Eastern Michigan University is an old place. Some of the buildings have been there for over a hundred and thirty years. A smorgasbord of structures meant for living quarters, classrooms, science, music, and art. No one building is like another. It made for some really interesting places to explore.
Since I was going through a divorce at the time and my son was in his first year of life I had time to myself, more than I liked. So, I spent my recreational hours exploring the old buildings and tunnels around campus. After I started making real discoveries I decided to assemble a team of "helpdesk" guys and gals to venture in to the forgotten lands around and underneath campus.
My first big discovery came while exploring tunnels with one Nick C. who had serendipitously brought a camera along to record our adventures. I had been walking around one of the main buildings in the evening when no one was around so I could open any and all doors without worrying about someone questioning me when I opened a door at the back of an auditorium that brought me to yet another door. When I opened this second door it led into a long, dark, concrete hallway that went down somewhere dank and musty. I walked a little ways down the hallway in to the darkness but eventually had to turn back as I couldn't even see my hand in front of my face.
I decided I would get a flashlight and come back here the next day.
The next day I was mentioning my new find to some of the helpdesk guys when Nick asked if he could come along to when I went back. Sure, I wouldn't mind the company. We met up after work at the back of the auditorium with lights, camera, and action (sorry I couldn't avoid the pun).
Through both doors and down the hallway we went. It was quite a bit longer than what I expected. We finally came to the end of the hallway as stood at the top of a small flight of stairs that led in to a medium sized room full of pumps and equipment. We found a light switch and explored the room finding nothing of interest. However, the room had two tunnels at opposite ends of the room. The first one was up another flight of stairs. There were boxes of discarded items none of which I can remember the contents of but they lined the walls of the tunnel and were almost dilapitated enough that collapse was imminent. The tunnel went down a short length and around another bend. At the end of the tunnel was an extremly large and noisey equipment the size of a small apartment. Lots of debris and items were piled up around the "room" and was reminiscent of the garbage compactor in Star Wars.
Nick and I made our way back down the tunnel to the medium sized room and stared at the last tunnel. This one was up a ladder and the tunnel was a bit tighter of a squeeze and required us to walk bent over. I went up the ladder first and Nick passed me the lights and other items up to me so he could climb up the ladder himself. The tunnel had a large pipe suspended from the roof and one on the floor. It made for a challenging shuffle to get down the tunnel without braining oneself. We got to the first bend of the tunnel and shined our lights down the next stretch and it went on in to darkness.
Perfect. It was rather spooky.
Strange how clean the floors were deep down in the concrete caverns beneath EMU. No rat poop or piles of dead roaches.
On we went down the tunnel slowly shinning our lights this way and that carefully stepping over pipes and ducking where needed. Nick was a little bit ahead of me and found the end of the tunnel and a connection from this to another one. Unfortunately, the connection was higher than we could reach and no steps were made for it. I was slowly moving along the wall behind Nick trying to figure out why the tunnel was widening at weird angles. I moved around a corner that was jutting out from the tunnel when I stepped in to room of sorts made from the joining tunnels.
That's when my heart sank.
There in the middle of this little corner room down the dark lengths of this tunnel deep underneath EMU was a wooden chair. Piled around the two front legs of the chair was gauze with pinkish stains. Off the each side of the chair were two more piles of gauze stained pink as well. Along the wall were two boxes of more gauze. Looking at the print on the boxes revealed that they were military issue from 1943.
I called Nick over to inspect the scene as well.
Looking at the chair placement. The position of the discarded gauze and the discolorations.
Nick and I debated for a little bit about what all this could mean and came to a conclusion: someone had been brought down these tunnels and tied to this chair with all this gauze.
I wondered if the person was dragged all the way here. If they came willingly only to pulled in to a dark prank. If the person that was tied to that chair made it out on their own or if the cries for help were heard.
The pink stains on the gauze made me wonder if that wasn't blood from a long struggle to break free.
I asked Nick to turn off his light and camera to see what it would be like left alone in here. See if there was any light source that would bring comfort. Discern any sounds or if noise would carry out in to the world.
We turned off our lights and stood there in silence.
It was almost deafening. Never wracking. Nothing could be heard. My ears rang with silence. Colors danced in my wide open eyes. They almost dried out from being wide open trying to see.
In the darkness I said that this would be a terrible place to be alone. Even worse to be tied to a chair and uncertain of your future.
We turned on our lights and Nick began taking pictures.
What a lonely place. Such a lonely chair to sit in.
I entertained the idea of sitting down in the chair for a photo op but the reality that some time long ago a person had no choice but to sit there and to what end I was not certain prevented me from taking a seat. It was akin to an electric chair in my mind that day.
Chilled to the bone by what we saw we made our way back topside and talked the whole way back about what we thought happened down there. Not long after that night Nick and I took a few more folks down to see the chair.
It still haunts me.
If you want to see the only pictures taken that day. Click on this: http://minus.com/mvsPxt#1
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