Transcript for the Piece Audio version of Walkthrough Haunted House

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Intro: Commentator JW’s job in his Amateur Ghost Hunting group is to interview potential clients, determine if it’s worth doing an actual, involved investigation of a house…

Claire is a 26yo female, occupation: Mom.
Husband Rick, 27, carpenter.
And their Son Alex, 2 years old.
The house was built in 1919, they’ve been there 2 years. Claire has experienced numerous events, initially frightening her. She believes in ghosts. Rick does not, but confesses he can’t find an explanation. All events happen at night. This is a very normal scenario: women are more likely to believe in ghosts than men, and everything seems to happen at night. Both have heard a woman crying while in the back room and noises coming from upstairs, thumping, like things dropping, even though no one’s up there. Claire reports cold spots, sometimes with a ‘brushing or touching’ feeling when in Alex’s room. Ghost hunters get excited when people report cold spots, because techs love taking the air temperature.
Claire reports a woman’s whispering coming thru the baby monitor. They don’t know it, but baby monitors have been a ghost hunting tool since they were invented. I’m noticing a lot of activity focusing around the kid. I ask if the baby has ever done odd things, like talk out loud to one specific spot. Claire seems surprised and a little frightened, yes she says. Sometimes he’ll point to the ceiling and wave ‘hi, buy!’ Then there will be a noise upstairs. Even the husband has seen Alex do this, ‘just points and says hi!’
A psychic once tell me an interesting trick: Find a toddler and ask them ‘tell me about when you were big.’ She said that one in about eight will tell you about stuff they could not have known—suggesting a previous life. Some say we are reincarnated each time we pass on—like sleeping, waking, sleeping, waking… I ask Alex this, he just runs away looking embarrassed. He really only knows how to say hi and bye. The trick is to find a child that has not told yet been told that their imaginary friends are not real by the all-knowing adults. As adults we find logical explanations for things that go bump in the night because our parents told us it wasn’t a ghost…or a monster.
Unfortunately, my job as a ghost hunter is to be the adult. For example, Claire tells me that the incidences have all but stopped. Here’s what I think: New mother, new wife moves to a new town far from her family. They don’t know anyone and a child is such an overwhelming thing for a new parent. And when there’s a bump upstairs, all her fears come crashing down.
I ask her who she thinks it is that might be giving so much attention to Alex, who whispers to him in his sleep, who watches over him, who he’s so happy to see. ‘My grandmother,’ she says, ‘I so wanted her to see Alex but she died before he was born.’
I think the occurrences have slowed because they’ve settled into the neighborhood, made new friends, have home improvement projects going—including a white picket fence. And she’s a confident mother now. There’s just less to be afraid of.
I suggest in my report that we come back and do a proper investigation, concentrating on the kid’s room. I instruct them to record the baby monitor. But if my hunch is right, we will be too late to hear the cooing of a sweet grandmother when we play the tape back. It will be too faint because she’s not needed anymore.