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We are Good People, We Just Want to Move Forward with Our Lives
This was about 2 years ago. At the time I was new to urbexing, it was something I’ve always wanted to really get into, but the area I live in doesn’t really have any spots that I could hit to check out. The most I’d ever really been able to explore was an abandoned hotel on a mountain, but it was so old that there weren't even any rooms to explore, just an open-air shell of a building. My friend Pat and I are from New York, and live roughly a half hour from the city, so it’s still pretty densely populated and anything abandoned has the potential to be more dangerous then something more suburban. When I found out there was a whole town in a neighboring state that was abandoned, we decided to take a day trip there to check it out. It’s about 3 hours away, not near any major city or town, way off the beaten path, and because the whole TOWN is abandoned, it was unlikely anyone would call the cops on us. We decided it would be a great first spot to try some *real* urbex.
“Dude, this shit looks like Silent Hill…” Pat said excitedly, recalling a video game we played when we were younger, despite our parents’ best efforts to prevent nightmares.
“I know man, I don’t know if I should be excited or if we should turn around…” I look at Pat with a sarcastic and stupid “scaredy cat” face. For extra dramatic effect, I force a comical “gulp!”
“Man, shut up!” He says forcing back a chuckle. After a 3 hour car ride I can’t really blame him for getting tired of my antics. We’ve been best friends since pre-k, not like we even remember meeting. That’s how you know you *really* go way back with someone, when you don’t even know where you guys started. Pat was always good at matching my humor, no matter what kind of nonsense I tried to hit him with. He’s also always been the more goal-driven out of the two of us. He’s the one looking for a solid career and I’m the one still looking for adventures for us to go on.
Once Pat and I found a not-too-suspicious place to park about a block away, we got out and started to check out the town. It was exactly as I’d expected. A town that looked like everyone just up and left. The houses looked like they were in pretty good shape considering they’ve just been sitting untouched, in the early stages of rotting. We had gone there to explore a bunch of abandoned homes, thinking we could catch up on some of the exploring we’ve been missing out on.
The first couple of houses were really amazing. It was so eerie to see what was once a thriving little mining town now just beyond saving. We didn’t want to take anything out of respect or something, I don’t know, it’s just one of those rules you have to follow when doing these kinds of things (not that anyone is coming back for anything here.) They were also well preserved on the inside. We didn’t bring respirators, so it was a plus that the house’s weren’t absolutely filled with mold or fumes. Think of checking out a bunch of really shoddy estate sales where you’re the only ones there and you’re only allowed to browse. Sure, it doesn’t sound exciting, but there’s something peaceful about seeing how someone else’s life was all once kept in these homes.
This pattern continued until we reached one house that looked the most pristine out of all of them. It looked like it was being perfectly kept to this day. With old houses like this, the older windows were easy to just pry open, and that’s exactly what we did. We pried open a first floor window and snuck into the living room.
“Dude, what the hell?” I say to Pat, who was right behind me, still halfway through the window. “This house looks… like… really nice.”
He finds his footing in the living room. “Sir, you really mustn’t forget your house keys when we go out! Entering like this is quite inconvenient!” He says in a mocking, 1950s accent. Seeing the pristine condition of the living room apparently inspired him to play house with me. Two could play at that game.
“Well, the open house doesn’t start until, hm..” I stare at my wrist to check the time, despite there being nothing whatsoever on my wrist. “Four p.m.” I say very matter-of-factly. “But if you are THIS eager to get shown the house, then fine!”
Pat stands up extra straight and says “Well, please, lead the way!”
This house looked livable! It looked like we could just settle down and have a big ol happy family here! Before the town was abandoned, it seems that there was, in fact, a big happy family that lived here!
Photos of a father, mother, and their daughter, we assumed, were all over the house. It seemed very clean for a house that a family with a young child lived in. There were no toys on the ground, no drawings, no DVDs for children's shows. It would make sense for these things to be taken with the family when they had to evacuate though. What confused us was that it was very clear they *didn’t* take everything with them. Like it looked as if someone *still* lived here. There was no car in the driveway though, and when we looked around the kitchen there was some rank smelling food in the fridge, so while we did have a moment where we were afraid to get hit with a potential breaking and entering charge, we continued with our legally grey home invasion.
