It’s turning to dusk now, and even though the sun is setting quickly in the west, I can see that the county trunk leading to my destination hasn’t changed much after all this time. The crooked trees overhanging this deathtrap of a road still drown out the sunlight; the rusted and forgotten remains of decades-old machinery and old furniture still litter the ditches. Where you would expect to hear birdcalls, rustling wind, or the occasional twig snapping beneath a deer’s hooves, there’s still silence. Driving out here, I’m filled with an insurmountable dread, as if some danger lurks right around the corner. In fact, if it weren’t for my automatic locks and windows, and for my blaring radio, this trip would be downright intolerable.
I’m on my way to the Castle, a hulking monstrosity of jagged sheet metal and wooden planks, planted in the middle of rural Amherst, Wisconsin by a family of cattle farmers in 1903. The original building had been a slaughterhouse, and the family had lived out of a cramped three-room cabin on the south side of the structure. They lived that way until they suddenly disappeared in 1931, leaving everything but their 1922 Cadillac Victoria behind. The closest neighbors in their day had lived nearly ten miles away, so the only sign of their disappearance was their absence at the Sunday market, where they usually sold their meat.
Years went by and no heir to the property could be found, so it sat and stagnated for over 50 years. In that time, the place developed quite a reputation, becoming a sort of “haunted house” in the area. The Castle lent itself to rumors. The creaking rafters, rusted cattle hooks and eerie silence were enough to convince most that the place was haunted, and many speculated that the original owners had been murdered, that they were in fact the ones haunting the old slaughterhouse. Others argued that there was a malevolent presence there long before people showed up, and that the family was simply driven away. Whatever really happened, one thing is for sure. Over the span of 50 years, the Castle became a hot spot for the local teenagers. Flock after flock would visit the slaughterhouse at night, or dare each other to try and spend a night there. Everybody wanted to catch a glimpse of the spirits roaming the grounds. Things went on this way up until 1982, when the property was finally seized by the state and put back on the market. At that time, it was purchased by my father, who had been completely unaware of the place’s lurid history. He recalls being baffled by the absence of bidders, considering the rock-bottom asking price for such a large parcel of land.
“I couldn’t understand it,” my father told me. “Acres and acres of perfectly good hunting and fishing land, and nobody wanted it.”
Although the Castle’s history was eventually revealed to my father, he refused to believe any of it. Even when the occasional teenager would sneak onto his property to try and see a ghost, he just shooed them away, blaming all the local hysteria on “old wife’s tales.” My father did not believe in ghosts, and he was certainly not worried about evoking their wrath when he decided to renovate the old slaughterhouse in 1984, the year after I was born. Within a year, my father and a few uncles had transformed the place, turning it into a deer cabin and storage shed the size of a small house. They had managed to salvage much of the material that had been used to build the original slaughterhouse, including the gigantic cattle-hanging hooks in the rear of the shed, but had also added some new things, including a brick chimney, garage doors and modern windows with insulation. The new building was a sight to behold, and when it was officially given its name in 1985, it was hardly recognizable.
Over the years, word spread that the property had been sold, and fewer teens showed up looking for ghosts. Instead of a haunted house, the place became a meeting ground for my family. In the summer months, the Castle played host to family reunions, blackberry picks and barbecues, which always ended with a bonfire. It was at these bonfires that I first learned to connect the Castle to paranormal activity. My uncle Danny was quite a storyteller, and with all the kids gathered around the fire, he would tell tales of strange things he saw and heard while staying alone overnight at the trailer. He would lean close to the fire, his elbows on his knees, and speak in a low voice, so that we had to get really close to hear the stories. He told us about the rattling noises and ragged breathing he often heard at night, about the shadows, blacker than the night, that crept along the walls when he woke. Danny always ended his stories the same way.
“There’s something bad in that cabin,” he would say, waving us in closer. “Whatever’s there, it’s always watching, waiting for you to fall asleep, waiting until it can sneak up on you and…”
At that point, Danny would scream or yell and scare the bejesus out of all of us. On more than one occasion, his jump stories would make one of the kids cry, and he would try to console everyone by telling them he was making it up. As I get closer and closer to the Castle myself, though, it’s very difficult to believe him. As I round the final curve on the old county trunk, the monstrosity comes into sight. It rises up before me like something out of a nightmare, just like it always does, but this time it’s getting dark, and unlike the last time I was here, I don’t have a friend with me. As I pull into the driveway, squashing grass that hasn’t been cut for weeks, I start to second-guess my choice to come here. What if my car dies? What if I get stuck out here, without my radio or automatic locks to save me? What then? But before I can answer myself, I realize that it’s too late to second-guess. I’m here. I pull up in the makeshift lot of the Castle, some 20 feet from its front entrance, and at that moment, I remember what happened here 17 years ago.
