Paul’s first attempt to find the treasure was far from successful. To begin with, the soil was hard, and he soon realized that he was not in as good shape as a treasure-digger—or a grave-digger—needed to be. He decided to get some better equipment, because the idea of getting a professional digger to help him was out of the question. It would not do for someone else to get his hands on what Paul considered to be his own treasure.
After an hour or two of trying to loosen the hard soil, he had to give up. Perhaps, he thought, if there were a heavy rain, that would soften the soil and digging would be a lot easier. But the sky was clear and no rain had been forecast. Nevertheless, stubborn as he was, Paul continued all morning to chip away at the area where he was sure the treasure lay buried. By noon he had managed to remove no more than a few inches of topsoil. If the treasure was buried as deep in the ground as the medium had indicated, he had an awfully long way to go. The sun stood high now and he began to feel warm.
Sybil came out to help him but, even though she was willing enough, she soon realized that this was beyond their abilities. She therefore returned to the house and waited. As she sat there a feeling of apprehension overcame her. Were they doing the right thing? Stronger and stronger was the feeling growing in her that they were dealing with something more than they could cope with; something threatening.
Far from superstitious, Sybil nevertheless had distinct fears of the unknown and she had always felt that there were things one should not meddle with. On the other hand, her curiosity was high: not so much out of greed, as was the case with Paul, but out of a desire to learn about the unknown, the idea of finding the treasure was indeed exciting to her.
As she was thinking of the pros and cons of their venture, now that success seemed to be within their grasp, the feeling of uneasiness became even more powerful. She got up and lit a cigarette, something she rarely did because she was trying to stop smoking. The cigarette did not calm her nerves. She returned to her chair by the window, watching Paul.
While she was sitting there, in a state of meditation or something akin of it, it appeared to her that there were voices all around her. A rush of air began to envelop her. At first, she barely noticed, but when the wind became stronger, she knew it must be real, because it moved the curtains at the window (which was closed) and chilled her skin as it passed by her.
As yet, she felt no panic, only curiosity. The voices were indistinct and garbled; she could not make out what they were saying. But they were human voices—of that she was sure.
She closed her eyes, leaned back in the chair, and tried to relax. She knew of her own ability to receive at times things that other people could not, and she hoped that this was a moment when such communication would occur.
The voices became stronger. She could make out a male voice shouting, “Get out! Get out!” Then she heard a plaintive female voice crying, “Help us!”
When she realized what the voices were saying she sat up in her chair, terror filling her soul. Who were the people who were crying out to her? Were they perhaps in mortal danger? She looked out the window at Paul who was still trying to dig and then back into the empty room. Was it all her imagination? Was she beginning to experience fantasies because of what she knew about the house? She decided to close her eyes again and lean back, to see if anything further would come through. The minutes ticked away. Then she heard the voices again, faintly at first, approaching rapidly; but they were not like the voices that had been there before. These were angry voices, shouting. She opened her eyes. There was nothing to be seen. By now the voices seemed close by— and then she realized that they were not spirit voices at all, but actual voices coming from outside the house.
Sybil rose quickly from the chair, opened the door and looked out. Sure enough, people were coming up the road toward the house, and they were indeed shouting.
My God, Sybil thought, they are coming to our house! By now the group had reached the front of the house. There were perhaps eight or ten of them, a motley lot, middle-aged people mainly. One man seemed to be their leader. While the others remained back in the street, arguing loudly among themselves, the leader, a man in his late forties or early fifties who was dressed in a business suit, marched up the steps to the house and ran the bell.
When he saw the door was already open, he asked, “May I come in, please? We would like to talk with you.”
Sybil took a step backwards and the stranger came into the house. “Who are you?” she demanded to know. “Who are these people?”
The man in the business suit stood near the door, apparently not wishing to come farther into the house. He seemed ill at ease.
“We are residents of Amityville, ma’am,” he said stiffly, “and we are here to tell you that we don’t like what is going on in this house; not one bit.”