“Dude, the basement?” I said to Pat, cracking a door revealing a staircase leading down another level. “There’s no light down there” I said, hoping to skip just that one room.
Pat turns on his phone flashlight. “And now, there is!” He said, brushing past me and taking the first step. I don’t think he noticed that I noticed him hesitate a little bit, but his desire to turn exploration into a friendly competition outweighed whatever fear he had. He started down the stairs and put on his 50s accent again. “Pshhh, I have to give myself the tour? How unprofessional!”
It looked like a sort of man cave that hadn’t been renovated since 2005. A chunky flatscreen TV, a bar that had a few bottles with faded labels, and a pool table. When I say this room was messy, I mean it was *messy*. If we wanted to play pool we would’ve had to hunt down all the billiard balls which were all over the floor, on the couch, things seemed to have been knocked off of shelves and chairs were on their sides.
“Dude, would it be so wrong to say that this place desperately needs a woman’s touch?” Said Pat, who enjoys the occasional macho activity himself (i.e. grillin’ a burger or going fishin’) was thrown off by the pure masculinity on display in this room.
“I don’t know man, you’re definitely the expert on ‘needing a woman’s touch’” I shoot back with a smirk. I had to give him a little shit for dragging me down into this dusty, dark basement.
“Damn dude, okay! Wait, hold on-” He says as he slides behind the bar, looking underneath it. “Haha! Yes!” Hoo boy. I looked at him, half confused, half knowing exactly what he was planning. He takes out two shot glasses and a bottle of Jack Daniels with a very faded label. “Truce?” He says as he pours 2 shots before I even have a chance to object.
“No shot man, we don’t know how long that’s been sitting there.” I protested (reasonably, I hoped) day-drinking in the dark basement of an abandoned house.
“Uh, yes shot. And also, whiskey doesn’t expire, it just kinda… I don’t know, it gets worse?” He tries to explain his way into taking a shot with me.
“Hmmm, maybe, but you forgot one of us has to be the designated driver.” I responded, finding a perfect out.
Without another attempt at convincing me, and before giving me a chance to convince him otherwise, he has one of the shots. His face curled up as he winced from the burning. “Oh! Oh MAN!” He says with a cough, immediately putting the other shot back on the bar. “Yeah, it definitely gets worse.”
“You properly hydrated now? Keep it moving?” I said, not particularly a fan of being in the dirtiest, dustiest room of the house for too long.
Pat motions his hand outwards and says “Lead the way man, I took the dark spooky basement leg of the tour, I think you can handle the second floor.”
He had a point, so I led the way. When we started to walk upstairs we noticed there was this smell, it smelled like something had been left out for too long. By the time we got to the top of the stairs, it was strong enough to make our noses curl up. In the second floor hallway, all the doors were closed, and we took it upon ourselves to explore each and every one. The first one we opened was completely empty and had three pink walls with the fourth one being a mural of what had to have been at least a couple hundred butterflies flying in swirly patterns. We looked at it in awe, and then quite quickly went onto the next room, hoping to see a room with some actual decor.
We opened the second door to a bathroom and got hit with that smell. It hit our noses and we laughed at each other, it smelled like shit, literally. The toilet was empty however, and despite being a little yellowish brown, didn’t show any signs of… use. We took turns trying to shove each other into the bathroom while gagging.
“Come on Gabe! You gotta give me the grand tour! Show me the bathroom in as MUCH detail as you can!” Pat said, laughing and blocking off the door with his arms and legs, using one leg to lightly kick me and keep me at bay as I tried to find a way past him.
