[SPEAKER_00]: Story one I used to be one of those guys who scoffed at Ghost Hunters.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I'd had my share of weird experiences, sure, but actually trying to record proof of the paranormal.
[SPEAKER_00]: Waste of time.
[SPEAKER_00]: We don't have the tech for it, and I don't think we ever will.
[SPEAKER_00]: Some things just aren't measurable.
[SPEAKER_00]: That didn't stop me from joining a Ghost Hunting team.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was mostly for fun, a bunch of IT, photography, and science nerds with all the best gear money could buy.
[SPEAKER_00]: We had everything, full spectrum cameras, high-end digital audio recorders, EMF detectors, and Xbox Connect laser grid that mapped movement in 3D.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hell, we even converted an old ambulance, blackbeddy, into a mobile command center.
[SPEAKER_00]: We weren't amateurs.
[SPEAKER_00]: One of our most anticipated investigations was Burlington County Prison in New Jersey, old place, cold stone walls, iron barred cells, and that damn eye painted over the entrance with the words, we are watching you scroll above it.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was a museum now full of displays about prison life, mannequins in the cells, artifacts under glass.
[SPEAKER_00]: It had a reputation for being haunted as hell.
[SPEAKER_00]: The night started off disappointingly normal.
[SPEAKER_00]: We set up everything.
[SPEAKER_00]: Audio recorders in every room, cameras covering every possible angle, hours passed.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not a single blip.
[SPEAKER_00]: No weird voices on the recorders.
[SPEAKER_00]: No movement on the cameras.
[SPEAKER_00]: No EMF spikes.
[SPEAKER_00]: Just silence and the occasional creek of the old building settling.
[SPEAKER_00]: By 3am we called it.
[SPEAKER_00]: All right, I said rubbing my eyes.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's pack it up.
[SPEAKER_00]: We split up.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was on the first floor with another team member, packing up the last audio recorder.
[SPEAKER_00]: Two others were on the middle floor, wrapping up the cameras.
[SPEAKER_00]: Our last guy was heading into the basement to turn the lights back on.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right as I switched off the final recorder, I heard over the walkie.
[SPEAKER_00]: Lights coming on in three, two, one.
[SPEAKER_00]: The moment the bulb's flickered to life, it hit, a crash, not just a crash.
[SPEAKER_00]: An explosion of sounds so loud at shook the goddamn floor beneath me.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was a physical force rattling my bones, making my chest tighten.
[SPEAKER_00]: The unmistakable sound of something massive, glass wood, metal, toppling over, shattering into a thousand pieces.
[SPEAKER_00]: I heard the scatter of debris, the sharp crack of splintering wood,
[SPEAKER_00]: I whipped around, my stomach and my throat.
[SPEAKER_00]: Fuck, I shouted, someone just broke something really expensive.
[SPEAKER_00]: My first thought was that one of the display cases had been knocked over.
[SPEAKER_00]: I could already see us getting banned from ever coming back.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the sound, it hadn't come from our floor.
[SPEAKER_00]: It had come from below us.
[SPEAKER_00]: At the same time I heard pounding footsteps from the staircase.
[SPEAKER_00]: The two guys on the middle floor came running up, wide-eyed.
[SPEAKER_00]: What the hell was that?
[SPEAKER_00]: One of them demanded, we thought you broke something, I shot back.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, it came from up here, the other insisted.
[SPEAKER_00]: number no, it didn't.
[SPEAKER_00]: I pointed at the floor.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was below us.
[SPEAKER_00]: We stood there, staring at each other, trying to process what had just happened.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then the guy from the basement came barreling up the stairs panting.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus Christ, he gasped.
[SPEAKER_00]: What the hell did you guys do?
[SPEAKER_00]: We all turned to him.
[SPEAKER_00]: The crash, he said, it was on the middle floor.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, I felt a prickle crawl up my spine.
[SPEAKER_00]: It came from below us.
[SPEAKER_00]: The fuck it did!
[SPEAKER_00]: One of the guys on the middle floor snapped.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was above us.
[SPEAKER_00]: silence.
[SPEAKER_00]: The realization settled in, we had all heard it, we had all felt it, but we had all experienced it coming from a different place.
[SPEAKER_00]: We split up again, tearing through the building, we checked every single display case, every window, every room, nothing was out of place, no glass on the ground, no broken wood, no signs of impact.
[SPEAKER_00]: I spent an extra hour searching, I couldn't accept it, my brain refused, the sheer force of that sound of that feeling was impossible to ignore.
[SPEAKER_00]: It had been real, it had been physical, and yet there wasn't a single trace of anything out of place.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story 2, I was never much of a believer in ghosts, not really.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sure I'd heard stories.
[SPEAKER_00]: My grand swore blinds she'd seen her brother standing at the foot of her bed the night he died.
[SPEAKER_00]: My mate Dave once told me about a shadow figure in his mum's house.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I always figured there was an explanation for everything.
[SPEAKER_00]: Trick of the light, a tired mind playing up.
[SPEAKER_00]: That kind of thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: That was until Holdsworth Mill.
[SPEAKER_00]: This was back in 2002.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was part of a small group that did these overnight ghost hunts.
[SPEAKER_00]: Nothing professional, just a bunch of us who had a morbid curiosity in too much time on our hands.
[SPEAKER_00]: Holdsworth Mill and Stockport was an old Victorian textile mill, massive place, a real worn of corridors and rooms.
[SPEAKER_00]: At the time, the second floor had been turned into an alternative shopping village.
[SPEAKER_00]: Little independent shops, tattoo parlors, Goth clothing stalls, that sort of thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: During the day it was pretty lively, but at night it was dead.
[SPEAKER_00]: We got permission to stay overnight.
[SPEAKER_00]: There were five of us, all with torches, cameras, and a couple of those cheap EMF meters we bought online.
[SPEAKER_00]: We spent the first couple of hours wandering, checking out cold spots, listening for sounds.
[SPEAKER_00]: Nothing much happened, really.
[SPEAKER_00]: The usual old building noises, creeks, the occasional drip of water, wind against the windows.
[SPEAKER_00]: One of the guys, Tony, swore he saw a shadow move in the far corner of a room, but when we checked, and there was nothing there.
[SPEAKER_00]: By 3am, we were all a bit knackered.
[SPEAKER_00]: Three of the group had wandered off somewhere, leaving just me in this bloke called Allen.
