Three A.M.

It's always darkest before the dawn…Well, that's what they say at least, right? It seems that my friends and I quickly found that out. We have this thing where we get together every Halloween and just do something crazy. We've done some really weird things such as teepeeing one of our enemies house, going to 'haunted locations', we've even done the fake haunted houses. But this time it's different…There's a street in my neighborhood that nobody lives in, or even goes near. This Halloween we're going to go out there at three A.M. to check it out. Three A.M. is the time when shit is supposes to hit the fan. It's the time when ghost are supposed to be the most active, it's the time when Slender man is supposed to claim his victims, if you believe in that hocus pocus B.S. But it's also the time when demons are supposed to roam earth. Apparently, this is the opposite time when Jesus resurrected, so this they come out to make havoc on man-kind. I don't know about all of that, but what I do know is that this street is completely abandoned, and my friends and I are going to find out why. A lot of people call us nuts, but we just like to prove that most of these folk lore stories aren't true. We aren't ghost hunters, or paranormal investigators, we just do this for simple fun. So we can tell people what's real and what isn't.

October 31st three A.M. is finally here I find myself with four of my other friends standing at the gate of this part of town.
"Don't you think it's kind of weird that they have the street gated?" Mike asked, as we all shined our flashlights on the steel gate, which had sharp black points at the top. It was almost like something you'd see out of a horror movie.
"Yeah it is weird, but hell that's the reason why we're here, right guys?" I gulped, shining my light up at the top of the gate, trying to show bravery. Now that we were standing outside of the gate I was getting a little psyched out. I looked over at Brianna and her friend Holly, making sure that they weren't having second thoughts about the whole thing. They didn't show a pinch of fear on their faces.
"How are you guys holding up? I don't want anyone to have second thoughts about this…If anyone has second thoughts let me know and we won't do this." Mike punched me in the arm," Bryan, what the hell are you saying? This is awesome! We're about to discover a huge secret part of our town. A secret that even cops don't even step a foot in! Everyone avoids this street like a plague and if you ask anyone about it, they tell you it's a important part of the town's history, but yet we can't find anything about it on at the library, or in our town history books. There's something up with this street and we're about to find out what it-"

"Mike! Shut the hell up! I was asking them." I titled my head toward the girls.

"I'm fine. We do this every Halloween. Are you alright Holly?"

Holly nodded letting us know that she still wanted to go through with this.
"Alright then how the hell are we going to get in this place? As you can see it's locked up tight." Mike grabbed the lock.

"Have locks or anything else stopped us before? No, now let's find another way in come on." I stepped away from the gate and started to walk around the fence, trying to find another way into the Ghost Town. Finally, after a few minutes of searching I found some bent rods in the fence that were big enough for us to fit through.
"Over here guys." I motioned for everyone to come over to where I was at. I was the first one through the hole in the fence. I was quickly greeted by vines and thorns.
"Ouch, damn it" I mumbled, stomping them down with my foot, so I wouldn't be bother by them. Mike was the first one through the hole in the fence, I held my hand out to stop him, holding my flashlight out in front of us, and so he could see what was ahead.

"Great we try so hard to get in here and we get greeted by this. So what's the plan now?"

"Well, I'm guessing we aren't the first ones in here, considering the bars on the fence
were bent. So I'm guessing this is the only way in. Sadly, we're going to have to go through the thorns, but I'm guessing it's going to be worth it. So I will go first and take one for the team."

I held my arm out in front of me and started to make my way through the thorns. I wasn't too concerned about getting cut up considering I had a hoodie on. If the thorns stuck to me I wasn't too concerned. Finally, I exited the pile of thorns, falling and hitting the ground hard. I quickly got back up to my feet and called out to the group.
"Alright, come on guys the coast is clear!" I shouted and shortly after I did I heard rattling through the bushes. Shortly after Mike made it through the two girls made their way through. They cried out in pain as they slowly made their way through the thorns. Either one of them had hoodies on, when they both came out their arms were cut up really badly.

"Maybe if you didn't wear those tight shirts, you would have had more support." Mike said. I hit Mike on his shoulder," Are you guys okay?" I asked.

"Yeah, I think so." Brianna said.

"I'll live I've had worse." Holly rubbed her wounds on her arms.

"Do you want my hoodie?" I asked Holly.

"No, it's fine really."

All of us shined our lights down the road to see what we were dealing with. Awe quickly overcame us when we saw the place looked like old London times. The road its self was made of pure brick, but this wasn't surprising seems how every historic district had brick roads. But the thing that struck me as odd was how the houses looked…All of them seemed to look like a massive fire happened here at one point.

"I don't understand…" I said as a cold chill ran down my spine," It looks like a massive fire took place here at one point."

