by Rick Suttle
“At this rate, it’s going to take us till twelve-thirty to set up,” said Mike.
“No, we’ll just scatter the pods in the main corners and at the hallway intersections, then put one each in the annex, cafeteria and locker rooms. There’re good for about a hundred feet.” I hadn’t placed the other REM-Pods when I did the cameras because I was still studying the structure of the building. I wanted to locate the best spots for them.
A REM-Pod was a round device with different colored lights. And it had an antenna on top. It lit up and beeped when spirits were present. The beeping sounds varied according to the temperature changes. A lower tone indicated a sudden loss of heat. And disembodied spirits like ghosts had much lower temperatures than humans. But because the antenna enabled the device to create its own electromagnetic field, the beeps usually occurred when the energy field spiked or something touched the antenna.
It took us thirty-five minutes to scatter the REM-Pods throughout the building. Mike and I were both sweating by the time we positioned the last pod in the boy’s locker room. The building had little ventilation. Only the office was air conditioned. I wiped my brow with my hand as we walked back to the office.
I opened the office door and let Mike walk in first.
“Sarah,” said Mike. He glanced back at me. “She’s gone again.”
“You’ve got to be kidding. We need to get going here.” I sighed and ran my hand through my hair. “Check the principal’s office and the other small ones in here, and I’ll look in the hallway.” I had no sooner opened the door when Sarah appeared.
“Where have you been?”
“The girl’s restroom.” She frowned. “Why, do I have to get permission first?”
“No. But we have a lot to do, so quit messing around.”
“Peeing is now considered messing around, huh?”
“Of course not,” I said. “You know what I mean.”
Mike was seated at the oblong table when I looked back. He was munching on a Clif Bar. He had his feet up on the table near one of my laptops.
“Want one?” He held the bar up, then took another bite.
“Not now,” I said. “Get your feet down. I don’t know how sturdy this table is.” I envisioned the table falling and breaking all my laptops. That would put a quick end to our investigation.
“Lighten up, man.” I glared at him, and he took his Nikes off the table.
“Let me bring up the cameras on the laptops.” He didn’t take the hint so I motioned for him to get up.
I had three large laptops for the cameras, and a smaller one for listening to EVPs or voices. The three laptops enabled me to split the screens so Mike could see what was happening in all of the designated areas. Whenever he needed a close-up of a location, he could click on the image.
“Okay. I guess we’re ready,” I said. “You remember how to operate these things, right?”
“Of course,” said Mike. “I’m not exactly dense.”
“All right. Let’s start with the EMF detectors at the front of the school, then try getting some EVPs on the recorders.” Sarah nodded.
The EMF detectors would enable us to measure the electromagnetic frequency in different parts of the building. The downside was that they were sensitive to other electromagnetic fields in the building, such as fuse boxes or electrical wiring. Ghosts contained energy which could move the needles on the detectors. Any spikes that occurred at considerable distances from fuse boxes or electrical devices likely indicated the presence of spirits. The device measured energy in terms of a milligauss. My device, which I made from inductor coils and an amplifier, ranged from a low of zero to a hundred milligauss.
I grabbed three walkie-talkies from one of my equipment bags and gave one to Mike. I then handed a second one to Sarah. That way Sarah and I could also communicate if we got separated, which wasn’t the plan. We all wore utility belt straps to hold the equipment we carried.
“Testing . . . one . . . two . . . three. Mike, do you read me?” Sarah and I stood outside the office door.
“Yeah, loud and clear, boss.”
“Okay. You should be able to see us when we arrive at each location. I’ll wave at the very least.” I coughed. The hall was dusty. “Oh, I forgot to tell you, the laptop on the left is for the main hallway and the first two cameras in the far left hallway. The middle one tracks all the other hallways on this floor, except the annex. The images of the basement, locker rooms and cafeteria will appear on the far right laptop. Got it?”