[SPEAKER_00]: We were standing in the middle of the main aisle of the shopping village, just talking.
[SPEAKER_00]: The place had an eerie stillness to it.
[SPEAKER_00]: The kind that makes you feel like you're standing inside something that's holding its breath.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then suddenly the back of my neck when I was cold.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not just a draft, not just the kind of chill you get when you're tired.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was instant, unnatural, like a wall of freezing air had settled right behind me.
[SPEAKER_00]: My breath caught in my throat, and I knew.
[SPEAKER_00]: I knew someone was there.
[SPEAKER_00]: I turned slowly, raising my torch.
[SPEAKER_00]: And there, not eight feet away, was something.
[SPEAKER_00]: It wasn't solid, not fully, but it had shape, a smoky outline, shoulders, a head.
[SPEAKER_00]: No legs that I could see, just a torso tapering off into nothing.
[SPEAKER_00]: It didn't move, didn't shift.
[SPEAKER_00]: It just stood there, staring at me with featureless darkness where a face should be.
[SPEAKER_00]: My stomach twisted into a knot so tight I thought I was going to be sick.
[SPEAKER_00]: I must have made a noise because Alan turned in froze.
[SPEAKER_00]: His torch beam caught the edge of whatever it was.
[SPEAKER_00]: And for a split second I saw it properly.
[SPEAKER_00]: A thick swirling fog in the shape of a person.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's outline shifting like smoke trapped in a glass jar.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then, just like that, it began to dissipate.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not quickly, not like misclearing in the wind.
[SPEAKER_00]: It unraveled stretching apart, thinning into nothing.
[SPEAKER_00]: I couldn't move, I couldn't move.
[SPEAKER_00]: Alan God bless him, managed to mutter something.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think he said, are you seeing this?
[SPEAKER_00]: But by the time he got the words out, it was gone.
[SPEAKER_00]: Just air, empty space.
[SPEAKER_00]: The cold lifted.
[SPEAKER_00]: My breath came back in a rush.
[SPEAKER_00]: My whole body shuddering like I just stepped out of a nice bath.
[SPEAKER_00]: Did you?
[SPEAKER_00]: Allen started, but I didn't let him finish.
[SPEAKER_00]: I turned and walked.
[SPEAKER_00]: Fast, straight out of there.
[SPEAKER_00]: I heard his footsteps following right behind me.
[SPEAKER_00]: We didn't stop until we were back near the stairs near the others.
[SPEAKER_00]: They must have seen something in our faces because one of them asked, what happened?
[SPEAKER_00]: But neither of us answered, we left it first light, and I'll never go back to that place again.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story 3, I work in a museum, an old tutor mansion that's been standing since the late 14th century.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's the kind of place where the air feels thick with history, where the wooden floors creaked just right, and the shadows never seemed to settle where they should.
[SPEAKER_00]: There are plenty of ghost stories tied to the place, but I never gave them much thought.
[SPEAKER_00]: That changed one summer evening in 2018 when I was closing up alone on the first floor.
[SPEAKER_00]: It had been a long Saturday.
[SPEAKER_00]: Taurus had shuffled through the hall all day, murmuring over the artifacts, pressing their faces too close to the glass displays.
[SPEAKER_00]: My colleague Mark was downstairs counting the register, and I was making my final rounds, locking up each room one by one.
[SPEAKER_00]: The hall itself was dimly lit.
[SPEAKER_00]: The last rays of daylight filtering through the tall windows, casting strange flickering shadows against the wooden panels.
[SPEAKER_00]: My footsteps echoed in the empty rooms.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was the kind of quiet that made you feel like someone else was there.
[SPEAKER_00]: Just out of sight.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's one room right in the heart of the mansion that always made me uneasy.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's larger than the others, with a 16th century tapestry stretched across the back wall.
[SPEAKER_00]: In the far corner stands a crumbwellian suit of armor, dark and looming.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've always hated that thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's something about it that makes you feel watched.
[SPEAKER_00]: Just off this room as a small bedroom, one of the oldest in the house.
[SPEAKER_00]: My job was simple.
[SPEAKER_00]: Close the door and bolted shut for the night.
[SPEAKER_00]: I stepped inside and pulled the heavy wooden door close behind me.
[SPEAKER_00]: The latch was old, stiff, and rusted.
[SPEAKER_00]: I had to wrestle with it, bracing my foot against the floor as I tried to jam the bolt into place, and then, a crash, a deafening, gut-punching explosion of sound right behind me.
[SPEAKER_00]: It wasn't just noise, I felt it, deep in my bones, like the whole room had been hit by something massive.
[SPEAKER_00]: The door handle in my grip rattled violently.
[SPEAKER_00]: The vibrations shooting up my arm.
[SPEAKER_00]: I spun around so fast I nearly lost my footing.
[SPEAKER_00]: My heart slammed against my ribs.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was expecting to see the suit of armor and pieces on the floor, expecting to see something anything that could have made that noise.
[SPEAKER_00]: But there was nothing.
[SPEAKER_00]: The room was exactly as I had left it.
[SPEAKER_00]: The armor stood untouched in its corner.
[SPEAKER_00]: The tapestry was still in place.
[SPEAKER_00]: No fallen furniture, no shattered glass.
[SPEAKER_00]: Nothing.
[SPEAKER_00]: The air was impossibly still, not the kind of silence you get in an empty room, but something heavier, like the whole space was holding its breath, like something was waiting, watching.
[SPEAKER_00]: I swallowed hard.
[SPEAKER_00]: My body had already decided before my brain could catch up.
[SPEAKER_00]: I slammed the bolt into place, nearly bending the rusted metal, and yanked my hand back like the wood had burned me.
[SPEAKER_00]: I backed away, never taking my eyes off the room, and the moment I hit the hallway, I ran.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't remember going down the stairs.
[SPEAKER_00]: Don't remember bursting into the main hall where Mark was still tallying numbers.
[SPEAKER_00]: He looked up, startled.
[SPEAKER_00]: You all right?
[SPEAKER_00]: I must have looked pale out of breath.
[SPEAKER_00]: I opened my mouth, but no words came out.
[SPEAKER_00]: What was I supposed to say that the room itself had moved, that the air had screamed without sound, that I had felt something there, something just behind me?
[SPEAKER_00]: Instead, I shook my head.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, just locking up.
