Check out our episode here! The Dead House by Dawn Kurtagich
PART ONE
On February 2, 2005, Elmbridge High burned down. Three people died in the blaze and there is suspicion that Kaitlyn Johnson was responsible for the fire. However, no such student exists. In the remains of the fire, a message book and Kaitlyn's diary were found. What follows is the true account of what has become known as the Johnson Incident. There are many diary entries, transcribed video clips, medical interviews and police files and we will do our best to relate to you what happened leading up to the fire at Elmbridge High School.
Kaitlyn Johnson and Carly Johnson are closer than sisters. They share the same body. Carly is aware during the daytime and Kaitlyn the night. Carly's doctor at Claydon Youth Psychiatric Facility, Dr. Lansing, thinks that Carly developed Dissociative Identity Disorder and created Kaitlyn after their parents died. But Kaitlyn's always been there. If their parents hadn't died, they could have told everyone about her. Maybe their little sister Jaime could, but they don't get to see her anymore. Soon enough they'll be leaving Claydon for Elmbridge High and then they'll be turning 18 and can move to London and be on their own. At a session with Dr. Lansing on their last night, Kaitlyn, after she's revealed to be Kaitlyn not Carly, talks of a voice in her head, Aka Manah. Then she gets upset and the session ends.
At school, Carly spends a lot of time with her friend Naida, who was a key witness to the events leading up to the Johnson Incident. Naida recorded a video diary of her final year at Elmbridge. In one, she sees a shadow pass through the room when she's talking to her boyfriend, Scott, a friend, Brett, and Carly. They talk about Mala, a type of magic that Naida practices and teaches her friends. Naida knows about Kaitlyn and thinks that they are two souls in one body, which Kaitlyn thinks is stupid and that Naida is stupid and is stealing Carly away. Aka Manah is watching Kaitlyn now, breathing and laughing in the corner as she writes in her diary, called Dee. She breaks into the basement of one of the school buildings later through a small window. Before breaking it, she sees a reflection of a thin, grinning girl waving at her. She explores the basement and attic and tells Dee that she's jealous of Carly being at school during the day, walking the halls while she has to break in at night. She does other things at night too, just to prove to herself that she's real, not invisible. Like writing in the backs of people's journals, stealing their pens, putting rocks under their pillows, cutting them with razors...
In the Chapel on the school grounds, Kaitlyn meets a new guy at school, Ari Hait, while she's shouting out her loneliness in the confessional. She writes all about him to Dee but keeps him hidden from Carly. If he sees Carly or talks to her during the day, he won't understand. They chat a lot through email and instant message, which makes Kaitlyn excited because that means he's real and it means she's real too. He reminds her of the only other friend she's ever had, apart from Carly, John the Viking. They met at a club and danced night after night and slowly became friends. Kaitlyn kept him from Carly for a long time, just like she's doing with Ari. Something else she does but keeps from Carly is spy on Naida.
One night, during some sort of ritual Naida is performing, she stares at Kaitlyn, and Aka Manah feels soothed. Is Naida performing it for her? Is she a witch? Is she laughing at her? The face in the reflection seems to be... Later it's revealed that Naida is performing these rituals to help Kaitlyn, and it seems it's at Carly's request. In an interview after the incident between Dr. Lansing and Detective Chief Inspector Floyd Homes, Detective Homes wants details of what happened at the end of September and asks about Carly's DID and if it is unusual. It is in that Kaitlyn seems mostly normal, except that she appears on a schedule and hears a voice called Aka Manah. It really seems like Aka Manah is probably very very terrible.