At that time, outside of hunting season, my father had been renting the Castle to people on weekends. Many of the people who paid came to see the “ghosts,” but my father insists to this day that they really came to “appreciate the land.” Whatever the case may be, business was booming until a certain day in 1987, when a group of 12 college students rented the cabin, leaving an awful mess behind themselves. When my father arrived the next morning to check them out, he found the place deserted, food, garbage and bottles strewn everywhere. Shattered table lamps, liquor-stained carpeting, and overturned furniture told the tale. Chairs had been flung from one end of the cabin to the other, dressers had been overturned, their contents dumped to the floor, and the place reeked of rum and whiskey. Thinking the students had intentionally trashed his place, my father was enraged. He traversed the entire cabin in a fury, assessing the damage, but when he reached the back staircase, that anger was replaced by shock and horror. From under the staircase reached a pale human hand, limp and caked in blood.
“I almost had a heart attack,” my father recalled. “The only way to get under the staircase is through a trap door in the rear bedroom, and I never told anybody about it.”
The hand belonged to a young man, unconscious at first, who came to when his lifeless arm was nudged by my father.
“He was as white as chalk, and kept trying to tell me something, but he was so jittery that he couldn’t make out the words.”
A sheriff arrived moments later thanks to my father, and the whole incident was blamed on drugs. The boy’s identity was never disclosed, and the student renters were never heard from again, but the memory of that day lives on. My father still doesn’t believe in ghosts, but he agrees that something strange happened that night, and doesn’t rule out the chance that the students were scared away.
Now I sit here, staring at the Castle through the windshield of my car, and even though I’m much older now, the bonfire stories and weekend rentals far behind me, I must admit that maturity has not lessened the Castle’s effect on my nerves. Even with my doors securely locked and my radio on in the background, I still feel a chill run down my spine; the feeling you get when something unseen is watching you. I feel like the Castle and these horrible, darkness-shrouded woods that surround it are watching me, waiting for me to get out of the car, or warning me to leave. But I’m not leaving.
I’ve been terrified of the Castle ever since I was a sophomore in high school. That year, on a cold March night, I led a bunch of my friends to the cabin for a night of partying. By that time, I had heard the ghost stories from my uncle, and I knew all about the student found under the back staircase, but I had never taken much stock in the lore. Besides, I had been at the Castle with a dozen of my friends. As far as I had been concerned, the ghosts could just bring it on.
Back in the present, I’m sick of being scared. I want to get over my fears, but this could be the hardest thing I ever do. The thoughts I’m entertaining are anything but comforting. With a deep breath, I cautiously turn down my radio and unbuckle my seatbelt. After a quick glance at the entrance to the Castle, I reluctantly turn off my car engine and grab a flashlight off my passenger seat. Gripping the light tightly in my right hand, I make my way up out of the car and to the building, my heart threatening to pound a hole through my chest.
The Castle sits between two grassy ridges, which rise up slightly on each side of it. The wide north end of the building is quite wide and tall, the "front yard" surrounded by dense thickets of underbrush and pine trees. If I wanted to, I could follow a ridge on either side of the Castle and make my way around to the back, where the original family’s cabin still stands, a horrid shell of decaying wood and steel, but that doesn’t sound like a good idea at the moment. The sun is quickly disappearing into the west, and the sky is darkening over the top of the Castle, casting shadows in all directions. I decide to make my way in through the front entrance instead.
There are really two parts to the Castle, the “shed” and the “cabin.” The cabin itself it surrounded by the shed, which is made up entirely of sheet metal. The shed is as sturdy as could be, but the way it creaks in the wind, you could swear it’s about to fall down any second. It opens up to the left like an arena-football stadium, and walking down this side of it would take you straight to the south side, where the original family’s three-room cabin still sits. Usually there are cars stored in the shed, but today they are noticeably absent. Farm equipment does still litter the storage area, though, and the huge particleboard sheet covering the tornado shelter is noticeable even from the entrance. On the right side, encased in the shed, is the cabin, which resembles a large mobile home from the outside. Several windows on its left side overlook the shed, and a staircase near the entrance leads onto a porch, which runs all along the underside of the cabin and extends a good 25 feet from its front end.
Beneath the porch, the skeletal remains of animals rot and decompose, left over from the years gone by. There were so many cattle bones on the ground and in it that when my father arrived, it became a joke that there were more bones than dirt here. Digging up all the bones would’ve taken years, so the cabin was build on supports instead. Now, criss-crossed slats cover the perimeter of the porch, shielding our precious eyes from the barbarity of the cabin’s history. Of course, this is a hunting cabin now, and animal bones still serve as decorations. The ever-present deer skulls, hanging by windows and perched on makeshift shelves, must seem like some grotesque trophy gallery to newcomers. To my family, however, it’s home.