[SPEAKER_00]: He shrugged and went back to his counting.
[SPEAKER_00]: I stood there for a moment, listening to the sound of pen on paper, the scratch of normality.
[SPEAKER_00]: I never told him what happened, never told anyone really, because how do you explain something like that?
[SPEAKER_00]: All I know is, I never close that bedroom again, not alone, not ever, story 4.
[SPEAKER_00]: I grew up in a small town where there wasn't much to do, except go hiking, drink cheap beer by the lake, or camp out in the woods.
[SPEAKER_00]: Everyone knew everyone, and the places you could go were limited.
[SPEAKER_00]: But there was one campground, a little ways out, that people always swore was weird.
[SPEAKER_00]: Nothing dramatic, no urban legends or anything like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Just strange.
[SPEAKER_00]: People talked about hearing footsteps when no one was around, seeing things in the trees that didn't quite make sense.
[SPEAKER_00]: A couple of hunters claim they'd seen figures standing by the lake at odd hours, but it was always the kind of thing you could laugh off.
[SPEAKER_00]: So one summer, my friends and I decided to camp there overnight.
[SPEAKER_00]: We were just a bunch of dumb kids.
[SPEAKER_00]: Me, Josh, Aaron, and Matt.
[SPEAKER_00]: We weren't looking for anything spooky.
[SPEAKER_00]: We just wanted to stay up late, tell some stories, and get away from home for a bit.
[SPEAKER_00]: The place was mostly empty when we got there, just a few other campers farther down the road.
[SPEAKER_00]: Their fires flickering through the trees.
[SPEAKER_00]: We set up near the lake, close enough to hear the water lapping against the shore, but far enough back to have some privacy.
[SPEAKER_00]: it was perfect.
[SPEAKER_00]: The night started like any other, hot dogs over the fire, cheap beer we snuck in, and a bunch of scary stories that were more funny than anything.
[SPEAKER_00]: Josh was always the loudest, making fun of everything, trying to freak airing out because she was the easiest to scare.
[SPEAKER_00]: We stayed up late, probably until 3 in the morning, just laughing and messing around until we started getting tired.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right when we were about to call it a night, the crow started.
[SPEAKER_00]: Out of nowhere, this insane noise erupted from the trees above us, dozens of crows cawing like something had just spooked them all at once.
[SPEAKER_00]: It wasn't just a few scattered cries.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was constant, loud like a warning.
[SPEAKER_00]: We all just sat there, staring up at the branches, trying to see what was causing it, but there was nothing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Just black silhouettes shifting in the trees.
[SPEAKER_00]: Matt shook his head.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know, maybe an animal.
[SPEAKER_00]: For 10 minutes straight, I asked, I didn't like it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'd been in the woods plenty of times, and I'd never heard birds act like that in the middle of the night.
[SPEAKER_00]: Josh, being Josh, through a rock into the trees.
[SPEAKER_00]: Shut up, birds, he shouted laughing.
[SPEAKER_00]: They didn't stop.
[SPEAKER_00]: If anything, they got louder.
[SPEAKER_00]: At that point, we were all uneasy.
[SPEAKER_00]: The fire was dying down.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the idea of trying to sleep with that noise wasn't appealing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Aaron suggested moving our tent somewhere else, but when we started packing up, we realized the crows weren't just above us.
[SPEAKER_00]: They were everywhere.
[SPEAKER_00]: No matter where we moved, the sound followed.
[SPEAKER_00]: Eventually we just gave up.
[SPEAKER_00]: We figured they'd quiet down and sure enough after what felt like forever they did.
[SPEAKER_00]: One by one, the calling stopped until there was just silence.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I mean, real silence.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not even the sound of insects.
[SPEAKER_00]: Just dead.
[SPEAKER_00]: Unnatural quiet.
[SPEAKER_00]: Guess they got tired, Matt joked, but none of us laughed.
[SPEAKER_00]: Something about the air felt off, heavy, like the whole forest was holding its breath.
[SPEAKER_00]: But we were exhausted, so we got in the tent, zipped it up, and tried to sleep.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know how long I was out before I woke up.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was that feeling.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know when you're being watched.
[SPEAKER_00]: My heart was already pounding before I even opened my eyes.
[SPEAKER_00]: The air inside the tent felt weird, too still, and I could hear breathing that wasn't mine.
[SPEAKER_00]: I turned my head slightly.
[SPEAKER_00]: Aaron was out cold, her back to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Matt was snoring quietly.
[SPEAKER_00]: Josh was on his side facing the tent wall.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then right next to my ear someone whispered.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know what it said.
[SPEAKER_00]: It wasn't a word, not in English anyway.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was this low, breathy sound, like something exhaling right against my skin.
[SPEAKER_00]: I froze.
[SPEAKER_00]: Every hair on my body stood up.
[SPEAKER_00]: My first thought was Josh screwing with me, but when I looked, he hadn't moved.
[SPEAKER_00]: Nobody had.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the tent zipper was open, just a few inches, but enough.
[SPEAKER_00]: Enough to see outside, to see the trees swaying gently in the dark.
[SPEAKER_00]: enough to see the figures standing out by the lake.
[SPEAKER_00]: At first I thought it was a trick of the moonlight, but no, there was something there, a pale glowing shape hovering just above the water.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was a woman.
[SPEAKER_00]: She wasn't walking.
[SPEAKER_00]: She was floating.
[SPEAKER_00]: Her feet just barely above the surface.
[SPEAKER_00]: Her body almost shimmering in the dark.
[SPEAKER_00]: I couldn't see her face just the outline of a dress, long and flowing, like a wedding gown that moved even though there was no wind.
[SPEAKER_00]: I couldn't breathe.
[SPEAKER_00]: I couldn't think.
[SPEAKER_00]: I just stared, my body frozen in place.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then she turned her head.
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't see eyes.
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't see a face.
[SPEAKER_00]: Just a hollow stretched out nothing where a mouth should have been.
[SPEAKER_00]: I yanked the zipper up so fast I almost tore it off.
[SPEAKER_00]: My hands were shaking so bad I fumbled.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I didn't dare look back out.
[SPEAKER_00]: I just forced my eyes shut and lay there.
[SPEAKER_00]: Rigid, heart slamming against my ribs.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know how long I stayed like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Could have been minutes, could have been hours.
