As soon as we pulled up to the farm house, I pulled the door open to get out. Sitting in the cramped back seat with Danny and Sarah for the whole trip was uncomfortable. They really should just get a room and skip the investigation. At least I wasn't Emily's little brother shoved in the cargo area.
I stretched as soon as my feet hit the ground. The cold breeze hit my face and fired up my circulation. Continuing with a sort of stretch-walk combination, I ambled back to the van that just pulled up. Unlike Emily's wunderkind brother, Josh, I didn't carry a camera everywhere. I just helped out with the video stuff; wasn't trying to become the next Scorcese. My equipment rode in the back of the van.
Danny and Sarah caught up with me just as the van doors stopped. We gave Matt and his helper, Fleet, a minute to get themselves situated; it had been just as long a ride for them.
"We put your gear just inside the back doors," Matt said. Matt was an old highschool friend of Mike's. He ran a video conversion service and did some freelance editing. For these investigations, he watched the cameras and recordings from the monitors in the van. He seemed to like doing what he did, at least a little.
My investigators and I, the Beta Team, walked around to the back doors. I knew what to expect, so I pulled the first door open and stepped back behind it.
A large, yellow blur flew out of the open door, bounded a short distance across the yard, then turned back. In an instant he had his front paws up on Danny's chest.
Danny rubbed him behind the ears. "Who's a good boy? Who's a good boy? It's you, isn't it?"
Rumples was a retired search dog of some sort. Danny adopted her when her hips went bad, or something. He insisted on bringing Rumples along to look for signs of animals at the haunting sites. Rumples was well disciplined but Danny wasn't. That led to problems, so Rumples spent most of his time tied up at the van with Matt watching him. Most clients didn't want a friendly, furry monster running all over their house.
I grabbed my battery belt and fastened it around my waist. Next, the camera frame, an aluminum structure with shoulder straps, hung from my shoulders with its own waist strap. I plugged the battery cables into the cameras, one low-light, one infrared, and one normal. Each fired up as the juice flowed.
Sarah grabbed her and Danny's vests and headlamps while Danny played with Rumples. She put on her kit, and set Danny's on the floor of the van by the door. While DAnny suited up, Sarah held back Rumples who had discovered his food bowl in the van.
A large man came around the side of the van, causing all of us to jump. At first, I just saw the red, plaid coat, then the rest of him. "Hi," he said, "they call me 'Bub'. Which one of you folks is going to be looking at the barn?"
Danny, friendly as ever, held up his hand. "Hi, Bub. My name's Danny. This is Sarah. The one with the cameras is Max. We'll be in the barn tonight. What can you tell us about it?"
"Lots!" Bub said, with way too much enthusiasm. "Want the tour before the sun gets too low?"
"Sure." piped Danny.
Bub turned and strode off toward the barn. He had a really long step. Danny and Sarah ran after him. I hit record on the normal-light camera and followed, trying to keep everybody in the shot.
The barn looked to be in good shape for its age. The paint had almost all peeled, leaving just a little red as a reminder of times past. Some of the windows were broken, but the low sun glinted from the remaining panes. They looked dirty, and a few were cracked. Weeds grew up around the foundation, but the old stones still showed through.
"Out back," Bub described while pointing, "you can still see the feedlot. Weeds are growing up through the broken concrete. There's still a few of the fence posts. Nobody ever reported anything spooky out there. They say all the things happened inside the barn."
I panned the camera over to the old feedlot, zooming to get a little more detail, what there was of it. There seemed to be some larger chunks of concrete slabs that had been the floor of the lot. Weeds, mostly thistles, stuck up through the cracks. They wore their October brown. The fence posts he mentioned still stood around the perimeter. Even from a distance I could see they wouldn't last much longer, all split and weathered.
Then, I took the camera across the roof of the barn. I'd seen plenty of these old barns. The tall, peaked roof meant there was probably a haydoor on the other end. That meant the inside would have a hayloft on the second level and animal pens or work rooms on the ground floor. There was probably a big, empty space in the middle.
To get a sense of place, I spun around to show the distance to the road. As steadily as I could, I followed the road to the driveway, then up to the house, and back around to the barn. I paused for a moment at the house. Graffiti covered its walls, at least on the lower floor. As I got back to the barn, I looked carefully. There were no signs of any graffiti there. Maybe something on the other sides or inside, even, but nothing I could see. That seemed weird.
Bub tugged on an old door, fighting against a clump of grass that had grown in front. I jogged a little to catch up, getting there just as he got the door open.
