More Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark

The Matron at the York Hostel

We got back in the late afternoon, the reddish orange glow of dusk coming early to the sky to the west. There were probably bushfires out there somewhere between us and the coast, the smoke making the sky burn. The building itself looked rather attractive in that light, the natural color of the stones enhanced to make the scene look like a postcard photo of itself. The sunset was awesome, I have a thing for watching the sun go down. Living on the west coast this was my first country sunset since I'd started really paying attention to them, and it was gorgeous. I really enjoyed that sunset.

The chill came on as the light faded, as it does away from the influence of the ocean. Space opened up above us, and cold air dumped itself down from above like hail. The stars came out as I finished my food, which I'd gotten from inside and brought back out, and I went inside to write up my times with everyone else for the first run we did. Mine wasn't the fastest of the guys but it was up there, which was good. I had this thing going where I'd just do well and shut up about it, didn't brag or boast, just put in the effort, got a result and went on with life. You're probably starting to tell I wasn't an ordinary little kid. I've always been bright and intuitive, and been aware of gut instincts and gone with them more often than not.

We were all sitting around at about 8:00pm, doing what felt rather a bit to much like homework to be considered fun, when one of the girls screamed "oh my god!" in a really sharp and high pitched voice. Everyone jumped and we all turned around to look at her. She was looking at the top of the stairs with her hands up over her mouth and her eyes bugging out of her head. She stood up and started for the doors at the front, took about six really fast steps, then turned back to face the teachers and just burst out crying. There was a really intense feeling over the whole group, like her fear had been infectious, and we'd all very quickly and silently worked out that whatever had frightened her had REALLY frightened her, and that whatever just happened to her was seriously wrong. So we were all looking at her and she stops crying and says "can we just go?" That broke the room. Guys were yelling "what? what happened?!", girls were starting to cry, the teachers are yelling at everyone to settle down. She never got a chance to tell us, because a door upstairs banged closed, and a second later, the same door banged closed again. It was like two gunshots from up there, and it got everyone's attention. Nobody could tear their eyes away from the top of the stairs. There was total silence. For about 10 seconds, nobody spoke. Then I heard a sob from upstairs, a human cry, very soft, just once, and I'm thinking "did I just imagine that?" and staring at the door. I look back and everyone's looking around at each other. Phil said "did anyone else..." and there was another sob, followed by what sounded like that stuttered inhalation you do when you're crying.

After that the crying kept coming. Mr Hilm started to say the Lords prayer, which totaly freaked me out. I'm having visions of the girl form The Exorcist in full possesed mode floating down those stairs, suddenly reason had flown out the window, and the crying was getting worse.

For about 25, 30 minutes, we all listened in mute terror to the crying from upstairs. It only went on for about 2 minutes as a sad, distant sound, then it grew in volume and....well the only word for it is ferocity, until it was a barely recognisable female voice screaming bloody murder. No words, and what was worst, gaps between the screams for inhalations of breath. It sounded like a psychopath upstairs getting fired up to come down and wreak horror on anyone stupid enough to still be inside when she came down. The door was padlocked from our side though, we could see the lock which was a very hefty looking brass lock with mountings screwed into the door and into the wall. For me, it was the only defence between us and whatever was upstairs. Nobody moved through this entire experience, not even the girl who had jumped out of her skin and ended up standing in the middle of the room. We all stayed rooted to the spot, lost in a very surreal personal space where there was no awareness of anything except this awful wailing and screaming. It was hypnotic, but if any hypnotist in history ever used this particular method, we'd be burning hypnotists at the stake even now. It was horrible, being so filled with terror that you couldn't move or speak, in a room full of other people in the same condition, and the sound you're thinking is just in your head, "it has to be in my head, it's got to stop soon, it has to stop soon, oh god why doesn't it stop!!!" just keeps on going for an eternity.