Kaitlyn gets to visit with her little sister Jaime who's staying with a foster family that doesn't want her to see Carly because her "personality is wrong." Jaime can remember what happened in the accident that killed their parents but won't talk about it because Dr. Lansing told her not to. Carly/Kaitlyn need to remember in their own time. Back at school, Kaitlyn finally emails Ari again since she had a crappy time with her sister. A little more time passes and we find out about the incident Detective Homes wants to know about. One of the boys, Mike, had his door stolen from his dorm, a mirror was shattered, and his face was all cut up. Kaitlyn was interviewed by police because of course she was the one who did it, what with her dead parents and psych ward. Did she do it? She doesn't seem to think so. She sneaks in to investigate and sees they've replaced the mirror already. But then, instead of the mirror, there is an impossibly black hole, and the grinning girl is back and she cuts her arms open and laughs and laughs and laughs. Kaitlyn runs away and hides. She mentions seeing Ari again, and keeping him a secret. He makes her feel real, but Aka Manah is making her feel crazy. It's important that she feels real, as real as the girl staring at her from the corner. Kaitlyn talks to Dr. Lansing because Carly hasn't written to her in their message book in some days. She is still leaving post it notes though. Dr. Lansing tells Kaitlyn that this is good, it means Carly is healing and soon Kaitlyn will disappear since she's not real.
PART TWO
After talking to Dr. Lansing, Kaitlyn is desperate to hear from Carly. The only thing she gets is a short note saying everything will be okay. Naida finds Kaitlyn later on the roof and invites her to her Halloween party she's throwing at her cousin's house. She wants both Carly and Kaitlyn to come, and for Kaitlyn to stay long enough so as not to make Carly look like a weirdo for leaving super early. Kaitlyn emails Ari and invites him to join her there at 7:30. Kaitlyn spends a lot of her time with Ari in the Chapel or the Forgotten Garden, aka the cemetery, or by herself (or not by herself if you count the grinning girl) in the basement and the attic of the school. There's a brief interview with Chief Inspector Floyd Homes and Scott, Naida's boyfriend, that takes place after the incident where Homes asks Scott about Naida and Carly's friendship. He says there was a falling out but that things went back to normal after Halloween. Then Homes asks about another student, Juliet, and what happened on Halloween.
Naida's party gets started and it's pretty normal. She's recording the whole thing from multiple cameras, including one in her top hat. Several people are there: Naida, Scott, Carly, Brett, Mike, Maggie and Juliet. There's a break to another interview with Chief Inspector Floyd Homes with Maggie, who came to the party with Juliet, who mentions that Juliet went outside when the weird ouija board came out and that's the last time she saw her friend. Carly went outside later though, so they should probably talk to her. Later at the party, Kaitlyn is there now instead of Carly and she's engrossed in conversation with Ari who arrived after dark just like Kaitlyn asked. Brett comes offering weed to Carly and Ari. She politely declines and dismisses him, which he finds weird and talks to Naida about. She obviously understands why his interaction was weird, because it's Kaitlyn not Carly, but no one knows that except for her, so she explains that she's just different.
Later on, the party is quiet and Mike gets out a board that looks like a ouija board but with runes instead of letters. They all sit around it, except for Naida and Scott who are upstairs and Juliet who thinks it's stupid and goes outside. They ask the board if anyone is there because they want to commune and if they understand, but nothing happens. Then they ask whoever is there to choose someone to talk to and, on its own, the pointer moves to Kaitlyn. Everyone freaks out and Naida comes down yelling at them all to leave. Kaitlyn feels weird and goes outside. Everyone else is kind of fighting about Naida kicking them out, but then there's a scream so they all run outside, too. Kaitlyn is passed out and Juliet is nowhere to be seen. Kaitlyn comes to, asking for Carly, but Juliet isn't seen again. Naida talks to Kaitlyn the next day, tries to explain that that board was dangerous to them because they are two souls in one body. They are a draw for malevolent forces. Blah blah.
Kaitlyn is increasingly worried about not hearing from Carly, but maybe Dr. Lansing was right and Kaitlyn needs to disappear. No! That can't be. It's just the anniversary of their parents' death. That's what's going on. So stop grinning from the corner, girl. Naida is convinced that Mike is getting into black magic, what with his missing door and mirror and him finding the Olen board and now, the pointer that Naida burned is in her room. She asks Kaitlyn if she's playing a joke and put it there, but no, because when she touches it, she screams. In her head, she's surrounded by eerie laughter and can feel someone touching her. She definitely can't have put that pointer in Naida's room. She sends an email to Ari later explaining pretty much everything to him and he asks her to meet with him.