[SPEAKER_00]: Eventually the air felt normal again, the sounds came back, crickets, the rustling of leaves, the soft lapping of the water.
[SPEAKER_00]: I forced myself to believe it was just my imagination, that I was tired, that I dreamed it, but I didn't sleep again that night.
[SPEAKER_00]: None of us ever went back to that campground again.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story 5.
[SPEAKER_00]: I never believed in ghosts, not really.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I love scary stories like anyone else, but I always figured there was some kind of explanation for everything.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then one night at K's Cross changed that.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you're from Utah, you've probably heard of K's Cross.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's one of those local legend spots where the story's very depending on who you ask.
[SPEAKER_00]: Some say a cult leader built it for his wife, then killed her.
[SPEAKER_00]: Others say he was the one murdered and buried underneath.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know, but people swear it's haunted.
[SPEAKER_00]: And back when I was a college freshman, my friends and I thought it'd be fun to check it out.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was me, Tyler, and Josh.
[SPEAKER_00]: We weren't hardcore ghost hunters, just three guys looking for a thrill.
[SPEAKER_00]: We had a couple of cheap flashlights, an old voice recorder Tyler brought for EVPs, and a nagging sense that this was a bad idea.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was already past midnight when we partnered the trail leading to the cross.
[SPEAKER_00]: The air was cold, that late fall kind of cold, where you can see your breath, but there was no wind.
[SPEAKER_00]: just dead stillness.
[SPEAKER_00]: The hike in was uneventful.
[SPEAKER_00]: A little creepy, sure, but nothing weird.
[SPEAKER_00]: The trees were thick, towering above us.
[SPEAKER_00]: Their branches twisted like skeletal fingers.
[SPEAKER_00]: Our flashlight's barely cut through the darkness, and every so often, we'd hear a rustling noise in the underbrush.
[SPEAKER_00]: Probably animals we told ourselves.
[SPEAKER_00]: Probably,
[SPEAKER_00]: When we reached the clearing, I felt it immediately.
[SPEAKER_00]: That weight, like stepping into a room where people had been arguing, except worse.
[SPEAKER_00]: It pressed down on my chest, made my skin crawl.
[SPEAKER_00]: I glanced at the others and I could tell they felt it too.
[SPEAKER_00]: Tyler swallowed hard and muttered, cheeses.
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you feel that?
[SPEAKER_00]: Josh laughed, but it was forced.
[SPEAKER_00]: Places just creepy, man.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's all in your head.
[SPEAKER_00]: The cross itself stood in the center of the clearing, broken and crumbling, the remnants of whatever it once was.
[SPEAKER_00]: Graffiti covered it, layers of words and symbols left by kids before us.
[SPEAKER_00]: I step closer, shining my light on it.
[SPEAKER_00]: The stone was rough, cracked in places.
[SPEAKER_00]: Something about it made my stomach twist.
[SPEAKER_00]: Tyler turned on the recorder and held it out.
[SPEAKER_00]: If anyone's here, he said, let us know.
[SPEAKER_00]: Silence.
[SPEAKER_00]: Josh snorted.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, real scary.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's when I noticed it.
[SPEAKER_00]: The woods were too quiet.
[SPEAKER_00]: No crickets, no distant traffic, nothing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Just the three of us breathing.
[SPEAKER_00]: A bad feeling slithered up my spine.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe we should go, I said.
[SPEAKER_00]: Josh rolled his eyes.
[SPEAKER_00]: Dude, we just got here.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then we heard it, footsteps, soft at first, like something creeping through the trees.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not an animal, too steady, too deliberate.
[SPEAKER_00]: It came from behind us, maybe 15 feet away.
[SPEAKER_00]: I turned my flashlight shaking, nothing, just trees and shadows.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then Tyler whispered, guys, we're not alone.
[SPEAKER_00]: the footsteps spread, one became two, then four.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then more circling us, not running, not rushing, just walking, a slow measured pace, keeping their distance.
[SPEAKER_00]: My heart pounded.
[SPEAKER_00]: Who's there?
[SPEAKER_00]: I called, trying to sound tough.
[SPEAKER_00]: My voice cracked.
[SPEAKER_00]: No answer.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then I saw them.
[SPEAKER_00]: Figures in the trees.
[SPEAKER_00]: Dark, almost blending in.
[SPEAKER_00]: But not quite.
[SPEAKER_00]: They stood just beyond the reach of our flashlights, motionless.
[SPEAKER_00]: Watching, Tyler cursed under his breath.
[SPEAKER_00]: Josh suddenly not so cocky whispered.
[SPEAKER_00]: No way.
[SPEAKER_00]: No freaking way, I counted at least 10, maybe more.
[SPEAKER_00]: No faces, no features.
[SPEAKER_00]: Just shadowy shapes standing in the dark, and then in perfect unison, they step closer.
[SPEAKER_00]: Go, I whispered, now, no one argued.
[SPEAKER_00]: We turned and walked fast, resisting the urge to run.
[SPEAKER_00]: Every instinct screamed at me to bolt, but something told me that running would be worse.
[SPEAKER_00]: The footsteps followed, matching our pace.
[SPEAKER_00]: If we walked faster, they walked faster.
[SPEAKER_00]: If we slowed, so did they.
[SPEAKER_00]: I forced myself not to look back.
[SPEAKER_00]: Tyler muttered prayers under his breath.
[SPEAKER_00]: Josh kept shaking his head whispering, no, no, no.
[SPEAKER_00]: The trail stretch to head, endless in the dark, our flashlights flickered, the air grew colder, my breath came in sharp gas, the weight in my chest grew heavier, like something pressing down on me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then the foot steps stopped.
[SPEAKER_00]: I couldn't help it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I glanced back, the figures had stopped too, standing at the edge of the trail, just outside the clearing.
[SPEAKER_00]: They didn't move, didn't come closer, just watched.
[SPEAKER_00]: We didn't stop until we reached the car.
[SPEAKER_00]: Tyler fumbled with the keys cursing as he dropped them.
[SPEAKER_00]: Josh yanked open the back door, practically diving inside.
[SPEAKER_00]: I kept my eyes on the trees half expecting to see those shapes rushing toward us, but they didn't.
[SPEAKER_00]: The second we were inside, Tyler started the engine and peeled out of there so fast we nearly skidded off the road.
