I went to school in a more rural area more than ten years ago. I was a kid who played in orchestra and took art classes. I always wanted to take a theatre class but it seemed like I couldn’t ever get it crunched into my class schedules.
Just like our arts program, they didn’t have a good budget. They seemed to always have more than enough for our schools football and baseball team which always did excellent. But our school had such an beautiful theater. It was connected to the classroom and had a decent sized stage.
It was near Halloween and somehow the teacher got it approved to make a small haunted house get up with the theatre kids being employees. Tickets were only a few bucks and all proceeds would fund the theatre program.
It was gonna be successful. It gave kids a chance to get out of class for a good ten minutes or so which many desperately would do anything for. They’d have a kid come classroom to classroom and those who wanted to enter could follow them. I became excited when one knocked on the door during my art class.
A handful of us followed the kid who wasn’t dressed up to the drama class room. The teacher sat at a table and collected money. She told us a few rules and pointers.
I handed over my three dollars and walked towards the entrance.
The door was held by a kid wearing a black hooded robe and had on some of those stitches next to his mouth you could get at a Halloween store. He had black face paint around his eyes.
“Good luck.” He snickered. It felt cheesy
They had ropes lined up tied to traffics cones as a pathway. The things I seen were pretty decent but some cliche. I seen a handful of kids getting scared to.
The stage had a closet area next to with wardrobe which explained some of the things seen. It also had an audience area in front of the stage where all the chairs were stacked away.
The closet area had bars in front where someone had monster makeup on and they were hollering and doing a cheesy laugh.they were wearing their school clothes too.
They had the room pretty dark and had some fog machines. Some of the things I seen were some of the girls acting in distress and asking for help. Some people pretending to be psych patients. Some would run towards the rope and scream. They had tombstones in some areas that were made from styrofoam. Creepy music was playing from the PA system.
Some other guests walking through would crack jokes and make fun of the actors. I just kept to myself and took in the atmosphere. Obviously it had to be pretty tame since it was in a school, so no fake blood or pretend weapons.
What really through me off though was when I looked up at the ceiling. There was an area where some lights were very dimmed and it looked like a dummy was hanging by a rope. There was no way the school would have approved of that.
I went through the rest of the haunt where we go back into the classroom. Another student held out a bucket full of Halloween candy and thanked those who came and supported the theatre program.
The teacher asked a couple students what they thought and she got some mixed answers. “It was great.” “Thanks for doing this.” “It wasn’t scary.”
She asked me and I told her I enjoyed it but I was curious how they were able to hang up a dummy or prop in the ceiling.
She looked at me as if I said something stupid. She asked me what I was taking about and I explained it once more.
She walked in the theatre and demanded everyone leave for the moment. I followed behind and she turned on the lights once the room was clear.
She let out a horrifying scream that will never leave my memory. She pulled out her phone and called 911 and told me to go grab the principal.
I sprinted to the office and told them what happened and they ran to the theatre.
EMTs, firefighters, police swarmed the school and classes were canceled the rest of the week. They had to use a cherry picker to pull that kid down.
His name was Wesley. He was part of the class.the investigation team determined it wasn’t a suicide. He was murdered.
Police interviewed the whole theatre classes. They interviewed me as well to which I explained what I seen.
The cameras only were showing where he walked into the classroom and never came out. They assume it had to either have been one of the theatre students or the teacher. They ruled out it being someone who walked through because of the timing, yet he didn’t come into class super early either.
They never truly discovered who did it either. Many of the kids got pulled out by their parents, mrs. Mack was fired and sued, though she won. The theatre program was shut down for several years.
The reason I’m writing about this is because I recently became the orchestra teacher at this school. I’d hear rumors everyone once in a blue moon from another student that they claimed to have seen a ghost and even a teacher mentioned it once in the lounge.
I always pushed the idea of it away. But recently I had to borrow a couple of extra chairs from the theatre room and told the teacher I’d bring them back at the end of the day.
Once school let out and I finished closing up my area, I began carrying the chairs to the theatre. When I opened the door, I noticed the room was freezing compared to what it was before. I stacked the chairs up and heard a noise. It was coming from the top and sounded like a rope getting tight. It was Wesley. He looked transparent and was smiling at me.
I let out a scream and he let one back out that was horrifying. I ran to do the exit door and tripped on my way out. Another teacher seen me on the ground and came to my aid. I told her I seen something in there. She looked in and said she seen nothing.
I’m going to talk to the theatre teacher and see if there’s some way I can talk with Wesley. I feel so scared but will keep you updated.