to automate much of the production, and built an
aggregation system to route all the power to a central supply
point. On my March deadline, I had a
device about the size of a backpack, and indeed I fitted it
all into a backpack for easy transport.
I was regularly pulling upwards of 500 megawatts in the right
conditions, but nowhere near the theoretical maximum of 200
watts, enough to power a small LED from a device that could
almost run a hair dryer. When I showed this to Caruso, he
delightfully declared it's ready.
Ready for what? I asked.
A proper test Bring it here tonight.
I'll meet you on the steps outside the department at 7:00.
So I did. In the last light of the
evening, we got into Caruso's car and set off.
There are a lot of very old buildings in town, many dating
back to Precivil War, and of course this means lots of ghost
stories. I've never gone in for that
much, but I recognize the house we parked in front of.
I've passed it plenty of times, and in the summer it's not
uncommon to see a tour guide talking about it to a group of
tourists or sometimes locals on a workplace evening out.
The house is 3 stories tall with wood paneling on the outside.
The windows are small with diagonal grids.
I think made of lead. Except for a couple that have
been smashed and boarded up, nobody has lived there for quite
some time and it shows. There is a small yard out front,
mostly overgrown, and it took us a bit of effort to maneuver
through the path to the front door.
To my surprise, the door was locked.
Caruso, apparently having anticipated this, brought out a
crowbar from his inside coat pocket.
I was slightly alarmed at how easily he broke in.
And made a mental note to ask him later how a paranormal
studies researcher is so adept at B&E.
But right now I had another burning question.
You actually want us to draw power from a haunted house?
Well, he said, pushing the busted door open.
We don't know that it's haunted, but we do know that several
people have reported strange disturbances.
Do you know the history of this place?
I confess that I didn't. In the 1780s, a wealthy family
lived here. They made their living by
ensuring ships engaged in the transatlantic slave trade.
Supposedly the daughter objected, finding her father's
trade unconscionable. A neighbor's diary records some
of the loud arguments he overheard, often lasting for
hours. Then one day, the daughter died,
just 17 years old. The cause of death was
officially recorded as typhus, but neighbors record that there
was a particularly angry exchange between father and
daughter. Her voice raised more than you'd
expect from a person dying of fever when they brought her body
out of the house. There were several bystanders
watching, some of whom claimed they saw blood on her clothes
and knife wounds. We were inside at this point,
looking around a dimly lit hallway.
Caruso lit an electric lamp. The well to do back then had
little. They enjoyed more than gossip,
and the family quickly got a reputation.
The father had murdered his daughter.
The mother was in on it, that sort of thing.
We'll never know exactly what happened, but we do know that a
year later, on the anniversary of her daughter's passing, the
mother took her own life. Caruso pointed to the landing
above us just there. This is exactly why I never
joined those tour groups. I hate this stuff.
The couple had two children. With the daughter and mother
gone, the father and son were alone in the house.
Things got strained. Apparently, the son blamed his
father for both of the deaths. And their arguments often turned
physical. The boy, about 14 at the time,
was often seen hiding his face to try to cover the bruises.
This went on for about a year. He paused for a second exactly a
year. One year after the mother took
her own life. Two years after the daughter
passed, mysteriously a fire started in the house.
The building was gutted, and by the time they managed to put the
fire out, the father was dead. They never found the boy.
Caruso had also brought a backpack with him, and now he
was carefully laying out its contents.
He had crystals, chalk, feathers, salt, all sorts of
rubbish you might find in a new age shop.
He seemed to be arranging them in some sort of pattern, and
when he was done, he started drawing shapes on the wooden
floor with the chalk. This clearly needed some
concentration, but that only slowed his speech, he continued.
This is a good location. And the shell of the house that
remained was reasonably sturdy. So years later, somebody bought
the site from the estate, some grand niece I think, who lived
in Boston, and rebuilt it more or less.
Brick for brick, plank for plank.
They came from out of town, New York, I think.
So they weren't aware of the history, only that there had
been a fire. They were a family of 6.
It's a big house, three daughters and one son, very
pleasant. By all accounts the children
were young and went to school locally.
Their teachers are on record saying they had concerns.
He left the house. Then I walked around the ground
floor. There were minimal facilities, a
kitchen, dining room and living room, but no furniture.
I saw a few electrical outlets, two per room, with decaying and
yellowing plastic. I doubt any of them worked.
Caruso returned with several waist height candlesticks.
Where was I? He placed the sticks in a neat
circle. Oh right, the kids.
