For a grand total of 10,584 words. In one chapter. I have six days to make up the difference if I’m going pull this off. We shall see. I’m hoping having finally put the first chapter to bed, I’ll be reinvigorated working on the rest of the story. I’ll need to write an average of 6,570 words a day to make the 50K mark, which is possible. Likely? Meh. I’ve made my peace with not winning.
But, most importantly, I have stuck to my goal of writing something on the story every day, even when I put it off till the end of the night & I just wanted to go to bed. Even when I was stuffed with turkey & just want to go to bed. Even if I just wrote 35 words one day; I still wrote something. To me that’s more important than the numbers. If nothing else I was consistent. That is not a word usually attributed to me, so I’ll take it 
Chapter 1 will require a great deal of fine tuning before it’s ready to publish, since it’s a first draft & I did some jumping around in my writing. I wrote the end before the middle, so it doesn’t fit anymore. I’ll get it worked out before it goes up. I have set up an account at FanFiction.net for it. Here it is as it will be till the rest of it is complete & it is ready for the printed page & a hundred lashes with a red ink pen.
Since it’s over 10K words long, I shall hide it behind a cut & will not quote format it.
The Night Stalker’s Daughter
Paranormal Investigation Blog
October 13, 2012 8:37PM
Private Residence Investigation: Family O.
You may remember I mentioned a home we got an unusual call about last week. The family called us to investigate their property after years of strange occurrences had recently escalated and one of their pets was harmed. Nothing too serious, but their sizable German Shepard will no longer go anywhere near their basement.
They live in a very large, older home, probably built around 1837. The basement covers the entire span of the house and has several different areas to it. It’s rather maze-like, and poorly lit. Makes it easy to get lost and a little confused down there.
Their list of complaints included flickering lights, odd noises – sometimes sounding like human voices and they can almost make out what they are saying, scratching noises and banging, footsteps on the stairs, a general sense of foreboding in the area of the basement – even just outside the door upstairs sometimes, sudden cold spots, odd smells coming and going suddenly, the wife believes she was pushed and heard laughing while doing laundry once – they moved the laundry upstairs afterward, the children used to play down there some – even referring to a young boy and girl who would play with them – but after seeing a strange man in one of the rooms down there they no longer play in that area.
Most recently their dog started barking in the hall at the basement door, then it opened on its own, and he ran in. The father went down after him, thinking he was chasing a raccoon or something that had gotten in. When he got into the area the barking was at he was overcome by a “dark, heavy feeling” that felt as if he couldn’t get enough air into his lungs. When it got to the point he was afraid of not being able to catch his breath, he heard a man laughing and his dog flew out of the room as if someone had just kicked him, hitting the opposite wall. When the man ran over to the dog, he saw blood, and out of the corner of his eye he saw a man standing in the room before the door slammed shut with a huge gush of unusually cold wind. He picked up the dog, carrying him back upstairs, and calling the police. When the police arrived they searched the entire basement, and the rest of the house and grounds, but were unable to find the man or anything unusual at all. They stayed in a hotel that night, and called us the next day. They have been keeping the basement door bolted shut and blocked from their side.
We got out there as soon as our current investigation was done and arrangements could be made. We were very concerned about the sudden violent turn of a seemingly long standing presence, as well as concerned for the family since this violent male presence had possibly presented himself to them before and interacted with the mother.
The night we went the father stayed behind to show us around while the mother went with the kids to stay with family for the night. He showed us around the house, before taking us to the basement.
He had kept the dog with him, to go with us around the house and when we came to the basement the previously very obedient and friendly dog became very reticent refusing at first to go closer than maybe three feet from the door. He started growling when Mr. O opened the door, but after a bit of coaxing from the top of the steps Mr. O was able to convince the dog to join him. He went to Mr. O’s side and took a very alert and protective stance walking just beside him the entire time we were in the basement, until we came to the area where the attack happened. He again began whining and shrinking away when we approached the short hall outside the room. It seemed pretty clear he was very conflicted between fear of going back into that room and the need to protect Mr. O. With a bit more coaxing Mr. O was again able to coax him to his side. I have seen a lot of dogs nervous about entities, but this was the most shaken dog I have seen to date. His willingness to go with Mr. O where he was assaulted and obviously very afraid was a true testament to his love and loyalty to his family.
As usual, I only took a couple of people with me on the home tour, and we ran a very limited amount of equipment, to get base readings and in case the family presence has any effect on the possible haunting/entity. I was able to schedule this on an evening when Andy was available, so he went with me to see if he sensed any presences or left over energy. He also ran the small handheld camera, while I carried the digital voice recorder. Trevor took readings with the K2 meter and a digital thermometer around the house as we went. Most of the house was pretty standard, but in that area of the basement we did get some readings with some potentially interesting results. But basements are tricky with these things, often drafty with lots of plumbing and wiring. Anything we found would need to be looked at very carefully for more natural explanations before we can start to consider what it “might” be.
Nothing too dramatic happened during the tour, and afterward Mr. O took the (much happier leaving) dog with him to the home where they were staying the night. Trevor, X, & I went out and met Kyle and Gemmie with the van and the rest of our equipment. Kyle and Trevor broke off with some IR and standard video cameras to put eyes around the house and basement. They set a few up outside near the basement hot spot. Andy and I went through the house while they set up outside to make a map of the house and what areas to focus on. Andy felt a few spots inside the house that he thought had some active energy. We marked those for a more thorough investigation. When we got down into the basement we noticed it had gotten a bit colder in the area of the room. The laundry had previously been in this room, so it did seem to be the heart of the issue in the O’s home.
