Chapter 5.1 Ghost Hunting

Chapter 5.1: Ghost Hunting

It is amazing what friends will do for one another because they truly are a friend. It is also amazing what friends will do to each other, how they will test each other and see just how far each one is willing to go for the other in order to prove their friendship. Matt never second guessed anything that I asked him to do or take part in. He would go into any event with the attitude that if I was putting us into that situation then it was either for a good cause or it would not cause us any danger itself because there was no way I would ever intentionally inflict danger upon us on purpose. Well, there were a couple of situations where such danger existed, but I was either too naive or stupid to notice its presence or existence.

Since I can remember, I have always been fascinated with ghosts and tales of the paranormal. I have always loved to listen to scary stories, create scary stories, and even tell scary stories. Growing up, it seemed to be my duty to scare my younger cousins and sister. I was the eldest cousin and when they would all come down for the holidays for eating and getting together, I took it upon myself to try and scare the heck out of them.

One of my favorite activities involved my cousins getting together at my great grandmother’s home. She was the best cook in the entire world and we would all gather at her home during every holiday that centered around food. Thanksgiving and Easter were two of these holidays that stood out. We would all gather at my grandmother’s house which resided upon land that had been in my family before the Civil War itself. What was cool was we would eat, and then the cousins would all get together and play outside. What was even cooler was the fact that they would all listen to me and pretty much do anything that I asked them or requested them to do. If I wanted to play waffle ball, I would just say something and everyone would play that. If I wanted to play explorers, we would all set out into the woods looking for whatever I decided that we were looking for. Don’t think that I had sort of a power trip or something, but I really enjoyed having these family members of mine under my direct control. I felt like I was their leader and they would pretty much do anything that I asked them to.

One of my favorite things to do with them involved my great, great grandparents home which was across the street from my great grandmother’s house. It was an old run downed building that was even sitting sideways. It resided upon an old sandstone foundation and part of it was caving in. The house itself was well over 100 years old and had been built by my great, great grandfather and great, great grandmother. They had lived there with my great grandfather and even my great grandmother had lived there with them as well while they were married. They resided there until my grandmother got tired of living with inlaws and demanded that my great grandfather build their own home or she was going to take my grandmother and move out. Not wanting to loose his immediate family, my great grandfather asked for some land from his father across the street and they worked together to build their house. This was the house that would house all of us during the holidays. But it was the older house that caught my attention and desires.

Since we had been able to walk and had been spending countless holidays at my great grandmothers together, we had been asked…or should I say told not to go near the old Hartman homestead across the street. The primary reason was simply for the fact of safety issues and reasons. The house was caving in and for some reason during that time period, houses were often built upon their source of water, often, and in this case, a giant well. After years of erosion and breaking down of wood, these houses would begin to sink into the wells that existed below them. This was so with the Hartman homestead. The whole backside of the home was slanting into the well that rested under the foundation of the home and the front of the house was ready to go at any time. No one really knew just how deep the well was because none of the living had been in existence when the house had been originally created. This was the primary reason we were not allowed to play in the house itself and were influenced not even to approach the surrounding barrier and land itself. I took this forbidding and information and got creative with it. I came up with my own reasoning why we were not allowed over there and shared it with my young gullible cousins. It was simple. The house was haunted!

Now, in all actuality, I did not really know anything about any sorts of hauntings at the location, but the home did meet at least two of the required necessities of a haunted location in the mind of a young child. One, it was run down and caving in. Two, no one was allowed to go near the location. They were given these instructions from adults. Thus something out of the norm had to be going on there. Quite possibly something paranormal.