So written records from the school say that the children
were weird. They always looked tired and
complained that they couldn't sleep.
Apparently the younger girls drew frightening faces and the
boy told his teacher that he didn't like the women he lived
with. The teacher asked if he meant
his sisters or his mother and he said no, it was the other women.
They wouldn't let him sleep and they told him everything was his
fault. Eventually things came to a
head. The girls school told the
parents their daughters had been frightening the other girls.
And they wouldn't be welcome anymore.
Back then, good schools were few and far between, and soon enough
the family had packed up and gone back to New York or
wherever he now began placing candles on the candlesticks.
That was back in, I think, the 1860s.
The house has changed hands a few times since then, but nobody
has stayed more than a year or two.
It's been empty most of the time.
The last people lived here in 1978, I think They left without
saying anything. But a reporter caught up with
them in the 90s. They said that they heard crying
every night, and their goldfish always died a few days after
they bought them. Even squatters and homeless
people stay away these days. The house was unheated and
poorly insulated on that spring evening.
Maybe that's why a chill ran through my body.
Maybe that's why I got goosebumps.
And that whispering noise I thought I heard.
Well, it's not like those old walls were any good at keeping
the wind out, right? Caruso stood back from his
handiwork and actually rubbed his hands together.
It's ready. Ready for what?
I asked, already knowing the answer.
He gave me a look like I was stupid, So I brought the micro
power plant out of my backpack and set it up in the center of
the arcane construction he'd built.
It was fully dark outside by now, and it took half an hour to
adjust the various settings on my equipment.
While I'd been setting it up, Caruso had pulled out two oil
fired storm lanterns. And set them up either side of
his ridiculous ghost apparatus. He turned the electric lamp off.
This made sense, as my galvanometer was sensitive
enough to read the electromagnetic field of the
lamp if he moved it. He turned his phone off and I
did the same. There was just enough light to
read the display for a long time.
It varied between about 300 and 500 megawatts, about average for
my tests. We sat there watching it for
about an hour before it started to rise. 607 hundred, 800
megawatts. That was the highest I'd ever
recorded, and it went further over just a couple of minutes.
I watched as the reading increased. 901 thousand, 1100
megawatts. I heard a sound I'd never heard
anything like it, and I haven't in the months since.
Except in my nightmares it was like a Gale of wind filled with
whispers, almost intelligible, the sort of sound where you know
it makes sense. But you can't quite figure it
out yourself. And above it, a shrill scream of
terror. The whether the sound was the
result or the cause of terror, I can't say.
My blood ran cold and I felt my feet rooted to the spot.
I had just enough wherewithal left in me to look at the
display. It was stable now, 2800
megawatts. This was almost exciting enough
for me to ignore the sounds, which were surely just the wind
rushing through the upper floors above us.
And I may have been able to calm myself had I not witnessed what
happened next. The candles flickered.
I distinctly remembered that they all rose up and blew
outwards, away from the center, and in the middle of them was a
face. A woman's face, but about twice
as big as a face should be, and it was clear that the screaming
was coming from her. The candles and the storm
lanterns blew out. I could see nothing.
Seconds earlier, my fight flight freeze instincts had settled on
freeze. Now they switched modes.
I turned and ran for the door. It was only a few feet behind
me, and despite the pitch darkness, I found it and pushed
it open, only to remember that it opened inwards, panic rising
in my guts. I fumbled for the door handle
for what felt like an eternity, Grasped it, yanked open the door
and tumbled out into the path. I ran to the end of the street
before I dared look back. Caruso was there, calmly walking
to his car with my device in his hands.
He got in and turned the engine on, dazzling me with his bright
headlights, and drove my way. When he reached me, he opened
the passenger window. Need a lift?
I have no idea how he was so calm.
I just wanted to run far, far away.
My legs were like Jelly, though, and I didn't think I could even
make it all the way home. Caruso dropped me off, said he'd
call me tomorrow. And headed away into the
darkness. I didn't go into the lab the
next morning. I had barely had any sleep and
really didn't want to talk about it.
But around 10, Caruso called me. I refused to go in, so he
invited himself around to mine. I wish I'd walked home rather
than let him know where I live. I almost didn't open the door
when he arrived. I let him into the hallway, but
no further. He was very excited, speaking
rapidly and more energetic than I'd ever seen him before when he
started talking about returning. I told him point blank that I
was out. There was no way I was ever
stepping foot in that house again.
And he could stick his power plant.
Well, you get the idea. Money isn't everything.