[SPEAKER_00]: No one spoke, not until we were back in town parked outside a gas station, hands shaking, adrenaline crashing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Finally, Josh broke the silence.
[SPEAKER_00]: You guys saw them, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Tyler nodded.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, then they both looked at me.
[SPEAKER_00]: I nodded.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I saw them.
[SPEAKER_00]: We never went back.
[SPEAKER_00]: story six, I'm not a ghost hunter, I never was, but I've always been drawn to places I shouldn't be, abandoned houses, empty hospitals, tunnels that stretch on for miles with no end in sight.
[SPEAKER_00]: Something about them has always fascinated me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe it's the stillness or the feeling that the past is still lingering just out of sight.
[SPEAKER_00]: But after what happened that night, I don't go looking anymore.
[SPEAKER_00]: This was about five years ago when I was 16.
[SPEAKER_00]: My friends and I were reckless, always chasing the next thrill, pushing our luck just to see how far we could go before it snapped back on us.
[SPEAKER_00]: Our town had this old abandoned insane asylum.
[SPEAKER_00]: One of those places everyone swore was haunted.
[SPEAKER_00]: The building had been sitting there for decades, half burned from a fire no one ever talked about, with shattered windows and graffiti covered walls.
[SPEAKER_00]: The kind of place parents warned us to stay away from.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, of course, we broke in every weekend.
[SPEAKER_00]: That night was different, though.
[SPEAKER_00]: We decided to bring in Weijabord with us.
[SPEAKER_00]: Stupid, I know.
[SPEAKER_00]: None of us really believed in that stuff, but we thought it would be funny.
[SPEAKER_00]: A way to mess with each other, scare ourselves just enough to get the adrenaline pumping.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was me, my best friend Tyler, his girlfriend, Jenna, and our buddy Chris.
[SPEAKER_00]: We climbed in through the broken window on the side, like we always did.
[SPEAKER_00]: Flashlights sweeping over the wreckage inside.
[SPEAKER_00]: The smell was the same, mildew, rot, something like burnt plastic.
[SPEAKER_00]: We went up to the second floor, where most of the rooms were still intact.
[SPEAKER_00]: The floor creaked under us as we walked down the hall, our footsteps echoing in the silence.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was always unnerving how quiet it was in there.
[SPEAKER_00]: No wind, no animals, just the sound of our own breathing.
[SPEAKER_00]: We found a spot in the middle of a wide open room and sat down, setting the Ouija board between us.
[SPEAKER_00]: Tyler smirked as he put his fingers on the plunge shed.
[SPEAKER_00]: All right, spirits of the dead, speak to us.
[SPEAKER_00]: He said in a mocking tone.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jenna rolled her eyes, but played along, resting her fingers on the board.
[SPEAKER_00]: Chris and I did the same.
[SPEAKER_00]: At first, nothing happened.
[SPEAKER_00]: Tyler nudged the plan set with his fingers, pretending it was moving on its own.
[SPEAKER_00]: We laughed, it was stupid, just a dumb game, and then the temperature dropped.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, really dropped.
[SPEAKER_00]: One second I was fine.
[SPEAKER_00]: The next I could see my breath in front of me.
[SPEAKER_00]: The others felt it too.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jenna shivered and pulled her hoodie tighter around her.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, that's weird, she muttered.
[SPEAKER_00]: I nodded but didn't say anything.
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't want to be the one to admit I suddenly felt sick to my stomach.
[SPEAKER_00]: Something was wrong.
[SPEAKER_00]: The air was heavy, pressing down on my chest.
[SPEAKER_00]: Chris let out a nervous laugh.
[SPEAKER_00]: All right, who opened a window?
[SPEAKER_00]: But there were no windows left intact in that place, just shattered glass and broken frames.
[SPEAKER_00]: The cold wasn't coming from outside.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was coming from somewhere else.
[SPEAKER_00]: The plant shed jerked, hard, none of us were moving it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I could see the way Tyler's hands stiffened.
[SPEAKER_00]: The way his knuckles turn white.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's scraped across the board, moving slow but deliberate.
[SPEAKER_00]: Why O-U-R-E-N-O-T-W-E-L-C-O-M-E?
[SPEAKER_00]: Jenna yanked her hands away.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, I'm done.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, wait, Tyler said, voice tight.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just someone's messing around, but none of us were laughing anymore.
[SPEAKER_00]: The planchet started moving again, faster this time, dragging our fingers with it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I tried to pull away, but it was like something was forcing me to stay.
[SPEAKER_00]: The board spelled out another word, R-U-N, the temperature dropped even more.
[SPEAKER_00]: The cold biting into my skin, the flashlight beside me flickered and died, and that's when we heard it.
[SPEAKER_00]: A whisper, right behind me.
[SPEAKER_00]: I whipped around, heart hammering, but there was no one there.
[SPEAKER_00]: Just darkness stretching down the empty hallway.
[SPEAKER_00]: The others heard it, too.
[SPEAKER_00]: I saw the way Jenna clamped a hand over her mouth, the way Chris's eyes darted to the doorway, and then the footsteps started.
[SPEAKER_00]: Slow, deliberate, coming from the hall.
[SPEAKER_00]: Tyler grabbed the flashlight and aimed at the doorway.
[SPEAKER_00]: Nothing.
[SPEAKER_00]: The beam caught only dust swirling in the air, but the footsteps kept coming.
[SPEAKER_00]: Closer.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then they stopped.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right at the threshold, my stomach clenched.
[SPEAKER_00]: My entire body screamed at me to run to get the hell out of there.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I couldn't move.
[SPEAKER_00]: None of us could.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was like something was holding us there, forcing us to listen.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then the whisper came again, right between us.
[SPEAKER_00]: Get out.
[SPEAKER_00]: The flashlight flickered again, and for a split second, just a fraction of a second, I saw something in the beam of light, a face, pale, hollow.
[SPEAKER_00]: Watching us from the shadows, Jenna screamed, that broke the spell.
[SPEAKER_00]: We scrambled to our feet knocking over the board, our legs tangling as we ran for the stairs.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was the first to reach them, nearly tripping as I sprinted down.
[SPEAKER_00]: I heard Chris behind me swearing under his breath, Jenna sobbing, Tyler cursing as he grabbed her arm and pulled her along.
[SPEAKER_00]: The footsteps followed us, not ours, something else's, matching our pace keeping right behind us.
