If this reads like a Last Will and Testament, I apologize. My writings can be dry at times. I wrote contracts and code for a living, not novels.

March 8th, 2029 —

My name is Amos Rudler. I am a 62-year old retiree of my self-made company, Securitop Labs Inc, a security device facility that I sold off to a tech conglomerate before the start of the war that changed the Modern World. I got lucky. I have two grown daughters that I never see, Jaclyn and Ashley, two ex-wives (we won’t be talking much about them), and a big empty farmhouse/barn packed to the nines with million-dollar security cameras, sensors, and experimental scanners.

I no longer work for Securitop but I make frequent visits like the worst of helicopter parents. My former team still greet me with smiles but the more I poke my head around and ask for free demos of the new digi-drones (that I wrote the specs for), I get the feeling that Mr. Rudler is no longer welcome. So most of the time, I stay home and tinker.

My house is planted on 8 hilly acres in the isolated farming town of Swoope, Virginia. I designed the blueprints myself and did my damndest to make it the house of my family’s dreams. Seven bedrooms, three bath, classic open front porch— all in the shade of a 100-year old oak tree. My office is lined with imported wood from Lincoln’s hometown and has shutter windows for when I need a blast of fresh farm air to break up the hard-metal, hospital-like smell from all the equipment and gadgets I constantly fiddle with. Not many people are still soldering ham radios together or buying old-world plastics. It’s a busy household even if I’m the only one walking around.

The place also seems to be haunted.

Be it age or the lack of family visits, for the last month, the hairs on my neck stand at all times. I get cold chills, bad dreams, broken dishes in the night, aggressive footsteps outside my bedroom door— all classic signs of a poltergeist, based on my research. Now, don’t laugh. I worked in engineering for twenty years before starting my SecuriTop line of products. I had to stay rational—peer-tested science and exact mind-numbing math, all that crap. But now, I’m retired.

I have led on too many sleepless nights to ignore the signs any longer. In the house where I raised my children and later abandoned the love of a good, faithful wife… I feel watched. So I have decided to confront my paranoia with truth.

The old ways just don’t suit me anymore. They gave me everything, but my cup of knowledge is starting to overfill. I can’t operate a Tarot board and read off sigils from the Lesser Key of Solomon. But don’t worry, I’ll still use the scientific method. I’m not a complete curmudgeon.

***

Most of the ghost hunting shows I see on TV use crap that would be seen as faulty tech by any half-brained engineer who didn’t spend his life getting asbestos in old asylums. Every time these backpacked gel-haired rejects pull out a new gadget to contact the dead, it’s always something disappointing— $10 sound recorders, a ghost text-to-speech apparatus, automatic radio tuners or apps that can detect your dead relatives if you pay $24.99 a month.

I’m not interested in spooky EVPs, orbs or shadow shapes. I need hard evidence with mountains of computational data before I really start to lose it.

***

Main equipment check? Two Phoscanners with their tripods and all accessories, five SecuriTop HD handcams with true night vision mode, eighteen button-sized microphones courtesy of Stripe Industries, and a complete wall-to-wall fiber network connection, with live feeds going directly to my office (the command center, if you will).

I wheeled the first Phoscanner (slightly older model) into the kitchen and positioned the lens overlooking the center island and centered on the cabinets where three stacks of dishes fell onto the floor, even though the cabinets have child-proof locks I never took off.

The second Phoscanner was taken off its main module and I carried it upstairs, near my bedroom where I’ve heard footsteps and scratching noises during the night. No water pipes rattling or mice activity can account for deliberately paced heavy stomps that creak along the weak middle panel of the floor. I know this house too well. Ashley used to sneak out of her room at night for a swig of orange soda and the creaky board acted as an unintended alarm system.

Side equipment check? Six-pack of beer, notepad, and phone with multiple alarms set around 8AM.

I will update in the morning.

March 9th, 2029 —

Last night, I got my first pieces of evidence.

Take them as you will.

My biased analysis?

I can see a female figure with shoulder-length hair standing next to the wall that divides the living room from the main hallway. The shapes of a nose and mouth are vague but obvious. The phoscanner is bouncing particles off something where human eyes would be. I reject calling this a ghost girl with glowing eyes only because I no longer read comic books or wet the bed. And if it wasn’t obvious, I was not in the room at 3:04AM where the phoscanner activated.

After my little scare at the command center, I recovered by microwaving a bag of popcorn and eating my feelings away as I planned to import the rest of the night’s data. I read through the upstairs detector logs and had one item of notice. A microphone in Jaclyn’s room peaked for no reason around 3:20AM. No other readings.

I imported the SD card from the upstairs tripod as the sun welcomed the day. Once again, I was confounded.

At 3:27AM, the upstairs scanner had chirped to life. One image was captured. I wasn’t expecting a sheet with eyeholes but I can’t call this thing a ‘spirit’. And in the half-second of the flash, this five-fingered thing manifested on the left side of the image while stretching to the ceiling. What’s the scale? Could be an average arm, which measures about 2.5 feet. For comparison, the window behind the arm is 2.5 by 4.2 feet. Who knows? It could be twice the size of the window. Impossible to tell right now.

But where did it come from? I was in my office during the capture and the phoscanner does not leave exposure-related smeary ghost images (no pun intended). More tests on the second floor will follow in the coming days.

I’m still not a believer. It seems all too easy. Like I’m being toyed with. On the first night?

Four seconds after the ‘arm’ was scanned, 3:27:24AM, the final image of the night was captured.

This piece of evidence came from the ground floor Phoscanner, placed on a 3 foot tripod in the kitchen. It detected movement next to the granite island that my second wife forced me to install after a temper blowout on the 4th of July. No temperature drop or technical glitch could be found in the logs. It’s as if a person walked in front of the cannon lens of the scanner in pitch-black darkness and allowed this to be taken.

I honestly have nothing clever to say. The scanner seemed to detect an open-mouth female figure, different than the first scan, with very long hair, a T-shirt, and placing a hand on the island. I hesitate to say that the figure’s posture is ‘casual’ but I have no other words.

This afternoon, however, I did call my kids for the first time in six months.

They seem fine.

***

More tests will follow. But I need some sleep first.

END OF ENTRY 1

INTRUDER ALERT —ENTRY 1—

INTRUDER ALERT ENTRY 1- MATERIALS