The Flats

Now way back in the day when we where still crafting dousing rods out of under wire braws, and I was still sporting that lovely black hair of mine, we used to jet around in Nicole’s beat up red mustang. I know it sounds cool but trust me when I say it wasn’t, that thing was a death trap not just waiting to happen, but happening! At least once during each hunt one of us would have to squeeze down beside Nicole’s legs to flick on the engine fan which was astutely located beside the gas. If you didn’t, you and your fellow passengers got to enjoy an entire car interior filling with smoke, while you hung out the side windows as to not be asphyxiated. (Thumbs up to the engineers who thought up that brilliant idea by the way.)
Thankfully our near demise is decaying somewhere in a junk yard at the present, and my fellow ghost huntress extraordinaire decided to trade in the hot box-mobile for something a little less hazardous. This being the cougar which rolled into casa Matthews around eleven in the morning toting in its presence, a tired looking Nicole who waved from the driver seat.
Aside from being the hub of horny high school bush parties, the flats are also home to the foundations of an old farmhouse with a sinister history. Purportedly haunted by the ghosts of a family long since expired, the ruins sit a good distant hike away from the entrance. That’s a long walk in the dark let me tell you!
As ghost hunters, we’d be lying if we didn’t out our love for campfire stories, which basically sums up the plot line for this little yarn. Boy’s parents leave him at home; boy is kidnapped by a guy who was hiding out in the attic. Parents’ greave and boy is never seen again...in physical form anyway.
Now don’t hold us to the validly of this story, again ghost fans let’s remember that this is a famed urban legend which gets around more then a Clair Street prostitute in June. The house itself was actually found by Nick and I one day last summer as a fluke. The information came afterward from a plethora of sources, and changes from person to person.
The clock hit around the eleven thirty mark as Corrie, Nicole and I pulled into the empty gravel parking lot and turned to survey the large woods which surrounded that night’s target. As a group we knew that hitting up the woods during daylight hours would give us a clear idea of how far we would be going at night, again because they are quite large.
The day investigation proved rather uneventful, although valuable considering that steep incline on either side of the path would become veiled at night, and if you fell down there, there is where you’d stay.

Fast forward twelve hours and Nicole and I stood, minus Corrie, at the mouth of the woods looking in with a lot more trepidation then we had earlier that day. We brought Ron Jeremy with us (Nicole’s huge high beam mag light) which she proceeded to presented to the woods whilst notifying all possible bums that she would ‘bash in there f#%^ing skulls with it’ if they came at us. See when you’re about to have yourself a jaunty ramble though the woods at night, it’s just common courtesy to warn the drunk vagrant potentially sleeping under a moldy log that you mean business. Now don’t get me wrong, we love us some hobo as much as the next person, but not when they mysteriously appear out of a tree stump sounding and sometimes smelling like the walking dead…that’s just unpleasant, for both parties really.
After the first twenty minutes of slow walking everything seemed to be clear on the hobo frontier and we turned our attention towards path pushing deeper into the dark ominous woods that stretched out before us.
All and sundry knows that the forest is creepy at night, everything skulking around you in the bushes and trees sounds sinister, and of course that night proved to be no exception. I whipped out the EMF detector and let her rip, while Nicole swept the path ahead of us with a massive beam of light. We went like this silently for a majority of the hike, listening to the sounds around us while doing our best not to let our imaginations get the better of the situation. At times we heard what sounded like whispering voices, only to realize a few paces further on that it was only the sound of water passing over the pebbles in a nearby creak. The sky that night was clouded over blocking out any chance of moonlight, and richening the shadows and the mood of the woods dramatically.

