Chapter 1
It was the 79th cloudy day in a row in southwest Michigan. The gray clouds lined against the dirty snow blurred the horizon line, making it seemingly invisible. There were no sunsets, just a spiritless sky that slowly got darker as night crept in. Sometimes when the sky was only a light haze you could see a pale-yellow glow careening behind the clouds.
Between miles of corn fields and U-PICK berry farms and little white churches with small cemeteries next to them, there was a house. The house had no neighbors. It had white paneling and, a wavy caving in reddish roof. The white sides of the house, barely white anymore, were speckled with black and gray marks from years’ worth of cars carbon emissions. Towering pine trees lined the yard and separated it from the fields surrounding it. The backyard had a barn and garage full of abandoned farming and camping equipment. The basement window was broken, and the lawn was scattered with debris. Old pipes once attached to the gutter left gaps in the towering grass which hadn’t been cut for years. The front door to the house was sealed shut, the door frame and hinges coated with a thick white paint covered in dirt and grime. The back door was the only entrance. It was a dark blue door and next to it was a big red doorbell.
Mila brushed a sun-bleached lace curtain to reveal the Decembers 5 o’clock sunset. This also revealed the sun-dried flies and freshly dead robin laying on the windowsill of the sunroom. The sad reality of a sunroom in the winter. Hazy orange headlights zoomed past on the baren country road. Mila jumped and quickly pulled the curtains back together. As long as no one came to check on the houses abandoned state she had a place to collect footage.
Mila had never really planned to be here. She looked at the wallpaper, the purple pattern repeated down in lines like tabs of acid. She began visiting the old house to keep her creativity flowing, but it was increasingly pulling her out of her mind. She used to be such a college girl. She had a radio show, she published prose in small zines and journals, she had passions. Dropping out of Kalamazoo College wasn’t something she told people; not because she was ashamed exactly, but because she didn’t know how to explain it. Her parents disapproved of her liberal arts college thing anyways. They disapproved even more of her Film and Media studies major. She was tired of all the questions “What are you going to do with that anyway?” She never had an answer. After depressingly living back at home after barely completing the first semester of the second year, she started this project to prove to herself she could still create. Tonight, she decided to fully immerse herself in the horror experience. She would be spending the night here alone.
It was apparent the electricity had been shut off for years, and there were few signs of life. In fact, there were more signs of death, really. That was the thing about homes built in places people only drove past—no one seemed to check on them. The house smelled like a gas stove. Upon entering, there was no foyer, just two sets of stairs. One to the main floor and another to the basement. The house was still fully furnished. The kitchen had bright yellow counters that were wrapped all around with stained creamy white cabinets.
While there was still a glimmer of light in the sky Mila stepped away from the window to discover a family room with sandy colored plaid couches, a glass coffee table, and a boxy CRT television. The couches were full of dust, and cobwebs slung from the corners of the room, dangling from the room’s archway entrance.
She made her way down a skinny hallway lined with an 80’s green carpet that almost looked like grass. A narrow stairway meets her in the corner. She climbed upstairs where she found three bedrooms. She hesitated before walking further as the bedrooms still looked lived in. There were big shelves full of books, the beds still made, clothes still hanging in the closet. Pieces of crumbling paint and drywall are sprinkled on one of the beds. A dead mouse lay by the frigid radiator. Mila gasped, realizing the gravity of her situation. The gray sky had turned black so there was no turning around.
For a moment she felt safe in this strange, abandoned home. She sat at the breakfast table and looked out to the sky. The green ElectroLuminescence of her Casio watch read, 6:00–the astrological twilight. While Mila was seemingly at peace, bright orange beams came shining through the window of the pitch-black home. The headlights lit up her face in the kitchen and again Mila quickly drew the curtains closed. Mila jumped down and hid underneath the window with her fingers grasping on the icy windowsill. Through the closed lace curtains, she could still make out the car and its headlights. It wasn’t another car just passing through. The car parked on the side of the road in front of the house.
Mila sat at the window like a deer in headlights, peering through the lacey holes of the curtains to try and uncover who this strange visitor was. It was a black Chevy Impala, so it couldn’t be the police. This house was so neglected that she couldn’t believe it could be someone who lived here. Through the window, a dark silhouette of a man sat in the driver’s seat. She watches him to see when he comes out, she asks herself whether it’d be safer to stay here and explain herself or run now. But where could she run? There were no other places here. She had the field behind the house, or the field next to the house, or the field in front of the house. She could drive miles back home and abandon her mission. Mila hated driving in the dark, and the snow made it worse. Mila’s options ran wild through her head as the stranger sat still in the car. He appears to be hunched over sort of on the steering wheel. Mila’s heart pounded and her mind wanders, “is he hurt, has he fallen asleep, is he drunk, is he dead.” Five, ten, twenty minutes pass and the figure still stayed the same silhouette of a man with his head down. In a burst of anxiety induced adrenaline Mila got up; pulled on a pair of too big winter boots she had found by the door and went out to investigate. She walked around the house and passes the trees that shielded it.