“What do you mean?” Sybil wanted to know. “This is our house, at least for a month.”
“Yes, we know you rented the house. We know you are going to go back to the city after that, and that’s fine with us. But we don’t like what you are doing right now. We don’t like problems in this town. We have had enough of it.”
“Just a moment,” Sybil said. She gently pushed the stranger aside, stepped out into the garden and called Paul.
“Paul, there is someone here who wants to talk to us!”
Paul turned around, dropped the shovel and slowly came back to the house. His hands were dirty. His face was sweaty and his eyes were glaring as if they were looking at a treasure no one else could see.
“Yes?” he said, not exactly politely.
“Well,” the stranger said, addressing Paul now, “we represent the people of Amityville. We know why you are here and we don’t like it. We would like you to leave this neighborhood as it was before you came here. We don’t want any more trouble.”
“What’s it got to do with you, what I am doing?” Paul demanded to know. “I’m not hurting anyone. I’ve paid for this house. I am going to be here a little bit longer and then I will go back to the city. We have a perfect right to do what we want while we are here. We are not disturbing anyone.”
“Yes, you are, sir,” the stranger replied stiffly. “You are stirring up old troubles.”
“What troubles are you talking about?”
“You know perfectly well the story of this house. You know what happened here. There are stories of all kinds of strange things going on. Maybe they are true, maybe they are not, but they caused people to come here and disturb our way of life. We like our way of life. We don’t want it changed. We don’t want to be disturbed by outsiders. Do I make myself clear?”
Paul fell silent for a moment, thinking it over. When he replied, he was calmer but his voice had a cutting edge, which indicated to Sybil that inside, Paul was seething with anger.
“What I do in this house, which we have legally rented and paid for, is my business alone, so long as I don’t endanger the safety of anyone else. There is nothing in the law that says I cannot dig in my own garden. So if you don’t mind, just leave us alone. Goodbye.”
With that, he turned and started to walk back to the garden.
“Wait a moment,” the stranger called after him. Paul stopped, turned around and faced him again.
“Look,” said the stranger, “it isn’t as simple as all that. You are digging for some pirate treasure that is supposed to be here. That sort of story gets around, see? People will come here from all over. This is a good town, a quiet town. We don’t want any treasure hunts around here, understand?”
“Perfectly,” Paul replied, much more politely than Sybil had thought he would. Again Paul thought it over before he continued. “Now then, here is my reply. I can understand your concern about undesirables coming to town. I don’t want them either. I don’t want anyone to come to this house, including you and your friends. What I do in my garden is my business. If you have heard some rumors or cock-and-bull stories, that is none of my business. I am doing some digging in the garden of a house that I have legally rented. That is all there is to it. If you have heard anything else, why don’t you check another source? I have no comment whatsoever. If you don’t mind, I would like to go back to my gardening. Good day, sir.”
Paul turned and resolutely walked away, leaving the stranger standing there. Sybil thought the time had come to shut the front door. She went back into the house and closed the door. The stranger lingered outside for a moment, before going back to the other people in the street. There was some discussion and a moment later the group went away.
Sybil fixed a hasty lunch for Paul and herself. Paul gobbled it in five minutes and returned to the site to keep digging, regardless of the difficulties. To his amazement, the weather began to change just then. What had been a clear and sunny sky was now overcast. Despite the fact that the weatherman had predicted clear skies all day, in fact for several days, it appeared as if heavy rains were imminent.
Well, now, he thought, if it is going to rain, that is just dandy! That will soften up the soil and then I can really dig. He decided to take a short rest and wait for the rains to come. Going upstairs to one of the rooms, he left Sybil downstairs, seated by the window. She was doing what she had done before—going into a state of meditation, wondering whether what they were doing was right or wrong.
Whether it was the excitement of the unexpected visitor or the emotional tug of war- going on within her, Sybil fell into an uneasy sleep. As she slept, it appeared that someone was trying to rouse her, for she heard an angry voice shouting in her ear, “Get out. Get out while you can!”
