I’m going to start this by telling you about myself. My name is Nic, I'm a 22 year old guy and for the first 18 years of my life I lived in the same small mountain town in California and had the same 2 best friends that we'll call J and G. I left my hometown to join the army when I was 18. Before I left my friends and I decided to have one last summer of adventures. At first everything was going well, we had gone to the beach, the Colorado river, and spent as much of our time as we could just fucking around. Part of fucking around for us was always trying to scare each other and dare each other to do things that are supposed to be scary. For example we explored an abandoned asylum in the middle of the night, and explored an abandoned hospital too (those are stories for another time). The worst, most stupid choice we made that summer however was trying to investigate the one urban legend of our home town and prove it fake. The legend says that a little ways north out of town there's an abandoned temple that used to belong to a cult. Depending on who tells it the cult was all arrested or the all died in a fire or a group suicide, or something like that. Another one that I really never believed was that the cult never left and was still there. That one also included that the cult would take cats from nearby houses, sacrifice them and then hang their dead bodies from the trees on the property. My two friends and I were hanging out at J's house one night about 2 weeks before I was supposed to leave for the army and I say to them Me- "Hey, you guys want to go check out that abandoned temple on the back side of the mountain tonight?" J- "Nah man, you crazy? You've heard the stories we could be killed by the cult" G- "There's no cult there anymore. I heard they all died in a drink the punch type suicide" Me- "You guys sound like you're just scared." (I said that exactly how I did because I knew it was the best way to get them to do anything like this) Now the real story behind the temple (which we looked up after this adventure) is that some rich guy who had a weird obsession with the taj mahal bought fifty something acres out in the forest and paid a building company to make a smaller version of it. He then moved his family onto the property and they lived there till they had to evacuate because of a wildfire and just never came back. But, with just that little prodding and provoking they both agreed to humor me. We decided to go that night without telling our parents where we were going because they would have said it was stupid and dangerous and technically illegal, so we just told them we were gonna go camp out in the woods behind the old school. A couple hours later we packed up our backpacks with flashlights, water, rudimentary first aid stuff, radios, and most importantly beers we had “borrowed” from J’s dad. It got to be about 6 in the evening when we were done getting all our stuff packed in my truck and we strapped our sheathed hunting knives to our belts which we always brought when we were camping or exploring because we were too young to carry guns legally and there are some pretty scary animals out at night in the woods around our small mountain town. With everything packed and ready to go we piled into the truck and started the 45 minute drive down some fire roads and dirt trails. The drive there was pretty uneventful, we listened to some classic rock and traded stories about friends of friends and people we supposedly knew who had seen the inside of the temple or had been chased off the property by ghosts or whatever we could think of to scare each other. When we finally got close we were already kinda nervous but there was absolutely no way that we were backing out now. We decided to park up and a little ways off the road so in case a sheriff or someone else we didn't want to deal with saw came by, they wouldn't see the truck. Once we were parked and confident enough that our truck wouldn’t be seen we started the walk towards the temple. While we were walking off in the distance we heard a scream that sounded like a little girl was being murdered. Having grown up in the mountains though we just assumed that it was a mountain lion making a call because that's just about what it sounds like. Me- “Did you guys hear that?” J- “ Yeah, but it's probably just a lion” G- “ Its still fuckin’ creepy.” After about 10 minutes of walking in silence we came up on a fence that we assumed was at the property line of the temple. The fence was one of those wooden privacy fences that houses in suburbs usually have which threw us for a loop because those were so impractical on the mountain with all the hills and differences in elevation. Another thing I thought was weird was that it was in perfect condition which made no sense if this place had been abandoned for years. I assume the guys noticed this too because G said, G- “Are we seriously doing this? Something seems off about this place.” Me- “Yeah, you can go sit in the truck if you want to be a scared bitch” G- “Fuck you bro.” With that we hopped the fence. Obviously with this whole plan being my idea I had to go first. As soon as I landed on the other side of the fence was the smell. It hit me in the face like a high school bully picking on the nerdy kid. It smelled of putrid death that was weeks if not months old. You would think we would be able to smell it on the other side of the fence too but I at least didn't. A couple seconds later the other guys joined me on my side of the fence. Me- “Do you guys smell that?” J- “It must be all the animal sacrifices” G-”Or it could be the cult members bodies. They’re probably all in shallow