A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Heaven (9 page)

You just saw me flip the bird at a haunted house.

One Night in Farrar

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are no shit, holy fuck, by the book, documented and completely bloody true. This is the result of hours spent on the job and in the thick of it, running around in the dark and nearly pissing myself. If you feel like you cannot get behind that, well tough titty fat. Besides, I have the tapes to prove it. So suck it . . . or at least throw a little powder on it. Better get a pot of coffee, because we are officially about to get weird.

For some of the chapters held within, my intention was to go out on some bona fide ghost hunts, recording and writing what I saw and experienced (no matter what that was) so I could have some fresh material. I have been exposed to several paranormal phenomena, even in my own home, but I wanted to spread the love. I wanted new haunts. I wanted to wander around abandoned buildings and houses like I did when I was ten years old. I love being scared, even if I know perfectly well that there is no reason to be scared. The sensation is overwhelming; it is the closest to coming unhinged as I allow. So when I feel it, I revel in it as much as inhumanly possible. It was time to get out of my own head and into the night.

Nothing gets the blood going like pure adventure. Every step you take out of your comfort zone gets you closer to the action of life. Too many people lean into their armchairs and watch from the cheap seats when they could be charging in, getting among it, doing the deeds that get you headlines and legendary status. There is a time and a place for complacency; there is also a time when you get your ass out of that divot in the sofa and treat life more like an amusement park than a parking lot. Nothing kills the spirit of action and excitement more than the need to take a nap after Thanksgiving dinner. Then again, if you pile on too much turkey, you miss the big game anyway. Sometimes the only way to pick up the pace is to pace yourself so you have enough energy for the home stretch. Let those show-offs run ahead and waste their energy. Stamina will always beat arrogance in the end.

So I made plans to make some myths. But in order to pull off the great escape, I knew I could not go alone. I was going to need a team . . . or at least a bunch of friends willing to sit in near dark all night without complaining much. I needed a crack squad of miscreants steady of hand or paw, equipped with nerves of steel and night-vision cameras. I needed allies and night owls with tons of patience but a penchant for the verbose. In other words, I needed a bunch of people with the night off and no plans for Crisco Twister. So I went about the business of assembling my misfit band of Avengers Lite . . . and assemble they did.

My wife: code-name “The Boss.” Her superpower is a near Hulk-like strength and an uncanny sixth, seventh, and eighth sense for sniffing out bullshit like a fart in a cockpit. My wife was going to be the anchor of the team, the feather in the flaws. Having absolute trust in her ability to feel when something is going to happen, she would handle leadership when our people split up for exploration. She could also limit the amount of damage we would do, as the rest of the group was akin to swinging a baseball bat in a crystal shop.

Matt: code-name “Stubs.” Stubs is the member with the most experience going on these misadventures. He would be our tech specialist, making sure we were using the right gear—that is, digital cameras, audio recorders, flashlights, and so forth. Being that he is the man with the most hair, I made an executive decision to disallow any use of candles during our surveillance. He also has a never-ending reservoir of sadism that manifests in tormenting the next person on our list.

Lauren: code-name “Lady.” Lady is what we will call “the divining rod” for the expedition. In other words, she is terrified of what we are going to do, what we are going to see, and what we are going to put her through. She has a propensity for screaming, running, and shaking uncontrollably. Quite frankly, it is fucking hilarious to freak her out. She is also one of the sweetest people I have ever known, which makes me feel bad about torturing her as much as we do, though I am sorry to say that bad feeling is very short-lived.

Chris: code-name “Big Truck.” Truck is exactly like his nickname implies—a man the size of a fucking truck. Trust me—think “Mack” more than “Ram.” He is also a novice to this whole “ghost hunting” thing. But his enthusiasm for the project made him an obvious choice. Killjoys can suck the fun out of an auditorium, and I have no room on this squad for dick bags. At the end of the day, believe what you want. Just do not get your peanut brittle on my chocolate. So Truck was invited for his exuberance . . . and his high-end camera.

Kennedy: code-name “Kennedy.” Kennedy is the king of what they call in sports entertainment “color commentary.” If there is a quip to be made, Kennedy will jump off a cliff to get to it first. That is what I want from him—the line that no one else could come up with. Oh, and he also has a sick addiction to scaring the fuck out of Lady. So he and Stubs will be perfect teammates together. The benefit of this setup is even if we are not able to get any evidence, it will still be ridiculous.

First, though, I needed some locations. In Iowa alone there are several famous or infamous destinations with purported “paranormal activity.” The most famous of these is the Axe Murder House in Villisca. An hour and a half outside of Des Moines, it has enjoyed national notoriety for over one hundred years. Sometime in the wee hours of June 10, 1912, eight people were found bludgeoned and axed to death in the home of Josiah Moore, including Josiah, his wife, Sarah, their children, and two young visitors who were staying the night. It is one of the earliest examples of mass murder and psychotic criminal pathology in American history. It is also one of the most grisly unsolved murders ever. Over the years the ghastly ghostly goings-on have made this place a haunted hot spot for aficionados around the world: things fly about, screams cry out, children laugh and shriek in horror, and so forth. A friend even told me about being hit in the face with a tennis ball he was fucking about with Great Escape style. He was hit so hard, in fact, that it bloodied his nose. He almost broke his ankle fleeing the place.

It had everything I wanted in a ghost hunt. It was perfect.

It is also almost always completely booked full pretty much year round—no open reservations, much to my chagrin. I even dropped my name—to which they replied, “Corey who?” Never let it be said that an attempt at using fame to your advantage can bite you in the ass from time to time.

SO! I turned my attention to an old school building thirty minutes from my front door.