Remember that no matter how much somebody wants to pay you, some
things are just not worth it. Caruso brought a brown paper
packet out of his jacket and handed it to me.
I opened it. It was full of fifties, $10,000.
Call it hazard pay. Just one more test tomorrow
night. Then you never need to go back.
You can finish your masters in the lab.
No more field trips. Even with my tuition covered, I
was barely making my rent. 10,000 would pay off my debts
and cover my cost to the end of my masters, maybe more.
I accepted. I spent the next two days making
adjustments to the device. It drew multiple watts in the
previous test, enough to power a small light bulb.
So I built a new display, A10 by 10 grid of bulbs, which would
come on in sequence to show the power draw.
One bulb would be two watts and all hundred would be the maximum
200 watts. I met Caruso in front of
paranormal studies around 7:00 on March 3rd and we set off once
more to that cursed house. It looked just as it had two
nights earlier. The door was still busted open
and we set everything up the same way as before.
I came prepared. This time I had secretly hidden
several flashlights in my pockets as well as some high
intensity light sticks I got from a hardware store.
When I had a pair of thermal imaging goggles I'd borrowed
from the lab, I wore them on my forehead turned off to avoid
causing interference with the device.
They were only for emergencies. I'd considered a weapon, but
what use would that be against a ghost?
Besides, I told myself, ghosts aren't real.
We had been in the dark, in an eerie house with a bad
reputation, and Caruso had just told me a spooky story.
In that state of mind, of course, my brain would conjure
up a phantom face. I remembered how he had been so
calm walking out of the house. No doubt he hadn't seen anything
and it was all just my imagination.
I turned on the device to test it before Caruso had lit the
candles. I was getting 1200 megawatts
already, and the first bulb was clearly visible in the darkness.
He then lit the candles one by one, and I watched the power
increase. The heat engines in the device
should be able to Draw Something from the candles, but only about
20 megawatts. The second bulb lit up.
Then the third. Then the 4th.
Over 8 watts. Again.
I heard whispering. No, I told myself.
It's just the wind. It was the wind two days ago,
and it's the wind now. The power draw was steady now,
with seven bulbs lit up, still a long way from maximum, but far
more than it had any right to be.
Something suddenly occurred to me, Caruso, I said, fearing the
reply. That girl died on a certain
date. Then the mother died on the same
date a year later. Then the house burned down.
Yeah, that's right, he replied. March 3rd tonight.
Damn ghost stories. What are we getting?
How could he be so calm? I told him we were on 15 watts.
Not enough. I was worried about this.
The ghosts are too old. We need something fresher.
That didn't sound good. I was getting seriously worried
and questioning whether all this was worth 10,000 bucks.
Caruso went back to his bags and pulled out a small plastic box.
Inside was a mouse. And while I decided against
weapons, he had apparently brought a six inch knife.
What, Caruso? No, I shouted, but it didn't
help. He took the mouse, which was
just waking up to the middle of the circle, and took its life.
The wailing sounds that I've been so desperate to pretend had
just been The wind intensified, the candle flames flickered and
grew, and I saw blue lights streaming out of the mouse's
corpse like ribbons fluttering in the wind.
More bulbs lit up. The 2nd row was partly on now.
We were pulling 25 watts of power and it stayed there.
My heart was pounding, adrenaline pumped through my
veins. Somehow I managed not to turn
and flee. I turned on my thermal goggles.
They would make next to no difference to such a high power
draw. The room was mostly dark, but
the candle, flames, bulbs, Caruso, and slowly cooling mouse
cadaver were bright white. Still not enough, said the
glowing thermal image of Caruso. The mouse isn't going to cut it,
if you'll pardon the expression. What?
What are you saying? You want to kill 20 mice over
these things, then sell them in a department store?
No, Spectral Energy doesn't work like that.
Two mice wouldn't work. It needs to be one large
sacrifice. Something with a bigger soul, if
you will. What the hell was Caruso talking
about? He said nobody had tried this
before, but who knows what he'd read in those kooky books on his
shelves? Then it dawned on me.
He meant people. He wanted to build hundreds of
these thousands and kill a human being over each 1-2 centuries
earlier, the house had been the scene of a violent confrontation
over the ethics of slavery. Now history repeated itself.
Except somehow this lunatic had managed to find something even
worse. He argued that these devices
could halt global warming and stop oil wars.
I argued that murder was wrong no matter what he said, it would
save more lives than it cost. I shouted him down, called him
evil, a psychopath. Even more animated than before,
Caruso stepped closer. He got right in my face and
yelled that we had to do this. I pushed him away.