I raise my shirt above my nose to mask the smell a little bit. “Pat this is too much! I can practically taste it!” I said trying to get past him while he bolstered himself against the door to become a human wall. Pat was getting a kick out of this, laughing as I exaggerated my dry heaves to make them sound as loud as possible. I thought maybe if he was convinced I’d vomit on him that would force him to move. There was another door in the bathroom, most likely leading to the next room. It would make sense that the bathroom could be connected to a bedroom, so I figured I’d make my escape through there.
“You leave me no choice but to get a head start on the next room!” I said to Pat, throwing open the other door. The motion of the door swinging open caused a gust of air to blow back at me from the next room. We were wrong about the bathroom being the source of the smell. As soon as that air hit me, I put my head down and gagged, for real. I picked my head back up, eyes already tearing from the smell. Looking through the doorway, I could see a bed on the left-most wall. I remember I couldn’t have looked in the room for more than 3 seconds, but I saw most of it. In the bed was a man, a shelf right above the bed seemed to have broken, and something that looked as if it was made of glass had fallen and caved his head in. He had to have been there for months, if not longer. He had been decaying for a while it seemed. I’m really not good at handling seeing that kind of stuff, and I immediately started tearing up, not just from the smell now, but from being so overwhelmed and panicked by what I was seeing.
“Fucking MOVE Pat!” I say, visibly ready to shove him out of the doorway if I had to. He could tell something was seriously wrong, because he moved out of the way right away and as I passed him I watched his face twist up from the smell.
“Oh, oh my GOD. What the hell is that?!” Pat said, now moving away from the door. He didn’t see what was in the room but he definitely smelled it. I didn’t pay attention to what Pat was saying anymore, and based on my reaction he didn’t blame me. I was in the corner sobbing against the wall taking deep breaths trying to get the image of that rotting body, dry and yet wet, with its stain spreading across the sheets like the man’s life spilled out of his own body and got all over the bedspread. I looked over and saw Pat’s curiosity got the better of him. He was staring wide-eyed into the room, covering his nose and mouth with his hands. It took quite a bit to scare Pat, but this, while not necessarily scaring him, definitely made him queasy.
“Holy fuck. This is foul. What… What happened here?” Pat said, starting to get concerned about what he was seeing and how he should react. “Jesus, Gabe, do we call someone? What are we supposed to *do?*” The Pat I’m used to, the one who always goes back and forth with me making fun of eachother, who makes stupid jokes and takes shots at inconvenient times, was nowhere to be found. Pat was panicking in a different way than I was. He’s looking for a solution, I just want a way out.
“I don’t know man I don’t know why we came here this was stupid we shouldn't have come!” I say, just rambling in discomfort. “What WE’RE doing is illegal dude, we shouldn’t BE here.” I say through my choked up tears.
“Okay, okay. Let’s just go. Let’s leave. Come on.” Pat says as he holds his phone up to take a picture before closing the bedroom door, and then the bathroom door, behind him. I wasn’t going to act like I didn’t just hear the camera flash on his phone.
“Dude, why the fuck do you want a picture? Are you sick?” I snapped at Pat, I was tense and didn’t mean to sound aggressive, but he was keeping a *much* cooler head than I was. I think I was jealous of that in a way, but more so concerned on why he’d want to ever see that image again.
We’re doing our best to get out of the house as quickly as possible now, speed-stepping down the stairs. “No, I just thought it looked really strange.” He said, now helping me out of the window before climbing out himself.
“Yeah dude, finding a corpse IS strange. There are MANY words you can use to describe that, and STRANGE is what you pick? Yes, finding a dead body is STRANGE, Pat!” I was confused, scared, I just wanted to get back to the car and drive anywhere else but this town. We turn the corner and see my car, I get in, start the ignition, and before Pat can even fully close his door, my foot is pressed on the gas.
Pat was being very patient with my panicking, but I wasn’t really letting him get a word in. “Gabe, listen to me! Not the body, obviously seeing the body there was fucked up. I thought it was strange how he was holding that little, fucking, stuffed animal thing! And how there wasn’t a single mark on it. No stains, no blood, no mold, nothing! It stood out in that gross, brown, darkly colored mess on the bed, it stood out!”