We had gone inside the room earlier, but the feeling was not the same as it was now. We’ve all been doing this long enough we don’t get scared anymore – well not very often anyway – but we both experienced a feeling of such unease, it was palpable. My stomach knotted up, and I’ve been chasing woolly buggers for nearly twenty years since Chicago with my dad, and I haven’t wanted to get out of a room that bad since before my divorce. I felt the hairs standing up on my arms, and when I glanced over at Andy I could see his were too. To match our experiences the K2 meter began chirping like a mad song bird. I made a big red X on the map and circled it a few times as we stoically made our way back upstairs. There could be many reasons for those reactions, but we had plenty of time to sort those details out later.
Back upstairs Kyle and Trevor were finished outside and carrying in the equipment boxes for inside. We walked them through going over the more specific hot spots we had discerned. We set up an IR and a standard video camera in each room with suspected activity and the hall, as well as dropping a box in each room. Our “boxes” are measurement and recording devices Trevor designed for us. They combine a voice activated digital recorder with a K2 meter for catching energy spikes, digital thermometer for tracking the temperature on a continual basis, they have a light for spirits who prefer to communicate by flashing lights, and (vibrometer) to measure any nearby physical activity that might cause footsteps. It’s one thing to hear footsteps in a house, but what about footsteps that don’t cause any vibrations in the floor? It’s a really ingenious invention actually. There’s talk of putting them into production if they work well enough for us; and so far they are working great. Trevor is an absolute genius.
(Alt: You’ve got to love technology, especially having your very own technogenius to design and build new tools for the team. Being able to blanket a house with infrared, night vision, and standard video cameras, sound activated digital voice recorders, and boxes that measure and record EMF, room temperature, and vibrations, and also include a simple light for possible nonverbal spirit communications, and all of this equipment is also wireless streaming the data to Gemmie at our tech table. This is definitely not the gadgetry we used back when I started following my dad out on investigations. Even twenty years ago we couldn’t have dreamed about all we would have available to us today. And all of the backups to our data? I know Dad would have loved to have had some backups of all the film he lost back in the early days when he was snooping around behind the cops and his editor. Carl Kolchak was and always will be a one of a kind news-hound. If they world could have seen all the things he uncovered, and even stopped, he would have a medal of honor or some sort of Nobel prize. But I digress.)
Once the upstairs was blanketed, it was time to head back into the basement. No one was looking forward to that. We barely made it to the door before I felt my insides tensing again and my goosebumps return. Andy, who is our newest and youngest member, found some reason he needed to head back to the van to help Gemmie. I let it slide since he’s new and the most sensitive to spirit energies, but just for now. Later he will be down in the trench taking readings with the rest of us. That’s why people trust us. We don’t run. We do get results.
We will find this entity, whatever it is, and we will get rid of it. We’ve had some tough cases, but we have a tight team and broad network of talented people to call on in a pinch. You guys are more than just our readers, you’re our friends and teammates. This is a real community. We couldn’t do what we do without you. ((BIG VIRTUAL GROUP HUG!)) But enough gobbledygook falderal with emotions and stuff. There’s more to our adventure! We haven’t even gotten to the good part yet.
We set up a couple of cameras on the stairs, one looking up and one looking down, then scattered some equipment around working our way toward the active room. The closer we got the more I could feel my stomach knotting up and the hairs on my arm rising to attention. I couldn’t tell anything from Trevor or Kyle, neither of them was letting on if anything was bothering them, and as crazy as it sounds, I was a little embarrassed to ask. I’m not normally one for nerves on a case, but truth be told I prefer my opponents on the physical plane. A bad guy I can’t actually get my hands on, or shoot/stab/set on fire, makes me nervous.
Finally, Kyle came to my rescue, “Is anyone else feeling the energy down here? I’ve got goosebumps all over and the further in we get down here the more my insides are doing the cha-cha. I don’t want to say I’m scared, but something is definitely doing a number on me already.”
I was so flooded with relief it escaped as laughter, and I felt compelled to share I was having the same problem, as well as Andy and I had earlier.
“Yeah, I think even the hair on my balls is standing up.” Trevor chimed in with his usually colorful language, and went back to setting up cameras. He doesn’t talk too much, but when he does it’s a toss-up whether you’ll get mind-blowing depth or some bawdy bar room talk. Thankfully, I’m not exactly a demure flower, but I am glad he lets me do the talking during client visits.
We placed a few cameras in the area outside the room, then steeled ourselves for the piece de resistance: the room. So far nothing had happened in the room in question, just some the nervous, knotted sensations we had all been getting, but we have seen it before where the actual investigation feeds the beast and things can turn on a dime. The times of calm are when you need to be prepared for the shit storm that might be lurking just over the horizon.
Opening the door we all felt a gush of cold air that nearly slammed the door back in our faces. Not only was the temperature in this room at least ten degrees colder than the rest of the basement, but it had dropped just since we were in there earlier. With no vents or fans inside the room there were few explanations for this besides the one that indicated we were in for a bumpy ride.
We all felt cold, queasy, and prickly. I called Andy down with the Tylenol when the headaches set in. When he walked into the room his body language spoke volumes, and I knew he was trying hard to be brave in face of his first big case. We all pilled up and get back to fumbling with the cameras. The normally smooth process was complicated by the fact that every time we would get one up and move to another one, one of them would fall down for no visible reason. Since there was four of us by then, we started manning each camera as it was set up. The only thing that seemed to change was someone there to catch them when they fell. Each camera tip over and tripod collapse was accompanied by a cold gush of wind and the eerie feeling of an unseen presence. The positive side of this is our earlier nerves were quickly being replaced by anger and frustration. If we did find a spirit in this room, there was a good chance at least one of us would try to choke it. I’m not an entirely patient person to begin with so this was really testing my limits.
