A Short Message From the Author

Risk-taking is a necessary part of life and many

times the pursuit of knowledge is not safe. The Fallen

have certainly found this to be the case during their

adventures. But, in reality, the dangers that folklorists

face are few and far between.

The most dangerous decision you’re likely to

face is whether to pack a spare battery for your camera

or just assume that you have enough juice for the trip.

However, the introduction of certain elements can

greatly increase your chances of accident or arrest.

Drugs and alcohol, while they might be your

only means of drowning out your sorrows at home,

need to stay at home when going on an investigation.

The police, should you happen to be trespassing, do not

look kindly on a group of hammered teenagers in a

cemetery at night (or in an abandoned building) no

matter what they’re doing there.

Another, lesser-known risk factor is the size of

your group. Six people yelling and laughing will attract

much more attention than two or three. The larger the

group, the harder it will be to keep track of everyone

and before you know it someone will be mooning the

oncoming traffic from inside the cemetery fence.

If you want to have a good time testing your

courage, scaring yourself, or just checking out an object

of folklore without winding up in the back of a squad

car, I have one simple rule for you:

Don’t behave like an idiot.

If you follow this rule, everything should work

out okay. g

Your Letters

If you are a fan of the Legends and Lore of Illinois,

we want to know about it! Please send us an e-mail

with your name, your town, state, age, and how you

first heard of the publication. Here is a sample:

Dear Legends and Lore of Illinois, You are awesome! I found your url written on a bathroom stall in a truck stop. I am 22 and from Cotton Plant, Arkansas.

Charlie Daniels

Please e-mail your letters to:

thefallen2@gmail.com

Contents From the Author 1 Your Letters 1 A Quick and Dirty Guide 2 The Fallen Investigate 3 Ghostly Games 6 Trivia 6 Character Profile 7 Personal Experiences 7

The façade of the building.

Page 1

poor farm. The graves are supposedly located in a

grove of trees behind the building.

Sometime later the name was changed again,

this time to the “Vivarium Annex,” where, according to

Taylor, SIU used it for animal research. The building is

currently abandoned, although the university

occasionally stages emergency drills on the property to

test its medical students.

The building’s final closure and decay inevitably

led to stories of ghosts and other horrors. The

atmosphere inside the structure lent itself to rumors of

medical experiments gone awry. According to Troy

Taylor, “stainless steel cages and medical equipment

are scattered throughout the place, giving it the

ominous feel of some mad scientist’s lair (p.43).”

Those who ventured down the long driveway at

night for a look inside the notorious building got more

than they bargained for. “Rumors about the place get

bigger and bigger each year when some brave crowd of

teenagers gather up the courage to walk the 2.5 miles all

the way down the back drive in absolute darkness,”

Courtney Cruse wrote in her high school newspaper,

the Terrier Times (October 2005). “The ones who do

stay… are almost mesmerized at how many scary

artifacts are left in the eerie building.”

Visitors today will not find very much worth

seeing inside those halls. Most of the aforementioned

equipment has been stolen or removed by the

university, and the walls are covered with graffiti.

Sunset Haven is a shell of its former self. g

A Quick and Dirty Guide to Sunset Haven

Up until around the mid 1950s, people who

couldn’t take care of themselves; orphans, the elderly

and infirm, epileptics, and alcoholics, often found

themselves on a county farm known as a “poor farm.”

A superintendent and his family would look after the

residents while the residents earned their keep by

farming the land, if they were able. Most of these

institutions closed down when our modern welfare

system came into maturity. The land was sold and the

buildings were often turned into psychiatric hospitals

or homes for the developmentally disabled.

Sometimes poorly managed, and not very

profitable, those institutions frequently closed their

doors and were taken over by vandals and thrill

seekers. Sunset Haven, or “Building 207” as it’s known

today, is one such place.

The Jackson County Poor Farm (its original

name) has a somewhat unique history. According to

Troy Taylor’s Haunted Illinois (2004), it became known

as Sunset Haven during the 1940s before it was

converted into a nursing home. It was finally closed in

1957 when Southern Illinois University purchased the

property to expand its agricultural program (p.42). It

then became known as the Museum Research

Corporation.