The voice became so insistent and so loud that it woke her. There was no one in the room. She rubbed her eyes, for sleeping in the middle of the day was not something she did very often and when she did, it always made her drowsy for an hour or so afterwards. As she tried to wake up completely, she noticed that she was not, after all, quite alone in the room. Looking across the large living room towards a window on the far side of the room, she saw a shadow directly in front of it. She rubbed her eyes again and thought that perhaps she had not fully awakened. When she opened her eyes again, the shadow was still there, only now it was darker.
To her amazement, she found herself neither afraid nor in a state of panic. Without so much as moving a muscle, she sat there looking toward the window on the opposite side of the room, watching as the shadow deepened. Gradually it took on the outlines of a human figure. What is it, she thought? In her heart she knew that she was having a visitation from a world with which she had, up until now, had no direct contact. By now she could make out the details as the figure solidified.
It was an Indian in full war regalia, who stood before the window staring at her in anger.
Oh my God, she thought, am I dreaming this? Her first instinct was to cry out to Paul —but then something stopped her. No, she thought, Paul would make it go away. I want to know what this is all about.
“Who are you?” she said to the apparition mentally, not daring to speak aloud. In the same manner the apparition replied to her. She did not hear his voice in the room, but she heard it in her mind as loud and as clear as if he had spoken.
“I am Rolling Thunder,” the apparition said. “This is my land. This is sacred ground to my people. No white man may be here. You must leave.”
“We will leave. We will leave,” Sybil replied, getting more anxious now. “We will leave in a few days. But Paul wants to find the treasure first.”
When her thoughts had expressed that idea, the Indian seemed even more angry. His eyes flashed as he sent back the message. “Do not touch the treasure! I am guarding it for my brother. You must not touch it or I will destroy you. Beware.”
The figure began to fade and seconds later it had gone altogether. Sybil, fully awake now, rubbed her eyes. Had she dreamed it? Or had she been privy to a rare experience and, if so, why? Was the Indian spirit perhaps kindly disposed toward her for some reason, willing to warn her of impending disaster before it struck? It seemed the most comforting explanation. But how was she to tell Paul? At once she realized that whatever she might tell him, it would have no effect upon his plans. Sadly, she accepted that there was nothing to be done but to let fate take its course.
She settled once more in the chair and closed her eyes. This time her rest was peaceful. When she awoke an hour later she was fully rested and relaxed. The experience was clearly etched in her mind; she was determined not to tell Paul in so many words, but perhaps to approach the matter indirectly. At the same time she knew that her chance of persuading Paul to give up the treasure hunt and return home was next to nil.
An hour later the rains came. It was as if the heavens had opened. Within the hour, the garden was flooded. As Paul sat by the window waiting for the waters to recede so that he could start digging, it became clear to him that nothing more could be done this day. But tomorrow, he thought, I can get down deeper to where the treasure is.
That evening, over dinner, Sybil tried to intimate to Paul what had happened. She described it as a premonition of impending disaster, but Paul waved her fears away.
“Please, no old wives’ tales,” he said. “Don’t confuse parapsychology with gypsy fortune telling. We came here to find the treasure. We know where it is now. We are going to dig for it and we are going to find it, and then we go home.”
Sybil knew Paul well enough to realize that any attempt to stop him was doomed to failure. That night, when she had a moment to herself, she prayed, asking God’s help in protecting them both from whatever might come as a result of their interference with ancient Indian sacred ground. Things had gone too far for her to stop them and all she could do now was to ask for protection.
The following morning the rains had stopped. The soil was muddy and soft. Early in the morning, Paul put on his boots, took the shovel, and walked out to where he had dug a hole the night before. The hole was now filled with water, but it didn’t stop him. The soil was soft now and the digging went easier.
An hour later Sybil joined him. She had decided that she might as well be at his side, not so much because of the treasure, but in case anything untoward happened; if it did, she wanted to be there to help him.
