by Rick Kueber
“I didn't really get much information when I was here last, only personal proof that this situation, or haunting, is legitimate. I think I can speak for the entire team that we have all of the proof we need. There are even some recorded electronic voice phenomenon that we have as proof to play for you, but that doesn't help us solve the mystery of why this entity has chosen to haunt you, or us, or what we could do to help this 'burning girl' find peace.” I spoke honestly, and soberly.
Jenn chimed in with what was probably the best and most obvious statement yet. “Why don't you start from the beginning and tell us everything you can that might relate to this haunting?”
“I have heard you and Rick both call this a haunting. I believe it is paranormal, or supernatural, but I don't think my house is haunted.”
It was then that Katie quoted something truly profound. “Emily, many people think that when someone talks about a haunting, they are referring to a house, or a building or even a grave yard. You have to understand that even though some entities are attracted to, or sometimes even attached or trapped within walls, or borders, not all spirit activity is that way.” The doc looked a bit puzzled and Katie, well Katie looked frustrated. “This may not be an exact quote, but another Emily, Emily Dickinson, once wrote, 'One need not be a chamber to be haunted. One need not be a house. The brain has corridors surpassing material places.' You see, once free, a spirit can haunt any physical or mental place it chooses, assuming it has enough power and intellect to.” We were all hanging on every word she spoke, like children listening intently to a scary bedtime story. “Entities are energy, just like you and I, the only difference is that they aren't confined to a body.”
“Very well said Katie.” I said and added, “You see Dr. Em, these entities, we as a team research, are energy, and that is why we use tools like e.m.f. detectors to find evidence of them. Often times we find man made e.m.f. fields, like those from poor wiring or cell phone signals, that can sometimes cause similar experiences to some hauntings. Extremely high e.m.f.'s (electromagnetic frequencies) have been claimed to cause everything from feelings of being watched and paranoia to nausea and headaches. That is why we usually investigate at night, in the dark, with our phones turned off. We find there are less man made e.m.f.’s because people aren't using phones, computers, and things like that, which can be confused with spiritual or paranormal activity.”
“LITTLE LIGHTNING!” Jenn blurted out and then slapped her hand over her mouth quickly. “Sorry, I just made a connection. I kinda understood last night, but it makes perfect sense now. Can I borrow your pen and note pad Katie?”
“Sure, here you go.”
“Thanks. Bear with me guys, okay?” Jenn said looking at each of us in turn.
“Absolutely” answered Emily. Katie and I nodded our heads while Jenn began to draw and talk simultaneously.
She began by drawing a box and placing a few x's over the lines. “Okay, imagine this is a house, or a room, or whatever boundary you want. For argument's sake, we will say this is Ashley's house, and the x's represent windows and doors.”
She paused and put the pen back to the paper and before she could continue, Katie and I both asked, “Who's Ashley?” “Well we didn't go over all of the details of our visits last night, but the little girl who appeared in my room said her name was Ashley, and the rest of what she said relates to what I am about to draw and tell you.” She put the tip of the pen to the edge of the notepad farthest from the box house and began to slowly draw a tiny, squiggly line across the pad. “Now, imagine that the tip of this pen represents an e.m.f., whether it is a radio signal, cell phone, whatever.... and then imagine that as a spirit, you can see this just like we see lightning.” she then continued to draw the line right off of the page and begin to do the same thing over and over. “Ashley said the same thing you said earlier, 'We are all made up of the same stuff as lightning'. Then she said she knew right away that she could 'become part of the lightning' and ride it, but she was afraid. I think the fear would be like getting into a boat you are alone on. You have no control over where it goes, and what if it just drifts forever, and you are stuck floating in infinity with no way of knowing how to get back home again?”
Dr. Emily sat on the sofa wide eyed and glued to every word. Katie and I were both very impressed with this notion, and I commended Jenn for it. “That's brilliant!” I said and used my finger like she had done with the pen following one of her lines. “So, if an entity can see these electromagnetic frequencies, and tune into them, they can ride them to their destination, like from one cell phone to the person on the other end of the call. Wow....I'm floored. This is all starting to make sense. And, I guess, if you could see this e.m.f. coming like lightning and then watch it go by and beyond the horizon, and every e.m.f. possibly having a slightly different wave, you might be afraid to 'jump on board' not knowing where it would take you, or if you could ever get back home again.” I rubbed my fore head while this theory started to sink in.
“Well this little girl not only got up her courage, she mastered riding an e.m.f.” Katie said matter-of-factly. “She must have even figured out how to almost control the direction of the lightning. It seems like from the stories we all shared earlier that she may have used the lightning to go from your house to mine,” she said turning her head and looking at me, “and then she could have used the lightning or the e.m.f. from a cell phone to get from my house to Jennifer's. I wonder where she went when she disappeared from your house.”
“I don't really know for sure that she left. She said something about having been to my house before, but I just couldn't see her. I am going to say that it must take a lot of energy to visually manifest and that's why they don't always appear to us, but we find traces of their energy, or voice phenomenon.”
