Chapter 25: Megan and the Very Bad Dream
Tillson Elementary | Tillson, NY
When I was a kid, I had a recurring dream about a giant. Other plot points in the dream probably varied each time it played in my head at night — I can’t remember — but one part of the dream was always the same — and no matter how many times I tell people about it, it’s impossible to relay just how scary it was. That’s the funny thing about dreams: you can try and explain them to other people, but ultimately, accurately elaborating on the skewed sense of reality in any personal dreamscape is impossible. Luckily, we’re all equipped with an imagination, so like a game of telephone, I can hear someone else’s dream, and my brain will reinterpret their dream reality to suit my own understanding of it.
So let’s try it: the dream starts in a wheat field on the outskirts of a pretty big forest. The sky is dark blue, and there are a couple of clouds in the sky that almost feel alive. I’m in the field with my kid sister Megan, and we’re running away from a giant wearing red overalls. He’s about eighteen feet tall, and he’s carrying a club, dragging it on the ground behind him. He can’t run, but his gait is so wide that every step he takes is the equivalent to every ten steps my sister and I can run. Still, we manage to get ahead of him, make it to the forest precipice, and enter the dark woods.
Once we’ve run far enough into the thick brush, we duck behind an enormous fallen tree that, even though it’s resting on its side, is still taller than both of us. Megan and I enjoy a few minutes of stillness where we can’t hear the giant anymore. All I can hear is the sound of Megan and me panting, gasping for whatever breath we can find. She’s crying, so I put my index finger to my lips and gently offer, “Sh.” Her cries wane, and I know she knows I got her. I will protect her. It’s not said aloud, but in the dream, we both know.
The stillness is fleeting. I see Megan’s eyes widen and realize I can hear, in the distance, the thunderous sound of the giant’s footsteps entering the woods. I awkwardly peek my head out from the top of the fallen tree and see him in the distance through the brush. Megan and I duck down and reposition ourselves to be covered by the branches and limbs and trunk even more, lying face down. I notice that there’s a small hole in one section of the tree that burrows straight through to the other side. If he crouches down for some reason and looks through that hole, he’ll be able to see us.
We lie very still, listening to the menacing sound of the giant’s approach. I take Megan’s hand, and we close our eyes as the giant stops directly next to our hiding spot. We can hear him panting too, gasping for whatever breath he can find. It dawns on me that we’re all sharing the same oxygen, the giant, Megan, and I, and so in that invisible way we’re all connected. After a few terrifying moments — what feels like hours in the dream-based reality — the giant wanders off.
That’s all I can remember. I have no clear understanding about why we were even running from the giant; we both just knew, instinctively, that he was dangerous. For years, the dream debilitated me — then, at some point, I stopped having it. Maybe it’s because my dad showed me The Exorcist when I was twelve, and my brain focused on a new fear to incapacitate me. Still, to this day, I think about the dream from time to time. It’s tattooed on my brain, though it’s exceedingly possible that the older I get, the more the dream has evolved inside my head.
That’s the other funny thing about dreams: once you wake up from them, they immediately take on a new shape, and you’re left with the daunting task to piece them back together.
***
The first time I think about the recurring dream with the giant during the pandemic is in March of 2021 when I meet up with my friend Julie (whom you met at the abandoned Homowack Lodge in chapter 16) to explore an abandoned elementary school, a mere stone’s throw from my house. We’ve both been fully vaccinated and are comfortable meeting up in person again. It’s that turning point in any given Hudson Valley winter when the cold finally starts to break and the air slowly begins to warm and the days inevitably get longer and sunnier. We’re coming out of our first pandemic winter, so this particular blue-sky day feels extra sunny.
I pull up to Tillson Elementary School and clamor out of my car. Julie, true to form, is already there. We awkwardly decide if we’re going to hug, but then, without speaking, we decide that, yes, a hug would be supreme. She clued me into this place, a real beauty of abandoned grandiosity. Opened in 1959, the Tillson School only lasted until 1983 when the Kingston City School District began to shut down its more remote sites — the Hamlet of Tillson is the southernmost tip of the district lines. For the next few decades, the district leased the building to various independent and alternative schools until it was purchased in 2005 by an independent development firm. Through the years, petty small-town drama has hovered over the former site of Tillson Elementary School, making it a repeat agenda item during monthly town council meetings.
Julie and I gawk at the Leave-It-To-Beaver-esque structure, definitely ripped straight out of the 1950s. “How do we get in?” Julie asks. I scan the building and spot an open door to the left of a loading dock. As we approach the unusually easy access point, I peer up at the trees that hang over the building from the back. Without warning, I feel the air get sucked out of my chest as I’m snatched up from the collar by the memory of the childhood nightmare where a giant chased my sister Megan and me through woods that looked a lot like these. In a bizarre tug-of-war between this nightmare-daydream and reality, I’m yanked back and forth between the two, the feeling of Megan’s warm hand gripping one hand, the sensation of the March-day sun caressing the other.
