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4 ABANDONED PLACES Horror Stories Animated · Martin Animations

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: I'm a 20-year-old woman, and this event occurred four years ago,
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: when I was around 16. It was during the summer
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: between my sophomore and junior years of high school. I've
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: encountered several unsettling situations living in West Virginia, but this
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: remains one of the most disturbing. I'll recount the events
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: as accurately as I can. This happened in Cherry River,
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: just before it flows into Nicholas County. My friend and
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: I drove separately. and met at a pull-off along the
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: main road to do some fishing. Next to the pull-off
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: was a place called State Road Garage. It was enclosed
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: by a fence that required a key for entry. At
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: the time, I didn't know its purpose, but later research
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: revealed that it belongs to the West Virginia Department of Transportation.
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: To the left of the building is a short trail
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: that led down to the river. That evening, the garage
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: appeared to be deserted, with no cars or workers in sight.
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: The only vehicle we noticed was a weathered pickup truck,
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: possibly an old Silverado with a camper shell on the back.
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: I can vividly recall the three deadbolt locks securing the
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: camper shell to the frame, and two very unsettling individuals
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: sitting in the front. The truck was parked far into
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: the trail's entrance, on rough terrain, while we parked by
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: the main road. We didn't want to risk getting stuck.
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: This immediately put me on edge. As I have been
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: watching true crime and scary stories on YouTube since I
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: was 11, this scene felt like the opening of a
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: horror story. From what I recall, the drug's occupants were
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: a disheveled blonde woman who appeared worn down and possibly
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: missing teeth, and a greasy, long-haired man in a wife beater.
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: Crackheads are never able to hide their addiction that well.
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: As we passed their truck on the way to the river,
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: they locked eyes with us. staring intently. My friend seemed
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: less concerned than I was. I tend to be a
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: bit paranoid naturally. Strange characters are common to our area.
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: Most of them are harmless, but I never let my
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: guard down. My friend mentioned that she should call her boyfriend,
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: who lived 20 minutes away, if anything happened, though I
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: wasn't sure how that would help in the moment. We
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: began fishing, and my friend caught a rock bass Not
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: long after, we heard footsteps and looked up to see
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: the woman from the truck approaching the riverbank. She looked rough.
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: She may have been an attractive woman once upon a time,
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: but the prolonged drug use had taken its toll. Her
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: teeth were severely damaged, giving her jaw that sunken appearance,
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: and her skin resembled a crumpled up paper bag. She
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: was holding a red Kodak camera. When she got to
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: the riverbank, she asked, Can you tell me your first
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: and last name and ages? She then told us that
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: she was taking photos for a newspaper. My alarm bells
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: were going off big time. My friend and I had
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: made plenty of poor decisions in our teens, but I
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: was always weary of strangers, especially in this context. But
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: I panicked, and gave my first name, but lied about
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: my age. subtracting just one year, a pointless fib that
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: wouldn't have mattered if our details were being collected. I
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: didn't give my last name, and I can't recall what
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: my friend said. The woman then asked, Can I take
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: your picture? Despite my unease, I was a people pleaser,
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: and reluctantly agreed. She snapped our photo, and started back
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: toward her truck, tripping on the rocks as she went.
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: My friend and I stifled giggles at the odd encounter.
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: A short time later, my friend's fishing line broke, and
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: we headed back to our cars. To my frustration, halfway
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: back she told me that she had forgotten her tackle
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: box by the river. Every instinct screamed not to go back,
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: but I knew it wasn't a good idea for her
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: to go back alone, so I reluctantly followed her back
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: down to the riverbank. On our way back, we encountered
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: the man from the truck. He reeked like he had
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: been bathing in a shit bath. Have y'all seen my girlfriend?
