Trip 1
Alright, I don't know much about the history behind this haunt because I was never able to research into it. I just call it the “house in Hart (Michigan)”. Pretty simple right? The house stands high and tall among the dead grass scattered in the open field in which it stands. In the late evening, above the forest, miles away, sometimes you can see the orange glow of flames rising out from an oil refinery in the distance. If the old mangled home wasn't spooky enough, the dirt road which it calls home also holds a hidden Indian cemetery (forbidden by local Indians to be walked upon by any white man) and a large brick foundation. You have to walk a bit once you park by the “off limits” sign to get to the home. Its color is dull gray with hints of blue and white. Two stories of gothic homestead. It's impossible to enter the front door. If you look up from the busted up entrance, you'll see shredded thick blue curtains blowing their way out the sole up stairs window. You have to walk to the back door, or where the back door was, to get in. This is what we did the first time myself, and my sister-in-law happened upon this house. There was a large well in the back yard over grown with grass and a lot of the grass surrounding the home was crushed down, like it had been a laying area for a local group of does.
There was a large trench between us and the back entrance. The only way to enter was to balance yourself across a thin beam of wood. We both took on the challenge and entered into the mouth of “the beast,” another name I came up with for the house. To say the inside was worse than the outside would be an understatement. It was trashed. Clothes, torn mattresses and broken appliances littered the residence. The floor itself was fairly sturdy, considering half the time you were walking on dirt. We walked through the living room, peered out the front door, and then checked out the kitchen. Old pots and pans were strewn about the area and there wasn't too much to look at. We decided then to go up the stairs.
It was a gloomy rainy day, so we kind of wanted each others company going up those pink painted steps, because to be honest, we had no idea what we would find up there! I went first, and as I placed my foot on the first step, I heard a faint creaking noise. As anyone would normally do when they hear a noise that's out of place, I said, "Shhhhh!!! Did you hear that?" And then as we both were silent, holding our breath, it came again. Creeeeeeeeak. Shorter this time. And before we could even open our mouths or take a quick breath ...WHAM!!! The upstairs door slammed. I said something to the effect of, "Holy shit" and we ran out of that house in a seconds time. I suppose I probably jumped over our little make shift balancing beam. We stood out in that field with the wind blowing, looking up towards the 2nd floor. I spoke first. "Let's go up there!" My sister-in-law laughed and said, "Go-ahead".
"No, No, I want to go up there!" I stated.
So we made our way back in across the wooden plank and slowly back to where we started, at the foot of the stairs. We walked up again, and finally reached the top of the stairs, which kind of curved around a bit before reaching a type of foyer/landing. In front of us was the room with the door wide open. It was the only room up there, and that door slamming shut must have been what we heard. Sure there was a breeze. But was it enough to move that heavy door? To slam it so hard that it flung itself back open? Who knows. I suppose it is possible. Anything is possible. So we looked around a bit more. There was really nothing spectacular on the second floor. A closet. A mattress. On our way out I noticed a hole in the ceiling in the foyer area which led to the attic. There was nothing for me to stand on, so I was not able to really look up inside like I wanted to. We spent a bit more time there, and then we left. The story would have been creepy enough had that been the end of it. But having shared that story with my other sister-in-law, she decided she wanted to have a look...and who better than me to be the guide!
Trip 2
It wasn't a day much unlike the first trip I had made to the house. It was kind of dreary and unpleasant. We arrived at the home in the late afternoon. Myself, two sister-in-laws, and my girlfriend. The house seemed a bit more run down, as it had been about a year since I had visited. The coloring was pretty much the same. We still had to walk across boards to enter the back door, except this time it was much easier, as the entire back door was off...so we just walked across it. The inside of the home was really gutted now! Wallpaper hung off the walls and the floor was littered with clothes and animal droppings. We pretty much followed the same pattern of checking out the living room and dining room areas, and then the kitchen. With nothing more to explore down stairs, it was time to head to the second floor. Everyone was a bit nervous because of my story of the first trip, so we stuck close together. Rounding the small corner to reach the stairway, and then peering up into its hall, I was taken aback. The railing had been ripped out all the way up the stairs and stuck in strange positions in the walls. To this day, I have no idea how someone could get inside of a wall and push broken pieces of railing outward towards the staircase, with no holes elsewhere in the wall. I wasn't afraid now of strange noises, I was worried we'd get hurt walking up those stairs.
Each piece of railing was lined with sharp nails and aimed towards the outside. So we kind of ducked our way under and around the railings, until I felt something brush my jacket while I was attempting to climb the stairs. I looked up and saw more boards actually hanging from the ceiling over the staircase with mass amounts of nails protruding from them. It was a very, very surrealistic sight. After we got over the shock of all of that, we walked into the upstairs foyer area. And I, never going anywhere without my camera, continued to film the area. I had noticed the attic again and that I could kind of see the roof way up at the top. With nothing to stand on, I kind of reached my arm as high as it could go, and just filmed up in the area.
