[…transcript from video, archive IWOT042921 (audio only for the first 00:01:43)]
[muffled sounds, followed by female voice]
Nicole: What are you doing?
[more muffled sounds, followed by a man’s voice]
Zed: I told you, I’m not really very good at this.
N: Just keep the camera pointed at me, Zed. This isn’t hard. We don’t need you to be Spielberg.
Z: Well, that’s good.
N: Okay, as I’m talking, you can try to pan around, look at the front door of the house, cover the street, but don’t look at the neighbors too much. They sue.
Z: Sue?
N: It happens. So street, front door, then back to me.
Z: Nicole, look, I want to support you. I love your site, but I’m not sure this is such a good idea.
N: You said you would sponsor us.
Z: I will, just as soon as I’m out of the red.
N: When will that be?
Z: [Sighs] I…don’t know.
N: Exactly. So until then, or until Amy gets back, you’re the camera guy.
Z: But I’m the sleep guy.
N: Shut up.
[sounds of a rickety screen door opening, wider, wider, then slamming shut as the scuffs of flip-flops approach]
N: Hi, I’m Nicole Foster with It’s Weird Out There. Amy’s on vacation, so it’s just me and our cameraman and sponsor, Zed, from Sleep Life Beds and Pillows. Zed’s new, so we’re breaking him in on a prank call. Here we have Laurie—Zed, what are you doing? Pan.
Z: It’s not recording.
N: What?
Z: There’s no picture.
[footsteps approach the camera. Muffled sounds, then a grunt from Nicole. More muffled sounds, a small beep, and picture appears, centered on a woman’s black tights and black slip-ons, ballet style with double straps on the outside.]
N: Maybe you’re right about this being a bad idea. Come on, Zed. Is it recording now?
[camera tilts, follows the tights up to an oversized gray slouch shirt with two rows of slashes going from the shoulders to the hips, and Nicole’s face comes into view. She glances at her notes.]
Z: I’ve got picture, and the red light is on.
N: Finally.
[Nicole holds her arm out to beckon a second lady, twenty-six year old Stephanie Bradley, who moves up beside Nicole]
N: We’re joined by Stephanie Bradley. Stephanie, hi, how are you?
Stephanie: Hello. I’m okay. Uh, how are you?
N: I’m great, Stephanie, thanks for asking. So, we’re from It’s Weird Out There Dot Com and we’re here because—let me check my notes here—your attic is haunted.
S: That’s right.
[Nicole waits a moment, looks at the camera, then back to Stephanie]
N: Would you care to elaborate?
S: Well, there’s a ghost. She’s old, really leathery skin, wispy white hair, and I see her almost every time I go up there.
N: You see her? Why do you think she’s a ghost?
S: Sometimes her eyes glow red.
N: You say you see this ghost almost every time. Would you mind to show us?
S: I figured that was why y’all came.
[Stephanie leads the way up to the screen door. It creaks again in protest as she opens it. Sounds of a television come from beyond the first room, a dining room. Stephanie crosses to the next door to a living room, where modern cartoons play on a modest flat screen. A naked boy of four or five years lies on the floor with his legs straight and his arms tucked close.]
S: Oh, my God, Tyler, put some clothes on. What are you doing?
Tyler: I’m a fire truck.
[A stream of urine arcs upwards from the boy, to the left, and back down onto a ceramic house that would fit equally well on a Christmas display or a model railroad set.]
S: Tyler, what are you doing?
Z: The house is on fire?
[Nicole turns, glares at Zed.]
T: I’m putting out the fire.
[Nicole faces the camera, her face perfectly neutral. Stephanie covers her mouth, then closes her eyes.]
S: Stop peeing, Tyler.
T: I can’t. You can’t stop once you start. Dad said that.
S: Your dad—Tyler, stop peeing.
[The stream stutters and stops.]
S: Now to the bathroom. You need another bath. Why didn’t you pee up there, boy?
T: Mom, the fire.
[Tyler scrambles to his feet and races to nearby stairs, heedless of the mess.]
S: I’m so sorry. Y’all must think we’re morons.