#entertainment
source
This was about 2 years ago. At the time I was new to urbexing, it was something I’ve always wanted to really get into, but the area I live in doesn’t really have any spots that I could hit to check out. The most I’d ever really been able to explore was an abandoned hotel on a mountain, but it was so old that there weren't even any rooms to explore, just an open-air shell of a building. My friend Pat and I are from New York, and live roughly a half hour from the city, so it’s still pretty densely populated and anything abandoned has the potential to be more dangerous then something more suburban. When I found out there was a whole town in a neighboring state that was abandoned, we decided to take a day trip there to check it out. It’s about 3 hours away, not near any major city or town, way off the beaten path, and because the whole TOWN is abandoned, it was unlikely anyone would call the cops on us. We decided it would be a great first spot to try some *real* urbex.
“Dude, this shit looks like Silent Hill…” Pat said excitedly, recalling a video game we played when we were younger, despite our parents’ best efforts to prevent nightmares.
“I know man, I don’t know if I should be excited or if we should turn around…” I look at Pat with a sarcastic and stupid “scaredy cat” face. For extra dramatic effect, I force a comical “gulp!”
“Man, shut up!” He says forcing back a chuckle. After a 3 hour car ride I can’t really blame him for getting tired of my antics. We’ve been best friends since pre-k, not like we even remember meeting. That’s how you know you *really* go way back with someone, when you don’t even know where you guys started. Pat was always good at matching my humor, no matter what kind of nonsense I tried to hit him with. He’s also always been the more goal-driven out of the two of us. He’s the one looking for a solid career and I’m the one still looking for adventures for us to go on.
Once Pat and I found a not-too-suspicious place to park about a block away, we got out and started to check out the town. It was exactly as I’d expected. A town that looked like everyone just up and left. The houses looked like they were in pretty good shape considering they’ve just been sitting untouched, in the early stages of rotting. We had gone there to explore a bunch of abandoned homes, thinking we could catch up on some of the exploring we’ve been missing out on.
The first couple of houses were really amazing. It was so eerie to see what was once a thriving little mining town now just beyond saving. We didn’t want to take anything out of respect or something, I don’t know, it’s just one of those rules you have to follow when doing these kinds of things (not that anyone is coming back for anything here.) They were also well preserved on the inside. We didn’t bring respirators, so it was a plus that the house’s weren’t absolutely filled with mold or fumes. Think of checking out a bunch of really shoddy estate sales where you’re the only ones there and you’re only allowed to browse. Sure, it doesn’t sound exciting, but there’s something peaceful about seeing how someone else’s life was all once kept in these homes.
This pattern continued until we reached one house that looked the most pristine out of all of them. It looked like it was being perfectly kept to this day. With old houses like this, the older windows were easy to just pry open, and that’s exactly what we did. We pried open a first floor window and snuck into the living room.
“Dude, what the hell?” I say to Pat, who was right behind me, still halfway through the window. “This house looks… like… really nice.”
He finds his footing in the living room. “Sir, you really mustn’t forget your house keys when we go out! Entering like this is quite inconvenient!” He says in a mocking, 1950s accent. Seeing the pristine condition of the living room apparently inspired him to play house with me. Two could play at that game.
“Well, the open house doesn’t start until, hm..” I stare at my wrist to check the time, despite there being nothing whatsoever on my wrist. “Four p.m.” I say very matter-of-factly. “But if you are THIS eager to get shown the house, then fine!”
Pat stands up extra straight and says “Well, please, lead the way!”
This house looked livable! It looked like we could just settle down and have a big ol happy family here! Before the town was abandoned, it seems that there was, in fact, a big happy family that lived here!
Photos of a father, mother, and their daughter, we assumed, were all over the house. It seemed very clean for a house that a family with a young child lived in. There were no toys on the ground, no drawings, no DVDs for children's shows. It would make sense for these things to be taken with the family when they had to evacuate though. What confused us was that it was very clear they *didn’t* take everything with them. Like it looked as if someone *still* lived here. There was no car in the driveway though, and when we looked around the kitchen there was some rank smelling food in the fridge, so while we did have a moment where we were afraid to get hit with a potential breaking and entering charge, we continued with our legally grey home invasion.
