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You know, I don't really believe in ghosts. We only live one life, and when we're gone, we're gone. There's no God or Satan, or if there are they certainly don't do anything on our plane of existence. But there's places that are just...off, you know? Places that feel all tense, like they're trying hard to pretend their normal when they're really not. My grandparents' church is like that. It's one of the older churches in South Carolina. It's in the style of a pole barn, and the basement is stacked stone and mortar that was shored up with concrete sometime in the 40s. A look at the exposed rafters give you some idea of the age - they're massive old-growth oaks, the last of which were harvested well before the Civil War. Despite sitting at the foot of a steep mountain of exposed rock that towers a couple hundred feet above it, the church somehow manages to be the more imposing structure. Despite the bone white paint and eggshell blue roof, the narrow, gothic-style stained glass windows manage to make it look dark and brooding. Despite the dense stand of trees and underbrush that lay behind the church, you worry more about getting lost in the gloomy sanctuary. It's a structure that seems to have not only transcended its builders, but the surrounding landscape. Next door is a log cabin, which was moved to the church lot when the state began constructing a reservoir that flooded its original location in the 50s. It seems to have absorbed off-putting aura of the church since arriving - my grandparents say that it used to be a very cozy home for the church's pastor. Within a few years, the pastor moved on, and the next pastor, after living there about a year, opted for new lodgings. Today it's used as the nursery and Sunday school for younger kids. I said before that it tries to pretend it's normal, but tips its hand to the people who do things there on a regular basis: My grandma, vacuuming the stairs down to the basement. The stairs open into a narrow hall, and when she reached the landing there was a strange man standing at the other end of the hall, smiling. A man in a black suit and red tie, she claimed, the spitting image of Old Scratch. My grandpa, practicing guitar in the sanctuary one evening in preparation for a Christmas service the next day. He claimed the piano in the basement was playing along with him, but in the wrong key. My mom, taking piano lessons one afternoon, when the sounds of chairs crashing around in the basement interrupted. She and her teacher went downstairs to investigate, and no one was down there. As soon as they got back upstairs, as if to taunt them, the racket started again. My cousins, my brother and I, playing hide and go seek in the cabin. We're hiding, and a cousin is counting when every single door in the house (all three or four of them!) slam at once. The last time I went there for any reason other than a funeral was when my aunt, cousin, and brother dragged me along to go ghost hunting. We picked 2am to do our sit-in, because if anything was going to happen, it would be the witching hour. After poking around the basement, which just seemed like a normal basement that night, we headed back up to the sanctuary. That's where the strangeness started. You know how if you sit in the dark a while, you start picking things up in the darkness? Well that wasn't happening. If anything, it was getting darker in the baptistry and behind the altar. The light from the lone street lamp outside seemed to lose its power, and the darkness began to surge out of the basement door. A shadowy wave sloshed back and forth across the first rows of pews. I don't know who ended up flicking on the light for the sanctuary, but as soon as it was on, the tension broke. Maybe it was just nerves, but christ, I've never had nerves as on edge as that. I said earlier I don't believe in ghosts. But I do believe that there are places where the atmosphere is so poisonous that we psych ourselves out, see things that aren't actually there. Maybe we've collectively managed to fill them with so much hatred that we'll continue to feel it for generations. Perhaps, to paraphrase Stephen King here, we make poor real estate decision and build our structures on sour ground. Whatever the case, I have a prediction: the church's membership will continue its steady downward spiral and eventually putter out. The heavy development that has been spreading through the surrounding area like a cancer will continue to ignore this small little valley. (Maybe like recognizes like.) And, in 50 years, when no one lives for miles around, the church will continue to stand, forlorn, but as imposing and powerful as ever.
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Feb 1, 2015 10:18
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| # ¿ May 11, 2024 11:04 |
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There are caves around where I live (southern Illinois). They're mostly small, nothing near the size or majesty of a place like Mammoth Cave. Mostly just a couple big chambers connected by narrow, contorted passages that you need to crawl and squeeze through. Remember Floyd's Tomb in that Ted the Caver story? They're mostly like that, except no one around tries to squeeze their way through them. Usually you can only climb down into collapsed chambers, have a look around, and climb back out. One cool thing is that they're connected to the surface by small vents. On cool spring and fall mornings, there's usually a little bit of air movement, and the moisture-laden cave air condenses out a small plume of fog. One cave around here is different from the usual small caves, though. I went on a walkthrough with the landowner and a few other geology nerds one day a few years ago. The guy collects folklore about the cave, mostly the activities of Native Americans. In this area, that would be the Shawnee or Pauwnee, and given that they were never really on good terms with land-grabbing whities, I'm not too inclined to believe the stuff he's collected. Nevertheless, it's kind of interesting. The entrance is about 10 x 10 feet in the north-facing side of the hill. The hole opens into a slightly sunken chamber about 20 feet in diameter. The central 2/3rds of the room is filled with a pool of water about a foot and a half deep. At the back is a jagged hole, big enough for a man to walk into and out of. According to the lore, this was a ritual bathing site, only to be entered after the spring rains had come and mostly gone. Apparently this was to allow the cave to flush itself out after people went in the year before. Being north facing and not well lit, people brought their torches in to illuminate the room, but they were never taken further into the cave. This much I can believe, there are soot marks on the ceiling. One curious thing was the little quartz pebbles with a sparkly crust scattered around the room. These appear to have been prayer beads, and originate in a single particular sandstone bed that crops out nearby but isn't present here. Thus, they must have been brought here and left. Some legends say the beads were left there as offerings for the dead, others say they're simply good luck charms that had used up their luck, and were brought to the cave to be replenished. At any rate, the pebbles