The cold October wind made Fleet wish he had worn more than sweatpants and sweatshirt. Even with the hood up, it was freezing. Fortunately, he always prided himself on being fast, so a quick run to the barn to find Beta Team would take no time.
He only had a general idea of where to find the door, so he passed his flashlight across the wall of the barn. Since the others cleared the area earlier, the door was the only part without a wall of weeds growing out of the foundations. A quick tug and he was in.
The darkness made him aware of how much natural light there had been outside. He couldn't see anything that his small flashlight didn't hit directly. Somehow, that made the darkness feel more like fog, swirling around him and hiding things.
"Danny! Sarah! Max! Where are you guys? We've been trying to reach you," he called out. He pointed his flashlight around while waiting for the response.
"Hey guys! Where are you? Are you still here?"
Still no answer.
His brain filled with images of Beta Team all unconscious somewhere in the barn. He couldn't imagine them being in the barn and still not answering his call. Maybe they were kidnapped?
He decided he needed to search, at least a little, before reporting back to Matt. His light showed the slats of some kind of animal pens on the wall nearest him.
"You're real nosey, ain't you?" The gravelly whisper seemed to come from both sides as a damp breath on each ear.
Fleet jumped and turned, losing his grip on his flashlight and dropping it.
Someone punched him in the gut, coming in under the ribs and knocking all the air from him.
"Nosey like a woman," the voice said. "I know what to do with a woman." It sounded like a man's voice, but with something missing, or just wrong. It carried a resonance as though passing through a long tube.
A large hand grabbed Fleet by the shoulder, spun him around, and shoved his chest into the top rail of the nearest pen. A fist slammed into the back of his head. Bright stars erupted into his eyes as the pain flooded his brain.
He felt a body press against his back, holding him against the rail. The man's pelvis ground against Fleet's rear. The stench of old sweat filled his nose.
Panic and dizziness joined together in Fleet's brain as he realized how much trouble he was in. He shouted, "Help!"
Another fist to the skull stopped his noise.
Calloused hands pulled Fleet's wrists together and wrapped them in some sort of grass rope. Fleet couldn't see it, but felt the fiber dig into his skin as the bindings tightened.
A hand grabbed the waistband of his sweatpants and pushed them down. Most the way down his thigh, the hand let go to be replaced by the rough sole of a boot. The boot pushed them to his ankles, scraping his leg the whole way.
The panic reasserted itself. Fleet pushed back against the rail, trying to get away. The body slammed into him again, pushing him back.
A bright light arrived in the barn at the end with the hay door. Two lights. They seemed to be headlights of a car, but dim.
"You wait here till I get back," said the voice.
The force of the pressing body pulled away, giving Fleet a moment of hope.
The large hands grabbed the sweatpants gathered around Fleet's ankles and lifted. The force was enough to lever him over the top railing and into the animal pen. His head crashed into the barn floor.
Everything went dark.
Beta Team
I set my camera rig down so I could help the others push on the trap door. All three of us put our backs against it and pushed. At first, we only got about a half inch of movement. Then, it moved eight inches. Not enough to crawl through, but maybe we could see something.
The whole barn lit up. The whole barn except the basement we were stuck in. The light seemed like a mix of kerosene lanterns and car headlights.
We all looked out.
Danny said, "Maybe they can help us."
The skinny, sweaty guy beside Danny, held a finger to his lips to shush him and then pointed toward the barn. He slowly turned his head to look out. Then he wasn't there.
Danny and Sarah stared at the place he had been and then slowly turned to each other. Their eyes widened, but so did their grins. They were so excited by all this crap.
I wasn't. I pressed myself against the stairs I sat on. It took a moment to realize I wasn't breathing. Who the hell was that guy and where the hell did he come from? Screw that! Where the hell did he go?
Danny shook my shoulder and whispered, "Hey, get the camera."
I moved on automatic pilot, but camera was a normal thing I could do. I grabbed my rig, put it in place, and adjusted so I could video whatever was going on in the lighted barn and not think about Mr. Disappear.
In the barn, some farmer in bib overalls talked to two guys in old fashioned suits. They stood in front of an old fashioned car. I was never an expert in those things, but it looked like a scene from a nineteen-thirties movie, you know, with gangsters and stuff.
