{I do this because not everyone will be able to get a hold of the lastest issue of the 11th Hour in which this appears as the feature story, and you know, I hate to neglect the needy.}
I Ain't 'fraid of No Ghost
Haint hey'nt n Southern colloquialism 1: ghost, apparition, lost soul, spirit, 2: variation of HAUNT
Hunt huh'nt vb 1: To pursue intensively, 2: To seek out; search for, 3: To drive out forcibly, especially by harassing; chase away
Oh yeah, we were stumbling over words and worse, I had some whiskey in my ear, but I'm telling you, he didn't have to define haint for me. It's a word as natural to me as any. What I needed to be learned on was haint hunt.
"Ain't heard of that before," I say, "but I'm listening."
Chad said the hunt means more than going out looking for boogeymen, boogers and bumps in the night - it means exploring the unknown wherever that might be.
Just as surely as Nancy once hauled Freddy from her Nightmare on Elm Street, I wrestled the key points of Chad's description from my fevered hangover the next day. And true, it may have taken a couple extra conferences with the aforementioned expert, but it wasn't long before I had this thing down pat. After that, it was just a matter of rounding up a posse.
First, I dropped mention of it in conversations: "Wanna go on a haint hunt?"
"Do what?"
"Exactly!"
Then, I sent out emails and made follow-up phone calls. There'd be room for a total of six haint-hunters, I noted. Soon, applicants lined the sidewalk on Cherry outside of the Center for Revolutionary Studies. The interview process produced several worthy candidates. Negative drug tests weeded out some and the gauntlet took care of the rest. Naturally, Chad was in and since the Eleventh Hour doesn't have an insurance plan, Brad said he'd go to watch my back. To meet the "hot chick requirement", we gladly welcomed Neecee and Robin into the fold, which left just one spot. I offered Kevin the position but he declined, citing recently occurring deep reflection.
"That's how jewelers die," he said, adding, "and you know they always die first."
So, I had to eat crow and invite Roger who was so excited he practically peed his little pants. For better or worse we were ready to roll.
The poet Bobby Brown once mused, "So they packed up their group/got a grip/ came equipped/Grabbed they proton packs off their back/and they split." I can think of no finer description for the deft professionalism displayed by our brave gang of amateur paranormal investigators as we endeavored on our maiden voyage. What we lacked in proton packs, we more than made up for with Neecee's tape recorder, Brad's camera and Chad's big-ass truck. Roger, proving that this was the role he was born for, offered to get the dying started whenever we were ready. I carried the only equipment any real journalist needs: a keen mind and a glass of Benchmark bourbon mixed lightly with Sam's Choice cola.
Booger Church, our distinguished destination, rests somewhere between Dooley County and Belly of Hell. In other words, it�s a good ways from Macon city proper. Not that we minded. Ghost stories and mood music filled the cab. We drank beer as if it were a special prescription for bad nerves. When we turned down that last dark country road, I considered suggesting we turn around.
We moved past the asphalt and rambled over a bumpy course of seldom-trod Georgia red clay. The headlights caught a glimpse of something off to the side: a figure. Brad slowed, then moved in, choosing to speak rather than feel fear.
"You out hunting?" He asked of a man whose clashing camouflage and orange outfit spelled the answer in advance.
"Yep." The rifle in his hand begged an unspoken question.
"Alright then." And we kept on a-truckin'.
At a bridge, Brad killed the lights then the engine, announcing, "We'll walk from here."
We stepped out and studied the near future.
Nothing but dim silhouettes before us, the faint outlines of distant light pollution staring back from behind a landscape as surreal and believable as a stage play with impressive production values. And walking, we: an estranged band of the desperately unqualified collectively realizing that it�s all fun and games until someone loses a soul.
"They must've torn it down," Brad said facing an empty space between two large oak trees. Though disappointment had singed his voice, I found new strength in the words. With no Booger Church, there'd be less danger. Or so I thought until we got to the site and realized that a graveyard had been left behind.
"I don't want to walk on anybody," Neecee said as she handed me the tape recorder, signaling that it was okay for me to walk on whomever I pleased as long as it was documented for posterity.
Roger occupied Robin with talk of how pretty the outdoors are this time of year as Brad set up for pictures. Chad combed the cemetery for evidence of the afterlife and/or a good place to sit while I invited the supernatural to leave a message at the beep. My eyes adjusted and so did my ears. I listened to every cricket, every leave-rattling breeze, and every other possible sign that I was about to come face to face with the dead. And with every request I made for a ghost to speak or manifest itself, I grew more tense.
"You ought to see this. Whoa!" Brad shouted, doing nothing for my growing concern, "There are a lot of orbs. Oh! Wow, look at that!"
"Hey boss, there's a trail back here," Chad said.
The six of us gathered at the mouth of this path, waiting. In unison, Chad and Brad stepped forward. Rather than being left alone with the tombstones, we followed. Five minutes into the woods, our fearless leaders came to a halt. Whispers spread from the front that something was standing "up there". With little effort, it was easy to see the head and shoulders of a large man just a stone�s throw away.
"Who's got the flashlight?" Robin asked before realizing it was in her hand.
None of us budged. Not a movement. Still, we all heard the rustle of someone's slow-stepping approach. Roger grabbed the flashlight then Brad snatched it from him and shined its full glare up ahead.