Some home, I think to myself. This place is a nightmare, and the deer skulls have nothing to do with it. In March of 1999, when my friends and I arrived at the Castle with hopes of having a party, we didn’t expect uninvited guests, but they had other plans.
I had invited two dozen people to my party. Only half the friends on my list were able to come, but we made up for those who couldn’t with “friends of friends.”
None of my friends knew where the Castle was or how to get there, so we met up in a parking lot on the outskirts of town. When everyone had arrived, our parade took off on the 15-mile journey to Amherst and, ultimately, the Castle. On the way there, all I could think about was my recent breakup with a girlfriend I had grown to hate intensely. I was ready to bust loose on that night, to put the past behind me. The drive to the Castle was fairly uneventful, and when we arrived the monstrosity did not take on the eerie, foreboding atmosphere it usually did. Everything actually seemed…normal. We unpacked our cars and I unlocked the front door of the cabin. Once we were all inside, I briefed everyone on the rules.
“This isn’t my cabin,” I told everybody. “If you find alcohol in here, leave it alone.” My father and his hunting buddies often left 6-packs of beer or bottles of hard liquor at the cabin. After a long night of hunting, they liked to relax. So alcohol was off limits unless my friends had brought the drinks themselves. We also locked all the doors to prevent people from wandering off and hurting themselves out here. In the middle of nowhere, 25 miles from the nearest hospital, we didn’t need anybody killing themselves.
“And don’t lock any of the inside doors,” I said. “If something happens to any of you, we won’t be able to help you.”
Inside the cabin, there are two actual bedrooms, along with a third room that’s been turned into one, complete with a foldout couch and TV. The real bedrooms are on opposite sides of the cabin, and both have their own lockable doors. These are what I was worried about.
The cabin is essentially divided into two halves. Coming in through the front door on the porch, the left half looks mostly like a hallway. There are the windows overlooking the shed on the left, as well as a couch and collages of hunting pictures hanging on the wall. On the right, there’s a window-like opening offering a view into the other half, decorated with curtains. The stove is also in the left hallway, a monstrous black wood-burning machine. Up ahead, a door leads into the room converted into a bedroom, and further yet is a small porch with doors leading to the deer hooks and to a “cleaning room.”
On the other half of the cabin, there is first a bedroom on the right, decent in size, with a large bed and walk-in closet. Then there’s a living room, with another bed positioned in a corner in case the place got awfully crowded on hunting weekends. Dressers, reclining chairs, a TV and a couch are neatly arranged, all facing to the east side of the Castle. Windows on the right side of this half allow guests to see the overgrown yard to the east, but not directly. On the outside of these windows, there’s a small crawl space, the result of putting the cabin inside the shed. And the shed has its own windows looking outside.
Further down, there’s a small kitchen, with an ancient refrigerator, a stove, and a table, usually covered in half-empty liquor bottles. Then there’s a horrid, cramped bathroom. The sink in it doesn’t work, and when it does the water is saturated with so much iron that it comes out brown or red. The shower is yellowed and coated in mildew, and the mirror is cracked, its hinges creaking whenever someone opens the medicine cabinet. Trying to have a party in March in this area means the pipes are frozen, and there’s no running water, so never mind the sink. The shower and toilet don’t work either.
Lastly, there is a bedroom on the far end of the trailer. This is the room with the trap door in it, leading to the underside of the trailer, where the college student was found hiding so many years ago. A layer of red carpet conceals the door, but the carpet has never been tacked down in its corner just in case somebody needs to use the door for an emergency exit. This bedroom is the same size as the other one, but has no closet. Instead, it has a billion cabinets, and looks as if was originally some sort of pantry.
We made our way into this cabin of ours without a care in the world, except maybe to get drunk, and I’m sure some of my friends were hoping to test out some birth control methods that night. It should’ve been a fun time.
It only took 15 minutes for the situation to turn sour, however. By the time I had set up our music system, put in some pizzas and popcorn, and attempted to start the furnace, a “friend of a friend” had stolen two dozen bottles of beer from the refrigerator and had handed them out to others, saying they were his. Before I knew it, my friends were drunk off my father’s beer, and were running into things and falling down. Things went on like this for a while until my friend Chris noticed something moving outside the windows on the east side of the cabin.