I would take my cousins over to the ancient property and lead them around the perimeter of the house. Now, do not get me wrong. I was not putting them in any physical danger. You have to keep in mind the set up of my family. Everyone was raised by good people and everyone knew their boundaries. If the adults told you not to do something, you did not do it and there were no exceptions. But, if they told you not to do something but let some of specificity out, then you had a loop hole to do something about it. See, I had actually spent some time around the home before. I had been inside the location several times with my father and had even ventured into the attic with him. We would go in there sometimes and look at some of the remnants that were there from past times. My great, great grandparents belongings still graced some of the homestead. Papers, books, and even some of the clothing of my past ancestors hung in the rafters of the attic. I thought it was cool to sift through what was there and my dad would allow me to, only if he was with me. He took me into the area of the home that had been sinking into the well of the home several times alerting me to the possible hidden danger the property possessed. I knew the home was not something to mess with. After all, each of us has our limits. There are only certain things that we can humanly do, and looking at the dark abyss that lay underneath the caving in floor boards of the once dominant home, I knew better than to tempt fate itself. Thus I carried out similar precautions when taking my cousins on the little tours looking for the spirits that resided in the homes. And I never, NEVER took them into the house itself. I would even take the opportunity to stress to my cousins the importance of staying out of the building. Heck, I even thought I was doing my part by helping my adult relatives keep the kids away from the dangerous property. Realistically, why would any of them go into a home that was haunted, or they thought was haunted?

One of the best aspects of the home involved the piano that was left in the home. I never really understood why people from that time period left their belongings encrusted within their homestead and their families did nothing to preserve what was once theirs. But this tradition had been a part of both my great, great grandparents and great grandparents because there had been a perfectly good and useful piano that was within the house. My great grandmother even said that it worked up to the time that my great, great grandparents had passed away, but it had never been taken out. Over the years, weather and Mother Nature had not only taken its toll on the home, but the piano itself. The piano no longer played completely, but a few keys still remained functional.

It was this piano that you could actually see from one of the ancient broken windows. I would lead my cousins around the home and point to the visible piano telling and weaving a tale of a woman that would come to the piano late at night and fill the air with the solemn sounds of her spiritual music. They would eat up such a tale wide eyed and believing each and every minute. One time, I even had a little fate on my side to dominate and imbed the story within my cousins.

I had been taking them on the route of the old homestead and had stopped near the window as I usually did. I told my tale of the woman and then began to lead them around to the other side. As we were departing, I caught movement out of the corner of my eye within the window and near the piano itself. For a fraction of a second I was actually believing my own bull. But when I turned to investigate with a full on visual of the scene, I saw a cat perched upon the edge of the piano and looking to move across the keys. I held my breath. This would be it! An awesome event it would manifest into to have a cat run across the keys right at that moment. The cousins would then believe anything that I told them after that. After all, if the ghost of the piano was real, then anything I said would hold water after that in their eyes.

It was then that I knew I must aide the cat in his finding of the destiny that was his. I reached down quickly as not to draw attention to myself. I felt around quickly until I found a small rock. I then wrapped my fingers around it and threw the rock in the general direction of the cat. Now, never being one good at any sport whether it was baseball or basketball, I knew the chances of actually making contact with the furry beast was slim and none. But I was hoping to come close enough to him and frazzle him enough to where he would move across the keys of the piano. I was also hoping that in his blind daze and scattering, he would some how make contact with the few keys that actually still played somewhat. I closed my eyes and awaited the results as the rock flew through the air towards its destination.

The rock struck true! The cat did exactly what I was hoping he or she or it would do. The cat scrambled and actually darted across some of the keys that still held their music playing ability. I turned to look at my cousins. The face I was giving them at the time was one that was not faked. I really was feeling a sense of surprise. I guess the combination of both the look on my face and the sound of the mysterious keys playing as if a ghost had taken part in the event was too much for them to handle. They scattered like a group of cockroaches when you turn on the kitchen light late at night in the kitchen of the local Taco Bell. I laughed to myself as I joined them making a break for the street and heading back to the safety of their parents and the familiarity of great grandmother’s home. To this day the great piano caper still is one of my favorite brushes with the paranormal, even though the paranormal itself was man made.

I also remember my love of horror movies being a wonderful influence on my dabbling of seeking out the paranormal. I have loved horror movies since I have been able to stay up late at night and sneak to the television. One of the first horror movies I have ever seen came to me in this form.

I was some where around the age of a third or fourth grader. We lived in the small community of Oakland, Illinois. At the time, we had the ancient style of satellite, the big white spherical looking object that you had to go out and actually hand crank to pick up the actual stations. Cable was not even in existence at this time. You either had regular television channels via the old style metal antenna or you bough a satellite like my father did. He would run out and hand crank the satellite and mom would turn the television so she could see it from the window and she would hang half out the window and yell to dad when there was something visual on the screen. I remember when we first got the satellite, dad was cranking it around and the first ever visual came from outer space. Now at the time I found the event to be pretty cool, but now I consider it to possibly being what warped my sense of well being. The visual was Michael Jackson and his Thriller video!

