Rhylin227
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hi everyone, here is a short story i recently wrote concerning a paranormal experience about a real place. now, i'm no writer; but i've found that the best way i can express myself, what i think and what i feel is with writing. this is a second draft and not free of imperfections; so please bear with me. your criticisms, opinions (both positive and negative) are welcome here. i hope you enjoy, and thank you for your time.
As we approached, my friend’s vehicle bouncing along that forgotten dirt road, little more than a trail now, forlorn in its own simplicity, I feel it come upon me, the way one may feel a presence just as physical as their own flesh approach them from behind.
What I feel is one among the most ancient of emotions, it is dread.
Pure, simple and uncorrupted dread.
It creeps upon me in a way not dissimilar to how one may watch the last pale, sickly sheets of light flee a darkening land as the sun falls and grants the night her time in the sky.
Just around one more turn and this lonely forest reveals to us what she holds most secret, this forgotten place once built in the name of the faith of man but now stands in ruin, remembered only for tragedy by the few who care to remember it at all.
Mother Nature has left her mark here, and will continue to do so until this place is forever lost, consumed by the forest once destroyed so this place of sorrows could exist.
Little by little the moss and the grass come, how they creep, coming to swallow this place and hide it away.
Perhaps that will be for the best.
We climb out of the vehicle, what a long trip it’s been but we’re here.
We’re here.
Although the sun still holds dominion in the sky, the forest and mountains abound see to it that this place lies in its own darkness and gloom, and that is good.
The tragic, forgotten, secret places of the world should be dark.
What I notice next about this place of sorrows is the smell. The wet, fresh earthy smell I suppose all forests and woodlands possess after a rain. It is a strangely pleasant smell, primal and as old as my dread is, but this air is clean, cleaner than the air of many other places could ever hope to be.
Yes, the air and the scent it carries, one could die with their last breath being of this air and would be compelled to feel content at least.
My friends are nearby, raping this sacred place with their cameras, stealing its old painful dignity.
They do not understand. I cannot blame them as sometimes I do not understand myself.
My friends are necessary evils. Very far from home (to think, in joy, if this place was home, if I could be among those unremembered and unseen who dwell here), I could not make this trip alone and as such they were needed.
But how I long to be alone here.
I entertain the thought of being here, alone. How wonderful would it be to perhaps walk through this gloom without shoes, the soggy moss both cold and gentle on my feet, the cold wind swept down from the mountains and through the trees like a mournful caress on my very soul. This place has desires to offer, if one can only find them, I am sure of this.
Yes, dark desires, temptations you may think of but not speak of to most… This place is also a kingdom of fears.
It is too easy to imagine these ancient, leaning dilapidated buildings could be the lair of ravenous vampires, werewolves or even some kind of cannibalistic lunatic.
I imagine myself here again, once more alone (not alone they are here and they are aware) perhaps it’s raining this time; perhaps I’ll taste those dark, hidden desires.
Secrets are power, and knowledge can offer a greater high than violence.
I imagine myself on my knees in the rain or perhaps bleeding against a wall somewhere beyond in the interior darkness where we have yet to tread. Suddenly, I am gripped by a coldness that seizes me as completely as an ocean’s wave will cover you and take you down.
This was like a strong wind on a December night, but this chill came from within my body, not from the elements.
Perhaps those who linger here picked up on my thoughts and their energy was roused.
I feel my knees begin to buckle and I grip my shoulders, my eyes cast down on the ground, watering as they are. Up ahead, my friends continue forward, I am apparently forgotten as they move on toward the dilapidated remains of the old buildings.
They are seemingly unaware of this presence. This cold, cruel presence. Can they not feel it? Do they not sense it? By God, it was coldness, a coldness of the lonely dead the forgotten dead, and they were angry.
Angry.
For a brief moment, my dread and longing for this place was replaced by terror and for once, I considered in fear how much time was left before the sun went down for good.
I wanted to understand them, to feel the current of their forgotten, lonely, angry pain, if they found me worthy to do so.
I longed to be their emissary, to speak for them and through them to the world; be it by possession or perhaps stigmata, I longed to be their vassal.
If they desired to speak by rending my flesh, let it be.
But now, I felt an apprehension that fed the fires of my dread and terror as the coldness and gloom of this place grew stronger. The freezing force that seized me released its grip of me as abruptly as it had taken me to begin with, and I immediately wondered if I had felt it at all as the freezing coldness began to fade from within.
With a heavy and forlorn heart, I suddenly missed the sensation. A feeling of terror, of fear far beyond your mortal power to control is greater than no feeling at all; greater than any feeling we can conjure ourselves.