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't dare look back, I couldn't.
[SPEAKER_00]: I knew if I did I'd see it, and I didn't want to see it.
[SPEAKER_00]: We hit the first floor, bolted for the window and scrambled out into the night.
[SPEAKER_00]: The second my feet hit the ground, the air changed.
[SPEAKER_00]: The weight on my chest lifted, the cold vanished.
[SPEAKER_00]: We never went back.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story seven, I'm not a ghost hunter.
[SPEAKER_00]: Never have been, never will be.
[SPEAKER_00]: But my buddy and I, we believed, still do.
[SPEAKER_00]: And after what happened that night, I don't need to believe.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know.
[SPEAKER_00]: We were in our early 20s and back then,
[SPEAKER_00]: One of our favorite things was playing hide and seek in houses under construction.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was stupid, yeah, but it was fun.
[SPEAKER_00]: Pitch black, half-finished walls, open spaces with nowhere to hide, except inside unfinished closets, or behind drywall stacks.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was eerie, but that was part of the thrill.
[SPEAKER_00]: One night, we were in one of these half-built houses, just finishing up a game.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was me, my best friend, and four of our buddies.
[SPEAKER_00]: We were high, laughing, messing around, and one of us got the idea to make a Ouija board.
[SPEAKER_00]: There was scrap wood lying around, a permanent marker, and an old coffee cup for a planned shed.
[SPEAKER_00]: We didn't take it seriously at first, just stupid questions like, who's gonna get laid first, or what's the winning lotto number?
[SPEAKER_00]: dumb shit.
[SPEAKER_00]: Pretty soon everyone got bored.
[SPEAKER_00]: They left a smoke a cigarette up by the street.
[SPEAKER_00]: My buddy and I, we stayed behind.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know why.
[SPEAKER_00]: Something in us just shifted.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe it was the silence after the laughter faded.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe it was the way the empty house suddenly felt bigger without the others there.
[SPEAKER_00]: But we got serious.
[SPEAKER_00]: We put our fingers back on the plunge shed.
[SPEAKER_00]: In this time, we spoke with actual respect.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sorry about our friends.
[SPEAKER_00]: They were just messing around.
[SPEAKER_00]: If there's anyone here we're listening.
[SPEAKER_00]: Make yourself known.
[SPEAKER_00]: Bang, a single deafening slam rang through the garage.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was so loud it shook my ribs.
[SPEAKER_00]: Bang, a second one, louder than the first.
[SPEAKER_00]: The kind of sound that punches through your chest and forces your breath out.
[SPEAKER_00]: Bang.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have never felt terror like that in my life.
[SPEAKER_00]: It wasn't just fear, it was something deeper, something primal.
[SPEAKER_00]: The kind of fear that makes your stomach drop like you missed a step in the dark, that makes your skin go ice cold, your body lock up, your brain's scream at you to run, but your legs refuse to move.
[SPEAKER_00]: We snapped our heads up staring at each other across the board.
[SPEAKER_00]: I saw my own horror mirrored in my buddy's face.
[SPEAKER_00]: Neither of us said a word.
[SPEAKER_00]: We didn't need to.
[SPEAKER_00]: No one else was in that house.
[SPEAKER_00]: No one else could have been in that house.
[SPEAKER_00]: We had just spent two hours running through it, hiding in every possible corner, and we would have heard footsteps if someone else was creeping around.
[SPEAKER_00]: But something was in that garage with us, and it was pissed.
[SPEAKER_00]: Without breaking eye contact, my buddy slid the coffee cup too, goodbye.
[SPEAKER_00]: Our hands barely stayed on it as it scraped across the wood.
[SPEAKER_00]: The second hit hit the last letter we bolted.
[SPEAKER_00]: We ran up the unfinished stairs through the open frame of what would have been a front door and up the steep driveway so fast I nearly tripped over my own feet.
[SPEAKER_00]: Our friends were still there, cigarettes almost finished, standing under the street light.
[SPEAKER_00]: All four of them, no one out of breath, no one running.
[SPEAKER_00]: What the hell, one of them asked, looking at us like we were crazy.
[SPEAKER_00]: We just stood there gasping for air, staring at them, and then back at the house.
[SPEAKER_00]: Did you guys hear that?
[SPEAKER_00]: My voice was shaking.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here what?
[SPEAKER_00]: Another asked flicking his cigarette away.
[SPEAKER_00]: I swallowed.
[SPEAKER_00]: The banging, blank stairs.
[SPEAKER_00]: Dude, what banging?
[SPEAKER_00]: There was no way, no fucking way.
[SPEAKER_00]: That sound had been so loud, it should have echoed through the entire unfinished house, through the open windows, through the empty rooms.
[SPEAKER_00]: It should have bounced off the concrete driveway and carried into the street.
[SPEAKER_00]: And yet they heard nothing.
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't want to go back.
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't want to prove to them what we had just experienced.
[SPEAKER_00]: I just wanted to get the hell away from that house.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we left.
[SPEAKER_00]: We never talked about it again.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not really, not in detail, not the way I'm telling it now.
[SPEAKER_00]: And after that night, I swore something to myself.
[SPEAKER_00]: I will never, ever be in the same room as a Weijabord again.
[SPEAKER_00]: story eight, I used to be into ghost hunting, the real stupid kind, breaking into abandoned houses, sneaking into cemeteries at night, using dollar store wija boards in places we had no business being.
[SPEAKER_00]: We were 16 and thought we were untouchable.
[SPEAKER_00]: Nothing had ever actually happened, so it was all just fun until it wasn't.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's this old cemetery on the edge of town.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's the kind of place that's mostly forgotten, way out past where the street lights end, and we'd been there plenty of times before.
[SPEAKER_00]: But this night we decided to take it a step further.
[SPEAKER_00]: There was a mausoleum in the back corner, small but old, covered in moss, and half sunken into the ground.
[SPEAKER_00]: The iron door was locked, but we were dumb and determined, so my buddy Ryan found a way to climb up the side and slide in through a broken vent.
[SPEAKER_00]: He got inside, opened the door from the inside, and just like that, we were in.
[SPEAKER_00]: It smelled like earth and mildew.
[SPEAKER_00]: The walls were lined with those stone crypts, names and dates chiseled in, some from over a hundred years ago.
[SPEAKER_00]: It should have been cool inside, but I swear it was warmer than it was outside.