graves all over this place” Me- “Doubt it. The sheriff wouldn’t just leave them here for kids like us to find. Now shut up and let's explore and have a few brews and go home.” J- “Are we going inside the actual temple or are we gonna just hang here cause I’m getting some bad feelings about this place” Me- “I’m going in, you can follow or you can be a loser and stay out here.” G- “Looks like we’re going inside.” We started looking for a way in that wouldn’t be too obvious or difficult after that. After about 5 minutes of walking as sneaky as we can around the building we rounded to the back of the building. Back there had a little copse of trees about 20 or 30 feet behind the actual building and the closer we got the worse the smell was. Then J said, J- “ Do you guys see that?” pointing over towards the trees G- “See what? J- ”Over there in the trees. It looks like there's something hanging up from the branches.” We walked over, temporarily abandoning our goal of going in the building, to where J had pointed. The closer we got the easier it was to see. Let me tell you What we saw there was not something we wanted or actually expected to see. It was a little house cat hanging by a rope tied to its feet on one end and the lowest branch on the other end. J- “HOLY SHIT! WHAT THE HELL?!?!” ME- “Shut the hell up man. We aren't supposed to be here remember? We have to be quiet.”\ G- “Do we cut it down? Do we leave?” Me being the strong headed idiot I was back then told them in as few words and as quietly as possible “Hell no we don’t leave. We do what we came here to do. Just a little quieter and a little faster. I’m not leaving without seeing the inside of this place. You guys can go back but I have the truck keys and I'm going inside.” Having said that I turned around burying the bad feeling i was starting to have too deep inside. I made my way back to the temple proper without waiting for an answer from them because I knew they wouldn’t leave without me. After a couple more minutes of searching we finally found a broken window that was about half my height and low enough for us to climb through. Me- “Alright, in we go.” I whispered With no protest from the guys I mustered up some courage and climbed in. The guys followed behind a couple seconds later. That first room we climbed into was a ground floor room, maybe 10 feet long, that was barren except for a couple chairs and a podium in the center of the room. Across the room from us was an open door. That being the only exit from this room we made our way through it into a long hallway with a few doors on either side of us. As we made our way down the hallway we checked all the rooms since none of them had doors and they were all pretty much the same, nothing in them except a few chairs and maybe a small desk. Something I didn't realize until later was that all the rooms we checked were suspiciously lacking dust. As we made it to the end of the hallway most of the bad feelings I had seemed to fade away. At the end of the hallway was a door. I tried the handle, it was unlocked. I really wish it wasn’t unlocked because if it was locked we probably would’ve just given up and gone home. That door opened into a large chapel type area. Inside the chapel closest to us were rows of church pews and at the end of the rows there was a stage. Sitting atop the stage was a large podium, two stands about my height that I could only assume held candles at some point because there were large piles of melted candle wax at the bottom of the stands. Also on the stage there was a large table that looked like an alter of some kind. Next to the stage on both sides there was a pair of double doors. Me- “This seems like as good a place as any to have a brew. What do you guys think?” J- “Whatever you say man, let's just get this over with. This place gives me the creeps.” G- “ Yeah man lets just sit down here and hurry up.” I handed them my backpack and said, “You guys get the beers out, I’m gonna go check out that alter thing real quick.” G- “ Nah man. That seems like a bad idea. Just stay here.” Again I decided to just ignore the advice of my friend because I was an idiot and started moving forwards. I made it to the stage and hopped up to see what was what with that altar. This is when everything started to go so very very horribly wrong. As soon as I made it to the altar I saw something that will haunt my dreams for the rest of my natural life. There was another little house cat flayed open and pinned to the altar with a big knife I can only describe as the stereotypical sacrificial knife and in what looked like blood that could only be a few hours old there was a pentagram drawn around it. I almost threw up then and there. As soon as I got control over my body a few seconds later I heard another scream like the one we heard on the way to the temple but this time it was much closer, just on the other side of the double doors in fact. As soon as I heard that I spun around to look at my friends. I started sprinting towards them giving up on any attempts at being quiet. As I neared them I said, “ ITS TIME TO FUCKING GO!!!” They had the same idea because in the few seconds that it took me to get back to them they had already started running to the door we had come from. G- “WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK BRO! I TOLD YOU THIS WAS A BAD……” Before he could even finish telling me ‘I told you so’ the double doors behind us slammed open cutting him off. A door off to our right that we somehow missed on our way in also slammed open. Standing in that doorway was an imposing figure that had to be about 6ft 3in shrouded in a blood red coat. The man