The two guys in suits went to the back of the car, fought around getting something out of the trunk, and then brought another guy. The new dude stumbled and held his hands in front of him. It looked like his hands were tied together. As he got into the better light, his face showed signs of a serious beating. Blood spots splattered on his muscle shirt. His dark slacks looked torn, and he walked barefoot. Ah crap, this was going to get more like a gangster movie.
The farmer grabbed a rope from one of the barn posts. The rope ran up to the loft where it attached to a pulley. A metal hook hung from the other end. The farmer ran the hook around the ropes holding the prisoner's wrists. With a couple of quick tugs, the prisoner hung from his wrists with his feet a few inches from the ground.
The farmer reached into a pocket of his overalls and drew out a large folding knife. He stepped closer to the nearest pig pen and tapped the wood. In our basement, the knocking sound echoed loudly like gunshots.
The front feet, I think they're called trotters, and the head of a huge boar reared up out of the pen.
And there was the grunting that people said they heard. It bounced around the whole barn and in my head. If there had been anything in my bowel at that time, it would have left and taken my soul with it.
Our eyes stuck, watching the show, this gangster movie replaying a true story in a dark, empty barn on a cold, October night.
The hanging prisoner seemed to grow more aware of his surroundings. He started to kick and sway, struggling against the ropes.
The farmer seemed to laugh, but we didn't hear any of it.
I realized that was the other unnatural feature of this vignette. We heard the knocking on the pen and the grunt of the pig, but nothing else. Silence muffled all the sounds like someone had hit the mute button.
The farmer unfolded his knife, revealing its blade.
The prisoner flailed around even more.
The farmer nodded to the two suited men. They grabbed the prisoner and held him still.
Slowly and carefully, the farmer made a slice across the prisoner's belly, shirt and all. The prisoner's facial expression showed the absolute agony of the cut, but we were still in Charlie Chaplain mode and couldn't hear a thing.
The farmer made a couple of more cuts, carefully digging in deeper. The prisoner's head rolled in agony, making the face of someone screaming.
Finally, the farmer wiped his knife on the prisoner's side, cleaning the blade on the man's shirt. Folding the knife, the farmer put it back in his pocket.
I will never forget what happened next. No amount of therapy, no amount of drinking, no amount of anything will ever stop the nightmares or day mares or any other mares after seeing that. Nothing can wash that away.
The farmer reached his fingers into the man's belly through the open wounds. Struggling a little, he pulled something out. Once out a little ways, the farmer readjusted his grip and pulled slowly but firmly.
He was pulling out the man's small intestine.
The prisoner's head fell backward and his mouth formed a howl I could see and feel even if I couldn't hear it.
The farmer walked toward the pig pen, spinning the suspended prisoner as he did. With a little more pulling, there was enough intestine to reach all the way to the boar.
Then the sound came back. Not all of it. Just the sound of the pig eating the man's innards while the man was still alive.
The pig pulled and chewed, smacking and grunting as it fed. With each tug, the man's body swayed toward the boar and then fell back as the intestine broke loose from his insides. It just seemed to go on and on.
And we stared, enraptured. We couldn't help ourselves and we couldn't help that man.
Eventually, with one last pull, the man stopped resisting. His head and legs fell limp. Too much was gone and so was he.
The farmer lowered the body, unhooked its hands, and then hefted the body into the hog pen.
He offered to shake hands with the two men in suits.
They chose to give small waves instead. They got back into their car, started it, and backed out of the barn.
With the headlights gone, the rest of the lights vanished too.
The trapdoor that had given us that eight inches of livestock show, slammed closed, knocking us back down the stairs.
Alpha Team
I followed Emily and Mike through the dining room and into the kitchen. Mike stopped at the top of the stairs to the basement. He looked down into the darkness. A bright green light illuminated the basement and his face, and then went away, flickering.
"The REM pod light is really going off," he said. With his hand braced against the wall, he started down the steps.
Emily followed him, with me behind. The stairs were only wide enough for one of us at a time, so I couldn't get good video of their faces. Still, their silhouettes against the green lighted basement walls came in flashes and were super duper, if I had been making a horror movie. But I wasn't making a horror movie, I hoped.
With all of us down in the cramped space, I backed into the corner along the stair wall so I could try to get everything else in frame.
