The thrill, the rush of it all. My friend group was made of outcasts and misfits. We didn’t have too much in common if I am being honest. But if it was one thing we all had a taste for, it was exploring the unknown. Urban exploring in particular, the thrill of going into an abandoned place that we weren’t allowed to go to. As teenagers, this was seen as one of the best things we could ever do, it was when we felt truly free from society’s rules and judgements. Sometimes though, I realize that this escape might come at a price.
Riding in the backseat of Bryan’s white Honda Civic, I see nothing on the outside except for woods and the unpaved road that his car was driving on. The pale moonlight illuminating our surroundings, with Bryan’s headlights assisting. We wanted to go out a little farther from the Denver area, so Bryan looked up some abandoned building sites on Reddit and found one for all of us to go to. “So Bryan,” Ashley was starting to inquire, “Where did you say we were going again?” He was pretty quiet about our destination for most of the ride, I didn’t really know where we were going if I was being honest. Up until Ashley opened her mouth, nothing else was breaking the silence except for Bryan’s grunge radio station.
“This abandoned elementary school has been abandoned for 10 years now.” He answers in an annoyed tone, having told Joseph and Scott this earlier as well. Ashley wasn’t the one to listen often, so of course she would have to ask again. “It’s 20 miles outside of Denver, said to have been shut down due to a leak of some unknown chemicals. Nobody ever leased the land, so it was left there to deteriorate. Since then-“
“Bryan hold on,” Scott interrupts him. Scott wasn’t as brave and impulsive as Bryan, but he did his research on these places far more often. “People have apparently came to this specific site before. Some have reported occult activity going on inside of it, while others have reported a creature roaming around the building in the middle of the night.”
“So? What’s this got to do with our investigation?” Bryan questions, even more annoyed than he was when he explained the plan to Ashley.
“All of these Reddit stories have one thing in common; one person in the exploration group has disappeared.”
“Oh my,” Joseph says, he was sitting right between me and Scott in the back. Joseph was the outcast of the group, a lone violet sitting in a field of roses. Scott was more brains and Bryan was more brawny compared to him. Joseph kinda stood out as a beauty of some sort. “When was the most recent one?”
“It seems to have been a few days ago, a group of teens maybe a bit older than us went,” Scott was reading off the Reddit thread, unnerving pretty much everyone in the car. Tension continued to build as he was reading. “4 of them went together, but only 3 of them made it out alive. This is a picture of the girl who went missing.” He showed us all a picture of the girl. Her name was LeAnn Watkins, the picture of her had beautiful, sunny blonde hair, but her most noticeable feature was her sapphire blue eyes. “They claimed that she was mauled by a creature and wasn’t able to be saved in enough time.” A creature, this was really starting to make me nervous. He then continued on with his article he found. “This is the only photo of the supposed creature that roams around this building.” He then showed us a blurry, low resolution photo. The creature looked as if it stood around 8 feet, it had pale white skin and black eyes. It’s teeth looked as though one bite would be enough to cut off your arm, and it’s claws were sharp enough to dig though your body among contact. Showing us this picture, we all got unnerved even more. Joseph then started to panic.
“So like, is this some murder plot for us all? Maybe these people might be waiting on their next sacrifice!” Joseph starts to panic, scared of what might be happening to us once we arrive. I can only imagine the pain LeAnn’s friends went through knowing they lost someone that night. “Or maybe that creature is waiting to kill us off one by one, in the most gruesome ways possible!”
“Yes Joseph, it is.” Ashley answers sarcastically, acting as if she wasn’t asking annoying questions earlier. “First, we are going to sacrifice Rachel to the occults, then Scott is going to be eaten alive by the creature in the woods-“
“That’s enough everyone!” I break up the conversation, getting annoyed of all the questions.
“Why?” Ashley teases, she was always the kind of person to egg on situations as well. “We’re just having fun, besides nothing bad is actually going to happen here-”
“Wait, Bryan I see it.” Scott interrupts Ashley, pointing outside of the window. In the car’s headlights read a faded sign: West Marsh Elementary School. “Turn in there Bryan!” Turning into the abandoned pavement, we drive into unknown territory. The radio starts to get static as we pull deeper into the lot. Eventually, the static fades to silence, until all we can hear is the sound of his tires rolling along the abandoned pavement. Looking outside of his car windows, we notice the scratches on some of the trees beside of us. After driving what seems to be minutes, we finally find an abandoned parking lot near what I would assume used to be the entrance into the school.
