The Specter Files ep. 1 (pt3) : The Bloodening

(Author’s note: This is the third, and final, part of a series of ghost haunts tied in with The Specter Detectors. Everything below has been written by Amelia. Scroll back to find the first two episodes. Read below to learn about what happened in the depths of Mammoth Cave!)

(Ok, Lucy, I admit. The scream got me. Even though I knew who it was. I have no doubt that you would have been scared too. A massive jump-scare, and I almost got a black eye the last time that you were jump-scared. So perhaps it’s better that I’m writing about the Specter Detectors Episode instead of watching it with you.)

A picture of the staircase, just before we started climbing. 

After the scream.

The screen fades back in. I think that they did something with the color and contrast, because the reds really pop, and Klaus’s trench coat looks funny. He isn’t wearing his hat either. I forgot that his hair was so long. He must have a good conditioner.

Anyway, he’s holding his hat in one hand, and he’s staring at the camera with a smug smile. Behind him is a safety railing surrounded by rock walls, and behind that railing is the darkened cavernous Ruins of Karnak. If I recall correctly that railing was about halfway up the killer stairs.

Maybe that’s why Mark is breathing so heavily. (You can hear him behind the camera, even though he’s not wearing a mike.) Sheryl is standing next to Klaus, and her face is grim. The two trench coated Specter Detectors are slightly off angle, Mark is shooting from the steps above.

The landing.

(Ok that was a lot of scene-setting, but all of that was just the opening, I just wanted to take time to describe it.)

“Spectators!” Klaus speaks heavily. “You’re not going to believe what we just found!” He turns around, the tails of his coat whirling. Reaching out over the railings, he holds his free hand up into the air. After a second, he winces. “Like the walls of the Frozen Niagara, the ceiling above is sending us a message, and that message—” he spun around again, holding his palm up for the camera “—is soaked in blood.”

Mark zooms in on his plan, where a small, red drop has coalesced in the center. With the closer view, it’s possible to see several red stains on the cuff of his coat too. “Blood is dripping here in Mammoth Dome, and not from any living, or recently living, source. Come here.”

Those last two words are directed at Mark, who has to zoom out and focus quickly, as Klaus steps up to him, reaching out with his red blood-stained hand, and pulling him to the edge of the railing. As Mark, and the camera, pass Sheryl, he asks. “Is that sanitary?”

Sheryl shrugs, but before she can answer, Klaus must be manhandling the camera, directing it out over the railing. We can hear him as the camera adjusts to the overhead lighting, and then the darkness above that. “As you can see there is nothing above us but the vast cavern roof, and from somewhere up there, a constant drip, drip, drop. Blood has been flowing, just out of reach.” Klaus says.

“All I can see is darkness…. Ah.” Mark and the camera pull back. “One of the drops got me.”

“Show the camera.” Klaus instructs him. “Give the camera to Clancy.” There’s a moment of shaking, and several pairs of feet on rocky ground, and then we are treated to a close up of Mark’s shaking hand, and a red stain on his wrist. “

“Oh, Man.” Mark’s voice is shaking.

“I’m getting a strange feeling from this area.” Sheryl speaks up. “But it’s not malice, or terror, like you’d expect from spectral emanations like this. The mood is more, dour, forlorn, sad. These are more like tears. It feels like the Cavern is weeping.”

“Clancy, film down there.” Klaus grabs his brother’s, the new cameraman’s shoulder, and pulls him to the edge of the rail. “Is there a pool of blood below us? Can you see it?”

The camera focuses on the ground beneath the stairs, the same place we had been walking earlier when Bethany showed us that fossil. There’s a wet stain on the dark pavement, but in the darkness it’s impossible to tell if it is red, or not.

“Ompmf.” Clancy winces, and the camera shudders, “a drop got me too. Do you think that this is dangerous?” He asks. “Could this curse us or something.” He swirls around, and the camera takes a moment to focus on Sheryl and Klaus. Mark has retreated up the stairs, and standing behind him now is a fourth figure. Ranger Lorrie.

“I don’t know.” She answers, when she notices that the camera has focused on her. “When this happened in the on the Domes and Dripstones tour, I was too focused on getting the tour out to hang around and test the red liquid dripping from the roof. It washes off, but you might need to double rinse, and don’t put your clothes in with anything white.” Ranger Lorrie sounds nervous when she starts talking, but by the end of her speech she’s calmed down. She crosses her arms, “Now, we need to get out of here, this is something I’m going to have to report when we get back to the surface.”

“Back to the surface.” Sheryl echoes. “Never before on this tour, have I felt so deep underground.’ The camera focuses on her, and she turns to the ranger. “Can we stay a bit longer, and quickly summarize what we’ve found?”

“Fine.” Ranger Lorie frowns. “Two minutes, an no ghost tools.”

The camera goes dark for a second, and when I comes back on, someone else must be holding it, because Clancy, Sheryl, and Klaus are all in shot. I don’t think it’s Ranger Lorie, and I can’t hear Mark’s scared breathing, so I think it’s Cody. That’s all Specter Detectors accounted for, since Samantha was staying with us.

Anyway, Klaus and Sheryl, in trench coats, and Clancy in his Specter Detector’s T-shirt, are all standing next to the railing where Rudy, and multiple Specter Detectors, were bloodened.

Klaus is wearing a hat again, and I imagine, if things had worked out differently, this might have been the only segment we would have gotten about the bloodening. He speaks, calmly. “Spectators. We came here to uncover the secrets of Mammoth Cave, brought on rumors of wind and blood. And now here, deep within Mammoth Dome we have found the blood.”

Sheryl holds her hand out, showing off a trace of red in her palm. “We found this spooky manifestation while making our exit.” (I know, they didn’t find it. We’ve been over that.) She wipes her hand on Clancy’s t-shirt, then she turns to address the darkness. “Can you hear me spirits? Is there anything you’re trying to say?”

In the silence which follows, I think I hear a whisper, but the Specter Detectors never put subtitles on when the ghosts speak, only ???. Which appears below her in this scene. I could be wrong, but to me it sounded like “oozing!” (Which is pretty crazy!)

“The blood is dripping from somewhere in the cavern ceiling about forty feet overhead.” Klaus explains, and there’s a replay of Mark’s footage shooting over the railing. (They must have asked Ranger Lorrie about the height while the camera was off.) “And there is nothing up there except solid rock. These spectral emanations must be pouring through the rocks themselves. This uncanny circumstance is new, and while neither Sheryl nor I feel any impending threat from the lurking darkness behind us, we have been informed that we must leave for our own safety.”

The camera turns, and we get a brief glimpse of Ranger Lorie. “But don’t worry!” Clancy remarks, “Our investigation is only beginning. Once the park service does their due diligence, and assures us that everything is settled, we will be back, to see what these specters are trying to say.”

Despite the strange circumstances, all three of the Specter Detectors on screen look super excited. The last brief glimpse of Mark before the camera shuts off is the only sign that any of them were truly scared. The last image is of the empty landing, and the sound of a steady and constant drip, drip, drop.

(Thus ends the first episode of The Specter Detectors! (at least the first to be carried by a major streaming service.)

(Lucy! You should watch it. You’re supposed to be our fearless leader. Justin’s just the one who makes us solve mysteries. Besides, I just got an email from Cody, and there’s a good chance we’ll be seeing the Specter Detectors again soon. It would be pretty embarrassing if you hadn’t watched their TV show. Sigh. (text sigh) I guess making you read this will have to do.)