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Always Locked, Never Used, Never Talked About Door

Anonymous
December 2000

The story about a local hospital here in St.Louis is true.

My uncle used to work in the hospital maintenance department a few years after the event took place. One of the most vivid memories of my childhood was when he would tell the story of the experience he had there one night that eventually led to his dismissal. This childhood memory is so vivid because on the rare occasion that we could coax him in to telling the story, it seemed as if he would go into a type of trance. His voice would become monotone and void of any emotion, as if it were someone else reaching into some deep dark recess of his memory trying to grasp a concept that had been locked away forever, wanting to be forgotten. Eventually my aunt forbid the telling of the story altogether.

When he first started working in the hospital, he noticed that one particular room in the psychiatric wing was never used and the door was always kept locked. Whenever he inquired about it to his Supervisor or co-workers they would tell him not to worry about it and then quickly change the subject. Sometimes they would just ignore his inquires altogether.

Late one night he was changing a light bulb in the ceiling not far down the corridor from this room. Upon installing the new light bulb he started climbing down the ladder when the newly installed bulb started flickering and went out. It was about this time when he noticed a sudden drop in the air temperature and a strange odour that seemed to fill the entire corridor like an invisible fog. He then had to walk past the door of the room in order to get back to the main hospital area to get a another replacement light bulb. As he neared the door the stench began to get worse, and that is when he began to hear a very unusual sound coming from the vicinity of the always locked, never used, never talked about room.

At first it sounded like someone was singing, but then it trailed off into a strange unearthly type of mumbling. What he heard next brought on an uncanny mixture of emotions; sadness then anger and finally fear. Even though it hadn't identified itself, it was the unmistakable voice of his dead grandmother.
"Raymond", the fragile yet familiar voice cried out,"help me Raymond your the only one who can help me now, I'm in here, hurry Raymond, please hurry!".

The blood in his veins ran cold. He became very confused, how could this be? for god's sakes,she's been dead for over twenty years.
My fully grown uncle then began to cry like a little lost child. Behind his dead grandmothers pleas for help he could also hear what he could only describe as a strange, mocking type laughter from a voice...not of this world.
As if guided by some strange unknown power, he reached for the door knob to open the door and received an extremely nasty burn to the palm of his hand that left a crescent shaped scar he would carry as a painful reminder of this incident for the rest of his life.The doorknob began to slowly turn back and forth on it's own, suddenly the entire door began to shake violently. Someone (or something) was on the other side trying to get out, and started banging and kicking at the other side of the always locked, never used, never talked about door. He realized he had to get away from this place and fast,so he bolted down the corridor without looking back, because the weird laughter had gotten louder and was coming from right behind him now. When he reached the nurses station, his legs collapsed out from under him and he blacked out.

When he came to,everyone was gathered around wondering what happened as a nurse attended to his burned hand. He told his story.

Two orderlies went to see what happened, because nobody wanted to go alone, and upon returning, without saying a word one orderly walked over to the coat rack, grabbed his coat and calmly walked out the door, the message was clear "I quit!".
The other orderly reported nothing out of the ordinary, the ladder was still in the hallway as my uncle had left it under the now perfectly working light bulb.

A few days later the orderly who quit that night called my uncle at home and told him that he had a similar experience,only it was the voice of his long dead brother he heard coming from the other side of the always locked, never used, never talked about door and he too experienced that same unexplained rush of emotions. Upon learning this,my uncle decided to quit also.
When he went to give his supervisor notice he was fired on the spot and warned never to tell the story to anyone else.

The really weird thing about it is, when I look back upon this strange tale of his, I realize that my uncle passed away long before a certain movie about demonic possession was ever made, so he never really knew what forces he had come in contact with that night, but I do.

Anonymous
00:00 / 01:04
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