Look-Alike Haunting
Look-Alike Haunting
It was an eerie day in Silver Creek Bend, South Dakota, and a deadly night for a fellow named Jeremiah Shout. The 30-year-old coal miner was savagely murdered by his 25-year-old wife. They had been married for five years, and the insanity had caught up to his wife, Rebecca Shout. She stabbed the poor man 15 times with a kitchen knife and tried fleeing before getting caught by the local police department. After extensive questioning, it was determined that for the better of the town, she had to be locked away in the Winterwood Institution for the Mentally Insane.
She was locked in there for 25 years, and the entire length of her sentence, she swore strange things would happen. Eerie, creepy, unexplainable, and downright terrifying experiences, from her door shaking violently in the middle of the night to her food being flung into the air and ruined before she could grab it. She often received bodily harm from these experiences, but nothing that would be fatal. Eventually, with only 12 years left of her sentence, they scared her enough that she sadly took her own life to escape the horrors.
55 years later, a group of adventurers who call themselves the Soul Snatchers decide to explore the now-abandoned insane asylum. The group is made up of the group president, Shirley Smith; the tech genius and younger sister, Scarlet Smith; and Alejandro and Miguel, the two brave knuckleheads who joined for the money and stories and stayed for the crushes they’ve developed on the sisters.
The squad decided to explore the asylum due to locals claiming the building was extremely haunted. So one dark and stormy night, they headed into the dark and decrepit building.
As soon as they step foot into the main entrance hall, Miguel, who could sense feelings and the moods of the environment around him, speaks up and says, “Guys, this place holds some dark, dark energy, and all I can feel is hatred and grievances.” With no hesitation, everyone quickly spits out an agreement. To break the eerie silence, Alejandro jokes, “The front desk ladies must be on break,” getting a small chuckle out of Shirley, making him blush and smirk. Scarlet pulls out multiple tools and spreads all of them out in front of her. She debates what to use since she and her sister are the only two who know how to operate the harder tools.
The boys immediately take the proximity sensors, which emit a loud beeping sound and start flashing the small LED bulbs when they detect movement, and set them out and around the first room they would explore. Shirley grabs the EMF reader, another basic stepping stone in the ghost-hunting world. EMF stands for electromagnetic field, and the tool measures the electromagnetic waves a ghost or spirit puts out and lights up little lights correspondingly to the intensity and magnitude of the waves it detects. Scarlett then grabs a digital thermometer to detect if the room suddenly changes due to ghosts and spirits, which causes the room temperature to drop. Shirley and Scarlet quickly determine what else they would need. Swiftly, they chose the first room they would begin testing in: the cafeteria.
The cafeteria had been the meeting place for guards, doctors, and well-behaved patients to enjoy their food and socialize before continuing their day. The patients who absolutely couldn’t be in the presence of anyone but the doctors got their food taken directly to their rooms.
Shirley immediately feels that there is something else in the room with them. Pushing past the feeling, they begin asking the potential spirits if they were there, or if they could hear them.
“If there’s anyone else in the room with us, could you touch the black device in my hand or the lights in the doorways?” Before the words fully leave Shirley's mouth, the proximity sensor on the opposite side of the cafeteria flies as if it was harshly pushed or kicked. The group, all spooked and on edge, immediately stands up in case they need to run back to the main lobby.
Shirley continued asking questions. “If that was you who just did that, could you do something to tell us you’re here?” Anxiously, they all waited for something to happen. After a couple of minutes, Scarlett screams and whips around to look behind her. Miguel quickly runs over to check on Scarlett, who is now crying, to see if she is alright.
“Whoa, whoa, it’s ok. You’re alright. What happened?” Miguel asks, now hugging and holding the traumatized Scarlett.
“I don't know, it felt as if someone was strongly grabbing the back of my neck,” Scarlett declared, now feeling somewhat safer with Miguel comforting her and still recovering from the attack. Alejandro, typically laid-back and careless, is now in protection mode, standing next to Shirley and looking around quickly. Shirley ultimately determined this spirit was mad, and it wasn’t scared to show it.
BANG! The group whips around, hearing something crash behind them.
“The wind?” Alejandro jokingly asks. Shirley steps forward and pushes into the next hallway to explore further and to see if she can find the source of the loud noise. Suddenly, a sound ripped through the asylum. A scream that made everyone freeze where they stood.
Written By: Kaleb Dorale