Paranormal State: My Journey into the Unknown

by Stefan Petrucha

  That connection seemed strong, but there wasn’t much to go on. Maybe this man had been hostile to Chris in life and was continuing to be in death. Then again, it could all be psychological. I obviously couldn’t ask Chris. I also couldn’t look Helen in the eyes and tell her anything.

  Hoping Dead Time would give us something more, we broke off into two teams. The first, led by Joyce, Eilfie, and Serg, was out by the pond. I was with Josh and Heather on the second floor, in Chris’s room.

  We’d all already decided that during Dead Time that everyone except necessary camera and sound people would leave the house to keep the investigation as pure as possible. Often, the crew and producers were outside in the cold or in cars for the hours of Dead Time. The crew, meanwhile, wanting the best possible picture, brought in a slew of lighting equipment. Two large crane lights were aimed at the house from outside. It was like the gods had gotten drunk and turned the moonlight switch to “wake the dead.”

  Realizing the conditions weren’t perfect, I tried to get some response from the spirit.

  “They say you bang on the walls all the time. Why can’t you do it for us now?” I said. “Either communicate with us, or we’ll get rid of you.”

  Aside from walkie-talkie chatter and creaking floorboards from the crew, nothing happened. After nearly an hour, I decided to end it. Even under the best circumstances the paranormal won’t show up on command. I did realize I’d have to be clearer and more vocal about what conditions we needed to conduct our investigations.

  And then, as I turned off the recorders, and the film crew powered down, we had our first activity.

  In the hall, a motion detector, hand-built by Sergey and Josh, went off. It was the first time we’d been using these, and I had a hunch about putting one in the hallway. What could have set it off? Reviewing the surveillance footage from our cameras, we saw that no one was there. Could the detector be defective? Serg walked near and around it, but couldn’t trigger it until he stepped directly in front of it. It was working perfectly.

  It wasn’t a lot, but it was something.

  It was customary for PRS to spend every night at the location, to embed ourselves and see if anything happened. The crew packed up, but we stayed. Serg and I spent the night in Chris’s room, but there was no activity. In the morning, our eight investigators battled to use the one bathroom. With no water heater, we were greeted with ice-cold water. Serg, being of Russian descent, said he felt the shower was refreshing.

  Despite the bumpy start, the second day was surprisingly more fluid. In less than 24 hours, we’d learned a lot about balancing the needs of production and our investigation.

  Aside from the single article on the suicide, our historical research didn’t turn up anything significant. Ultimately, I didn’t think that mattered. My sense was that the information we needed to help resided with the family. As we delved into their personal lives, Helen seemed more and more emotional, increasingly somber. She apparently felt guilt, pain, and a deep-seated anger toward the supernatural force in the house.

  Though she’d originally said she wasn’t sure there was a connection, she slowly opened up and told us she was convinced the Dark Man was responsible for the death of her son. Still, I wasn’t sure how the spirit could have anything to do with Chris’s death until I finally spoke to Justin.

  From the beginning he’d been avoiding us. There was no explanation, other than Helen telling us, “He’s busy.” He’d had two weeks’ notice about when we’d be there, so that seemed suspect. Justin also wasn’t answering any phone calls.

  To my surprise, though, when the time came for his scheduled interview, Justin showed up. At first glance, he came across as a tough guy, the sort who’d volunteer to rough you up if you pushed him. At the same time, his eyes seemed locked in sorrow. He was reticent, but when he did speak, that tough guy demeanor disappeared.

  Justin told me that Chris didn’t just see the Dark Man since he was five. He claimed the thing had tormented him. That was news, and it made a lot of sense.

  Justin described the first time Chris saw the Dark Man. They shared bunk beds and had a dog sleeping in the room. Late one night, it started howling. The sound woke Justin and he found Chris huddled in a fetal position. Chris was shaking, unable or unwilling to discuss what happened. All he would say was that he’d seen a dark figure. He wasn’t just seeing it. He was tortured by it. Whatever it was terrified him beyond belief.