Perhaps they had been speaking to me and I had missed their message. And surely, all of the dread and terror and anxiety in the world would be worth the chance to commune with the lonely dead, the forgotten dead, the angry dead. The buildings, what was left of them, were waiting ahead of me. The schoolhouse, the gymnasium, the boys’ dormitory and the chapel were all still intact. The girls’ dormitory and whatever else had once stood here were long gone, destroyed in fires in the 1950s, more than fifteen years after this place became a domain of death in 1938.
So many years ago now. More than seventy years, and yet still they linger here.
The lonely dead, the forgotten dead, the angry dead.
Lost.
Lost.
I make my way further into their domain, wondering what their lives were like and what their last thoughts may have been, locked in that dark basement as those icy flood waters rose higher, higher.
Were their last thoughts of anguish? Despair? Terror? Did they renounce the God who abandoned them, the God this place was erected for? Were their last thoughts angry?
They were surely angry now.
I can feel it.
I can feel it.
My friends move blindly on, never stopping to consider the impact of so much death here, so many bodies of so many children dug out of the darkness, out of the mud.
Indeed, they tromp through the place looking for their cheap thrills, mocking and insulting with their laughter and their shouting.
But I know better.
I know better.
I move along, I am silent and thoughtful, remorseful as I wonder if there is anyone left on this earth who remembers those who died here, are there any left in all the world to feel remorse if I do not?
I do not know their names and I have never seen their faces. It doesn’t matter.
They linger.
The dormitory is in ruins. The roof, under the weight of moss, rain and over seventy years of snow and debris has collapsed, as has most of the second story.
I wonder how many eyes and faces, felt but yet not seen look out upon us. Do they remember? Do they remember the time they once walked in flesh as we do? Does time pass for them as it does for us? Do they understand and comprehend the years that have passed since they lived and died and that this world has moved on and there are none now left to come here and remember them as they were?
Are they frightened as they look out upon us, do they think they have always been that way?
No.
They remember.
And here, caught in this bastion of death in the enchanting moments when light fades and darkness comes, we are the unwanted.
We are the strangers here.
The chapel also remains, although one stone wall has seemingly sunk into the shifting earth and will not remain standing much longer. The door and the roof are gone. There remain a few shards of glass in the windows. The glass isn’t clear any more. It is filthy, green.
I wonder, if I should take a piece of this glass and use it on my flesh, would my blood appease them? Would it ease their suffering, if only for a night? Would it compel them to reveal something – anything to me? I would do it, I would willingly give my blood to this cold, dark earth; this ground where many have died and none now walk that live.
Except us.
We are the strangers here.
My friends, with their smiles and cameras, step inside the chapel. I have no business here. I remain outside, lost in a piece of glass.
The chapel is small and there is not much to see and they return soon.
The gymnasium is our next destination. It stands, it looms, dwarfing the other buildings. It is black, tall, narrow and slanted, more like some barn than a gymnasium.
We go inside.
The gymnasium is extremely dark and my friends turn on their flashlights.
I wish they hadn’t. This place carries a tragedy.
The old floor is littered with garbage; beer cans, cigarette packs, other disrespectful refuse. The walls and floor alike are covered in graffiti. Red, green and black spray paint decorates this place with obscene and crude images usually accompanied with misspelled filth.
I am angry to see it. And am I not a little frightened as my eyes try to focus in the darkness away from the beams of the flashlights? Are there not more moving shadows in here than the three of us should generate?
My friends do not notice as their cameras flash.
I will not mention it. Other than garbage, the gymnasium, just one giant room, is empty. Nothing has been left here. We leave, and I am frightened to be the one to pass through last in that doorway, wondering what moves unseen in the pitch behind me.
Last and worst is the school house.
It is there that we will find the punishment room.
It is there that we will find the boiler room with a trap door, a trap door leading down into a tomb where so many died in terror in the dark, the cold water seeping in… I shake it from my thoughts.
The school house is a long building with four classrooms, two on each side. The classrooms are all identical. There is nothing to be found here but more trash, more graffiti.
The chalk boards still remain on the walls, but they are not chalk boards any more. They are covered under more than seventy years worth of moss and dirt.
The three of us stand together, looking at the chalk board that was, our back to the classroom and I can feel their eyes on me and there is a noise.
A noise like a desk scooting across the floor, but there are no desks left here. I am suddenly afraid. I am reminded that we are very far from home, deep in the woods at long forgotten ruins of death and no one knows where we are.
My friends are giddy with excitement and fear. This is what they came for, only to be frightened, they do not understand.
My heart clenches beneath the icy grip of dread.
One by one we visit the last three classrooms, slowly moving through the dark school house, afraid of what the beams of the flashlights might reveal.
