We got all the equipment in place and waited around the van until a little after seven o'clock. We wanted to make sure the sun was down enough that it would be really dark. That's when big sis suggested that we take a sweep around the house to get started. At the same time, Beta Team headed toward the barn.
Mike waved his flashlight toward the area that we thought had been a garden. "We should probably check around over there too. Maybe get the clothesline poles and the edge of the yard on the way." Emily agreed, so off we went.
It was hard to get Mike out of the habit of using his flashlight. Even with no moonlight, we were outside and the stars gave enough light to see by, but you had to let your eyes adjust. Worse, my cameras were each set for their own light level and they needed to adjust. Too much light and I got no picture.
"Watch your step," Mike said as he got to the edge of the garden.
"Yeah," Emily agreed, "It seems pretty rough.
Someone had churned up the ground at some time, making little rows for planting. Since then, whatever plants grew had withered. In the camera screen, they looked like a mass of little tentacles reaching up to snare their next victim. If we didn't watch our steps, we could be those victims.
Emily stopped and pulled her audio recorder from its pocket in her vest. "Hello," she called out. "Is there anyone here? We are here to get your story told. Is there anything you want to say?"
We all stood still to give anything a chance to speak.
I tried to keep my camera on both Mike and Emily during these EVP sessions. Trying to catch Electronic Voice Phenomenon events was a big thing in the paranormal investigation community. I wasn't sure we would pick up anything more than the rustling of the October breeze through trees and grasses.
Bud didn't say anything about hauntings in the garden, but it never hurt to check everywhere on the property. Really, what could go so horribly bad that it would cause a haunting in a garden? Images of chopped up bodies being tilled into the soil filled my head and I wished I hadn't wondered about that.
The moment passed when Mike and Emily, somehow synchronized, turned to start walking again.
We made our way over to the treeline. There were enough broken branches and twigs to keep us from getting too close. The ground was more even there, compared to the garden. I swept the camera around the trees, first toward the horizon and then toward the base of the trees. The horizon was just to be thorough; I didn't expect to catch anything. The base of the trees was to see if there were any little critters in our investigation area.
Critters were an issue for us. Obviously, they could cause many haunting-like activities, such as making noise or stealing little things. They could also decide to chew through parts of our equipment. Worst of all, they startle our investigators, making the investigators scream like little children, and seriously disrupting the mood of the investigation. I've kept some of the video of those incidents even after everyone wanted the record destroyed.
"Did you hear that?" Mike jumped around and froze.
Emily immediately turned her head in the direction Mike was looking and then she froze too.
As quietly as I could, I turned to point my camera toward Mike's looking direction, trying to keep both of them in frame as best I could.
We all stood as silently as we could.
Emily raised the recorder, which was still in her hand. I saw her push the record button.
A sound came from a short way off. It was soft, barely audible.
It was a moan.
I almost forgot to reorient my cameras to capture the reactions of my investigators. I liked to think I was immune to this haunting stuff, but a moan in the dark still set my heart beating fast.
"Is there somebody here?" Emily asked. She extended the recorder toward the sound.
Mike took a step toward the direction of the sound.
The sound came out again.
Emily and Mike exchanged glances. Emily seemed worried. Mike's face filled with glee.
Mike took another step.
This time, Emily followed. I followed them, trying to move behind them so I could keep both of them in the picture and look between them toward the source of the moan.
Three more steps, and Mike stopped.
Through the camera, I saw that he stood next to the clothesline pole closest to the road. He leaned in to listen, then reached out to touch it.
"I think I found our sound," he said. "The pole is made of hollow steel pipe. The side here has a rust hole. The wind blows across it and we get that sound. See, it stops if I put my hand over it."
He put his hand over the hole and the sound stopped. When he took his hand off, the sound started again. We watched it for a moment, documenting what happened. The stronger the wind, and if it had a slightly south-western source, the higher the pitch of the sound.
"I wonder how many people hear this when they think they hear someone being beaten up." Emily said.
"That's a good point," Mike replied. "We should probably cover this up so we don't hear it again when listening for other things." He checked several pockets on his vest before finding a folded piece of tape large enough for the hole. The tape was intended for holding down camera wires or other quick fixes, but it would serve.
With the tape in place, the sound stopped. We could move on.
From the clothesline, we headed to the southwest corner of the house, the kitchen end. At each window, and at the kitchen door, we stopped to listen. Where the opening was low enough, I tried to point the cameras in. We made it past the back wall of the house, including the kitchen and master bedroom. Then we rounded the corner.
The first set of windows on the eastern wall still looked into the bedroom. Knowing that there had been reports from there, we lingered a little longer at each one.
Emily held her recorder to the window frame. "Is there anyone here? Do you want to tell us what happened?"