“Okay, chief.” I rolled my eyes. Mike and Sarah were a handful at times. It was amazing we accomplished anything.
“Tell me when you see something, and don’t wander off,” I told Sarah, as we headed toward the front door.
“Aye, aye, chief.”
“I know you were lying earlier,” I said. “You were crying.”
“Was not.”
“We’ll talk about it later. But you need to tell me if you see or hear anyone.”
“Nothing to talk about yet.” I looked over at her. She closed her eyes and stuck her tongue out at me.
I walked to the main breaker room and located the security lights. I picked up my night-vision goggles, which were attached to my camera. I placed the strap over my head and turned the camera on. I handed Sarah a second pair of goggles, which didn’t have a camera attachment. I then switched off the security lights.
I had a small side light on the camera to help guide Sarah if she took her goggles off. And she often did that to get a better view of the spirits. She saw spirits with her mind more than her eyes. Sarah also had a pen light if she needed it. However, the high windows along the school walls emitted some light from the moon. Sarah wouldn’t have any problem seeing in the hallways along the perimeter, once her eyes adjusted to the darkness.
“We’re approaching the first camera in front of the school, Mike. Let me know when you can see us.”
“Check. I see you.” I pulled out my EMF detector and held it in front of me. The needle didn’t move. I waved it around several spots near the front door but got nothing. I belted the device and removed my voice recorder.
“Are you seeing anything?”
“Shhhhh.” I guess she was. I waited a couple minutes before I posed my first question to the spirits.
“Is there anyone here?” I searched the entryway and then turned around. I thought I saw something move on the opposite wall away from the office, but my eyes must’ve been playing tricks on me. Just then, a faint tapping sound echoed down the main hallway.
“Did you hear that?” Sarah didn’t respond. She was in a trance, staring in the same direction.
Most of the time, I couldn’t hear voice responses from the recorder until I downloaded them on the computer. But we often heard tapping and banging sounds.
I proceeded with my EVP session.
“I heard someone talk to me the other day when I was here. Are you here now?” I paused a few seconds. “If so, who are you?”
“Wait,” said Sarah. “I see someone.”
“Where?”
“Ten feet past the office on the right side.”
“Male or female?”
Sarah started walking up the hallway. “It’s a man. A large man.”
“Who are you?” I shouted, as my voice echoed down the hallway.
“Don’t do that?” Sarah stopped a third of the way to the office. She held her hand up.
“Why?”
“He seems agitated or confused that we’re here,” she said. “Something happened.”
“When?”
“Shhhhhh.”
Sarah usually communicated with spirits through telepathy. Sometimes they communicated with her, while other times they showed her past events—like a reenactment in a television documentary. I must’ve interrupted her concentration. I pulled my EMF detector out with my right hand and stuck it in front of me. It registered five milligauss, which indicated a high energy level.
“There’s definitel
y something there,” I said.
“I know,” said Sarah. “Be quiet. Please.”
“Sorry. Just excited, that’s all.”
Currssshhh! “Guys, I’m losing the far right camera,” said Mike, over the walkie-talkie. “The video is blurring, and there’s a squiggly black line in the middle of the screen. Now it’s blinking.”
“Okay, Mike. I’ll check it out when I get back there.”
“The lights in the office are blinking off and on, too. There’s a major surge of energy in this place.”
Several flashes of light speared through the hallway. I jumped. I looked at my meter. It now registered twenty-five.
“He’s coming,” said Sarah. “Oh, God. He’s moving right toward us. Run!”
Sarah darted toward the front door camera and made a right down the adjacent hall. I sped after here. I tried to belt my EMF detector but dropped it. It crashed against the tiles. I shoved the recorder back inside my belt.
I watched Sarah as she sped down the front hallway—her skinny legs churning like pistons. We didn’t stop until we had rounded the next hallway—the one parallel to the main one—and raced to within ten feet of the back hallway. I slowed to a trot. I respired heavily as I walked several feet and turned around. Sarah ambled toward me; I had passed her twenty yards back. Her eyes widened as she took a couple deep breaths.