WHAM! The camera beside me not only fell, it fell on my foot. That was it. I had been pushed and I was ready to push back. “Stop it! You want some attention? Do you want someone to know you’re here? Well that’s why we’re here. So leave our cameras alone and let us finish setting up. You’re messing with some expensive equipment and now my foot hurts.” I yelled petulantly at the air around me, scowling and holding my banged foot.
There was a sudden gust of air with the smell of rank body odor, rotting meat, and sulfur. It pushed me back, then knocked all of the cameras over at once, and rushed out the door, blowing it closed as it went. We all stared in amazement. If only any of the cameras had actually been on when it happened. Hell, I would have settle for a camera just to have captured the looks on Andy and Kyle’s faces. I smirked a bit until I remembered my foot was throbbing from having a camera knocked over on it.
With the entity seemingly gone we were finally able to finish setting up our equipment. Since we had saved it for last, this meant we were done and it was time to investigate. We went back to the van to go over the tech set-up from Gemmie’s end. We had everything on a permanent set-up in the van, so there wasn’t much to setting that up. It’s better for the tech if we don’t have to move it around too much, plus Gemmie’s crutches make it tricky for her to get all that stuff moved around. We went the route of setting it up for her, but she’s incredibly stubborn (making her a perfect fit around here) and does not care for things being done for her so the mobile built-in solves a lot of problems for us.
Once we were all satisfied with our set-up and game plan, we broke into teams again. It was back to Trevor with Kyle and Andy with me. Trevor, Gemmie, and I had started the group fourteen years ago, so we liked to head the teams up. Kyle has been with us about a year now. He’s a game designer by day, and has been working on a paranormal based game. He joined up to get for research wanting to get a real feel for the game. I don’t how helpful this is for him, but it has been awesome for us since he has done some amazing builds and modifications for us. Andy is the newest, having just joined a couple of months ago. He’s young, but has been aware of his sensitivity to spirits since he was young. He didn’t fully embrace it till more recently though which is how he found us. He’s already a valued team member, but I think in time as his abilities grow he will be an incredible asset to the paranormal community.
This time Andy and I started with the outside and Trevor and Kyle started with the upstairs of the house. We planned to come together for the basement, since it had already exhibited some violent tendencies and we felt strength in numbers would be a safe option.
After about an hour we switched places, and after about another hour of that we met in the basement. We make it a point not to discuss each teams findings or experiences until after we have had a chance to review the evidence so as not to feed each other things to look for in the footage and data. It can be hard when you had an exciting experience, but it’s necessary to protect the integrity of your findings. Got to keep everything above board! I will however be posting about anything that comes up after we have examined all the data. But what happened tonight is beyond needing data and I just really wanted to get this out there while it’s still fresh. It’s just unbelievable. Literally. If I had not been a part of tonight’s events I would not believe it.
In the basement we had the usually prickly, queasy, greasy feelings, but by now we were used to it and prepared. Opening the door we got the same rush of cold wind, and this time it had even dropped another couple of degrees. All of the cameras had been knocked over again. If nothing else at least our entity was reliable. We went about setting them back up, and he must have been bored because we didn’t have any trouble getting them back righted.
We started off taking our basic readings, which we would compared Kyle’s ghost box readings later and to the base readings and the ones we had taken at other times in the evening. Every measure we took was phenomenal. It’s easy to overlook a spike here and there, but when every number you get is well outside the normal range and high into the accepted range for a paranormal event you can not overlook that. The temp was continuing to drop, the energy spikes were coming fast and furious, and we were even feeling a breeze in a room with no windows or vents. The breeze was accompanied by the same body odor, rotting flesh, and sulfur smell from earlier.
I pulled out the digital voice recorder and began asking questions.
“Is there someone in here who would like to communicate with us?” We heard nothing.
“We know someone or something was in here earlier because you knocked over our cameras and pushed me. Are you in here now, or do you just not want to talk to us?” Again there was no response we could perceive.
“Are you frightened? Is that why you attacked the dog? Or maybe you’re angry because I yelled at you earlier? Is that why you pushed me?” This must have provoked him, because I suddenly felt a cold chill right next to me, along with the feeling of someone breathing on me, and the room’s stench intensified. I took a deep breath, and kept asking questions.
“Do you not like women? You pushed me earlier and you pushed the woman who lives here before. Do you not want women down here in your area?
” I felt another gust by me and the camera nearest me took yet another header. This could end up being a very expensive evening. Good thing for the family we would write it off as the cost of doing business, and not pass the broken equipment off on the bill.
Righting the camera, Trevor took over. “Would you rather talk to a man? Would that make you more comfortable? Because we know you’re in here and we know you want to communicate something to us, even if it’s just ‘go the fuck away’.” Trevor has a real way with words. “But seriously, you have got to find a better way of expressing yourself than knocking over our cameras. Anna already told you these things are expensive, not to mention delicate. I don’t know how long you’ve been down here or what time you’re from, but technology these days is harder to fix than it used to be. We’ve got computers with lots of chips and wires and electronic stuff that breaks pretty easily.
“If you don’t want to talk to us, we’ve also got a light on that box in the middle of the room. You can flash it if you prefer. You can do one flash for yes and two flashes for no. How’s that sound?” We all watched the light expectantly wondering if he’d appreciate Trevor’s candid yet practical suggestions. We got nothing.
Then a flash. Was that yes? Or just a flicker from all the electrical energy in the room? “Was that a yes? Is that the way you want to communicate with us? Flash it once again for ‘yes’ if you do.” Another flash.
