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The day was menacingly warm: to begin with. Sam and Colby watched as buildings the color of over-milked coffee trickled slowly away into thick swells of trees. Afternoon hung heavy, misty, in the air as their Uber approached; it followed the curve of the dirt driveway to the front of the house. The familiar figure of their friend Nate stood from where he was waiting on the steps. Their flights had unfortunately vastly overlapped, leading him to arrive hours before the boys. As they stepped from the taxi with “thank you” on their lips, the scenery was an abundance to take in.
Built deep in the hills of a small town, the manor was surprisingly swallowed by ripe spring greenery despite the browning of summer. White pillars peered through hanging vines. Bathed almost entirely in the color of pristine seashells, the antebellum era home stood erect behind a wide, wrap around porch. Large, evenly spaced windows checkered the façade, flanked by navy shutters. While it was still daylight, the overarching oak tree cast growing shadows as the boys approached. The group was guideless this day. The mansion was handled by a local that was presently out of town, but still willing to take Sam and Colby’s cash in exchange for free reign. As long as the ghost hunters were gone by morning, every party involved would be happy.
Sam panned the camera across the front lawn, catching the way Colby’s shirt clung to his back with sweat. “Alright, guys,” he said. “Welcome to ‘The Fever House’...”
The history of the house was as typical as they come. It was originally the home of a rich family, ravaged by war, untreated mental illness, and alcohol abuse. Their maids spent entire lives in the boiling kitchen. The eldest daughter was found wandering the woods with only one thing to say: the house burned from the inside out.
Sam was zooming the camera lens in and out in an attempt to capture the magnitude of the estate. The house looked like it had been carved from a fever dream, its lines warped, nearly inverted, and quivering in the summer heat. The air shimmered with distortion, and the sun bent the light so violently that the porch seemed to sway.
“Man, let’s get inside. I’m freakin drowning out here.” He said as sweat collected along the ridges of his fingertips, leaving an angry trail of perspiration.
Nate led the way. Wooden planks creaked under shoes as they mounted the porch. The front door was quite modest, almost coy, in relation to what it was connected to. A screen storm door stood closest to visitors, streaked with dirt and age. Behind it was a vibrant cherry wood with a brass handle that needed to be jiggled slightly before permitting the boys inside.
“Come on in, boys.” Nate smiled as he held the door open with the tip of his shoe.
“I hope you weren’t waiting too long.” Colby spoke, entering first.
“Nah. I checked into the hotel room early and then came here. Had to get some AC.”
“For sure.” Colby turned to see Sam shut the door with his shoulder and continue to adjust the lens. “You got it, Sammy?”
His friend’s forehead was creased in concentration; valleys filled with sweat that rolled downhill.
“The camera is like freaking out right now.” Its screen was shuttering from current view to black and then back again.
“What? It shouldn’t be.” Colby joined his friend.
“I don’t know,” Sam expressed, “It just won’t stop glitching.”
“Switch to the other one, then.” Colby responded casually. It wasn’t the first time they’d had technical problems, and it wouldn’t be the last.
Once Sam was armed with a new camera that seemed to have its problems sorted out, Colby suggested they start to look around. The foyer was surprisingly sleepy, with nothing but a staircase yawning to the second floor. A landing jailed by wooden railings sneered down at them, as if the house had teeth. To the left stretched a parlor. High-backed chairs lounged in front of a window, both unhealthy, curdled shades of cream. The wallpaper was toile, faded green, with landscaped storylines and pastoral scenes.
The air inside teased the scent of smoke—old smoke, fireplace smoke, acrid, and bitter. It seemed sick with it.
Colby rubbed at the scruff on his chin and said, “We’ve done plantations before but this one seems…off. I don’t know.”
“Yeah.” Sam’s voice was quiet, uncharacteristically so, his eyes mildly unfocused.
“You good?” Colby asked, glancing at Sam.
“Yeah,” Sam mumbled. His hand trembled. “Just... hot.”
“Here.” Colby said as he knelt down and rummaged in his bag. “Water break.”