She saw a boy in the car, and from a closer look she noticed that he was trembling. “Thank God” Mila thinks. The boy looked so much younger than the man she saw from the window. He looked close to Mila’s age, 18 or so. And he was tall and skinny. Quite less threatening than Mila initially perceived him. She approached the car with caution, knowing her presence could very well frighten him, just as much as his frightened her. She looked through the car window to see the boy face down in the steering wheel. With his head buried he couldn’t see her peaking in. His wavy blonde hair fell gracefully over his head and shoulders. A baggy blue patterned sweater dangled below his hands which were gripped to the sides of the steering wheel. His entire body was shaking like he was cold or seizing, or like he just saw a ghost. Mila knocked on the window and the boy jumped and howled. His beady blue eyes met hers with a face of terror. He rolled down the window, and his voice shakes.
“What the hell, who are you?”
Mila stood still, almost too stunned to speak. “I should be asking you. You’ve been sitting here for almost half an hour!”
The boy squinted his eyes at her, he sounded defeated. “Why should you care, it’s not like anyone lives here.”
Without thinking Mila blurts. “I live here!”
“Mhmm.” His face back down in his arms.
He looked fragile. Mila sensed something was wrong. “Are you okay?”
The boy didn’t answer. She couldn’t tell if he was scared or just spaced out.
“Do you need help?”
He lifted his head and looked at her with an emotionless face, his eyes were now welled with tears. The boy just whispered, “Migraine.”
Mila looked at the boy, curling in pain, shivering from the winter chill sneaking through the window. “If you are going to just sit here crying in pain, at least come inside where it’s warm.”
“What?” He speaks.
“Okay, inside where its warm-ish. They cut the electricity so it’s not great. It’s gonna kill your car battery if you just sit out here all night”
The boy hunched over and was silent. Mila was becoming cold and impatient. She wanted to help him. The boy seemed broken and alone. Inviting a stranger into her newfound film location was not recommended on the urban exploration forums she followed. However, he seemed desperate. No, she was desperate. Desperate for an idea, for a story, for an unexpected character that could make her story. Desperate for connection. How much more real could her horror get with an unexpected stranger? Her anxiety pleaded for her to walk away, let him leave as he wished, but her ambition to create overcame her fear. There was silence between the two. Just as Mila turned around to walk away, she heard the car door open. She turned back around to see the boy slowly get up and walk sluggishly toward her.
“You sure?” he said in a quiet deep voice.
“No,” she said. “But just come inside.”
He followed behind her.
Before they reach the entrance of the door Mila stops, “Wait, I never got your name. I’m Mila.”
The boy, almost breathless responds, “You can call me Blue.”
A fog surrounded the luminous home in the dark. Mila and Blue stood in foyer of the deteriorating interior. Mila gestured Blue to take a seat at the breakfast table. Blue was unresponsive with his pupils dilated looked like he was caught in a trance. He ignored Mila as if she wasn’t even there and threw his body on the dusty living room couch. The dust flies up in an explosion from the impact.
Mila coughs. “Ew, I thought you had a migraine.” Surprised by his sudden change in mood. She sat down beside him. “You wanna tell me what brings you out here?”
“I could ask you the same thing, I know this isn’t your house.”
Mila looked at him and hesitates. Why should she trust this man she just met? He’s asking far too much. “I want to create a horror story. That’s why I’m here.”
“You’re a writer living in an abandoned home in the middle of nowhere?”
“I’m here researching.” Mila rolled her eyes at herself just saying that. “I’m here working on my analog horror series. I’m kind of on an ‘indie budget’. I learned about this place online, so I decided to come see for myself. I wanted some footage, thought maybe I’d even I see a ghost.”
“So, you just, like, found a haunted house on Zillow?”
“I mean you’re not entirely wrong. I found this place on an old urbex forum, while researching haunted places in southwest Michigan. I dug around for a while on the Wayback machine to find it, so I’m pretty sure no one else really knows about this place.”
Blue takes both hands and pulls the skin across his face, stretching the skin under his eyes to reveal the veiny redness underneath. He sighs, “So, where do you actually live?”
“Uhm here, duh” She laughs. “ I had a place in Kalamazoo before I dropped out, then I lived at home and now I’m sort of…”
“Squatting” Blue finished her sentence in a muffled voice. His face now buried in the dust filled couch, his lanky limbs were spewing all over.
“Most of the time I just tell people I’m from Detroit.” Mila was now pushed to the corner edge of the seat.
Blue sunk further into the squishy plaid sofa. His blonde hair fell softly over his face, his blue eyes eclipsed as his eyelids droop down his pale white face. Even in the unlit room, his skin seemed to have an ethereal glow around it. The patterns on his blue Coogi sweater swirled all psychedelic with the rise and fall of his chest. For the first time, he appeared calm.