Then another. It began flashing wildly, and then the box flung across the room. I glanced over at Andy. His eyes were like saucers. He had gone pale and looked like he was breaking into a sweat. With all the activity in the room I could easily imagine he was having a hard time.
This time Kyle stepped up to the dialog plate. “Whoa, Trevor and Anna have both told you how delicate the cameras are. Well that piece of equipment you just bashed across the room is my own invention, and it can get broken too. If you don’t want to communicate with us, that fine. If you just want us to leave, that’s fine too, but you are going to have to find a better way to get your point across that smashing stuff and pushing people.” Kyle walked over to check the box and get it set back up. “I’m going to set this box back up and let’s try the light again, okay?”
When he set the box back down in the center of the room, something knocked him over. The light started flashing again and we heard the first sounds from him – laughter. It was faint, but it was definitely laughter. I hoped it was loud enough for our recorders to pick up.
“Hey!” I found myself yelling at him again as I rushed over to help Kyle up. “We’re being nice here. There is no need to keep attacking people. How about a little respect here? We are just trying to help you and the family who lives here now. So how about back off and helping us help you, okay? Try communicating some useful information to us. Maybe there is something you need we can help you with so you can find peace and move on. It can’t be much of an eternity spent hanging around a basement.”
“No. Leave” Plain as day we all heard a deep voice yell ‘no’.
“We heard that.” I said to the air around us. “You said ‘no’ and ‘leave’. Are you trying to say you don’t want to leave, or that you want us to leave? Or do you want the family living here to leave? Now we know you can talk to us, we just need you to be a little more clear. You can still use the lights if you want to. Remember it’s one flash for ‘yes’ and two flashes for ‘no’.” I was trying to sound polite. We were really getting somewhere with the evidence, I just hoped we could get some useful information as well as some worthwhile recorded evidence. Not only did I hope what we could hear was making it on the recorders, but I wondered if there might be some nice EVP to listen to later.
“You… leave… family… die”
“Die? The family is going to die? Are they in danger? Do you intend to harm them? Or is there something else you are trying to protect them from? Can we protect them?”
“NOOOOOOO” The disembodied voice was shouting now, and the light on the box was blinking in twos repeatedly. “NOOOOOOOO KILL” We felt the air whipping around us, even our hair was blowing. The cold became colder and the smell became stronger. The door started banging, and all the cameras fell over. We all came together in a huddle just in time for the light to blow. The door slammed shut and it was pitch black.
“KILL KILL KILL” The voice repeated over and over. The light on the box started blinking wildly again, then flew across the room again narrowly missing Kyle’s head. Good thing he has cat-like relfexes or he might not have missed. When the laughter started again, we made a break for it and ran to the door. There was pressure on the door like someone was holding it shut, but Trevor managed to get it open. We filed out, with Trevor at the back. The pressure against the door let up as he went to get out himself, but as he was crossed through the doorway he seemed to be shoved. He fell into the wall across the hallway and the door slammed shut behind him. We heard something, probably some of our equipment, slam against the back of door.
After we finished shaking our heads in disbelief, and grinning like fools at what we just experienced, we headed back upstairs to group up with Gemmie and decided what to do next. This wasn’t just a ghost that was going to get one last request and leave peacefully. He was malevolent and seemed intent on harming the family. It was time to call in the big guns.
We knew a few people in the area, but the trick would be finding someone still awake. Fortunately this field attracts a lot of night owls, so we were pretty sure we’d find somebody still up. We started with Maynard, aka KrebsOG. He was a long time friend from the blog (SHOUT OUT!) and a bonafide skeptic, but he’s in the area and does keep tabs on what’s going on. Plus, if anyone is going to know who the real deal is in Nevada, it will be Maynard. Bingo! He was awake and had a short list of people to contact. Out of those people we caught one available: Johnny Crowe.
Johnny Crowe is a shaman from the Washoe Tribe around Carson City. He has done a lot of studying in spirits and other worlds, and has incorporated aspects of other traditions in his work. We have worked with several different spiritual types to cleanse homes and other haunted places, but this would be our first time with this particular style/tribe/belief/ first time working with a Native American shaman. I was excited to see what his methods would involve.
Despite most people in our area have some degree of indigenous ancestory, I’m an outsider and don’t know of a single drop in my lines. Andy’s mother is Dutch and Cherokee though, but he admits he never embraced his heritage much. His dad is black from Barbados, and he says he always identified as black since his neighborhood in Atlanta was mostly black. His mother had been raised in the Netherlands with her father’s family, so she had little involvement with her mother’s culture, and similar to Andy himself never took to much of what her mother tried to instill in her because she was too busy trying to just be like her friends.
So Johnny Crowe it was, and he would be here in an hour. We decided to run through the other areas of the house and the grounds again, then take a break while we waited on him. Ghost hunting is a good way to work up an appetite, but pretty much anything is a good way for me to work up an appetite. My mom always said I ate like a teenage boy. I guess it’s a good thing I’m tall or everything I eat would have nowhere to go but out.
Over the course of the next hour we had a late dinner and chit-chatted about nothing in particular. A lot of rehashing road rage, but that’s to be expected when you spend two weeks traveling cross country in a van with four other people. Hotel times make it especially rough. We do our work at night, but the hotels want you up and out bright and early. So you can imagine the droopy drawers in our team full of cranky, cramped curmudgeons who haven’t had a decent night’s sleep in about a week and a half. Things were not looking up tonight either with this one looking like an all nighter. I don’t know how Gemmie stays awake watching monitors all night, but I sure am glad she does it. I would be drooling over a keyboard within an hour I’m sure.