I stepped into the dim insides of the barn. The screen on the back of my camera flickered as it adjusted. Beams of sunlight streamed in from the west windows, showing sparkles of dust.
Most of the structure looked like it was in good shape. The large beams of the frame seemed solid and straight. Looking up, some of the rafters and walls sagged a bit. Some light sifted in through the cracks in the wall boards and the holes in the roof. Other than the dust, and us, it sat empty.
The opening for the large haydoor opened in the far wall, toward the peak in the roof. Facing east, not as much sunlight came in that way. The remains of ropes and pulleys still hung near the top of the opening. Below that, the hayloft extended half way down the length of the barn and completely down both sides.
On the south side, walls with doors sealed the area beneath the loft, probably to make work rooms or storage. Fences did something similar on the north side to make livestock pens. I caught the scent of hay, dust, and just a little animal smell to suggest it was probably hogs.
Bub started up again. "The barn is unusual. Hooligans go into the house and tear things up and paint all over. Then they run off claiming it's haunted. They don't do that out here. Something about this barn, especially at night, keeps them away. They say it's the grunting."
Danny and Sarah exchanged excited glances. This spooky stuff really got them excited.
"The grunting?" Danny asked.
"Well, that's what they say," Bub answered. "You see, one of the fellows that disappeared from the farm was Jacob Rumpe. He used to raise pigs. There were a lot of rumors about him, saying he was up to all kinds of no good. When he disappeared, people came up with all kinds of theories. One was that he was eaten by his pigs. There's no more reason to believe that than anything else, but people like a good story."
"When did he disappear?" Sarah asked.
"Let's see, that was back in 1930," Bub answered. "It was during Prohibition and all that organized crime. It was also the start of the Great Depression. A lot of people went missing back then, for a lot of reasons, so there's no telling what really happened."
Danny asked, "Do people actually think they hear grunting or is that just a story going around?"
"It's hard to say," Bub said. "If you've been drinking or hitting the dope, a couple of loose boards rubbing together can sound like anything. Whatever it is, the kids don't come out here, day or night."
Sarah pointed toward the interior doors on the south side. "Does anything happen in those rooms?"
"Not that I know of. Like I said, nobody comes in here so their stories don't get more specific."
"Ok," said Danny. "We better get our equipment set up. It'll be six-thirty soon and we'll be in the dark." He turned to Bub. "Thanks for all your help, Bub. You sound like you really know what's going on around here. It's really appreciated."
"Happy to help," Bub said. Then he shook Danny's hand, nodded to Sarah and myself, and headed out through the same door we came in.
Danny, Sarah, and I huddled together.
"What do you think?" Danny asked.
I pointed to the loft. "I'd like to set up a camera at this end to catch the loft and the big, open space underneath. That should get most of the barn. We'll need to go into those rooms to decide what to do there."
"I like it," Sarah said. "I also think we should set up a couple of directional microphones to see if we can catch the grunting sound. It may be just a couple of loose boards. If so, we shouldn't have any trouble finding them and replicating the effect."
"Ok," Danny said, clapping his hands together. "You guys know what you're doing. Let's get it done."
The other two headed back to the van for the basic equipment. I stayed behind to take a quick look at the rooms. If I left them to check the rooms, they'd probably find one too romantic and get distracted.
As expected, the rooms were small. Their doors opened easily, though some of the strap hinges screeched with rust. There were six in total. The middle two contained windows to the south, letting in some light and showing the feedlot.
The fourth room also contained an external door. I checked it. Like the door Bub fought with, this was barricaded by overgrowth. Like the windows, it opened to the feedlot. In general, one camera per room, just in case, would be adequate. Matt had a lot of little motion-activated cameras just for spaces like these.
The floor on the barn, in front of the rooms and on the west end, was wood. The rest seemed to be concrete, probably added after the original barn construction. I wasn't sure if it served some sort of purpose, but I ran the camera over it anyway. It was always good to capture details, especially anomalies. Who knows, maybe those were the grunting boards.
I thumbed the walkie-talkie on my camera frame. "Hey, Danny."
"This is Danny" came the response.
"For those rooms, I think just six of those little motion-activated jobs should do."
"Roger. I'll get those." Danny liked to use words like "roger" when using the walkie-talkies.
I took one more look around the barn while waiting for the others, mostly to find someplace comfortable.
I didn't get as excited about these investigations as the others did, especially Danny and Sarah. I just did it as something to do. In the twelve investigations I'd been on, we never found any actual haunting. This was just going to be a cold night of walking around filming the two lovebirds going crazy over every little noise. At least I was out of the house.