Tales From A Haunted Escape Room

October is the season of ghosts, and mysteries. We at The Escape Effect are no strangers to the strange. Fright Before Your Eyes is one of our ghost stories, but we have more for you. In the spirit of Halloween, our hosts have collected these haunted escape room stories for you.

Cries in the night

If you’ve ever been the last person in a building after closing, you may be familiar with a certain sense of unease. When a place that’s normally full of life becomes empty, the quiet darkness can be unsettling. Your imagination takes off, making ghosts out of shadows on the walls. The distant hum of the air conditioner becomes a haunting wail. Echoes of your footsteps make you wonder if you’re truly alone. This eerie time of night, when all has gone still, is when our first story takes place.

On this night, the strip mall was asleep. The other stores had closed down for the night and shuttered their doors. Their employees were gone for the day, leaving the parking lot vacant and dark. Only the distant rumble of traffic broke the silence. Inside of The Escape Effect, our manager was alone in the host’s office, wrapping up some work before leaving. On a nearby shelf, the hosts’ walkie-talkies were shut down and left to charge. Since no one else was around, our manager wasn’t paying attention to them — not until they turned themselves on. From the speakers came the sound of a baby crying. When the crying stopped, the walkie-talkies turned back off.

Little things can turn an ordinary night into a creepy experience. Strange sounds, even those that can be explained away, can stay with you. Perhaps the walkie-talkies picked up the signal to a baby monitor. Such reasoning can help calm the nerves, but you may still wonder just where that monitor could have been in order for the signal to be picked up. You may even find yourself watching those little radios, wondering if that baby will start crying again.

An unseen hand

Sometimes, it seems that one ghost story begets another. Whether or not you actively seek them out, simply mentioning a spirit can make another appear. In our case, the dark atmosphere of Fright Before Your Eyes became the source of this story.

It was closing time one evening, and one of our hosts was finishing up the day’s work. She made her way into our haunted theatre set to reset the game and clean. Fright Before Your Eyes can look eerie even during the daytime. At night, when the outside world has gone to sleep, it’s even creepier. Undeterred by the mood, our host padlocked one of the doors. As she put away one of the props, a scraping sound caught her attention. She turned back to the door. The padlock was swinging gently, pushed by something that couldn’t be seen.

Even when you’re alone, you may feel like someone is with you. At times like this, you may wonder where this unseen companion came from. Have they always been with you, but never made their presence known before? Did they move in alongside that old furniture you bought, still attached to mementos from their old lives? What would you do if you learned the answer?

Someone at the door

Strange things don’t only happen to people when they’re alone in the dark. Sometimes a friend is there to witness the events. They may not be able to help you learn why it happened, but at least they can back up your story. With them confirming it, other people may be more inclined to believe you.

This final story comes to us from another manager, one who was fortunate enough to have a witness. One evening, while she was resetting Fright Before Your Eyes, a coworker came into the room. He closed the door behind him with an audible click, and the two of them talked. A moment later, the door handle began to turn. They watched the door swing open. No one was on the other side. They peered out of the door, looked around, and saw nothing. No one had walked by. It was just the two of them, staring into the empty hallway.

Was someone else in the room with the two of them, trying to leave? Was someone in the hallway trying to join them? Sometimes, the presence of another person only makes an event more uncanny. If the coworker hadn’t come into the room, would the door still have opened? We can only speculate. Perhaps whatever opened the door was looking for more company.