Once we finally reached the house, we set up shop inside the stone walls and after sitting quietly for half an hour, the fun started.
Having at this point become familiarized with the sounds around us, we both immediately reacted to the scuffle of nearby footsteps, via screaming our heads off. Nicole’s dog whistle timbre echoed like a carving knife on a marble counter, followed closely by the sound of my own as I turned and watched helplessly at the mighty shaft of Ron Jeremy disappearing down the path. Nicole’s a runner; it’s kind of her thing. Over the years I have grown accustomed to being abandoned in moments of panic by Nicole but in this particular instance, seeing as I myself had no flashlight, I wasn’t.
My stomach sank. I had been standing on the opposite side of the foundation, with absolutely no where to run. Even if I had been lucky enough to find an escape route, my complete and total lack of light impeded my chances of fleeing. Grains of sand from the wall stuck to the sweat on my hands as I felt my way backwards, and the sound of my heart hammered out a drum line in my ears. The crunching continued forward and my foot came into contact with the heavy stone behind me, I was at the end of the line with no where else to go.
In the back of my mind I envisioned Nicole having already made it to the car, the tires pealing out of the gravel parking lot leaving nothing but a dim cloud of dust behind in its wake. Her saucer sized eyes staring out of the windshield, as the headlights cut two beams onto the dark road ahead. She was long gone I thought to myself, crouched and listening to the leaves ten feet away shuffling with weight.
I squinted into the darkness searching for any sign of movement, and saw nothing but black in front of me. Unexplainably the scuttling continued forward and I felt moisture from the mud soaking into the knees of my jeans as I continued backwards searching feebly for anything to hide behind.
That’s when I saw it. At first just a faint flicker then beaming like the bat symbol through the darkness, slicing away the shadows; it was Ron Jeremy. It seamed as if I would live to die another day. My eyes swung towards the direction of the path as Nicole came through the trees, flashlight clasped in her hands like King Arthur wielding Excalibur. I have never in my life been as glad to see Nicole, as I was in that instance.
Pushing myself up from the wall, I sprinted across the foundation listening for the sound of footsteps which were no where to be heard. What ever it was had decided to retreat backwards, out of sight and ‘skull bashing’ distance, and once I had vaulted to safety over the metal railing I lifted my camera and snapped a few shots into the tree line ahead.
Instantly on the LCD screen I saw what appeared to be one of the clearest orbs we’ve ever captured on film, and as my feet moved backwards my curiosity willed me to stay put just for a little longer. One more picture I look myself, watching my hands shaking as I lifted the lenses forward; just one more picture.
Orbs are sketchy, there’s no doubt about that. We usually find a thousand ways to debunk them but this one in particular was worth giving a second look so I called back to Nicole, keeping my eyes focused above the flash line and told her not to run. Every once and a while on a ghost hunt when your drawn into the heat of the moment by adrenaline coursing though ever nerve of your body, you have a moment when you realize that perhaps you have pushed a little to far. This was one of those moments. I managed a grand total of two pictures before the sound of a woman’s screaming voice racked through the space around us. It was like a chip of ice had just slid down the arch of my spine, and I felt Nicole’s hand come down on my shoulder.
This time it was the both of us who hit the ground running, as fast as our legs could carry us. In situations like this it’s best not to panic, but that wasn’t an option seeing how in one instantaneous moment the woods around us came alive with the sounds of grunting. Not animal grunting and no not sex grunting you pervs; it was ritualistic; feral almost.
We ran and ran, and then we ran some more. At every twist in the path I was sure we were nearing the end, only to find yet another curve up ahead. We slipped along the pebbles embedding themselves in the treads of our running shoes, and at long last broke through the mouth of the woods into the clearing fifty feet from the car.
As we passed over the bridge with just the last short stretch to go, I can remember the hearing sound of the wind singing through the branches and caring with it the banshee like groans from deep within the flats.
Just as I had earlier imagined the car pealed out of the parking lot, this time thankfully with myself in attendance, and we sped down the highway shaken and yet buzzing with adrenaline. What a homecoming.
Later in the safety of Nicole’s house, as we went through the evidence, while discussing the mysterious sounds. It seamed that collectively we had both heard the same thing, right down to the last chorus line of noises as we had raced towards the car. Adding the image of the orb, and yet another shot which upon intensification showed a massive cloud of ecto floating behind a docile looking Nick, and we where please with the results.
Its not often we’re serenaded by a pack of night crawling forest creatures who not only offered up a little acapella, but a picture as well. We’ll take this as a good sign that even the spookies are glad we’ve returned!

For pictures of the hunt, CLICK HERE