by Rick Kueber
Dusk approached and through the trees in the distance he caught a glimpse of the old farm house. Moving closer to gain a better look, he saw her. Ashley stood in the front room looking out the window as if waiting for her father to return. Their eyes met and he was terrified to see that her beautiful pale blue eyes had been replaced by a black abyss of emptiness. He fumbled in his pocket and found the small bottle of poison he had been carrying with him for most of the past ten years. He had always planned to one day return here and laid down next to his daughter, start a fire and drink the poison. It seemed like the only way to show his true remorse.
His eyes grew open wider seeing the blackness of her empty eyes begin to glow. The orangey-yellow glow grew and flickered like the flame of a torch in the breeze.
Fear over took Elijah and he grasped his chest. There was a horrific tightening feeling in his heart and an unbearable feeling of burning from the inside out. He truly felt on fire, and believed in his broken heart that this must be his penance for his cruel act so many years ago, to never get the peace of showing her his regret and lifelong sorrow. He knew he could never right the wrong he had done, and was ready to pay the price of an eternity in hell. He stumbled and fell, leaning against a nearby tree, but he never broke eye contact with her until he drew his last breath.
AUTHOR: Unknown
Chapter10 RELATIVITY
The curator would not allow us to photocopy the story, but we were allowed to photograph the pages without using a flash. When we finished our explorations of the library and museum, it was decided that our next adventure awaited us. Soon we were traveling once again, and had hopes that we would soon be on to Helmach Creek road. Several miles had been traveled without seeing anything but the occasional small farm house amidst the rolling foothills of the Appalachians that rose in the distance.
We could see a small house a hundred yards or so up the road and someone working in the front yard.
“Pull over up here, and I'll ask if they know where Helmach Creek road is.”
Katie glanced over her shoulder and said to me, “Okie dokie, but if I hear banjos I'm leaving your butt on the side of the road.” This caused us all to chuckle and I had to agree with her. “Okay by me, you know I'd do the same for you.” and I winked at her reflection in the rear view mirror.
She pulled into the driveway and the man in the yard turned away from the pull-cart he was working on and began to slowly walk up to the van.
I stepped from the side door of the van and extended my hand. Face to face, he took my hand in his and gave it a firm shake. “Can I help you folks?” he asked with a curious look on his face. “I hope so sir. We are from southern Indiana, and we are a bit lost.” I opened the conversation politely, knowing that is the best way to get information.
“Southern Indiana, huh? You are lost!” The old man smiled. “Where are you headed to?”
“Well sir, we are looking for Helmach Creek Rd. Can you point us in the right direction?” “No idea.... but if you think you are heading in the right direction, you aren't. This is Oak Grove Cutoff, that means you're gonna run out of road in another mile or so.”
“Well, crap... sorry... Any idea who we could ask, or what direction we should be headed?” “You could go down to the county office Monday morning, I'm sure Billy Perkins down there could help you...but if you want to get there before Monday, I'd say you need to head back out to 9 north and a couple miles up there is a Cooper Creek Road that turns to the right.”
“Okay, you think that might be it?” “I kinda doubt it, unless somebody just was confused when they told you. Now, on past Cooper Creek Road a bit, on the same side of 9, you'll come across Old County Road 23. That'll run you up close along the mountains and it'll dead end at a T intersection. That's gonna be County Road 9/5.”
“YES!!! That's where we need to be!” I was thrilled to hear something that sounded familiar. “Okay, well, I still don't know anything about no Helmach Creek Road. But I do know that if you go left on County Road 9/5 it goes a short way and dead ends...but if you go to the right, you'll come to a strong left hand curve. You keep goin' and the road's gonna start driftin' to the right. Left side of the road is pretty steep mountains, right side is woods and fields a ways. Right in there you're gonna come across a small bridge. That's Helmach Creek. Don't think there's no roads up there, but if there was, that's where I'd look.” He looked over at Katie and Jenn still sitting in the van. “Course, if y'all can't find it, there is always Billy on Monday morning.”
“Thank you very much. You have been a big help.” I shook his hand again and proceeded to climb back in the van. “Did 'y'all' hear all of that?” I smiled and winked at the girls. “Yep!” Katie replied, and Jenn nodded.
We took his advice and followed the directions. Katie slowed up to about fifteen miles per hour when we thought we were approaching the bridge. We all watched carefully as we drove until the bridge and Helmach Creek had come and gone, and was in our rear view mirror when Jenn yelled out.
“STOP!!!”
The van came to an abrupt stop when Katie hit the brakes. Jenn was pointing out the passenger side window. “Look over there. It's not really a road, but somebody pulled in through the weeds right there recently, and it could have been a drive at one time.” Jenn was right, you could still see the tire tracks and the bent over tall grass where a car with low clearance had pulled off the main road and right up to the woods.
I nodded to Katie, “Go ahead and pull over there and we will take a look around.” Once the van was secured, we began to investigate the edge of the woods and quickly discovered a path where someone, probably Shari and her mother had pushed their way through the brush and gave us a fairly distinct path to follow.
