When I was in high school, my friends and I loved looking for abandoned buildings. We went all over town, finding places that were frozen in time. Our love for the forgotten past came from a school trip we took in elementary school to a local park. This was the only public wooded area in my hometown, and it had a reputation for mystery and curiosity. In the center of the park was the “The Mansion,” which was actually just a typical two-story house with a basement. Still, it was a hidden gem surrounded by picturesque woodland to a third-grader.

As the years went on, we frequently visited the mansion for typical teenage delinquency, drinking, graffiti, and breaking things. The walls were full of spray-painted quotes, curse words, and full-on murals. Most of them were painted over by someone else at least once except for one phrase over the stair door to the basement; “stairway to hell”. The basement door was the only door to withstand the rage of drunken teenage destruction and for a good reason. It was rumored that anyone who stepped foot in the basement would never come up the stairs the same.

On the first weekend of October of my junior year, my friends and I caught wind of a party at the mansion that some seniors were throwing. One of the seniors was a friend of mine from my elementary years, Casey, always cheerful and friendly. My friends and I couldn’t make it to the party, but I am thankful for whatever inconvenience had stopped us. When we got to school that Monday, the rumors were flying that Casey had gone into the basement, and no one had heard from her since that night. On Wednesday, Casey finally came back to school and was bombarded with questions from people too scared to go in the basement themselves. What was it like? Is there really a skeleton down there? Did you lose your mind like they say? Casey, who was never shy for attention, simply told everyone to “F*ck off” and leave her alone. In the following weeks, Casey started doing hard drugs, withdrawing from her friends and family, quitting the dance team, and rarely showing up to her classes.

We continued to party and hang out at the mansion even though most seniors had decided to find somewhere else to be delinquents. One night like any other, I was walking around taking photos of the graffiti and the disheveled house while most everyone else was drinking in the kitchen. I caught pieces of an argument and a girl saying, “No I’m not going down there. Not after Casey.” I ran down the rickety stairs to find the basement door open and a group of guys egging on a girl to go down into the basement. I had never seen the door open, and I finally knew why. Along the walls of the stairwell, there were scribbles and phrases. I’ll never forget the two phrases “she just wants rest” and “at least I’m still alive.” As I got closer to the door, I fully understood the fight or flight response. Every fiber in my body was screaming at me to run away and never look back, but my inner monologue was interrupted by the sound of someone descending the stairs.

One of the guys had had his fill of being called a chicken and had decided to go into the basement. The big tough guy linebacker made it halfway down the stairs and let out the loudest scream I’d ever heard. He came running up the stairs, swearing he saw a pair of eyes looking at him. After he made his way to the kitchen, we heard another scream from upstairs. Two girls came barreling into the kitchen, one of them crying hysterically saying something grabbed her arm upstairs. All of us were gathered in the kitchen trying to rationalize what happened when another group of kids came into the house and said, “I didn’t know the electric still worked in here!”. Everyone who had frequented the mansion knew to bring a flashlight because there was definitely no available electricity. We all stood in silence, and someone finally asked what he meant by the electricity working. He said he saw the light on in one of the upstairs rooms as they were walking up to the house. Someone had the good sense to slam the basement door shut, and everyone made a dash for the exit. Confused, the late group asked where we were going, and we told them to get the hell out of the house with us. This was the absolute last time my friends and I went to the mansion.

Years later, on break from college, I decided to go back to the mansion just to relive some memories, only to find that it had been torn down. A plaque was left to commemorate the mansion on what was left of the above-ground portion of the stone foundation. The plaque let us know that the basement was intact but no longer accessible. When I walked around the gravel-filled area, I found myself avoiding the area that would have been the stairs to the basement. I could still feel the fear that would build up when I used to walk past the door and the urge to run as far as I could from it. Whatever it was that they thought they sealed in that basement is still just as angry and cruel as it was when there was a whole house above it.