[SPEAKER_00]: The air was thick, heavy.
[SPEAKER_00]: I remember standing there, just looking around, waiting for that rush of excitement, I always got from sneaking into places I shouldn't be.
[SPEAKER_00]: But it didn't come.
[SPEAKER_00]: It just felt off.
[SPEAKER_00]: Alright, let's do this, Ryan said, pulling the weeds aboard out of his bag.
[SPEAKER_00]: We set it down right in the center of the mausoleum, our flashlights propped up in the corners, casting weird flickering shadows on the walls.
[SPEAKER_00]: There were four of us, me, Ryan, Jess, and Mark.
[SPEAKER_00]: We all put our fingers on the plant shed, Ryan started with the usual.
[SPEAKER_00]: Is there anyone here with us?
[SPEAKER_00]: Nothing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Can you give us a sign?
[SPEAKER_00]: still nothing.
[SPEAKER_00]: We kept at it for maybe 10 minutes, but the plan shed never moved.
[SPEAKER_00]: No weird noises, no flickering lights, nothing.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was relieved honestly.
[SPEAKER_00]: I wasn't sure I wanted to answer that night.
[SPEAKER_00]: Eventually we called it, packed up, and got ready to leave.
[SPEAKER_00]: Ryan climbed out first, then Jess, then Mark.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was last.
[SPEAKER_00]: I climbed up the side of the crypt,
[SPEAKER_00]: Something blue in my face, not the wind, not a draft.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was deliberate, a full breath of warm, putrid air right against my skin.
[SPEAKER_00]: I panicked.
[SPEAKER_00]: My hands slipped, my foot caught the edge of the crypt, and I went down hard, landing in a tangle of bushes outside.
[SPEAKER_00]: I could hear my friends laughing, thinking I just lost my balance.
[SPEAKER_00]: You good, just called, but she was still grinning, none of them saw.
[SPEAKER_00]: I sat there for a second, my heart hammering, my skin crawling.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was nothing I told myself, my imagination, a trick of the air.
[SPEAKER_00]: I shook it off, laughed it off, and we left.
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't think about it again, not until a week later.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was home, getting ready for bed.
[SPEAKER_00]: My room was dark, except for the glow of my phone screen.
[SPEAKER_00]: I wasn't even thinking about that night anymore.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was just another regular night.
[SPEAKER_00]: I walked over to my bed half asleep, and right as I was about to sit down, that same breath blew in my face, hot, damp, wreaking of decay.
[SPEAKER_00]: I screamed, I actually screamed, staggered back so fast, I tripped over my own feet, and crashed right into my closet door, breaking it clean off its hinges.
[SPEAKER_00]: I scrambled up, turned on the light panting, my pulse and my throat.
[SPEAKER_00]: There was nothing there, my bed was empty, my room was still, but I know what I felt.
[SPEAKER_00]: I slept with the lights on for a week after that, I never went back to the cemetery, and I never touched a Ouija board again.
[SPEAKER_00]: story nine.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've been doing church installations for 13 years now.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've worked in everything from modern mega churches to little old sanctuaries that smell like dust and candle wax.
[SPEAKER_00]: You spend enough time in these places, especially alone, and weird things happen.
[SPEAKER_00]: This one, though, stuck with me.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was a Tuesday sometime in late fall.
[SPEAKER_00]: I remember because the wind had that bite to it.
[SPEAKER_00]: The kind that tells you winter is right around the corner.
[SPEAKER_00]: The church was an old one.
[SPEAKER_00]: Built in the 1920s and its showed, stained glass windows darkened with time.
[SPEAKER_00]: Wouldn't fuse warm from decades of use.
[SPEAKER_00]: The place had character, but it also had an emptiness to it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Something that made your skin crawl if you sat in the silence for too long.
[SPEAKER_00]: I had a couple of my guys already there, setting up for the installation.
[SPEAKER_00]: When I walked in, I could tell right away that something was off.
[SPEAKER_00]: They looked spooked.
[SPEAKER_00]: Did you hear that?
[SPEAKER_00]: One of them asked me, I found, here what?
[SPEAKER_00]: That knocking, he said, it's coming from up there.
[SPEAKER_00]: He pointed to the ceiling above the stage.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sure enough, as soon as he said it, there was a sound, a soft but deliberate knock, then another.
[SPEAKER_00]: It wasn't random, it was rhythmic, like someone tapping their fingers against wood.
[SPEAKER_00]: The thing is, we were the only ones there.
[SPEAKER_00]: The pastor had left hours ago, the doors were locked.
[SPEAKER_00]: Probably just the building settling, I said, even though I didn't quite believe it myself.
[SPEAKER_00]: One of my guys' rob wasn't having it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm telling you, man, it's weird.
[SPEAKER_00]: We had work to do, though, so we shook it off and got back to it.
[SPEAKER_00]: The plan was to run some wiring through the attic storage spaces above the sanctuary.
[SPEAKER_00]: They were old, cramped, full of forgotten church relics, dusty hymnles, broken furniture, things no one had used in decades.
[SPEAKER_00]: Rob volunteered to go up first.
[SPEAKER_00]: The entrance to the attic was through a narrow door behind the stage, leading to a tight, dimly lit corridor.
[SPEAKER_00]: I stood at the bottom while he climbed.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a broom blocking the door, he called down.
[SPEAKER_00]: Just move it, I said.
[SPEAKER_00]: I heard him grunt as he pushed it aside, leaning it against the wall, the door creaked open and he stepped inside.
[SPEAKER_00]: Silence.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then his voice, a little distant, looks like it's just storage up here, nothing crazy.
[SPEAKER_00]: I relaxed a little.
[SPEAKER_00]: Good.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's figure out where we're going to run the cables.
[SPEAKER_00]: There was a pause, then all at once I heard a sharp clatter.
[SPEAKER_00]: What the hell?
[SPEAKER_00]: Rob's voice was different now.
[SPEAKER_00]: Tight.
[SPEAKER_00]: Office.
[SPEAKER_00]: What happened?
[SPEAKER_00]: I called up.
[SPEAKER_00]: The broom, he said, breathless.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's in the doorway.
[SPEAKER_00]: You put it there?
[SPEAKER_00]: No, he said.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was against the wall.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now it's standing upright on the bristles.
[SPEAKER_00]: The hair on my arms stood up.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm getting out of here, Rob, said.
