The lights went out. The grandfather clock chimed fourteen again. When they came back on, the Ouija board was on his cot. The planchette moved. It spelled: S-T-E-V-E—then—D-I-E—then—C-U-T—then—L-A-U-G-H.

The first night, he set up a cot in the living room. Around 2:14 a.m., the grandfather clock—which had no weights or pendulum—chimed fourteen times. Then all the drawers in the kitchen slid open in unison, like a slow-motion wave. Steve filmed it on his phone, posted it with the caption “Old house sounds,” and went back to sleep.

By week two, Steve was desperate. He’d tried sage, salt lines, even a poorly worded Craigslist ad for a “paranormal plumber.” Nothing worked. Then he found the videotape in the attic. No label, just a dusty VHS wrapped in a 2014 grocery store receipt. He dug out a combo VCR/DVD player from Goodwill and pressed play.

The video cut to a Ouija board planchette sliding on its own, spelling out “MORE SCARES.” A chandelier fell in slow motion—but a cushion landed exactly where it hit. A ghostly figure in a bedsheet stood by the stairs, holding a clapboard that read: TAKE 2 .

Steve didn’t laugh. But somewhere in the dark, a phantom audience did. A slow, recorded clap. And the feeling that this wasn’t a haunting anymore. It was a franchise.

The tape ended. Static. Then a whisper: “You’re in the sequel now, Steve. And the audience? They’re loving you.”

The second night, the piano played itself. Not a song—just one note. Middle C. Over and over. Steve unplugged the piano from the wall. It had never been electric. He slept in his car.

The old Asher place had stood empty for thirty-seven years. When Steve bought it at auction for back taxes, the townies just shook their heads. “You don’t know what you’re dragging home,” old Mrs. Cutter warned from her porch. Steve laughed. He was a skeptic, a part-time magician who made balloon animals at kids’ parties. Ghosts? Please.

Steve laughed. Then he noticed the date burned into the bottom of the frame: 10/31/2014. And in the corner of the video, reflected in a dark window, stood a figure that looked exactly like him—wearing the same clothes he had on right now.

A man’s voice, shaky but theatrical, narrated: “What you are about to see is real. This is the sequel. The first haunting was bad. This one… this one has production value .”