Mike took off way too fast. It took a moment for Emily and me to realize that he was gone, then we had to catch up. He was already headed up the porch steps by the time we got around the corner. When we got in, and let our eyes adjust to the dark, we found him standing in the door between the dining room and the parlor.
Once I got the cameras aligned, I saw that he was just on the dining room side of the door, but just barely. He might as well have been a statue, as still as he was, just standing there and staring into the parlor where we thought the sound came from.
Emily caught up to him and stood beside him. She put her left hand on his shoulder, still holding her recorder in her other hand.
My filmmaker instincts told me the shot would be better if I got into the parlor so I could turn back to see their faces. Some other instinct told me I didn't need to disturb the two of them just to try to get past them through the door. I wasn't really sure I wanted to be in the parlor.
Emily whispered, "What do we do?"
"I don't know," Mike answered. "We have cameras and recorders in the room."
"Should we try to talk to it?"
Even in the dark, I could see Mike shrug.
Emily dropped her hands to her sides, shook off her tension a little, and took about a quarter step forward. "Hello?" she said into the room. "Is someone here with us? Would you like to communicate with us?"
We waited with shallow breath for an answer.
"Are you hurt? Are you in danger?"
Again, the wait.
Then, a slight chirp, an electronic chirp.
Mike whispered to Emily, "Was that the REM pod?"
"I don't know," she answered. In a louder voice, she called into the room. "Was that you that caused the device to chirp? If you move close to it, it will give off a sound and some lights, but it won't hurt you. It will only let us know that you are here."
A bright flash of light filled the dining room. It seemed to come from the second floor. It caused my cameras to flicker. Me too.
"What was that?" I asked.
Mike looked around. "It was almost like headlights coming through the windows, but only the upstairs ones."
Emily looked at the banister from the second floor landing. "How would we get headlights just up there?"
I turned the cameras to follow as Mike walked over to the front windows of the dining room. "There's nobody in the driveway but us. Matt knows not to turn on any lights." Mike pulled a walkie-talkie from his vest. "Hey, Matt, this is Mike."
A moment later, Matt's voice came through. "This is Matt. What's up?"
"We just saw some lights like headlights, but only on the second floor. Did you see anything out there?"
Another brief pause before, "No, I didn't see anything. Fleet didn't see anything either. Did you say only the second floor?"
"Right, it looked like it came in through the second floor windows on the north side, but not the first floor."
"Hold on."
We assumed Matt was going to check on something, or send his helper, Fleet, to check on it. They were pretty useful out in their van. Matt, in particular, really knew his stuff. I learned a lot from him, a few things that saved me in some of my classes.
Matt came back. "I don't know if this is the cause, but it's an idea. It's still harvest season, so some farmers may still be out on their combines, even in the dark. If we got one over the hill, the high-placed lights on the cab might shine upwards every time they get to this end of their field. If that's the case, you might see the lights a few more times. Aftera couple more passes they will move on a bit and should stop showing up in the house. That's one theory, anyway."
A possible explanation reduced the tension in the room. I saw it in the slightly loosened postures of my two stars. I felt it in the tug of my camera rig on my shoulders.
Mike turned back to the parlor, with Emily following.
Mike pointed to the REM pod. "Are we getting anything else?"
'Let's try again." Emily took a deep breath so she could project into the room and maybe the other realm, as though the deceased were hard of hearing. "Is there anything you want to tell us? Is there some way we can help you? We can use the device on the floor to help communicate."
Again, just the slight rush of the wind through the house as we waited for signs.
A floorboard creaked, somewhere in the parlor.
Emily and Mike jumped a little, and I got it on video, assuming my little jump didn't distort it.
"If you can move toward the device on the floor, we can use it to talk with you. Can you do that?"
Another slight creaking sound came from the parlor floorboards.
Then, one from the balcony.
We all turned to look up.
Mike flashed his light from side to side along the bannister, looking for anything that may have caused the noise. The light passing through the balusters caused flickering images on the decrepit wallpaper on the other side. It definitely added atmosphere to the scene, but didn't help us see anything.
I always considered it my job to get the video and otherwise stay out of things. My investigators did the investigating and I made it look good, however, there were exceptions. In this case, I thought Mike seemed a little too excited and wasn't thinking as clearly as he should. The time for intervention arrived.
"Guys," I said, "the temperature has been dropping since the sun went down. With that kind of change, I'm sure this old place is going to make lots of those kinds of noises."
"What?" Mike said as he turned to look at me. He seemed a little dazed and I was glad he didn't turn his flashlight straight into the camera. "Huh? Oh, yeah, the temperature. An old place like this has no defense against thermal variations."