He pushed me back. I aimed to punch at him.
He dodged and hit me in the face.
This knocked my goggles off. Oh, how I wish he had done
anything else. The ghosts hadn't shown up in
infrared, but now I saw them clear as day.
A young woman, an older woman, and a man with charred and
blackened skin. All of them were glowing in the
darkness. Standing just 10 feet away,
watching the fight. Then I noticed something I
hadn't realized. Caruso was still holding the
knife. I had to get it out of his hand
before he decided to use me as his next test subject.
I went to grab it, he swung it at me, and I leaped out of the
way just in time. I'm not sure exactly what
happened next. There was a scuffle.
Either he grabbed me or I grabbed him and we wrestled for
a few moments until suddenly Caruso stopped fighting.
He staggered back, blood gushing from his abdomen.
I looked down. Somehow during the struggle I
had got the knife, which was now in my blood soaked hands.
Caruso fell to his knees just inside the circle.
He tried to say something, but I couldn't make it out.
Then he slumped to the ground. The screaming intensified.
Blue light streamed from his corpse, flooding the room.
The light bulbs all lit up brighter than ever.
As I turned to run, the candles blew out in the bulbs, pushed
far beyond their capacity. Exploded all at once.
I grabbed the door handle, clearly lit up in the bright
blue light, open the door, and ran.
It was about midnight and I got home without anybody seeing my
bloody hands. Nothing followed me from the
house. That's probably my only good
news. The next morning, after I'd got
over the five shots of whiskey, I had to calm myself down.
I called a lawyer and then the police.
Everybody knew I was working with Caruso and his car was
parked outside the house. It wouldn't be hard to connect
the dots when he was reported missing.
I'm being charged with involuntary manslaughter.
I told the police everything, with a few obvious exceptions.
Seeing that I'd voluntarily turned myself in and cooperated
with the police, the judge set a low bail.
Ironically, she put it at $10,000 and I got a friend to
pick up the package from my house.
My court date is in a few months and my lawyer says I've got a
good chance of claiming self-defense.
I might not have to spend a single night in prison, but the
university kicked me out. My device is in police evidence,
and I haven't had a restful night's sleep in months.
I wake up screaming most nights, and I pray that the visions I
see sometimes in the day are just trauma rather than the
ghosts of that family and Doctor Caruso and the mouse.
Last summer my parents took my brother Aaron and I on a family
holiday to Spain. It was something my parents had
been planning for a while, but wanted to keep it a surprise for
us kids. Aaron and I weren't told about
it until two days before we were due to leave.
We were ecstatic to leave our home in Scotland and trade in a
couple of weeks for some sunshine and hot weather. 2 days
later we were at the airport eagerly awaiting our flight.
It had been years since we went anywhere as a family because
it's difficult finding someone to watch our pets, at least when
you have eight dogs it is After arriving at our destination, mom
picked up a rental car and we were on our way to the hotel we
would be staying at. We didn't do much on our first
night other than unpack and go out to dinner just before
tucking into bed early. We all agreed to meet in the
lobby the next morning at 10. The next morning came and I was
the last to arrive. I didn't know what was planned
for the day, but Aaron and I followed our parents to the car
and got in. I asked where we were going, but
all I got from Mom was it's a surprise.
About an hour and a nap later, we stopped at what I thought to
be the middle of nowhere, just some empty land with a few trees
and overgrown grass. I checked the time on my phone
and saw that it was already close to noon.
Aaron looked just as confused as I was.
Until Dad said Mom and I bought this plot of land, it's ours.
Dad was always talking about eventually buying a plot of land
somewhere and fixing it up for different business ideas, but to
be honest, I never thought he'd actually go through with it.
Why? In Spain of all places?
I swear I never understood that. Man, none of us did.
Mom stepped in and said I brought lunch with us.
So why don't you guys look around for a bit while I get
everything set up and we'll have a nice picnic.
As strange as it all was, I was still kind of excited.
I mean, I know there wasn't really a whole lot to look at,
but maybe I'd find something cool lying on the ground
somewhere. I was even open to finding a
nice rock to take home with me. Erin and I wandered around for a
minute while Mom was getting everything out of the trunk
before going too far. I caught a quick glimpse of some
fresh strawberries, mine and Erin's favorite, as long as
they're accompanied with a good tart.
Suddenly, in the distance, I saw what appeared to be an old
building, but I was certain that there wasn't anything there
before. Aaron, look over there.
I pointed ahead. Let's go check it out.
