School for the Blind

From: Eliza (eliza@psykokat.com)
Story type: Ghost
Location: Gary, South Dakota
Source: Form Submission

Last Summer (summer 2003) two of my guy friends and I were looking for something to do on one of those long, hot July nights. We decided to go on a mini "road trip" (about 45 miles) and check out the School for the Blind in Gary, SD.

A little background: The School for the Blind had been built in 1899 and used as a school until it was relocated to Aberdeen in 1959 due to Gary losing its status as County Seat and basically becoming a ghost town. The school grounds have become something of a city park, the town being so small there was no need to lock up any of the school buildings. Aside from the age of the buildings, the really cool feature of the area is the underground tunnels that connect the buildings. You wouldn't want a bunch of blind kids wandering around outside, especially in a South Dakota winter.

Myself, Matt and Levi took our little roadtrip to Gary. I had brought the flashlight from my car and I had my dad's 1970s Nikon camera around my neck set to take pics in the darkest conditions possible. When we first got to Gary, what had started as a mischief-making trespassing spree took a slightly spooky turn for some reason. It might have been the speed at which the black, smoky clouds scuttled over the moon, or the creepy chorus of frog-croaks coming from God knows where.

At any rate, we decided to walk around the perimeter of the campus area before deciding which building to go into first. The moonlight was quite bright and reflected off the windows of the buildings, which, for some reason are 99% intact. When we got back to the front of the yard, we were discussing what building to look at first. I had toured the place in the daylight about two years before, and it had enchanted me so much I was excited to be back. Since I had been there, the guys were asking me about what was in each building. All of a sudden, I saw a black figure by the front door and stopped whatever I was saying and was staring so hard my eyes were bulging, so the guys turned around and the shadow I had seen seemed to dissolve into leaf-shapes and blend into the shadows of the large trees. They asked me what I saw, and I told them it looked like a witchy woman's figure but it was cut out of the shadows, leaving a blacker shape than the rest of the darkness. That's the best way I can describe it.

The guys decided to start with that building. Levi was the leader, probably because he is very tall and skinny and we could see around him, I was in the middle, and Matt brought up the rear because he is fat and the slowest runner - just in case! We went around the side of the building and started up the narrow sidewalk to the side door. We were going at a good clip when Levi stopped cold and I almost ran into him. He was shining the light at a large tree that had grown straight up through the threshhold of the door, blocking it to all but the thinnest person. It seemed like a pretty darn good symbol of unwelcomeness at the time.

We turned around and went to the other building. No one said a word until we were well into Building #1, which was pretty tame. We walked over a layer of books that had been strewn all over the hallway and stairwell. The building had been used for storage by different Gary municipal entities, so had a few rooms filled with microfiche and old books. We went to the second floor, peering into each room as we went by. The second floor (or the third, I can't remember) had the auditorium the guys wanted to see, so we played around in there for a while. After that, they decided they wanted to check out the underground tunnels. I couldn't remember how to get there from Building #1, so after we traipsed around in there for a while, we headed out the way we came. As we found the main stairwell back down to the wide hall that led to the front door, we noticed that there was a board going across the hall from one transom to another with books neatly lined up on it, like a library shelf. I thought to myself, oh that must have been there before and I didn't notice it because Levi had the light. Yeah, except Levi had to duck under it and he hadn't done that before. I said something about this, and the guys just said something lame like maybe we hadn't been down this hallway before, except that there is one main stairwell that comes out right near the front door, and that's the one we were using. Oh, well. Nothing too weird.

We headed to building #3, which seemed like somewhat of a dormitory. This building had evidence of parties by trespassers. In the upstairs rooms, there were a few shoes, socks, some Playboys from the 80s, old-style beer tabs, and plenty of sunflower seed shells on the floor. The halls had some spraypainted lame small-town graffiti on them, but nothing seemed to be vandalized badly. We finished looking into each upstairs room, then went back to the main level and did the same.

We had left the basement for the last, cause we knew the tunnel was there. The stairwell to the basement was obstructed by a used tire, an old water heater had been thrown off to the side. We walked over a piece of plywood and then realized we were in the tunnel. The walls had smoothly curved inward like a funnel. The tunnel had a rounded top and straight sides. It had a handrail and some small pipes ran along the ceiling. There was a bare lightbulb every so often, which surprised me because you wouldn't think blind kids would need light, but I guess the teachers needed it.

We were walking very slowly down the tunnel because every footstep made a loud crunch in the cement passageway. About 30? feet in, the tunnel branched off into a Y. Guessing by the aboveground layout of the campus, the right branch went back the way we came, to Buildings #1 and #2, and we weren't sure where the left branch would go, since the only building we had seen out that way was an old half-collapsed boiler building. Just before the Y junction, Levi stopped and paused, about to ask us which way to go. All of a sudden, we all cocked our heads and looked up and to the right, like dogs or cats tracking something. About 2 seconds later, we were all tearing out of the tunnel like the devil was after us.

Adrenaline was working pretty good for me because I was right on Levi's heels and he's tall and thin with LONG legs and I am short and chubby! Once we were just about back to the car and Matt had caught up with us, we tried to gather our wits. I didn't want to plant any ideas in Levi's head, so I asked him first what he experienced. He said he had felt some sort of breeze or something pass by him and then he heard music coming from the right tunnel branch, at which point he wished to hear no more and made a quick exit. I then told Levi that I only started listening when I saw him stop and cock his head. I was VERY specific on what I heard because I have studied music for many years and a lot of things leave an aural imprint in my brain which I can replay anytime. I heard a small chorus of children singing a playground lullaby, like the nanny-nanny-boo-boo rhythm, but it sounded more like that nursery rhyme "it's raining, it's pouring, the old man is snoring..." it sounded like three or four kids of that age where the male voice is not very distinguishable from the female, around 5-6 years old.

By this time, Matt had caught his breath and he wanted to leave. I pestered him about telling us what he heard / saw because he was the last in the tunnel. He said, "yeah, thanks to you guys who shoved me into the wall so hard it knocked the breath out of me and I was stuck there!" Well, it stands to reason that Matt would have been in the way since he was last, but I distinctly remember pivoting on my foot and blasting off straight out of the tunnel, no obstacles in my way. If Matt HAD been in my way, I probably would have bounced off him since he has 200+ lbs on me. There is, also, no way Levi could have shoved him since Levi weighs even less than me.

It took almost the whole ride home (and several cigarettes) to convince Matt to talk about his experience. We knew he had seen something, cause he was so shaken. He finally told us that it made him sick to think about it, but he had seen a girl at the Y junction of the tunnel. He didn't hear any music, but saw a girl (we assume she was glowing because Levi and the light were many yards away in the other direction by then). I pressed for details, and Matt said the girl appeared to be 5-6 years old, looking straight at him, had just below the shoulder length hair in fat ringlets held back with a headband or ribbon, a dress with a low waist that ended about mid-shin and I believe a peter-pan type shaped collar and slightly puffed sleeves. I know all this cause I pressed for details on her outfit to try to establish a time period. From this, I am guessing around the nineteen-teens to nineteen-thirties for the girl.

Anyway, I know this story doesn't seem scary to you, but it left an impression on those of us who were there! I promise you, go to the Gary School for the Deaf just once during the daylight even and the place will haunt your dreams. Not in a scary way, but in a sad way, like it's lonely and wishes you would visit. That place has been in my dreams all the time since I first went there over 3 years ago. Thanks for your time.