Dark World: Into the Shadows with the Lead Investigator of the Ghost Adventures Crew (21 page)

After the flying pebble incident, we weren’t allowed to investigate the Goldfield Hotel. The owner was unhappy with us and refused to return any calls. The only building in the town that we were allowed to investigate was the Nixon building across the street, which we were preparing for one day in 2010 when fate stepped in.

Goldfield is like that town in
The Hills Have Eyes
. It’s quiet, small, and just plain strange. As we arrived in town for the Nixon building investigation we saw Red Roberts, the owner of the Goldfield Hotel, standing in the street with his truck parked in front of the hotel. This was a huge opportunity because for years he had avoided us and we had no clue why.

Seeing Red was too random for me to accept as coincidence. He very rarely travels to Goldfield, despite owning the largest structure in town. He lives in Carson City and was there working on a door in the hotel, so seeing him standing in the street just as we arrived for only the third time in six years was fate.

Nick and I immediately ran up to him. “Do you remember us?” I asked before he could get away.

“Yeah I remember you guys,” he responded in that, “oh crap” sort of way. It was clear he was not thrilled to see us.

Convincing him to allow us back into the hotel was like selling caffeine to a Mormon. He wasn’t going for it, and I couldn’t understand why. We eventually learned that our film had made the Goldfield too popular. Our documentary made the place a favorite for paranormal investigators everywhere, which unfortunately also brought with it vandalism and made Red reluctant to let anyone inside. Finally Red relented and told us to see Virginia Ridgeway, the caretaker who lived nearby and would let us inside, but she was another problem.

Unbeknown to me at the time, Virginia was mad at me for the attack by the two dark shadows during the pebble incident. While our attention was on the man who was the target of the pebble attack, two dark shadows pushed Virginia up against a wall and bruised her. In the years since that incident, she had been attacked by evil entities several more times inside the hotel and at her home, just a two-minute walk from the hotel. She was convinced our investigation made the spirits inside darker and more evil. She’d never needed an escort in the building or been afraid to go inside alone before, but after our pebble incident, she’d been hesitant to even enter it. I hate to think that my actions caused evil spirits to take revenge on an elderly woman, but it appears that’s what they did. But as I said earlier, I can’t ignore the fact that she was attacked by the spirits there before I even stepped foot in that building.

What’s odd to me is that some people go into the hotel for one night and come out terrified, but Red Roberts goes in there by himself continuously and nothing happens to him. It’s like he has a deal with them to back off and in return he keeps the hotel standing. He’s like a clownfish living in a poisonous anemone that never gets stung. I think Red knows something about the darkness in there that he’ll take to the grave with him, which sounds eerily familiar to another demon-infested building in Kentucky and an owner who refuses to believe in what’s happening there.

But hold that thought.

We finally got our investigation and once again ran headlong into the mean and nasty souls hanging out in the Goldfield Hotel (just as a side note—if I were going to pick a place to hang out in the afterlife it sure as hell wouldn’t be in Goldfield, Nevada). One of the most ironic and eerie paranormal events that I’ve ever had happen to me occurred during this investigation. I was talking about the flying pebble incident when a rock flew at us and hit Nick in the back. The rock’s trajectory was parallel to the ground and came up the stairs from below, so we easily debunked it as not being anything natural (like debris falling from the ceiling).

Are you freaking kidding me? As I’m describing the flying rocks, a new rock gets thrown at us? Now if that does not show intelligent, malicious intent, then I don’t know what does. I really think it was an attempt by the spirits there to hurt us and even if the rock was not thrown with a lot of force, it was (at the very least) an attempt to hurt us psychologically. What better way is there for a spirit to say, “fuck you” than to do the exact thing that you’re talking about at the moment you say it? It’s a way for them to make a statement like “this is our turf and we’re in control here.” Since I’m a bit of a control freak and like being in charge, I took this rock and their challenge a little personally.

Another nasty spirit whose behavior I took a little personally is called “Mister Boots” and he’s got an attitude like his long lost brother, Mister Scrooge. Boots hangs out in the seedy section of one of the most oddly attractive places I’ve ever been: Edinburgh, Scotland. The Edinburgh Vaults are a maze of catacombs beneath the city that has experienced a torrent of death and turmoil over its 223-year history. I really like Wikipedia’s description of the place:

The Edinburgh Vaults or South Bridge Vaults are a series of chambers formed in the nineteen arches of the South Bridge in Edinburgh, Scotland, which was completed in 1788. For around 30 years, the vaults were used to house taverns, cobblers and other tradesmen, and as storage space for illicit material, reportedly including the bodies of people killed by serial killers Burke and Hare for medical experiments.

As the conditions in the vaults deteriorated, mainly because of damp and poor air quality, the businesses left and the very poorest of Edinburgh’s citizens moved in, though by around 1820, even they are believed to have left too. That people had lived there was only discovered in 1985 during an excavation, when middens were found containing toys, medicine bottles, plates, and other signs of human habitation.

Nice!

