Road Trip 2012

[Barek Halfhand]

Road Trip 2012
by Barek Halfhand

I learned of “The Murder Homestead” by way of referral and it struck me as both pretentious while at the same time provocative but regardless I couldn’t resist going there once an emailed photo landed in my inbox…
I’m not entirely sure of precisely what contributory factors may be responsible actuating the maniacal spirit that dwells within the walls of that small, abandoned ranch style home on the hill…perhaps it has something to do with environmental triggers, an unseen supernatural governing force, adherence to “The Paranormal Rulebook” or even the oncoming galactic alignment but what really matters is that the presence of a raw, indelible anger is which unmistakable upon arrival … The events of that night remain speculative and despite importuning my turgid tipster for hard facts, his evasive demeanor provided little in the way of additional information or even the exact nature of the implied disturbance … I later learned that the entire community seems tight lipped concerning the night off bloodshed that transpired back in the mid 90’s and as I was hard pressed to find any record of the incident on the net or local library I stared to wonder how much of this was the product of creative dog wagging …Once inside the diminutive domicile, there was an odd dearth of country warmth that a quant, wood paneled, modestly decorated and rustically simplistic home would ordinarily exude but the mood here was one of blind hostility and rage…the missing sections of carpentering didn’t exactly to validate the temerity of my Tipster or lend additional credence to the verisimilitude of the story but the dark stained floor precisely where he contended it would be at least confirmed he had been inside the house …

The 6 foot 4 inch specter that flashed into solidity without notice expressed little in the way of compunction for his corporeal misdeeds…the reprobate mind of a killer seems to maintain its inverse integrity in death and in some cases it intensifies depending on the environment but this one in particular seemed to draw energy from source as sour and pestilent as the stagnant water festering in the clogged bathroom sink …”I told them to stop making noise” …his rictus grin revealed teeth in dire need of dentistry even in death and he smelled of carrion and rot … he lunged for me from the swirling vortex and I side stepped him with my panther like agility… turning his eyes glowed like 2 Kingston charcoals from a late night summer barbeque and a dark inchor began to ooze from his orifices…”I suppose you think I’m a bad father don’t you?” He asked blithely as his fist smashed into the wood paneling with a deafening CRACK, narrowly missing my face and showering me with splinters as I slid to the floor and rolled to the side in evasion …the entire hallway took on an scarlet glow as he lumbered towards me and I kicked myself upright and away from his stomping boot … “I think you were every bit inadequate in life as you are in death and you penalized your family for it” I curtly informed him as I stopped mid kitchen and stood my ground …this knocked him backwards as if I struck him with a physical blow, the room suddenly regained its natural hue and he took on a gray pallor but resumed his stiff legged lurch towards me. .. “Bad father?” I continued, “You weren’t a father at all were you? ...the only time you acknowledged your children is when you got drunk and beat them.”… cracks formed on his face and a chunk of discolored flesh fell from his cheek leaving a gaping black wound, yet he clambered on reaching for me with his outstretched arms and trembling hands …

”When your wife attempted to intervene you beat her too didn’t you?” I crossed my arms and leveled the most judgmental glare I could muster …”Coward!” I accused and as I felt the tingling static charge begin to build and rush up my arm, I held up my hand to watch the tiny sparks play about my fingertips …His eyes no longer burned with Hells energy, now they were just yellowed glassy sunken orbs and more skin flaked from his face as the pilfered bioplasm he siphoned from the nearby cemetery began to lose its already unstable cohesion …”Time to fry ” I informed him and with all the campy theatrics of a Shakespearean understudy, I unleashed a torrent of blinding white fire from my hands that blasted the pathetic ghoul reeling and melting like the Nazis did when the Arc Of The Covenant was opened in “Raiders” … ducking the second wave of searing psyche I threw at him, he ran for the now arrhythmic, pulsating vortex in the living room and dove towards its collapsing nucleus … chunks of flesh sloughed from his decaying hide and slapped the floor as he dove for shrinking portal…the echoes of his tormented screams faded as I sealed the temporal rift and placed a mental padlock on it …