“Well, I'm not educated in this field like the three of you are, but does it make sense to you that she was able to 'manifest' herself three times last night and there happened to be a huge electrical storm?” The good doctor had hit the nail on the head!
“Amazing doc! Do you want to join our team?” I asked, winking at her. “It makes perfect sense!” My hand went over my open mouth, my eyes watered up a bit and I was covered from head to toe with goose bumps. This would coincide with so many theories we already accepted as fact in the paranormal community.
I began listing several things that were widely accepted by the paranormal research community, “Battery drainage happens on a regular basis during paranormal investigations. Activity was always higher, and more extreme during thunderstorms. Entities draw energy from the atmosphere around them. Can you imagine if an entity could actually get a charge from connecting with lightning? How powerful would that entity be? How powerful would this 'Ashley' be? To date, she is by far the most active and most powerful spirit we have ever come across, and I think we know why now.” I felt proud for the epiphany I had just revealed, and for the incredible brilliance of my teammates.
“That is awesome.” Katie said with a bit of an unemotional tone. “We sort of have an understanding of her power, and why she can do so many of the things that are considered rare experiences. But we still haven't scratched the surface of what has caused her to be so angry and malicious...or what we can do to help her. We don't know how she died, if it was tragic, which I think we can all assume it was probably in a fire, where she died, where she lived. I give us kudos for figuring all of this out. It's fascinating, but we aren't much closer to helping her, and right now we don't even know where she is or if we will ever be 'visited' by her again.”
Then suddenly, “CRASH!” the large pottery vase next to the fireplace in the sitting room literally exploded. “Ash, is that you honey?” Jenn asked in her sweetest voice, but we could all hear the quivering in it. The K-II meter began to flash and spike and then it went still.
“Do you mind if I make a bit of a mess here on your floor?” I whispered to Dr. Em. “It is alright with me as long as it is a 'mess' I can clean up. I have cleane
d up her messes before, and I have one in this room to clean up already.” She looked at me with a smile, and we both remembered the shattered glass of the coffee table.
“Great, I have another theory I learned online and I want to try it out.” I stood up and went out to my car. I returned a few moments later with the grocery bag filled with the packages of sea salt I had purchased earlier in the week. I placed the bag on the floor next to the sofa and said to Jenn and Katie, “Stand up for a second guys.” and then began pulling the chairs six or seven feet back from the coffee table. I motioned for Katie to grab one end of the coffee table while I grabbed the other. “Okay, let’s move this about halfway between the sofa and the chairs.” This left about four feet of empty floor around the table. I reached into the bag and began handing everyone a box of sea salt.
“Here is what I want to try. Let's move everything off of the table except for one digital recorder and the K-II meter. Now, everybody have a seat on the floor about a foot or so away from the table, and open the corner of the box like this,” I showed them as I pressed my thumb against the perforated corner of the box poking inward to make a small opening and then set the box on the floor next to me. “I want us to try to get Ash to interact with us using the k-II meter sitting there on the table. If we get some good hits on the K-II I will nod my head or say now or something, and then I want us to use the salt to make a complete circle around the table. Make it a fairly thick line, and make sure that we all connect, or overlap so there are no breaks in the circle. Got it?”
Emily, Jenn and Katie all said yes or nodded to acknowledge that they understood. “Jenn, Katie, you're on. She's going to respond to you better than she will us, probably.” I made the thumbs up sign and motioned it back and forth between the doc and myself. “I think our only experiences with Ash were pretty negative, and you two both had a good connection with her last night.”
“I'll try, but she was pissed when she left me last night!” Katie remarked with a grin. They both began talking to Ash asking, “Are you still here Ashley?” and “Can you come over here and make these lights flash for us?” pointing to the meter on the table. “Come on sweetie, we just want to talk.” Katie said looking around with big puppy dog eyes. “Pleeeease?”
Immediately following the 'please' the lights on the K-II meter flashed, and Jenn replied to it, “Thank you Ash. Do you remember coming to see me last night and talking about the little lightning that was everywhere?” It flashed again, but this time there was multiple flashes, a flickering of green lights and a flash of yellow. Emily and I kept silent but Katie responded with another “Thank you.” and “Do you remember me? Do you remember taking me to your house last night?” The meter flickered once again. I looked at Jenn and dropped my eyebrows giving a serious look and nodding towards the meter.
“Ash, can you try to grab this little grey box right here and squeeze it? If you do all of the lights will light up.” Suddenly every light on the K-II lit up and stayed lit. I shook my head like an idiot and feverishly began creating my portion of the circle. The other three followed suit and within a second or two we had encircled the coffee table with sea salt. Then the K-II lights went out.
“Are you still with us Ashley?” Jenn asked. The light barely flickered, but it was enough for us. I made my way from the floor to one of the empty chairs and actually felt a bit of relief for a minute.
“I can give you two the URL for this website I found, but if my theory works, then this circle of sea salt will hold her there and drain some of her energy, so we can figure out what to do without worrying about becoming paranormal shish-kabobs.” We tested the theory using the Mel-meter and the k-II, but it seemed the only e.m.f. based activity we could find was within the circle of salt. We were very careful not to reach directly into the circle for fear that she might be able to attach herself to one of us like she had earlier in the week.
