LNOYL

I took an axe with me when we returned the following night. Not the instrument with six strings, but the blunt chopping don’t mess around with me device. Camera in my right hand, axe swung over my left shoulder. This place unnerved all of us. I wasn’t really worried about wild animals. This far out (google maps road precision didn’t reach here) the bears were mostly scared of people. I was more worried about inebriated humans who had picked up on our trail and were looking for trouble. We didn’t know who’s land we were trespassing on after all.

We moved the fallen tree limb off the path, and drove the panel van through the overgrown trail. Eventually we can’t see the path ahead anymore, and none us wants to chance the van getting ditched…it already seems to be having some trouble on the uneven, slippery ground. So we get out and begin to walk. I used the battery draining camera accessory LED to light my way (the five dollar special Hong Kong super battery pack actually worked) and carried the axe. Kirk and Dareck walked up ahead, waving the torchlights. The dew starts to soak my canvas shoes and jeans…we are really not prepared to be up here. Why can’t they make Rocket Dogs more sturdy - the glue is coming loose were the rubber meet the canvas already…We turn a corner on the trail, and the flashlight beams catch pieces of the house up ahead. It is so dark that an ordinary flash light can illuminate something hundreds of meters away - there is a burned, rolled over car adjacent to our path, but we even don’t know it yet because its two A.M. darkness, and no beams have happened to cross its way yet.

The abandoned two story house is groaning, and is pitched to an unnatural angle - it’s literally on its last legs. Half of the first floor has been blown away and destroyed, so the foundation on the bottom, and ribs up top are visible. The second floor leans down and buckles towards the first, as if looking for a dismembered wall that once held it secure. There are rotting boards with rusty nails all over the floor, and encroaching tall grasses and weeds. Nature is taking over floor number one.

We enter the house. There is no door - just three quarters of the frame. Broken glass, and a pile of sheet-rock dust is loosely arranged in one corner, as if someone has been here in an attempt to make the place presentable. Old wiring hangs all over, but this place has been off the grid for a long, long time. The house is gutted, but our entrance is noted by something, which begins to fly wildly on the ceiling, beating its wings until it finds its exit…its pretty large, and I hunch down and hit the button on the camera which turns it off, instead of on. We stick close to the remaining walls, feeling the floor boards along the way.

The side of the house where the second floor is falling in stretches out into the blackness. The flashlights point to another room in the back. There are stairs in there, and we decided to creep forward to take a look. Dareck takes the lead, and calls back “be careful Kris be careful”. Dareck notices the hole in the floor. There is a cellar down there. The walls are covered in aged newspaper. I’ve seen enough, and want to get the hell out. This ceiling feels like it is going to drop. We were lucky that night, because the floor didn’t move. Had it shifted the way it eventually would, we probably wouldn’t have come back the following night. This is the place we are going to perform in. We are going to film sunset traffic. True to the monsters in the belly. We left, and began to prep for our rotting house.