We spent about three minutes or so exploring and then decided to head back down. I was the first on the way up, but last on the way down. Everyone had cleared the stairway, but I was still there, filming the hanging boards and such. When I happened to look down, I wasn't using my full line of vision, just what I could see through the camera's eye piece. But what I saw made me jump back into those damn sticks and scream. It was an eye ball with hair all around it. I dropped the camera to my side, and pressed up against the wall. I scared everyone else with my screaming and with my coaxing, they came back in to look at what I had almost stepped on.
At the foot of the stairs, was a large, very dead, dog. It obviously had starved to death and was rotting away amongst the boards and clothing. It seemed to have some sort of spikes in its face. I'm guessing porcupine quills. That was pretty much the end of our trip. We stepped back out into the gloom of the afternoon and we’re on our way. Not knowing whether any of this has any connection to any certain time I had visited the home, the fact remains that every time, something strange had occurred. Whether natural or un-natural.
A few nights later, I had the chance to sit down and examine the film footage. I nearly soiled myself when I paused the camera at the point where I had attempted to film inside the attic. It was plain as day to me, however there have been others weren't able to see it. But I did. And it was clear. An older woman's face, a side profile, wearing a type of hood. The image was so distinct to me that I swore I could make out neck muscles in this image.
Another few months went by and for a project I was working on, I had a chance to meet up with a witch/psychic. While we all held hands in a candlelit circle, I told her the story of the home and what I had experienced. She concentrated on what I was saying with her eyes closed. When I had finished, she opened them and advised me never to go back to that house again. Something about it was evil.
Well that was enough for me. I had to go back.
Trip 3
This time, I wanted to go at night. As if the place wasn't creepy enough in the daytime, or possibly the psychic’s warning should have meant something. But I was drawn to find out more about the home. Would it still look the same? What would I find up in the attic? I had actually hoped that I would find nothing new. But as with the last time I had visited, “the beast” had its surprises.
It took me a bit longer to find the place in the dark, and once we had arrived, I almost didn't want to go into the house. It was ten times creepier in the light of a summer moon, than what it had been in the darkness of a rainy November day. There was again a breeze. There's always a breeze there. It's not bad or anything; it's just enough wind to tell you, you don't belong and to give you a chill. It was a chore getting my sister-in-law to come along with me again, let alone get her out of the damn vehicle. But eventually I succeeded and with flashlights in hand, we trekked through the knee high grass.
The old door was still across the trench, so it was easy to get inside. The house looked the same. There wasn't much more damage that could be done to it anyway. We didn’t spend too much time on the main floor because the central focus had now become the upstairs area. I expected to see those sticks again and was surprised when they were gone. I don't know who removed them or how the hell they did...but they were gone. My sister-in-law was concerned she would stomp on the dead dog, but it had been long enough that no visible traces were left. I shined my flashlight up near the top of the stairs, where the turn off is...and there...stuck way up high, almost to the ceiling...was a chair. All four legs were stuck into the wall and it was facing upwards. Like if you would sit in a chair, with your feet on the wall, and looking up at the ceiling. The first thing that struck me was that someone must have been really tall or had brought a ladder with them in order to put the chair like that. What was the reason behind it? When my sister-in-law saw what I was looking at, her reaction was simple.
"Oh my god.”
That's just what the sight did to you. It took your breath away. Not because it was really that weird or mystifying...just because it was so out of place. It just didn't fit. We again climbed up the stairs, and the only strange thing I remember was a moth nest or something. It was just a big circle of dead or sleeping moths all along the ceiling. We must have only been in there ten minutes and we left.
Trip 4
So my experience with this home ended, almost like it started. It was probably two years after my sister-in-law and I had driven there on that summer night. I believe it was now Fall again and I suggested we take a ride out to that 'old house'. She wasn't too crazy about it, but eventually agreed to just 'look'. We pulled up slowly, with our windows down. The orange glow of the flames was distant in the sky. We sat there in front of the 'off limits' sign and my sister-in-law shined her flashlight around the outside of the house. I think she had mentioned something to the effect of, “We should leave”, when from inside the home came the sound that I would never have forgotten. Even if I hadn't heard it twice. WHAM!!!
It was the sound of a door slamming from within the home. Indeed, I did my own slamming...on my car's gas pedal. I left that night and haven't been back. That must have been four years ago now. I doubt the home is still standing. But if it were, I wonder what surprise it would hold now? I'm sure “the beast” would have something for me; it hadn't let me down so far.
Houses are buildings, in-animate objects built by man. But into these structures man puts his life. His blood, his sweat, his tears and turmoil and his family. And man dies...and sometimes dies in his structure, and such may become part of it. If there ever was an evil or an un-natural presence in a structure...it would be “the beast.”
