Escape Africa (7)

 

7. A Haunting in Hartebeespoort:

They never meant it to happen, sometimes shit goes wrong
when filming but, I still can’t believe what I was watching; the video is
surreal, Leon was my friend, his crew shouldn’t have left him alone. I
committed to memory the letter he’d written to me:

I’ve heard many South African ghost stories mostly
through friends or family of friends, stories told me of the strange
occurrences they experienced with some truth in their eyes and a bit of liquid
courage in their glasses.  I remain skeptical,
despite my recent experiences of the supernatural, of ghosts. I do not believe
in ghosts, I cannot prove through scientific reason these paranormal spirits
exist despite experiencing enough to know better. I’m not hunting ghosts, I’m chasing
the paranormal but when I heard what happened in Hartebeespoort I became
curious. There’s one house that stands empty frequently. The current owner of
the property does not reside there so the property remains empty, I’m not sure
if the owner wants to comment but the tenants I spoke to didn’t stay long once
the house exhibited paranormal activity, again not sure if the house is haunted
or if there are ghosts currently haunting it or whether any of the previous
occupants endured any haunting. Poltergeist activity spikes when structural
renovations are made to the property, so I was told. Historically speaking
person or persons deceased on the property may be the source of the potential
haunting. Neighbours account witnessing various paranormal activities; lights
flickering, windows and doors slamming, movement of shadows in the vacant home,
etc. I may be able to interview some of the locals but they seem, scared. The
guys are filming spots in Schoemanville, I’ll voice over in editing. They’re
getting a few establishing shots for our film. The father gets up from the sofa
where he laid, the empty bottle of Klipdrift rolls under the television stand.
The house is quiet, it’s sometime after 02:00. He walks to the kitchen and
picks up a carving knife. Moments later he’s staring at his wife from the foot
of their bed, she’s asleep. He lifts the knife above his head, repeatedly.
Nobody hears a sound. It’s a little after 03:00 when neighbours first hear the
sirens, a murder occurred. The unknown man remains missing. The investigation is
fractured but authorities don’t care. The madness suppressed any ability the
suspect possessed to subdue his anger. His poisonous nature cursed and scowled
everything in existence. The monsters of his past haunted the dead parts of his
mind where he could not or would not leave the wretched things to find peace.
By either dream or hallucination the few memories he cherished were
reconstructed into new stories evolving with each recollection. He recalled beating
the youths, beating on his wife, he recalled receiving beatings as a youth but
the memories confused him. Faces and voices were fading and words were
distorting, soon there would nothing – an absolute nothing. He became nothing. The
house stood abandoned, desolate and haunted. Years passed between the brief
occupations of unsuspecting families attempting to make this house their home.
Fresh paint would disappear from the walls, furniture would move violently and
anyone left alone long enough in the bedrooms would endure the screaming coming
from the shadows. The Bessemer family purchased the house, stayed there for a
single night before declaring the property permanently vacant before boarding
up the doors and windows and padlocking the front gate. I spoke to Yvonne
Bessemer who bought the neightbouring property and remained vigilant. Yvonne
call on the church then the community and later on spiritual mediums but the
house remained defiant.  A haunted
building North West of Johannesburg remains disheveled and abandoned, scarred
by the horrific acts of violence and death, the murdered family of Hartebeespoort
tainted the property. Yvonne granted us permission to enter the property and
stay the night. I’m hoping to encounter and record something.

I received that letter about a week before my farm was razed,
figured I’d investigate if I ever passed through the town. Not much to tell, I
must have missed all the excitement. Small towns bury the scandals and their
secrets so a stranger asking uncomfortable questions never goes down well. I
searched the old house, found Leon’s wrecked camera bag. He’s Dictaphone had
survived,    

 

‘Three of us entered the house; Danny, me and Johnny.
Danny set up several cameras inside the house; the bedroom where I would spend
the night, the passageway where people claim to have seen activity and the
bathroom where the murders allegedly occurred. I took an EMF meter and camera
to the bathroom to snap a few pictures, usual routine of dull and boring until
we checked the photos afterward. Johnny did his thing to record audio tracks;
he’d walk around the place asking if there were any spirits around hoping to
record an audible response, I could hear him going from room to room. Danny
changed out half a dozen memory cards in the few hours we recorded, we had a
lot of material to go through in post. As night fell we planned to leave Johnny
alone for the night, the shit head macho man got off on solo filming. He would
stay the night with his digital recorder, a camera and maybe a flashlight to
taunt whatever haunted the place into a response; can’t say it worked
effectively but sometimes the camera and recorder played back something weird sounds
or images and sometimes they just didn’t record. Usually I wasn’t fazed by
haunt, it never got out of control where I felt we were in danger but I
remember feeling a bad vibe when leaving the house that evening. We returned
early the next morning, we found everything as we left it but Johnny was gone.
I mean gone, we searched but found nothing. Danny immediately ran playback, all
the cameras saw Johnny walking around the house but the sound wasn’t playing.
No indication of where he went. We packed up our gear and planned to call the
cops when clear as a bell Danny and I heard glass shatter in the bathroom.’ I
heard the terror in his voice, that scratch of uncertainty that jumps from the
back of your throat the moment you realize the situation is no longer in your
control. I’d never known Leon to be afraid, not in his profession.