“Isn’t this wild?” Julie assesses, as reality ultimately wins this round of tug-of-war, pulling me back into the present. I look up at the large gymnasium we’ve entered, as the imagined, sharp sound of dodgeballs hitting the foam walls erupts, accented by the scuff of tennis shoes on the torn up gym floor, the whoosh of hula-hoops revolving in motion as the dribble of basketballs suspends momentarily as one flies past my head, skyward, heading for the net, and — SWISH. Three-point shot! “These fifth graders are good,” I chuckle under my breath.
“This place is magnificent,” Julie remarks, and I agree, though inside my head, I’ve time traveled to my own elementary school gym. I’m in fifth grade. My sister, sweet and sensitive, is in first grade. I watch as three girls surround and bully her to tears. Like the nightmare of the giant, I can’t do anything but hold her hand and reassure her that this will pass. I feel tears start to form under my own eyes as I reckon with the fact that I couldn’t have protected her, anymore than I did, from the cruelty the world sometimes beats down on us.
“Can you take my picture?” Julie’s question snaps me out of it. She’s onstage, staring out with grandeur across the cavernous shell. Light shines down from the windows tacked up on the furthest wall. I approach the padded walls and press my hand into one, glancing down at a torn dodgeball on the floor. I kneel down to inspect it. I hear the spectre of young Megan behind me, asking if she can play with me. Her tiny voice punctures my chest, and I’m reminded of how many adventures we’ve gone on together.
Including the time I lost her.
***
It was January of 2011, in Seoul, South Korea, standing outside of Hapjeong Station, waiting for the bus back to Paju-si where I lived. We’d just gotten back from a trip to the Philippines where we swam with whale sharks and watched fireflies from a boat in the river and I was almost kidnapped by the Filipino mafia (a story for another time). I needed to grab a couple of things from the convenience store at the station, but I didn’t want to drag all of our luggage inside. “Wait here,” I instructed Megan. “I’ll be back in two minutes.” I popped inside the Korean bodega, recharged my burner phone minutes, grabbed some water, and walked back outside where I came upon an empty bus stop.
Megan had vanished. So had our luggage.
Panic set in, quickly. What you have to know is that Megan’s brain works a little bit differently from most. Sometimes, her reactions to stressful situations can cause her to make snap decisions without thinking through them. I can identify with that. But I had no idea what happened, where she went, and why — and I expected the worst. Here I was, standing at a bus stop ten feet from the cash register inside the convenience store, in a country where I barely spoke the language, and my sister had up and vanished.
I began to call everyone I knew might be able to help, using all my new cell phone minutes. First up was Janett, my Korean-born angel who had served as my tour guide to the country since I’d landed in June 2010. She hopped on the phone with the National Korean Police while I figured out how to call my mom, my workplace, and the US embassy. I walked up and down Yanghwa -Ro, searching high and low for a small white girl. After what felt like hours of searching, I made my way back to the station, back on the phone with Janett who was trying to calm me down. I was convinced that I was never going to see my sister ever again.
A few more dreadful moments passed as I sat at the station, wondering how I was going to break the news to my mom. When I finally mustered the courage to call her, I instantly knew I’d made a mistake. Not enough time had passed to go into “call Mom to let her know I lost her daughter in South Korea” mode, and she broke down, feverishly upset because let’s face it, 6,213 miles away, there was little she could do but feel hopeless. I assured her the police and Janett and my bosses were doing everything they could to help.
I don’t remember this part of the story, but I was reminded of it by my mom. Immediately after I hung up the phone with her, my phone rang. An unknown number. I answered. It was Megan. She explained what had happened. I could barely speak. A few moments later, a car pulled up. Like a scene out of a movie, the door opened, and out hopped Megan. She’d later tell me that a man at the bus stop “looked at her funny,” and her instincts told her to board the next bus that pulled up to the station, no matter where it went. As she clammored out of the car, I felt the color drain from my face, and I burst into tears. Just as soon the color disappeared from my skin, a rush of rage flushed it all back. I’d never felt that angry. Not because she got scared and made a poor decision — but because I truly thought I’d lost her and would never have forgiven myself. I was angry at myself. I yelled, she cried, and I couldn’t speak to her.
We sat on the bus back to Paju in silence. Tears streamed down her face. I was shaking. By the time we got back to the village, however, I’d cooled down enough to apologize for my behavior. We hugged it out, and I promised her, right then and there, that I’d never let her out of my sight like that — ever again.
***
Julie and I make our way into the main corridor of the abandoned Tillson Elementary and begin to poke in and out of classrooms lining the hallway. I can’t stop thinking about Megan. I see her sitting in each room we enter, her quiet disposition, her laugh, all the bullying she faced in school, even from teachers. I also think about how the schools I attended as a kid always felt smaller somehow when I returned as an adult. Every window in every classroom inside the ruins of this building is loosely boarded up, each one hinting at years of wear and tear from the elements, water damage and wind deterioration, piles of leaves nestled in corners of each room, drafty and bent ceilings, and lots and lots of dust.
