"You're it!"

It was the last night of the video shoot for the reality show, “Phantom Chasers.” Peter Findstrom was one of four so-called paranormal experts in the cast. Of course, he was no such thing. He had grabbed the roll after his character, Cash Harrington, had been killed off on the daytime serial, “Hearts of Fire.”

The gist of the show was that the team of paranormal researchers went to a different haunted location every week. They undertook scripted interviews with local folks about the supposed haunted house or hospital or orphanage and then spent the night in the place accompanied by a barrage of motion detectors, audio recording devices, heat sensors and ectoplasm detectors. Much of the show was filmed with the cast wearing night vision goggles for special effect. Recently, however, the show had been criticized for being too scripted and was losing viewers. The director, Todd Grainger, was getting panicky about that, and had instructed the actors to “be more spontaneous” and “be authentic.”

As part of the ongoing story line, Peter was the love interest in the war between his co-experts, Jill, the skeptic, and Liana, the psychic. Jill was the sweet one, Liana was the scheming one. Peter was supposed to vacillate between the two from show to show in order to keep up “audience investment,” whatever the hell that meant. He didn’t much care for the show, but it paid well and there was always a chance it might prove a springboard for future acting gigs. And also, he enjoyed the travel that was involved. It was good to get out of New York City now and then.

Tonight, they were in a farmhouse outside of Orlando, Florida. The story was about a poltergeist—the ghost of some kid who disappeared back in 1962. The story was that a family member killed him, but as nobody ever found a body, it remained nothing but a story. The rest of the legend claimed that extreme poltergeist activity was the reason the house had remained empty for decades.

Most of the places they had investigated claimed to have been abandoned because of ghosts, but that was pure bunk. Usually, when they came to a new location, Sherry, the set decorator, would have to spend a couple of days bringing in busted furniture, nailing boards across the windows, dirtying up the walls with paint and applying a fine coat of cocoa powder to all the surfaces after letting a candy floss machine go crazy, stringing sugar spider webs across the doorways and into the corners. But for Episode Six, “Timmy Talley: Little Boy Lost,” Sherry had little to do. The furniture was already broken, the walls were already moldy, and the dust and cobwebs weren’t edible.

But it wasn’t the stereotypical haunted house, by any means. It was a non-descript, 1950s-built ranch-style house, with the kitchen, dining room and den at one end, and three bedrooms and a bath branching off a hallway on the other. For his part of the show, Peter was supposed to try to sleep in Timmy Talley’s bedroom. He had done his part, acting nervously and mumbling his moment-by-moment reactions to non-existent sounds and temperature changes into a hand-held tape recorder. The bed was a tight fit—he was tall, and the kid’s bunk bed was short and narrow. He had finished the shot. It was about ten p.m., and they’d be knocking off soon, but now Carl the sound guy was making recordings of ambient noise for the edit crew. You were supposed to be quiet then, so Peter took a snooze.

He had no idea what time it was when he woke up. But for bright moonlight that shone through a window, it was very dark in the room, and the house was quiet. Jill and Liana had suggested going out for a couple of shots and a game of pool after the wrap, yet apparently, they’d left without him! Peter was annoyed, but suspicious. He sat up, momentarily forgetting where he was and cracked his head on the side rail of the upper bunk. “Shit!” he said through clenched teeth.

“That’s a bad word,” said an unfamiliar voice.

"Who's there?" Peter demanded.

A kid stood in the shadows before the window. “Dad’ll get mad if he hears that kinda language. You don’t want Dad to get mad.”

Peter stared at the boy. He would have felt disconcerted under any other circumstances, but he was on a TV show about ghosts. And if there was one thing he had learned from his two years on the “Phantom Chasers,” it was that there is no such thing as a ghost. He pulled his flashlight out of his pocket and shined it at the kid. He appeared to be quite solid, a regular kid, maybe eight years old. He had red hair and wore overalls. A pretty good match for the photos of Timmy Talley.

This was just too predictable, and it was just too convenient that all of the cast and crew had taken off without him. Peter felt confident that this was a stunt set up by Todd Grainger to generate “authenticity,” or to gain footage for the blooper reel they always included with the DVD release. It was stupid, but Peter knew he should play along.

“Timmy?”

The kid looked surprised, and then, real pleased. He was a competent actor. “You know me?”

“Of course! You’re Timmy Talley.”

Peter wanted to look around the room for the tell-tale red eye of the night-vision camera, but figured that it would blow the scene, so he kept his eye on the kid and spouted a version of the line he’d said in so many episodes. “Why do you haunt this place, Timmy? What do you want?”

“I wanna play my game.”

“What game is that?”

“I hide, and you find me!”

“What if I can’t find you?” Peter asked.

“I’ll say, ‘Gettin’ warmer!’ and ‘Gettin’ colder!’”

“I see,” said Peter. He turned his head a bit to the left. If the camera was where he thought it was, in the space near the door, this would make a nice photographic effect—his face in profile. “OK, do I count five-ten-fifteen—?”

He heard the kid’s foot falls running down the hall.

Peter counted to one hundred, then he got up and went into the hallway. “OK, guys. Did you get the shot?” he asked.

“You’re cold! You’re so cold, you’re freezing!” said the kid, from the end of the hallway.

Peter reached for the light switch, but nothing happened. The generator was off. This was certainly irritating. Peter flipped on his flashlight and walked toward the kitchen.

“Warmer!” said the boy, when Peter was near the basement door, “Colder!” when he was near the sink. Peter descended the stairs.

It was dank there, draped with cobwebs and littered with broken things and rotted cardboard boxes. There was an old bookcase holding glass jars and junk, but other than that, there was nothing but cement-block walls and a concrete floor. He didn’t see the boy but could hear him giggling.

“Where are you, Timmy?”

“You’re COLD!”

Peter took a few steps.

“Warmer!”

But how could he be warmer? There was literally no place for the boy to hide. He took a few more steps.

“A little colder.”

Peter whirled around.

“Warmer! Warmer! Warmer!”

He walked until he was inches from the wall.

“Hot! Hot!”

This was ridiculous! Peter shone the beam of the light around. He touched the bookcase.

“BOILING!”

Peter jerked the bookcase away from the wall. It swung open like a door to reveal a smaller, metal door.

“Are you in there?” he demanded.

Timmy giggled.

Peter lifted and slid the bolt and pushed the door inward. He had to crouch down to enter the secret room. The beam of his light revealed bunk beds, shelves of canned goods in jars, and a small table with two chairs. “Wow,” is all he could say.

“Don’t tell nobody about this place,” said the boy. “‘Cause Dad says when the bomb comes, all the neighbors are gonna want to come in here and we only got enough food for us.”

“But the door was bolted! How’d you get in here?” Peter asked.

“I was playin’ the game with Jerry Longstreet.”

Peter played the beam of his light around the cramped space, searching for Timmy. He found him curled in a corner of one of the bunks. Peter leaned over the brown, shriveled form wearing overalls, but whirled around when he heard the steel door behind him creak closed, and the bolt outside dropping into place.

“You’re it!” said Timmy.