Looking for some input. I have a horror story set in a school/ college, and I'm trying to find areas in the school to set some major scenes. The school will be totally empty, so think of the last place you'd want to be alone at night in your school. Obvious ones are the shower/ locker rooms, so any input besides that would be appreciated Thanks in advance
For me? Long corridors with closed doors. I make myself go down just because, but I have never gotten used to them. I would turn off the light on purpose, and walk down with a hand on the wall. And everytime I would pass a door my heart would skip a beat - because I didn't know what might be behind it. And just now I am rolling over this imaginary floor with laughter - anyone else recognises the mirror to my WIP??
Being alone in an auditorium in the dark is kinda freaky - the curtains on the stage, the catwalk for the lighting, all the seats someone could be hiding behind, the acoustics...
Most schools have an agriculture/welding shops, you could reasonably pull in all kinds of fun toys. As for the 'scariest' place, I've always found inverses to be pretty terrifying; the uncommonly silent lunchroom, music playing in an empty band hall, football field with all the lights on, but no one on the field or in the stands. Also, the room where they develop film. Place is creepy as hell.
Ooh, I actually have a good one for this! Sub-level tunnels. My university (and I presume most universities) kept tunnels to run water pipes and electricity so they wouldn't have to keep a bunch of hanging wires and stuff above ground. They're usually pretty low-key because university officials don't want students breaking in to them and screwing around because it's super dangerous. I worked for the student union as a building manager. There was a bowling alley in the basement, a rickety old two-lane setup from the 80s. I had to go in behind the rigging every once in a while to help out if one of the pin machines jammed, and it was this cramped little room with dirty chipped tiles and yellowed walls. There was so little space between you and the machinery that you had to press your back against the wall and shimmy to keep from getting your clothing caught. The few times I was down there I always noticed this warped wood door in the far back corner past the machines, and I was curious. One of the perks of being a building manager was that I had a master key to the whole building. On slow nights, during holiday breaks or summer, Me and a few of my fellow student workers would explore. We had been up on the roof, down unused hallways, and scared the crap out of one another in the old service elevator (it made the creepiest moaning noise when you hit the button to activate it; the effect was worse when we were on the super-dim basement level). So we decided we wanted to know what was behind the door in the bowling alley. We all trooped down behind the bowling lanes, slid along the wall single file, and got it unlocked. The door was stuck in its frame, so I had to ask one of the guys muscle it open. On the other side was a room. It wasn't a huge room, just big enough for a rusty old boiler in the corner and and a little open space to perform routine maintenance around it. It was a handful of feet lower than us, and we had to go down a couple of metal grate steps to get inside. It was really dim; the only light we had was an old light bulb behind a mesh cage. The floors were old terra cotta with with filthy gray grouting. It wasn't until we were fully in the room that we realized there were only three walls. The area where the fourth wall should have been was just this yawning black tunnel leading away from us. Zero light. We had no idea how far it went or where it went, but we walked closer anyways. The tile floor ended abruptly and gave way to packed dirt and we could barely make out phantom lines of pipes and wires along the walls. I wish I could say there was more of an adventurous end to this story, but truthfully all we did was dare one another to see how far we were willing to walk before chickening out and coming back. I barely got ten feet before my panicky brain fabricated some noise to scare the bajeezus out of me. The dark down there was stifling, and you could hear the water making shushing noises through all the pipes. There were plenty of creaks and groans too. It was ridiculously creepy. Those tunnels stretched all across campus. I always wished I had the guts to grab a flashlight and wander, but I didn't want to get lost or hurt myself.
At my college, I worked for the student newspaper. Most days, I'd get off around five, but some nights I stayed until ten. The office was an old radio studio, so it was divided into three rooms with lots of windows. I always thought I saw shadows moving behind me, reflecting in the window in front of my desk. Also, there was a long corridor outside my office where the bathrooms were. I'd hear the doors opening and closing, but very few people were in the school that late. So that, coupled with the shadows, always freaked me out.
My college was on the grounds of an old stately home, with some of the dorms in the attic of the house... lots of people said it was haunted. It also had a wine cellar which wouldn't be exactly non-spooky. For actual bits of the college that were spooky in my opinion, probably the long walk through this mini wood that they had between the canteen and my set of dorms. One light lit the way which wasn't really enough (especially when you're scared of the dark like me).
I came here... and I am not sure why. I have nothing to offer. My high school was not scary and I wasn't there much. My 'college'/university was not scary because, well, I was not there much either. It was also next to the a major shopping district, so I went window shopping instead. But if I was to imagine a scary place in any facility, it would be the cliche public bathroom/toilet. And it comes down to this for me, it's all my superstitious Chinese mother's fault! She once told me that public bathrooms and toilets were where all the dead people/ghosts hung out! Ever since she said that, I get freaky, crazy, unreasonable scared when I work late in an office and I need to go to the bathroom!!!!!! I kid you not, I am shit scared, or more crudely put, scared shitless so I don't want to go... *shudder* Truth be told, I get a little put out even in daylight hours if the public toilet is remote. Be it perverts or ghosties! I have an over-active imagination and I always imagine a mysterious pair of feet visible at the bottom of a cubicle door... Anyway, that is where the horror would be for me as a person but not necessarily story.
Every single post on here is awesome, thanks you all so much for your input Plenty of good ideas to go on with, you all rock!
Don't forget the dark room! You mentioned photography in the other thread -- is this for the same book? If so, a dark room could be scary. A big room with red lights so everything is dark and cast in an eerie red glow... Anything could be hiding in the shadows!