He looked back toward the balcony, turned off his lights, and returned to the parlor door.
Mike's change of demeanor worried me a little. He was the engineer; he should have been thinking about temperature changes. At the same time, I knew he and Emily had argued about the paranormal investigation thing and it was putting a lot of strain on the relationship. This was a sort of last chance to show that it was worthwhile or he was going to have to give it up, or give her up. He was a decent enough dude, but I had to side with my sister on this one.
Emily walked into the parlor, which required that I follow to the door to keep her in frame. She walked to the bedroom door and stopped beside it. There, she talked to the dead again.
"Were you attacked in this place? Did they hurt you here and take you away?"
Another quiet moment interrupted by a brief chirp on the REM pod.
This encouraged Emily. She pulled out her notebook and used a small light to read from it. "Are you Mary Rumpe? Did they hurt you and your husband John?"
A slightly longer chirp that time.
Beside me, I could feel Mike shuffling slightly. He was getting excited again. Some time ago, he and Emily decided that she would be the only one to talk during the EVP sessions unless she wasn't there. This kept them from talking over each other. It also seemed that she asked better questions and could keep her excitement contained.
"Did they take you at the same time?"
The documents from the Historical Society said that John disappeared about a month before Mary. There was gossip and a local sheriff's deputy claimed John abandoned his wife. Then the month passed and Mary went missing too. The same deputy said he thought she either ran off with a new man, or got word from her husband in his new place and went to be with him. Her uncle showing up to investigate changed some people's speculation. When the deputy was killed by federal agents while trying to kill the uncle, a lot more stories got heard. Unfortunately, none of the stories came with evidence.
No sounds.
We got another flash of alleged combine lights from the second floor windows.
"If you're Mary, did they take you after they took your husband?"
We all stood, awaiting a reply.
The REM pod flashed its bright green LED and shrieked for the briefest moment.
Mike and Emily stared at the device for a moment before staring at each other.
Emily quickly shook her head a couple of times, smoothed down her clothes, or at least tried, and cleared her throat. "Are you Mary Rumpe?"
We stood with our eyes glued to the REM pod.
Nothing.
She tried again. "Are you John Rumpe?"
Again, not a peep.
"What do you think?" Mike asked.
"I don't know. I don't think we got enough data to make any assumptions." As an accountant, Emily liked data.
"Did you see anything pass by the REM pod when it went off? Like a wet leaf blowing by or something?"
Emily just shook her head no.
They looked to me. "I didn't see anything. If there was something, it should show up on the videos."
On a paranormal investigation, the brief pauses when we tried to figure out what to do or say next seemed to take on more gravity. If you stood in the dark, or near dark, with your brain tuned in to find anything that could possibly hint at unnatural things, the quiet gave your brain time to process all the normal little noises and feelings you ignored until then. Gradually, you filled up with a quiet tension, like your primitive ancestors sensing the approach of a predator under the shadows of the bushes.
"Hey guys," came the voice.
We all jumped. It took a moment to realize that Matt's voice came from the walkie-talkie. We followed that with nervous, uncomfortable laughs for a second.
Mike keyed the walkie-talkie. "Yeah, Matt, what have you got?"
"The cameras in the basement are showing the light on the REM pod down there flashing wildly. I'm not picking up any audio, so I can't hear beeping. Still, you may want to check it out."
"Great, we'll head that way." Mike put the walkie-talkie back in its pocket. 'What do you think? Should we head down?"
"Yeah," said Emily, "I think we've got all we can from here."
I backed up a couple of paces so they could go toward the kitchen and the basement while I kept them in frame. I followed behind by a couple of paces.
As I got closer to the kitchen door, I saw another flash of those combine lights on the second floor.
Beta Team
Danny and Sarah pointed their headlamps into the hole in the floor. The light showed the wood stairs and a concrete floor, but only the wall next to the stairs. Any other walls were too far away.
"What do we do?" Sarah asked, with an obvious twinge of excitement on her voice.
"I think we have to check it out," replied Danny, just as excited. He looked over the stairs more thoroughly, swinging his light from side to side on each step. "I'll go down first to see if the old stairs will hold up. I'm going to go down along the side; maybe the supports will be stronger near the wall."
I moved closer to the exterior wall of the barn so I could record him better.
He put his first foot carefully on the top step. Pausing to see if it held, he slowly lowered his weight down. Again, he paused. Still no problems. With his hands out to either side for balance, he picked up his trailing foot from the floor of the barn and moved it gently to the second step. As he shifted his weight, the stairs didn't even creak.