A few days later, Kaitlyn has a dream, a nightmare. She's inside a house, a dead house, that is on a crumbling cliff on the edge of a dead sea. Storm clouds rumble and flicker above like a film. Inside, the house is as crumbling and stormy and gray as the outside. She sees something move behind the wall, but it's not the wall, it's a mirror. The reflection in the mirror isn't her own. It's a girl. Carly? She smiles a gruesome black smile and crawls out of the mirror and across the floor, dragging ribbons of entrails from a stump of a torso. Kaitlyn runs out of the house and it looks down on her from far away. The house wants her. Later, after her nightmare, she writes to Carly but gets no response. She almost calls Dr. Lansing, but decides against it. Then she wakes up in the morning. Where is Carly? Did they swap places? Where is Carly? WHERE IS CARLY?! Kaitlyn emails Ari freaking out. Later, in Naida's camera footage, she finds Kaitlyn banging her bloody head against the wall, then she runs outside in the rain up to the roof. Naida calls the police to report a jumper and they arrive and take "Carly" away, back to Claydon Youth Psychiatric Facility.
PART THREE
Dr. Lansing is surprised to learn that Carly has integrated instead of Kaitlyn. In several sessions, after Carly is revealed to be Kaitlyn, she doesn't speak because she doesn't believe Dr. Lansing will listen. All she wants is for Carly to come back, even if that means she disappears instead. Dr. Lansing hopes a visit with Jaime will help, but it doesn't really, because she's catatonic the entire time Jaime is there. Kaitlyn tries to figure things out by writing to Dee in her diary, all the while thinking that Dr. Lansing doesn't want to help and won't listen and thinks she's successful because Carly has integrated. The girl is also there. But why? No one realizes that she was there and right all along. Kaitlyn is Carly now, to everyone at Claydon anyway. She begins dreaming more of The Dead House. And then someone is there with her. Is it Dee? Is it Carly? In one session with Dr. Lansing, all she does is laugh because the house wants her. It won't let her leave. So now, she doesn't sleep.
Kaitlyn writes more frantic diary entries, one difficult to decipher because it's covered in blood. Kaitlyn writes that she's found a mirror in Dr. Lansing's personal bathroom and has set the girl free. She now has lacerations on both arms requiring 57 stitches to close up. She realizes that she was catatonic during Jaime's visit and wants to see her again to explain, but her foster parents have filed a restraining order against her. She writes that she's afraid of the dark and has pushed everyone in her life away, even Carly. She's also afraid of the light. All she wants is for someone to hold her and love her. Dr. Lansing is increasingly worried and seeks outside assistance. She finally decides she must sedate Carly for 24 hours. Before being tackled and injected, Kaitlyn screams DON'T PUT ME BACK THERE! Dr. Lansing regrets her decision after Carly has been asleep for 56 hours. While she was sedated, Kaitlyn was trapped in Dead House, always running, trying to escape, the house morphing around her, but then she hears Carly… screaming. And then she wakes up.
After some time, Kaitlyn tells Dr. Lansing that she thinks she needs help. Dr. Lansing tries to help her understand that she needs to trust her. She mentions Aka Manah, but Kaitlyn doesn't want to talk about the Voice. Then Kaitlyn talks about her friend The Viking and how it's Lansing's fault she hasn't seen him since her parents died. But Dr. Lansing only started working with Kaitlyn after she arrived at Claydon. The Viking, John, saw an article in the newspaper about Carly on the roof and finally tracked her down. They have a phone call and he says he was in an accident and lost track of her, but he's coming to see her. After that, Kaitlyn talks to a snake. Is it real? Is she real? Is the house? Is anything?
