I suppose I should try and describe what this machine looked like at this point. The original altered ghost box set suspended in a large metal frame, connected with various tubes and wires. On top of this frame was a set of large antenna resembling altered Tesla coils. On the bottom extending outward from the frame was a large flat plate with many wired flexible cylinders; needles affixed on the ends. That flat plate resembled some sort of bed, a notion that wasn’t lost on any in the group.

When the voice spoke through the speaker on the ghost box, all were taken by surprise. Instead of the monotonous flat synthetic voice they were expecting, instead what they heard was the voice of a little girl. And she called herself Abatha.

To no one’s surprise, Sonia broke down in tears and Till stood rigid still, mouth agape in shock. Abatha addressed them directly, telling the once to be parents that she had been searching for them for so long. She spoke of memories in the womb and then being lost in the cosmos. She told them of trying to find her way back but no matter how much she tried, she would fail.

It can be said that while Abatha spoke, she sounded happy and joyful. That first initial contact didn’t last long and Abatha said her goodbyes, promising to speak to them again soon. The 8 were filled with hope and wonderment from the encounter. If Abatha could find her way through after being lost, then maybe other loved ones could do the same. The idea of resurrection as promised by the voice was also a tantalizing aspect to consider.

The rest of the group did eventually have communications with their departed loved ones. It’s important to note though, that Abatha was always the most prominent voice and seemed to lead the order of those sessions.

Till and Sonia would spend many a night down in that basement communicating with Abatha. She would tell them of her existence on the other side, what it felt like and where she would go when not speaking to them. Much of these conversations are not known except when she began to talk of something she simply called “The Entity”. She explained that this entity, whatever it was, had helped her find Till and Sonia. It had also been the monotone voice sending the message through the modified Crawford G.

After a few weeks of these communions, at one of the groups meetings, Abatha informed them that The Entity was ready to begin it’s work on resurrecting the dead. It held the information on how to do so but they needed to offer up a body to the machine. That was its purpose. At first the 8 were hesitant with these instructions. Questions on where to get a body circled amongst them along with debates on whether this was something they were willing to do at all? Till for his part managed to calm their doubts and assured them that Abatha would surely not lead them astray.

So Till hatched a plan that he would steal a corpse from a fresh burial. Henry Williams volunteered to help him with the task. After a few days planning, the two snuck into the local graveyard under the cover of night and managed to exhume an elderly man, replacing the grave site exactly how they found it.

That first resurrection didn’t go as planned. In fact it didn’t work at all. The body lay on the metal plate with the cylinders attached as per Abatha’s instructions. A surge of electricity emanated from the machine on its own accord, traveling through the wires into the cadaver. The little girl’s voice informed them that the brief operation had not worked. The procedure wasn’t exact and they would need to try again with a different body under other conditions. Till and Henry returned the old man back to the grave that same night and once back at the house, the group discussed what the next step should be.

It was decided that maybe the embalming of the body had interrupted the procedure somehow. They would need to get their hands on someone who had not been seen to by the undertakers. But stealing a body from the morgue would be more risky and they didn’t want to take the chance.

Henry suggested that maybe they could grab someone who had died “out in the wild” as he put it. He had a cb Radio in his tow-truck so could listen into the police broadcast. Without a better idea, the 8 settled on this plan. All they were left to do was wait for an opportunity to present itself.

While they waited, Abatha was not silent and she told Till that The Entity wished to give them more information through images. This required a simple addition to the machine in the form of a screen. Through this screen, various strange symbols would broadcast at random intervals and both Till and Sonia would furiously scribble them down in a large black notebook. Till spent many nights trying to uncover their meaning. Abatha was of no help. It was The Entity that had dictated the strange writing after all.

While Till tried to decipher the text, Henry spent his time crawling the streets looking for an opportunity. His patrolling finally paid off when he managed to take the body of a recently murdered young woman before the police could arrive. He brought it directly to Till and Sonia’s house and they tried the procedure with different directions from Abatha about where to put the cylinders. Again it was a failure so Gregory Simmons was called to help them dispose of the body.

Till decided that the group needed to try more often and would have to come up with a better plan. Towards the end of the year of 1987 he also proclaimed that he had deciphered some of the mysterious text. He explained to the group that from what he could gather, it contained a sacred knowledge about life, death and the very secrets of the universe itself. It was hard to explain he had said. You just simply needed to read and understand the text and it would impart an understanding upon you. He also declared that the name of the Columbus Paranormal Society would be cast aside and that they would now be called “The Vault”, keepers of a secret knowledge.

PART 8