When people whistle, it kind of irritates me. Not like Axl Rose from "Patience" whistles, but just does so to pass the time. When people whistle or hum to themselves it's always just kind of grated on me, but only when it's been tuneless, when there's a tune to it, a melody, it doesn't get on my nerves, it just makes me... unsettled.
A few years ago I was living with my then-girlfriend in a pretty small town. I've always been a skeptic by nature and the voice of reason in most situations she and her friends would find themselves in. I say this because while I didn't share their open-mindedness with things such as the paranormal, I did share their enthusiasm for having fun and being creeped out by things. Not all skeptics are sticks in the mud, just because I don't believe in the bogeyman doesn't mean I don't love horror just as much as the next person. I won't mention any names for the sake of their privacy. No need in thinking all of us were crazy...
Usually this would result in them wanting to hold Halloween parties, see scary movies together, things like that. Pretty normal things, if you ask me. I was the oldest one of the group, but we were all really just barely out of high school and still kids in our own way. I had a full time job and usually the planning and ideas were going on while I was working but I always looked forward to whatever ideas they had come up with; the group did know how to have a good time.
One night I came home from closing up the store I was working in, about 11pm, to find that she had her group over and they all really excited about what they were about to do. They were so giddy with their plans that there was an electricity in the air, being in the atmosphere made you pumped just to be around. "What are you guys up to?" I asked, knowing my half-smirk betrayed my sleepy eyes. There wasn't any excuse of being tired to make them change the plans their minds were already set on.
About half an hour later, we're at a nearby park on the outskirts of the city, not unlike any other park in any other city. It's a wholly unremarkable one, there is some playground equipment, a small baseball area for Little League, the usual fare. The parking area is near the front of the park and the park itself is lined with trees and some forest area. We took two cars, there's the car I'm driving with a couple of passengers and the other car has the last of our group. In total, there are around maybe nine of us.
I was briefed before leaving and on the drive there. It's all the cliche you've heard a hundred times before about any haunted place in the South: Satanic rituals were performed there; there were slaves who were beaten and mistreated there; the family vanished one day; etc. I appreciate all the backstory and take it all in, listening as my friends bicker and talk about what is or isn't true based on the version they heard. It's all amusing and fun to me until we arrive.
"So, let me get this straight. It's almost midnight, we're walking out into the woods to where some abandoned mansion may or may not exist, and it's private property?" Ghost stories and monsters are one thing, but trespassing? Even the most hardcore skeptic can't debunk the law.
I stood my ground, hard. No amount of peer pressure or heckling was going to budge me. It easy for me to face the spooks and shrieks of the imagination, but dealing with the police is definitely not something I was going into the night ready to handle. I was more than happy to wait and let them get their kicks except my girlfriend was persistent in going, herself. She also had a certain knack for getting under my skin and knowing just what to say to rub me the wrong way and sometimes into goading me into things.
The forest around the park was quite the deception, I had to admit. After walking into those deep, dark, midnight woods, we hit an opening in no time at all. It was less than a mile, maybe less than half a mile. The density of the trees was a brilliant illusion on behalf of those in charge of the park. Upon stepping out from the last of the trees, a rusted barbed wire fence greeted us, defending an open field of waist-high grass, turned golden by the crispness of mid-October. The fence was in absolute decay and hung loosely, much more than was necessary to pull it open for us to squeeze through one after another.