Mila stared, stunned by how quickly he became comfortable enough to sleep. Not only was it a musty couch, but he was also sleeping in an abandoned house, trusting a girl he just met. However, she felt slightly relieved that the first night she spent at this home she wasn’t alone. Slightly relieved that there was another living soul in the house. Slightly relieved that the strange visitor had the same affinity for vintage fashion as her. Without a sound she peeled herself off the sofa and made up her bed on the adjacent love seat. She piled up blankets, and her pillow from home and anything else she could find from her bag just to block the dust and cigarette smell coming from the cushions. The pillow she slept on decorated in a typewriter text read “Last Night I Dreamt Somebody Loved Me.” Her college sleepover, hangover, and 3pm naptime companion. Her good luck pillow that she swore prevented her from dreams of her teeth falling out and sleep paralysis visits from the Hat Man.
Mila glanced at Blue, still as ever. “Who are you?” She whispered. The young girl pressed her ear against the inky mantra on her pillow, and her eyes fell shut.
“I know you don’t live here”
“I know who lives here, I need to talk to him”
“Who is she?”
“Don’t worry, she’ll be gone by tomorrow”
Mila’s body tremors as she is violently awoken from her slumber hearing the tail end of this conversation. Blue’s body was still slumped over the couch, yet his voice sounded so far. Her anxiety spikes. She swore she heard someone else in the house. It’s pitch black and she can’t see a thing as her eyes haven’t yet adjusted to the darkness. She trembles, believing she just heard a ghost. “I’m working on a horror series, Jesus Christ, why am I such a pussy” She thinks. She grabs a flashlight from her bag’s side pocket and lights up the room. Blue is asleep like a rock. To get over herself, and to begin work on her project, she grabs her pack of camera supplies.
The contents of her pack included:
-A Canon ZR60 camcorder, equipped with night vision
-EMF Sensor
-A plastic baggy of MiniDV tape (the kind that gets all corrupted if digitized incorrectly)
-Tangles of miscellaneous cords
-Little black CD case
-Bright yellow boxes of Kodak film
-A super 8 camera
Mila flicks out the viewfinder of her camcorder and turns on the night vision mode. She tiptoes like a child up past their bedtime around the pitch-black home recording the eerie remnants of what was left behind. The grey filter over the camera captured the floating dust particles all over the room. She shot the oddly themed kitchen, the green grass carpet, yellowing walls and creamy cabinets. She perfectly framed the cracking, peeling paint, as to make it look like a dark disease overtaking the house. She wanders the hallways of the home, hoping to find some old family portraits, someone to be the ghost in this ghost story. The only thing she could find on the walls besides the dirt and cracks was an abundance of those weird paintings you’d only see in a thrift store or dentist office or something. Totally did not match the “someone used to live here” vibe. She turns off the night vision mode and shoots the beautiful bleakness of the midwestern winter night. Outside the window of the sunroom the orange glow of light pollution of a nearby city lights up the camcorder’s viewfinder. Mila, still on the hunt for a character in her story found herself drawn to the basement. The only area of the house she hadn’t explored before Blue’s arrival. She could do closets, and corridors, and crumbling paint, and dead birds, and rodents, but a basement, that was the ultimate test. Besides her teeth falling out, basements were her biggest fear.
Mila couldn’t help but question why someone as anxious as her was choosing fear on purpose, just to capture some footage. Just to make something out of nothing. Her inspiration was always from life stories and her life was, bleak, to say the least. She grew tired of the same films she shot about teenagers and their messy relationships with their parents, or how teenage boys were evil, or how terribly boring the Midwest was. Horror was something simple she thought. This house was the perfect vibe, abandoned, mysterious, and undeniably horrific. She just had to make her way down the linoleum steps of the basement to continue her search for the unknown. Just as she placed her foot on the first step of the stairs a bright flash appeared from her camcorder causing her body to jolt, she lost grip of her camera, and it tumbled down the stairs. The viewfinder now just a glowing blue screen on the dark basement floor. Mila screamed, but before she could even think to run back to her couch, Blue was already there behind her. His arms wrapped around Milas waist.
“Don’t.” He pauses. “Go down there.”
Mila pants, ripping his arms off her body and begins sobbing.
“I’m sorry, I just don’t trust this house. There’s probably like asbestos or something down there.”
“Who are you?” Her words come in staccato waves, broken up by heavy breathing and tears. She collapses onto the freezing tile floor and her hands buried in her face. “I don’t know what’s happening. I feel weird, I feel weird, I feel really weird, Blue!” Her body convulsing between every word she says, every sentence a tremor, every breath a struggle.
“I should take you home,” Blue says softly “You shouldn’t be here, it’s not safe.”
“I need that.” She nods to the glowing blue camera at the bottom of the stairs. “I can’t go home; I need to do this. Please.”
Her eyes dart. “Am I cold? Do I feel cold to you? Oh my God, am I hypothermic?”
Blue sits on the floor beside her and brushes her arm. “You feel fine to me. You’re gonna be okay.
She did not feel fine. It was like she could see herself, balled up on the top of the stairs. Watching herself break down. Even the air around her felt heavy. To speak works felt impossible. She grabbed on to Blue’s arm trembling.
Mila’s frantic breathing slows briefly. She wipes her watering eyes, and looked straight at Blue, then quietly without thinking asked, “Do you believe in ghosts?”