A pile of people gathered near the window to see what the fuss was about, and maybe it was the alcohol talking, but Chris swore he saw something. I was still trying to get control of the alcohol situation, so I wasn’t near the window. After interrogating the guy who stole the beer and making him pay for it, I headed to the window. Just then, everybody around it freaked out, running in all directions. A few ran to the front door and tried desperately to get it open, to no avail. Some ran into the bedrooms and locked the doors. Damn it, I thought, I told them not to lock the doors. The few who couldn’t find hiding places went to the kitchen, where there were no windows.
They told me there was somebody outside with a knife. I didn’t believe them. After all, we were in the middle of nowhere. I wanted to check it out, though, so I headed over the window and pressed my face up against it, trying to see through the dust and dirt smeared on it. Then I saw it. A black shape flitted across the yard outside, just inside my peripheral vision. I thought I was seeing things until it appeared again, this time inside the shed walls, in the crawl space between the cabin and the jagged sheet metal walls. Now it stood still and I got a look at it – humanlike in shape but too dark to make out any features. Its outline was vague against the night sky and the darkness of the crawl space. Then it was gone – ducked down into whatever hole it came from.
At this point, everyone was screaming at me, asking me what it was and where it went. I told everybody not to worry and that all the doors were locked. Just then, somebody pointed the front door out to me, where some idiot had flung it open and ran to their car, drunk, trying to get away. I ran over to the porch door and started to shut it. Just then, a crash from the back porch turned everybody around in an instant. One of the deer-hanging hooks in back had flung itself against the interior wall of the shed, damn near knocking the place over. And then a knocking came from the inside of the locked bedroom, in the rear of the Castle, but not from the normal door. It was coming from the trap door. Before I knew it, the people who had locked themselves inside that room, including Chris, were screaming so loud we couldn’t hear the music in the background anymore. The door was eventually locked and everybody inside rushed out, claiming something had tried to push its way inside the bedroom through the trap door.
“You’re crazy,” I told everybody. “The only way to get under that porch is through that door. Somebody’s messing with us.” Like father, like son.
They dared me to go look, so I had no choice. I peered into the bedroom, and saw everything how it had been when I arrived. After the other partygoers saw this, they started to calm down.
Within half an hour, things had calmed down, but a lot of the people had taken off, including someone who had brought an SUV packed with 8 people – they left with 3. This meant we didn’t have enough cars to take everybody home.
Despite this setback, things went fine for most of the night, until midnight rolled around. Just about then, everything got paranormal again. Soon people were seeing shapes around all the sides of the Castle, walls were shaking, and the deer hooks in the back had taken on a life of their own. The back bedroom door had shut and locked itself shut somehow, and a pale blue light came from under it, even though the only lamps in the room were white. At about that time, we all decided to pack up and get out of there. We ended up leaving everything we brought there, figuring we would pick it up the next day, when it was light outside.
So we headed out – but we had to leave some people behind. There just weren’t enough cars. I’ve never seen people so scared in my life, as the people who got left behind were. Only five had to stay behind, and they looked ready to jump in our trunks if they could just get out of there. We ended up leaving them behind, however, and came back at about 5 AM to pick them up. We found the place deserted, with furniture overturned and doors flung open all over the place. The three friends who had come back with me, after 20 minutes of searching, could not find signs that anyone was still there. Then we heard knocking coming from the back bedroom. We hesitated before going in it, but once we did, saw that the carpet was pulled up in the trap door corner. And that’s where the knocking was coming from. We called out and none other than Chris answered. We flung the door open and out he came, pale as a ghost and hyperventilating. Later, he would tell us that the shapes returned, and that they backed him into the bedroom. He locked himself under the porch to save himself, and laid amidst the rotting cattle bones and blood-soaked soil for hours waiting for our return. He never knew what happened to any of the other guests. Most of them were “friends of friends,” and we never heard from them again.
Sometimes it’s funny how history repeats itself. But I’m not really laughing right now. I’m at the Castle for real now, and it’s dark. No more dusk, not even twilight. It’s pitch black out here, and I’m standing in the living room, the place where we saw the shapes outside in the yard that cold March night. On this night, however, there are no shapes. There are no rattling deer hooks or terrified friends. It’s just my imagination, my car, and me.
I ended up staying at the Castle for 40 minutes, checking everything out and trying to prove to myself that our “shapes” and “noises” were just our imaginations all those years ago. My search turned up nothing, and I exited the Castle, happy that I had overcome my fears. Then a twig snapped to the left of me, and I’ve never started a car that fast since. The rubber from my tires is still glued to that county trunk leading there. I guess we can convince our minds that we’re not scared, but our bodies don’t always listen. In any case, I think I’ll overcome my fears of the Castle in the daylight next time.
Submitted November 04, 2017 at 11:09AM by craiggroshek http://ift.tt/2xZPPkG nosleep
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