“Dude, the basement?” I said to Pat, cracking a door revealing a staircase leading down another level. “There’s no light down there” I said, hoping to skip just that one room.
Pat turns on his phone flashlight. “And now, there is!” He said, brushing past me and taking the first step. I don’t think he noticed that I noticed him hesitate a little bit, but his desire to turn exploration into a friendly competition outweighed whatever fear he had. He started down the stairs and put on his 50s accent again. “Pshhh, I have to give myself the tour? How unprofessional!”
It looked like a sort of man cave that hadn’t been renovated since 2005. A chunky flatscreen TV, a bar that had a few bottles with faded labels, and a pool table. When I say this room was messy, I mean it was *messy*. If we wanted to play pool we would’ve had to hunt down all the billiard balls which were all over the floor, on the couch, things seemed to have been knocked off of shelves and chairs were on their sides.
“Dude, would it be so wrong to say that this place desperately needs a woman’s touch?” Said Pat, who enjoys the occasional macho activity himself (i.e. grillin’ a burger or going fishin’) was thrown off by the pure masculinity on display in this room.
“I don’t know man, you’re definitely the expert on ‘needing a woman’s touch’” I shoot back with a smirk. I had to give him a little shit for dragging me down into this dusty, dark basement.
“Damn dude, okay! Wait, hold on-” He says as he slides behind the bar, looking underneath it. “Haha! Yes!” Hoo boy. I looked at him, half confused, half knowing exactly what he was planning. He takes out two shot glasses and a bottle of Jack Daniels with a very faded label. “Truce?” He says as he pours 2 shots before I even have a chance to object.
“No shot man, we don’t know how long that’s been sitting there.” I protested (reasonably, I hoped) day-drinking in the dark basement of an abandoned house.
“Uh, yes shot. And also, whiskey doesn’t expire, it just kinda… I don’t know, it gets worse?” He tries to explain his way into taking a shot with me.
“Hmmm, maybe, but you forgot one of us has to be the designated driver.” I responded, finding a perfect out.
Without another attempt at convincing me, and before giving me a chance to convince him otherwise, he has one of the shots. His face curled up as he winced from the burning. “Oh! Oh MAN!” He says with a cough, immediately putting the other shot back on the bar. “Yeah, it definitely gets worse.”
“You properly hydrated now? Keep it moving?” I said, not particularly a fan of being in the dirtiest, dustiest room of the house for too long.
Pat motions his hand outwards and says “Lead the way man, I took the dark spooky basement leg of the tour, I think you can handle the second floor.”
He had a point, so I led the way. When we started to walk upstairs we noticed there was this smell, it smelled like something had been left out for too long. By the time we got to the top of the stairs, it was strong enough to make our noses curl up. In the second floor hallway, all the doors were closed, and we took it upon ourselves to explore each and every one. The first one we opened was completely empty and had three pink walls with the fourth one being a mural of what had to have been at least a couple hundred butterflies flying in swirly patterns. We looked at it in awe, and then quite quickly went onto the next room, hoping to see a room with some actual decor.
We opened the second door to a bathroom and got hit with that smell. It hit our noses and we laughed at each other, it smelled like shit, literally. The toilet was empty however, and despite being a little yellowish brown, didn’t show any signs of… use. We took turns trying to shove each other into the bathroom while gagging.
“Come on Gabe! You gotta give me the grand tour! Show me the bathroom in as MUCH detail as you can!” Pat said, laughing and blocking off the door with his arms and legs, using one leg to lightly kick me and keep me at bay as I tried to find a way past him.
I raise my shirt above my nose to mask the smell a little bit. “Pat this is too much! I can practically taste it!” I said trying to get past him while he bolstered himself against the door to become a human wall. Pat was getting a kick out of this, laughing as I exaggerated my dry heaves to make them sound as loud as possible. I thought maybe if he was convinced I’d vomit on him that would force him to move. There was another door in the bathroom, most likely leading to the next room. It would make sense that the bathroom could be connected to a bedroom, so I figured I’d make my escape through there.