Through the camera, I could see the room, empty except for our equipment. The bedroom contained a motion-activated camera, an extra sound recorder, and a REM pod. The Radiating Electromagnetism pod was like a theremin, one of those spooky musical instruments that you play just by waving your hands around in their electromagnetic fields. The REM pod should pick up the presence of disruptive lifeforce energy that gets into its range. When that happens, we'll get flashing lights and beeping. Raccoons love them.
With no response, we moved to the next set of windows, the ones from the parlor. Emily again held up her recorder. "Is there anyone here? We are here to help you."
My camera picked up the same equipment as we put into the bedroom. Bud said this was the room where people heard sounds of a fight and maybe something involving a woman. We wanted to capture any evidence of this one. Mike had set up extra cameras and audio recorders in the dining room that were pointed into the parlor.
Again, we stood silent, awaiting some sign. Unfortunately, all we heard was the lonely sigh of the cold autumn wind.
"Ooph"
We froze.
Mike turned to Emily and mouthed the words, "Did you hear that?"
Her eyes went big. She turned to face him directly and nodded a yes. Then she turned back to the window.
Her hand had been resting on the window frame, holding the recorder into the room. She started to pull her hand back, hesitated, then pulled back just enough so the recorder was still inside, but her hand was as outside as it could otherwise be.
We waited more.
Mike's head bobbed a little, full of excitement and ready to go.
Emily's eyes focused on the window, looking for absolutely any reason to jump back.
I'll be honest, I wasn't sure what was going on with me. Part of me was just as excited as Mike. The other part filled with frustration because nothing showed up on camera. As a budding filmmaker, a blank screen meant failure.
Mike finally broke the silence by whispering, "Let's go inside!"
He spun and practically ran around the corner to the front of the house and toward the door.
Beta Team
I watched the Alpha Team head toward the house: Mike and Emily, followed by Skippy the Wonder Cameraman. I adjusted my own camera rig and called to Danny and Sarah, "Hey guys, we should probably get started." Naturally, they were way more interested in each other than in anything else going on.
I turned away a minute to give them a chance to untangle. If this place wasn't really haunted, I was in for a long third-wheel kind of night. I thought about seeing if I could change places with Josh so he could work Beta Team and I could walk around with Mike and his sister. At least those two weren't getting along well enough to make me uncomfortable.
Maybe I should consider bringing a date to these things.
We finally got underway and headed straight for the door the old man showed us earlier. When we set up the cameras and stuff earlier, we also pulled the weeds so it would be safer to get in and out.
Outside, the stars had been enough to see by. Most farms had those street lights in the yard so you could see where they were from a distance. I guessed they killed the one here about the same time they pulled the electricity from the house. Maybe thieves stole the street light for the scrap metal.
Inside the barn, it was way dark, like waking up drunk at two in the morning in somebody's basement with no lights or windows dark. After a moment, I could see the sky through the open haydoor in the opposite wall. Just what the lovebirds needed, a romantic skylight.
After a moment of adjusting, Danny said, "I think we're going to need lights. We'll never be able to move around in here like this."
Sarah said, "I agree. How much? Flashlights? Headlamps? What do you think, Max?"
Ah good, they remembered that I was there. "If you use the headlamps on the lowest setting, it'll be easier on my cameras."
They both reached up and turned on their lights.
With the newfound light source, the starlight of the haydoor disappeared. Instead, we had two small pools of light and the ambient bounce from anything they hit. As Romeo and Juliet looked around, the spots jumped wildly from place to place. I knew from experience that they would settle down after a minute or two.
Danny asked, "So, where should we start?"
"I don't know," said Sarah. "Do we want to see if we can find the grunting first or search the little rooms?"
"If the grunting is just a couple of boards, we'll probably just have to wait until the wind blows the right way. Do you have any other ideas?"
"Well," said Sarah, "Bud said some people thought it might be a pig. We could try an EVP session to see if we can get a pig."
"That's brilliant!" Danny exclaimed.
I was glad they couldn't see my face; I'm sure my eye roll was very noticeable. Ghost hunting was kind of cool, but I didn't really buy into it in a serious way. This was just something interesting to do and some of the geeks I hung out with thought it was cool. I always thought EVP was a bit hokey, but EVP to contact a pig?
Sarah started, "Hey there. Who's a good… What should I say? A good boy? A good girl?"
Danny chirped, "Try saying good pig. That should be good enough."
"Who's a good pig? Eh? Can you talk to us? Can you give us a good grunt?"
I kept my camera on both of them the whole time.
They stood listening, their heads cocked to the side. Each held out a digital audio recorder, hoping to catch piggy noises that our ears might miss.
We all stood quietly for about two or three minutes. They were very determined to give the ghost pig a chance.
Still, nothing.