Naida comes to visit and sneaks Kaitlyn a note telling her she needs to escape because she's pretty sure a Shyan is working dark magic, Grúndi, on them. She writes to Dee about it and then falls into the Dead House while she's awake. She runs through the house, looking for Carly and finds a door that desperately wants to be opened. Kaitlyn almost opens it but realizes the House would never give up Carly that easily, then the House is angry and Kaitlyn flees. The Voice, Aka Manah, says THE HOUSE IS MINE. She must be crazy. In a session with Dr. Lansing, Kaitlyn admits that she's afraid she's killed Carly because she's finally getting help. Dr. Lansing suggests that this is great and that she is Carly and gets her to repeat that. I. Am. Carly. Then she asks her to write to down everything she can remember about the night her parents died. Instead, she calls Naida who says she can hear breathing on the line, and then she escapes from Claydon. A missing persons report for Carly Johnson is filed the day before Christmas, 40 days before the incident.
PART FOUR
There's another interview between Detective Chief Inspector Floyd Homes and Scott after the incident. Homes wants Scott to tell him what happened the night of the fire. He says that Naida's talking and so he'd better tell the truth. Did he have sex with Carly? Is that why she started the fire? No. Not at all. After Kaitlyn's escape from Claydon, she comes to the basement of Elmbridge where Naida sets up a video camera to monitor her. The basement is dank and cold and gross but at least it's safe. She and Naida talk about the Shyan who is controlling her and about finding Carly inside the Dead House and about Mala and Grúndi and who would want to take Carly's soul. Kaitlyn writes to Dee again about the dead grinning girl and how there's no way she could be Carly. She also emails Ari and they meet in the chapel and kiss, and she finally feels like a person again.
Naida gathers their friends, Scott, Brett and Ari, and brings them to the basement to ask them for help in keeping Kaitlyn hidden and bringing her food and clothes and supplies. After some explanation as to who exactly Kaitlyn is, they agree. Naida also explains that she needs to find Carly and since she is the one who knows about Mala and Grúndi, she's going to have to be the one who brings her back. She doesn't know how yet and she doesn't know who is the Shyan who is fighting against them, but she'll figure it all out. There's another interview here after the incident between Detective Chief Inspector Floyd Homes and Dr. Lansing in which he discloses that Naida was once a patient of Claydon and asks if Dr. Lansing believes in group hysteria. She does, but he doesn't say anything else.
Several days pass. Scott and Brett bring supplies and news from Naida. Carly's room was cleaned out, but Naida was able to save a box that was under her bed. In it are all the letters Carly and Kaitlyn wrote to each other. Kaitlyn added some to her diary, from as far back as 1997. They always kept each other safe and had plans to move to London and get an apartment and a cat and books and go to the movies and all sorts of things. When Kaitlyn accidentally mentions The Viking, there's a letter from Carly asking if they were in a relationship and if they were planning to… you know… to tell her because it would be weird. But no. Kaitlyn would never do that. Until now. She and Ari have sex in the Forgotten Garden. All she wants is to be loved and to be real and being with Ari is exactly that. She also kind of maybe thought that Carly would be so angry and repulsed that she'd come back to stop it, but that didn't happen. That night, Kaitlyn drowns in the blood pouring from the walls in the Dead House and wakes to find she's ripped out the stitches in her arms with her teeth and she's covered in blood.
Naida comes in later with a bind to stop Kaitlyn from having dreams of the Dead House and finds her nearly dead from blood loss. She wants to call an ambulance, but if anyone comes to help Kaitlyn, they'll take her back to Claydon forever. Naida sews Kaitlyn's arms back up and then they sit together for a while. Back in her dorm later, Naida casts a spell against the one hurting them. Kaitlyn meanwhile is visited by the grinning girl, dripping wet, who leads her into an empty classroom where she finds Carly's journal. Not a whole lot makes sense in it. She talks about having to use a pencil or that her pen has run out, but the diary is written in pen…? Kaitlyn imagines her being dragged away by Aka Manah, then she stands in front of the mirror in the open armoire and says "Carly?" for forty minutes. Around this same time, Detective Chief Inspector Floyd Homes is assigned to Carly's missing persons case and then, on January 6, issues a warrant for her arrest. Also on January 6, Kaitlyn writes down a message she hears from Aka Manah: "Hundred hands. See the blood? Listen well. Come to me. You are mine. Remember."