  Justin handed me a photograph of Chris. He looked like a tough guy too. Justin said his brother lived “a lot of life” and no one dared to mess with him. He had a weak spot, though, since he was five, a chink in his armor: the Dark Man.

  “There was a time when we couldn’t even mention the name without him breaking down in tears,” Justin said.

  I never knew him, but I felt a connection to Chris. As a child, he’d had a life-altering paranormal experience that continued to eat away at him. His family believed it had resulted in his death. Part of me wondered if that could be my fate someday. Why not? I was only six years older than Chris was when he died.

  “Why do you think he was so terrified of this figure?” I asked.

  There was a pause. Justin seemed to have disappeared into a troubling thought, one that had bothered him deeply for years, deeper than the almost twenty-foot-deep pond out back. Ultimately, he couldn’t say, or maybe he just didn’t know. The full story of Chris would probably always remain out of reach.

  And it wasn’t over. Since his brother’s death, Justin had seen the Dark Man himself. Hearing breathing one night, he looked in the corner of the room and saw the shadowy figure.

  “It had like a head and shoulders. I jumped up and turned on the light and there was nothing there.”

  Like his mother, he’d been dreaming about Chris. One dream in particular upset him. “I asked him what heaven was like and he didn’t say anything. So I said, ‘Are you in hell?’ He turned to me and his eyes were all black, as if his pupils had dilated completely. And his voice changed. It wasn’t a demonic voice. It was a man’s voice that I’d never heard before. It said, ‘No, it’s cold. It’s very cold.’ ”

  It’s not unusual for a grieving family to dream about their loved one, but Helen and Justin both dreamt of Chris having dark eyes. Was he reaching out to them, or was something darker invading their sleep? It was as if the pain Chris had experienced was living on through them.

  The reasons for Helen’s concerns were clearer to me now. Whether Chris was trapped or not, it seemed she and Justin were. They were trapped in their grief for him, yes, but it was also possible that whatever had been victimizing Chris was now victimizing them.

  Because Helen was so worried about Chris, she was adamant about asking a psychic to try to communicate with him. Given my concerns about psychics, I tried to point out the downside. “What if the psychic is wrong or tells you something that might convince you but isn’t true?”

  Helen listened politely, but her mind was made up. For her it must have felt like her one chance of finding out if the Dark Man was truly responsible for Chris’s death. I tried to put myself in her shoes. A loved one of mine died suddenly, with no warning and no good reason. Now he may be trapped in a personal hell. Wouldn’t I try anything to get at the truth?

  I decided to contact CJ Sellers, a psychic who had come to UNIV-CON the month prior. She struck me as unusually trustworthy and I was comfortable that she was genuinely interested in helping people. Though she lived in Missouri, I hoped she’d be able to give a reading over the phone. A time was set for that evening.

  Our adviser, Joyce, was even more skeptical about any psychic reading than I was. I agreed we should try to test CJ’s accuracy. Joyce suggested that if we had to respond to questions at all, we should only give yes or no answers. I asked Helen not to spill any information, to be as discreet as possible.

  As the time for the call grew closer, the atmosphere became intense. Helen really wanted that contact, that confirmation, so much so that
I became concerned about what would happen. What answers would she get? What emotional state would that put her in? How would it affect the case?

  “I do have Chris with me,” CJ said over the phone. “What specifically do you want to know?”

  I asked about the Dark Man. According to CJ, Chris spoke of him as someone who’d died but was still hanging around. She saw something on the property connected with water. There was a man there, silhouetted. CJ wasn’t able to see him; she felt he wouldn’t let her see him. He was covered in darkness.

  “It has hands,” she said. “Could it grab somebody? Could it push somebody? Yes.”

  I looked at Helen. She nodded. She seemed convinced this was the Dark Man.

