Speaker 1: My neighborhood growing up wasn't the nicest. Everyone who lived
there was there because they couldn't afford anywhere else, not
because they wanted to live there. A lot of the
houses were extremely small and old, and even the businesses
in the town had trouble staying open for more than
a year or two. When I was young, it was
pretty common for us to go to these houses and
businesses that had been abandoned and just mess around in them.
The police had to have known this was going on,
since every kid in town was doing it, but they
didn't do anything about it anyway. When I was really young,
my elementary school shut down and the building was never repurposed.
So when I was older and exploring these run down places,
I was intrigued to see what the school looked like. Now.
On a Saturday night, my buddy Ryan and I went
to the school. We didn't have cars, so we had
to walk about four miles from his house to get there.
This building, even before it was abandoned, I always found
a little bit creepy. It was on the edge of town,
buried in the woods, with a chain link fence around it.
It just really did not seem like a place for
an elementary school. We climbed over and went to the
side of the building to see if there was a
window to get in from. Lucky for us, almost every
window had already been smashed open. I jumped in first,
followed by Ryan. The first thing we did was just
stand there and listen to hear if anyone else was inside.
There was this very loud, hollow, creaking noise the building
was making, but it sounded like we were alone. We
walked down the hallway, peeking into some of the rooms.
It was a very strange feeling to be back at
the school after so many years and see it in
such horrible condition. We passed maybe three rooms, walking slowly
and quietly, before a sudden thud echoed throughout the entire building.
We stopped and looked at each other, but no more
sounds came. Ryan said it was probably just a building
settling in on its own weight, and we continued down
the hallway. A lot of the rooms were either empty
or just had a bunch of chairs lined up in them,
but nothing really interesting. That was until we got to
the next hallway deeper into the school. This hallway had
chairs scattered throughout, blocking the way through. We had to
push them aside just to get to the rooms. The
first room was locked, so we went down to the
second room on the left side and looked in, seeing
what looked like clothes hanging from the ceiling. I walked
in and looked at it, unsure why or how those
got there. After a moment, I wondered why Ryan hadn't
said anything and if he was seeing what I saw.
I turned around, and as my head moved across the
room I caught a glimpse of a figure in the
far back. I shot my eyes to the far wall,
seeing a disheveled man staring at us as he stood
with something in his hand. To make it all worse,
he had almost no clothing on. I quickly glanced at Ryan,
who had his eyes fixed on the man as well,
before he grabbed my arm and pulled me back into
the hallway. Immediately we heard something metal being thrown across
the room toward the door we were at, followed by
a horrific scream. We sprinted down the hallway and out
the first open window we saw, then ran as far
away as we could before losing our breath. On the
rest of the walk home, we put the pieces together
and realized the man was likely holding a knife, which
was probably what he tried throwing at us. Considering his
unstable state, it's likely the man was really dangerous, and
had we stayed any longer or not noticed him, we
might have not made it out. When I was a kid,
between the ages of fourteen to sixteen, me and my
friends were really into hanging out anywhere other than our houses.
Most of the time we would go to some fast
food place and chill there, or just find some spot
in the woods near the park. I guess we were
at that age where we wanted to be alone and
not have people looking over our shoulders all the time.
The only problem with this was that on the weekends,
when we'd be out late, most stores and dining areas
closed before we were ready to call it a night.
During winter break one year, we ran into this problem
a lot. We'd go to the parks to hang out,
only to find that even in the late hours of
the night, there would be multiple other groups that had
the same idea. Then one night, my friend j T
brought up his parents old farmhouse, saying it could be
a cool spot to explore and that nobody else would
be there. He'd mentioned it a few times before this,
but we never thought much of it until that night.
J T drove me and my other friend Paul out
into what looked like the middle of nowhere, arriving at
a wooden fence. The fence was closed off with a
chain since it was a private property and JT didn't
have the key to it, so he parked and hopped
over it. From the edge of the wooden fence, though,
the first thing I realized was that I couldn't see
the farmhouse. Yeah, it was dark out and there were
no lights anywhere, but I couldn't even make out the
shape of the house in any direction. JT started walking,
leading the way on a rough gravel path as he
explained why his parents even had the place to begin with.
He said it was his grandparents farmhouse, but when they died,
they passed it down to his parents. Apparently it was
in horrible condition and his parents didn't know what to
do with it, so they just kept it. That was
almost ten years ago. Nobody had done any maintenance or
even checked up on it in over a decade. We
walked down this path, following JT for a good ten
minutes before we could finally see the house. Even from
just the outline of it in the dark, you could
tell it was in bad shape. Part of the roof
was dipping inward like it was about to collapse, and
some of the siding panels were hanging from the wood.
All of us were quiet now, just looking at it
as we walked closer. When we got up to the
front of the house, the door was covered by a
large sheet of wood, so we went around to the back,
where the door was completely missing. We each turned on
our phone flashlights and stepped inside. Surprisingly, the place wasn't
really trashed like we thought it'd be. Most of the
furniture and stuff didn't seem to have been moved very much.
