I live in a rural town with a few historic buildings (by Canadian standards), including this old Opera House. It’s not exactly super busy especially after it took a break in 2020 and 2021 for hopefully obvious reasons.
I work part time with a kids’ theatre group. They take acting lessons, put on a play, the play gets hosted in the Opera House which makes them feel fancy and legit. They do three plays a year, one in May, one in mid-August and one in December, so this was both their second play after coming back and my second play working with them.
I don’t have anything to do with the acting side of things; I make the props and backgrounds for the stage. Not what I went to art school for and I don’t have a lot of theatre experience, but it helps me save up so I can move out of my dad’s place after having to move back after a renoviction - it was a whole thing that’s kinda off topic.
Anyway, back to the Opera House. The first play this year, Cinderella, I didn’t work with the kids directly, the guy that runs the program (who’s also the director) just went “Hey we’re going to need a giant pumpkin carriage cutout” or “Listen, can you make a bunch of kid sized prop weapons for the palace guards?”. Most of it is paper mache, foam, or more DIY kind of stuff, it’s supposed to give “kid play” vibes but like, better I guess.
This play was going to be Aesops Fables. Instead of one long play, they divided it up into shorts with a chorus of narrators, which conveniently made sure the most amount of kids got the spotlight instead of one getting to be a princess cause the mom makes the costumes. (There was apparently Drama, lmao). But that means my job got crossed over with costuming more than usual since the Director wanted big animal masks and stuff. I got called to one of the rehearsals. They don’t actually do rehearsals in the Opera House, it’s usually this office building who does short term stuff.
(Since they’re minors, I’m gonna call the kids by their roles instead of by name, to protect their privacy.)
So one of the stories is the Tortoise and the Hare and I’m tasked with making a shell for the Tortoise. The mom who does the costumes (yes, Princess Drama Mom), she’s busy with the other kids but tells me how to measure, so I’m left to deal with Tortoise on my own. It’s one of the few times I’ve talked to the actual kids and the only time without another adult hovering. This one was one of the older kids, somewhere between ten or twelve I think? I’m bad with ages.
First thing the girl says to me? “Can you use Holy Water for the shell?”
I’m just like, “Uhhhh what?”
“It’s paper mache right? So water and flour and flyers and stuff?”
I’m super confused but I go, “I usually use glue, but yeah, basically.”
“So can you use Holy Water to make it?”
So then I’m just like, “Why…???”
Turns out that the kid is a big fan of spooky stuff. I was weirded out until I remembered how many Goosebumps books I read as a kid. Kids love scary things, and one of the things Tortoise was into was vampires (as she went into at length while I measured her) hence: Holy Water.
I tried to connect the dots. “Are you afraid there’s going to be a vampire in the audience?”
“No! It’s backstage! Everyone says that the Opera House is haunted, but I think it’s a vampire.”
By this point I’ve already written down the measurements and don’t feel like volunteering myself for more work so despite that I immediately start to get the Music of the Night running through my head, I figure I can keep talking to the kid. Princess-Drama-Mom can clearly see me so if she needed me she could get me herself. I want to hear more of this wild stuff this kid is saying so I encourage her to keep going.
Tortoise got really excited, super ready to info-dump on me. “Okay so when we’re backstage weird stuff keeps happening. There’s flickering lights, whispering when nobody was supposed to be around, doors slamming on their own, so we all thought it was ghosts.”
She said this in such a matter of fact way that I just solemnly nodded and said, “Makes sense”, because she’s a kid and I wasn’t going to make her feel bad by pointing out that it’s an old building with shitty electrics, multiple drafts and a bunch of literal children who love jokes. “But you think it’s vampires?”
“Well last play, Mouse saw drops of blood, and a bunch of us got sick.”
That escalated quickly dot jpeg. “With Covid?”
She shook her head. “Tired and sleepy all the time, but mom said we were just being overworked.”
“I dunno, it sure sounds like vampires to me.”
I just thought it was kids being kids. I brought it up to Princess-Drama-Mom who scoffed and was like, “Ugh those kids. They’re bullies, trying to scare the younger ones. You know they told my daughter that there was a man outside her dressing room? She came to me crying! They make up these stories and scare well-behaved children and -“
Blah blah blah, she went on like this and I kinda zonked out and stopped listening.
