 You may never get this close to Trespass's deep, dark secrets again. After all, the man who Rune once described as the "first and most important mystery [OCE} should investigate" does not open the vaults to his past often. For this very personal investigation, however, Trespass made a definite exception.
Born in 1983 in Tuskegee, Alabama, Trespass and his family moved to New Orleans when he was still an infant. His mother's name was Cordelia, but everyone called her Corey. His biological father vanished years ago and his mother remarried a man named Patrick who Trespass described as “a selfish, manipulative man who gets worse once he gets a few drinks in him.” From the very beginning, Trespass and Patrick's relationship was antagonistic.
Shortly after their marriage, Patrick moved Corey and Trespass to the little community of Dry Tree, located deep in the heart of the Louisiana bayou. Dry Tree wasn't even really a town, just more a place some people settled. The surrounding swamp was filled with alligators and mosquitoes. There were no other children, except for Patrick's daughter who was about nine years older than Trespass. Her name was Meryl and she and Trespass became fast friends. Sadly, Meryl drowned in the swamp several years later. Trespass described the incident in his journal entry of May 16, 2006:
“On the night [Meryl] died, she and I took some beer we stole from Patrick and we went drinking. We both passed out in the boat, but when I woke up the following morning she was gone. I immediately thought she had fallen overboard so I spent the next hour searching for her before I rushed home to see if she was there. Our neighbors found her body downstream the next day. The coroner determined that Meryl woke up sometime during the night, but was still so wasted that she fell out of the boat and drowned. Patrick blamed me from day one. I blamed me too, not because I did anything to every hurt Meryl, but because I wasn't there to look out for her like she looked out for me. Needless to say, things at home got even worse for me. About a week after we buried Meryl in the Dry Tree graveyard, Patrick ambushed me outside the trailer and beat the shit out of me. He wouldn't let my mom take me to the hospital so I spent the next two weeks confined to Meryl's bedroom, unable to move or leave. Once I was well enough, I started making my escape plans.”
As soon as he was able, Trespass packed a bag, jumped on a Greyhound and left the bayou. He did not speak to Corey or Patrick after fleeing Louisiana. Then, in August 2005, Hurricane Katrina slammed into the southern coast of the United States. For months, Trespass anguished over the fate of his mother. It wouldn't be until April 2006, however, that Trespass would find the personal strength to return to the bayou and search for his family. He did so with the support of his OCE colleagues and with direct help of Rune.
Rune described her cautious enthusiasm about arriving in post-hurricane Louisiana in her April 8th, 2006, journal entry:
“We finally made it! Postponed by poor logistics and this year's Mardi Gras and finally the Easter holiday, we finally got off the ground. Flying into New Orleans was a very humbling experience, I can tell you! We flew all night, trying to sleep in those airplane seats that feel comfortable when you first sit down, but then your ass is numb by the third hour and it never wakes up again. We circled in over Louis Armstrong International and looked down on the city at mid-morning and I think the entire plane let out a long gasp. Even from the air you could tell that the city was hobbled. It looked like a bomb went off and it became even worse the closer you got to the runway. Trespass was really quiet during the whole landing. I gave him the window seat because he needed to see it much more than I.
 The city appeared to mostly dry, or at least it wasn't the lagoon-like disaster area I remember from the news months ago. But the facilities in the city are clearly impaired. We didn't even try to get here during Mardi Gras because only about half the hotel rooms that were normally available were open for business, and flights in and out of the city are lowered [in number] too. We were both so jet-lagged that we just went to the hotel and went to sleep. I got up around 4 p.m., but I couldn't rouse Trespass until after seven.”
Rune and Trespass spent several days in the devastated city, touring the amazing cemeteries and chasing down the numerous stories of voodoo, murder and brutality. They finally rented a four-wheel drive SUV on April 23rd and left the broken city to brave the devastated landscape beyond.
“We drove out of New Orleans and south toward the Gulf of Mexico and the bayous,” Rune reported. “We were about an hour and a half into the trip when we began to hit roadblocks... and I mean that literally. Roadblocks. Big orange signs and detours and cones that look like witch's hats. You get the picture. Apparently, not much has been done to repair some of the roads leading into the more rural part of the state, which makes sense I suppose. The main road that Trespass wanted to take to get into Dry Tree was out...”