“This looks like it’s it.” Joseph says to us. He was the one with a picture of the elementary school before it was abandoned. In the picture, I could see a bright blue sky, children playing outside with smiles on their faces, and a pristine brick wall to show off its exterior. The real thing though was far from it, the bricks looked as if rain had worn it down all of these years, all of the windows were either broken or had some boards covering them up. As for the entrance, it was also boarded up with wood. The handles to the door seemed to be locked with a padlock that none of us would be able to break by hand. The most distinguishing feature for the building however was the scratches appearing along some of the deteriorating brick walls outside. Something was here before us, and it wasn’t human. “I wouldn’t know how to break into the school.” Joseph snaps me back into reality.
“I mean, I know we can’t get into the door.” I look at the padlock again as I state that. It looked fairly new, it was a sharper contrast to the deteriorating building. Someone had been here recently as well, but why the lock was there we probably don’t know.
“You guys,” Ashley interrupted my train of thought with her loud voice. I wanted to leave in the moment, but it was clear the rest of them hadn’t seen the scratches that I see. “I think I know how to break in the building!” She pulls out her sharp switchblade, it was enough to make anyone not cross bad paths with her. She puts the switchblade to one of the rusty locks and saws it off. Breaking open the door, we immediately get hit with the worst stench that we’ve all smelled collectively. It smelled like rotting meat that had been mixed with vomit, but without a trace of where it would be in the room. “Oh my God, why does it smell so bad in here?” Ashley yells out in disgust.
“In all the buildings we have explored, none have ever smelled like this.” Joseph says, covering his nose.
“It’s an abandoned elementary school, so why would this be the smell?” I say, pulling out my iPhone to get better lighting in the room. Turning on the flashlight, we immediately saw the broken glass and spray paint on the walls. It was red, with the words GET OUT NOW sprayed painted very hauntingly. It followed by some odd symbols, looking very demonic. Pentagrams, with the same red as the words. Only this time, some of the red had driedup“W-what the hell is this? Guys, this seriously is giving me bad vibes.”
“Oh shut up Rachel!” Bryan snapped at me, as he walked in front of us all in the empty hallway. “I truly don’t think this is real, it’s probably some prank pulled by people our age or by police trying to scare us off.” He grabs my phone, flashing the light down the hallway. “I’m not scared of a stupid elementary school at all, does anyone else want to come with me right now, or turn around and go back to the car.” We are all hesitant to answer his question.
“I guess I’ll stay.” Scott replies in a hesitant tone. The rest of us look at each other in blank expressions. Was I really going to risk it all? Seeing LeAnn’s missing picture made me anxious to even go here, and now this horrible smell? I don’t think it’s worth the thrill and edgy pictures if our lives might be something to play with. But Bryan is someone who took chances no matter the cost, I expected him to not turn back after driving 20 miles here.
“I’ll stay too.” Ashley said, I guess we were all in this together like always.
“That’s what I like to hear then!” Bryan said enthusiastically, looking at all of us who were nervous at what could possibly transpire from this. “Now, Scott and Rachel, you guys should split from the rest of us and get some awesome pictures.” Us together? I mean I like Scott, but I know that if we run into a cult or the creature, that neither of us would really be able to ward it off. “We’ll be going down to explore the abandoned lunch room, you guys should see what the gym has.” He then goes to the left part of the hallway, with Ashley and Joseph following him. Scott and I start to head towards the right part of the hallway.
“I guess it’s just us then Scott.” I say to him, pulling out my iPhone and turning on it’s flashlight. The hallways had broken glass on the floors and red spray paint on these walls. GIVE IT ALL TO ME read one of the walls. WHEN WILL IT END? SAVE ME read the other one.
“This looks really creepy. I think the gymnasium is down the hallway though.” Scott says to me, pulling out his iPhone flashlight as well. Flashing his light, we see the words Gymnasium faded on one of the old signs. I then start to flash some of my light into the classrooms. In the classrooms, all the desks have been dismantled, with chalkboards inside them having nothing but demonic symbols on them.