It was extremely dusty, though, and our phone lights were
not the best, so maybe it just looked better than
it was. We split up after a minute, just walking
around the first floor and looked. I entered a hallway
on the left side of the house and began walking
down when suddenly someone walked past the end of the hallway.
I froze, and out of panic, I called out j
T as if it was maybe him, but I already
knew it wasn't the man. I saw, although it was dark,
was much taller and thinner than either of my friends.
I stepped back and started to go where I'd last
seen the two of them. When I turned around the
corner and held up my light, both JT and Paul
were standing in the middle of the room, looking away
from me. I stepped into the room and looked where
their lights were, pointing at the edge of the light,
the man was standing and staring right back at them.
It was like they were all frozen in fear, unsure
of what to make of the situation. Guys, let's just leave,
I said, shakily, but trying to act calm. So the
guy didn't do anything, But that must have triggered everyone's reactions,
because suddenly we were all sprinting to the back door
and running out into the open field. I can't even
say for sure if the man chased us out, but
JT says he was confident he heard footsteps right behind him.
We pretty much ran straight back to the car and
drove off, not taking any more risks. I think we
can all assume that the man was just a squatter
or homeless person defending the place he calls home. But
without a good look at him. It's hard to say
for sure. JT said he'd tell his parents about it
so they could lock down the farmhouse, but he never
went through with it because he was worried about getting
in trouble for going there. Whatever happened that night remains
the most horrifying experience I've had, and if JT was
right and the man was trying to chase us, then
we got really lucky to have all gotten out unharmed.
This was only a year ago. At the time, it
had been a while since my last camping trip, and
four a few months leading up to this, I was
just really wanting to get out in camp like I
always used to do. I finally had gotten some time
off work and planned out a trip right away. There
were some mountains not far about a two hour's drive
from me, and there were plenty of trails on it.
I scrolled through the pictures, but eventually just decided to choose.
Once I got there, I wasn't too worried about the
trail and really just wanted to sit by my tent
and relax for most of the time. I drove up
to the mountain with four days worth of camping supplies
and food, This wasn't really a popular mountain that people
came to a lot, so there weren't many parking areas.
I ended up finding a dirt plot on the side
of the road and parked there. Then got out and
started walking along the road until I got to one
of the camping trails. On the very great out map,
it showed that the trail went a few miles into
the forest and up the mountain, then split into three
different paths that led to camping spots. I figured this
would work, so I started the hike. It took just
under two hours to get to the three paths. I
saw no difference, so I just went with the left one.
About thirty minutes later I came up to the camping grounds.
All it was was an open area with less trees.
Nobody else was there, and it didn't exactly look like
anyone had been there in a long time. Everything had
grown over to the point where if there wasn't a
direct path leading to this place, it would just look
like any other spot in the forest. I tossed my
bags down by one of the trees and built up
my tent, then sat on a log and ate my lunch.
After that, I kind of just sat there, riding in
my journal and listening to the birds. Once the sun
was starting to get lower, I had to get a
fire going to keep me warm, so I got up
and walked around the perimeter of the camping grounds to
find sticks to use. But not too far from my tent,
I found something strange, a path leading off into the woods.
Not a regular trail, though this was very clearly a
footpath formed by someone walking that same route over and over.
Usually these types of paths grow over quickly when not used,
so the fact that it was so clear and noticeable
was odd. I finished collecting sticks and prepped the campfire,
but something about that path made me feel uneasy, and
I just wanted to check what it was before camping
the night. Right next to it, I grabbed my bag
and started following the thin path. The more I walked
on it, the more sure I was that someone was
here recently. After a fifteen minute walk, I reached the
end out in the woods. Just beyond the path, there
was a small cabin. It looked like it was decaying
and abandoned. The wood was splintering, with entire boards missing,
and the door was left wide open. I walked up
to it and looked around, wondering why a footpath would
lead to an abandoned hut in the woods. It was
too far for someone to just stumble upon it. Curious,
I peered in through the doorway. It was dark inside
and I couldn't really see much, but I could tell
that it wasn't empty. There were things in there. I
was about to take a step inside, but a sudden
voice from behind me startled me away. Leave, go away,
a man said, sternly, almost angrily. I faced him, standing
about ten feet away. The man told me again to leave,
and without saying a word, I did as he said.
As I walked away, I looked back once, seeing the
man standing at the end of the path and watching
me to make sure I was leaving. Once I got
back to my tent, it was already dark out, but
I was not going to stay there. I quickly packed
up and left, dangerously hiking in the pitch black with
just a flashlight until I got back to my car.
I don't know what was going on there, but what
frightened me so much was that I was immediately sure
that the man I saw did not live there. He
was wearing regular, clean clothes, and had no signs of
even being out there for more than a couple days,
which makes me question why he was out there and
why he needed me to leave, and how did the
footpath form if he didn't live there, or was there
someone else that did. The whole thing has me asking
a hundred questions and I don't think there's ever going
to be answers.