Exiting the house to get photos from the rear and squinting in the afternoon sun, I noticed the shopping cart sitting in the backyard begin to move my direction but stopped when I raised my hand …I realized there must have been some truth to the legend my source relayed to me based on the entities’ reaction to my indictments …or maybe this trickster was simply behaving the way I expected him to? Either way, I seldom fear any sort of attachments or supernatural stalkers when I visit these locations because I firmly believe that I can neutralize them with a blast of “The Force” like The Emperor from Star Wars… whether or not it is all in my head is irrelevant …
The Gargoyle was slightly scorched but remain largely unscathed as it sat menacingly on the doorstep of the charred home …This was my second trip “The Inferno House “in a week and the blackened husk of a home had completely collapsed into a cinder heap of refried rubble the second time around …This site was another tip from an even less credulous source than the prior and as some poor leads in the past may have temporarily stultified this scout as competent, I was taken aback by the smoldering scene before me when I first rolled into the gravel driveway …what would have under any other circumstance constituted a serene country scene with a tree lined backyard and mountains spying over the tree tops was a singed and reeking wreck, symbolic of the darkened souls that lived here before their own incendiary lifestyles engulfed them at the end …
My interest in criminal psychology has revealed a recurring sentiment lamented by law Enforcement, Behavioral Analysts or those who work in the field of Addiction Medicine whenever one illegal drug in particular is involved as I have noticed that many refer to methamphetamine or “meth” as one that “opens the floodgates of Hell” or as being “Satan’s drug of choice” etc. … All religious allegory aside, the the occupants of The Inferno House suffered a hellish demise timbered by the associated addiction, greed, lust, peripheral violence and a general sense of self demoralization…There has always been a dispiriting connotation connected to drug trafficking but there is a certain stigma attached to the procurement and manufacturing of meth that has earned these makeshift labs the dubious distraction of the Hell Harbingers…
The Inferno House would have been an all too typical story had the supernatural aftermath of the blaze not made this one a standout …the highly volatile chemicals required to process this highly potent stimulant are not only a caustic, corrosive biohazard but it is extremely flammable and known explode like napalm at the slightest agitation or exposure to flame but word is that this blaze was intentionally set in opposition the riot gear affected DEA agents pounding on the front door demanding entry …

Before the local Fire Dept. was deployed several witness watched as three humanoid figures strolled from the front door completely engulfed in flames and stood side by side completely still on the grass before the conflagration consumed them…A deafening, high pitch wail coincided with their vanishing and the core fire flashed a little brighter before shrinking to its steady burn and steam billowing hiss from the water jets now concentrating at its nucleus from the hoses of several fire gear festooned combatants …

The smell of burned plastic, charred wood and nondescript chemicals mingled with the mountain air in an oddly pleasant sort of way, but the obsidian stain blackening the center of this property still seemed to smolder albeit the fact that the fire had been completely extinguished for over a week…walking up to the font stop the first time out I kept expecting to see a newly posted Real Estate sign covered with red spray painted graffiti proclaiming: “CARRIE WHITE BURNS IN HELL” …looking inside the front picture window frame, the absolute totality of the destruction became quite apparent as the remaining structural skeleton looked to be teetering on collapse…there was little in the way of discernible features inside the house save for a few plumbing fixtures, heating ducts and the miscellaneous personal tchotchkes scattered about the exterior lawn and crawlspace …
Walking around back for more photos I felt a scratching cold claw grip my sleeveless arm and caught off guard, I jumped at the sight of the soot blackened figure that stood before me …I would have probably let out an audible yelp save for the irony that the fire scotched specter was smoking a cigarette …the cigarette being the sole white colored aspect of this apparition, a black smudge was clearly visible at the filter tip where his lips touched it when he tapped the ash from its end…”Are you the insurance adjustor? You’re a little late” he said in rasping, grating voice…as he threw his head back to cackle at his own inane witticism, his neck spit open and smoke seeped from the gaping, bloodless wound…”I’m just here taking photos…your house?” I asked attempting to regain my composure …”Yeah, you know what they say about smoking in bed” he quipped doubling over to slap his knee thus expelling a multi directional ashen plume …”If you’ll pardon my candor, do you find your present predicament preferable to any legal repercussions you may have faced by admitting the DEA Agents inside?” I asked affecting my best Spock-like timbre …”I’m free ain’t I?” he countered, his voice resonated with a growing agitation…”from where I stand you are every bit the prisoner of your addiction and greed now as you were in life” I pressed …”Are you a cop?” he asked with tangible contempt…”No, just another bad blogger with a camera” I replied emotionlessly …I noticed his head had partially collapsed and his entire form had begun to contort and return to the state of entropy from which it had spawn …”You’re no better than me, who are you to judge me?” his voice warbled as he continued to deconstruct …”I’m not here to judge you, I’m simply making an observation” I responded maintaining my icy demeanor …”Condescending, self- righteous @#$*!”…He was little more than a pile of ashes and a cigarette butt by the time I reiterated that I was not there to judge him …a truck bouncing noisily over a pothole on the nearby road broke the link and returned me to the “here and now”… walking away I resisted the urge to look back for the smoking cigarette butt …