He agreed, but reminded me not to keep Mom and Dad waiting too
long. As we edged closer, we realized
it was another hotel. This one, however, was very
clearly old and had been abandoned for quite some time.
Vines covered the crumbling building.
There was no telling how long it had been since it had seen any
guests. I took my phone out so I could
take a few pictures. I loved taking snaps of old
buildings. The longer I stood there, the
more I felt compelled to get even closer.
I needed to see the inside. Aaron felt the same way.
What we saw after opening the doors to the hotel lobby was
jaw-dropping. Everything inside was in
pristine condition. It was grand and luxurious and
it was surely worthy of a five star rating.
It was the kind of hotel that only the richest could indulge
in. My brother and I were the only
people inside. It was as if everyone just
simply walked out. We couldn't believe it.
I had to take more pictures. We searched around for any sign
of life, but to no avail. Suddenly, the elevator door
opened with a ping, signaling that it was ready for us to get
in. You would think that getting on
would be a bad idea, and it was, but as I mentioned earlier, I
felt compelled to get in. Aaron and I slowly got in, and
before we could press any buttons.
The doors swiftly closed and took us to the first floor.
It was when we got out that we smelled something delicious.
We followed the smell until we stood in front of a set of
swinging doors. Aaron stood next to me and we
looked at each other before slowly pushing the doors open.
We were immediately hit with a mouth watering aroma.
Inside was a busy dining room. Dozens of people sat at tables
with friends and family while enjoying their meals.
Smiles and laughter filled the room.
Everyone was happy and lost in their own conversations.
No one seemed to pay any attention to us as we made our
way over to the buffet table. Everything looked heavenly.
Aaron was almost in a trance like state as he went to grab a
fresh strawberry tart from the desert tray.
I quickly grabbed his arm. Wait, don't forget about what
happened in the movie Spirited Away.
He shook his head and snapped out of his trance.
Let's get out of here, he said as we walked away.
The room suddenly filled with music.
It was quiet, but the melody was calm and relaxing, enticing
even. I wanted to get my phone back
out, but I feared that if I didn't leave right then and
there, I never would. We spotted another way out on
the other side and didn't waste any time getting the hell out of
there. As the doors pushed open, the
lights behind us went out. We turned around and suddenly
the dining room was just as old and abandoned looking as the
outside. The people were gone.
The music was gone. And everything was covered in
dust. Being out of that room made me
feel a little more like myself. We took the stairs this time on
our way down, and discovered that the lobby was also looking
in pretty rough shape. The difference from what it
looked like earlier was night and day.
I wouldn't believe my eyes. Had Aaron not been there to
experience everything that I was.
I took my phone out one more time and snapped some more
pictures. An uneasy feeling swept over me
and I knew it was time to leave. We bustled on out of there and
something felt off, like we had been in there for a long time,
but I knew that was impossible. Aaron and I looked at the Erie
yet mysterious H1 last time before making our way back to
the car. In the distance, we could see
Mom and Dad frantically looking around for something.
What's going on with those two? Aaron asked.
Mom. Dad, I called out.
They started running to us. Mom was sobbing and Dad was
panicked. Mom couldn't get a word out
because she was crying so badly. I'll never forget the sheer
panic in Dad's voice when he yelled Where the hell have you 2
been? Your mother and I were worried
sick. Aaron and I were startled.
I looked over at the picnic that Mom had so lovingly put out for
us and noticed that the fresh fruit didn't look so fresh
anymore. The cream on the Strawberry
tarts had lost its shape and spilled over the sides.
The salad looked dry and withered.
I checked the time on my phone. It was 8:32 PM, Aaron.
Look, I showed him the screen. I felt sick.
We couldn't possibly have been gone for more than half an hour.
I couldn't even hear the yelling anymore.
I was so dizzy I thought I was going to pass out.
It took a good few minutes before I could even think
straight. Mom and Dad started getting in
the car and I begged and pleaded for them to listen.
Aaron and I tried telling them about the hotel, but Dad said
that he didn't know what we were talking about.
I pointed in the direction of the hotel, but I couldn't see it
anymore. Then I tried showing him the
pictures I took on my phone, but they were gone too.
All of the evidence just vanished.
Aaron went pale. I felt like I was losing my
mind. I think at some point Dad must
have finally heard the desperation in our voices.
He gave us a hug and Mom kissed our cheeks, still crying.
We got in the car and no one said a single word for the whole
ride back. My parents put the land up for
sale almost right after we got home.
They have just been given an offer.
I thought moving to the country would be a good thing.
