There are often spooky stories that roam around students about the history of their school’s corridors, bringing interest and excitement to kids. While some of them may be fiction, others tend to have a blend of truth.
One particular story in a local school topped all others and created a commotion for a few weeks in the early 2000s. Although it has been nearly two decades since Dean still remembers what had happened in those days.
Hearing the story for the first time brought chills to his colleagues despite them not attending the same high school. Dean, now an adult, recalled his days in the seventh grade just as he was about to go on summer vacation.
Back then, he hung out with a group of four best friends — him, Michael, Darius, and Joan. The four boys have been in the same school since their kindergarten days; hence, they know every inch of the campus well.
A few weeks before their summer began, a story began circulating among students with no credible source to trace. In one of their classes, Dean saw his friends circling their classmates while listening to a fellow student, Mark, share the story.
According to Mark, there exists a secret door in the school which is placed on the ground and only has a small hole for a doorknob. The passageway has a narrow and steep staircase leading to a room, which no one knows its contents.
The mysterious thing about the room was that no one knew exactly where it was — at least not the students. However, a fifth-grade girl once found the door in the ‘60s and went downstairs.
Sadly, she was never seen again. The story had been buried for years and kept hidden from the press, but it recently resurfaced on the campus for some apparent reason. Hearing about the mysterious door undoubtedly brought excitement to students.
While some students were hesitant to believe such stories, it seemed that the hype grew and somewhat proved suspicions. The rumor even reached a few faculty members who refused to entertain fabricated stories, but the older professors seemed annoyed that the gossip was everywhere.
Everyone has moved on with their lives, but the question still remains.
Dean, Michael, Darius, and Joan made it their mission to find the door in school, at least before the year ended. For a week, they tried hard looking for where it was, but sadly, they did not succeed.
In the last week of school, Dean noticed a small room in the library with old literature and archives. Hoping he could find an article from the ‘60s, the door was locked upon entry.
Still curious, Dean asked the librarian if he could browse through the items inside, but she said that the room was off-limits to students, and from the looks of it, it seems like no one has entered in a long time.
The rumors died down a bit by then, but one day, everything changed. After an assembly in the school courtyard, the seventh-grader hurried back inside the campus to use the washroom but tripped by the ramp going up.
It was a hard fall that moved the heavy mat a bit. Dean instantly stood up, hoping no one saw what happened and tried to fix the big carpet while wondering why a mat covered the long ramp.
He then noticed a slight crack showing where the mat had moved, and after trying to lift the heavy mat, he discovered the wooden door that everyone had been looking for. Suddenly, the story became a hype once again and everyone in school was talking about the door’s location.
Some students would go to the area and stomp at the door, while others would bend down and try to listen for something. However, no one was brave enough to open it and walk downstairs.
Teachers were getting upset, for some reason, every time someone tried to lift the mat and see what the door looked like. On one occasion, a student received detention for attempting to open the door.
It was the second to the last day of school before summer, and the four friends kept talking about where the stairwell led and what would be beneath the ramp. Joan, in particular, was very curious and invited his friends to stay after school and once and for all feed their curiosity.
No one dared to do so, knowing that they would get in big trouble if they disobeyed the off-limits order. As the day came to a close, Joan told his friends that he would stay after dismissal and go down the door. He said:
“You guys are such wimps. It’s probably just a basement and the story from the ‘60s was most likely made up.”
Joan had always been the brave one amongst the group of friends, but his decisions weren’t always the smartest. “I’m telling you guys, I’ll be the coolest guy on campus after I tell everyone what’s down there.”
Initially, Joan’s friends did not believe he would do such a thing, so everyone headed home and prepared for the last day of school. The following day, when Dean, Michael, and Darius met up in the hallways, there seemed to be a commotion by the ramp from the courtyard.
Everyone was surrounding the door and talking. According to one student, Joan bravely went down the door yesterday and did not go home. His parents were worried sick and called the school, only to find out that he had entered the underground room.
Joan apparently walked out in the wee hours of the morning and hasn’t said a word since. He was really pale and stared blankly into space, not even talking to his parents or the teachers.
Before the last day even ended, students saw that construction workers covered the door with cement, making it invisible to students and ensuring that no one would go down the staircase again. During the entire summer, the boys did not hear from Joan.
Apparently, he moved to a different state with his parents without saying a word. That was the last anyone has seen of Joan — the day he vowed to gain popularity by going down the secret door and staircase.
It has been years since the incident, yet Joan still hasn’t reached out to any of his friends, nor could they trace him through social media accounts. Everyone has moved on with their lives, but the question still remains — what happened to Joan?
Did this story give you goosebumps? School stories certainly have a knack for freaking out their students. For another story, read about a young widower who raised his child single-handedly.