Anyway, my sisters and I did not get to watch much television by choice. My father was pretty much the stereotypical male, the ruler of the house and the ruler of the remote. Even when he would leave for work, the satellite was still moved to the last station he was watching and none of us kids, and my mother for that matter, did not have the guts nor the knowledge to try and change the position of the satellite system. So as usual, we watched what dad had been watching, or we watched regular television.

However, my two sisters and I had discovered something neat and unique. We had a little tiny portable black and white television that my parents had purchased when they had gone out seeking a portable camper. They thought it would be good for the family to get out and do things more active and together as a family unit. Camping sounded like a good thing. My dad and mother had found a camper with little to no searching and they went out and bought a small black and white television to take along. Needless to say, we never camped any where but our own driveway and really never had a use for the tiny TV. Mom and Dad gave the television to us kids and they pretty much forgot about its existence. They had forgotten about it, but we kids had not. Though you could not get much on it from its tiny one metallic pole radio style antenna but Channel 8, we discovered a higher power that it held. If you turned it the right way, you could pick up interference and actually pick up some of the satellite channels from our own dish!

We experimented from time to time late at night. We would hide the television in my sister’s closet and then late at night when we knew our parents were either asleep or watching television within the confinements of their own room, I would sneak over to my sisters’ room and we would pull that television out and try to see what we could find.

Two things stand out from our glorious explorations. One was a little flick called “Young Doctors in Love”. This was an R rated classic filled with all sorts of things young minds are curious about, but have not yet visually experienced. The other was a flick entitled, “Bloody Beach”. My first real horror flick. A horror flick that I was not to be viewing for that matter. From this point my life was never the same again.

We all three had seen previews for weeks about the film called “Bloody Beach”. Apparently it took place in a small town around a large body of water. Vacationing individuals were showing up to stay in the area and then turning up dead, not just dead. Gruesome deaths. All of them were apparently being killed and slaughtered by something on or in the beach. There was even a classic moment on the preview that captured our childish minds. Two kids were running around the beach after the police had told them they should not be there. One of the proceeds to throw an object at one of the officers and laughs running away. You later find out through the horror of the policemen that the child has just thrown a man’s penis in the lap of the officer. Pretty sick huh? Well, we saw that preview and knew we just had to watch it.

We stayed up late one night and waited for our parents to go to sleep and then I snuck into my sisters’ room. We set up the old black and white television and sat down to view the film. Needless to say, we were not disappointed and we all three went to bed a little uneasy that night. To this day I have yet to find this film on video or DVD somewhere. I am very curious about how the film would affect me today. I am wondering if would even have close to the impact that it hand on my impressionable mind at the time. I highly doubt it since my imagination has been numbed a bit by all of the horror films I have exposed myself to and the also the fact that I myself have become a lover of the horror genre, the paranormal, and have even weaved a few written horror tales of my own as well. Needless to say, I am very curious with how this movie stands up. My answer probably has already been answered with the fact that the film is not available on DVD or VHS anywhere. It is like someone wants the viewing public to forget about this monstrosity of a film. But it was someone’s baby. Someone had to write the thing and come up with the story line. I just wish I could find it out there somewhere. Perhaps someday I will. Until then, “Bloody Beach” will still have to stay a part of my mind in the past. A visual of black and white brilliance.

I know that I have wandered off subject a bit, but it all comes full circle. You have to understand my love of the horror and supernatural genre to understand why I put my best friend through something that he did not like or care for. Matt hated anything dealing with fear. As I told you earlier, the whole haunted house concept scared the heck out of him. But he knew I desired the scary moments whether it was watching a scary film or putting ourselves into a scary situation seeking out the unexplained. Matt knew it was something that I enjoyed and if I enjoyed it, he knew I wanted to be a part of it. Thus he wanted to be a part of it as well.

After going to a few concerts together, Matt and I started to seek out other things to do. That was when we got into the concept and the seeking out of local urban legends. I remember him calling me one day and asking me, “Have you ever heard of the Seven Steps to Hell?”