He continued that pattern until he was all the way down. "I made it. Let me look around a minute to make sure it's safe."
From up top, I watched as he took a few steps, changing direction but not getting far from the bottom of the stairs. I couldn't see what he saw, but only him. Sarah's light never left him. After a moment, he came back to the base and called up, "I think it's good. Come on down."
Sarah went down a little more quickly than Danny, but still kept to the wall. As soon as she reached the floor, the two started meandering into the room.
"Hey!" I called, "Can I get some light on the stairs until I'm down?"
"Sorry." Sarah pointed her headlamp toward the stairs so I could see where I was going. As soon as I hit the floor, she was back to searching.
I could have dug my own flashlight out of my pocket, but it might have interfered with the video and those two were supposed to watch out for me a little.
Watching their exploration, it looked like the room was pretty big, maybe twelve feet across and fifteen or a little more long. Wood shelves lined the longer walls and held cardboard and wood boxes. More boxes and some long wooden crates sat in a stack on the far wall. Dust and spiderwebs covered everything.
Danny let out a long, low whistle. "I think one of our farmers may have been up to something they shouldn't have been."
Sarah ran over to the pile of crates at the end of the room. "What do you suppose are in these?"
Danny joined her and I followed to keep them close by.
The long crates were about four feet long, each with a hinged lid and a latch. Thick, rusty padlocks hung from some of the latches, but not on the top crate.
Danny reached out carefully to the top box and swung its latch up out of the way. The metal made the slight squeaking sound of old rust as it moved. With that done, he tugged on the side of the lid to swing it open. It rose stiffly, but then fell back, crashing into the crate behind it and sending up a cloud of dust.
When the dust cleared enough, we could see the contents. Some sort of rotted, canvas-like cloth covered the real product: bolt-action rifles. From previous encounters, I knew none of us had any kind of expertise in firearms, so there was no telling what kind they were or whether they were any good. But, based on standard Internet trash talk, I figured a crate of antique guns, maybe from the nineteen-thirties, were probably worth a lot of money. The Historical Society was going to be very happy with this discovery.
"I think there's ten in this box," said Danny. He learned back and moved his headlamp around to get a count of the other boxes. "I count about seven crates, so that's seventy of these guns just here. Who knows what's in those other boxes."
Again, I knew enough Internet geeks to cringe on their behalf at the description of these weapons as "guns". It didn't matter that, to the average person, the word had this specific meaning. I really needed to stay off Internet forums and get some real friends.
Sarah had already moved on to one of the smaller boxes. "The lid is nailed shut on this one."
Danny looked it over, brushing the dust off.
The wood of this crate was much thinner than the others, which made sense for something smaller. There were also spaces between the individual boards, like you find in those old fruit crates they used to sell oranges in.
Danny tried to lift it, which he did easily, but as he did, the contents made the sound of glass clinking. He tilted the box to the other side and got the sound again. "I think these are bottles."
"Do they feel full?" Sarah asked.
"Oh, yeah, for sure."
Danny sat the box back where he got it. "Do you know what this means? There's a good chance this room has been closed since Prohibition. That Jacob Rumpe guy may have been tied up with organized crime. That may be why he disappeared." Again, the sense of excitement kept rising in his voice.
I tried to move so I could see both of their expressions. They faced each other, with their headlamps straight ahead, so there was plenty of light for the shot.
Their eyes had widened and their smiles broadened. They would be journaling and talking about this for the rest of their lives. I, on the other hand, was likely to only bring it up after a couple too many beers when hanging out at the bar. Still, it was a neat find, just not paranormal.
I decided I needed to disrupt their excitement so we could continue the investigation. "If that's in this pile, I wonder what other stuff is in here?"
That did it. Their excitement redirected to the rest of the room.
Somehow they remained synchronized and both headed to the shelf on the wall opposite the stairs. As they did so, one of them kicked something that skittered across the floor with a high-pitched metallic sound.
"Stop." Danny said. "Did you hear that? Did you hear where it went?"
They both began scanning the floor with their headlamps.
"I think it went this way," said Sarah. She focused her light just ahead of her feet and walked slowly in the direction the thought was correct.
Danny assumed the same posture and walked in a line that would intersect hers. They shuffled slowly, not wanting to miss anything, and not wanting to kick anything else. After a few minutes, they caught up and something shined from the floor.
Sarah reached down for the object. "I think it's one of those bullet shells, like the things that come out of the side of the gun after someone shoots." She turned it over in her fingers a couple of times and then offered it to Danny.
Danny gave it a similar inspection. "I think you're right; it does look like the remains of a bullet. I wonder who was shooting down here. Do you think maybe this was the bullet that killed Jacob Rumpe?"