The sun was still high, and it was around 2 p.m. when we headed into the woods, but we found ourselves chilled in the shade of trees. We put about twenty steps between each of us and began exploring the wilderness that lay before us. A few minutes later, I shouted to the girls, “Over here!!”
We stood side by side in awe. There was a part of each of us that believed we would never find this house, maybe it didn't even exist, or maybe it wasn't the origin of the haunting at all. It stood before us, all the same. Whether it was, or wasn't, this was the most 'haunted looking' place I had ever been. The anonymous story of the burning girl, our own personal experiences, the letter, title and mystery envelope, all of these things added up to one reality: we were standing on the brink of something huge, though we didn't know what that might be.
We decided to search the property surrounding the house first. “Hey guys, I think we should split up. I'm gonna search out front, one of you needs to take the two sides of the house, and the other search the back and the barn, if it's still standing. Find anything, or not, we meet back here in thirty minutes.”
“Okay, I'll take the back and barn.” Jenn spoke up first. “Guess that leaves the 'side yards' for me.” Katie said with a disappointed tone. They wandered off to search their areas and I stared at the front windows of the house and began walking backwards until I could barely see the windows. I started sweeping the front area left to right, hoping the story was not only true, but accurate. Frustration was setting in after nearly twenty minutes and I leaned against a tree and looked to the house. I had a clear view of the front left window, but it was still a good ways ahead of me. My thoughts went back to the story and I began to search the trees ahead. To the left side of the largest tree ahead was a small mound of briars, and hidden within those briars was Elijah. I had found him at the base of a huge Ash Tree. I dropped to my knees and took a much closer look. Wild ivy and thorns had grown through him as he decayed. His skull was now moss covered and had a vine of poison ivy growing through it, so huge, that it had cracked into two pieces. The adrenaline pulsed through my veins. I got to my feet and took off running to find Katie or Jenn, to share my discovery.
I came across Katie first. She sat on her knees at the threshold of the cellar door, with her han
ds crossed on her lap. She sat there just staring at it, and hadn't even noticed that I had run up to her until I touched her shoulder. She looked up at me with tears in her eyes.
“I know we probably need to go down there and confirm that part of the story, but I get this overwhelming feeling of sadness here and I can't even bring myself to even open the door.”
“It's okay Katie, we will wait until we are all here to open any door, or go inside at all. I really didn't want to split up, but we needed to save time. And don't you start crying or you'll mess up your make-up.” Katie smiled because she knew exactly what I meant when I said it. Katie always wore Egyptian style eyeliner, and it suited her well.
Katie stood up, brushing the dirt and leaves from her jeans, and looked at the pink dial of her watch. “It's been about twentyfive minutes. Maybe we should go find Jenn and help her. She has a lot of area to cover.”
“Sounds like a good idea. I'm ready to get inside and have a look around.” We strolled side by side to the back of the house. The dilapidated barn was half standing, half deteriorated and fallen in on itself.
Jenn emerged from the right side of the barn. She came around the corner looking at the ground deep in thought. Seeing us ahead, she sped up to meet us.
“Nothing to speak of in the barn or here between the barn and back of the house, but you have to see what I found out behind the barn.”
“What?” Katie and I said in unison. “You'll just have to come see.” Jenn did an about face on her toes and began to head back around the corner with a spring in her step. We followed closely behind her and about twenty yards behind the barn into the woods where we came to a slight clearing. We stood at the edge of an area about fifteen feet by twenty feet and aside from some weeds and a few saplings it was mostly just an empty space.
“Interesting.” I said. “Aliens?” I jested, trying to lighten the mood. “I didn't know what to make of it, until I literally stumbled across this.” She said pointing to the ground a few feet away. “My ankle still hurts.”
We knelt down where she pointed and to our surprise found a squared off stone, a foot and a half wide and a foot deep, sticking about six inches out of the ground.
“Is this what I think it is?” said a wide eyed Katie. “I looked very close and followed some engravings on the top side. Katie, Rick, it's my pleasure to introduce you to Kathrine Helmach, or at least her final resting place.”
“I didn't say anything to Katie yet, but if the legend we read is true, I think I found Elijah out front.” Katie looked over her shoulder in the direction of the house, and said, “So dad's out front, mom's out back, and I have a strong feeling Ash is still inside. The family all ended up dying here on the family farm. That's just strange.”
“Or maybe it was meant to be that way.” Jenn theorized. “We need to talk about this on the way home or something, but I think we need to involve Dr. Em and her family.”
“Yeah, they need to know. Maybe Ash and her father need to be reunited with their mom. They all deserve a proper burial.” I said, putting my two cents in and the girls agreed. “Okay, now that we have finished up out here let’s get back to the van, grab some equipment and then take a look inside.”
When we returned from the van, we stood on the porch at the front door for the first time. I reached for the key, and Jenn reached for the door knob. Before I could retrieve the key, Jenn turned the knob and pushed the door open.