“Scott, hold on a minute.” I start to walk inside of one of the classrooms, stepping on the worn out floor. Looking closer at the chalkboards, I notice how some of the demonic symbols are written with regular white chalk. Other ones are written in the same red substance that we all saw earlier. “It’s the same substance we saw earlier Scott.”
“Dang, do you think it’s a cult or what.” He leans in closer to the chalkboard and sticks his fingers on the substance. It’s still wet, but it isn’t water or spray paint. “It’s blood Rachel.” Fresh blood, somebody was here recently, or something. Looking more around the room, I also notice the large table that is placed near the window. This was probably a teacher’s desk before the building became abandoned. Nothing else was laying on it except for pictures.
“Come here,” I go to the desk to look at the pictures. They are of a white creature, the same one that Scott showed us earlier. Only this time they looked as though they were in higher quality. One of the pictures depicts its black eyes staring into the camera lens. “Those eyes look as though they could freeze somebody’s soul in place.”
“Yeah,” Scott says picking up another picture. I get a glimpse of the second picture that he picked up, it was of the same creature. This time however, it had large claws that were slashing toward the camera. “It looks like one dangerous creature, I wonder who would even put these pictures here?” He picks up the final picture on the table. Two of them, chasing the photographer down the very abandoned pavement that we drove down earlier. The second creature looking bigger, but shorter claws. The same pale skin and black hair.
“Take them Scott, I think we need to show the rest of them these pictures.” This could also be used for the authorities, maybe somebody left these pictures here incase the authorities ever did come. But if that was the case, why wouldn’t these pictures hit online? All these questions are rushing into my head, the last one being the biggest one. “I don’t know why none of these higher quality photos weren’t online.”
“Somebody would’ve probably assumed they were photoshopped would be my best guess.” He’s right, the internet in this day and age is full of skeptics. “I think we should take them anyway, just incase.” He puts them in his back pocket, walking out of the classroom door. Following in his footsteps, I start to get the uneasy feeling as if we are not alone in here. We walk a little bit more down the the hallway, stepping on broken glass the entire way. We then reached two big doors, the gymnasium.
In the gymnasium, Scott and I find that the horrible smell from earlier was magnified in here. The basketball hoops were falling apart, and the windows were smashed all around the room. “Scott, it smells so bad in here. I think it’s originating from-” I stop and look down at what I stepped on. Hundreds of flies started to fly all around my shoe, a dead rabbit. Nothing of it’s fur was there anymore, just some bones protruding from it’s flesh.
“Rachel! Back away right now!” Scott yells at me, flashing his flashlight a couple yards away from me. “Oh my God, what’s going on here!” More of the demonic symbols were spread on the floor, but instead of it being spray painted with red, it looks like the same blood we saw earlier painted on the chalkboard.
“Shhhh shhh Scott.” I try to assure him, knowing my anxiety has been brought up tenfold now. “I think I see something.” Pulling out my flashlight now, the both of us tip toe to the object that I see. But we quickly find out that it isn’t a something; it’s a someone. Thoughts racing, I am paralyzed in a state of shock. I’ve never felt this feeling before, I couldn’t even scream. There was a few moments before I lost control of my legs and dropped onto the ground.
“Holy shit, what the hell is that!?” Scott yells out, clearly able to show off his shock. I, on the other hand, could only make vomit come out of my mouth. My head is feeling dizzy, is this real? Did we really just walk in on a dead body? My vision was cutting in and out, but I had to be brave and get back up. “It looks like she’s been killed recently!” A girl, killed recent. I get up to try to get a glimpse of the body.
“Her hair, h-her white shirt is all covered in blood.” I stammered with my words, her shirt was ripped. By claws or a knife, I couldn’t tell, but it looked like it was really gruesome. Then, getting a good look at her face, I quickly realized who the dead girl was: LeAnn Watkins. “It’s the girl Scott, it’s the girl that we read the article about.” Her cold, dead blue eyes, once a sapphire tone, now had a slate tone. Her teeth had some that were missing, and her neck looked like it had been slit open. Her last moments must’ve been some of the worst moments in her entire life.