But you know, it felt weird to me that people kept dismissing these kids. Like holy shit, what if there WAS a creep hanging around??
So later when I get home I hop on Discord and I tell my friends about all this and they’re like HOLY CRAP? So they tell me I should check things out. That’s when I had maybe the most ridic bullshit thought ever. I was like “oh I don’t think they actually lock the opera house up and I’ve always wanted to go urban exploring”. Then the whole Discord chat was like WTF ARE YOU ON UR GONNA GET MURDERED
So I didn’t do that, but what I did do was send a message to the Director like “Hey listen I still have a lot of time on my hands, do you want me to be backstage for the actual show so I can help with the props and do stage hand stuff or whatever” and he was like “sure”.
I figure if there’s more adults around keeping their eyes open, maybe I can figure out that like, it was just kids’ imaginations running wild or there really was something super sketch happening.
I start getting more involved, most of it just kinda busy work, but I do hear more rumours from the kids. One thing I heard was that sometimes the kids would hear someone crying, and sometimes someone would be there with their head in their hands sobbing but wouldn’t talk to the kids, and when they went to go get a grownup the person would be gone.
I’m fully creeped out by this point and a couple of the parents said their kids’ heard ghost stories too. Finally I bring it up to the Director himself and I did NOT expect his response.
“Oh yeah, it’s very haunted. Been like that for years. I hire a medium before every performance to get rid of the bad energy floating around and tell the ghosts to knock off for a while, but they always come back.”
(My Discord friends had a field day with that one).
By this point I’m guessing it’s just local superstition. My dad moved out here to retire, so it’s not where I grew up, but if everybody believes it’s haunted than it’s probably just stories feeding on stories, right? Everybody loves a good ghost story.
Fast forward to the day of the dress rehearsal, when the kids finally practice in full costume in the actual opera house instead of like, some office space they rented out.
I have never been so aware of a building. I jumped at every creak of wood and rattling of doorhandles. Then I notice the director looking really worried so I’m like, “what’s up?”
He looks at me like, “You remember how I usually hire a medium?”
I could feel what was coming. “Oh no?”
“Yeah, she tested positive and is quarantining so she couldn’t come.”
I’m like oh haha cool but for some reason my hairs are standing up and it’s like my brain is screaming “you’ve seen horror movies! Fucking run!!” but I’m like jeeze, I don’t actually believe in this fucking stuff so I’m just gonna not.
So the kids start the play and I’ve heard these lines so many times by now I’m just zoning out like, yeah yeah the bone in the dog’s reflection isn’t real, cool.
Then I hear crying.
Honestly my first thought that one of the kids was being teased or got hurt, so I go looking for whoever was crying. I listen and wander until l get to this passage backstage that goes under the stage itself. I can hear them performing above me, and I can hear someone crying.
I go, “Hello? Hi? You okay?”
No response. Still crying.
I’m remembering the stories now and I look behind some boxes and there’s this young man, head in his hands, sobbing his eyes out. Definitely not one of the kids.
“Uh, do you work here?”
He keeps sobbing. I’m fully uncomfortable.
“Do you need tissues? Or an exorcism?”
I meant it as a joke. But he suddenly stops crying. His head is still in his hands, he still won’t look at me, but he’s gone completely still.
My inner Canadian kicks in and I’m like “Sorry, sorry. I’m sorry, that was mean.”
And I just hear this voice - I mean, I don’t know what else to call it, it sounded like an old recording, come from him and he goes “It was.”
I back the fuck up and I’m like “okay sorry I’ll leave you alone” and look around for where the fucking door is at and when I look back he’s gone. Straight up not there. I high tail it outta there like NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE except when I go through the door to head back up to backstage proper, I’m in a different room. I went through the wrong door and into the basement storage room. This one’s not under the stage and I can’t hear the dress performance anymore.
And there’s someone there. There’s like, a bunch of old musical equipment, like stands and things, but the only actual instrument is this big ass double bass, and there’s this woman sitting by it with her back to me.