in the cloak yelled “Get them!!” We were still running towards the door we had come through but right before we reached it I felt a hand grab my shirt from behind and yank hard backwards. I fell to the ground and yelped half out of fear and half out of pain. Hearing me make that sound J stoppe on a dime and spun around to face me and the man holding me to the ground. J- “Let go of him!” Cloaked figure 1- “Fuck you kid. You shouldn't have come here. Now you're all going to die here.” I don't know at what point but at some point G had stopped as well and was facing the other cloaked man who had initially yelled to stop us. G- “I don't know what you guys are up to here but no one has to get hurt. We didn't see shit. We swear. Just let us go and we’ll act like nothing ever happened.” Me- “FUCK THAT! GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE GET HELP!!” As I said that I spun on my butt to get somewhat facing the man holding me and kicked him as hard as I could in the knee. By sheer luck I made contact and for a fraction of a second as he was falling to his knees he loosened his grip on me so I scrambled away from him and got up. I started to move to J. As I got to him I looked around the room to see how screwed we were and I did not like what I saw. I counted five men all wearing the same blood red cloak including the one I had just kicked and they had managed to surround us at some point. I drew my knife from the sheath on my hip and I heard my two friends do the same. I knew right then we had made the worst decision of our lives by going there that night and it was all my fault that my two best friends and I were going to die that night. I accepted the fact that I might die right then and there but I wasn’t going to die without at least making their night one from the same hell we were in. Right as I was about to leap forward and try to stab the man I had just kicked another voice rang out from the direction of the stage. “Whoah, woah, woah! Everyone calm down. No one here needs to do anything rash here. No one needs to get hurt tonight.” I look towards the stage and see a man small in stature. He looked to be in his mid forties, maybe fifty at most. He had a greying beard and dark brown hair with some grey peaking through. He was wearing a clean pressed suit and thick glasses that sat halfway down his nose. “Boys please forgive my men here, they seem to have forgotten how to treat guests in our house of worship. My name is A.K. Modzumar. I’m the owner of this here oratory. You May call me Pastor or Mr. Modzumar. What are you boys doing here at this time of night?” J nudged me forward as if saying it was my responsibility to speak since it was my idea, I couldn’t really argue since I had authored our current predicament. Me- “SIr, we thought this place was abandoned like all the stories said so we just wanted to come see it for ourselves before we go off to college. We are very sorry for interrupting whatever it is you have going on here. So, as we can now see it isn’t abandoned we’ll just be on our way and we won't tell anyone about what we saw here.” A.K.- “Oh? And what pray tell did you see here tonight?” Finally one of the other guys speaks up. G- “Not a single thing. Just some old chairs and candles. That's it. Nothing else. Can we go?” A.K.- “Now now, it's not that easy. the way you said that makes me believe that you did see something here tonight and i can't let you leave without knowing what you saw.” Me- “You can totally let us go. We won't say anything about the cats or the robes or the screams or anything. We swear. Right guys?” In unison they both said “Yup” and as soon as they finished saying that i Knew that i had fucked up mentioning everything we had seen and heard. I shouldve played dumb like G. Cloaked man 1 in a hushed tone- “Shit.” A.K.- “You really shouldn’t have said that. Now that i know you saw and heard the ceremony prep I can’t let you go.” With that J thew the bottle of beer he was still holding at the man standing by the door we knew led to an exit. The man ducked out of the way and all three of us started rushing towards that door but the man stood back up before we could make it there. “SPLIT UP!” G screamed and with that we split off into 3 different directions snaking our way through the cloaked figures towards different doors. I ran towards the big double doors, J ran towards the one on the side that we hadn't noticed on our way in and G bee lined straight for the one we came through in the first place. As soon as we split I lost sight of my friends and hoped that they could handle themselves. As I raced towards the double doors on the right side of the stage the man directly in front of me reached out to grab me but I slashed at his hands with my knife and made contact. I heard him scream in pain and he pulled his hand back. I didn't stop to think about what I had just done, he was out of my way. I burst through the doors and the sight before me was nothing anyone should ever have to see. The body of a young woman was on the ground just a few feet away from the doors surrounded by a pool of fresh blood. I kept running not wanting to risk being caught. As I ran I stepped in the pool of blood, just barely but enough to get it on my shoe, and kept running towards a door I hoped led to the outside. As soon as I made it through I was met with another hallway. There were doors lining the hallway just like the previous hallway but this time the doors were closed and the hallway turned sharp right about 20 feet down. I checked a few of the doors as I ran by but they were all locked. “Just my luck” I thought to myself. I rounded the corner to