“He’s coming around the other way,” she said, her hands on her hips.
“What?”
“You know, toward the hallway leading to the annex?”
“Yeah. Right around the corner here.” She nodded.
“He’s walking toward it.”
“How do you know?”
“Just trust me.” Sarah walked past me and headed toward the back hallway. She stopped by the edge of the wall and peaked around the corner.
“Is he there?” She nodded, then waved me onward.
“Where is he?”
“Shhhhhh! About ten feet from the annex hallway.”
I crept up, placed my hand on Sarah’s left shoulder and took a peak.
“Oh, God, I think he saw me,” I said, as I jerked my head back. I saw a grayish white mist rather than the figure of a man, with a greenish background created by the goggles. It was moving into the annex hallway but paused the second I looked. “Is he coming?”
The REM-Pods were lighting up and beeping throughout the hallway. My heart was thumping so hard I hadn’t heard their high-pitched beeps until now.
“Wait,” said Sarah. “No, he’s gone.” I bent over, placed my hands on my knees and sighed. That’s when Mike chimed in over the walkie-talkie.
“What’s happening, Dylan?” he said. “Where are you?”
“Far hallway opposite the office. Sarah saw a man. He ran after us.”
“Yeah, I saw some cloudy mist moving toward you. It stunned me so badly I dropped the walkie-talkie. The batteries fell out.” Mike cleared his throat. “I think we need to get out of here. This place is nuts.”
“No, we’re staying.”
“What? You’re crazy. I mean, we’ve never had an investigation like this, and we just got started.”
“I know,” I said. “But we need to help these people.”
“And die trying?” I didn’t respond right away. I looked at Sarah. She was sitting on the floor with her back against the wall—knees hiked up and hands on the floor.
“Just hang tight, Mike, and let me talk to Sarah. We’ve got to get to the bottom of this haunting. You heard her earlier. Something bad happened here.”
“Whatever.”
“You okay?” I asked Sarah. Beads of sweat dripped down my forehead. My goggles fogged up. “Sarah!”
CHAPTER 8
Sarah didn’t respond. She was holding her face in her hands when I approached her. “You okay?” She didn’t move for several seconds. Then she looked up and said,
“Yes.”
“Good. Just rest a second if you need to.”
“Dylan.”
“Huh?”
“I’m sensing dozens of spirits in this place. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before.”
“It’s okay,” I said. “What about the man? What did he look like?”
“Tall—about six-three and muscular. He has a beard.”
“What type of clothing was he wearing?” Several REM-Pods were still beeping, then one . . . and then they stopped.
“Old fashioned,” she said, “like what they wore in the 1800s.”
“Oh, boy.” I took a deep breath and sighed. Spirits who’d been around a long time had more abilities to manipulate electrical objects and affect the living. When Mike had told me that Sarah was speaking in different voices, I knew she’d been jumped—a term she used to describe a spirit trying to take temporary possession. The sudden thought made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.
“Are you okay to continue?”
“I need a drink.”
“Okay.” I grabbed the walkie-talkie from my utility belt. “Mike, we’re heading back for a quick break. Anything else going on.” He didn’t respond. “Great.”
Sarah and I headed back to the office, making a left down the middle intersecting hallway. When we entered the office Mike was fidgeting with the laptops.
“Didn’t you hear me calling you?” He looked up.
“No. The battery died right after I last spoke with you.”
“Then get another one,” I said. “What’s going on with the laptops?”
“Several of the cameras are messed up. The one in the annex hallway fell over. I thought I saw something knock it down. And the basement camera got cracked.”
“Well, stop messing with the computers,” I said. “You may disconnect something.” I stepped over by Mike to readjust the camera settings on the laptops.
“Where’s the cooler?” said Sarah.
“Over by the wall.” Sarah walked over, opened the cooler and grabbed a Coke. She placed the cold aluminum on her forehead. She then slung some pieces of ice off the can. They skittered across the floor.