Danny's recorder hand dropped to his side. Sarah's did the same.
"We can try again later," Danny said.
Sarah nodded agreement. "Besides, maybe something will show up on the recorders."
That thought perked them up and the hopeful smiles returned to their faces.
After a moment of renewed enthusiasm, Sarah spoke again, "Maybe we should check those rooms."
Danny asked, "Which end do we want to start with?"
Sarah seemed to think for a moment. "I don't know." She turned to face me. "Didn't you say the middle two were the most interesting?"
I wouldn't say interesting, but I knew what she meant. "Yeah, the two on either end are just little rooms with no features. We have cameras in there. The middle ones have windows out to the feedlot and one has a door leading out."
"How about we start with the middle room without the door and do the door one next," Danny suggested.
"Great!" Sarah said.
I followed as they practically skipped toward the door to the little room, their headlamps sending light randomly over the wall containing the doors. I decided that some part of both of them stopped developing at the age of seven.
In the room, they split up a little, but not too much. They didn't like to be too far apart. Both picked a window to look out. Each window was a frame divided into six smaller panes in three rows of two. Sarah's window was missing one pane in the lower right. Danny's pane was missing two at top and one in the left middle.
On some unknown signal, they both turned back into the room.
"Do you see anything?" Danny asked.
"No, do you?" Sarah answered.
"How about you, Max? You see anything?" Nice of Danny to include me.
'No, nothing showing up on any of the cameras."
Sarah pulled out her recorder again. "EVP time?"
Danny answered by showing his own recorder.
"Is there anybody here with us?" Sarah started. "Can you try to talk to us?"
She paused for a moment to allow for an answer.
Even though I never really believed that there would be a voice, I still listened. I guess I kind of hoped there would be someday. It would probably give me something to believe in.
"What did Bud say was the name of the farmer who disappeared?" Sarah asked.
Danny pulled a small notebook from a vest pocket and turned a few pages. "It was Jacob Rumpe."
"Thanks." Sarah turned back to the room. "Jacob Rumpe, are you here? Did something bad happen to you here?"
Again, we waited.
The wind blew past the broken windows, but that didn't sound like a voice. I also heard my own pulse in my ears. My nostrils picked up on all the dust, tinged with the scent of old hay. I was pretty sure I tasted the hay dust too.
Still no results.
"Let's check the next room," Danny chimed.
We filed out of the first room, along the wall into the next room, the one with the outside door.
Danny immediately went to the door and tried to open it. Like I experienced earlier in the day, it would only move a little before springing back.
"Hey," he said. "I'm going to try to move this door in different ways to see if it sounds like grunting."
He pushed hard and looked back expectantly.
Sarah shook her head no, her light moving accordingly.
He tried to deliberately rub the edge of the door against the frame. Still no grunt.
After a few more grunt-less attempts, he gave up.
Knowing what to do, they each produced their recorders for an EVP thing.
"Jacob Rumpe, can you hear us? Can you let us know you are here?" We gave it the requisite pause before the next questions. "Is there anybody here willing to talk to us? We are trying to find out what happened here so we can help."
Still no joy in EVP town.
Without the slightest sign of dejection, my investigators headed out and toward the next room.
As we walked, a creaking sound came from the wood flooring, but not directly under us. Instead, it came from nearer the outside wall of the barn. Instinctively, we all froze.
"Did you hear where it came from?" Sarah asked.
"I think it was over there." Danny pointed and tried to align his headlamp to where he was pointing.
"Do you think it was grunt-like?"
"No, it sounded more like just a creaky floor. Let's check it out real quick, you know, in case it's dangerous." Danny's voice rose with excitement.
We moved cautiously forward, listening for more creaking noises. Each step brought more soft sounds of wood against wood until we were in line with the bit of wooden floor against the outer wall.
"What do we do now?" Danny asked.
He took one more step forward and the floor fell away beneath his foot. He screamed as he lurched forward.
These situations leave me torn. As the camera guy, I'm supposed to hang back and catch everything on video. On the other hand, I should have probably been a bro and tried to grab him before he plunged to his doom. Then there was the fact that Sarah was between me and him.
In the light from Sarah's headlamp, I saw that the entire floor raised up, becoming a wall near where Danny was falling.
He caught himself on the new wall.
All of us stood, breathing hard and trying to recover from this latest twist.
Danny pulled himself from the hole in the floor that opened by the drawbridge-like door. He moved back a few steps.
"Are you alright?" asked Sarah as she ran her hands over him to check him out.
'Yeah," he said, "just caught off guard. What is that thing?"
They turned their attention, and lights to the new wall. Following down to where it came out of the floor showed an opening where the boards had been. They leaned over to look in and I repositioned to get the cameras lined up.
The hole in the floor contained wood stairs leading down into a new room.