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: This question was odd. They had been together in the
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: truck before the woman approached us. This felt like a setup,
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: straight out of a human trafficking scenario. Alarmed, we told him, Yeah,
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: she went that way, pointing in the opposite direction of
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: our fishing spot. He nodded and wandered off. I urged
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: my friend to leave, baffled by her insistence that everything
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: was fine. I was on high alert, half expecting the
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: couple to charge at us with weapons. I scanned the area,
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: noting that the rocks along the river could be used
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: as potential defense and planning escape routes. The silence that
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: set in was eerie. Maybe they left, or maybe they
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: were waiting. About ten minutes later, A blood-chilling scream echoed
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: from upriver. It sounded like the woman from the truck. Terrified,
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: we bolted into the forest, away from the river, and
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: through the dense thicket. There was no trail, just a
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: patch of trees parallel to the main path. The scream
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: seemed to come from near the trail's entrance, so we
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: couldn't risk heading that way. We came out of the
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: tree line along the main road, downstream from our cars,
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: and we sprinted to them. We tossed our tangled up
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: fishing gear inside and locked our doors. As we caught
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: our breath, we see the couple rushing back to their truck.
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: I was honestly surprised to see that the woman was
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: still alive. They glared at us before hopping into their
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: truck and speeding off. My friend and I sat there
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: and tried to process the whole ordeal. watching the road
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: in shock. Minutes later, the old Silverado flew past us again,
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: heading in the opposite direction. The woman was leaning out
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: of the passenger window with her camera, and she snapped
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: another picture of us. My friend pulled out behind them,
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: and so did I, and we followed her. My friend
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: recorded herself reciting the license plate number to remember it.
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: The truck veered into back roads, and eventually lost us.
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: We drove to my grandmother's house nearby and told her everything.
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: She agreed that we should call the police. An officer
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: eventually came and took our statements, but I worried he
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: didn't take us seriously. He said he would run the
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: license plate, but we never heard back. I've always wondered
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: who those people were and what they had planned. Somewhere,
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: there may be some photos of my friend and I
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: awkwardly holding our fishing poles possibly labeled with our names
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: and ages, pinned to a corkboard in a dark room.
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: It was about a year after this happened that the
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: Donald Ray Lands and the Gene K. Whitefeather case became
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: headline news around here. They were a couple who adopted
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: five black children from a Minnesota shelter and forced them
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: into labor as slaves on their property. The couple that
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: we encountered were not them, but it does make me
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: wonder what could have happened to us that day. The
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: woman screaming could have been a ruse to get us
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: somewhere so they could force us into the back of
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: that Silverado. Our parents might have never known our fate,
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: which still bothers me to think about. I've searched local
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: news websites and online articles, but I've found nothing about
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: the couple we encountered that day. I still go fishing often,
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: but I've never returned to that spot. A few years ago,
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: During what was likely the darkest chapter of my life,
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: I worked overnight shifts at a Walmart supercenter in rural
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: West Virginia. Six nights a week, from 9pm to 7am.
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: I stocked everything from fishing lures to makeup. It was
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: soul-crushing work. A fluorescent lit void where apathy died. Let's
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: be real, Walmart already has a creepy undercurrent to it.
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: But this 24-hour outpost amplified it. In the dead of night,
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: it drew a parade of locals, meth heads and opioid zombies,
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: wandering the aisles, scavenging for forgotten deals. No security guards patrolled,
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: and I would later learn that most of the cameras,
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: especially those in the parking lot, had been glitchy for months,
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: if not years. As one of the few young women
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: who worked on the overnight crew, I attracted plenty of
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: unwanted attention. but the standout was this guy who materialized
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: every time I stepped out for a smoke break, no
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: matter the hour, 2am, 4am, 6am. He would round the
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: corner within seconds, launching into chatter like we had planned
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: it or something. It really didn't matter which of the
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: entrances I used, he was always there. At first I
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: figured that he was an employee, who also would be
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: hanging around a dingy box store in the witching hours.
