It all started when I got a call from a player we all know as "Angry Iron".  He was excited to tell me about a unique find he'd made.  The account goes that a magician who toured the US and Europe just after WWII had passed away leaving his brother in Decatur, Alabama, his estate that included all of his magical props and effects.  These things were stored in the brothers basement for many decades.  Some of the "things" down there caused the brother unspoken discomforts, anxieties and mental anguish all those years until he could stand it no more.  When the chance came along he grasp it and unloaded these items that were causing his life to be a living hell.  This is where I got the call… "I'm bringing them out tonight, will you meet me?"  An hour later I heard the familiar sound of a diesel truck driving up and we all met out by the Mt. Doom lumberyard where we unloaded the cache.  Onboard was a very ancient bronze-gone-green adult metal casket and a small white child's metal casket complete with ornate corner gussets and carrying handles.  Mt. Doom had plans for making some unusual "locations" deep in the woods for scenario role players to carry out missions in.  When the lids were opened a putrid gust of air rushed up and hit us.  The odor of mold, mildew and decay filled the air and a strange sense of repulsion came over everyone.  The photo at the left was taken and immediately afterwards both men moved away from the caskets complaining of a overpowering feeling of depression and nausea.  We closed the lids and I have only opened them once more since that night and I can tell you there is a feeling of despair and terror that begins to fill your mind when you look into either of these coffins.  The child's coffin especially causes the mind to convulse with thoughts and impressions of horror that you could normally resist.  At first you thing, "Yea, creepy kids coffin, makes you think creepy things, ha ha, ok, I'm a mature adult, I can deal with this…"  Then you open it and you start getting horrible visions in your mind.  You envision a child lying inside that is visibly quite dead.  White lifeless, puffy limp flesh.  You recoil and close the lid but the memory and the thoughts linger with you for hours, days and when you sleep it's the worse.  They invade your dreams.  The next morning I noticed the first crows perched in the trees that overlook the lumberyard.  Just a couple, but they didn't fly away until I got very near the coffins and then they only flew a short distance and lit in a tree just a few hundred feet away, keeping a constant watch on what I was doing.  Now anyone who has tried to take a shot at a crow with a .22 rifle can tell you, these birds are on constant vigil for danger.  They fly away if a human comes within 200 yards of them.  Crows keep a lookout in the trees while the rest of the flock forage on dead animals below.  Crows have a reputation of being one of the most nervous and easily spooked bird species and they are intelligent!  Isn't it odd that these birds stayed very close by when I approached?  Later today the adult coffin will be moved back into the woods so a special place.  I wonder will they follow?
     Players at Mt. Doom have always been fascinated by the constant presence of Buzzards on my mountain.  Buzzards commonly hang out on mountains to take advantage of the thermal updrafts which keep them afloat for hours at a time.  It is a fact that if you stand very still in the woods the buzzards will circle you, a characteristic that causes many woods players here great concern.  Both crows and buzzards feast on the carcasses of dead animals and serve as a natural part of the cycle of life and death in the forest.  I am just wondering why they have chosen now to come onto the fields of Doom in such large numbers and stay in the woods over this one particular spot nightly.  Many players at a recent paintball event here witnessed the strange phenomenon of hundreds and hundreds of crows flocking into the woods around them to their distress.  Even shooting paintballs at them had little effect other than to cause them to scream and caw with an alarming volume.  Everyone found it a relief when I called the game over early so we could exit this part of the woods safely.  Ornithologists will be coming out from Auburn University School of Veterinarian Sciences next month to study these birds and their strange behavior.  They have found it extremely curious that migratory crows would stay in north Alabama more than a few days and even stranger that they keep circling my small pavilion constantly.  Watch this website for their study results and more photos of these harbingers of death as they make Mt. Doom's history of creepiness even more definite.  READ MORE