Johnny Crowe arrived with ten minutes to spare. After filling him in more completely, he get his bag and began blessing the house. He had jugs of water from Lake Tahoe around Cave Rock, a sacred spot for his people, the Washoe tribe. It is considered the home of water spirits, so before he takes the water he says a prayer to the spirits and makes an offering to them. As he pours water into a small, painted earthen bowl he again prays over it invoking ancestral and animals spirits for guidance and protection. He walks around the house blessing every door way and window with water and a small prayer in his native tongue. When he is done, he goes back through the house cleansing each room with burning sage carefully blowing the smoke into all the corners and portals.
After this he takes a spray bottle of the holy water and a jar of sea salt that has been blessed as well. He goes into the room directly over the spirit’s room in the basement. He draws a circle on the floor with the salt, invoking the four directions and saying a prayer of protection. Then he sprays the air around the space with the water. When this is done, he nods, “Time to head into the lair of the beast.”
“From what I have heard this is a very strong and very angry spirit. He is likely very old with no wish to leave. Possibly he is trapped here, maybe by his own anger or possibly by a curse. It’s possible his body was not properly interred and he can’t move on. Without knowing any of this it will be more difficult to know what we will face downstairs, but we will prepare a safe space as we did up here, but this time we will prepare a space to trap him inside where I can hopefully drive him into the ground to the realm of the dead. During the ceremony I will try to talk to him and find out who he is and why he is haunting this house and the family. If we can determine who he is, what he wants, and where his body is buried we should try to rebury his body, or even better burn it.
If he is, as I suspect buried here on the grounds, he will be drawn to this land and unable to leave until he is laid to rest properly. If he will answer my questions, Gemmie should get the answers and try to find out what she can about who this man was in life and how he died. This is going to be a very difficult and long process, probably all night at least, and once it is started it can not be stopped. I hope you are all ready.”
We all nodded, unsure of quite what we were getting ourselves into, but determined to see this out. With that we grabbed the rest of his accoutrement and headed into the basement. It was time for a show down.
In the basement, before entering the room, Johnny took off his shirt, marked himself with the holy water, and put his vest back on. He took some paints from his bag and began painting his face. He smeared green under his eyes, for night vision, and made black and white stripes along his arms to signify life and peace. On his chest left exposed under the vest he drew three symbols: a yellow symbol for the underworld, a red symbol for strength, and a green symbol for vision. The green one resembled an eye, but that’s the best of the three I can describe. How is “kinda swirly and swoopy” for a description? There were some lines too, but that’s about as well as I can tell you. He did not want any pictures made of him out of respect for the ceremony he was undertaking as well as the ancient belief of cameras stealing a part of your spirit (no, he doesn’t really belief this to be true, but you have to bow to the powers that be if you expect to be asking for their help). He was going to need all his spirit to fight the guy in the room. He then began burning a wand of dried herbs, primarily sage, and wafting the smoke over him while chanting some words in Washoe. Following the code of respecting his process, I did not bother him to ask what he was saying, and after the night’s events I honestly didn’t think about again until writing this.
When all of this was done he announced he was ready and approached the door chanting and wafting the same smoke around the door. He swiped the top of the door with holy water, then created a barrier across the bottom portal with blessed salt and some herbs. He turned to each of us next. He repeated a similar process with us as he did himself, marking us with holy water, give us green swatches under our eyes with black and white stripes on our faces, then chanting and blowing the sage smoke over us one by one. He then announced we were ready, and said a final blessing over the door before opening it.
The room was still at least ten degrees cooler than the rest of the basement, but it had an eerie calm over it that unsettled me after all of the activity we had seen earlier. Not only did it feel anti-climatic after all the preparation that had gone into this exorcism, but I was worried what ever had been in here was gone now and we had just wasted Johnny’s time. As my foolish worrying grew into nervous lip chewing, I should have known we had nothing to worry about with this entity. I guess he was just lying low and getting a feel for the new guy and what he was bringing to the table. We brought cameras and questions. Johnny was packing old magic and the self-assurance that comes with knowing you are going to win this battle.
It did not take long for the invisible man to express his displeasure.
Inside the room, Johnny resumed his chants while drawing a circle and a few ancient looking symbols on the floor with the salt. He then began misting the air with the holy water and seemed to be saying some prayers to the sky. While he did this we busied ourselves with setting the cameras back up. The beings attention must have been all on Johnny, because we had an uneventful time of it. Nothing happened to Johnny while we were busy with the cameras, but the tension in the air rose to an almost suffocating level.
When he was done, Johnny asked us all to get inside the circle with him. At this point he pulled out a ceremonial dagger and began to bless the circle and close it. This must have been the line in the sand for whatever had been watching because he began to act out and show Johnny some of what we had already been privy to.
As Johnny prayed a sense of calm entered the circle, but if we stood near the edge of the circle it was like you could feel whatever was out there lurking just outside the edge, as if he was waiting for one of us to step outside the boundary. Soon we could feel a rushing at the perimeter. I can’t begin to describe it, because it’s not like there was anything to see or hear or feel, but it was a definite sense of something trying to its damnedest to get inside the circle to us. The air outside the salt line felt heavy with frustration. I tried to keep my focus on Johnny and keep all of me inside the circle. To this end, I moved closer to the middle to avoid an accident.
As Johnny seemed to be winding down his incantation, one of the cameras crashed to the ground. I heard both Kyle and Trevor moan simultaneously as it thudded against the thankfully carpeted floor. I have a feeling we’ll be replacing at least one of those after last night. We watched in awe as the camera began to slide across the floor towards our protective barrier. It reached a point and stopped, but not entirely motionless. It seemed as though someone was trying to get it into the circle but couldn’t. Suddenly, it was flung in the air at us, but fell just outside the circle. I don’t know what kind of spell Johnny cast on this circle, or who he was praying to, but he did a hell of a job. This circle was locked up tighter than a drum, and felt safer than anywhere in the whole house. I began to feel a sense of hope, when the camera suddenly flipped around in the floor and began nudging close to the circle again.
