''We are about to..venture into an old mansion..lived in by..midgets so it's not really that big of a house'' said St Nick as we walked down an old dirt road somewhere in southern Iowa. It was cold, the wind had picked up, and it just stopped raining less than an hour ago so the ground was still squishy.
I met St Nick in college. He had heard about my previous trip with the Inch and had expressed his interest in joining. When I told him that I had other places to explore, he didn’t hesitate. He didn’t speak often. He wore an almost goat like beard, glasses, heavy carhartt jacket, jeans, and black tennis shoes. He had brought along his friend, Jess, who wore a skinny black hoodie and according shoes.
We walked down the road and onto the side of the nearby highway. The house was right next to the dirt road, on top of a small hill over the country highway, the highway road looked as grey as the sky as it went far into the horizon.
Everything felt sleepy, cars and semis chugged every now and again down the lonely road; not paying attention to the 3 guys staring up at the house on the hill.
A small green gate at the bottom of the hill was the only thing locked on the property. We walked right past it as the fence was long gone. The property was quite large. Other than the delapited two story house on our right; numerous sheds and barns laid in disarray. In front of the house was a not quite rusted bike that rested bedsides a tree. The roof of the porch had long imploded on itself and the grass was unkempt.
Walking up the hill, the ground still seemed to have tire marks but that was the most recent looking thing on the property. Nothing had looked older than 40.
At the back of the house, ourselves hidden from the highway's view by the long branches of the tree which had overgrown with it's over grown fingers. Empty mason jars and an assortment of other random junk littered the land. There was everything from children's toys to grease guns. The house had a well that had longed dried up and had it's wooden cover thrown somewhere. The small hole looked like a makeshift fallout shelter.
The backyard was a little less than a landfill. Even just looking inside of a small shed was an eyesore full of wooden frames, stove top, bathtubs and a fridge full of its own ecosystem. Near the end of the property was the newest looking shed that held tractors and a pen for animals.
I wandered to the eastern border of the property, maneuvering old tires, coffee cans, and tools to look at what seemed to be a crapper shack. I opened the door and it had seemed that way but didn't smell surprisingly. A rusty fence made a barrier of the property on the right, another bombed out shack and small silos for water festered in the elements. I could see through the skeleton forest of empty tree limbs that the highway continued as normal but had stopped here longer than any of us here had existed.
Over a large pile of tires was a large, dilapidated, barn that stood taller than the house. The rear half had been slowly collapsing but the other side towards us remained.
The wood of the walls were slowly separating and falling apart, the roof was completely gone and a large pile of discarded farm equipment and rubble almost filled the entire building.
We directed our attention back to the house, near the back door, where there was a cement underground well with a square top. It was dry to the bone. Jess kept his excitement to himself and started going right in.
There was a small room that was connected to the house and the door was gone. The small room had a faded blue color on the walls and the floor was entirely covered in more junk. The floor had been falling through but it led to the kitchen. The light filled through the windows and lit the place fairly well.
The kitchen, and the whole house had it's floor covered in more junk; newspapers, yearbooks, books, and pieces of the walls and furniture.
Next was the living room, it was one of the worst rooms. Discarded furniture and vacuum cleaners made a great burn pile in the middle of the room. It was a maze of broken chairs and empty boxes.
Right beside that, was what was left of the walk in porch. Little of it's roof was still there. A disgusting toilet, brewing with breathable cancer, laid in one corner as horse racing trophies lied in another.
Back in the living room, I made my way over broken typewriters and who knows what to get to the other side which was blocked off by a piana, covered in animal prints, that laid against a door. The whole place wasn't without about five layers of mold and festering soil.
We found another door that led to the basement. The second step down was weak and you could feel it bending in when you put weight on it. The distance between the ground and ceiling was about 3 feet. The floor was dirt and covered in empty mason jars.
They piled around in the hundreds. You could get to the other side of the room that had an old gas heater and an old cooler. St Nick was anxious to open it and release it's disease out into the world. When he finally got it open, the thing was filled with rust and containers of food. I didn't want to take in the smell so I turned. Right by this was a cellar door that led to the front, facing the highway, and I turned back into the house. ''Can asbestos kill you?'' said St Nick.
Back in the house, Nick found a letter on the ground that was addressed to Mrs Francis Kyner and family; dated 1970. As we talked, Jess took the initiative to go ahead and go upstairs.
The steps were strong and on top of the stairs was a nasty bedroom. The mattress was overturned and twisted over the bed frame and the remains of a telephone was hanging off the wall but I didn't trust how sturdy the floor was so I didn't go further into the room.
Another room, right next to that, there was still a work shirt hanging on the wall. The floors of the room was covered in layers of moldy cardboard and clothes. St Nick found a yearbook, from 1976, lying on the ground and Jess found a stack of checks to Montezuma bank, that were dated around from the late 40s to the late 50s, and were in the amounts of tens and thousands. ''These people had real lives...and there's a story behind everything in here'' said St Nick. ''Yea, $9,000 dollars worth'' responded Jess.
''Smells like somebody died up here'' said St Nick as he scanned the attic. It was covered in cobwebs and insulation. Besides a pair of old drapes and some more moldy boxes, that was it for the place.
Part Two:
What Cheer? Right Cheer.