[Nicole forces a smile.]
N: Not at all. Kids do all sorts of unexpected things. We were all that way, once. So, about that haunting?
S: It’s up this way.
[Stephanie shows Nicole and Zed to the stairs. At the top, Tyler sticks his head out of a door in the adjoining hallway.]
T: Mom, did that guy record my fireman?
S:Your—what? Did your father tell you that too?
T: He’s got lots of stories about his fireman.
S: In the bathtub. I want hot water and lots of bubbles. Now.
[Stephanie swallows, then faces Nicole.]
S: Unexpected is not nearly strong enough a word.
N: Can’t argue that.
[Stephanie jumps for a cord at the end of the hall for the pull-down stairs going up into the attic. The stairs swing down, unfolding, to thump against the floor. Stephanie gestures for Nicole and Zed to go up the stairs.]
N: It’s our policy that the hosts go first into any new territory, so please, lead the way.
S: Say what?
N: Please, you go first.
S: I don’t want to go up there. That face scares me.
N: Please.
S: Okay, but if the eyes glow again, I’ll run you both over trying to get back down.
[Stephanie clambers up the steps, pulling Nicole by one hand. Nicole smirks at the camera, but follows. At the top, Stephanie pauses to flip a light switch on the nearby wall. Overhead, a long, loud fluorescent light flickers on, the ballast inside humming and buzzing.]
Z: What was that?
[Zed follows Nicole up the steps.]
N: Sounded like the light.
S: It was the light. Do you see her yet?
N: (exasperated) No.
Z: No, there was something else. Like a machine, or a computer with a loud power supply.
N: And you heard that all the way down there? Come on.
[At the top, the attic is dark, window-less, and dusty. The ancient overhead light makes a box of illumination on the floor, and secondary light reveals plastic bags of clothes, old toasters, and other household items.]
S: Do you see her? She’s right there.
[Stephanie points to a distant wall, where in the shadows, a blurred and distorted woman watches them. She has brown, leathery skin and thin, white hair, and too-white eyes burn in her skeletal face.]
S: Okay, I’m done.
[Stephanie scurries to the stairs and back down out of the attic.]
N: And—she left.
[Zed pans back to the figure as Nicole walks out of the box of light. She suddenly moves forward quickly, even as the ghostly woman’s eyes begin to glow a reddish yellow.]
N: What the…
[Nicole walks right up to the ghost, then turns.]
N: I don’t believe this.
[Nicole moves behind stacked boxes and an ironing board.]
N: Over here, Zed.
[The camera eases closer to the ghost, where the blurry figure resolves into a mirror against the dark outer wall of the attic.]
Z: Well, that was unexpected.
N: We’re getting a lot of that tonight.
[Following the reflection, Zed joins Nicole at the base of a pinball game, covered in two layers of plastic sheeting, with the picture of the old woman with the glowing eyes as the primary graphic on the backboard along with the name Madame Zinister’s Night of Terror.]
N: Well, I think we’re done here.
[Zed and the camera move back to the stairs, back down into the corridor, where a Tyler in tiny white briefs makes finger guns and shooting sounds at them from the bathroom door.]
T: Mom, they’re coming down.
[The camera continues down the stairs to the living room, where a sweaty Stephanie has tied back her hair and scrubs at the living room carpet with a sponge and a bucket of soapy water.]
S: Did you see her?
N: Oh, yeah. Mystery solved.
S: (Surprised) Is she gone?
N: No, I think she’s going to hang around a while longer. She’s all right, once you get to know her. Why don’t you take her some milk and cookies.
S: (Confused) I thought you guys get rid of the ghosts.
N: We might be able to help some with that, in a round-about way, but your case is—special.
[Nicole heads for the exit, with Zed and the camera close behind.]
S: Well, if you found the ghost, is there a prize? I mean, she’s real, right? Not some spooky story where you never actually see anything?
[Nicole crosses the yard to a tiny car, where the headlights activate when she unlocks the security system with the FOB on her key-ring.]
N: Good luck with the cookies and your fire fighter.