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Real Ghost Stories

Chapter 7

The Eastland Disaster

The Winchester brothers parked on a dark Chicago Street, across from an imposing Granite clad building looming out of the dark.

"What is this place, Sam? Dean asked. "It looks a little like a Castle and are those Gargoyles beside the doors?"

"This is the Excalibur," Sam replied. "The building itself has been here since 1896 and right now it's home to a couple of nightclubs but that's not why I'm interested in it." Sam sat with his hands on his knees, the street lights throwing his eyes into darkness. "Almost a hundred years ago this building acted as one of the temporary morgues for the bodies recovered from the Eastland disaster."

"All right, I'll bite," Dean pushed their duffels around in the back seat. "What's the Eastland disaster and what are we hunting?"

"This place is full of ghosts. Sam went on. "I have no idea what to do about them all but even letting a couple of them go to rest would be a good thing."

"They are ghosts of mostly women and children who were drown on a bright summer's morning back in 1915."

Dean stopped moving. "You want to give me a little more on this before we go in?"

Sam opened his door. "I don't think that we will be in any danger. These ghosts are confused and waiting. They were waiting when they died and most of them never knew what happened. Let's just break in and walk around. I need to find the morgue floor."

"There really shouldn't be anyone in the building except maybe Security Guards on an early Tuesday morning. The clubs don't open on Monday. Hopefully it will be completely quiet."

The Winchesters carefully moved around the building in the shadows created by weak city lights. They flitted like specters themselves, prodding for weak spots and quiet alcoves Finally a set of sunken stairs led Dean to a basement door that didn't so much require finesse as muscle to get open. Always aware that nightclubs would invest money in burglar alarms the boys were careful once inside.

Using covered flashlights they investigated their surroundings delicately, listening for any sound at all. Silently they flowed through the building like ghosts themselves and Dean waited for Sam's senses to alert them to the existence of anything that really should not be there.

After about a half hour Sam reached out and held on to Dean's arm. Sam flick his dimmed light forward on an open floor space and for just a moment Dean thought he could see women in long skirts and little boys in knee socks and knickers all aligned facing South toward the docks on the Chicago River. The woman wore cheerful summer straw hats, decorated with ribbons and springs of flowers. The little boys hands clutched wooden toys or held on to the women's skirts, as small children always have, seeking safety in their mother's clothes. Little girls peeked shyly around their mothers but they all faced south.

Sam started slowly backing up and pulling Dean along with him. "There's nothing we can do right now. Let's get back to the car."

Once more slipping through the building, Dean remained quiet until they were safely back out in the Impala.

Sam pulled out a street map. "We need to go south on Clark and find the dock between La Salle and Clark streets on the River."

Dean pulled the map off Sam's lap. "What we need to do is fill Dean in on what we just saw. I think that might be the most ghosts I have ever seen in one place. What was this Eastland disaster, Sam? I'm done with playing in the dark."

"On a July morning in 1915 The Western Electric Company out of Cicero Illinois set up a company picnic in Michigan City, Indiana." Sam responded. "The company leased four boats to ferry the employees and their families across Lake Michigan to the opposite shore. The company had ten thousand employees and all the families were invited to attend. The picnic was a really big deal. Few of the families could afford vacations. One of the boats was the SS Eastland."

Sam paused for a moment imagining that summer morning. He rested his forehead on his hand. "Afterwards it was revealed that the Eastland had a history of listing since it was first put in the water due to a design flaw. The boat was top heavy and the center of gravity was much too high. It accumulated a history of flooding and listing and it's carrying capacity had been steadily downgraded from 3,500 passengers to 2,400 to 1,125."

"In addition, in response to the sinking of the Titanic, a law had been passed mandating more lifeboats for passenger vessels. This retrofitting of a whole bank of new lifeboats on the already top heavy Eastland, contributed to the disaster."

"Only three weeks before the disaster steamboat Inspector Robert Reed had been prevailed upon to file an amended certificate allowing the Eastland to carry 2,500 passengers plus crew again."

Sam looked at his brother. "While still roped to the dock and carrying an estimated 2,500 to 3,000 people the Eastland listed to port and rolled over, carrying all those people, mostly women and children to their deaths. Some were crushed by the boat; a lot were trapped on the lower deck and drown."

"In the end 844 bodies were recovered, the largest death toll of any Great Lakes boat disaster. They died not more than 50 from the dock, in about 20 feet of water and there was nothing anyone could do."

Sam rolled the map in his hands. "Whole families died, mother, father, children and even grandparents, all trapped in the same watery grave. 22 families were completed wiped out, no survivors. What we saw at the Excalibur were just some of the dead. The Excalibur was only one of the temporary morgues."

Dean sat still and his grip on the steering wheel tightened. "Is there anything we can do?"

"I want to go to the dock and take a look at how many more there might be. I don't know what use I can be to any of these spirits. They are all waiting for that boat to take them to their summer picnic." Sam whispered.

Dean started the car and they drove to the docks. Once there they stood together at the water's edge and looked out over the lights of Chicago. Dean had found the stark historical marker put up to commemorate the disaster. It seemed a pitiful reminder of eight hundred lives lost.

"What do you see, Sam?" Dean asked.

Again Sam touched his arm and for a moment Dean could see what Sam saw. Here it was men, lined up and gazing south. Mostly men; they were also waiting. Waiting for perhaps their wives or their children; or for that boat to take them across the lake to their brief summer holiday. A hundred years later, they still were waiting.

Sam flung out his arms and ran down the dock. To him it appeared that he was disrupting the ghosts. They broke up like soap bubbles as he went through but when he looked back they reassembled from the smoke of his passing. Nothing had changed; they stood and gazed over the water.

Sam trudged back to Dean. "I can accomplish nothing. I can't even get their attention."

"What about a summoning?" Dean asked. "Can you get them to see you?"

"What could I offer them, Dean?" Sam despaired. "They want their families; they want their summer day back. I have nothing to give them."

"Maybe the prayer; the prayer for the dead that I have seen you offer before." Dean replied. "Do you think it would help?"

"I don't think it will help here." Sam said. "I can't even get their attention; but I don't mind if we go back to the Excalibur. I feel like I might be able to at least attract the attention of one of the boys, maybe."

Dean knew that this was tearing at Sam. "Better one than none at all, Sam. Let's give it a try. We better hurry though, it's getting on towards sunrise and we don't want to get caught inside that building."

They retraced their path and Sam brought with him this time his smaller brass bowl and some sweet herbs. Once again on the morgue floor he sat cross legged and tried to catch the eye of any of the small spirits surrounding him. He lit a white candle and let it burn beside him. That flame finally caught the eye of a little boy holding a wooden toy horse. The little spirit came closer to the flame.

Sam dropped a lighter into the bowl and the herbs caught fire, creating a sweet smelling cloud of smoke. The little boy now seemed to focused completely on Sam and on Sam's prayer for the dead. Just as the boy began to glance back at a woman, who was now approaching, the sunrise broke through an upper window and formed a pool of light on the floor. Both the boy and the woman looked up at the sun, possibly for the first time since they died.

Their concentration on the boat broken, they both bathed in the sunlight.

With a last whisper from Sam they dissipated.

Dean came forward and put a hand on his brother's shoulder. "You do nice work, Sam." he said.