"Guys, I don't think this is a good idea…I think maybe we came across something we shouldn't have here. Maybe we should reconsider this one." Brianna nervously said.

"No, no we came this far we aren't going to turn back. We do this every Halloween and I'm not satisfied by seeing a bunch of burnt up buildings. You're more than welcome to turn back if you want, but I'm staying."

Brianna looked at me then back over at everyone else. Everyone else besides her seemed like they wanted to continue on, but her," So what's it going to be Brianna? Now is your chance to turn back if you want. No one is going to hold it against you if you decide to turn back."
Brianna shook her head," I'll stay." She sighed.
"Let's move forward then." I said, leading the group throughout the ghost town. The farther we got into the town the colder, creeper, and darker it got. We walked what seemed like fifteen minutes of the endless ghost town.

"We should go inside one of those buildings." Mike said.

"Do you think that it'll be able to hold us? Look at how unstable the buildings look." I shined my light on one of the buildings. The one building I did shine my light on was the only one that seemed like it was in good condition," That's odd." I mumbled to myself.

"Actually that was the building I was going to suggest we check out."

I started to walk over toward the creepy building by myself, leaving the group behind. Before I was able to get very far Mike grabbed me by the shoulder.

"Hey man, where the hell are you going?"

"Inside…I feel like something is…luring me in here."

Mike turned his head looking at the girls behind us, shrugging at them.

"So we're just going to go in without a game plan? I thought we always had a game plan?"

"No… no…no.. not this time I just got to…" I shrugged Mikes hands off my shoulders and made my to the doors have the house. I could hear the girls and Mike yelling out my name behind me, but I didn't pay any attention to them. I opened the door to the house and as I did it let out a huge creaking sound. When the door was fully opened a big dust cloud hit me in the face causing me to cough. The other met back up with me soon after I opened the door.

After I caught my breath I stepped into the building, shining my flashlight around taking a look at its old structure. The place almost looked like it had come out of a western movie, is how old it looked. The boards that led up to the roof was covered by cob webs, the dust was so thick you could see it on the floor. But somehow it still managed to hold up. I myself was really shocked that it was bigger than it looked from the outside.

"This is odd," Mike said," What do you think this building was used for?"

"I don't know but we're about to find out. Let's split up. Mike you and Brianna want to check around on this floor and the basement. Holly you and I will take the upstairs and middle floor."

Everyone nodded as we split up and started to go our own way. Holly and I made it to the middle floor of the building. This part of the building looked like it was an office. It really creeped me out that the place was still in such a good condition. Holly and I split away from each other to observe stuff. She was looking underneath chairs, bookshelves, just to see if she could find anything at all. I went over to the desk and started to open up the drawers. Nothing was seemed to be in them…Until I got to the last one. The last one seemed to be jammed.

"Come on." I mumbled, trying to yank harder on the drawer to get it to open, but couldn't. I gave it one more tug and it flew opened. I tumbled to the floor and heard what sounded like Brianna or someone let out a loud yell.

"What was that?" I asked Holly.

"I..I don't know."

Shortly after the scream followed footsteps…Whatever or whoever it was now coming up the stairs…and fast. I motioned for Holly to get behind me. Not that it matter I didn't have any weapons or anything on me. I would have to resort to using my hands. When Holly got behind me I clenched a fist tightly, while holding my light to the stairs. Mike appeared in the stair well shortly after.
"What the fuck, man!" I yelled, holding my hand to my chest," What's with all the noise? You scared the hell out of us?" I asked, looking over Mike who had speckles of blood on his face.

"What the hell is going on and where's Brianna?"

"She's…it took her."

"What!?" I grabbed Mike by the shoulders shaking him," What are you talking about?"

"I don't know it's hard explain," Mikes said speeding his words up," We were examining the room and I turned around and noticed something was levitating her up in the air…It was like eight feet tall and really thin, then it just disappeared taking her with it."

"Is this some sort of sick joke? I got to say if it is it's not very funny."

"No man! I'm not playing around."

"Not to break up this moment or anything but-"Holly didn't finish what she said, she turned around and throw up pointing to the last drawer of the desk.

I gave Mike a weird look and looked back in the drawer…It was a head…A decomposed human head…it had to of only been there for a few weeks.

"We need to get out of here, now!"

"What's going on!" Mike yelled.

I shook my head, grabbed Holly by the hand and started to lead her down the stairs. Mike quickly followed behind us. I opened up the door of the building and exited back into the ghost town. But before I could take off running, I saw ghostly figures all around us…All of them had burnt faces and were decomposing. Holly started to cry as the figures got closer to us.

"Get inside, get inside!" I demanded, shoving Holly back inside and slamming the door shut.

"What the hell were those things?" Mike asked.