This time I don’t say anything. I’m afraid of turning around and taking my eyes off her, I’m afraid of going back into the last room, and I’m deffo not feeling into interacting with this woman. So I fucking freeze. I’m internally screaming at myself to just move, just leave, just do ANYTHING, but I can’t decide what I should do so I just don’t.
The woman plucks a string, but it doesn’t sound right? Like when she plucked the string there was a weird sound like a tearing meat sound and she hums to herself. She sounds like a recording too. I can almost hear the crackle of old sound equipment.
It’s dark, and I notice she’s bleeding from her hands. That finally gets me to get out. Crying guy was just upset. This is just No Thank You I’m Out.
I turn right around and go back where I came. I don’t see the crying guy, I can hear little feet above me and someone saying something about Hare, so I almost relaxed. But no, I notice there’s two doors out of the room and for the life of me I could not remember which one I came through or even if this room always had three doors.
I think it should be the closer one, though, it felt the most familiar, so I go through that one.
Nope. This time I’m in the basement proper, with pipes, furnace, all that. It’s messed, but I did not want to just go back again. I was high key convinced I’d turn around and there would be four doors in that room, and it would just keep going and going and going. But I could see light coming from somewhere past the cobwebs and pipes so I’m like, if I have to break a window to try out of here I’m just gonna fucking smash it.
The basement’s stuffed with all sorts of junk too, I swear that they crammed any kind of prop or costume or broken chair they ever had down in those rooms and forgot about them. Plus every few feet I run into a spider web so I’m going slow.
I see movement out of the corner of my eye. I turn to look but no one’s there.
Then, flickering. I look back round and this lightbulb hanging from a chain is on for some reason. The chain is shaking.
“God fucking - -“
I hear giggling. High-pitched, childish, and tinged with that crackling radio-like quality.
More movement from the corner of my eye. I’m so close to bolting but a bit of anger at the idea this might just be a prank filters through the panic. “Come the fuck ON!”
More giggling, and then they step out from behind boxes, from behind pipes, crawling out from under chairs and one even dangled from the ceiling.
Kids, in masks. MY masks, the ones I made. Tortoise, Hare, Fox, Lion, Mouse, Wolf, Dog, and so on.
They’re giggling to themselves and I knew, I just KNEW they weren’t the real kids. The way they moved didn’t feel right, the way they laughed sounded wrong, and there was something else. Some kind of instinct that told me that this wasn’t right. I’d just heard Dog onstage just a moment ago, didn’t I? How could they all get down there so fast, hide so well, and do it all without one of the other adults noticing?
Those lifeless paper mache masks surrounded me.
I sprinted away, tumbling over boxes, just pushing past them and running. I’m not really in shape but my sheet adrenaline was keeping me going.
They laughed harder, and they started chasing me, running into pipes and boxes as they went. One of the pipes they ran into gave a loud cracking sound.
But there was a door. I could see light coming from beyond the hinges. I kept going, I think I got a dozen bruises from shit I hit, but I got through. It wasn’t locked.
I burst through the door into the afternoon sunlight to the side street along the Opera House. I kept running, uphill, around the corner and right into all the kids, their parents, volunteers and Director outside the main entrance to the opera house.
They looked shocked, started asking me questions, but my vision was blurring and there was a roaring in my ears so I just remember going “I think I’m gonna faint” before passing out.
I woke up next to paramedics, ambulance parked nearby, alongside a firetruck.
I didn’t actually go to the hospital but they checked me out, gave me some bandaids and kept asking if I was sure. Eventually I got to go home.
Turns out one of the pipes burst and the whole basement of the opera house flooded for a little bit until it got out and flowed downhill, but all that stuff down there was super soaked so they’ve closed it down for the rest of the month to empty it out and make sure mold doesn’t get in.
I was worried it might have gotten pinned on me but nobody asked me anything other than if I was okay. The Director postponed the play, they’re gonna do it later in the high school gym.
I did ask a couple of other questions - turns out there really were only three doors in that room under the stage. But he said that all the kids were accounted for the whole time I was gone. None of them had left any other adult’s sight.
I’m going back to making props, no stagehand stuff, and I’m not going back into that opera house. At least, not until that medium gets better, anyway.