  CJ said Chris was concerned for their safety, but also felt his mother had the power to challenge this thing. While any one bit of information might not have swayed me, between the water, the darkness, and the concern, I felt our psychic had “hit” often enough to move on.

  I asked her the big question. “Justin wants to know if the Dark Man had anything to do with Chris’s death.”

  “Chris is telling me, yes,” CJ said. “He’s telling me he was pushed, to the limit. Whatever was going on, it happened again and again, time after time. His will was worn down. I feel like he just, he wanted it to be over . . . to be done.”

  It seemed like the stone walls “Tough” Justin and Helen had put up crumbled. Justin’s eyes filled with tears. Helen cried quietly.

  I continued asking questions, but they’d stopped listening. Helen was staring off into space. I was worried, wondering what she was thinking.

  After I ended the conversation with CJ, I tried to talk to Helen, to find out where her head was. Her responses didn’t strike me as particularly coherent. She was upset, she needed time to think, so we all took a break.

  I’d planned to invite her and Justin to the second Dead Time that night, but now thought it was a bad idea. They seemed too vulnerable. Helen wouldn’t have it any other way, though. She insisted she be allowed to participate.

  I’d have to proceed carefully. There was a balance to be struck. On the one hand, I wanted to be more aggressive in provoking the spirits. On the other hand, I was concerned about Helen.

  I put her by my side during Dead Time, along with Eilfie and Katrina, in case I needed their support in tending to Helen. Serg would manage tech alone in the kitchen, while Justin would be with the others in the basement.

  The harsh lights were gone, but we weren’t a well-oiled machine yet. With us in Chris’s room was the director, Brad, a cameraman, and a soundman. The basement was more crowded: Three producers, two cameramen, an audio guy, and a production assistant all sat against the wall, observing my team as they tried to communicate with a discarnate spirit.

  As for Helen, for the first half of Dead Time she sat in silence. With all the feelings bubbling inside her, I felt it was only a matter of time.

  Trying to goad whatever might be present, I told the spirit I didn’t believe it was there. Helen played along, shaking her head in disappointment.

  The minutes rolled by. Half an hour, three quarters of an hour passed and still nothing.

  Then Helen found her voice. “He just wants the attention,” she said derisively. “He wants to wait and then show off the moment the cameras are turned off. We’re looking for something that’s supposed to be so big and bad when there’s just nothing.”

  She addressed the spirit directly, challenging it, as Chris—through CJ—suggested. “I’m going to give you a chance. Show me. If you are here, give me a sign that you’re here. Do something!”

  No response.

  “Do you want me to walk into another room by myself?” Helen asked me.

  My feeling was no, I didn’t. But it seemed to me it would be important for her to gain some sense of control, so I also didn’t want to stop her. Instead, I asked what room she wanted to walk into. Suddenly, she stood up. It dawned on me she probably hadn’t been asking at all. Just as she had about inviting the psychic, she’d already made up her mind.

  As she walked out, I asked if she at least wanted to take a flashlight.

  “No!” she said defiantly. Then she exited the room. She was gone, out of sight.

  My first thought was to go after her, but I also felt she wanted to be alone with it, as if she had to face it, to tell it something. There’d been no severe activity, or much activity to speak of, so I decided to wait and see what happened.

  From down the pitch-black hallway, I heard her. “Okay, I’m by myself. This is where you scared my son the first time. This is where you made him afraid of you. And I have had it.”

  Hearing that, I looked at Eilfie and she nodded at me. We’d seen similar things on other cases where there was long-standing torment. The dam was about to break. The victim was about to stand up and take charge.

  “If you had anything to do with my son’s death, I want to know and I want to know now!” Helen said.

  There was a reaction, sudden and strange. All at once, sounds came from different locations. It was as if one ball was bouncing down the stairs while another was thrown against a wall.

  Helen called, “This light just went on.”

  The motion detector had gone off.

  “You didn’t stand in front of it or go into the room?” I asked.