It made it to the edge of the salt barrier, and then began pushing through the form, breaking the line. Johnny seemed to become worried at this, & began pushing back against the camera with his foot. He struggled against the being behind the camera for a minute, until the camera seemed to go slack and Johnny found his foot pushing against a force no longer there and his foot went outside the boundary. With the kind of speed that only comes with anticipation, Johnny’s leg was snatched out the safety of the circle, with the rest of him being drug behind it. He was clawing at hte carpet and yelling at us to help pull him back into the circle. Trevor and I were closest, so we each grabbed an arm and began pulling him back within bounds. It was a high stakes game of Tug-of-War, and I can’t say we were winning, but thankfully Kyle and Andy found their own spots and helped us get him back with us inside the safety zone. When that was done, we all stayed closer to the center.
We heard maniacal laughter, followed by the camera seemingly kicked back against a wall. Johnny used his dagger to reinforce circle, and he added some symbols near that spot on the edge. When he seemed to feel secure again, he told us it was time to start asking some questions. We had our walkie-talkies at the ready, so we could feel Gemmie information to research as we went along. Not only did we need to verify anything the ghost told us, but we needed to supplement what did learn with more to help us move him on from this house, whether willingly or not.
Regaining our composure, we got our digital voice recorders back out, along with the usual handheld meters, and getting ready for what would be the most intense question and answer session we have ever done.
Johnny cleared his throat and began to speak clearly and boldly, as though (like?) his tone alone could command the spirit to give him the honest answers he was seeking.
“Spirit inhabiting this space, what is your name?” The response to his question was nothing but a tense, icy silence. The waiting left time for me to begin wishing I had brought a jacket. The temperature in this room had been dropping by degrees all night, yet before we launched in here for a night of exorcise I never thought to grab my jacket out of the van. Well, dear readers, at least we can say I have never claimed to be brilliant. But back to the story.
“I asked for your name. Tell me your name, spirit!” Johnny’s voice became more defiant as he pluckily ordered the spirit to comply. As he spoke he had stepped closer to the boundary of his circle. For that he was rewarded with a jarring whoosh! that landing just inches from the end of this nose. We all took a step back, but Johny barely blinked. The man has nerves of steel. My confidence in his abilities skyrocketed and I knew we had made a very fortuitous find with Johnny Crowe. He may not have gotten Johnny, but seeing the rest of us jump must have amused the ghost because we could hear that awful laughter again. Then I could feel the cold breath of an unseen presence just off my shoulder to the right behind me, and that sick smell of body odor, sulfur, and rotting meat was back. I felt the sickness rise in my stomach, and moved back towards the center. Even being in the circle, I could practically feel his hands on me. I wanted to be as far from his presence as possible.
Johnny pulled a voodoo doll looking item from his vest. It looked like a colorful spaceman in a bear suit. That’s the best way I know how to describe it. I learned later it’s a fetish, or a kachina in some cultures. His represents the great bear spirit, the most powerful of the animal spirits. He waved held the doll in front of him, “TELL ME YOUR NAME.” For a man holding a doll and yelling at a ghost, Johnny Crowe sounded like he meant business. I almost told him my name.
Following the sound of a sigh somewhere between giving up and playing for time, we heard a chilly voice spit out “Nick the Pig”. It was so clear, it could have been any of us saying it, had any of us been invisible and standing a few feet away; or ventriloquists.
“So you’re Nick the Pig?” Johnny asked the voice, and then, almost as if to antagonize him, Johnny added, “So you’re a pig ghost? I thought I was dealing with a man spirit.”
The air around us felt like a roar, as the voice moved closer to the circle again and seethed, “I am not a pig. I’m a killer. My name was Nicholas Swinton, and people called me Nick the Swine because of how it looked and because of all the dirty stuff I did; especially because of all the dirty stuff I did.” His voice dropped low and slow with the last part. As the only woman in the room, I felt that if he had eyes they would have been cheaply lingering over my body parts. He sounded some kind of proud of whatever awful things he had done to earn his nickname, and definitely like he was trying to shock or scare us. I radioed Gemmie with the name and asked her to do a search and see what she could come up with about this man and his attachment to his place or people.
“They ended up calling me Nick the Pig though, ‘cause it just sounded better I guess. Nobody talks much about swine, it’s always pigs.
“Is that the answer you were looking for injun? I was a filthy, murdering pig named Nicholas Swinton. Got any more questions for me to answer, Chief?”
Johnny maintained his cool in the face of Nick the Pig’s baiting remarks. He rolled his shoulders and his neck around, then looked straight ahead and asked the voice, Nick, why he remained in this house and why he was attacking the family and the team who was here tonight.
“Why not, Redman? Where else am I going to go? Nothing but Hell waiting for me on the other side after the life I led. Why would I be in a rush for that place?” The weight in Nick the Pig’s voice reminded me of the ghost of Jacob Marley rattling his chains for Scrooge to see what the punishment for his mortal life had been. Nick the Pig’s voice rattled the air and sent a chill up my spine. What had this man done? He had called himself a killer earlier. Was he a wild west outlaw? Something more recently? Had he killed people in this house? Is that why he haunted here? Or maybe this was his hideout? The way he talked to Johnny smacked of black and white westerns on the weekend movie classics. Not that I ever watch those. Very often.
