Luna wasn’t seeing a ghost; she was sensing the high-pitched frequency of the failing machinery and the strange, electric charge in the air that humans are biologically blind to. The sweet smell was the scent of ozone and decaying isotopes. The experts later told them that the “metallic” feeling in their mouths was the first sign of acute exposure. If the cat hadn’t stayed at that door, alerting them to the unseen danger, they would have simply fallen asleep one night and never woken up.
The inspectors further explained that the broken deadbolt wasn’t an external act of violence, but of physics. The ‘radium room’ had become a pressurized tomb; when the inner seals finally perished, the resulting surge of air had enough force to punch the basement door open from the inside, clearing the way for the toxic gases to enter the rest of the house.