Less stress, fewer problems, less crime.
But I don't feel safe out here, not now.
Being isolated feels like a mistake.
A huge, massive mistake. I thought I would love it.
All the peace and quiet and I did.
Except now my husband isn't. Well, he doesn't seem like
himself, and I'm completely cut off from everyone.
We bought this farm site unseen during COVID.
We were those people. 5 acres of prime Midwest farmland, flat,
open and hot, with topsoil 12 inches deep, Perfect for a
little homestead. There was a quaint farmhouse to
boot with a front porch, perfect for rocking chairs.
My mom thought we were crazy. I don't know why you want to be
so far from us. She spat at me one day as we box
things up at our old house. Darren knows what he's doing.
We're going to be fine. You don't know anything about
farming. You won't last a week.
But she was wrong. We'd set out a huge garden,
bought some chickens and settled into our new community and
unlike many of the sight unseen home purchase horror stories you
hear about our farmhouse, while small, was darling in person.
Everything had been going great until last night.
I was reading in bed when Darren suddenly sat up.
I think I left the back gate open.
Oh really? Yeah.
He got out of bed and slipped on some shoes.
I'm going to go check. I kept reading and I guess I
lost track of time. When I looked at the clock,
almost 20 minutes had passed. He should have been back
already. I marked my page and got up.
I peeked out the window but couldn't see anything.
I cursed Darren under my breath for not installing the motion
sensor light over our garage barn.
It was pitch black out there. That's one thing they don't tell
you about living in the country. The nights are dark, pitch
black, and the only light around is your own and the stars
Grumbling, I slipped on my rubber boots by the back door
and turned on the porch light. He'd probably just gotten off
track looking at all the stuff we needed to fix.
There was plenty of that around. I slipped outside the cool
summer air, smelled of cut hay, and buzzed with insects.
And my boots crunched on the loose gravel.
I thought for sure he would be in the barn, but he wasn't.
The lights were off in there too.
That's when I noticed a soft light coming from our front
field, right behind the barn. I walked to the edge of the
building for a better look. When I turned the corner, light
blasted my face so bright I had to shield my eyes with my hand.
Confused, I tried to blink them open.
What I saw made me recoil. I stepped back into the shadows,
my heart pounding. A beat of sweat ran down my
forehead, and I wiped it away with a finger.
I know what I saw. It was a spaceship, and it was
illuminating Darren, who stood frozen in the pasture.
I crept to the corner, crouched and shaking.
I peeked again. There it was, a spaceship.
Darren was now floating skyward, illuminated by a beam of
incredible light. Oh God.
I choked out. A Saab escaped my lips.
I hate to admit it. I wasn't brave.
I didn't try to help him. Instead, I turned on my heels
and ran back to the house as fast as I could.
I flew into the house and bolted the door behind me.
I slid down to the floor and prayed they hadn't seen me.
I didn't know what to do. There was no one to call.
And what would I even say? I numbly sat there until I fell
into a restless sleep. But this morning I woke up to
Darren frying eggs in the kitchen.
My first thought was, how did he get in here?
But then I remembered. The front door.
It wasn't locked. No one locks their door out
here. Why would you?
I stared at him, honey. I asked tentatively.
Are you feeling all right? He plated the eggs and brought
them to the table. Sure.
Why? You never came to bed last
night. He laughed.
Sure I did. You were out cold.
Still holding that book With the light on, I felt a surge of
relief. Oh, really?
Then I felt doubtful. How did I get down here?
I think you were sleepwalking again.
Oh. I stared down at my plate.
Two fried eggs and a slice of bacon grinned back at me like a
demented :). Darren had fried the eggs, not
scrambled them like I always did.
He knew I hated fried eggs, especially the runny ones.
Something was off. I ate the eggs anyway, and
didn't call attention to his mistake.
The rich, buttery yolks turned my stomach.
I carefully watched Darren as he cleaned his plate.
Surely all that last night was just a dream, right?
Had to be. Maybe I'm having stress
nightmares again. I have this bad feeling
something is wrong with him. I just peeked out the window and
right now he's out in the barn. I don't know what he's doing.
If something is wrong, that means it wasn't a dream.
Maybe that's not my husband at all.
I really wanted to believe that nothing happened, that I
imagined everything. But Darren just kept getting
weirder and weirder, which means he really was sucked up by a
spaceship. First thing after breakfast, he
went outside to the barn. I was washing dishes in the sink
when I glanced up and saw him on the tractor tilling up the front
field. My mouth flopped open.