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: Most of us smoked during our two 15-minute breaks, so
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: the coincidence seemed plausible. But this wasn't the case. He
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: didn't work there. He would just mimic the overnight uniform
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: by wearing dark blue t-shirts. I quit going out alone,
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: sticking to breaks with guy friends from the crew. including
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: one that I had known since middle school. But even
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: that didn't faze him, and it turned into an inside
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: joke across the store. I was unsettled but not panicked
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: until my stalker ramped things up. He'd grill me about
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: my relationship status and would ask me about it every
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: chance he got, I was deep into GTA V then,
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: so I spun a yarn about my terrifying long-distance boyfriend
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: Trevor from Northern California. Hey, it fit the vibe. But
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: he just shrugged it off. Eventually I dropped the niceties
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: and started ghosting him mid-sentence. One night my go-to guy
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: friend had called out sick and the others were tied
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: up across the store. I headed out with two older
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: women from my crew. They finished quickly and went inside.
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: I lingered for a final drag, and just as I
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: turned to follow, he popped up. Looking back, it wouldn't
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: be crazy to assume that he was in a car,
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: scoping out the entrances with a pair of binoculars. He
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: grabbed my hand, not a vice grip, but firm enough.
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: Come to my car real quick. I'm going to show
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: you something. I'm not hot-tempered by nature, but my rage
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: boiled over. I yanked free and bolted inside. my heart
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: pounding in my chest. I stormed to the head manager
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: and spilled it all. It turns out my stalker had
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: a cousin on the unloading crew in the back, which
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: was his excuse for loitering. The cousin was mortified, swearing
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: that he'd handle it. But management? Fucking useless. No warning,
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: no banishment, just shrugs and says, eh, not our problem.
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: I quit soon after, Not over the stalking directly, more
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: so the brass's incompetence. A friend of mine later clued
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: me in. The guy kept lurking around nightly, shifting his
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: creep routine to another woman. He hounded folks for weeks
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: after I left, desperate for my name and address. Then
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: one day, he disappeared. To this day, I still fixate
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: on those busted out parking lot cameras. and wonder if
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: on one of those endless, exhausting nights, would anyone have
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: noticed if I had just vanished? I'm 32 now, and
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: this happened over a decade ago, but it still keeps
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: me awake at night. It was late 2011. I was
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: fresh out of high school, scraping by as a busboy
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: at a small diner in Washington, D.C., before college kicked
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: in that January. My buddy Alex, who I've been tight
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: with since middle school, and myself decided to shake off
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: the city grind with a weekend getaway. Some friends of
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: ours had rented a cabin in the backwoods of West Virginia,
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: tucked in the hollers near Summersville Lake, about a three-hour
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: drive from the Beltway. It was supposed to be bonfires, brews,
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: and fishing. Sounded like a good time. We piled into
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: my 1990 Honda Accord. It looked like a piece of shit.
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: but it ran perfectly. It had a collection of CDs
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: I'd spin on long drives. I was really into Dark
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: Throne back then. The drive started easy, the beltway crawl
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: into I-66, then west through the Shenandoah haze. But as
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: the sun began to set around 6pm, we missed a
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: turn at a sketchy, unmarked fork, and ended up going
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: down the wrong way. Yes, we made a wrong turn
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: in West Virginia. The irony is not lost on me.
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: The GPS was no help. I figured we were in
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: some kind of dead zone. Neither of our phones were
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: cooperating either. Ah, screw it. Let's just see what's at
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: the end of the road, Alex said. As we snaked
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: deeper into the forest, the pavement gave way to gravel
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: that crunched like teeth under our tires. The sky darkened,
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: and the headlights became the only sources of light. There
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: were no streetlights, no houses. just endless pine trees bordering
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: the road. Then, the road pinched into a single lane,
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: flanked by a barbed wire fence. A faded signpost was
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: lit up by the beams. Private property. Trespassers will be prosecuted.
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: Slow down. This might be it. I hope you're right.
