Goblin Bites: Scary Stories 12

In a little town known as Luthersville, Georgia, there's a little old brick building that not many people give a second glance. It's peeling white paint-covered facade holds a long, somewhat tragic history however. The plain little building was once the Luthersville county hospital, and later in its life was converted into a school building for adult learners. Today, though, the building stands vacant... or at least, it appears that way to the living.

Many, many years past, before the outbreak of the Civil War, was when the hospital was built. During the war, dozens of beds were crammed wall to wall on the main floor, filled with wounded confederate soldiers. The basement doubled as a surgery, while also functioning as a morgue. Many soldiers who were taken down to the basement to have a bullet or festering limb removed sadly never came back up to the main floor.

After the South collapsed, the people of Luthersville still used the building as a hospital and the basement as the county mortuary for decades. in the early twentieth century, the main floor was converted into a suite of doctor's offices, converting the hospital into more of an outpatient clinic, although minor procedures were still conducted on site. With the advancement of modern medicine, there were fewer and fewer who lost their lives within the building. However, it is well known to the people of Luthersville that many of the souls who passed within the walls of the hospital never really left.

In the late nineties, the hospital finally closed its doors, as a newer, larger hospital had been built at the edge of the county. The building was bought by the county board of education then, and the doctors offices inside were converted into classrooms for adult education. During the day, the teachers and students took no notice of anything unusual around them for the most part. When the sun set, however, the teachers working overtime noticed strange occurences. Many of them - whom I will not name here - claimed they saw shadow people walking around the halls, or heard boots tromping around in the basement. Whispers and strange, sudden flashes of light were common too. It is not known to me if any of the activity the teachers witnessed was inherently evil, but I do know that the teachers forced to work late nights often didn't stay in the building long after dark.

My mother worked as a teacher there, and most of the after hours accounts I have heard came from her own lips. She often spoke of feeling cold in the building when she was alone in it at night, which was as infrequently as possible, and always felt like someone was watching her. Many a weekend afternoon, she would bring my sisters and I along with her to finish up paperwork when we were young. None of us much liked being there, simply because the building didn't feel right. It was almost as if we weren't wanted there.

One afternoon in particular stands out in my memory. My mother asked me to go down into the basement - which functioned as a supply room at the time - and bring her up some more paper for the copy machine. I was scared, but I did as I was asked. The basement was cold and dark, but with the lights on it was fine. I remember grabbing the paper, but before I left, I saw movement out of the corner of my eye. The back corner of the basement seemed darker than the rest of the small room somehow, too dark to really see all the way to the wall. I remember hearing someone crying, like they were in pain, then feeling a breath by my ear. After that, I ran back upstairs, and didn't stop until I reached my mother's arms.

The old Luthersville hospital didn't operate as a school building for very long. In the mid-2000s, it flooded (although no one was ever able to determine how the flood started), and a new Adult Ed building was constructed not far from the local middle school. I haven't returned to that building since I was a tween, and I don't plan to. Whatever is there, which I strongly believe something is there, seems to want to be left in peace. I, and my mother, both agree that that is most definitely for the best.