I'd been planning to use that area for a You Pick strawberry
operation. I'd even ordered the plastic
sheeting and supplies last week online.
I abandoned the sink full of suds and dishes and marched
outside. What are you doing?
I yelled into the roar of the engine.
I know he saw me, but he didn't stop.
I finally turned and went back inside.
I had a bad feeling. All day long he worked the
field. I watched him cautiously from
inside the house. When I saw him finally head
towards the barn in the afternoon, I thought he was
done. I was wrong.
He emerged a bit later with an ancient planter hitched to the
back. I didn't know the thing even
worked. It had been left here by the
previous owners. What the hell?
I muttered, and I stormed back outside.
Darren, what's going on? I screamed as the tractor passed
by. He did stop at this time, and I
ran over as the tractor idled. What are you doing?
I thought this was where we would plant the strawberries.
I pleaded. His face was sheet white and
beads of sweat ran down his forehead.
His expression was blank. I'm planting corn, he stated.
He leaned closer. We can only plant corn.
A chill ran down my spine The way he said it felt like a
threat. He put the tractor in gear and
moved on as I stepped back. It's too late to plant corn this
year, I yelled at his retreating backside.
He didn't acknowledge this, and I withdrew to the house to watch
and wait. Darren stayed out in the field
for the rest of the day. He didn't take breaks or come in
to eat or drink. He had to be dehydrated.
It was well over 90, and I knew he was hungry.
It wasn't normal. Darren didn't turn the tractor
off until nearly 9:00. O'clock.
I prepared a meal for us. When he came in, I didn't
mention the strawberry field, in fact.
I didn't say much at all. Darren was scaring me, and I
didn't want to let on. He looked rough, almost
feverish, and his eyes looked straight through me.
We sat in our rocking chairs on the front porch as we ate
dinner. It was dusk and the lightning
bugs were out. I made you some brownies, I
said, passing him the plate. He took one without comment and
bit a corner off. I watched him carefully over my
glass of iced tea. He leaned his head back and
closed his eyes. His rocking slowed to a stop.
Darren, I said. He didn't answer.
Darren, I said louder. He didn't stir.
Good. It was working.
I'd made some special brownies just for Darren, laced with
several of my crushed up Ambien. I'd never drugged anyone before,
so I prayed they were strong enough to keep him asleep for a
while. I went inside and quietly turned
the deadbolt on the front door. I dropped my plate in the sink
and slinked out the back to the barn.
I had to get those tractor keys. Just to keep him from doing any
more damage, or possibly hurting himself in exhaustion, they were
dangling in the ignition where I suspected they would be.
I pocketed the keys and turned to leave.
That's when I spotted the bags of corn seeds.
There was a big one full of regular seed coated with red
fungicide powder. That bag had been here since we
moved in, but beside it was something else.
My hand trembled as I opened the sack.
The corn seed inside was glowing A faint silvery blue.
I dropped the burlap crap. The aliens had been real.
They had really abducted Darren and now he was growing glowing
corn for them. I inspected the planter.
He must have mixed the glowing corn with normal corn.
Darren had contaminated the front field with glowing
radioactive. My brain speculated corn seed.
My heart pounded all of a sudden.
I just wanted to be safely in bed and away from all this.
I turned and headed back in the house.
I locked the back door and breathed deeply.
I knew logically the house was little protection against
whatever I was up against. It was, however, excellent
protection against Darren. I had a pang of regret.
What had I done? What you had to My brain
answered. His behavior was off.
He had worked himself to exhaustion, and he was ruining
my farm plans with his delusions.
Still, I felt guilty for leaving him on the porch all night.
I crept to the front window and lifted a curtain.
Darren was gone. My mind raced as I lay in bed,
covers pulled up to my chin. Why were the aliens making
Darren grow corn? Was their plan for the corn to
mix with all the regular corn and be shipped out across
America, tainting our food supply or perhaps turning us
into zombie slaves? Why us?
Were we chosen because our little farm wasn't growing corn
like everyone else? Is everyone else in on this?
Are they growing Glowing Corn too?
My mind reeled at the implications.
And then, of course, my husband was not himself, may never be
himself again. He was working for them now.
I had completely lost him. And then was he a threat?
Would he actually hurt me, His wife?
Most importantly, where was he? I felt guilty for locking him
out of the house. But I knew that Darren wasn't
the real Darren. Couldn't be.
It was hard going to sleep. My world had been turned upside
down and I had no idea what my next steps would be.
Unfortunately for me, I wasn't aware of my next steps at all.