Mike stood against the wall where the shelves used to be. Emily stood closer to the stairs just because that was all the space available. Our little REM pod stood on three tiny legs in the corner opposite from me. The light on the top flashed.
"Do you think there's something wrong with it?" Emily asked.
"I don't know," Mike said. "Maybe we just need to adjust its sensitivity. Before we mess with it, though, we should probably try an EVP to see if anybody's here."
I saw Emily turn her head to look at him. There wasn't enough light to see her expression, but it kind of felt like she didn't want anybody to be there.
She took a deep breath, let it out and started. Holding up her recorder, she asked, "Is there anyone here? Do you want to tell us something?"
The rate of the flashing increased.
"Good, good," Mike said, staring at the REM pod. "Keep going." He made a forwarding motion with his hand, directed at Emily.
She swallowed loudly, at least loud enough I heard it. "Do you have anything to do with John or Mary Rumpe?"
A red light joined the green one and the REM pod began beeping.
With flashing lights, it was difficult to tell, but it looked like Emily may have started shaking a little. I saw it in her hands mostly, but maybe her shoulders as well.
Her voice called out, "Do you know where we can find them? John and Mary, I mean."
The beep turned into a constant stream.
"Mike," she said. "I think something is holding my foot."
"What?"
"I said, I think something is holding my foot. I can't move my foot like something is holding it down."
"I'll take a look." Mike started to turn her direction but stopped, almost falling. "Hold on, I'm caught on something."
He turned on his flashlight and pointed it to his foot.
I tried to focus the camera on his light.
A hand from the ground had looped over his shoe, pulling it tight to the dirt floor.
We all froze, standing in the flashing red and green lights, with the shriek of the REM pod's buzzer filling the small hole we were in.
Emily's whole body shook and she was making short, fast breaths, hyperventilating.
I instinctively pressed further against the wall behind me.
Mike screamed with absolute terror, drowning out the REM pod and all other sounds.
All across the basement floor, boney hands erupted from the soil, reaching upward and grasping, skeletal fingers flailing.
Danny pulled hard and ripped his foot free. He continued his turn toward Emily and ran into her like he was trying to tackle her. He hit her hard enough to free her from the things holding her down. He half dragged and half carried her to the stairs and up.
I had a great camera angle on the whole thing as I watched them make it to the kitchen above, taking Mike's flashlight with him.
A field of waving hands covered the floor, illuminated by the alternating red and green flashes. That's when I felt the other hands, the ones coming from the walls. The walls where I was standing. The fingers that scratched at my clothes all up and down my body.
Some animalistic urge launched me forward and up the stairs, stumbling over them but not stopping. I burst into the kitchen and across toward the back door. Spinning, I pressed my back against the solidness of the door frame and held my camera rig toward the basement like some sort of protective talisman.
My heart pounded so loud I couldn't hear my labored breathing, mouth hung open to let the air in and out faster. I blinked a couple of times, but never took my eyes off the red and green lights flickering just through that door to the pit.
The cool air from the outside door opening started to ground me. I was safe. I was going to be safe. Things would be ok. It was going to be fine.
The sound of the REM pod died off. Then the red flashes stopped. Slowly, the green light faded as well. Then, darkness. It felt like it was over.
Something in the back of my head reminded me, it could all start over again.
Time to be a cinematographer and find my subjects. Where were Emily and Mike?
Now that I wasn't completely focused on the basement and its, I chose to call them issues, I saw more of my surroundings. The light from Mike's flashlight came from the dining room.
Cautiously, I walked toward the dining room door. I didn't completely take my attention from the basement door, but I tried not to think about why.
Mike sat in the corner of the dining room, not far from the front door. His arms wrapped around Emily who sat on his lap. His eyes stared into space, obviously in shock. Emily's body trembled as she cried, her head curled down and against Mike's chest.
This split me in two. Obviously I wanted to do what was best for my sister, and that did not involve filming her moment of emotional vulnerability. On the other hand, all my movie making classes told me that this is what an audience wanted to see. Well, we didn't really have an audience, so they didn't get a vote.
To compromise a little, I panned my camera across the two of them as part of a sweep of the entire room. There was nothing outside the front windows or door. The REM pod in the parlor sat quietly in the dark. The flash of distant combine lights lit up the upstairs balcony.
On the second floor, a wood door slammed… really far away.