As if reading my mind, Johnny threw out his next question. “What did you do that was so bad you believe you would go to Hell if you left this house?”
“I TOLD YOU I WAS A KILLER!” Nick the Pig rushed the circle again, yelling with enough force to crash the cameras that were still standing. Once again we all huddled together in the middle of the circle, except Johnny. He never moved or blinked or seemed to be the list bit afraid of Nick the Pig. Not that I would say were were afraid, but but we did want to stay as far from his grasp as possible. He has shown a strong ability to manipulate objects and a willingness to harm people; and has told us he is killer. How much more proof do you need to believe that someone or something is dangerous and needs to be avoided? I would say none.
“Tell us, Nicholas Swinton, why you inhabit this house after your mortal life has ended? You said you don’t want to pass on because you fear Hell, but what is it that keeps you in this home? Why do you haunt this family?” Johnny Crowe kept his usual calm as her firmly commanded Nick the Pig to answer his questions honestly and with no guile. He was a braver person than me, and I always think of myself as one of the bravest people I know. When you have seen all the things I have you become immune to the typical bumps in the night. Knowing what I know about the reality of the world around us, makes it both a scarier world and a less scary world at the same time. I know what really exists, but I also know how to defeat it.
As we waited in silence for Nick the Pig to answer Johnny’s last round of questioning, there was a sudden crackle. I nearly pissed myself before realizing it was the radio. Gemmie was calling to tell us what she had found.
Before she could get a word out we had to dodge a flying camera. I didn’t even have to see Trevor and Kyle to they were both shaking their heads and calculating repair and replacement costs in their heads. Kyle was probably either near tears or a conniption fit. If this ghost wasn’t already dead, I’m pretty sure he would kill it. A glace over at Andy told me this night would be a turning point for him. It would either solidify his passion for paranormal hunting and research, or we were never going to see or hear from him once we got back to Savannah from our ghost hunting cross country tour. I was sincerely hoping for the first one. He has a lot of potential and I would hate to see it stuffed back into his mental closet and suffocated.
I didn’t have to look up at Johnny. He got drew my attention from the thoughts of my team by calmly shouting (how the hell does he manage that?), “What the hell was that? Was it a radio? Did you find anything out? I need something to work with here before this gets out of hand. It doesn’t seem like he really wants to sit down with a cup of tea and chat about his history and motivations.” He glared at me expectantly with these serious deep brown eyes. The look in his eyes was so hardcore serious, those tell-tale eyes of the original peoples of this land, I felt like I needed to explain myself for the last few hundred years, not just since the radio fuzzed. I think in that moment I was more afraid of Johnny Crowe than I was Nick the Pig’s ghost.
I stammered, “Yes, yeah, it was the radio. I was Gemmie. I have to call her back and see what she found.” I tried to reign in my apologetic feelings and focus them on the situation at hand. “Sorry, I was caught off guard.”
I called Gemmie back and here is what she had learned regarding Nicholas Swinton, aka Nick the Pig.
Nicholas Swinton had been known around as Nick Swine or Nick the Pig. So that much of what he said we now knew was true. He was lynched after murdering an entire family in their home on this spot back in 1837. He had been a drifter the Santiago family, who lived on this land at the time and were his victims, let sleep in their barn while he helped out around the farm. His killings of the family, children included, had been so brutal when he was caught the mob hung him from a tree right in front of the house.
They found him before he could get away because one of the daughters was able to get away and ride for the neighbors’ place. Thankfully their homes were not too far apart, because she did not survive long after she got there. Just long enough to ride up, collapse, and murmur, “Their dead. Their dead. He killed ‘em all. Everyone, it was awful, so awful…” That was her last act in this world. The men at the house rode out as soon as they saw her.
Afterward they buried the family on a nearby hill and then burned the home to remove any traces of what had been done from the world. The only thing they left was the swinging corpse of Nick the Pig. His body was left for the buzzards and coyotes because he wasn’t even deemed human enough to be fit for a burial. After falling from the tree, what remained of his corpse was torn apart and drug away by animals. He had presumably been trapped on this land ever since.
Now we knew the story, how could Johnny use this to get rid of him? Johnny had been standing nearby during the radio call, so he had heard it all, but hopefully Nick the Pig did not overhear our conversation. We needed the information we had to be a secret from him so we could best use it to our advantage and catch him off guard. The ball was in our court now, and Johnny was ready to serve. It would be game, set, and match soon… or would it be?
“Nicholas Swinton, Nick Swine, Nick the Pig, whatever name you choose to recognize, we know your name and now we know your story. It is time for you to move on from this house, to your rightful place in the underworld. Whatever reward or punishment awaits you there you need to face it. You are no longer welcome or wanted in the realm of the living and you need to move on. I will help you all I can, but you need to make your peace with leaving this existence.
“This house belongs to the O family now and we can no longer allow you to harm them and interfere in their lives. Do you have any business you wish to take care of before we begin helping you to pass over to the underworld?” Johnny’s voice was at once soothing and hopeful and iron in it’s force. I wondered if it would be that easy, and felt pretty certain the answer would be that it would not be so easy.
After a moment of silence as though Nick the Pig was considering Johnny’s offer, the room suddenly errupted in angry screams and slamming doors and flying anything that wasn’t tied down. We huddled together in the center of the circle, covering our heads and hoping this magical boundary would keep us safe from the debris. It did not feel like much would be necessary to break the line that somehow held this mad madness at arm’s length.
