Free A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Heaven by Corey Taylor Page B

again, if only for a split second.
    That is when the covers were jerked violently off the bed and my already fairly chilly seminude frame. They were yanked so viciously that my body, which had hooked an arm around the top of the blankets and sheets in my slumber, was pulled up slightly from my waist to my chest. I rose up about half a foot and slammed back down. Well, needless to say, that fucking got my attention, and I shot awake with a start and a furious retort fully formed on my lips. Whoever was being a bleeding dick stain was going to face the full wrath of a delirious and vengeful Great Big Mouth.
    There was nobody there. No one—not a fucking sausage. I was lying in my bed with no covers, angry and ready to fight air. I looked around the room; I even got out of bed and looked down the hallway. Most of the band had already gone home, so I am not sure who the hell I was looking for. My caveman brain was all fired up and wanted to scream at someone for waking me up and pissing me off. My logical brain could not get a handle on what had just happened. My body, meanwhile, was telling me to go back to sleep and we would be mad in the morning. So, being a man, that is just what I did. When I came to later and thought about the incident, I did what any man in my position would have done. I had a cup of coffee, got all my shit together, and got the fuck out of Dodge. I have not been back to the Mansion since.
    In the years since, I have experienced more than my share of paranormal tomfoolery. As you will see later in this book, not only have I lived in places where not everything is what it seems, but I have actually consciously gone out of my way to find the things that go thump in the night. However, I regard those months spent in the Mansion as the most frightening and formative I have gone through since I was a child. It was invigorating and terrifying and absolutely out of fucking control at times. I not only ran the lanes on the edge faster than I had done since I was a teenager, but I had also been enveloped in a crazy world in which you were never sure if you were ever alone on any given night, whether the house was crammed full of people or not. These memories tantalize my taste for adventure from time to time, and I find myself looking back more frequently, even though it was the best of times and it was the worst of times, to paraphrase a man more savvy than myself. All I can tell you is that I am a different man from the one who moved into the Mansion back in the summer of 2003. That man may as well have died, his spirit roaming the halls and rooms of that house along with all the other beings who call 2451 Laurel Canyon a home away from home. That phase of my life was darkly appealing, but it served its purpose. So commingling with those shades of ghostly gray are all the things in life I let go of so I could be the man I am today. If there was such a thing as a baptism by Hell House, that wing of my memory palace is where it would be displayed. I know when I fall asleep tonight I will go back there because I have been typing about it and thinking about it. I am unafraid now. There is nothing that place can take from me ever again.
    I work in Los Angeles all the time now, so it is nothing for me and my wife to go flying up around the crazy curves on Laurel Canyon on our way to the Burbank Airport or Travis Barker’s studio or rehearsals for Camp Freddy or a plethora of other assignments I find myself embedded in on any given Sunday in the Sunshine State. Whether it is a charity event hosted by Henry Rollins or a private party sponsored by the people who make Rock Star video games, California is officially where I have crossed off several bucket list entries. From working with Dave Grohl to Halestorm, it all happens on the West Coast. I have definitely made peace with a lot of the demons in my life, some of which have permanent mailing addresses in that neck of the woods. But some habits will never change.
    Every