“Okay, so what’s the plan now?” said Mike.
“We’re going to continue with the investigation.” Mike folded his arms and rolled his eyes. “We’re going to head to the annex hallway and see if Sarah can communicate with the man she saw.”
“Maybe we should stop for the night and get dad to help.”
“No!” said Sarah, as she sipped on her soda. “You two dragged me down here, and we’re going to finish this.”
She guzzled some more Coke, then wiped her lips with the back of her hand. “Besides, I can’t just quit like everyone else. These things will follow me and continue harassing me until we find out what they want.”
“Sarah’s right,” I said. “We started this when we volunteered for the assignment. We’ve got to keep going or our paranormal team is just a joke.”
“So what,” said Mike. “Who cares?—as long as we’re safe and still alive.”
“People will find out and laugh us out of the business.” It was hard enough getting respect as child investigators. No, we had to pursue what we started.
“Sarah, you ready to go over to the annex?” I asked. She finished a second Coke and belched.
“Real lady like,” said Mike. He had calmed down the past few minutes and agreed to continue our exploration of the schoolhouse.
Sarah shrugged her shoulders. “Whatever.”
“Wait a minute,” said Mike, as he grabbed the far right laptop and turned it toward him. “The camera in the basement got turned around somehow. It’s pointed at the doorway.”
“What?”
“Look.” I strolled over behind Mike, plopped both hands on the table and stared at the laptop screen.
“Something moved it,” I said. “We’ll head down there after we check out the annex.”
“You missed it!” shouted Mike, as I stood and starting walking toward the office door. “I just saw something pass by the lens.”
“What was
it?” I asked, making my way back toward Mike. My head was spinning. Too much was happening for one paranormal session.
“I couldn’t tell. Just go. I’ll keep an eye on the screen.” I nodded.
Sarah and I took the main hallway to the annex, following the path the male spirit had walked earlier. We heard one REM-Pod beep in the distance behind us, but kept going.
We reached the annex hallway, which seemed much darker than before. I took a handkerchief out of my pocket and wiped my goggles. Sarah continued walking down the passageway. She stopped and picked something up. She handed it to me.
“It’s one of the tripod leg clamps,” I said. I picked the tripod and camera up of the floor and placed both back in the original spot. The tripod stayed in place even without the clamp. I put the clamp in my pocket and then glanced at the door.
“We have to go in,” said Sarah.
“I know.” I shoved the crash bar with my hand and slowly opened the door. An immediate musty odor filled the air as we inched our way forward, down another corridor to the main door leading to the annex. I placed my hand on the latch of the old wood and glass door. It clicked.
Crrrssshhhh! The static from Mike’s walkie-talkie echoed in the corridor. I jumped. My pulse rate soared.
“Guys, be careful. I’m seeing all kinds of orbs around you.”
“Mike, you’ve got to stop doing that.”
“Doing what?”
“Scaring the crap out of us, just when we’re entering a door or something.”
“I didn’t do that last time. And that’s only the second door you’ve opened.”
“Whatever. Just call when we’re in the hallway next time. I only brought one pair of underwear.” Sarah giggled. I looked over at her—glad to see her smiling. The smile was fleeting; Sarah held up her hand.
“What’s wrong?”
“Cobwebs,” she said. Just then, I caught a strand of the web in my mouth. I swiped the air around me to break up the cobweb, then wiped my face with hand.
“Yuck!” I spit a couple times to get the cottony piece of web out of my mouth. I wiped another part off on my forearm.
I scanned the room with my night vision goggles, as the camera recorded what I was seeing. To the left, I saw a blackboard. Two old wooden desks—the kind with inkwells on top—were shoved against it. An old dented globe, row of books with rusty bookends and stack of papers sat atop a longer desk. To the right, two dusty windows stood like giant filmy eyes, glaring back as if daring us to go on.