“You leave me no choice but to get a head start on the next room!” I said to Pat, throwing open the other door. The motion of the door swinging open caused a gust of air to blow back at me from the next room. We were wrong about the bathroom being the source of the smell. As soon as that air hit me, I put my head down and gagged, for real. I picked my head back up, eyes already tearing from the smell. Looking through the doorway, I could see a bed on the left-most wall. I remember I couldn’t have looked in the room for more than 3 seconds, but I saw most of it. In the bed was a man, a shelf right above the bed seemed to have broken, and something that looked as if it was made of glass had fallen and caved his head in. He had to have been there for months, if not longer. He had been decaying for a while it seemed. I’m really not good at handling seeing that kind of stuff, and I immediately started tearing up, not just from the smell now, but from being so overwhelmed and panicked by what I was seeing.
“Fucking MOVE Pat!” I say, visibly ready to shove him out of the doorway if I had to. He could tell something was seriously wrong, because he moved out of the way right away and as I passed him I watched his face twist up from the smell.
“Oh, oh my GOD. What the hell is that?!” Pat said, now moving away from the door. He didn’t see what was in the room but he definitely smelled it. I didn’t pay attention to what Pat was saying anymore, and based on my reaction he didn’t blame me. I was in the corner sobbing against the wall taking deep breaths trying to get the image of that rotting body, dry and yet wet, with its stain spreading across the sheets like the man’s life spilled out of his own body and got all over the bedspread. I looked over and saw Pat’s curiosity got the better of him. He was staring wide-eyed into the room, covering his nose and mouth with his hands. It took quite a bit to scare Pat, but this, while not necessarily scaring him, definitely made him queasy.
“Holy fuck. This is foul. What… What happened here?” Pat said, starting to get concerned about what he was seeing and how he should react. “Jesus, Gabe, do we call someone? What are we supposed to *do?*” The Pat I’m used to, the one who always goes back and forth with me making fun of eachother, who makes stupid jokes and takes shots at inconvenient times, was nowhere to be found. Pat was panicking in a different way than I was. He’s looking for a solution, I just want a way out.
“I don’t know man I don’t know why we came here this was stupid we shouldn't have come!” I say, just rambling in discomfort. “What WE’RE doing is illegal dude, we shouldn’t BE here.” I say through my choked up tears.
“Okay, okay. Let’s just go. Let’s leave. Come on.” Pat says as he holds his phone up to take a picture before closing the bedroom door, and then the bathroom door, behind him. I wasn’t going to act like I didn’t just hear the camera flash on his phone.
“Dude, why the fuck do you want a picture? Are you sick?” I snapped at Pat, I was tense and didn’t mean to sound aggressive, but he was keeping a *much* cooler head than I was. I think I was jealous of that in a way, but more so concerned on why he’d want to ever see that image again.
We’re doing our best to get out of the house as quickly as possible now, speed-stepping down the stairs. “No, I just thought it looked really strange.” He said, now helping me out of the window before climbing out himself.
“Yeah dude, finding a corpse IS strange. There are MANY words you can use to describe that, and STRANGE is what you pick? Yes, finding a dead body is STRANGE, Pat!” I was confused, scared, I just wanted to get back to the car and drive anywhere else but this town. We turn the corner and see my car, I get in, start the ignition, and before Pat can even fully close his door, my foot is pressed on the gas.
Pat was being very patient with my panicking, but I wasn’t really letting him get a word in. “Gabe, listen to me! Not the body, obviously seeing the body there was fucked up. I thought it was strange how he was holding that little, fucking, stuffed animal thing! And how there wasn’t a single mark on it. No stains, no blood, no mold, nothing! It stood out in that gross, brown, darkly colored mess on the bed, it stood out!”
#entertainment
source
| 8,000 mlx | |
| 14 | |
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