The Old Cemetery is located just outside of Cleveland OH, and while this was a considerable deviation from my planned path, this site was relayed to me from a new and extremely reliable seeming source …
The early morning chill was sobering as I squinted in the rising sun and after draining the last of the gas station 20 ounce coffee, the steam still rose from the empty cup as I dropped into a trash can near the cemetery entrance …There has been many rumored sightings of a young woman roaming these grounds over the years but for some reason there has allegedly been a spike in “EMF activity” lately according to my new protégé and concurrently; an increase in sightings …The morning sun glinted off the frosted tombstones and grass creating a strange kaleidoscope effect in camera’s LED display forcing me to delete and reshoot several shots initially before resigning to the fact that most pictures would turn out this way for at least another 30 minutes…In adherence to my cemetery exploration policy; I policed the immediate grounds for garbage and straightened up some of the monument decorations before returning my attention to the photography at hand …It was a beautiful morning and the quiet serenity and tranquility of the property was a spiritual experience in itself , the photos turned out better than I expected and an auric warmth pervaded the majority of the shots I captured …I did hear some distant weeping a one point but was unable to pinpoint the origin…I will let you draw your own impressions from the photos as I feel they stand on their own …

The historic facts and specific details surrounding the disturbances reported to be occurring at The Old Factory were sketchy so inside access was not pursued but I did stop for a few exterior shots….Hard to believe this industrial derelict was one a bustling hub of production and manufacturing activity a mere decade or so ago but now it has joined the ranks of the Rust Belt like so many others …Legend contends that a second shift foreman (whom died of a heart attack on the job) still prowls the assembly plant floor complete with a hard hat and bull horn barking orders over the now quite machinery ….
More often than not I act on impulses and “hunches” when it comes to deciding which locations to explore…whether or not my intuitive compass is magnetized by a source external to my inherent instinctual barometer is a matter of individual discretion and personal belief systems but I prefer to embark upon these expeditions with an almost fantastical mind set completely open and receptive to subjective suggestion…To some it is an almost reckless abandon and rebellious disregard for the stringent ghost buster protocols to which so many feel strict compliance must be observed ... once liberation from this imposed supposition has been achieved, this is when the barriers begin to dissolve (IMO)…the liberation of “nothing to prove” is the ultimate emancipation from the rigors of pseudo-science …this faux science has merely managed to encourage more in the way of false dichotomies and gratuitous cynical skepticism than actual data but I digress…

Here's the related Youtube video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GERLyJAa9c0

Here are the (compressed to 1MB) photos...some have been slightly sharpened or color enhanced (2-2012) 316 total....b
http://s790.photobucket.com/albums/yy188/TheNotoriousMrhalfhand/Roa...

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[Barek Halfhand]

UPDATE:

While Dallas TX was still recovering from the fusillade of 14 twisters that tore through town in early April of 2012, I found myself braving the Tom Landry Highway and exploring the downtown districts …In deference to my intuition; I stopped and took a night shot of one unremarkable building and caught an interesting photo (below)....b

Here’s the Downtown Dallas album:
http://s790.photobucket.com/albums/yy188/TheNotoriousMrhalfhand/Dow...

Here's the latest Best Of video:

Best Of Barek 9
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FhRTaD2dkK8

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While making my way through the Oklahoma back roads I happened upon a rather surreal scene in a Church yard …the mock-up was evidently erected for the Easter holidays to represent the trials and tribulations of Christ’s Last Supper, betrayal by Judas Iscariot, abuse at the hand of the Roman soldiers, crucifixion and absence from his burial tomb subsequent to his Resurrection…while I understand the intent, the entire effigy out in The Sticks was like “Children Of The Corn” meets “The House Of Wax”….

Spiritually uplifting or just plain creepy?...

You make the call....b

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NpT6Ka2n8kY

Here's the associated photo album
http://s790.photobucket.com/albums/yy188/TheNotoriousMrhalfhand/Cre...!cpZZ1QQtppZZ24