I was standing outside in the tall grass when I woke up
wearing nothing but a giant tshirt.
It was early morning, and the grass was still wet with dew.
I'd sleepwalked, and I'd left the back door wide open for who
knows how long. Damn, I whispered.
I was in trouble. I had no phone, no weapons, no
keys, no shoes. Just then the door slammed.
I looked back. Darren was standing in the
doorway of the house, about 50 yards off.
He looked awful. If he had been pale yesterday,
today he was Snow White. Dark rings encircled his eyes
and his hair looked matted. I ran.
He followed. I fled to the barn, where I had
some old rubber boots. I slipped them on.
I had a terrible understanding that I had to get away from him,
that I was in danger, that he was coming to kill me.
I ran to the back of the barn, boots flapping.
The door was padlocked. I heard the tractor engine blast
to life. I whirled around.
There he was on the tractor on the other end of the barn alley.
The side pens were shut. I was trapped wildly.
I searched for a way out. There was a ladder in the middle
of the alley leading to the loft.
Maybe I could climb up and then jump down at the entrance behind
the tractor. I bolted towards it just as the
tractor advanced. I prayed to whoever was
listening that I could make it before he ran over me or crushed
me with the bucket. And I did.
With seconds to spare, I leapt onto the ladder, scrambling with
the speed I had no clue I possessed.
Our eyes locked just as he overshot, and the pure hatred
there confirmed I was in danger. I quickly ran over the rickety
planks of the loft and jumped down at the barn entrance.
I was out of there before he could put it in reverse.
I shot out into the open, my boots slipping in the wet grass.
I looked around frantically. There was nowhere to hide.
Just our few buildings surrounded by open land.
I took off running towards the tool shed.
We weren't people that kept guns around, so I hope there was
something in there, anything that I could use to protect me
from my alien husband. I whipped the door open.
The air was musty and stale, and the room was cluttered with
tools. I frantically searched the
shelves, my hands shaking. Then I saw it.
The chainsaw. I'd never used anything like it
before. I actually hate power tools,
mostly because I think spinning blades are a bad idea.
Okay, I whispered. Breathe.
I knew it needed gas, but which one?
There were two bottles on the shelf.
Didn't it need some sort of special oil gas?
I grabbed one of the canisters, hoping it was the right gas for
this thing, and poured it into the tank.
I was so nervous I spilled half of it on the ground.
I was interrupted by Darren charging into the shed with the
tractor. The noise of the board's tearing
and metal tools crashing was deafening.
Something heavy fell and gashed my forehead.
I was stunned. I couldn't believe he was this
stupid. He was trying unsuccessfully to
back up and ram the building again, but the tractor was hung
in the debris, which meant he was now getting down and coming
towards me. Frantically, I reached for the
chainsaw. It had been turned over and gas
glugged out onto the floor. I silently prayed it was enough
to start the thing. I screwed the cap on and pumped
the primer. I ripped the cord.
Nothing happened. Darren was off the tractor.
He looked worse than ever. He was soaked with clammy sweat
and I could see clumps of hair had fallen out.
His eyes gleamed silver and I knew there was no trace of him
in there, that it wasn't Darren at all.
I turned my full attention to the chainsaw and began ripping
the cord as hard as I could. Crap, I screamed, shaking the
chainsaw. That's when I saw it.
The kill switch. I flipped It, ripped the cord
and the chainsaw sputtered to life.
I stood up and whirled the saw at Darren.
It was heavier than I expected, and the blade swung low, but I
still managed to slice his upper thigh.
Thick, silvery liquid sprayed out of the leg, coating us both.
He slumped down to one knee. I swung the saw back at him
again. It's not him.
It's not him.
My brain chanted. The blades connected with his
neck and his head flopped to the side, still connected by a
string of flesh. Silvery mercury, like liquid,
blasted out of the wound and sprayed everything around us.
I screamed at what I had done in this surreal situation.
I dropped the chainsaw and ran out of the ruined tool shed.
Blood dripped down my face and mixed with the silver liquid
covering my body in a sticky Gray slime.
I ran to our empty house. Adrenaline pumping, it was
completely silent. I found my cell phone laying on
the table. I picked it up and dialed my
mother. Mom, I said with forced calm.
You were right. Darren does not know what he's
doing. I talked to her for a long
while, but no matter what she says I've decided to stay.
This is my home now. I'll start on the clean up
tomorrow. And As for the corn, I noticed
my neighbor has a big sprayer. I'm hoping Roundup will
eliminate it.