He pulled two bottles from his backpack and tossed one to each of the boys. They were lukewarm, with beads of condensation blooming inside the plastic lids. Sam caught it clumsily and leaned against the banister. He was swaying slightly, his face waxy and flushed. Rivulets of sweat carved the lines of his jar. The water felt like drinking steam, but perhaps it cleared a fraction of the fog in his thoughts.
Soon, they moved on, entering what must have once been a drawing room. Damask wallpaper the color of peonies flooded towards the floorboards, feathering away just an inch above the ground and revealing a mosaic of wood grain underneath. A circular table hosted a party of teapots and blue china, made soft by dust. A grand fireplace appeared to choke on its own forgotten ashes. They spilled out onto the hearth and scurried away with the movement of the boy’s feet.
Then, faintly, there was a sound. It was brassy and screechy, making the inside of Sam’s teeth ache. Almost indistinguishable, he could’ve sworn the poker that was leaned so casually on the fireplace moved.
“Oh my god! Did you see that?” Sam shouted, veering the camera around to zoom in on the iron tool. It struggled to focus yet again.
Colby and Nate, whose backs were turned, whirled at the fright.
“What? What?” Colby questioned.
“That thing moved.” Sam pointed a singular finger at the culprit. “That…”
He couldn’t find the word. He knew it was a fireplace tool and he knew it had moved, but putting a name to the object felt implausible. God, he was burning up. Festering, even. The dense, thick heat threatened to choke him. He was shrouded in dampness and stench, like standing inside of someone’s breath.
“I swear.” Sam reiterated.
Colby’s brow was stitching itself closer and closer together. “Did you get it on camera?”
“No, the camera freaked again. I don’t know what’s going on.”
Both boys sighed, then Nate intervened.
“Let’s keep going, then.”
“Okay,” Sam said, then “Something’s not right with this house.”
From the drawing room, they decided to try their luck on the second floor. The landing scattered into various, forgotten rooms. Unlike downstairs, there were no kaleidoscope of color peeking through curtains of dust. Any remnants of the home were long snuffed into anonymity by decay.
Brown was all Sam could see: the thick floorboards, the cracked plaster, the open rafters above. He stood still for a moment, taking it in. The landing dropped sharply to the hallway below. Its railing wiggled under his pressure, a loose tooth, until he moved on.
He followed the wide shadow of Nate’s back. Into one room, then another. They began to blur together, nothing but pulsing waves of dark wood and exhaustion. Not one of them had spoken in the last few minutes. Their silence was as thick as the humidity.
Sam realized this and put the camera down. His arms were made of sand – soft, malleable, unbearably heavy. He fumbled with the camera shortly before dropping it to the floor.
“Yo, you good?” Colby asked, in what must’ve been a bedroom. Arched window panes overlooked the landscape. He turned at the sound of a thud.
A curse evaporated from Sam’s tongue. He bent down for the camera. With the thrust of a buoy tossed into the open ocean, the world twisted violently beneath him. It tilted and churned until he felt breathless. He squeezed his eyes shut to the sloshing in his stomach. All his weight seemed to slam into the base of his skull. His throat was tight and wet and tingling with the threat of vomit. The heat surrounding him was a living, writhing thing. It covered his mouth and slithered up his nose with thick, syrupy air. His heart was a butterfly, an uneven flutter, a moving whir in his chest.
He gasped and clawed for the floor, half-blind, half-sick, his palm landing on the edge of the camera.
“Sam!” Colby yelped out as his friend plummeted towards the floor. His body sagged as if all the air had been sucked out of him. He was a bit of dust in the wind.
Unfortunately, neither Colby nor Nate was fast enough to reach his collapsing body. The sides of his thighs landed first, then his back, and lastly his head. The thunk of bone on wood made Colby ill. Still, he was at Sam’s side in an instant, knees skidding painfully across the frayed carpeting.
