PRANK GONE WRONG

The following story was discovered in the diary of Peter David Taylor after his death:

There are some eerie dense woods near where I live that are rumoured to be haunted. If you walk far enough into them there is a small square stone structure known as ‘The Chamber’ - it resembles a jail cell or torture chamber. It is all stone, apart from a gap where the door used to be and a small barred window. There are two visible steps leading into it, and in the corner of the room is a deep well – full of rain water. The building is very creepy and always extremely cold.

As it was Halloween, my friends and I thought it would be fun to go to this structure in the middle of the night and tell ghost stories. My friends didn’t know the location of this building, but I’d told them how creepy it is and they wanted to experience it for themselves.

As a prank, I thought I would get there earlier in the day and decorate The Chamber to scare my mates. As I walked through the woods I had the distinct feeling I was being watched. I could feel goose bumps all over my body and my heart was thumping despite the fact that it broad daylight. I cautiously walked into The Chamber and to my relief it was empty – I think I was half expecting a serial killer to be lurking in there! I collected some stones from the wood, and placed them in circles around the floor of the room to look like a demonic ritual had taken place there. I then walked over to one of the walls, took out my house key, and scratched into the stone: “All who enter here on a full moon will unlock the spirit world and meet thy doom”. I had done my research and knew it would be a full moon that night. As I scratched in the final letter, an unseen force knocked the key out of my hand. It flew across to the other side of the room and landed in the deep murky water hole. My body froze with extreme fear – I was alone in the room. I regained my composure and then ran full speed out of The Chamber, out of the woods and straight home.

Later that night, my friends called round to my house and we ventured off towards the woods. I didn’t have the nerve to tell them about my earlier experience as they would not have believed me and probably have made fun of me for ever more. As we walked further into the woods, I could tell that everyone was on edge – the uncomfortable silence between us spoke volumes. The torch was switched off so our eyes could get accustomed to the darkness. Suddenly we saw The Chamber right ahead of us. In the light of the full moon it looked scarier than ever. When I asked which one of us was going to enter first, everyone responded with “Not Me”. Eventually Richard grabbed the torch and marched into the stone room. We followed.

Everyone was utterly creeped out by the stone circles – even me! It was working a treat. The torchlight then shone onto the area of the wall where I’d scratched the message. My message had vanished and another message had been scratched on:

PDT XIV V MCMXCVII

The first three letters were my initials followed by what looked like Roman Numerals. Also, the key that had dropped down the water hole earlier was now embedded in the stone next to the new message. I was now completely scared and I could feel the cold fear creeping through to my bones. I turned to my friends and said “We have to go right now”. They could obviously hear the genuine fear in my voice for they didn’t object and we took off back into the woods and headed home.

Back at my house, I tried to explain to my friends what happened and none of them believed me (not that I blame them).

I have since discovered that the Roman Numerals after my initials stood for:

14 5 1997

This has now become a date in time that I’m dreading.

Peter died of a heart attack on the 14^th of May 1997

Anon.

Nyack, USA