One room of the vaults was designated as the former dwelling place of Mister Boots, the spirit of a particularly nasty soul who supposedly wears thigh-high boots. I hear those were fashionable in his day, but it’s hard not to think of them as groovy and somewhat unmanly. When his room was discovered, the skeleton of a woman, believed to be a prostitute whom Boots killed and kept for himself, was also found, so it’s very possible that Mister Boots was a murdering, philandering piece of filth.

We heard Mister Boots didn’t like people in his room, and our guide told us to keep our lights off so as not to anger him, so turning my light on was the first thing I did. Like I said, I don’t like bullies. I also felt like the guides were hamming it up, so I decided to call their bluff. After all, I get my best evidence when I’m provoking spirits.

After dark, I went into Mister Boots’s room and did everything the guide told us not to do. I provoked and prodded and said things that probably weren’t nice, but that’s the best way to get a reaction out of spirits like this one—by challenging them. In life Mister Boots was most likely an alpha male, the dominant person in his little circle with no real rivals. He was probably not challenged much, so he doesn’t take kindly to someone like me walking into his home and spewing unsavory comments at him. That’s the theory when it comes to spirits like him, and in this case, it was right.

Within a few minutes I felt a presence and heard disembodied voices around me. You have to remember—while you’re at home chilling comfortably on your couch watching this stuff on your flat-screen TV, eating a Lunchable and stacking the cheese on your cracker sandwich, you can’t
feel
what it’s like to actually be in the company of one of these nasty spirits. It is the unnerving feeling that you’ve momentarily lost control of the situation. It’s not just hearing a scratch on the wall. It’s like taking your
Avatar
umbilical cord and attaching it to a serial killer who is serving five life sentences in the solitary unit at San Quentin Prison. You
feel
their energy, and you don’t have a choice but to accept it. It’s like being held underwater by an invisible force and panicking because you don’t know what the fuck is going on.

Seconds later, the loudest scratching noise I’d ever heard raked across the walls, like Freddy Kruger’s claws on corrugated tin. Now, this place was dark. Most times I’ll have a little ambient light to work with on an investigation, but the Edinburgh Vaults were darker than the bottom of the ocean, so the scratch and the energy that penetrated me at the same time really startled me. I jumped and instantly regretted it, but like I’ve said before, fear is hard to control in these situations.

I’m sure the noises I heard were the reactions of Mister Boots. I was an intruder in his world, so he lashed out every way he knew how. It was the reaction I wanted, and though it startled me, I can’t complain. I was asking for it.

Nasty spirits like Mister Boots intrigue me a lot and are one of the main reasons I do this job. I love the feeling of throwing nastiness back at the mean spirit who thinks the living cannot do anything to him. Many times these spirits are like bullies who just want to push someone around and think they cannot be pushed back. So when I show up and surprise them with provocation and challenging, it can change their demeanor and even change their behavior so they leave the living alone—for a while at least. That’s rewarding.

The dungeon located in the secret, hidden room under my house.

Hanging Out with Vampires

While in Edinburgh we investigated Greyfriars Cemetery and just before going there we interviewed Kryss, a man who looked like the dude from
The Crow
, all dressed up in black leather and piercings. He told us a story of how he was a vampire, which we didn’t think much of, but it ended up being one of the weirdest encounters I’ve ever had. Everywhere we went Kryss would be there, walking by himself in the distance and staring at us. It was stalkerish, or something out of
The Hitcher
, where the weird guy in the trench coat is always over your shoulder.

One night after the investigation he invited Aaron and I out to an underground bar that was actually set inside one of the Edinburgh Vaults. It was a dark, gothic place that you would think I would feel right at home in, but instead it had the opposite effect— it creeped me out, which is saying a lot, since I have my own dungeon in my house. We met Kryss and his four friends who were also dressed very dark, like the people in
Thirty Days to Night
. All of them worked at an armory or a sword shop. They were not normal.

Well, in this group of four they had one overweight kid whom they beat up like it was a recreational activity. We were sitting in the bar and they would just start hitting him in the body and even in the face. It was a very awkward, and just to make things weirder these people told Aaron and me they were vampires, but instead of feeding on blood, they fed on sex.

Officially freaked out.

There are situations where good friends don’t need to speak to understand each other. I looked at Aaron and he looked at me and we both knew it was time to get away. We walked to the bar and looked back at our booth. There they were, sitting in their black leather clothes, under the misty green light like the bar in
Blade
, beating up their fat mascot. We didn’t want to be rude and leave, but we were definitely not comfortable in the situation, so we decided to make a run for it. We walked out into the street and I swear they were out there waiting for us.

“Where are you going?” one asked.

What. The. Hell?

I muttered something lame like, “I was just checking my watch.” They didn’t buy it. We thought we were getting turned into vampires or stunned, weaved into a web, and made into giant tarantula food. We accompanied them to another bar just because we were scared not to. There was no choice.

Could things get any stranger? Yep.

At the next bar, they told us about the island they lived on and how they were embroiled in a bitter vampire war with a rival vampire gang from Italy. They asked us to go to their island so they could turn us into vampires too. It’s ironic that a guy like me, who’s always been enamored with vampires and the supernatural, was uncomfortable around people who claimed to be just what I was.