“How does everyone feel about taking a break for some lunch and a bit of fresh air? We can get started again in an hour or so?” I asked, having noticed my stomach feeling quite empty.
“Sounds fine to me.” said Dr. Em, and Katie and Jenn were quick to agree. When we drove away with the top down headed for lunch we all felt more at ease than we had felt since before this case started. The sun was high in the sky and though it was still early in the spring, it was a fairly warm day. We talked over lunch about the case and about simple everyday things. We felt accomplished, even though the road ahead was long, and we weren't sure where it might take us.
Chapter6 REVISITING THE PAST
When we arrived back at the doc's home it was shortly after 2 p.m. and we felt refreshed. Even Dr. Em. looked more hopeful and positive than she did when we had first arrived. We had a good feeling about this case, but feelings are sometimes misleading.
We walked inside and Dr. Em. lead us to the back of the house where the family room was located. It was a gorgeous room with a vaulted ceiling, and on the opposite wall from the entry was a larger version of the stone fireplace that was in the sitting room. On either side of the fireplace were large floor to ceiling windows with beautifully ornate black curtains, or I suppose in a neighborhood like this they would be called 'window treatments'. Overstuffed, black leather theater seating style easy-chairs lined one wall opposite a seventy some odd inch wall mounted flat screen television. Other than that, the room was mostly empty.
Emily walked to the windows and drew the curtains closed darkening the room considerably. Not an uncomfortable blinding darkness, but one that gave us a sense of privacy and a false sense of security.
“Please, have a seat.” Dr. Em said gesturing with her hand towards the theater seating arrangement. She grabbed one of the chairs by the arms and pulled it, fairly effortlessly, forward and turned it slightly inward. I did the same to one a couple of seats down so that we had made a semi-circle of four seats.
After we had all taken a seat, Emily began to speak. “About two months ago, my father passed away.” We all began to give our condolences when we were cut off by the good doctor. “Thank you, but I will finish grieving for him later. For right now, I want to explain how we have come to be here today. As I said, my father passed about two months ago. He lived in a small town just outside of Nashville. My sister Sarah and my niece Shari lived in the same small town.” She had pronounced her niece's name as 'Sherri', but informed us it was spelled 'Shari'. Her story continued on and as she spoke we all felt like we were reliving the story with her. She told it so well that I don't believe we would have had a clearer picture of it if it had been playing as a movie on the huge television that hung on the wall across from us.
A more obvious accent came through, and hung thick in the air, as she spoke about her family and delved deeper into her memory to find every detail. Her story went something like this:
When Shari lost her grandfather was not unexpected. He was eighty-two and had lived a full life, but that did not make it any less heartbreaking for her. Shari sat on the floor of the mostly emptied house as her mother extracted box after dusty box from the attic and sat them on the hardwood floor around her.
“You can start opening them and giving me a general idea of what’s in them if you feel up to it.” Her mother said solemnly. “Sure.” Shari replied holding back her emotions as best as she could. She mostly found odds and ends dishes and cookware in one box, another smaller box held a collection of antiquated books, but when she opened the third the tears began to flow. It was a medium sized box, about twice the size of a boot box, and when the lid opened she saw a bronze tone framed photo of her grandfather as a young man with her grandmother and several other people in a group. Her hand trembled as she reached in and pulled the portrait out of the box revealing hundreds of photos in disarray beneath.
Her mother could hear the sadness in her soft voice as she spoke, “Look mom. Its gramps, and gramma, isn’t it?” Shari had only been fourteen when her gramma passed away, but she never really knew her and remember her more from stori
es than she did from actual memories.
She took the picture from Shari’s hands and gazed at it longingly. “Oh my goodness, I haven’t seen this picture since I was a little girl.” She whispered almost to herself. “This is your great-great grandparents and their brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles…and this was taken when they were married.” She put her hand to her mouth as the tears began to well up. After drawing in a deep breath, she continued to speak, going off on a different tangent.
“See how they are all dressed in black, and wearing black hats and bonnets?” Shari nodded in response. Her mother continued without more than a breath in between sentences. ”They were members of an old church that started way out east and everyone dressed the same…. Virginia, I think…”
Shari chimed in, “Were they Amish or Mennonites?” Her mom glanced over and for the first time in a while had a genuine smile on her face.
“No, they weren’t.” she chuckled, “I’m not sure what the name of the church was, or the religion for that matter, but I do remember dad telling me how strict it was growing up, and how his parents said that everything that wasn’t work, school, or church was evil or a sin. Of course he would always smile at me afterwards, but I’m sure things were a lot different back then.” She was lost in thought for a moment as Shari watched her mom slip back in time until she finally spoke again with a more monotone voice, “Your gramps used to tell me that one of the things he loved about Tennessee was that it wasn’t West Virginia… That’s where his side of the family was from, West Virginia. He told me that his great grandpa, the one on this picture, left West Virginia to get away from the church. They had planned to move to Colorado, but this is as far west as they made it, and this is where they made their home.”