“I just had this feeling that they didn't take the time to lock the door back.” We made our way inside and to the right. It was covered in dust, cobwebs, and such, but other than that, everything still seemed to remain as it was over a hundred years ago. I had the eerie feeling of deja`vu.
Katie pointed across the front room. “That's the rocker from my dream, and the fireplace. Wow, I don't know how to feel about this, but I've been here before.”
Jenn turned on her digital recorder and vocally labeled the session. “Saturday afternoon, Helmach family farm house, initial investigation.”
We passed through a dining room, found the room that would have been Ashley's, and ended up in the master bedroom. I turned to Jennifer.
“Wow! This is amazing! The local museum would have a hayday with this place! Hell, this is a museum all on its own!” “Most definitely! What do you think....” Jenn said turning around to ask Katie her opinion, but Katie wasn't there. “Oh, hell. We better go find Katie before something else does!”
We headed back to the front of the house where we came in. Jenn and I went right, and Katie went left, but she didn't get far. The first room to the left of the door was the front sitting room where Katie knelt silently facing away from us. To the right was a doorway that led to the kitchen and just left of the door was the old stone fireplace, and in between the fireplace and Katie was the hole burned in the floor. It was a surreal feeling. It was like walking into a fairytale, or opening the front door after a horrible storm to find you are in the land of Oz. Everything we had heard, read and experienced was suddenly a reality. Katie looked up at us over her shoulder. The look of abandon was in her eyes, and her face was expressionless, though we could all feel the sadness in the room.
“We need to start here.” Katie surmised as the tears began to well up in her eyes once again. “Are you okay?” Jenn asked noting that Katie had become very emotional since this whole ordeal began. “We can start somewhere else, or you can take a break and sit out for a while if you want.”
“No, let’s set up in this room and see if there is any activity we can catch.” she said wiping the tears away from her cheeks. “And just so you know,” she said pointing to the oval mirror hanging on the wall across from us, “I looked in that mirror when I walked in here, and I saw her. It wasn't my reflection, it was Ash, THERE, staring back at me.”
Jenn and I looked at each other, understanding her emotion and commitment to help this poor child, and then nodded to Katie in agreement.
“Let’s place one of our cameras directly in front of the mirror and see if Ash will appear again.” I said, taking direction from Katie. So, we set up our cameras (the few that ran on batteries), and placed several emf detectors, K-II meters, and digital recorders around the blackened chasm in the floor.
The closer we stepped towards the burned floor, the more it creaked and popped. Approaching it was beyond intimidating, the horrific possibilities flourished in our imaginations. Would we fall through some weak point we could not see, or worse could some nightmarish demon emerge to swallow us up, or maybe we would come face to face with the incarnation of Ashley Sue, rising from the ashes like a ghastly phoenix child and be incinerated on the spot? There was only one way to find the answer.
We all sat down on the dirty, ash covered floor without a second thought. Things started off as they typically do, with one exception. It was still daylight outside. We took our turns asking questions and making statements for our e.v.p. session.
“Is there anyone here with us today?”
“We are here to learn and help you if we can.”
“Can you tell us your name?”
“Is this your house?”
“Is there anything you need to tell anyone?”
“How can we help you?”
These were all standard questions and statements. Even in cases where we thought we knew some of the answers, we still asked them. There were no meter flashes or e.m.f. fluctuations to speak of. Everything seemed quiet, too quiet.
We reviewed the recording, but the only question we had any response to was, “Can you tell us your name?” and though it wasn't clear, it sounded like a very scratchy voice saying 'darkness'. Like so many investigations, and e.v.p. sessions, the best evidence is often found when we aren't expecting it, and when we are trying to get a response, often times we get none at all, or a response that is either unclear or makes no sense to us. This was a perfect example. The best e.v.p. we captured was when we were just deciding to move from one location to another in the old Helmach farm house
and we wouldn't discover it until we had reviewed all of the recorders much later, and the e.v.p. saying 'darkness' was so unclear, we decided we couldn't even consider it as evidence.
We were more than a bit disappointed at our results so far. It was time to do what we all dared not do. Though we hadn't said so out loud, we all knew that the feeling was mutual.
“I think we need to climb down into the hole in the floor, or go in through the cellar door.” I knew this wouldn't be a popular suggestion.
“Already!” exclaimed Katie. “I agree we need to go, but are you sure you don't want to keep investigating up here first? I mean... we haven't done any real investigating in the rest of the house.” was Jenn's reaction.
“I think if we are going to really stir up some activity, we need to get down there. I guess we don't all have to go if either of you don't want to, but I'm ready. Besides, if this girl is still down there in the ashes and rubble, we need to find her, and prove that this is more than just some ghost story that locals tell around a campfire to scare each other.
If we had only known to listen to Jenn's recorder then, we might have had a change of heart, then again, we had come so far, I doubt we could have stopped no matter what we heard, but what we heard later on our recording was Ashley's voice, begging us, “Oh please, don't go in there.” Her voice sounded desperate and frightened.
“I'll go.” Jennifer was the first to speak up. “But it might not be a bad idea to have someone stay up stairs, so, if you want to Katie...”