The next day, there's footage from Naida exploring the attic, then later Kaitlyn writes about doing the same thing. They read the writing that completely covers the walls, switching from marker to pen to pencil to carvings to something else that Kaitlyn discovers to be shit. There's a dark stain in the corner too. Naida doesn't know whose writing this is and sets to figuring it out, but Kaitlyn knows. It's her handwriting. She then decides to go see Jaime at her school and then later sees flashes of something? Her dad? His twisted bloody face? A dark stain on a dark, rough wall? Flashing lights? John the Viking? Naida meanwhile discovers that the spell she created against the Shyan was found and reconjured against her. Instead of scaring her away, this only makes her more determined to stop them, whoever they are. She and Kaitlyn go to see someone in London for help, Haji, Naida's brother, who is a powerful Shyan. He reluctantly agrees to guide Naida as long as she promises to never come to him again.
When they get back to school, there are police everywhere searching for Carly. The girls split up, Naida talks to an officer while Kaitlyn sneaks through the woods to the abandoned chapel where she's later met by Ari. They break into an old crypt in the cemetery and make love while Naida's camera concealed in the top hat Kaitlyn wore to see Haji is still recording. Later in the basement, Scott talks about why the police were there. They think Carly had something to do with Juliet's disappearance and that she killed her. There are a few emails with Ari after this and he visits her basement. They have sex in the corner, then Kaitlyn remembers Naida's camera footage but luckily that bit has never been found. Ari asks questions, but she doesn't really have any answers and then spends several days just staring at the wall. That would have probably continued if John the Viking had not showed up. Ari is wary of him. Then John suggests that maybe Kaitlyn should go back to Claydon, which was definitely not the right thing to do.
Naida has realized that Kaitlyn is the one who wrote all over the attic. Kaitlyn knew it was her handwriting, but now she reveals that yes, that's true, but she didn't write it. Then Naida suggests that Kaitlyn is possessed and has been since before Halloween, but the use of the Olen board made it worse. She also thinks that the Dead House is a representation of Kaitlyn's mind and that it is possible that Carly was locked away in one of the rooms of the house, in Kaitlyn's mind, but that she's gone through a door and is now elsewhere. The door she left through is possibly the same one that the Olen entered through. Kaitlyn thinks that the Voice, the snake, the wet grinning girl and Aka Manah are all this Olen possessing her. She reads some of Carly's diary after this where she mentions Brett always being too close. Naida has been keeping an eye on Mike, thinking he's the Shyan, but could it be Brett?
There is a recording of Naida who has figured out what to do to try to find Carly, but she's worried that she's going to lose one of her friends in the process. She wants to call Haji to get him to take over, but decides she can't. The group, Naida, Kaitlyn, Ari, Scott, Brett and John, gathers together in the basement. Naida has a rooster that she's going to sacrifice for them to all be able to enter the Dead House, but Scott won't let her do it and suggests they all sacrifice something of their own instead of her having to kill something. They give up things important to them, set them on fire and enter the House. John decides not to go and stands as a lookout. Everyone splits up inside Kaitlyn's dilapidated mind looking for a door that doesn't belong. She and Naida see the grinning girl and encounter a great snake that comes at them. Naida protects Kaitlyn and then, back outside and in the basement, Naida uses the knife she was going to use to kill the rooster to cut out her own tongue. The room erupts in chaos. John calls an ambulance and carries Naida out of the basement, Scott shoves a rag in Naida's mouth, Ari pushes Kaitlyn in the armoire to keep her hidden.