He fought his own vomit when he saw Sam’s face—an alarming, blotchy red, the kind of furious color that reminded him of the rusted vermilion pickups they’d passed abandoned fields on the way here. Sam’s skin looked too tight for his face. Too pulsing. Veins bulged sluggish and plum dark beneath the flushed surface.
“Holy, fuck!” Colby cried. “Sam? Hey—Sam!”
Nate dropped down beside them, wide-eyed, his hand already on Sam’s wrist. “His pulse is fast as hell.”
Sam’s chest nearly creaked from use, his breaths shallow and rapid and desperate.
“What even happened?” Colby questioned, the back of his hand testing Sam’s forehead. “Oh my god, he’s burning.”
“It’s this fucking heat.” Nate nuzzled his head into his tee shirt, ridding his forehead of sweat. Then, he tore his bag from his back and shoved a hand inside. “I’m out of water.”
Colby shot a look, his thoughts nearly evaporated from fear. “What? I-I might have some left.”
He stood and gestured ravenously. “Help him. Get him up or something.”
“I really don’t think we should move him,” Nate coaxed like he was calming a wild animal. He cupped both sides of Sam’s face, his rings nearly swallowed by the swollenness of his fingers. The heat was a threat to them all. “Sam. Buddy, you gotta wake up.”
Colby scurried across the room to his own bag – he’d dropped it in an attempt to catch Sam. Acid scorched his stomach the second he grabbed it, and felt it to be incredibly light. Poking inside he found various film gadgets and clothes, but nothing as necessary as water.
“Shit,” Colby breathed, staring down at the useless contents. “Shit, shit, shit.”
Nate’s hands didn’t stop moving—he was fanning Sam’s face, his other hand pressing hard into the junction of Sam’s neck and jaw.
“Is this heatstroke?” He asked aloud. “It feels like he has a fever, man.”
“I don’t know, I don’t know.” Colby muttered. He tossed his backpack aside and ran back to the pair. “Sam.”
Sam was wriggling beneath them, nearly panting from the weight of the heat. An irregular heartbeat thundered through his body until he was vibrating with it. His body began to jerk. His limbs shook, rattling off the stiff floor.
“Whoa!” Colby shouted, crouching down, trying to hold him steady—but his friend’s body kept convulsing. “Calm. Calm.”
Sam’s chest rose and fell with shallow gasps. His pupils appeared to be melting as his eyes rolled backwards in his head. A desperate squeak forced its way between his teeth.
Nate shouted, throwing himself to Sam’s other side. “Roll him, roll him over!”
Sam’s body bucked against the boys’ legs, hands curling tightly into fists. A ragged, gurgled breath escaped him.
“Come on,” Colby begged. “You’re okay, man. You’re okay.”
Time stretched out forever—thirty seconds, then forty. Colby’s fear was wriggling over his skin like a bad high. It felt as if all his neurons were tearing themselves apart and then slamming back together again.
“Please, please, please.” Colby prayed. His fingers found the cross at his neck and held tight.
“Don’t do this.” Nate whispered.
Pangs of anguish and fear coiled in both of their bellies. Until Sam’s body stilled. Mercifully. His breaths came in smoother heaps. His body unclenched itself and his legs moved of their own free will again.
Colby knelt frozen, one hand on Sam’s chest, the other curled into a white-knuckled fist. “Come on, Sam... come back.”
“We need to get him outside.” Nate said, glancing toward the stairs.
Colby looked up. “What? You said we shouldn’t move him.”
“That doesn’t matter now. He needs air.”
Colby nodded and set his jaw. Surely, they were meant to carry him together, but Colby hefted Sam over into his arms with unexpected strength and stumbled back towards the landing. Nate skirted into the railing, nearly toppling over as it gave way. He gasped, startled, but didn’t stop. Stepping backward down the stairs, arms outstretched, he stayed ready—just in case Colby lost his grip.
The stairs felt longer on the way down, warped and narrowing. Colby swore the steps shifted underfoot, slithering over one another like a pit of snakes. Sam was too heavy. Colby grunted under the weight, trying to ignore the trembling in his arms. Colby didn’t speak again until they burst out the front door, nearly falling over themselves as Nate scurried out of the way of Sam’s limp body.