  “No,” she said. “I stayed out here in the hallway the entire time.”

  “It’s running away from you,” I told her.

  I examined the area. There was no evidence of anything being thrown.

  Helen wasn’t finished. She had a few more choice words to say. There was more banging. With the activity ramping up again, I asked her to return. I was a little surprised that she agreed so easily; she came back and sat down with us. But her anger, and her challenges to the dark, continued.

  “How dare you come into my house and affect my children. I want you out. I want you out of my house and I want you out now!”

  There was no further huge response, but we kept trying.

  A few minutes later, I heard loud sounds and movement, but they weren’t unearthly.

  I radioed Serg. “Is there someone talking down there?”

  The talking grew louder. I knew the voices. It was my team. Now I was annoyed. They knew how important it was to keep quiet during Dead Time. Why on earth were they making so much noise? And what took so long for Serg to respond?

  “I think you should come down here,” he finally said.

  Helen looked at me, worried. I smiled. “My team is being a little rowdy and I need to tell them to be quiet. I’ll be right back.”

  I signaled to Eilfie that she was in charge. She may be quiet and a little shy, but when necessary, if someone became hysterical for instance, I’ve seen her break into scolds that froze people on the spot.

  Meanwhile, not knowing what was going on, I flew down the steps and met Serg in the kitchen. “Why the hell are they being so loud down there?”

  “They said something happened.”

  Thinking Satan himself had better have appeared, I marched to the basement. There, the entire team was arguing with Joyce and production as they searched the basement.

  Joyce spoke loudly and sternly. “We should get a camera to document every part of the basement. And they shouldn’t have been down here. This should be a controlled environment.”

  By “they” she meant all the producers, assistants, and staff.

  Still fuming myself, I looked at my team. “What happened?”

  Josh explained that at first Dead Time had been completely quiet. He’d asked the spirit to make a sound and gotten nothing. As he explained, though, the activity occurred after Ryan Heiser spoke some Latin. Due to his religious training, he knew enough Latin to ask, “Es vos mortuus?” or “Are you dead?”

  As if in answer, there was a very loud bang. They described the sound as if something had exploded, then slammed up against something else.

  “And you don’t know what it was?�
�� I asked.

  “No,” said Josh, continuing his search. “Not yet.”

  “How can we?” Joyce complained. “There are so many people here, we can’t be sure it wasn’t one of them.”

  “Excuse me,” one of the producers said. “I haven’t moved from this wall. None of us have.”

  It was a tense scene. I looked over at Justin, who sat there nervously, not knowing what to do.

  “Everything’s cool, man,” one of my team said. “If it was supernatural, it was just making itself known.”

  I knew that wouldn’t necessarily comfort him. This wasn’t a harmless spirit to him. He believed that whatever it was had killed his brother.

  With everyone hell-bent on investigating the sound, I stopped Dead Time. While the others continued, I grabbed Eilfie for a walk to the pond. It was cold, but I needed to talk to her. The activity left me convinced the haunting was real. I had an idea, and I knew she wouldn’t like it.

  “Elf, the family is suffering. Helen and Justin are frightened and angry. If there is something here, we have to try to do something about it.”

  She gave me a weary look. “What are you suggesting?”

  “Can you do the banishment ritual thing?”

  “Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram,” she corrected. “And no, I won’t.”

  I bit my lip. She’d made it clear previously that she was uncomfortable performing rituals on-camera. I hoped that after a few investigations with a camera crew, she’d ease into the idea, but I hadn’t planned on asking so soon.

  “Can’t you do a Catholic prayer?” she asked.

  I shrugged. “I don’t have anything powerful enough memorized, and I didn’t bring anything with us.”

  She eyed me. “So, you’re asking a pagan to cover for a Catholic, is that right?”

  Recognizing the trouble the clients were in, she reluctantly agreed. My next step was to ask if Helen was willing. She’d seemed to gravitate to Eilfie when they met and now gave a quick yes.