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: Having a double-barrel shotgun go up my ass is not
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: on the bucket list. We rounded the bend and came
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: to a clearing. There was a faint porch lamp on
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: a run-down cabin that looked like it had been gnawed
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: by termites. Clotheslines stretched between crooked poles. One of the
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: lines appeared to have several carcasses dangling from it. At first,
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: I thought it was a hunter's hull, but as we
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: crept closer, the beams swept over the hanging bodies, and
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: my breath caught on my throat. I'll admit that I'm
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: not used to seeing skinned and gutted deer torsos, but
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: there was something about the body at the end of
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: the line that broke me. It seemed different from the others, human-like,
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: or at least it used to be, before someone hacked
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: off the arms and opened up the chest. I knew
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: this was completely fucked when I felt bile rising in
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: my throat. I had to look away and regain my senses.
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: I don't recall seeing a head, by the way.' Holy shit!
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: Is that a person?' Alex whispered. I didn't say a word.
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: I quickly put the car into reverse and slammed down
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: on the gas pedal, backing away from the clotheslines. I
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: had to make a three-point turn to get out of
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: there because there was no way I was going back
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: down that narrow dirt road in reverse. However, in my panic,
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: I didn't pay attention and the back of my car
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: crashed into a couple of drum barrels. Shit! What was that?
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: I don't care We're getting out of here. When I
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: put the car back into drive and sped toward the
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: dirt road, I swear I saw a figure standing next
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: to his shed about 15 yards away from us. I
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: only saw it for a brief second because we were
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: hauling ass out of there. Alex was so freaked out,
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: he started babbling nonsense while I white-knuckled the wheel, my
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: vision tunneling. Whoever was standing next to the shed didn't
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: chase us, I was expecting an arrow in the tires,
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: with the headlights of a pickup truck closing in behind us.
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: If we actually saw a dismembered body hanging from a line,
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: I doubt whoever did that would want us talking to
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: the police. We barreled back the way we came from,
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: and made our way out to the highway. As soon
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: as a bar signal flickered on my phone, we pulled
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: over to the side of the road. My hands were
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: shaking as I dialed 911. After I relayed what happened,
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: A police cruiser slowly rolled up behind us a short
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: time later. If you were passing by on the highway,
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: you would have thought we had been pulled over. We
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: explained everything. I remember being embarrassed about my voice cracking.
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: They listened to our story with blank faces and exchanged
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: a skeptical look. The older officer spoke up. Sounds like
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: you boys stumbled onto old man Hargrove's spread. He's a hunter.
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: Been at it for 40 years. And that body was
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: probably a gutted buck. There's been no reports of missing
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: folk around here. I know about it. The shadows played
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: tricks in the hollers. Or maybe y'all just been hitting
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: the sauce. I insisted that the disemboweled body I saw
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: looked human. But the officers laughed it off. Look, y'all
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: just got a bit turned around is all. Stay on
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: Route 19 next time. He then gave us a patronizing
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: warning about trespassing fines and told us to be safe.
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: We drove the rest of the way in silence. There
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: were no follow-ups. On the flip side, we ended up
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: having a great time at the cabin and even used
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: our experience to entertain the rest of the group when
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: it came time to sit around the fire and tell
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: ghost stories. Despite what you may have heard about West Virginia,
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: it really is a scenic sanctuary. Looking back all these
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: years later, I stand by what I saw, and so
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: does Alex. I have seen more pictures of hanging animal
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: remains than I care to admit, and I'm telling you,
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: we saw the body of someone who met a gruesome fate.
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: I don't know who it was, but what we saw
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: that night was the conclusion to one of the many
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: missing person cases in rural West Virginia. When I was
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: around 17, the year was 2017. Urbex had become pretty
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: popular on YouTube, and living in a small town in Minnesota,
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: there was no shortage of abandoned places to explore if
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: you knew where to look, so I decided to hop
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: on the trend. There was a three-story mansion just outside
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: of Asante, about 50 miles north of Minneapolis, that had
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: been abandoned for around 20 years. The mansion itself was
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: literally in the middle of nowhere. There were several rumors
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: about what happened at that place, from an entire family
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: being murdered by an escaped psychopath, to some kind of
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: deformed man living there. The true story is much less exciting.