We stopped at What Cheer, just a mile away from the farm house, and saw that not much was left of the town. It looked like the kinda place where you roamed around plastered, spitting tabacca on the street, and slept anywhere that felt warm. We passed down the very small downtown district, that was by the city park, and found that nearly all of the buildings there were abandoned.
There was some small monument that we found that had a small little roof where the whole town stands by, during one night of the year, to sacrifice animals and let the blood trickle down into a chamber where the ancient cannibals, that live beneath, can feed and let the townsfolk survive another year. We got freaked out enough, by the errieness, to leave and get lost somewhere in southern Iowa.
After following a few signs on the highway, we found ourselves in Sigourney.
We stopped at a gas station to find a road map and they directed us to another gas station on the other side of town that would have maps; the other gas station said that they have never sold road maps and with viking music in the background we, then, went to the town courthouse to find a map. The place was a living relic but we managed to find a roadmap and we went across the street to get a steak.
The place was a sleepy, little, hole in the wall joint. I quickly began noticing that this waitress had been staring at me since we walked in. When she'd walk by, she'd smile and say hi. She was cute. After I got my food, my waitress gave me a slip of paper and said ''I was supposed to give you this for my best friend''. I felt elated; I hadn't gotten a girl's number in forever. Everything started to feel amazing. I walked out of the place and was ready to go.
''Man, I can't believe I got her number. That's nuts. Crazy crazy my dude'' I said while we drove north.
Crappy pop hits from the 2000s were blasting out the car radio in the background. ''Those songs, like, you ever listened to Z 102.9 back in the days? They did the top five every night. Oh, I loved listening to that. That's what I would record on my cassette tapes.'' said St Nick.
We stopped in Fairfield and drove around trying to find a place but we only found a half abandoned factory building. It was cold and the sky was grey. The wind was starting to pick up and the clouds were gathering in the far reaches of the horizon. It was a lot more driving and maneuvering until we got outside the reaches of Oskaloosa.
I heard something about an abandoned farmstead and all we found was a mound of rubble that laid on a huge, muddy, hill. We followed all of the instructions, so this had to be it.
''A whole lotta nothin'' said Jess. I walked all over the large pieces of concrete and was able to get a great view of the river below. On the way out, we found a skeleton of the rare chupacabra. It had been picked clean by vultures and that was our hint to drive off into the grey horizon.
Daylight was quickly fading and the sky got more grey.
Part Three:
The Door With The Christmas Tree
The sun was just going down when we got to Sunbury. The place was another tiny town with a place that seemed too easy. At first we couldn't find it until we drove up a hill and I spotted it through the trees. It was slowly being covered by rows of trees and bushes. It looked so ominous in what was left of the light of the day. We drove slowly and parked right by the building; past another pile of useless crap. Jess was ready and excited.
I hopped out and started looking at whatever was close to me. It was a part of the basement that had it's roof slowly being chipped away. Inside, was just mound after mound of garbage. These places made good landfills.
We had to be quick because there was a house right across the small street with it's lights still on. A FedEx truck slowly drove by and back into the darkness of the night.
We quickly walked in. The doors were on the ground besides where they used to be; a pine tree was starting to overgrow right by the door and acted as cover.
The wind had picked up to a good breeze and howled throughout the building.
This place was in worse shape than the school in Clutier. It was like it had been completely hollowed out.
Only the outside walls and the concrete beams holding it up remained. It was like walking through an empty hobo camp.
Cabinets laid in wooden piles, an electric organ was turned over and it's keys had burst out, clothes in small piles were all throughout, and there seemed to be a lot of fire damaged objects that were rendered unrecognizable.
The main room of the place was probably the strangest. It had looked like there used to be three or four floors but now is hollowed out.
I couldn't figure out if the space had been a gym, cafeteria, or what. Barely anything spoke of it's past as a school.
There were eerie spray painted messages throughout the place; stuff like ''he is still here''.
Who knows?
For all I know, it could have been a bunch of crackheads that were slowly going insane or it was the rushed handwriting of a victim who knew that Slenderman was creeping somewhere around there.
There was a narrow ledge by where it had dropped down, where you could possibly tell that they used to be classrooms but now were filled with piles of rubble and discarded furniture.
We kept hearing cows, from a nearby farm, howling in the night as if they knew what lurked here; between the sound of constant water dripping and the wind blowing, there may have well could of been.
We went downstairs and it got weirder. St Nick found a VHS tape but it had long been made useless by the elements. Most of the walls inside were gone so you could see as far as our light reached; which was not far.
''They're gonna sic the dogs on us, maybe we should leave'' said St Nick. I was starting to agree with him.
Outside, the wind had picked up speed. It was getting real cold as we rushed into the car. We had some difficulty driving past the pile of crap outside but we made it.
We went in the complete opposite direction of town and found ourselves in cannibal country once again. There was no light at all. All you could see was the headlights and dirt road.
Endless amounts of dirt road. It picked and shot up at the car and you could hear it all.
After awhile, we had passed an airport and I looked out in the distance to see something really strange.
The whole horizon was blinking every three seconds. As far as I could see, these little red lights would all go off in unison. I think they were windmill lights but who knows.
I didn't want to.
No comments:
Post a Comment