Field Notes - Texas

The first thing to establish properly is that even if I titled this little excursion my "Lone Star" trip, I am most certainly (and thankfully) not alone.

The universe has a ceaselessly surprising way of hooking things up in ways only a writer could arrange. The area I needed to be in for this trip is home to some creators I've known for awhile now and consider great friends as well as peers, who have expressed hosting me well before any need to jump on a plane and chase a found footage cult on the ground. They were immediate in accepting my need to be in the area and join me in tackling the Jack Torrance adventure.

I can firmly say in this way that the whole enterprise really has been a community affair; through hunting clues, the livestreams, and down to being in the field, on location with the camera, I've had my people with me. It's a moment in channel history like no other.

Texas in this region is interesting and admittedly much cooler than the last time I was here. Modern areas give way to exactly the kind of giant open spaces filled with animals, run-down aluminum-sided shacks, and farms that stretch for more acres than you can guess within just ten to fifteen minutes of driving. I've even seen areas that look precisely like a spot you'd only see in the hills of California around Hollywood from movies and tv shows: round, winding uphill roads with coarse rock cliffs and bunches of cactus plants and other succulents, revealing suddenly at the top unbelievable views of major hills and valleys that you can't quite imagine finding anywhere besides here.

Yeah, it's pretty different from home, and it is hot, but not unbearable. I can't say I've suffered from the heat yet, thankfully.

Visiting the locations for Jack Torrance's videos has been a wildcard experience--you don't know how uncomfortable or secure you're going to be until you arrive. On the first day, four locations were found and filmed, the first two of which were too public and far too close in proximity to feel safe, especially when a van driving by slowed to a crawl, passed by, and then started to reverse right near our position.

Retreating calmly from danger is an odd experience and I don't recommend trying it.

The third location was much, much easier... because it was a church. You really don't anticipate horrible encounters at a church.

The fourth location, however, was the first abandoned place I've ever been to that posed a genuine threat. Hearing noises from what could be wild animals or, say, squatters with nothing left in life to lose moaning in an abandoned building makes you really want to get only the shots you need and NOT go inside for exploration purposes.

(Especially when a member of the adventuring party catches something moving under a pair of doors kept together with rusty chains and says, "Get the car open now, get it open, go, go.")

Location #5, the latest from the Jack Torrance videos before the Gazebo Event, was way better--a much more peaceful experience that didn't feel the least bit dangerous. There could have been curious strangers, but it would have been the type of curious stranger that would have appreciated why I was there and how our meeting came to be.

The Gazebo was a thrill--the first genuine contact in the field and the most positive, affirmative response to this adventure I could've hoped for. We all went with a sense of excitement and a mindset to be prepared for anything. We approached from a side that took us through a lot of knee-high plants. I pulled burrs out of my (fur) on the way back, but I didn't mind; we found what had been left for us and felt the rush off being ARG field agents instead of onlookers and historians for the first time.

Now, we just wait for the outcome of the VHS-C tape. Our only fear right now is that the party responsible for getting the footage asks too many questions about whatever content they might see in the process. There's no telling what Jack Torrance recorded, and "It's an ARG, ya know, standard horror stuff" is not an easy thing to explain to people.

But I am having fun and feeling rewarded. I feel like I'm really, truly delivering in one of the ways expected of me now with the backing of Patreon. Last October really let me do a good deal of that, but this is a whole new level of Night Mind work your support has unlocked as a possibility.

That's all for now, everyone. Thank you all so much again for all of this. It's a blast and I haven't even stopped yet to fully consider the enormity of what this moment of my life is yet, but subconsciously, I'm very aware. You all made this possible and I'll never stop being grateful.