The two of them feverishly shoveled away the muddy soil. Deeper and deeper they went: eventually they were up to their shoulders in what appeared to be an ever widening hole in the ground. But there was no treasure chest and no skeleton. Were they digging at the wrong spot after all? Paul decided to go to the west of their present hole and see whether perhaps he was missing the site by a yard or so. If that did not yield the results he wanted, he would do the same thing in the opposite direction.
“Be careful,” Sybil begged, beginning to worry about what might happen, since they were pretty deep in the soil now. Again an uneasy feeling crept over her.
“I’ll have to do this alone. There’s not enough room for both of us.” Paul dug sideways into the soil. Sybil stood back and waited. The moments went by, minutes feeling like hours.
Suddenly there was a cry from Paul. “I’ve got it. I’ve got it,” he said. “I can see the skeleton!”
“Be careful, love,” Sybil said, mindful of her premonition.
But Paul would not listen. He delved deeper, burrowing towards the whitish form he had glimpsed a yard or two away. For a moment he disappeared from Sybil’s sight. His voice came back to her, muffled, but jubilant. “I’m getting there! I’m hitting pay dirt, so to speak,” he said.
“Please be careful, though,” Sybil called after him. But she was more or less speaking to herself.
As Paul disappeared into what appeared to be a large, odd-shaped hole in the wet ground, Sybil waited at the edge, unable to follow him. At this moment terror gripped and paralyzed her. She wanted to call out, “Don’t! Don’t!” But not a word came through her lips. Something stronger than herself kept her from communicating with him. While all this was going on she was keenly aware of the world around her; she heard the street noises and was even able to make out, in the distance, some angry shouts from people near the house. But none of this really penetrated her consciousness. Her eyes were fixed on the ground. By now, Paul had completely disappeared.
Suddenly she heard his muffled voice cry’ out; it held a note of achievement she had never heard him use before.
“It’s here. It’s here! I’ve got it!” His voice seemed fainter, perhaps because he had gone deeper into the ground than she had thought.
Paul had penetrated into what appeared to be a deep cave. It was not part of his excavations: this had existed before. The entrance had been re-opened, partly by the rain and partly by the pressure of some of the earth he had removed farther up. He did not realize, of course, that he had stumbled upon the ancient Indian burial grounds and that he was following subterranean passages which had been dug a long time ago.
The walls were crumbling but he paid no attention. So obsessed was he with his quest that even signs of imminent disaster would not have stopped him from proceeding farther. Wet earth dropped down on his head and matted his hair, but he paid no attention to that either.
It was dark in this deep recess but he had a strong flashlight with him and played it upon the walls. By now had had gone perhaps five or six yards away from the opening and his flashlight hit something different from the surrounding soil. When he saw that he had actually stumbled upon a large box of some sort, he realized that he had found the treasure at last.
It was at this point that he gave out the jubilant cry which Sybil heard. Totally oblivious to the dangers that might come with his position so far underground and without proper safeguards and getting as close as he could, he touched the box. No doubt about it. This was the treasure. But how was he to move it? Had Paul been less excited, he might now have returned to the surface and let matters rest for the moment, then come back the following day to reinforce the walls of the opening and remove the box with the help of Sybil.
But this he could not do: the fever of discovery was upon him, and with trembling hands he examined the box and the surrounding earth. As he bent down to see whether he could budge it with his bare hands, the heavy box began to move of its own volition. Perhaps loosened by the wet soil or by the force that had guarded it all this time, the box came crashing down on Paul and pushed him deep into the mud, burying his head completely.
Sybil was becoming anxious as the silence grew ominous. After several attempts to communicate with Paul by calling to him, she decided to go down to look for him. Paul had taken their only flashlight, but she had her lighter with her. Stepping carefully through the mud she managed to go down the short passage to where Paul’s body was partially buried in the mud.
One look told her that she had come too late.