We piled into Lindz's car, Tostito, and headed for the Santa Ana Badlands.
By Badlands, I mean a quiet residential neighborhood that happened to have an old house standing in the middle of an orange grove.
Someone had erected a chain link fence around it, which meant we couldn't pop up to the front porch and peek inside.
However, that didn't mean we couldn't stand right in front of the chain link fence and stare at the house, Sam and tape recorder clutched in-hand, and attempt to get a reading.
Arno loves this house. I'm guessing it's early 1900s vintage; it was probably a ranch house. There's got to be at least an acre of orange trees around it, which is rare, now that Orange County has mowed down most of its actual orange trees. The house itself is in pretty good repair; when people say "abandoned home" I tend to think dilapidated freak house waiting to cave in and kill unsuspecting wanderers. This place just needs a bit of touch-up paint.
Two things happened while we were there - well, three, if you include the police slowing down to make sure we weren't taking a whiz.
One, we got a lot of orb activity, including several red ones - red is the strongest reading the app can give, and I hadn't seen any prior to that evening. One in particular hovered on the front porch, not ten feet away from us. It faded occasionally, then pulsed back to life as Arno talked to it. I got the distinct feeling that it was standing/hovering on the front porch, watching us.
Two, it interacted.
"Was this your house?" Arno asked. "Are you the old man that lived here?"
I'd, Sam said.
"Does that mean....ID?" Lindz asked.
Sam came back with massage.
We puzzled over that for a few seconds. "Maybe it means message? It's a machine, it won't pick things up...exactly..."
Or maybe the ghost wanted a massage. Haunting places probably gives you quite a sore neck.
Arno started talking about getting in touch with the city preservation society, as he fears the house will be demolished.
Wait, Sam said.
We waited.
Several orbs came around.
Run.
At that exact moment, a dog started barking. And I don't mean friendly "yay, you're home!" barking. It was OMFGgetawaybeforesomethingeats you barking.
Now, I'm one of those people who is firmly committed to leaving when I'm not wanted. Hence, if my house ever tells me to GET OUT...I probably will. And if my cell phone is warning me to book it, well, it's a smartphone. Presumably it's smarter than me. Who am I to question it?
"Why does it want us to run?" Lindz asked, obviously not believing the phone was smarter than us.
"I just got chills," Arno said.
"Y'know, the phone made a suggestion, let's honor it."
Arno and I bade the house (and its occupant) farewell and booked it for the car. Lindz followed at a more sedate pace, possibly because she had the keys and knew we couldn't go anywhere without her.
We clamored into Tostito.
Ask, Sam said.
"Ask what? Why it wanted us to run?" Lindz pulled back into the street.
"Oh, because the cemetery's right there," Arno said.
We hushed as a number of yellow orbs appeared on the far left of the screen, corresponding nicely with the cemetery.
"Wanna go in?" Arno asked.
"No," I said. I decided to operate on the assumption that we'd just barely escaped from some sort of supernatural catastrophe back at the old house, and why the hell would we go into a graveyard immediately after? That's just asking for a spiritual smackdown.
We drove around. Lots of activity on that street, and the graveyard in particular. This makes sense, as...well, it's a graveyard.
We listened to the recorder on the way back, and the only possible activity was a sort of....growling roar when Arno asked if this was a farmer. It was different enough to be creepy, but also sounded vaguely mechanical...we're not sure if it was a bike from a couple streets over, or something trying to eat us.
In the car on the way back, we got to wondering if we'd been interpreting the message too literally. Instead of "run away" it might have been saying "hurry up and ask about the house, before it's too late." Being human - and probably a bit hopped up at that point - we instantly jumped to the scary conclusion, which, according to the course, we are not supposed to do.
So. Mixed results at the abandoned house. Arno did seem to actually be interacting with something for awhile. There's one more part to this, as we had a definite afterparty back at his house...
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