Johnny’s face took a stony, defiant, almost angry quality, making his earlier seriousness look down right jovial. He took a hold of the bear totem he was wearing around his neck, held it out towards the source of all this fury and yelled, “Nicholas Swinton, Nick Swine, Nick the Pig, I command you in the name of the Great Spirit, in the name of all the spirits and the ancestors and all the powers of nature and the universe, to leave this home and this world. Pass on to the underworld, the realm of the dead.”
The fury did not break. In the direction Johnny was continuing to yell his forceful chant, we saw before our very eyes the figure of Nicholas Swinton take shape. He began as a shadowy figure and by degrees he became more solid until he was standing there as real and solid a person as any of us. Had we not seen it with our own eyes, we would not have believed it. But there he was as real as anyone else in the room, as though he had just stepped out through an invisible door. It brought so many questions to mind, but there was no time to ask them. The evidence of his furious strength was proven through more than just his appearance.
A toy that had set in the corner suddenly flew through the invisible barrier and grazed Johnny’s head. It caught him very much off guard, but he only took a moment to flinch and he was back to his chanting and holding his fetish towards where Nick the Pig was now standing facing him.
Suddenly, Kyle’s ghost box that had been setting at our feet the entire time seemed to leap up and strike Trevor in the nose. He gushed blood and I rushed to staunch the flow by getting his head back and pinching it. Kyle had some tissues on him, so we made some impromptu nose stuffing to help out when the flow was controlled enough.
Following this Johnny became more concerned over Nick the Pig’s growing anger and power, so he began the final assault on this unwelcome presence. Pulling the ceremonial dagger from his waist band, he held out his hand to Nick the Pig, careful not to cross outside the circle’s bounds, and then he slashed his palm. As the ancient red magic trickled from his open flesh, he marked the four directions with his bloody blade and retraced the salt’s path with his own blood. The commotion in the room did not seem to change, but when he joined the ends of the circle of his own sacrifice inside the line felt more peaceful.
Then he sheathed his knife once again and picked back up the bear totem lying against the drum of his heart. He clasped the spirit form in his bloody hand rubbing it red, then he began an ancient prayer in his Washoe language none of us could understand. While all this was going on Nick the Pig continued to rail against our newly fortified boundary. He had no more idea of what was coming than any of us did. But lucky for us we were on the right side of this situation.
As we watched a faint glow began to emanate from Johnny, surrounding him and seeming to grow from him. It started to take on the shape of a large grizzly bear, probably ten foot tall. Johnny held the totem tighter and prayed more fervently, and as he did the bear form became more solid.
All of sudden Johnny threw up his arms like bear paws and growled a scream that made my blood curdle. He then stepped back out of the bear’s form and turned to us.
“Cover your eyes to be safe. What will happen now is none of your concern, and you have already seen to much. This spirit is old and powerful, and he will see to it Nicholas Swinton finds his way to the world beyond this one where he belongs.” Having seen more than enough already, we did as we were told and held our eyes tight and our heads down as the fight raged on between the two warring spirits. I don’t know what Johnny did during this battle, but I have never been so nervous and frightened and exhilarated before in my life. What we had witnessed and the sounds were hearing were part of the most amazing event of which we had ever been a part.
It felt like days we were sequestered behind our eyelids inside the circle. While we sincerely tried to be respectful of Johnny’s ways and his wishes, a few peaks were slipped here and there through no fault of our own. What we saw looked like a WWE for the spirit world. The bear spirit and Nick the Pig were latched together and rolling and throwing each other and everything in their way. Up the walls, across the ceiling, the noise was incredible. We heard a few crunches we could only believe was our equipment. The most amazing thing ever in the history of ghost hunting and we were going to end up with no proof of it. It was very disappointing, but at least we have our memories, and no one can every take away or destroy what we know to be the truth of what happened that night.
Just before Johnny told us we could uncover our eyes, we heard an angry wailing and noticed a bright flash inside the room, followed by a loud growl that rattled the walls. When the battle was over and we were told we could peek now, Johnny was battered, bruised, scratched, and bitten. The room was a wreck. Nick the Pig was nowhere to be seen or heard or even felt. The air was lighter and even smelled better. We didn’t even need the gadgets to tell us Nicholas Swinton had finally passed on from this world to the next.
The most exciting thing was all the incredible footage we got during the evening – or so we thought. Gemmie reported seeing everything we described, but when she tried to pull up the video for us later, the file for that room was corrupted. There are few images after Johnny entered the room, and after that nada. Kyle is still trying to see what he can salvage, but says he has never seen anything like it. He has no idea what could have happened to it. As for the cameras’ own memory, blurred or deleted. All the recording equipment we had in the room with us had either been wiped or picked up just a few random images so blurry and poorly lit they are meaningless. The cameras outside the room picked up a few things, the most exciting being Kyle falling out of the room and having the door slam on him. Other than that it picked up a few sounds coming from the room, but nothing clear enough to be significant.
When the O family returned home, they immediately called us at the hotel to tell us how much lighter their home felt. They had taken the dog into the basement and he was no longer afraid. Nothing was heard, seen, or felt. The basement room was a little on the trashed side, but they were grateful to finally feel as though they had some peace in their home again. When we met later to go over what we could share of the night’s events, Mr. O was like a different person. He seemed like a weight had been lifted off his shoulders, and the dog was like a puppy again. A haunting can be one of those things you learn to live with, but when it invades your lift bit by bit, creeping its way to taking over your home and your peace of mind, you don’t even realize how it’s impacting your until it’s gone. I am proud to be a part of the team who gave that peace of mind back to the O family.
Even though we know what we saw that night, it’s hard to make any claims without the proof to back it up. Kyle’s been running diagnostics on the equipment that failed, but none of it is coming up with any problems. It’s like the world just wasn’t meant to see what happened in that room. C’est la vie. Like father like daughter.