During the 1970s, the research corporation made

an effort to locate all the unmarked graves of the dead

that had been buried during Sunset Haven’s years as a

Page 2

The second floor is one of the most damaged

levels of the building.

Here you can see an old radiator and a light fixture.

The Fallen Investigation file 014

With the paved road less than fifteen yards

behind them, Mike, Davin, Aurelia, Emmer, and their

new companion Emily strolled up the dirt trail toward

the summit of a small hill. Fallow cornfields flanked

them on both sides, and a stand of trees obscured the

brick building at the end of the trail. The unobstructed

wind assaulted them.

“While you guys were out doing who knows

what over New Years, I was doing some serious

research,” Emmer explained as he led the group toward

the distant brick building. “I found something real for

us to investigate, for a change.”

“This looks like private property,” Davin

interrupted. “I hope we’re not going to get arrested

again. The last time that happened I got stuck in a cell

with that pervert who kept showing me his balls.”

“Weren’t you in there with Greg?” Mike asked.

“Who did you think I was talking about?” Davin

replied.

Emmer forcefully cut them off. “Anyway. As I

was saying, I discovered something interesting. All of

you have heard of coydogs, right? Half coyote, half

dog? Supposedly the coyotes have been breeding with

domesticated dogs that their owners have abandoned

along the road out in the country. Nasty critters. I

always skeptical of that explanation, and now I have

reason to believe that the appearance of these coydogs

wasn’t by chance.”

“You mean someone bred them on purpose?”

Emily asked from the rear of the group.

“Who the hell is that?” Emmer whispered to

Mike, but without much concern for the volume of his

voice.

“Never mind,” Mike replied. “You were

saying?”

“Right. Anyway, I think someone bred them on

purpose. That building up there is owned by the

university and used to be used for animal research.

They closed it down years ago―I have no idea why. I

read in an old newspaper article that they were

conducting genetic experiments.”

“That’s quite a leap,” Aurelia said as she pulled

her coat tighter to insulate herself from the thrashing

wind. “There are probably dozens of places in Illinois

where that kind of research goes on.”

“Yeah, but how many closed mysteriously?”

Emmer cut in.

As the group approached the summit of the

Page 3

The ominous entrance to the building.

hill, their throats tightened. The simple, rectangular

building appeared to be nothing but a shell. Sheets of

aluminum covered its windows and broken branches

were strewn around the lawn.

“Who wants to go in first?” Mike dared.

Aurelia shook her head and marched up the

cement stairs, past a dead tree tangled with vines, to the

door. A wire mesh had at one time covered the

doorway, but a gaping hole had been torn in the links,

allowing for easy entry. She stopped and signaled for

the rest of the group to follow.

Once inside, a stairwell presented The Fallen

with three choices. The basement looked promising,

but there were two other floors besides that: the ground

floor and the second floor. Mike, who was easily

confused by more than two options, scratched his head.

Emmer rolled his eyes and shoved his way to

the front of the group. “The most likely place we’ll find

anything is in the basement,” he said.

Suddenly, the group caught movement just

inside their peripheral vision. In the adjacent room,

twin branches covered with dead leaves jutted like

monstrous cockroach antenna through the wire mesh

that coved the broken window. The tips of the branches

brushed the wall below the windowsill.

But it was an object outside of the window that

caught Mike’s attention. From between the branches

and the metal links, he noticed a blue tractor that slowly

lumbered toward the building along the dirt road a few

dozen yards away.

“Crowley’s ass, everyone get down!” he hissed.

“What is it?” Davin yelled.

“Shut up!”

Mike and Aurelia grabbed Emily and pulled her

against the wall, while Emmer and Davin dropped to

their knees. There they waited while they heard the

tractor engine rumble closer.

Suddenly the engine stopped. The torn

aluminum that covered the windows on the top floor

scraped together, making a high pitch squeal that was

almost indiscernible from the chirp of a two-way radio.