see another hallway just as long with 4 doors on each side and a set of double doors at the end. I ran as fast as my legs could take me to the double doors but to my dismay when I tried to push them open they would not budge. At that point I heard the door to the first hallway open so I had to make a decision fast, stand and fight or find somewhere to hide and hope they would assume I made it out of the building. Being as scared as I was, I decided to try and hide. I ran back to the first door I saw and pushed it open. When it actually opened I was overjoyed at the first small victory I had. In the room there was a desk with a chair, a filing cabinet, and a closet. Not seeing a good place to hide I looked down cursing myself, realizing that small “victory” had actually just screwed me. When I looked down I finally noticed that I had left a trail of bloody footprints behind me. I cursed myself again for being so stupid. I heard Mr. Modzumar call out, “You might as well come out! I can see the trail you left me. If you do, I promise I’ll make it quick. No pain. Simple and easy” An idea popped into my head as he was saying that. I walked up to the closet making sure to leave a trail, took off my shoes, put them in the closet and ran as quietly as I could to the room directly across the way. To my luck that one was unlocked as well. The room I ran into was almost identical except there was no filing cabinet. I made my way into the closet making sure to be as quiet as possible and leaving the doors cracked just enough so that I could still hear what was happening in the hallway. As I crouched down in the closet I heard the muffled sound of my radio chirp and G say, “Guys, I made it to the fence. Meet me on the outside where the cat tree is.” I let out a small sigh, relieved that at least one of us made it out. A few seconds later i heard J key up and say “I made it out too. Nic, please tell me you made it out safe. Out of fear of being found all i was gonna risk was keying up twice. Hopefully they would understand that I meant I was still inside. As soon as I did that I turned off the radio. They would just have to trust that I could make it out and if I didn't to go get help. A few seconds after I turned off the radio I heard footsteps across the hall and a door open. It wasn't the door to the room I was in so I counted myself lucky. After a few seconds I heard crashing and banging noises coming from the room I left my shoes in. A.K.- “Go outside and check the property! Two of them might have gotten away but were going to have at least two sacrifices tonight.” Cloaked man 2- “Yes sir.” I then heard one set of footsteps go back down the hallway towards the chapel area and the other go towards the door to the outside. I waited a few seconds and heard the big double doors to the outside creak and groan open. I took this as my chance. I put my backpack back on and gripped my knife as tightly as I could. I snuck out of the room I was in. as i made it out i saw the back of a cloaked man going out the doors. “It’s now or never.” I thought to myself. I gathered up all the courage I could muster and charged him. I made contact with his back knife first and heard a sickening thunk and scraping sound as my hands drove the knife into his back. I felt his blood run down the knife onto my hands. I felt like I was going to throw up as he fell to the ground gasping for breath but the only sound coming from him was a sickening gurgling sound and then nothing. I made it about 5 feet past his dead body before I threw up. My legs were shaking but I knew that the night wasn’t over yet. I took a few deep breaths and as soon as my legs were steady enough I ran straight for the fence directly ahead of me. Somehow I managed to vault over the fence and landed with a thud on my face on the other side. Feeling a bit safer I started to quickly and quietly make my way around the fence towards the back where I hoped to all hope my friends still were. It felt like an eternity before I finally made it to the backside but when I got there I didn't see them. I started whispering as loud as I felt safe, which was not very loud, “J, G, where are you guys?” a few seconds later I heard J whisper back from a little ahead of me in the tree line, “Over here! Hurry up!” I made my way over there. And without a single word between the three of us we started the long trek back to the truck. After what seemed like an hour but was probably only 15 or 20 minutes we saw the truck. We broke out into a sprint. I slammed into the drivers door frantically trying to unlock it. Finally after fumbling the keys for a few seconds we got in. I started the truck up and it was like heaven to my ears. I locked the doors and drove like a bat out of hell straight back to the main road. We ended up going to the sheriff's station after stopping to wash the now dried blood off my hands, and telling the first deputy that would talk to us what happened. Once we had finished our story, careful to leave out the part where I stabbed a guy in the back, he called our parents. They came to pick us up and took us all home. We didn't go camping or exploring or anything like that for the rest of the summer which was fine by me. To this day three years later we still don't speak of that night. I wish I knew what happened with that place after we told the cops about it but I never got to follow up because the next month I was shipping off to basic training. I’ve tried looking it up once but from what i've seen It’s still listed as an abandoned place and no one goes there. via /r/stayawake https://ift.tt/3kLNbr1
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