In 1919 the Washington Township Consolidated School District was established, and three years later a schoolhouse was opened in Farrar, Iowa, that would cater to kindergarten through twelfth grade. Many of the local rural towns and counties utilized it until it closed in 2002 after eighty years of service. Then it sat for five years abandoned. In 2007 Jim and Nancy Oliver purchased it, hoping to make it a unique home while also restoring the old girl to its original luster. However, even before the couple took up residence, tales of strange goings-on had persisted for years. When they eventually moved in, they found they were not alone. Orbs darted about. Shadow people ran amok. Voices could be clearly heard everywhere. Small children were seen in the stairways before they would vanish without a trace. Nancy Oliver herself was steadied on a staircase when she nearly fell. Turning to thank her husband, whom she assumed was the one who had given her the helping hand, she found herself standing alone.

After reading all this, the place definitely had potential. I also liked the fact that it was not very well known. It was not one of the common names that you see when you look up a list of “popular haunts,” like the Stanley Hotel in Colorado or the Amityville House (whichever one that is; it is widely believed that was a hoax). But something was bothering me. All the research I had done did not uncover one tidbit of evidence to explain why the place was experiencing this activity. With all the reports dating back to when the school was open, it was apparent this had been going on for a really long time, but why? For all intents and purposes, it seemed like a wholesome, friendly little establishment for that township, steeped in tradition and beloved by those who had called it their place of education. But nothing was reported involving a dark side—not even a crumb of violence. What had happened there, or what was connected to the site and was keeping it there?

I prepared for metaphysical battle.

Actually, I bought some digital recorders, appropriated some night-vision cameras, and made sure to bring a chair. And flashlights—oh my, did we have some flashlights! The Boss has an extensive collection of them and allowed me to borrow one of her high-end flashlights: a black Scorpion that she said could be dropped from the roof and would not break. I have been told that it always pays to be prepared. Honestly, I have never ever been paid for being prepared; I have been assured of payment, but there was never cash on delivery. But it never hurts to be ahead of the curve, so I scuttled about gathering these accoutrements. I grabbed a sweatshirt too—you know . . . because it gets cold.

Yeah, I get cold.

I am not a wuss.

Oh, fuck you.

We drove out in two vehicles, following directions that could only be understood in Iowa: “Well, when you get to the first distressed and decrepit grain silo, you are close. If you pass the second distressed and decrepit grain silo, you have gone too far . . .” As we rode along, the mood was loose and fun. The sky was doing some crazy shit, though. The colors looked like something out of a horror movie when the editors are finished with postproduction. But we passed the time by concocting terrible pranks to play on Lady, who was riding in the other car and had no idea what we were planning. We were wrapping our minds around the adventure that lay before us. Stubs was also using a fancy Internet website to call Lady from phone numbers that could not be recognized, taunting her with scary silences when she answered her phone and leaving terrifyingly cryptic messages in her voicemail when she ignored his calls. The one I liked the most was when he let her sit in silence for several seconds, then muttered, “Whatever you do, do not look in the glove compartment.” She screamed something fairly cross and vulgar into the phone and promptly hung up on him.

Just as the excitement was making us giggle like mad people, we were there.

Taking a left at a quaint country church, we turned off the highway and found the schoolhouse set back on a plot a little off the road. Across the street was a family home and a cemetery that seemed to hold most of the old residents for a twenty-mile radius. The Olivers had hired a caretaker named Steve, who met us at the door and showed us to what he called the Safe Room. It turned out to be the old faculty lounge, with a TV, some couches, and a refrigerator. For a second, dragging a cooler and all those chairs along with us seemed redundant, but then I realized that if we had not brought those things, none of this comfort would have been there. So says the Laws of Murphy, anyway . . .

A few of us ventured across the street to the tiny rustic cemetery, and judging from the headstones, it had been there a long time—some of them dated back to the mid-1800s. It was no bigger than an average backyard in a city suburb, but the stones were ancient and the names barely legible from seasons of weathering the elements. As I strolled the rows, the names appeared to be a little clearer, and suddenly it occurred to me that I recognized almost every name here. I had come across these names in my research—here laid the family who had owned the land and had given it to the county. Here were the names of various faculty members and students. Here were the people who had grown up and died with this wonderfully unassuming school as the heart of this close-knit community. I had a strange feeling; I was about to trounce around the center of their universe. Even if they were no longer around, this was still their place. I was the trespasser, the transgressor. Was I spitting in their pool, laughing in the face of their heritage? I did my best to fill my mind with positive thoughts. I was not here to condescend; I was here to observe.

Steve offered to give us a tour but cautioned against it, saying that the feedback from other groups had told him that the activity doubled if people were not led around beforehand and that the experiences might be skewed if our forethought was saddled with preconception. So we decided to bypass the tour, thanking Steve for his time and accompanying him out the front door (the only exit that did not lock you out when it closed behind you) so we could have one more smoke prior to our first bit of exploration around the school. After extinguishing our cigarettes, we ventured back to the Safe Room to grab our gear and take a look around.

The first pass of the site was like being ten years old on a field trip to a museum. It seemed like every room had remnants of the building’s old life in it. Notebooks sat in empty filing cabinets, desks were shoved into corners or overturned completely, old pictures adorned corkboard above giant tears in the walls where people had come in to take whatever blackboards could be procured, and books from the past fifty years were shoved into the backs of cupboards to be discovered later like treasures in a killer’s house. The whole place had the feeling of mass exodus, like it had been abandoned during an air raid or an attack by a tornado. In turn, it made you feel like you should flee as well. But overall there was no malice in the air like I had felt in other places. As uncomfortable as it became later in the evening and in the early morning hours, the school never had the feeling like we were in danger, like it did not want us there. Maybe that is why we stayed as long as we did, even after all the weirdness started happening later on.