Outside, the sun was blinding. It was so visceral and sharp, the pungent summer air so smog like, Colby almost threw up. In the heat, they were all drenched. A large southern oak tree towered on the lawn, splashing minimal shade for relief. Colby located the widest spot, and laid Sam down in the grass. It was soft and mosslike.
He then stripped Sam of his shirt, nearly tearing it to pieces in an attempt to rid him of a bit of heat. Then, he reached into his bag for anything that could shield him from the sun. He found old merch, and held it high.
Behind them, the house loomed. Nate looked back at it, then down at Sam. He poked his pockets for a phone.
“I’m calling 911.” He stated. Colby didn’t even reply.
He knelt beside Sam, digging into the dry dirt, hands shaking as they hovered uselessly over Sam’s chest. His best friend lay there, unmoving, mouth slightly open, eyes rolled back beneath nearly blue eyelids. The jerking had stopped, but the silence that followed was somehow worse.
“Sammy. Come on, man. You’re okay. You’re okay now.”
“Is he breathing?” Nate ordered.
Colby held his hand in front of Sam’s mouth. “Yeah. That’s good. That’s good.” His voice cracked. “Fuck, you’re scaring me.”
Sam looked like he’d been wandering the desert in a dream. Equally violent red and deathly pale. Colby glanced up as sirens wailed in the distance—growing closer, but not fast enough.
“He was fine,” Colby said under his breath, more to himself than anyone else. “He was pretty fine twenty minutes ago.”
“Don’t,” Nate warned. “Don’t go there.”
The paramedics arrived in a blur of uniforms and efficient movement. They lifted Sam onto a stretcher, voices calm but quick, calling out vitals, jargon, numbers that didn’t sound right. One of them asked what happened. Colby tried to explain, but the words didn’t line up—heat, filming, collapse, seizure. Nate answered instead.
Colby rode in the ambulance, silent except for the occasional “Come on, man,” muttered like a prayer. Sam didn’t respond. Not then.
The world came back to Sam in pieces. He didn’t wake so much as return—like surfacing from deep water, lungs aching, ears ringing. His limbs trembled with the aftershock. His fingers arched under a stiff, white sheet. The steady beeping of the heart monitor was the only sound filling the sterile silence.
“Sam?”
The voice was tight with panic and threaded with relief. Colby. Sam turned his head slightly and felt every nerve in his neck tense. Colby was beside him, eyes wild, hair disheveled, gripping Sam’s hand like he was anchoring him to the world. Sam’s lips parted, but nothing came out.
“You’re okay, man. You’re okay. Just breathe with me.”
The fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, harsh and cold. Nate hovered at the foot of the bed, arms crossed, jaw clenched, face pale.
Sam attempted again to speak, but all that came out was a whisper, “What… happened?”
“You had a seizure,” Colby said, his voice low.
The paramedics had called it heat stroke, triggered by extreme temperatures and stress. A seizure wasn’t common, but it wasn’t unheard of either.
Sam exhaled, shaky and uneven. “I feel… like I got hit by a truck.”
“That’s your brain rebooting,” Nate said quietly, trying for a smirk but failing. “You nearly stroked out, man. Gave us a real show.”
Colby shut his eyes, feeling the tinge of pain behind his lids. Then he opened them and shared, “They said another ten minutes, and you might’ve gone into cardiac arrest.”
Sam only half-registered the words. His mind kept circling the same question.
“The footage,” he rasped.
Colby and Nate exchanged a look. That told Sam everything before either of them said a word.
“It’s gone,” Nate said finally. “Or... glitched out. Real bad.”
“All of it,” Colby added. “Corrupted.”
Static bled through the frames. Audio warped and dragged, voices slowed to a guttural crawl. Time itself seemed to skip and stutter, scenes dissolving into fractured pixels and heat-glitched distortion. A kind of thermal corruption. As if the house didn’t want to be remembered. At all.