“This couldn’t really be her Rachel, it just has to be some sick prank by the people who previously came here.” His voice is in denial, like the article he did read was fake. It was on Reddit, so some hoax articles were pretty common on there. But this body, the smell emitting from it. I know that this isn’t just some sick prank. Ask I looked closer, I noticed that some of her skin was starting to rot off of her corpse.
“Scott, get me a stick.” I stammer, flashing my iPhone’s flashlight around the deteriorating gymnasium. It was a really disrespectful idea to me, to poke a body with a stick. But I wasn’t about to touch a rotting, dead corpse without gloves on. If her body was found, we weren’t going to be the ones to go to jail for murder. Flashing the light a little bit more, we find a stick in one of the broken windows. Long, curved, and rotting a little bit like the corpse. It was our best bet to prove if it was really LeAnn or just some sick prank. Scott walks on the broken glass from the mirror, filling the gymnasium with the noise, and proceeds to get the stick.
“Here you go.” He comes back with it, handing it to me. This was the craziest idea that I have ever had. Hands shaking, I proceeded to poke her body with her stick.
“Oh my god!” I yell out, her body slumps over onto her stomach. Flies start to hoard around us, the buzzing filling the entire school with the horrible sound. “It’s real, it’s a dead body!” I yell out some more, Scott yells something out to me as well, but the buzzing of the flies made it hard for me to comprehend him. I try to keep my cool, despite just discovering a dead body and having hundreds of flies hoarding around us. I try to pull out my iPhone’s flashlight again, shining it through the gymnasium. The flies block my view a lot, but thankfully I could find the exit. “Here Scott!” I grab his hand and bolt us to the exit. Once we finally get out of the fly infested gymnasium, I shut the rotting door to block the buzzing emitting from it.
“That was actually a body, that was from at least a week or two ago in that condition.” Bang. We hear a loud noise somewhere on the other side of the elementary school, followed by a piercing loud screech. Shaking, we both realize that we are to alone in the building anymore. I start to flash my iPhone’s flashlight down the dreary hallway, nothing but the deteriorating walls was in our vision.
“Somebody help me!!” A familiar voice pierces through the room, with neither of us being the ones to say that. “Oh my god! Help!!!” Ashley! What the hell is she seeing right now.
“Come on!” Scott grabs my arm, running through the dark hallways. With nothing but the screams of Ashley and footsteps on the glass filling the hallway with noise, we eventually get into the room where the screams were emanating from.
“Guys!” Ashley’s brunette hair had some red stains in it, her arms looked battered and bruised. It had looked like she had just tried to ward something off. “W-we need to get out of here right now! I just got attacked by something!”
“By who?” Scott questioned, but by the look of Ashley’s face she seemed pretty stammered and distraught about what had just happened.
“By what is what I want to know, it looked exactly like the creature that you showed us earlier Scott!” Oh my God, it’s real then. The pictures we have seen up until then aren’t editing at all. “It attacked me before I threw something outside of the window. We have to get out of here now.”
“Where’s Bryan and Joseph?” I inquire, they were supposed to be with Ashley. But Ashley was also the kind of person to go off on her own usually.
“They are running back to the car, you guys should go there too,” Ashley then looked at the chalkboard and then at her arms. “I’m gonna go get some pictures to send to the media, you guys just need to worry about your safety more than anything else. This creature is really dangerous and I have to warn the world about it’s existence before it discovers a town and terrorizes it.” BANG. A loud slam is heard from down the hallway.
“What in the world was that!?” I begin to fear that this creature is really close, I don’t want Ashley to go back alone. She proceeds to rush out of the door, looking to the right of the hallway.
“I’m going to find this thing and confront it, run now!” She proceeds to run out, going off on her own again.
“Ashley, not that way! That’s where LeAnn was found!” I yell out, attempting to warn her of what we saw in the gymnasium earlier.
“Rachel, let’s go now. She’s off on her own again, we have to worry about our safety.” Scott is right, I can’t just wait on Ashley. We both dart out of the room and find the entrance we came in from. There was no looking back, Ashley was gone from our vision as we rushed to Bryan’s Honda. Two familiar figures are at his Honda, looking shocked and afraid: Bryan and Joseph.
