Scream

He looked at her and said, "How about I help you with finding too? Then quickly set it up together after which I can leave and return. We'll have to be quick though, if the ghost attempts its last 2 help for the day now while I am at your house, then the surveillance we later put up can only be used tomorrow."

Hellen didn't offer any response, resulting in a silent environment before she snapped in frustration, "Fuck." She then glanced at him and asked, "You said you were still being helped when you moved to another house. When did you move?"

"In the morning."

"Did you hear anything after you moved in the house? Because look, if the ghost has phaseless ability, you would naturally not hear anything as it would simply phase through the walls to enter the house and hide somewhere. But if it has enhanced mental defense instead, it should still use the conventional methods of entering, like doors or windows. Last thing, at the new home or your original home, did it start smelling somewhere? As you know, ghosts have the form of a rotten corpse, so the foul smell of decay naturally accompanies it. Try recollecting."

"Hmm nope, there was no sound. It could be that it silently entered through windows or doors, no? We live in huge bungalows, with multiple points of openings. It wouldn't be strange if I couldn't hear it. As for the smell, I don't know much about the house I moved in, I only used the living room, the common bathroom and kitchen, there was no smell in these rooms as far as I remember. Same for my house, I keep the entire house clean, so at least for the 4 days during which I kept getting help, there was no foul smell anywhere."

Hellen's eyebrows wrinkled as she muttered, "How could it be? Are you sure you've checked your entire house? No smell anywhere? Could its range be higher than I guessed? It doesn't need to be as close as I thought for it to use its powers?"

Aiden quickly interjected, "Wait! The attic! I never enter the attic, it's just originally smelly and dusty in there. Even when my parents were there, we never bothered to clean the attic. I heard they've kept the old furniture in there which was of some sentimental value to them and some spare things like curtains. But since no one entered and cleaned it, we opted to bring in new stuff. We were planning to hire someone to clean it but it never came around to actually doing it. Could it be hiding in the attic?"

She carefully listened to him with rapt attention and replied with another question instead, "Does your attic have anything like a window? Or is there only a door leading to it? Was that door to the attic unlocked when you returned from that house the next day?"

Aiden only stared at her for a couple seconds before saying, "I didn't check. That door has an inbuilt lock which works on keys, so we didn't bother putting a latch and seal it with the traditional lock on it. I wouldn't know if the door has been unlocked unless I try opening it without the keys."

Towards the end, Hellen saw visible fear in Aiden's eyes. It wasn't out of place. Dealing with mere help was far more doable than potentially facing a sentient rotten corpse, at least if it was the first time for someone. Aiden still fared much better and had better guts than a lot of people his age as far as she knew though. She advised,

"Look, what we can do is look through all the rooms of my house. I already checked when we entered but we'll do it again. I'll also take a look at my attic. Remember, don't open any window or door, we want to know if it can phase through or not. After that you can just stay here and help me with setting up stuff, but we'll frequently check the house just in case. If we do manage to find it, no worries, I'll give you a couple things to choose from to use as a weapon, some baseball, hockey and cricket bats, you can use it against that. If we don't find it, we can stay in the living room and look at the camera feed now instead of checking every now and then. We'll then be able to know what ability it has if it decides to follow you into my house after setting up the surveillance."

Aiden was a little speechless as he heard what she had to say. It made him realize their different perspectives. Aunt Hellen considered ghosts to be dealable with just some bats while he assumed them to be scary, at least scary enough to not be subdued by some bats. But it also gave him some relief. If someone who had experience against them advised that ghosts could be beaten with bats, it definitely had to be credible. It also helped him in reducing the fear he had against the ghosts. Their image in his mind certainly diminished, becoming less scary. 

The people you surround yourself with do have an effect on you huh. Keeping that aside, such a mess of a planning process. We went from one thing to another without even thinking about if the plan has drawbacks. So stupid. So messy. But at least finally we have decided on something.

The next few dozen minutes they spent the house searching for the traces of the ghost. Hellen also made a trip to the attic and found nothing there. Once it was out of the picture that the ghost hadn't moved in the house yet, they did a cursory search outside the house in the lawn. There wasn't any kind of furniture or objects which could be used as a cover so they mostly only glanced through the garden, and looked behind the trees to come to a conclusion that the ghost was nowhere near the house.

When they were on their way to find the equipment, Hellen instructed Aiden, taking on the role of an experienced teacher guiding a noobie who had just entered the field. 

"Always keep in mind, any information could be valuable information against the ghosts. You never know what information could be the achilles' heel of the ghost. After this preliminary search, we have concluded that the ghost doesn't immediately follow you. Now there are two possible courses of action for the ghost which could give us more information, 1. If the ghost follows you into my house, 2. If the ghost doesn't follow you into my house. 

"If it is the first, we can therefore guess that the ghost only narrows down the distance when it's time for it to attempt another help. Since you said you got help even after leaving your house, coupled with this information, we can derive another piece of information. It is that this ghost has two ranges. One for when to attempt a help on you and another to maintain its target on you."

Aiden interjected, "What good would that be?"

Hellen gave him a glance and remarked, "Let me continue young man."

Cutting open another cardboard box, she continued while examining the contents inside.

"It isn't particularly an important piece of info when you're running away but it would be vital if you're planning to deal with it. Say, what would happen if I continuously stay within its range of target but outside its range of condition?"

Without waiting for an answer, she continued, "Yep, I could easily move around and force it out of its hiding as it continued maintaining its target on me while the ghost on the other hand would never get to use its ability since it hasn't fulfilled the conditions yet. Then I can also easily lure it into a trap, say, an open space filled with troops which would riddle it with bullet holes, crushing its heart. Easy."

With disappointment on her face, she slid aside the box and cut open another box while continuing, "This, is how even the smallest of information can be used to turn the situation around."

Hellen reckoned it was time to do another search around the house after some moments. Following the previous procedure, they took up different rooms and searched through them when suddenly she heard Aiden's scream.