With their main route impassable, the twosome had to risk off-roading through an environment strewn with dangerous debris, rancid water and dangerous wildlife. By April 27th, the two-person team was no longer able to upload their emails and digital images to the rest of the team using their modems. Instead, they turned to satellite phones although these also proved unreliable. In fact, Louisiana itself seemed determined to keep them out of Dry Tree. Ruptured tires, obliterated landmarks and washed out roads made it nearly impossible for Trespass to navigate. The final catastrophe happened on April 28th when the SUV the duo were traveling in slipped off the muddy bank and into the bayou. Rune wrote this account the following day:
 “I am hoping this all reaches you as we are working solely off of battery power right now and not sure how long the modem will stay active. First, we're fine. No one injured. Both alive and well. Typing very fast. Thumbnail sketch: late on the 27th, our SUV took a header off the river bank we were driving along and sunk up to the windshield in mud. No one hurt, even though the airbags didn't deploy! We crawled out through the windows because we couldn't get the [doors] open. Trespass didn't want me to give details in my [phone call] to you because thought we could get the car out. Tried overnight after rescuing some of our supplies and water. Supplies on roof went right into the river and sunk!!! Trespass stood on rear bumper and pulled what he could out through the rear widow shield which he smashed with a rock. Got the electronics including GPS. Sorry Polaris, we screwed up big time! Sending pics now. More to follow. Will call in with regular position updates. Trespass says he can get us to Dry Tree on foot so we're forging ahead. Love you all! Rune”
Although both spent two uncomfortable nights camping in the swamp, Trespass was able to lead Rune into the ruins of his hometown on May 2nd. But he seemed characteristically reluctant to share his feelings about returning to an abusive home to find it empty with no signs as to his mother's or Corey's fate.
“Rune has been riding my ass because I'm not writing very much on this,” he confided on May 4th, “But I suck at this so I will write but it's going to be brief. We had kind of a sad day today. We spent last night in my mom's old trailer but it was pretty uncomfortable so this morning we paddled over to the closest neighbor. We didn't expect anyone to be there but they have much nicer crap than my mom and Patrick did so we figured we might be able to scavenge some supplies. The cupboards were pretty bare there too, but they did have a big water cooler with a couple of spare jugs so we salvaged those. Found some canned and packaged foods so tonight we may be able to have our first hot meal since we left New Orleans. On the way back to my mom's place, I took Rune by the local graveyard where Meryl's buried. The whole place had obviously been flooded during the hurricane, because most of the gravestones had been knocked over or even washed away. A lot of the trees had been uprooted too so it was hard to find landmarks. I couldn't find Meryl's grave which is the shitiest thing that's happened so far.”
Although neither Trespass or Rune expected to find Corey waiting for them in Dry Tree, the complete lack of clues as to what happened to her was chilling. And then there were the other strange occurrences as well...
“Being here in Dry Tree has been kind of spooky,” reported Rune. “It's been like stepping into a ghost town. Last night, while we were trying to sleep in the stinky trailer, I kept hearing all these noises outside the trailer. Trespass is quick to remind me that we are in the middle of a bayou and bayous are filled with animal life of all kinds, but swear to God it sounded like a woman's voice, whispering like she wasn't trying to wake us. It reminded me of when my parents would speak to each other in the living room after me and my brothers and sisters went to bed. They'd lower their voices, but not quite a whisper. Not telling secrets, just trying to keep from waking us. I didn't feel threatened, just spooked, you know??”
 Neither Rune or Trespass were able to explain the disembodied voices or the strange light they would see bobbing through the swamp at night. And then there was the local 'gator, whom Trespass referred to as “Big Jack.” Rune described her encounter with this amazing primeval animal:
“We paddled down the river to the sunken house I wrote you about earlier, the one originally owned by Patrick's grandparents. The house fell off its struts and sunk into the muck sometime in the 80s I guess. All you can see of it is the about the top third. T-pass said that a gator they called “Big Jack” took up lodgings there. We were being very careful but didn't see him anywhere. We got out of the boat on the spit of land behind the house and stuck the digital camera through the windows to photograph the interior. To our surprise, one photo came out with a big gator floating in one corner...”
“I am amazed that [Big Jack is] still alive,” wrote Trespass. “What's the lifespan of an alligator? He's been around as long as I can remember, and I know Patrick told me stories about him from when he was a teenager here. He's a really big boy, probably fifteen feet long although you can't really appreciate it in the photo. Since I couldn't find my mom, my sister's grave or any clues where everyone went, seeing Big Jack was kind of nice. Is that weird?”
On May 6th, Rune and Trespass left the ruins of Dry Tree by boat and made it back to New Orleans two days later. For Trespass, the legacy of his difficult homecoming was leaving with more questions than he arrived with. The only thing that OCE could do was to add Corey and Patrick's names to the government logs of the thousands of people who vanished during Hurricane Katrina.
For Rune, however, the journey to the bayou had a stranger, more paranormal legacy.
“Many of our members didn't really think that our trip to Dry Tree was a true expedition because we weren't looking for anything paranormal – we were just hoping to reunite Trespass with his mom,” said Rune. “But looking back, I wonder if we found something paranormal after all. I still think about sleeping, or trying to sleep, in that dingy little trailer and hearing those strange whispers all around me. I keep wondering if what I was hearing were the spirits of Trespass's mom or sister?”
As of June 2007, as this synopsis was being created, no sign of Corey or Patrick have been found. The location of Meryl's grave also appears to have been permanently erased by Hurricane Katrina. |