“What the hell did they do to your car Bryan!?” Joseph yells out. The once beautiful snow white Civic was now painted in the same familiar red we saw earlier in the gymnasium. Blood spelled YOU SHOULDN’T HAVE CAME HERE, followed by some demonic symbols on the windshield.
“Oh no, not my car no!” He yells out, quickly getting in and starting it. The blood painted on it was the least of our worries, right now we needed to get out. “Hopefully the blood at least comes off of the windshield.” He stammered in his words, using the windshield fluid to attempt to get the windshield clean. Some of the blood came off, but some of it dyed the fluid red.
“It’s no use Bryan!” I yell out, getting in the car with Joseph and Scott. Ashley is still nowhere to be found. “Should we stay here until Ashley gets back?”
“Hell no!” Scott protests in anger, not wanting to risk our lives to wait for Ashley. “Who knows what’s coming after us, she’s the only one to have witnessed it.”
“Scott, don’t be so mean!” Joseph says, disgusted at what Scott had even suggested to do. “We’ve all been friends since we were freshman. We may have all had our ups and downs, but trust me, we know what we’ve been through in high school. We were all outcasts at some point or another, and found solace in the similarities we all share. We are not losing Ashley, I don’t care if we all die. I’d rather die right now knowing that we tried to save Ashley than drive off knowing that there is a very real possibility that she’s dead.” He’s right, I would have to live with the fact that Ashley could be dead if we did drive off right now. I’ve known Ashley since 8th grade, when she moved to Colorado. I wouldn’t be able to face her parents if we left and her face was plastered all over the media.
“You’re right Joseph.” Bryan calmly says, it’s clear we all are in this together at this point. “We should wait a few minutes, if not I’ll get out of this car and look for her.”
“Well, it was nice knowing you all.” Scott says sarcastically, I really hope Ashley is actually ok. Just as he is saying this, a figure starts to appear by the door way. Dark and shadowy, it’s hard to tell if this is really Ashley or someone else.
“Guys, do you see that person standing by the doorway?” I remark, pointing towards the doorway that Bryan broke into earlier. Bryan turns on his brights, but still didn’t get much light to the person. As he turned his brights off, the lady suddenly charged towards the car. Whoever she was, it was, wasn’t Ashley. It barely looked human. Bryan proceeded to get out of the car, I assume to get a better look at the thing charging at the car.
“What the hell is this thing!” Bryan says, as the thing from the building grabs him by the neck and slams him onto the back of the Civic. We watch in horror, as I get a glimpse into the thing’s face. I then realized what it was, the same black eyes, 8 feet tall, claws sharp enough to cut through human skin. On the claws was blood, the same fresh colored blood used on all the demonic writings earlier. It was the creature that Scott showed us earlier and that we saw in the pictures on the table. Only getting a closer look at it, its skin was pale and scaly. It was a creature I can only describe as coming straight from Hell.
“Bryan! Get in the car now!” Joseph yells out, as the creature started to open it’s mouth. Hundreds of razor sharp teeth sounded out a screech, possibly the worst screech I have ever heard. It’s blood stained claws started to scratch Bryan’s Civic, followed by digging right through Bryan’s arm.
“Ahhhh! Somebody come out here and get this thing off of me!” We couldn’t hear anything else but the agonizing screams of Bryan. He was somebody that I have never heard even stutter in fear until this moment. Groaning demonically, the creature proceeds to slam Bryan’s body on the hood of the car. In the moments of anxiety and adrenaline, I jump up to the front seat. I don’t drive often, Bryan was always the one to drive. He especially wasn’t the one to let just anyone drive his Honda Civic, but in these moments I know he felt that his life was more important than some car. I quickly grab the shift and put his car in reverse, backing into both the creature and Bryan.
“Reaaaaaaah!” The creature screeches out, getting put under the car. Bryan rolled onto the hood of the car, looking directly at me.
“Get in the passengers side, now Rachel!” He commands me, getting off of the hood and opening the drivers door. I climb over his stick shift, letting him get inside of the driver’s seat.