PART FIVE
Naida is taken away for emergency surgery but will never be able to speak again. Kaitlyn is devastated that her friend was hurt and that they left her all alone, locked in a closet. She understands why, but that doesn't make it any better. She's angry with the Shyan and wants to run headfirst into the Dead House to find the doorway. But she's also terrified. Brett comes in and shouts about everything being insane then kisses Carly, though really, it's Kaitlyn of course. Ari comes in during the kiss and beats Brett up and accuses Kaitlyn of kissing him, but she makes him understand that that's not really what happened. She didn't kiss Brett, he kissed her because he likes Carly and she let him because he needed a friend and she is rarely seen. They kiss then and Kaitlyn decides that no else is going to get hurt because of her.
She contacts Haji who meets with her, and John and Ari and agree to help, though not before Haji calls them all stupid and tells Kaitlyn she's probably going to die. That's fine. She has no problem dying for Carly. John hugs her before leaving and she feels trapped and terrified. She's afraid she's forgotten something about him and thinks of the flashing lights and blood and his face and doesn't understand. Later, Haji gathers them all and prepares them to properly perform the ritual and enter the Dead House. It's different this time. The Dead House is empty, but Kaitlyn knew it would be. The group splits up and when they search the rooms, they see memories. Kaitlyn and Carly when they're twelve, a time at a club when Kaitlyn meets with John the Viking. It's embarrassing, but nothing terrible happens. Later, after the ritual is over, Haji tells Kaitlyn to trust no one because he sensed the Shyan in the room with them after they left the Dead House. The Shyan is one of her friends.
Kaitlyn has a dream after this that Carly is on fire and so is the snake and so is the Dead House. It feels like the Dead House is encroaching on the school. She reads some diary entries around this time of Carly feeling uncomfortable around Brett who follows her around so much that she has to hide in a bathroom to get away from him. He makes her want to disappear. Could he be the Shyan? John visits later and tells her that Brett asked him to come by and that she needs to stop all this and get help. He's going to call Dr. Lansing. They struggle and fight and John tells her about the accident that killed her parents. They were all in the car together, Kaitlyn in the front seat with her dad driving, John, her mom and Jaime in the backseat, her mom in the middle. They were arguing and her dad must have gotten distracted because they crashed and he flew out of the car. Kaitlyn and John and Jaime were fine, but Kaitlyn walked up to her dad as he was bleeding out in the street, said something to him and walked away. She told John later that that was the happiest night of her life. If that's true, then Kaitlyn can't stop trying to get Carly back because she's clearly the better of the two of them.
After this, Kaitlyn thinks John may be the Shyan. But then she reads more of Carly's diary and again thinks it's Brett. He forced himself on her and kissed her and accused her of liking Naida. She doesn't deny it, she might even love Naida. So. Brett or John? Haji gives Kaitlyn a token that will cause her to dream of the Shyan if he enters the room where it is. He slips a note in her diary later that says Trust no one. Say nothing. Find the door. Good luck. It's assumed that he left after that and disappeared. A missing persons report was filed later. That same night, Brett's body was found and ruled an accidental death. He wasn't the Shyan. Who is? Who killed him?
Scott, John and Ari come to the basement later. John and Scott want Kaitlyn to give up but she won't. Ari won't either. She tries to hang the token Haji gave her but can't reach and breaks down. Ari says he'll help. She tells him she thinks John is the Shyan. She writes a note to him later, telling him to meet her because she needs to talk about John. There's no record of a response other than Ari asking Is it him? Later, Naida's camera catches John and Ari in a fistfight. John begins to strangle Ari. Kaitlyn yells for him to stop but he doesn't seem to hear. She jumps on him but he throws her off. She grabs something, jumps at him again and he lets go of Ari, grabbing for the gash in his neck. Kaitlyn has killed him with the same knife Naida used to cut out her tongue. She screams and screams until Ari slaps her and tells her they need to hide his body. They take him to the Forgotten Garden.