that washed out of the cave were good luck, the ones inside the cave were not to be taken. One legend in that's especially interesting concerns earthquakes. If you live in the midcontinent, you've probably heard about the New Madrid fault system and are scared shitless by stories about them. Earthquakes that swallowed houses and towns; that turned the course of the Mississippi backwards for days; that rang church bells as far away as Boston. According to this pseudo-Native American folklore (it seems to have acquired a Christian flavoring in the 200 years since the natives were forced out at gunpoint), supernatural beings lived under the ground, commuting through the narrow passages to hold dances in the chambers. These dances would cause the earth to tremble when mortal sins were committed, but grew catastophic when times of great evil walked the land. Some tellings seem to imply that it's Satan dancing for joy, more traditional tellings suggest that it's the underdwellers performing a sort of medicine dance to right wrongs. Tecumseh, the great Shawnee warrior, traveled to the Memphis area in late 1811 to recruit tribes to join his alliance with the British to fight away the encroaching Americans. The tribes declined, believing that they could negotiate with the US. Tecumseh stormed out, and told the tribes that they would know when he returned home. He would stomp his feet, and the war would begin. Only a few weeks later, the famous New Madrid earthquakes, and the ultimately devestating (for the Native Americans) War of 1812 began. Prior to that, the last earthquakes in the area are thought to have happened ~1500 AD. Coincidentally, this was also about the time that the smallpox was making its first pass through the Americas, decimating tribes. So maybe there's some sort of historical origin for the myth, even if we can't track it back too far. Anyway, we're walking deeper and deeper into the cave as he's explaining this, and we get to a room that's not very wide, but rather tall with some rock shelves sticking out of the wall. He tells us to find a shelf to sit on and turn out our lights and be quiet for a few minutes. Now, if you've ever been in a cave with no lights, you realize how well and truly dark it is. Your eyes try to pick out shapes, but there are none. Your smell, your hearing, even your taste become heightened as your brain tries to get its bearings. The first thing you notice is the low groan of the cave and the high trill of the small stream running through. Eventually you realize there's a pattern to the groan, it slowly comes and goes. You're listening to a breath, of sorts, of the Earth. It sends goosebumps up your back to realize that this is a living, breathing system (controlled even as it is by the atmospheric pressure not far above). Finally, the guy clears his throat and begins telling the story of the night he spent in the cave. He had come down with a couple of friends one clear night in May 2008. (A cave is the last place you want to be when it's raining!) They had decided to spend the night there, just to see what it was like, and had stopped in this very room because it was the only dry place to lay out a sleeping bag. After a few hours of talking, they turned out their lanterns and gone to sleep. A few hours later, he wakes up. The cave is pulsing. Not the low, rhythmic groan we're hearing, but sharp staccato moans. He reaches for his lantern, but goosebumps run up his neck and he stops himself. He's about to say something to his friends when he hears splashing noises. A few seconds later, there's the rush of air past his face and the heavy smell of sweat, animal fat, and incense. He stifles a scream as whatever they are (there's more than one) marching down the creek in rhythm to the moaning. After a couple of moments, the noises fade Scared shitless but curious to see what just passed, he turned on his lantern to catch a flash of deerskin and bone white disappear into the cave. Cue goosebumps. Almost immediately one of his friends goes "what the gently caress was that?!" The next question is also an obvious one. "Which way do we head out?" There are two exits to the cave. One is the way they came in, and the other is a partially collapsed section of the cave. They're about 2/3s of the way to the collapsed section, but that's the way the whatever-they-weres were going. Meanwhile the moans have morphed into a surreal chant whose pace is building up. It's clear that something is about to happen, but they don't know what to do. Bolt for the closest exit? Run for the entrance and hope the chanting doesn't reach a climax before they get there? Wait it out in case more of the things are moving through the cave? They settled on making for the nearest exit. Quickly and quietly, they packed up and worked their way through the remaining section of cave, ears pricked for things marching up behind them. They escaped the cave and ran back down the trail to the guy's house. As they ran, they see a surreal sight as the cold air seeps pulsed, and the fog that was forming being blown like stuff was running through it. After a few minutes they made it back to the house. It's about 4am, and dead tired from the ordeal they crashed on the couch. About an hour and a half later, all three woke up to the rumble of a loud freight train. The house shook for about 10 seconds, then settled again. Earthquake, 5.2 magnitude about 60 miles away in Mt. Caramel, IL. They decided to walk up to the cave to check it out once it got brighter. They don't want to go in too far, in case of aftershocks, but check out the pool room. One of them noticed that there were piles of beads stacked up along the edge of the pool, and asked if they had been like that when they came in. No, they most definitely weren't. They left the cave shortly after and decided not to go back for a while. When they did, despite no rain, the rocks were scattered around the room again. Story over, he admitted to us this was his first time back in the cave, since his friends didn't really want to come back, and he certainly didn't want to come in alone. We turned our lights back on and filed towards the exit, ears pricked for sounds back the way we came.
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Feb 5, 2015 07:19
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Mr. Gibbycrumbles posted:Also The Intruder can cast Magic Missile, but only on a Tuesday, and also if you don't look at it, the Intruder grows to twice its size but attacks half as fast. The Intruder gains the ability to teleport if you are either wearing a blue jacket, or odd socks. Yeah, that bullshit was basically kills the story. A creature duplicating your key and then trying it out is actually a really great concept for a spooky story, but the writer is just so in your face with stuff saying "hey, this thing is really scary!" that it kills any sense of dread that premise is able to build. It's all telling and no showing. Wedemeyer posted:Is that the loving Army Man? Ctrl-f army man since it's too long to post here http://nothotbutspicy.com/para/basics/ Oh poo poo! It just looked like someone dropped a jacket but I think the picture goes well with that story.
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Feb 10, 2015 02:37
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