askchapo

Not my spookiest, but here you go.

Ok, so there's a lot of abandoned buildings in and around the town I grew up (most've them've been knocked down by now). Consequently urb-exing was a popular hobby for the local youth. A typical rite of passage was to break into the old bomb shelter, y'know try'n scare yourself and your mates, get yourself to believe there was something spooky in there with you.

My story isn't about that though.

My story is about the time I broke the prime directive of urb-exing.

I went alone.

There was this old inn a couple of towns over, can't tell the name because it'd give away too much about where this went down. It'd been abandoned long as I could remember, and none of the other kids had broken in yet. Last exploration I did, I was with some mates and we'd accidentally run into a couple who were enjoying themselves and the awkwardness of that'd put me in the mood for exploring somewhere I wasn't likely to run into someone else.

I did the usual safety checks, y'know made sure it wasn't in use by the local canabis dealers (some of the local gangs made use of vacant buildings because the property companies that were holding the lots hadn't thought to cut off power so it was relatively cheap to set up UVs and some hydroponics and just have a guy squat there to look out for anyone snooping around) shit like that, building wasn't in use by any humans far as I could tell. Then when I was sure I wasn't gonna run into anyone else, I borrowed my dad's crowbar and once the family was all asleep, I'd snuck out.

Getting in'd been easy, one of the back windows'd been broken years ago and in its place was a sheet of plywood. I didn't even need the crowbar to dislodge it.

In the dark, alone, with only the torch-light to see where you are, your mind makes up tricks. Turning the tall blotches of mould into humanoid figures as they passed the periphery of my light, the creak of the of boards on the dancefloor echoing into footsteps behind me. Sitting on a decaying barstool, I was already a bundle of nerves and was considering legging it. But I still hadn't had a look around at the bedrooms upstairs.

Now your average abandoned inn is a haunted place at the best of times, not with ghosts, but with a sense of emptiness. This is a place designed to be full of people and the isolation of my endeavour was all the more glaring as I walked down a nicotine stained hall and arrived at the stairs.

Now this was a long time ago so my memory's a bit hazy on the finer details, but I recall what happened next as going a little like this:

I'd tried every door in the hall but the last couple, they'd all been locked (this was before I'd learnt to pick locks so I didn't really have a plan B for opening them). The wind was picking up outside, and through was making a banshee scream as it blew through the window. Ahead of me and to my left a door slowly slipped open a tad. "Mustn't've been closed properly." I muttered to myself, "probably moves like that all the time." By now my torch is growing dim, so I decide I'll take a quick peek then go home, bring some mates 'round tomorrow night, maybe work up the courage to go behind the bar and into the cellar whose door I saw as I'd passed.

I tried to push the door the rest of the way open, but it was stuck on something. I shone my torch in there to try and get a look, but couldn't make out much more than dim shapes. One final shove and I heard a crack, found myself lurching into the room as the torch slipped from my fingers and the glasses fell off my face. I didn't get much of a look of the room, between the my torch rolling back out and my eyesight being shit. Peeks of dim light from the streets outside as I groped around for my glasses gave me a sense of something slowly moving towards me. Furniture dislodged by my shoving the door, a squatter whose sleep I'd disturbed, the tortured ghosts of my own imagination, I don't know I just grabbed my glasses, stooped for my torch and ran.

I put my foot through a rotten floorboard while fleeing and almost tripped. The muted snapping may as well've been deafening to my nervous ears.

I never did go back with my mates.