Excitement filled their expressions again. Some day their faces were going to stick like that.
But Danny still had questions. "Did you notice the floor where you picked this up? I thought it looked darker than the rest of the floor."
"How could you tell with all the dust?" Sarah asked.
"I don't know, it was just something that stood out." He handed the shell casing back to Sarah and then knelt down on the floor. Supporting himself on one hand, he used the other to brush dust, dirt, and cobwebs from the place where she found the metal.
That part did seem darker, so he expanded his hand sweeping to reach the wider area, going until he reached the lighter color of the rest of the floor. After a few minutes, he concluded that he had uncovered all there was to uncover. He stood up and adjusted his headlamp to cover the entire area.
The dark area appeared to be a stain. The stain covered an unusual pattern. It wasn't the circle or oval of a spill. It wasn't the trail of something spilled in transit. Instead, it looked like the silhouette of a person, or most of a person, including a head, torso, a couple of crumpled arms, and the top part of legs. The stain stood as a rust color against the gray of the concrete.
Danny stepped away from the stain. "Oh, wow," he said.
I couldn't have said it better myself. The likely contraband in the crates suggested criminal activity, probably organized crime. That missing farmer was probably associated with it. A spent shell casing in a basement said someone had a reason to fire a gun down here. Now, it looked like someone probably bled out. Even without the idea of hauntings, this was enough to make me want to leave.
Sarah stared at the spot on the floor, first stepping back, and then stepping forward again. "We should do an EVP session."
Danny's eyes never moved from the stain. "Yeah, you're right. We should do a session."
She raised her hand, holding out her recorder. "Is someone here? Does anyone want to speak with us?"
We waited for the response.
And waited some more.
I wasn't sure I wanted a response, but I knew what it meant for the love birds.
She tried again. "Jacob Rumpe, is this where you died? Is that your blood on the floor? Is this from the bullet that killed you?" She held up the casing.
Still nothing.
As I kept their faces in frame, I noticed a change in their expressions. It was subtle and difficult to describe. Their usual excitement held something else now. Apprehension? Fear? I wasn't sure, but I had the impression that an actual possible death was a little too real. They had always seemed very childlike in their investigations, as though it was a make-believe game of some sort. A real death may have been too grown-up for their tastes.
"Should we keep trying?" she asked.
Danny seemed to think for a moment. "I don't know. The recorder may have picked up something we couldn't hear. I think we should get more equipment from Matt and set it up down here while we look in the rest of the barn."
A sudden sound from behind me crawled up my spine and into the primitive parts of my brain. Sarah and Danny both turned to look toward the source of the sound.
"Did you hear that?" Danny whispered.
"Yes," Sarah answered.
"Me too." I wasn't staying out of that conversation.
They walked past me toward the source, and I fell in behind them to record.
The sound seemed like a whisper, like someone trying to get our attention but not the attention of anyone else. Worse, it seemed to come from under the stairs, the same stairs we needed to climb out of this pit.
Danny called out, "Is anybody there?"
No response came.
He looked at Sarah for guidance, but she shook her head slightly. She had no ideas either. I was glad they didn't ask me.
Danny took another step toward the stairs. "Maybe we can help you. Can you talk to us?"
The trapdoor to the basement slammed shut.
The sound echoed through the room, leaving us standing there.
Tech Team
Matt finished talking to the Alpha Team about the REM pot in the basement. He moved to set his walkie-talkie into its chagrin base and changed his mind.
"Matt to Beta Team. Matt to Beta Team."
He waited for a response.
He checked the frequency settings and volume control before trying again. "Matt to Beta Team. I'm checking in with you. Is everything ok?"
Still no response.
He turned to his runner, Fleet, who sat at the back of the van with the dog. "Remind me to check their walkie-talkies when they get back."
Setting his walkie-talkie back on its stand, he reached for his cell phone. A quick glance showed enough bars to get started. He thumbed through the contacts to find Danny. He pressed "dial" and waited. Straight to voicemail. The same happened on his calls to Sarah and Max.
He turned to his assistant again. "Hey, Fleet. I can't reach anybody on Beta Team, walkie or cell. Must be some serious interference over there. Run on over and check on them, ok?"
"By myself?"
"Dude, you're like twenty-years-old. They used to draft guys younger than you for war. Grab a flashlight and head on over. Just see that they're ok and come on back. If they aren't ok, find out what they need and then come back so we can call an ambulance or something."
The assistant pushed the back door open and hopped out. Feeling the cold October air, he pulled his hood up. Then, grabbing a spare light from a box, he closed the van door and headed toward the barn.