[SPEAKER_00]: I heard the shuffle of movement than another sound.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like something scraping against the wooden floor.
[SPEAKER_00]: Rob Kirste then there was a loud crash, and he came flying out of the attic, nearly falling down the steps in his rush.
[SPEAKER_00]: His face was pale.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're done.
[SPEAKER_00]: He said shaking his head, I'm not going back up there.
[SPEAKER_00]: I climbed a few steps and looked in.
[SPEAKER_00]: The attic was empty.
[SPEAKER_00]: The broom lay on its side just past the threshold.
[SPEAKER_00]: I stared at it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Something about it didn't make sense.
[SPEAKER_00]: The way it had moved, the way it had landed perfectly in the doorway, balancing on its bristles for just a moment.
[SPEAKER_00]: In the knocking, I realized it had stopped.
[SPEAKER_00]: Rob refused to stay in the church after that.
[SPEAKER_00]: He grabbed his tools and waited outside.
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't blame him.
[SPEAKER_00]: We finished up what we could and got out of there as soon as possible.
[SPEAKER_00]: A few days later, we came back to finish the job.
[SPEAKER_00]: No knocks, no broom.
[SPEAKER_00]: But when we were running cables through an old underground air vent, we found something wedged inside.
[SPEAKER_00]: High up in a place no one should have been able to reach.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was a piece of cardboard, handwritten.
[SPEAKER_00]: It said something about a friend dying.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know if it was related, but I do know that church never felt right to me again.
[SPEAKER_00]: Story 10?
[SPEAKER_00]: I never believed in ghosts.
[SPEAKER_00]: I still don't, not really, but there's one night that sticks with me.
[SPEAKER_00]: One night I don't have an explanation for.
[SPEAKER_00]: Back when I was younger, me and a few mates used to mess around in abandoned places.
[SPEAKER_00]: There was this old mental institution on the outskirts of town.
[SPEAKER_00]: Been closed for decades.
[SPEAKER_00]: Everyone in town had heard the stories, patients still roaming the halls, shadows moving in the windows, but we never bought into it.
[SPEAKER_00]: To us, it was just a place to screw around, freak each other out for a laugh.
[SPEAKER_00]: One night we decided to check out the nursing quarters.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was separate from the main building, tucked back behind the trees.
[SPEAKER_00]: It looked like any other abandoned place, trashed, broken windows, graffiti.
[SPEAKER_00]: Only this time it was different.
[SPEAKER_00]: There were symbols spray painted on the walls, weird shapes on the ground.
[SPEAKER_00]: Someone had gone to town with red paint, or at least I hoped it was paint.
[SPEAKER_00]: I figured it was just some kids messing around.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe want to be Satanists, but it put us on edge.
[SPEAKER_00]: We split up anyway.
[SPEAKER_00]: I went upstairs with my mate Jason while the other stayed on the ground floor.
[SPEAKER_00]: The air felt wrong up there.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was colder and the smell was different, like damp wood and something else, something sour.
[SPEAKER_00]: We stepped over broken furniture, old mattresses that had been torn apart.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then in one of the rooms we saw it, a rabbit, or what was left of one.
[SPEAKER_00]: It had been gutted, it's inside spilled out onto the floor.
[SPEAKER_00]: Blood had dried around it, dark and sticky, Jason cursed under his breath.
[SPEAKER_00]: What the hell, man?
[SPEAKER_00]: I swallowed down the sick feeling creeping up my throat.
[SPEAKER_00]: Kids messing around, trying to scare people.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jason didn't look convinced, but we kept going.
[SPEAKER_00]: The hallway led to a boarded up window covered with corrugated iron.
[SPEAKER_00]: We passed by it, and that's when we heard it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Tap.
[SPEAKER_00]: We both stopped.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jason looked at me eyebrows raised, tap, tap, I laughed, trying to shake off the nerves.
[SPEAKER_00]: Real original, I lifted my hand and tap back, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap.
[SPEAKER_00]: The other side responded, tap, tap, jacen-grinned, nice one.
[SPEAKER_00]: He tapped the same pattern, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap.
[SPEAKER_00]: Again, the same response from the other side.
[SPEAKER_00]: Tap, tap.
[SPEAKER_00]: We both laughed, assuming our mates had somehow climbed up there to mess with us.
[SPEAKER_00]: Alright, you got us.
[SPEAKER_00]: I called out.
[SPEAKER_00]: Come down before you break your necks.
[SPEAKER_00]: silence.
[SPEAKER_00]: We waited listening, but there were no footsteps, no shuffling, just the sound of the wind outside.
[SPEAKER_00]: Something crawled up my spine then.
[SPEAKER_00]: A wrongness I couldn't shake.
[SPEAKER_00]: I looked at Jason.
[SPEAKER_00]: How the hell did they get up there?
[SPEAKER_00]: We turned and hurried downstairs.
[SPEAKER_00]: The others were still inside poking around the rooms.
[SPEAKER_00]: They hadn't moved.
[SPEAKER_00]: Nice one on the window tapping, I said, who climbed up there?
[SPEAKER_00]: They all looked at me confused, climbed up where.
[SPEAKER_00]: The window upstairs, the one boarded up with metal.
[SPEAKER_00]: They exchanged glances.
[SPEAKER_00]: No one climbed anywhere.
[SPEAKER_00]: We've been down here the whole time.
[SPEAKER_00]: I felt a cold rush in my chest.
[SPEAKER_00]: Come outside.
[SPEAKER_00]: We walked around the building to check.
[SPEAKER_00]: My stomach dropped.
[SPEAKER_00]: There was no ledge, no fire escape.
[SPEAKER_00]: Nothing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Just a sheer wall leading up to the second floor window.
[SPEAKER_00]: Completely unreachable.
[SPEAKER_00]: I felt my pulse hammering, Jason went pale next to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: We tapped first, he muttered, and whatever it was, answered.
[SPEAKER_00]: No one spoke.
[SPEAKER_00]: The night felt heavier, like the air had thickened around us, then we heard it.
[SPEAKER_00]: From inside the building, up on the second floor, tap, tap, we ran, we never went back.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thanks for watching, don't leave before leaving a like to this video.
[SPEAKER_00]: Also hit the subscribe button to support my work.
[SPEAKER_00]: And as always, have a horrific nightmare my dear.