BEAR VALLEY MANOR

4

The 4th floor is as empty as it had been the night of the murders. No furniture or decor littered the unfinished halls of the floor, and the walls were half-built and looked like a superhero battle had just torn through there, leaving destruction in its wake. The atmosphere changed from the hauntingly beautiful notes that we felt downstairs, to the more tense and dark feeling that accompanied the floor's haunting history. We'd decided to do a Spirit Box Session on the 4th floor. More specifically I would be using the Estes Method, a method established by Karl Pfeiffer and Connor J. Randall years earlier. I would be blindfolded and would put headphones on to plug the spirit box into, and would have my senses completely cut off from me. I would relay what was being heard or sometimes even seen as it came to me through the spirit box, while Tanya would ask questions that I had no knowledge of.

I sat on the floor and got comfortable, closing my eyes and grounding myself as Tanya kneeled beside me and prepared the equipment. As she moved in front of me, I peeked one eye open and quickly kissed her on the mouth, causing her to laugh and fall into my arms. Having these intimate moments with Tanya during our investigations always helped not only calm me but bring some light into some pretty grim places. She is the light of my life, my one and only, and the only person I have ever loved, which brings a much needed positive energy into these locations.

Once we were finally ready, the session began. For those who have never participated in an Estes Method session, the goal is to match up the questions being asked by the outside party with the answers those wearing the headphones are getting and to establish a dialogue with any entity that might be there. Although it is rare, one of the more fascinating things to come of this method is when the listener begins to get an image or scene in their minds, as if they are being shown a vision. That night at Bear Valley Manor was the first time I'd experienced this.

Our session began pretty simply, with me hearing words like "hello" or "who's there" being said, but for the most part, all things seemed quiet. However, things took a drastic turn when suddenly I saw a vision appear to me. I was suddenly back inside of the Bear Valley Manor, but without Tanya or any of our equipment. The home itself looked brand new as if it had just been built. I was quickly taken by some unseen force into the hallway of the 4th floor, where a large, behemoth of a man walked slowly towards the stairs, dragging a large ax behind him as a storm raged outside of the walls of the home.

I drifted as if on a bed of clouds, following the man down the stairs until he came to the main floor of the house. The tan, leathery face of the man broke out into a grin as he looked into the foyer of the home, and the sounds of screams pierced the air. I didn't want to venture further down, but I was helpless to do anything but look on. The man lifted the ax, and the sound of the blade slicing through the air and the sick sound of the blade slicing through bone and blood filled the air. The man brought down the ax over and over again, and I knew I was seeing the murder of Maxwell and Delores Williams.

A hand gripped my shoulder, and I turned to see the couple standing behind me, now in their ghostly forms. I tried to form the words to speak, but I could not as if the air had been sucked straight out of the room. Their bodies were covered in blood and deep cuts from the ax and both anger and sadness struck their faces. Delores walked up to me and smiled sadly, and whispered, "See..."

She turned me around, and suddenly it was a different man, still large but a more pale figure with attire that belonged in the sixties. I looked past him as he brought his ax down again, and saw that the bodies before him were not that of Max and Delores. Two teenagers who looked like they belonged in a commercial imitating Woodstock lay on the floor, their hands locked together as they lost their lives. The scene changed again, and now the house was in further decay, closer to the modern era. The killer now wore an outfit fit for the '90s, while the couple being murdered looked like they should be in a Disney Channel Original Movie.

The vision began to make a sick sense, as the final couple showed was Tanya and me, our equipment scattered around us and our hands holding onto one another as a large man wearing the overalls of a car mechanic brought down the ax upon us, the light slowly leaving our eyes as tears dripped down our faces. The killer and the couple were never the same, but the house was. By some strange coincidence or a stroke of fate, a string of killers had made Bear Valley Manor their hunting grounds, and couples were always the target.

Delores turned me back around, fear gripping my heart, and finally shouted, "RUN!"