For several moments The Fallen held their

breath while they heard a pair of shoes crush the orange

and brown leaves strewn outside.

Mike signaled to Emmer and Davin that they

should make their way deeper into the building. Once

those two had carefully crept into the hallway, Mike,

Aurelia, and Emily followed.

Minutes passed. The footsteps climbed onto the

porch and skidded on the dirt in the foyer. There they

stopped.

“Hello?” a man’s voice called out.

A shuddering wind blasted through the

corridor, but all else was silent.

“I don’t get paid enough for this,” The Fallen

heard the man grumble. He waited a few more

moments before he turned around and walked out of

the building, but Mike, Emmer, Aurelia, Davin, and

Emily stayed frozen against the hallway wall until they

heard the tractor engine turn over and rumble into the

distance.

Davin looked as though he was seconds away

from passing out when he finally exhaled.

“That was close,” Mike whispered.

Page 4

A window looks out onto the yard. What’s that

in the distance?

Emily shivered and wiped tears away from her

eyes, but no one seemed to notice.

“Alright, who’s ready to check out the

basement?” Emmer asked with an inappropriate

cheerfulness.

Mike smirked and led the group back to the

stairwell, where they switched on their electric torches

and pointed the beams into the darkness below. Wires

hung from the ceiling and the peach paint pealed in

every direction. Leaves were piled up on the floor in

some places. The obligatory graffiti covered

everything.

Rats squeaked and scurried away as the five

descended the stairs. Emmer took the lead and went

from room to room, carefully scanning their contents.

Most were empty, but a few held benign objects or

random debris. Trespassers had stolen anything that

wasn’t nailed down. Disappointed, Emmer scowled

and turned off his flashlight.

The group noticed that sunlight poured into the

boiler room and decided to check it out. At first they

saw nothing out of the ordinary. The equipment in the

room was old and rusty but it was, of course, just a

boiler. The sunlight came from a door across from the

equipment.

Davin made his way over to the door and

peaked outside. “Hey, come here!” he shouted,

although the other four were not more than a few yards

away.

As Aurelia pushed Davin out of her way, she

discovered that they were now standing in some sort of

garage or vehicle bay. Leaves covered the cement floor,

and a chain-linked fence topped with barbed wire

surrounded the yawning entrance.

“Gross, look at this,” she said as she brushed

some of the leaves away with her boot, uncovering the

skeletal remains of a canine.

“That looks like some kind of a weird dog,”

Emily piped up from the doorway.

“My thoughts exactly,” Emmer said with a

satisfied grin.

Mike leaned down to examine it closer and

found that an old, decaying rope still clung to the

vertebrae where the animal’s neck used to be. “This

skull looks strange,” he muttered.

“Maybe it was just a stray,” Davin said. “This

doesn’t prove anything. It could have gotten here any

number of ways.”

“True,” Emmer concurred. “But it’s still

interesting that we found it here. I think we should

take the skull home and run tests on it.”

“Yeah, we’ll run tests on it,” Mike repeated. “I’ll

just take it back to my lab.”

“You mean your bathroom?” Aurelia quipped.

“Right.” Mike produced a large plastic bag from

the pocket of his trench coat and gently placed the skull

inside. He then tied the bag closed and stuffed it back

into his pocket. “I think we have a lot of research to

do,” he said. “It’s time to hit the books.”

To be continued… g

Page 5

One side of the second floor hallway.

Stairs lead up to the second floor.

Ghostly Games

This section is designed to put fun back into the craft of

“ghost investigation.” Most of these ideas will have nothing to

do with poking around with an EMF detector and thinking

you’ve detected a ghost when you’re really just standing under a

powerline.

Game #2: A Fallen Drinking Game

When The Fallen are waiting for their photos to

develop, or when they descend into depression, Mike,

Aurelia, Emmer, Davin, and Greg like to drown their

boredom in an appropriate beverage.

Ingredients

2-4 friends.

A drink of choice.

Cups (preferably black).

Napkins or paper towels.

