10 December 2007

Life in the Haunted Basement

So, shortly after I rolled up at work today, a technician from AT&T arrived to install our new T1 line. This, of course, entailed me venturing into the Haunted Basement. Let me back up a bit; you need some background for this.

Fave Media, Inc.'s offices are located at 2350 N Clark St. Come in sometime; we have a storefront where you can hang out. Anyways, we share the building with a goth/industrial club called Neo. Pretty neat, right? From my server room, I exit a back door to a stairwell shared by Neo and Fave, then out an outside door (that doesn't have a working lock...) into the dumpster area. There are some slippery looking stairs there leading down to an iron gate. Opening the padlock to this gate, you have to violently jerk the bolt to unlock the gate, then there's a little door there with a bare light bulp over it. It is at this point that you should start to feel concerned. There is a peephole and mail slot in the door. Why? Nobody knows!

Open the door and step inside, fumbling about for the light switch. Don't look too disappointed, the light switch only turns on one bare bulb about two metres in front of you, and does not at all illuminate the rest of the hallway. A wall is conspicuously missing to your left, and you can see the rusty skeleton of a fixed-gear bicycle that's gotta be about as old as you are. There's other stuff there but seriously, you just don't want to know.

Down the hall a jog is the doorway into the room where the T1 line is. The T1 line is a pristine box set into the wall among a veritable rat's nest of wiring. There are high voltage signs on some of these little rat's nests, but no bare wires visible as far as I've seen. All around you are dust-covered relics from all the other businesses that have occupied this building—including but not limited to a giant pile of mannequin pieces and some pretty respectable-looking stereo equipment. At this point, if you're not creeped out, you're just not human.

Added to the craziness, a pipe had decided to burst or loosen or something and was pouring down water just next to the basement entrance. I'm still not sure what it was, but I got some of it on me so I'd rather not think about that. Best part? I get to go down there tomorrow, too!

Seriously AT&T needs to hurry on up and finalize that installation.

1 comment:

Monkey said...

Take it from an Original Goth Girl, I spent many a Nocturna at NEO and know for a fact that the building is haunted. Just down the street the St. Valentine's Day Massacre occurred. I had a friend who lived in a building on the old Massacre lot and it was extremely haunted. The Ouiji board really danced for me there!

Ah the good old days, but the nights were better!