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: The owner was in major debt, went broke, and his
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: house was eventually repossessed by the bank. They tried to
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: turn it into a rental property, but a severe mold
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: infestation prevented that. Ever since, it just sat, empty, and
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: rotting away. I talked to my group of friends about
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: exploring the place for a possible YouTube video. We would
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: make a quick walkthrough with just me and another friend, David,
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: to check things out before bringing the entire gang along
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: with the camera gear. One Saturday night, around 11pm, David
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: and I parked on a back road about a quarter
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: mile away from the destination. We really didn't want to
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: get caught. The police around here are pretty bored most
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: of the time. and would have jumped at the chance
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: to arrest a couple of teenagers for trespassing. The house
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: sat on a three-acre property, mostly surrounded by forest. We
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: hiked through the trees, making sure we kept our flashlight
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: used to a minimum, until we came upon the old house.
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: Our original plan was to go through the back door,
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: but it was locked, so we decided to go around
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: to the front of the house and try our luck there.
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: We entered a porch area that appeared to have been
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: screened in at some point, but was now just metal
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: frames with shreds of mesh hanging from them. There was
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: also an assortment of old furniture, lawn chairs, and wooden crates.
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: After looking around for a bit and snapping some photos,
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: we approached a pair of double doors, only to see
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: that they were chained shut. Most of the windows we
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: saw were either boarded up were completely smashed out. We
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: wanted to avoid entering through a broken window if we could,
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: but it looked like we would have no choice. So
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: we found an opening on the ground level, on the
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: other side of the house. As we approached, I got
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: this strange feeling like something terrible was about to happen.
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: I knew the rumors of what took place here were
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: just made-up stories, but standing outside the dark abandoned mansion
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: in the dead of night, was enough to make even
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: a skeptic like me second guess himself. And just because
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: those stories never happened didn't mean nothing ever bad happened here.
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: I'll admit that my apprehension did involve some concern about
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: spooky ghosts. I grabbed David's shoulder and stopped him from
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: going any further. What's the problem? I thought I heard something.
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: Just listen. In truth, I hadn't heard anything. I just
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: wanted him to stop walking, so we could both listen
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: before entering the old house. We were approaching the open
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: window from an angle, so we couldn't see directly into it.
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: But it's a good thing we stopped when we did,
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: because what we heard next was far scarier than what
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: I had initially been concerned about. The pump of a
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: shotgun is a sound that immediately grabs your attention. and
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: that's exactly what we heard coming from the open window.
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: As soon as we heard it, David and I hauled
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: ass in the opposite direction, running back toward the front
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: porch and making our way around the other side of
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: the house, the way we had come from. As soon
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: as we made it back to the tree line, we
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: heard a gunshot coming from the mansion. I'm not 100%
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: sure if someone was firing at us, because the blast
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: did sound like it came from somewhere inside the mansion,
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: but we weren't sticking around to find out. We backtracked
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: to the car and got the hell out of there.
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: Needless to say, we never ended up filming an urbex
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: video there. I'm not sure what was taking place inside
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: that old mansion the night we went there, but someone
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: was inside that house with a loaded shotgun. It could
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: have been just some vandal putting in some target practice.
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: But something tells me they were waiting for us to
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: come within the direct line of sight of that open window.
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: Shotgun aimed. I don't know that for sure. They could
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: have just stayed quiet and we would have kept going
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: toward the window. But for whatever reason, they decided to
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: pump their shotgun, alerting us to their presence. I suppose
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: if they really wanted us dead, I wouldn't be here now.
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: telling this story. This event effectively ended my urbex aspirations.
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: We never returned to Shotgun Manor. But as far as
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: I'm aware, it still sits there to this day, silent,
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: but empty. I couldn't tell you.