Instructions

Take turns reading an Investigation File from a

random issue of the Legends and Lore of Illinois. Every time

Aurelia hits or pushes someone, take 1 sip. Take 1 sip

each time one of The Fallen rolls his or her eyes and

another every time Mike mentions “the astral portal/gate.”

If Greg’s cane appears in the story, take 2 sips. Take 2 sips

every time The Fallen get in or out of their car, and

another 2 if they had been listening to music. Finally, take

3 sips whenever Mike says, “Crowley’s ass!”

Have fun, and good luck! g

Trivia

Tough questions will be asked in this section. It is up to

you to uncover the clues and determine the solutions.

Sometimes you will find the answers buried in the current

issue; other times you will need to go to the location itself.

The answers to this month’s questions will be posted in next

month’s issue.

1. What is the current name of Sunset Haven?

2. Sunset Haven was originally a ____________.

3. Students from which local university have

turned this location into an object of folklore?

4. How many people are suspected to have been

buried in the nearby pauper cemetery?

5. To what use has the surrounding property been

devoted?

6. In what year did its current owner purchase

Sunset Haven?

Go out and explore, and good luck!

Answers to last month’s questions:

1. Willow Springs 2. Buffalo Woods 3. Felix the fire dog 4.

Rick’s 5. Maple Lake 6. At least seven: including the white

woman of Bachelor’s Grove, Resurrection Mary, the flapper

ghost, the sobbing woman of Archer Cemetery, the ghostly

woman of St. James-Sag, Emily–the Morton College ghost,

and the little girl ghost of LaGrange Library.

Page 6

A view of the basement from the stairwell.

Someone left their drink in the boiler room.

True! Amazing! Unbelievable! Personal Experiences

My grandmother lived at Sunset Haven when it

was a nursing home in the early ‘50s. I think it’s terrible

what’s happened to the place. It used to be so quaint

and quiet.

But anyway, she used to tell me about how she

would see ghosts inside the building when she was

staying there. She said that they would walk up and

down the hallway at night.

It wasn’t just her that saw them neither. She

said the night nurse used to yell at her to get back into

bed, even though she was already in her room. I don’t

know how much I’d trust her stories though, she did

suffer from dementia and God knows what else.

Tori, 37, Murphysboro

Like, oh my gawd, you won’t believe this. Okay,

like one time me and my friends decided to go up to

that old dirty building to, like, see who could last the

longest inside by themselves.

Oh my gawd it was soo scary. There was a full

moon and everything. We barely got caught by the

police too. They totally drove by just before we crossed

the street. Anywho, Trevor went first and only lasted a

few seconds before he came running out. He said he

could, like, hear someone’s nails scraping the wall.

True story, K?

Trent, 19, Carbondale

Davin’s parents dumped him at St. Sebastian’s

College hoping that he would turn over a new leaf.

Unfortunately for them, Davin joined The Fallen instead after

Greg and him became roommates his freshman year.

When he wasn’t playing computer games and carving

expiration dates into his arm, he enjoyed reading about UFO’s

and other mysterious phenomenon. Mike and Greg quickly

recruited him to do their dirty work, and he has been a

member of the team ever since.

Davin soon dropped out of college to pursue a life of

paranormal investigation, self-loathing, and debauchery.

Mike and Aurelia look on him as the dysfunctional adopted

son they never had.

Despite being roommates for a time (or perhaps

because of that fact), Davin and Greg do not get along very

well, but at least he has found a home. g

Age: 20

Height: 5’7”

Weight: 155 lbs

Eyes: Gray

Hair: Light Brown

Attributes

Strength: 03

Perception: 05

Endurance: 03

Charisma: 05

Intelligence: 06

Agility: 05

Luck: 05

Skills

Fortean Invs. 36%

Dowsing 18%

Blades 42%

Traps 34%

Deception 51%

Chic 25%

Survival 05%

Computers 52%

Navigation 20%

Streetwise 47%

Swimming 35%

Scrounge 22%

Fast Talk 41%

Videogames 50%

The Fallen Character Profile:

Davin

Page 7

This is the former loading dock, now chained.