Kaitlyn sleeps deeply that night and immediately falls into the Dead House. It is empty now. Whatever force was in it is gone or sleeping, giving her the perfect opportunity to find the doorway and to find Carly. As she approaches the basement, the only place she's never gone, she hears a large beast sleeping beyond the door. She's about to go in, but then she feels the grinning girl behind her, still dripping wet. She realizes that she's been trying to help all this time. She helped her escape from Claydon, she showed her Carly's diary, and now Kaitlyn finally realizes she's showing her that the door isn't a door at all, but the Dead Ocean at the bottom of the cliff. A doorway appears and she jumps into the sea. She won't reveal what's on the other side, but issues a threat to the one who tricked her. She's coming. But first, she calls Jaime to tell her that she's going to find Carly, but no, she can't come too. Haji was right, but she knew it all along.
Kaitlyn goes to meet Ari. He's the last one left. He's the Shyan. But why? Why would he do all this? And how? He tells her everything. He moved around a lot as a kid and met a woman who studied Mala and Grúndi under Naida and Haji's grandmother. Then he found out he was moving again and going to go to Elmbridge so he thought he'd meet Naida and love her, but no. It was Kaitlyn he met. Kaitlyn who was always in the dark, always hidden. But he wanted her. Wanted to free her. At first, he tried to swap their positions, have Carly be in the dark for a while, but that didn't work. But now, Carly is gone and Kaitlyn is free! He knew when he met Kaitlyn that Carly had done something to her, so he asked her about it. She didn't know what she was doing. Naida hadn't taught her very much, but somehow she possessed Kaitlyn. Not with an Olen, with a demon. Ari can control it though and they can be together! Kaitlyn asks him why he killed Juliet, but he didn't kill her. She did. Or her demon did. He did kill Brett though, and Haji. They just need to be together! She runs. She runs before she runs away with him.
The next day, Kaitlyn visits Naida in the hospital. There's no record of what they said, only a nurse's report that Kaitlyn visited. Back at the school that night, there was a fire. Ari's body was found in the common room of the dorm, though a diary entry suggests he was killed in the chapel. How did his body get so far away? There were two other bodies found in the fire. Brenda, who took prescription sleeping medicine and died in her sleep. Haji's body was also found, though he died before the fire. They also found John's body in the Forgotten Garden.
In the years since the Johnson Incident, since Kaitlyn's diary was found, speculations abound. Her health records are sealed but it's been suggested that there was a physical or sexual assault that went unreported between her and her father. It's been suggested that "Carly" caused the accident that killed her parents because of this. Researchers much later found a secret panel in the attic concealing Juliet's body. A few months after the fire, Naida is interrogated and arrested for her part in the incident. She wrote that Kaitlyn was possessed and under Ari's control, that she wasn't responsible for anything that happened. A note, perhaps Kaitlyn's last, was found years later in the chapel. She said she loved Ari and he was only trying to help her, that even though it was her hands that snapped his neck, it was the thing inside her that did it. She also said she's not real, not anymore. She's only a vessel for the thing inside her body and she can end it.
The final footage found of the fire has been studied by paranormal researchers and has a cult following online. It shows Kaitlyn smiling as she is engulfed in flames, reaching for someone, and her last words were either Dee or Carly. A shadow appears then, probably nothing more than that, but some think that it was either Carly or a manifestation of Dee. Naida was found not mentally competent originally and sentenced to a mental hospital, but after more footage was found later, she was retried and sentenced again. The footage shows a time near when Mike was injured. It reveals that Naida knew Carly broke the mirrors and hurt Mike, but she suggests it's only because she was possessed. She was released on probation in 2014. Scott was also tried, but found innocent. He is a barrister now and hasn't spoken to Naida in twenty years. Jaime is a teacher and still lives with her adopted mother. Dr. Lansing's medical license was revoked due to her treatment of Carly. She's interviewed in 2016 about what she really thinks about what happened with Carly and her friends. She still believes that Carly was ill and her friends developed a group psychosis. She's also asked about the people who have gone missing from the Elmbridge fire site. Just accidents she says. She visited the site of the fire and is now a paranormal researcher. Despite the video evidence of Carly dying in the fire, her body has not been found. We'll just have to decide for ourselves where she is now.