Ghostly Eviction

                                    

                                          
It was about eight-thirty when Casey and Matias returned to the haunted townhouse, standing all alone in the little row of other townhouses. Standing in front of the building, a sort of creeping horror crawled over the spines of the two investigators.
The house, with some of the windows closed, but the remaining ones opened to reveal only inky pitch blackness, it almost looked as if the pale, white house was in fact a ghost of itself. And the two open windows in the upstairs were black hollow eyes, and the door was a bloody opened mouth.
With a turn of the key in the lock, they went inside. But no sooner than they crossed the threshold, something was amiss.
"Do you feel that, Casey?" Matias remarked, as they stood in the small foyer, look around the darkened room as he lit a candle slowly.
"I-I feel something...but I can't quite explain it..it's as if the air has..changed" Casey remarked, fearfully getting behind his companion. Something was very different indeed.
This morning and throughout that day while they were inside looking around, the atmosphere of the house seemed quite normal. As if the atmosphere was a familiar feeling, like one returning home after a nice long day out. It was as if this house wasn't even haunted. That it was just simply—a house.
But now, as if a veil had been laid over the house with the coming of night, the atmosphere changed. It felt no longer inviting to stay. The air felt more constricting, ominous, and even dreadful. The coldness of the house felt more prominent than the winter chills outside, and seemed to engulf all three floors like escaping gas.
Even the smell in the air was different, they noticed. Before, in the bright gray daylight, it smelled just like a regular house. With perhaps a hint of peppermint and other outside smells carried in through the door from outside. But in the dark, in this veil of night, the air felt damp, thick, and moldy. As if something rotten had died within a floorboard somewhere in the house.
"Can you smell that?..that must be a phantom smell.." Casey remarked, holding his nose a little. And that is certainly what it was. For it is very well known in their field of paranormal investigating—that sprits can produce different atmospheric changes, even bring odors and scents that weren't there before into the air.
"We're not alone in this house anymore.." Matias said softly. And with this terrible realization in mind, that now with the coming of night, the haunting would begin.
They made their way to the living room, their base of operation. Matias lit a fire in the fireplace, while Casey took out some of their equipment. Some ghostly detectors, their ectoplasmic seeking spectacles, and some recording devices, and all turned them on.
Soon they sat in chairs, and waited anxiously for something to start.
The hours ticked slowly away. Heavy clouds filled the sky and it began to snow hard and the wind began to blow noisily. All they could see outside in the windows were the speeding gusts of snow and wind. It wasn't until they heard the tower of Big Ben rung out the witching hour—midnight that it happened. All at once, the air got colder, making the fire in the fireplace go out with a hiss.
And with startled eyes, both Casey and Matias looked at the fireplace and then at each other. Each in their eyes, they could see the other knew what was going to happen next.
And just like that, with that thought in their excited minds, in the quiet still air, and not a breath of a draft either; the candle, their only remaining light source, dimmed, and went out.
They sat frozen in fright in their chairs.
"Casey.." Matias whispered in the dark, "are the machines recording?.."