The answer is a big big YES!!!
Strap in, folks, this is a wild ride of a story and all of these events actually happened!
So I'm from a small town in Nassau County on Long Island- about 25/30 minutes to Queens. Out east in Suffolk County (which is much more "rural") there is a huge abandoned estate with over 15 giant buildings, and it used to be a psychiatric hospital. And not a good one. It was established in 1885. It was actually a great hospital at first until it started to suffer from overcrowding. In 1954, the patient census at Kings Park topped 9,303. During this time, invasive techniques of pre-frontal lobotomies and electro-shock therapy were used frequently and caused many deaths. Kings Park Psychiatric Hospital (will be referred to as "KPPH" from here on out) didn't close until around 1996/97. All of this is true, you can look it up if you'd like!
KPPH was a BIG spot for teens to explore and hang out at. When I was just turning 17, me, my boyfriend at the time Joe, and my friends Tommy and Jess all decided one day that we would take the hour trip out to Kings Park to explore that night. We had all been there before, but like I said before, there are many buildings and the estate itself is acres and acres long. There are also tunnels that run underneath the buildings, but very violent homeless people like to take shelter there, so it's never really a good idea to go exploring there for a while.
At that point, I had been to the main building along with the roof of it, and the buildings it connects to. You have to find a way in each time- you're not even supposed to go on the grounds. If you're caught outside on the estate, you'll be arrested. But once you're inside, you're home free- but only because the asbestos levels in every building are so ridiculously high that cops aren't even allowed to go in. *Fun fact: this is why they have not tore the entire thing down! The asbestos would flood through the air and contaminate town after town in the area.*
We were feeling adventurous that day, though. We didn't want to just go to the normal buildings, we wanted to try something new. So we did a lot of research. I had always been fascinated with the paranormal (still am to this day), so we wanted to go to a building where we might see some paranormal activity. So we decided to go to Ward 15; where they kept the violent patients.
Big. Mistake.
We found a map of the grounds and figured out how to get in the quickest way possible and the closest to Ward 15. We would have to park off the grounds in a nearby bank parking lot, walk a few blocks and enter the estate through a giant hole in a fence that we already knew was there (like I said, KPPH was the place to hang out when I was a teen). Unfortunately we'd have to walk a lot on the grounds itself, and what was even more unfortunate was that there was about an ankle-deeps worth of snow on the ground. But to our luck, most of the walk to Ward 15 was on a dirt road that was cleared for police to patrol, and had plenty of wooded areas and trees incase we needed to quickly hide.
So fast forward to us finally finding a way into Ward 15. Now, the estate is huge as I stated, but also very empty. Besides the buildings, it was mostly trees and empty space. So everything echoed pretty loudly. Including our boots crunching every time we stepped in the snow. Thankfully (I suppose) we weren't caught, and managed to get into the building.
We walked around for a bit going from room to room. We were all equipped with heavy duty flashlights, a dust mask, chalk (to mark our way as to not get lost), and a weapon. Besides the light from our flashlights, it was endless darkness. I remembered never wanting to look behind me in fear of only seeing that tenebrious blackness.
At one point, we all walked into a room, and a wave of unsettlement overcame all of us at once. We also noted that the temperature changed rapidly. I had brought along some sage just in case thinking that would be helpful (big mistake; it just pissed them off). I tried to light it as I usually would but it just would not keep lit more than a few seconds. We all looked at each other and decided that we should go. Leading us was Tommy, then Jess, then Joe, and lastly, me. As we were exiting the smallish room, I heard some debris from the floor shuffle violently, and me and Joe turned around and shined our light just in time to see an old cement brick smash against the farthest wall.
I was the last in line. No one else was in there...
Without a word we all ran from the room and quickly made our way to the exit.
We all stood in the snow as Tommy helped Jess jump down from the entry point (which was a window not too far off the ground) so we could get outta there.
What happened next I still to this day have no logical explanation for. I have thought about it many many times and tried to figure out any sort of logical solution or reasoning... but I never have.
I had never been so terrified.
As we all stood still for a solid second, something in my gut told my to look to my left- where there was a field of snow, and then beyond that, the clearing of the dirt road.
I immediately turned and shined my big flashlight to our left, only to see a shadowy figure in a full on SPRINT through the snow directly. towards us.
I immediately screamed something along the lines of "WHAT THE FUCK?!?!?" pointing desperately to this shadow person with no distinguishable features even with the light shining right on him... and making absolutely no noise in the ankle-deep snow.
Everyone looked and without a word we all started sprinting away from it, curving so we made it onto the road. I remember Jess sobbing as we took off down the road. Me and her were running at the same pace, and the boys graciously followed closely behind so we weren't last in line. I've never ran so fast in my entire life.
But it wasn't over.
I remember Tommy's scream first. It was blood curdling and ear piercingly loud. Desperate.
"THERE'S TWO!!!! TWO!!!"
I shouldn't have looked, but I did. And he was right. There were TWO of those things now, running inhumanly fast right towards us. I really thought that that was it.
But then, we ran past the opening in the fence and off the grounds. And suddenly, silence. Nothing. There was nothing, nobody but us. We even felt the mood lift. We only exchanged glances before running (at a slower pace- we were all hyperventilating at that point) until we got to public streets.
To this day, I can't make sense of it. We all saw them. But I don't understand. Why did they appear to just be shadows? Even with the light sining directly on them? Why couldn't we distinguish any features? Why were they silent? Our footsteps in the snow echoed very loudly. But when they ran through the snow, nothing. No noise. How could they be so fast? So fast, inhumanly fast... but still not catch us? How did they not catch us?
Maybe... Maybe some things are better left unknown.
@rambo @missy
