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—was there.
    My hand touched a lampshade. Alright, I told myself; I’m in the family room now. The moaning stopped. I paused, suffocated by darkness. Fear pulsed through my body. I had worked hard to keep my mental shields up my whole life. There were spirits and traces of negative energy almost everywhere, and it always affected me. In the house, however, there was nothing for me to block out. I was able to drop all effort to keep things out of my head. My mind was open to the supernatural.
    And I still felt nothing.
    Going around the end table, I ran my hand over the loveseat, slowly making my way to the couch. I had stupidly left the dagger on the coffee table. I took another tentative step forward.   Almost there , I whispered in my head. I felt the hot breath on my skin just seconds before my hand hit something firm.
    Firm and warm.
    Something cracked and popped and a fire roared to life in the fireplace.
    Firelight danced off the face of the man in front of me. My mouth fell open in horror and I recoiled from him. He was horrible: naked and charred and still smoldering. He smiled, spread his arms, and burst into flames.

     

     

     
    Chapter 2- Dazed and Confused
     

    I shielded my eyes from the blinding light. The burning man laughed and took a step forward. I dove over the couch with too much enthusiasm; I rolled off and hit my shoulder on the coffee table. Not allowing myself the time to react to the pain, I grabbed the dagger.
    The doorbell rang. The TV buzzed to life, the screen nothing but static and white noise. The doorbell rang again and something pounded on the front door. I didn’t take my eyes off of the burning man. I needed to kill him. I just wasn’t sure how.
    Embers cascaded from his outstretched arms, withering away to nothing on the wood floor. Oh God, the house was going to catch on fire! Behind me, something hit the window. Fingernails dragged down the glass of the windows, screeching and echoing in the dark night. The volume of the white noise increased until it was unbearable.
    I could take a flying leap at him, I supposed. I’d get burned but at least he’d be dead, right? I could only hope. My plan was to walk around the coffee table and draw him out. My heart was racing and my hand shook. Nervous and scared, my palms were sweating, making it hard to keep a firm grasp on the dagger. I took another small step away from the couch, hoping the burning man would follow. That epically failed and he lunged at me. I ducked out of the way, tripping on the TV remote, falling backward on the loveseat.
    When I sat up, he was gone. The lights were on, voices softly drifted from the TV, and my bowl of soup still sat on the coffee table. There was no fire and the house didn’t even smell like smoke. I jumped up, looking all around me. Everything was how it should be. I swallowed hard and had to remind myself to take a deep breath. Doing my best not to shake, I moved away from the couch. With the dagger still tight in my grip, I went to the fireplace and touched the metal.
    It was cool. There hadn’t been a fire. I ran to the front door and checked the locks; they were still locked. After a moment of feeling absolutely terrified, I put my hand on the deadbolt and twisted it back. I opened the door and jumped onto the porch.
    There wasn’t anything there. I hurried back inside, relocked the door and leaned against it.
    What the hell?
    My phone rang, scaring the crap out of me. Heart racing, I ran back into the family room to answer it. I felt relieved when I saw it was Ethan, but knew I couldn’t tell him what had just happened…if I even knew what had really just happened. Not being here to physically protect and take care of me would upset Ethan way too much. I took a shaky breath.
    “Hello?” I panted.
    “Hey, sweetie,” he said, his deep voice calming.
    “Hi,” I said nervously.
    “What are you doing?”
    “Oh, um, just got out of the shower,” I said the first thing that popped into