“Uraaaaaah!” The creature roars, as he shuts the door behind him. In the headlights, the creature towered over the car. Raising it’s claws, it was about to slash through the windshield. This was it, this was the end to all of our adventures, our time has come. All the rushes we had visiting these abandoned places, escaping our outcast lives. It seemed to all come back to haunt us in this very moment.
“Get the hell away from my friends!” A familiar girl’s voice yells out from a distance. Turning around, we see Ashley in the doorway, even more battered and bruised than before. In her hand was a big brick, as the creature comes charging towards her. She then throws the brick at its face, hitting it directly in one of it’s black eyes.
“Screeeee!” It screeches, directly putting it’s claws by it’s eyes. Kneeling down in pain, the creature starts to flail one of its arms around, trying to slash Ashley with its sharp claws.
“Stay there guys!” I look at the clock to try and distract myself from the fight between the creature and Ashley. 3:22 AM. Was it really this late? This all feels so surreal to me, I don’t know what to do. Looking back up, I see the pale creature still flailing its claws around at a bruised Ashley. “Do not even try to mess with me!” Ashley yells out, pulling something out of her back pocket. It shined in Bryan’s head lights, a broken shard of glass.
“Ashley!” Bryan screams out of his window in distress. “What the hell are you going to do!?” Everyone else in the car was silently watching the battered Ashley stand there. I don’t know what she is thinking of doing, she was always the one to make quick and haste decisions. Sometimes they would work in her favor, but other times they would blow up right in her face. I was just scared that this decision would wound up costing her life.
“Watch,” The creature starts to get up, staggering for a little bit of movement. Seeing this as an opportunity, Ashley charges towards the creature and stabs it right in its fleshy, boney back.
“Screeeeeeeee!” It screeched a piercing scream of agony as Ashley pulled the broken glass out of its back. Black blood started to ooze out of its back as it collapsed yet again. Ashley starts to take some steps back, her footsteps on the abandoned pavement giving the silence some form of life. The creature lied on the pavement, seemingly lifeless. Whether she killed it or not, I’m sure none of us actually wanted to stick around long enough to find that answer out. Opening the backseat door of Bryan’s Civic, Ashley stumbled in.
“Bryan, just drive off now!” Ashley commanded, nobody has ever ordered Bryan around. But in these moments, we all probably knew that Ashley had to be the leader. I get a closer look at her body, blue bruises all over her arm. A scratch on the back of her now ripped T shirt, and some scratches on her face as well.
“What happened Ashley-“ Bryan tries to question her before she interrupts him.
“No time for talking just drive! There’s two of them and I could only fend off the second one inside for so long!” Two of them, that’s when I remembered the third picture that Joseph and I had seen earlier in the classroom. Joseph pulls out the picture from his back pocket and gives it to Ashley, as Bryan starts to step on his gas pedal.
“Is this the second creature that you saw?” He questions her, she freezes as he shows her the pictures.
“Y-yes, this is exactly how the c-creature looked like. It was way w-worse though than the one that you guys saw.” She explains, stuttering with most words that she could string up. “I-it was bigger than t-the other one. I-it was also more violent, w-with sharper teeth. I-I barely got out with m-my life I thought.” As she explains what happened, we hear a screech behind the car. Bryan reaches the edge of the abandoned pavement onto regular road.
“Turn Bryan, shake them off our tail!” Joseph yells out to him.
“That’s what I’m trying to do everyone stop giving me orders!” He yells out, angered at all the orders he has been given the past few minutes.
“Do you want us all to die?” Ashley yells out as Bryan makes a sharp turn onto the road. I start to see his speed rise up from 30 to 60, 90.
“No, we have to get away from them now!”
“Screeeee!” We hear the loud screeching again behind us, though none of us want to turn around and witness them chasing us.
“This is it guys, this is the end.” Scott worries. His voice sounds as though he is on the verge of tears.
“No, this is the time we finally get these creatures on video and warn everyone about them.” I pull out my iPhone and press record. I then turn it around to the back window, two creatures chasing after the car, going no more than 30 miles an hour. I continue to video record them as Bryan speeds up to 100 miles an hour.
“We are going to shake these creatures off!” He yells out to all of us as the creatures start to slow down, and eventually disappear into the pitch black night.