"Hell, if I know but we got to find a way out of here." Mike grabbed me by the shoulder," Listen to me we can't stay in here! That...that thing is in here…I don't know what it is but its lurking in here. If we stay in here we could end up like Brianna or worse."

"Well, what do you think we should do? Do you want us to just run out there into those…things!"

Holly started crying even more now, not making the situation any better for us. She wiped away her tears from her eyes and sniffled a few times," Are we going to die here?"
I bent down placing a hand on her shoulder," No, we're going to find a way out of here, I can promise you that. Mike, what time is it?"

"What why does that matter?"

"Just look for me."

Mike pulled out his cellphone, looking down at the time," It's three forty." I
frowned a little bit knowing that this was the time most people said weird things happen.
"When you were down in the basement did you see another way out?" I asked.

"I'm not going back in there man! That thing is down there."

"Mike!" I grabbed him by the shoulders," I need you to get a grip on yourself if you don't we're all screwed here. Whatever took Brianna is probably long-"Before I could finish I was cut off by a loud thumping noise at the door…It was the ghostly figures…They saw us when we were outside now they were wanting in, "We got to do something fast! The doors not going to last much longer! I grabbed Holly by the arm and yanked her up," Come on follow me!" I said running up the stairs to the second floor, Mike and Holly followed behind me. I looked around the room for the nearest window on the floor. The window was straight behind the desk. I quickly ran over there and tried to lift the window up.

"Mike, give me a hand!" I demanded, lifting up on the window. I wasn't able to get it opened by myself, but with Mike's help we got it opened. When the window was opened I looked down at the bricks of the house. It looked like we were able to climb down. Below us I heard a loud thud from the front door.

"We're going to have to climb down. They just broke the door down."

"I can't I'm scared of heights." Holly said.

Mike and I glared at Holly trying to figure out what to do.
"As bad as I hate to say it you're going to have to get over it. You can either stay here and die by those things, or climb out that window." I said looking back down at out the window, then back over at Holly. Holly nodded in an agreement and actually volunteered to go first. She quickly crawled out the window and started down the side of the building. I looked down at Mike and made sure he was down far enough, so I could exit. I made it out just in time as the creatures were entering the same floor.

Mike and Holly waited for me to get to the ground; once I was we all quickly took off running toward the fence where we entered. When we got to the fence we quickly found out that the very place we entered had shifted and was now closed off.

"Great!" Mike kicked the fence," What are we going to do now?"

"We're going to climb the damn fence that's what we're going to do." I pressed my back against the fence, holding my hands out in front of me in a cup like-position," Who wants to go first?"

"I don't know if we can get over that or not." Mike said.

"Guys!" Holly pointed back to the building where we had just left…The beings were jumping out of the building…They didn't have to climb down like we did; they just jumped, and landed on their feet. I was in awe, but I didn't have time to sit and stare.
"Holly get up here! When I lift you up, just grab the posts and pull yourself over.

Holly quickly climbed over me and put her feet on my hands. I used all of my strength to push her up. I looked over at Mike, but before I could even help him up, he was finding a way up over the fence. I looked behind me to see how close the beings were, they were about half way now.
"Come on!" Holly said.

I jumped up grabbing a hold of the bars, pulling the rest of my body up. I met back up with my other two friends and we took off running toward our car.
"Guys what we just experience tonight we can't tell anyone. Not our parents, not our loved ones. We take this to our graves do you understand me? If someone finds out we were in there tonight it could mean big trouble for us. If anyone asks we were never here tonight I don't know what all is going on in there, but it's better left alone do you understand me? ." Silence filled the car as we drove off.

As weeks went by weird things started to happen…I kept in touch with Holly and Mike but as time went on Mike became paranoid, always thinking that someone was after him. A few weeks later Mike came up disappearing. Holly and I both were brought in for questioning. I told the police everything I knew about Mike. The only detail I left out was that we went to the ghost town that was gated up. I still feel bad for what happened to Brianna. Of course the cops asked me about that to, but I had to make some sort of bullshit story up, telling them she wasn't with us that night. I told Holly to mention that as well. I don't know what all she told the cops, but so far either one of us hasn't said anything. The cops still think we know something. Whenever I asked if they had any trace of Mike, they would become really hostile with me and ask me why. One of the cops did tell me that there was no trace whatsoever of him. I can only figure what he saw that night that took Brianna came and took him too.

After a few years the cops finally gave up on investigating us and closed Mike's case. I lost contact with Holly a while back. I do know one thing…The shit we saw that night will stick with Holly and I forever. I can only hope that we will take it to our graves. I know I will…I guess it is true what they say…It really is the darkest before the dawn…We found that out first hand. Never go out around three in the morning on Halloween night.