Lier Psychiatric Hospital, Dikemark and more Lier (Part 2)

Dikemark

This other place is as famous as Lier probably, only it seems like very few people have actually been there and seen it. The stories mostly revolve around this vast collection of buildings no one can seem to navigate, and the security.

“If you haven't seen Dikemark yet, your not going to!” someone wrote somewhere online.

Security was too tight apparently, and I was more then happy to take their word for it. But after finding similar stories about Lier to be mostly BS, we decided to have a look anyway.

We spent a cold winter day walking around and filling our little map with crosses and circles. We probably ended up looking mighty suspicious but we found nothing. Nothing conclusive at least. We saw lots of cool buildings but they all seemed to be in use one way or the other. Even if they weren't in use they appeared to be under surveillance. They were all in equally bad shape, but non of them visibly falling apart, and we didnt really want to step on anybodies toes, so we stayed well clear of most of them. As we're casually strolling past a building that looks rather like a prison (obviosly where they keep the criminally insane) we run into a woman who is eyeing us suspisiously. I smile at her and strike up a random conversation with my partner in crime. Ramona's catching my drift. The stranger doesnt say anything as she passes us. I'm getting rather good at acting like I feel at home in the strangest places I reckon.

Turns out we had stopped just short of the good stuff though. Weeks later we're probably looking rather suspicious again, walking up to a long since abandoned building right in between an apartment complex and the still active high security ward at Dikemark. Who ever closed this building clearly weren't kidding. I've heard this was done as some sort of exercice for the military or something. All the doors and windows within reach is thoroughly secured, but I still can't figure out if that little, red sign by the door is for real.

“Do you think we're on CCTV right now?”

“Don't know... I can't see any cameras.”

“Me neither...maybe they're inside.”

Doesnt really matter though. We'll be out of here soon and you just try tracking down two random people with nothing but a grainy depiction of their faces to go on. No one is going to bother. Still, are there really sensor triggered cameras in there? Why would anyone want to pay to have this place monitored? Pretty much every single window is broken and on the top floor two pipes are sticking out of the widows at each end of the building, the conductors of a continuous flow of water. It looks more or less like the least effective draining system imaginable. If all that water is what's coming out despite that, we can only imagine how much water is still inside.

Word on the web is that someone entered this building and were driven to madness by whatever they encountered. That's an urban legend that seems to go with every abandoned building worth it's salt. Not very inventive, but then again, they rarely are. Also, I'm pretty sure they just transferred it from another building around here that was allegedly burned down by the grieving boyfriend of the victim... 

“By the way, while we're here, do you wanna make a short stop at Lier?”

“... why? What are we going to check out this time?”

“Emmmm... we didnt finish up building B. Maybe we could check out the third floor.”

“If we go to Lier, I wanna see the basement... and the attic.”
We investigated all 5 floors of building E, no problem. But I don't intend to set foot in the basement or attic building B. Not that I seriously think something will happen, just that I know it will impact my sleeping for at least a few days.

“No way. No basement and no attic in building B. But what about building A? Don't you want to see what they're doing with it now?”

“Fine. We'll go to Lier.”

Lier

“Wow... it's just very gone isnt it? Is this really where it used to be?”

Now there's just empty space. And a snowman.

“Funny how all those rooms just doesnt exist anymore.”

“And the basement we never got to see...” Ramona seems to feel a little cheated.

“Don't be so sure. I bet it's down there somewhere. This isnt quite ground level.”

Ramona scrapes away some of the snow with her foot, revealing that we are in fact standing on the shattered pieces of the old brick building.
"Better start digging then."

By building E and B there's tire tracks in the snow all the way up.

“Must be security since this road is closed.”

“The tracks looks too heavy duty.”

“A tractor then?”

“Not quite.”

“Some sort of pick up truck or something maybe?”

“Yeah, maybe.”

 I stop for a moment to take a few pictures.

“Do you hear that funny grinding noise? It's my lens... the focus is malfunctioning. Never done that before."

I look up at the big, mint green building straight ahead. Building B. There's something epic about these big, old, abandoned buildings that I just can't seem to get over.

“So you finally got your supernatural experience?!” Ramona is being funny.

A few minutes later we're entering the restricted area around building B once again. It appears from the outside like B has been closed off once again. Who ever did it didnt bother with building E, and I'm really wondering why that is. We have to check if our eyes are deceiving us. The tire tracks go all the way up here, and there are plenty footprints. I'm trying to remember when the last snowfall was. Probably just a few days ago. Where we are now is probably the most risky place to be in a sense. We are well past the point where we can claim to be innocently going for a walk or something, in that we can hardly have missed the 2 meter high fence we have just come through, even if we didn't have to climb it or break it in any way. At the same time we are still not inside and hidden from security guards and other disapproving onlookers. We are out in the open, just waiting to get caught.

“I guess if we hear something, we'll just run.”

“Are you sure running out of here is the best approch to the problem? It will just make us look like a pair of criminals.”

“Maybe just hide behind a corner then...”

Even though a little mischief is always making me smile, this strange, bad feeling start creeping up on me again.

“Can you believe we've entered this place willingly?”

I feel like that now because we are not going in. I'm just not in the right mode so to speak. Ramona can believe it, I'm sure. But it is indeed closed now, though there are still a few open windows and someone clearly entered through a basement window in the last few days. As I stop to take an illustrative picture of that window and how very “difficult” it is to enter Lier, my lens start making that odd noise again while the focus just runs back and forth like crazy.

“I have had lenses malfunctioning before, but I've never heard that sound befor. And look at this now... the memoricard is full and the battery is empty...”
As much as I like to be spooked, this is kind of what happens when you don't clean up your memorycard, and don't charge your battery, and don't bring the spare card and battery. I'm well over expecting ghostly figures to appear in these pix. In all my hundreds of pix and movies from Lier there really only is one pic that I don't have an explanation for. An even if I don't have it, it doesnt mean that there is no explenation.

So we leave. On our way back down we run into some people on the corner of the E building. Two guys and two girls.

“Those people we met, I bet those guys were trying to impress their girlfriends.”

“Or they were hoping to make them their girlfriends by impressing them.”

“Didnt look as cool anymore when they ran into us though, did it? Maybe we messed up their game.”

“Haha! Too bad!”

Dikemark

This time, we weren't actually going there. We were going to Nedre Eiker, or maybe even as far as Skien. I'm just noticing the exit at the E18 highway: Asker, Dikemark, Borgen. The car makes a funny little jolt, like it sometimes does, and I automatically let go of the gas and scan the dashboard. The warning light for the breaks is on. Something wrong with the break? But then I notice the other one: oil. I need to stop the car as soon as possible, I know what happens to an engine with no oil. But then I notice the third one and realize the cause of all this. The rev meter is down to zero. The engine has simply stopped. It's not out of diesel. It's not overheated. I try the ignition a few more times and I get the feeling it's simply not getting any fuel. The guy from NAF (the Norwegian Car Owner's Assosiation..?) seems to be getting the same idea, so I've got this tiny little hope that that quarter of a tank might be a slight misreading so that this might be solved quickly and cheaply.

We're at Oslo Central Station houres and houres later when it hits me:

“Damn! I really, really miss that stupid car! Already! I started to wonder where it was parked, but then I realized it's not there at all. I miss it like it was a person or something...” 

Turns out, a week later, that I was onto something with the fuel. There is something called a camshaft, which controlls the valves and hence the coming and going of air in the engine. On the camshaft there is this tiny little sensor (at least I imagine it's tiny) that controlls the fuel injection. This little thingy had stopped working and was causing all the trouble. No sensor, no fuel, simply put.