I notice, in one particular room, that other Urbexers have left some chalk on the blackboard and encouraged other explorers to leave messages. I firmly believe that every single abandoned space should be left completely as I found it because I am a guest in the house of the people who used to roam there. In Tillson Elementary, I feel similar and opt to admire this charming gesture from afar. I love the way the Urbex community thinks up all the cheeky ways to leave their mark on any given space. This free-for-all chalk, for example.
While the spirits of former school kids, teachers, and staff don’t make themselves known today, I can feel them. I hear the sound of pencils, children soaking up information, asking all kinds of questions about geography and boundaries, arithmetic, spelling, and why the King’s English has so many strange rules. Or how to tie your shoes in a jiffy. Before the bullying set in by fifth grade when Alexa Dement said I was too ugly to date (joke’s on her, look who turned out gay), I loved school. I was always so happy to sit at a desk and learn and be amazed by all the things I didn’t know.
I exit the chalk room and find a bathroom covered in cartoon paintings of sea animals. I levitate and snap a selfie with an octopus and continue down the hallway, reminiscing on every single one of my elementary school teachers, kindergarten to fifth grade: Mrs. McGonigal, Mrs. Elsberry, Mrs. Gamber-Bivin, Mrs. Pine, Ms. Hudson, and Mr. McLain (who, incidentally, became my mom’s realtor years later). Each of them gifted me with the access to and appreciation of knowledge and an ongoing thirst for curiosity.
As I pass by a small room with several cracked windows labeled “Principal’s Office,” I think about Mr. Davis, the extraordinary, forward-thinking principal at Woodmen Roberts Elementary. I peer through one of the windows and recall the single time I was sent to Mr. Davis’ office. I was in second grade when Kelly McDonald and I giggled our way through our field trip to the symphony at the Colorado Springs Pikes Peak Center. Mrs. Gamber-Bivin was not pleased. I also remember the first grade when I sent someone, inadvertently, to the principal’s office, Shelby Thomas, when he bit my arm while we lined up to go inside after recess.
My mind drifts as I think about Eric Lewandowski who in third grade picked me up over his head to impress some of the girls in the schoolyard but accidentally dropped me face-first, both of my front teeth making a shattering impact on the concrete, resulting in multiple dentist visits over the course of my life. Being depantsed on the first day of first grade by Christopher Burkeen, taking a limo to Mountasia in the fourth grade after successfully reading fifty books in one year, lying to Mrs. Elsberry that my family had gone to the zoo one weekend, for no particular reason except to feel exceptional. Escaping reality as a kid wasn’t always a good thing, and it often got me into trouble.
Julie and I are ghosts of our own pasts in this decayed former hub of knowledge, gliding through the history of a space that at one time offered valuable resources to young minds. I wander into another room and feel my lungs freeze. On the wall is a paper towel dispenser and soap dispenser — and surrounding that outline are several sets of handprints, dipped in a pinkish-purple paint, circling the shadow of the former paper towel dispenser. It startles me.
Out of nowhere, voices of children flood the room as I lay my hand on top of one of the sets of hands and slowly push the button of the soap dispenser with the other. A steady stream of pink soap flows out as my body begins to burst into a million tiny pieces, and I’m whisked away back to my own days at Woodmen Roberts, the sound of the digital school bell ringing down the hill from Mt. St. Francis, the convent that was once the MWA Tuberculosis Sanatorium (which you can learn more about in my article in Colorado Magazine), just up the street from the abandoned dairy farm which, by now, you know so much about.
Julie collects me from my nostalgic fantasy to make our final stop: the basement. We descend into the belly of the building and enter a large boiler room, sparse lighting coming in from the windows above us, walls of concrete bricks coated in ancient electric panels covered in levers of all different shapes and sizes. I’ve always been that kid who pushes buttons I probably shouldn’t (both figuratively and literally), and today’s no different. 100% assured that none of the levers are in working order, I march up, brazenly, pull one — and every single light turns on.
Shit. Julie and I squeal as I immediately turn the power off again. “How did that happen?” I’m confused. The school’s been vacant since 2005, but the lights turning on cues us to skedaddle. We rush outside and walk the entire perimeter of the building, which considering the harsh upstate NY weather, is still in fairly good shape. Julie and I talk about the vaccine and how hopeful we are that it’ll work. I climb into my car and say goodbye to Julie.
I glance in my rearview mirror as I begin to peel out, and I see Megan standing there, smiling, six years old, a beautiful soul. I look above her and see the giant approaching, quickly, but when I go to jump out and warn Megan, I watch as the giant turns into vapor. I look back at Megan, still smiling, and she winks.
“You got this,” I whisper.
