Chapter 1
His bodycam strapped to his chest, a lamplight on his head, Jamie Duggans felt the weight of his backpack as he climbed through a smashed window. Avoiding the jagged shard sticking out on what was left on the sill, Jamie barely managed to get into the abandoned structure. But this window was the only way inside. The rest of the windows and doors had been boarded shut. On entry, the reek of mold and rot was strong. Black mold. Deadly. Outside it was pitch black. Midnight. Trying to find stable footing on a rotted floor, Jamie switched his headlamp on and paused to look around. His bodycam had been recording since he’d began the journey on foot. This old farmhouse had been abandoned at least a decade ago and was left to decay. Once he’d gotten his bearings, he removed his handheld camera from his cargo pants pocket to film an additional angle of recording and then took careful steps across the creaky, soggy wood flooring. A few items of furniture had been left behind. One wooden chair sat in the room he’d entered. Maybe a bedroom. He had no idea. Brushing cobwebs from his face with his gloved hand, Jamie peered into the blackness of the hallway. More horrific odors made their way to his senses. He patted his pockets for his mask. Removing one glove, Jamie managed to put the mask on, but it wasn’t a respirator, and he knew it would not protect him against deadly mold or asbestos. So, he couldn’t be inside here for long. He looked both ways down a narrow, creepy hallway. Man, it was horrific. Right out of a slasher movie. If someone with an axe came rushing out of one of the rooms, he’d shit himself. Under his breath he muttered, “What a way to make a living,” knowing the mic clipped to his shirt would catch the comment, but hell, his viewers loved it when he was terrified. Slowly, carefully, he determined a direction to explore first. He certainly didn’t have a floorplan but had walked around the perimeter. The house was large, had at least two floors, a basement and an attic. His breathing became loud under the cotton mask and the heat from the September day lingered in the abandoned home. Sweat began to pour from his body out of fear, and of course the air temperature, which even at midnight had to be in the eighties inside this sealed home. Creeping along, he peered into rooms with open doors. Mattresses rotted, springs exposed from the cotton wadding. This place had to have been built in the 1800s. Curtains that had once added décor to the room were now ragged, filthy, and hanging in shreds as if a cat used it for sharpening its claws. Trash and debris littered the small space. Jamie opened a closet door, and a single hanging dress moved when he did, scaring the crap out of him. He caught his breath and turned around to look at the hallway. Using his handheld camera to be able to see in the darkness with night-vision, Jamie stood in the hallway again, listening. Man, this is terrifying. He continued on, entering small bedrooms, each with one or two furniture items left to rot. A dresser with a mirror tilted to one side, its legs either splintered or the floor caved in. It gave this room a ‘funhouse’ effect, making him feel as if the entire floor were on a slant. Something banged on the floor above. Jamie held his chest and listened. It may be the wind, but the windows were boarded up. He couldn’t imagine anyone living here. The reek of rotting and mold alone would be impossible to endure, not to mention no electricity and probably no running water either. He ended up in a kitchen. A calendar was pinned to a wall. It read, ‘December 1990.’ Wow. He made sure his cameras caught the date, since his viewers were always interested. Pots and pans had been left behind. In the sink were dirty dishes and dead bugs, a load of dead bugs. Nasty. A refrigerator, a stove, and a small table with wooden chairs was in the claustrophobic space. A shelf with spice jars, a ceramic holder with utensils all covered in cobwebs and dust an inch thick. “What happens to these people? Where do they go? Why do they leave things behind? I don’t get it,” he said into the mic for his viewers. This wasn’t live, although he had done live uploads before. He opened a cabinet and saw something brown and furry. Using his headlamp, he illuminated it. A dead mouse, nearly all bones. Knowing his viewers always wanted to see inside the fridge, for ya know, ‘body parts,’ Jamie held his breath and opened the freezer. It was empty. There was no power in the home. He closed it, and took another deep breath to hold, then opened the fridge. Moldy rotted food was left inside it and the odor made him dry-heave. He quickly shut the door. “Gross!” He shivered at the stench and kept going. Leaving the kitchen, Jamie located a living room. A stone fireplace was in it, and piles of crud and leaves appeared to have fallen from the chimney into the room. Birds had become trapped inside, most likely from nesting in the chimney. There were several dead ones on the floor. The smell was nearly unbearable. He kept stifling a gag reflex. The drapes in this room were heavy, printed patterns of large magnolia flowers, but the colors, maybe once pink and red, had faded to beige and gray. The corners of the rooms had spiderwebs that were like cocoons of silk, triangular sails that quivered with even the slightest movement. And the inhabitants of the webs were large, menacing, and downright horrifying. He lit one up, his camera hovering over the eight-legged creature. It sat still, waiting for a meal. “Holy shit,” he said as he looked at the size if the thing. He explored the two other rooms on this floor, and they were bedrooms as well. One with a wardrobe, which still had men’s clothing hanging inside it. A gray tweed suit which had been attacked by moths, and a rain jacket, yellow, covered in black mold. Jamie opened the door at the end of the hall, and it was a bathroom. The reek inside it was so disgusting he gagged and shut the door. Toilets. Yeah. Bad idea. Why people tended to shit in toilets that didn’t work, he’d never understand. He now had two choices, up or down. He chose up first. Climbing the creaky rotted stairs, Jamie held the rail and wondered if the steps were stable enough to not collapse under him. Hideous printed wallpaper peeled from the walls, making curls as the glue gave way, then chipping off to coat the risers. He made it to the top, paused, listened, and then chose a direction since the top landing went in two directions. More bedrooms were on the second floor. This one was furnished. He adjusted his headlamp to light it up and was a little unprepared for the sight of a made bed, a side table with a lamp, a wooden chair beside it… It looked as if the owner of the house would come in at any moment and go to bed. But… no. The windows had thick cobwebs, so thick, they had to have been left for years. And ivy vines, had managed to breech the windowpanes. A spindly creeping vine, like long tendrils of a green alien, had crept inch by inch into the space. It made a home for itself in the room. What he thought was carpet was actually moss. Moss was growing from the damp floorboards. Unbelievable what Mother Nature did to these abandoned places. “Wow.” Jamie backed up and took a photo of it with his phone. Yes, it was that amazing.