We hear no more noisy desks. It both relieves and displeases us.
Ahead is the punishment room. It is no larger than a broom closet, but the door is long gone. Unruly children were locked in here, sometimes for many hours. There is an urban legend about this tiny room alone and the three of us crowd into it.
One by one the flashlights are turned off and we stand in total, inky, smothering darkness. The silence is so heavy I can hear the beating of our hearts. And there, God forbid, is the temperature truly rising? Despite the chill in the air and the dampness of this place around us, is this one little room getting hotter? Surely it’s just the three of us standing so close in such a tiny area, surely it’s just our body heat, surely that’s all it is...
My friends feel it too finally and they quickly turn their flashlights back on and move out of the tiny punishment room, a chamber where surely fears, pain and hatred had been nursed in the darkness so long ago.
And the fears, pain and hatred of orphaned, unwanted children is the strongest of all.
And they linger here.
Back in the hallway, it is cool again. There is one last doorway up ahead.
The boiler room.
At last we have come to the purpose of our visit, the nexus of all that is wrong with this place.
The boiler room is frightening to behold. The boiler is still here, but it’s just a huge chunk of so much rust now. Rusted pipes drip rusted water overhead. It is a quiet, constant sound and in this place it is terrifying. The floor itself seems to be a mush of mud and rust.
There is an ancient bathtub in the corner. It is a huge, porcelain, claw-footed bathtub, filled to the brim but not overflowing with clear water that I know would be cold as ice to the touch. It is as out of place here as we are.
I briefly wonder why the water is clean and clear when everything else here is dominated with the refuse of time? There is a symbolism to be found here, but I don’t know it.
We see the trap door.
It remains intact, the wooden planks are soft and rotting, the bolts are just clumps of rust but it is here.
Just looking at the trap door I feel an immense terror and suddenly I want to leave, I want to leave more than anything in the world. We cannot, must not go down there.
Unknowing and unsuspecting as my friends are, if we would keep our lives, we must not go down there.
We are the strangers here.
I think of what’s down there, of what lurks in the cold darkness underneath the floor in the basement, of what’s looking up at us as our flashlights shine through the floorboards.
I feel terror, pure, genuine terror, and it makes me feel alive.
My friend grips the trap door by a giant rusted ring and slowly raises it open. It makes not one sound as it rises.
A wind, cold as well water in the snow escapes from the square of darkness we have just opened.
We shine our lights into that darkness with both dread and curiosity. The wooden staircase has collapsed. Only three stairs are still attached, covered in a slick, green slime. The rest of the staircase lays in broken pieces on the muddy ground below.
The walls and floor of the basement are earth and the wet, rotting, odor is wretched.
I am thankful the staircase has fallen. I don’t think I could have gone down there if it hadn’t been.
Our flashlights do not reveal the entire basement. I know what lurks down there beyond the edge of our lights.
There are long scratch-like marks on the backside of the trapdoor. Had they tried to get out, scratching and clawing at the door while the water was rising? I shuddered.
We can hear water dripping down there in the darkness. It is not a basement, it is a grave.
A grave of many.
And I can feel them looking at us.
We all agree that we should leave. No more remarks are made, no more pictures taken. The smiles on my friends faces are long gone, and they look as cold and as dismal as I myself surely look.
We close the trapdoor. We do not dare to leave it open. God alone knows what might come out from the darkness when we turn away.
We leave quickly, feeling them behind us, just behind us, watching us go, following us, wanting us to stay, wanting us to play.
We leave the schoolhouse and see that while we were inside a thick, swirling fog has swallowed the ruins.
Everything is deathly silent.
The flashlights barely penetrate the fog. We cannot see the vehicle from where we are.
Urgency and terror drives us into the darkness and the fog.
We are being watched.
They are all around us.
We make our way back to the vehicle through the darkness, through the fog, my friends walking faster and without the haughty tones they had earlier.
I stop and look back, the ruins just so many dark shapes in a dark night.
The silence is oppressive, heavy like a thick blanket.
For a brief lunatic moment my heart aches for this place and I don’t want to leave it. I wish that this place was my secret; safe in my heart and mind alone; that no one else on earth knew about it.
But it wasn’t so. The graffiti in the gymnasium told me that. Destructive vandals and thrill seekers will continue to come here, tearing this place away little by little along with nature, until one day nothing will remain.
Some are too ignorant to know fear.
Ah, but the spirits of the dead run deeper than boards and nails and glass, they cannot be so easily covered up and silenced with spray paint and grass.
They will endure, they will linger and they are angry.
We are the strangers here.
< Message edited by Rhylin227 -- 12/7/2011 12:21:09 PM >
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The Angry Dead (Horror) - 
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