The trail was clear. There had been no movement off the path and illuminating the thin brush to the sides proved that. And then came the noise. Disembodied footfalls stomping towards us with increasing speed. We allowed it to reverberate unabated for a full split-second before flooding it the thuds of our retreat. In a flash that skipped straight to aching muscle and slight nausea, we were back to the wide-open road where at least we�d see something coming if it were coming.
In a cluster, we're marching - Roger and me talking about his passion for blueberries and pirates, which was really just talking about how happy we were to survive. I handed the tape recorder back to Neecee and she asked if I asked any interesting questions.
"Oh yeah," I tell her.
"Like?"
"The usual stuff: 'Does anyone here want to speak with us?' 'Anyone want to manifest themselves?' And of course, 'Anyone know Neecee?'"
Her nervous laughter was a gift, but one unfortunately given to a child with a short attention span who suffers through fits of clumsy. I'd seen Brad and Chad take a mosey over to the side and give a serious gander up into the tree line, saying something about 'that guy'. My mind was with their mystery.
"What's going on?" It was a query immediately echoed by the ladies who didn�t like the tone of my voice.
Brad stared deep into the heart of darkness, piercing it like a hook through a fat, pink worm. "That hunter's back there trying to scare us," he said and then without warning yelled, "Why don't you show yourself you big, [blanking] [emasculating expletive]?!"
There for a moment it seemed equally logical to be as afraid of Brad as whatever was lurking behind the trees.
"Did'ya see that?!" Chad jumped, casting light ten feet from where we�d been looking.
"Show yourself! Better yet, go [take the time to become intimately acquainted with] yourself!"
I backed up. Roger and Neecee joined, seeming to understand the sudden urge to inch away.
Chad said, "He ain't gonna do anythin'."
"Let's get back to the truck," Robin advocated, affecting a calm that was not her own. And we did.
The long drive back was only interrupted by a brief layover at a Perry watering hole. It seemed our adventures were over. People were going home. More accurately, Neecee and Brad were going home. The rest of us had nothing but the Devil�s playthings to consider.
"What now?" I ask.
"We need a drink," Chad replied.
"Agreed."
"We need to get ridiculous."
"Amen," the choir sang as the party bus rolled on.
Our fun had just begun. Out on the sidewalk looking as lonesome as a neutered three-legged hound, The Other White Chris waited, seeming to know that eventually we�d kidnap him. A holler came roaring in from the backseat.
"Let's pick up them girls!"
Why not? Accelerate here, turn there and bam: Erin, Rachael and Shasta. When Chris squeezed in, I knew this was why God made big-ass trucks.
Whooping and hollering evolved into a chant: Bump, bump, bump-bump-bump, bump-bump, bump-bump "Let's drink!"
At Coasters, Chace and Mitchell found us. It took ten minutes to have had enough of the sitting still for Chad to demand, "Let's get out of here!"
"Where to, oh cappy tawn?"
"We goin' haint huntin'!"
Oh man. A new posse and new life.
The troops rallied outside. Chace and Mitchell revved up their super-charged corpse-mobile and everyone wanted to know, "Where?"
Tuxedo.
As a child - for a while, at least - it was the perfect playground. Then it changed in a big way. Either or, it was the creepiest place I could think of. Frankly now, I feel like if there hadn't been so much social lubricant involved, I never would have gone. And I certainly wouldn't take anyone with me.
We parked on the street. We walked through the thick, prickly vines. And when we came to a clearing outside of Tuxedo, I stopped everyone. They milled around and I thought about whether or not I should tell the story. Then I figured I had to. It was a haint hunt.
"This is where I found five dead people."
That shut them up.
"It was twenty years ago. I'd raced my friends up here. At first, I was grinning ear to ear because they were a good fifty yards behind me. In the next, I was studying a swaying shadow from the ground up to five limp bodies hanging from the pine trees that circled me. I was seven. I never screamed; never cried.
"Still haven't."
I watched them leaning against those same pines.
"These trees?" Roger asked.
"Yep."
"Where's Chad?" Shasta asked.
At that point, I didn't care but only because it felt like a time for confession. Chris slipped off, I assume to search for him accompanied by Shasta and Rachael. I told the other five what I knew.
"I don't remember how the police got there. Or my parents. I don't remember even leaving the spot where I stood but I�m sure I did because after that, my folks wouldn't let me out of the front yard. My friends became a lifeline, bringing me news from the rumor mill. For weeks, everything was about Old Man Mack. He wasn't that old really, just a lot older than us. It seemed fitting for the creepy old dude that only came out when it was getting dark. We'd come from Tuxedo - trying to get back in time for dinner - and he'd be there, sitting impassively like the blue-gray sky was going to steal his porch if he didn�t weigh it down.
"Even before Five Pine Circle got its name, we talked about him. About how he returned from a business trip to find his wife, mother and three boys dead in the living room. We heard that some teenagers had broken in, thinking that no one was home and killed Old Man Mack's family so they couldn�t be identified. We heard they never were - that Old Man Mack sat out there waiting on them to return.
"After that, Old Man Mack disappeared. Brian said Old Man Mack didn�t need a house anymore - that he was living in the woods at Tuxedo. He was going to have his revenge. Matthew said there was a note on one of the bodies. It read: 'Eye for an eye. Tooth for a tooth. Blood for blood.'
"Once, I asked if they'd been back there. They looked at each other and slowly nodded. I asked if they were crazy. Matthew said, "He won't kill just the two of us."
"'There has to be at least five or he won't,' Brian added.
"I've always wondered if that was true."
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