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The gruesome cellar

Kathrin loved horror stories more than anything. She was especially a fan of stories which were set in eerie knightly castles. This was why she was so happy when her parents had suggested to take a look at the old castle which stood above their holiday village during their last summer holiday.

Unfortunately her parents definitely wanted to take part in an official castle tour. A grey haired tour guide in a blue and green uniform read his script through while he led the group of visitors through the endless hallways and massive rooms. One splendid chamber after the next was looked at and Kathrin had to listen to the endless stories about the paintings, chandeliers and furniture. Obviously that became very boring very quickly because she had hoped to see a spooky dungeon or some gruesome torture instruments. Wrong! Instead of this, the old castle tour guide was telling them about every single detail of the carved wooden chest that they had been standing in front of for the past ten minutes. Kathrin could not stand it any longer and decided to break away from the group and go on her own tour. Her parents wouldn’t even notice that she was missing because she was sure that they were busy listening to the information given by the boring tour guide so Kathrin slipped away quietly.

The girl quickly ran down the wide staircase into the ground floor. She stood still for a while to make sure that no one had followed her. There was a sign on one of the iron doors “Entry is strictly forbidden!” Such a ban was very tempting to Kathrin and she carefully pressed the door handle downwards “What luck!” Kathrin thought triumphantly when she saw that the door was not shut.

Despite the darkness, Kathrin could see a narrow staircase which looked like it was leading into the cellar of the castle. “Mmmhh” she thought to herself happily “maybe there is a dungeon or a gruesome torture chamber down there.

“Bang!!!” Kathrin got a big fright when the heavy door suddenly fell shut behind her and she realised that the door could not be opened from the inside. As Kathrin slowly comprehended that she was now locked in and could not head back, she started to panic a little. “Hello!” she called as loudly as she could. “Help me. I’m locked in!” Kathrin listened for a while but no one answered her call.

“Oh well” she said to herself encouragingly “it’s no use, I’ll have to make my way downstairs.” She carefully climbed down the narrow staircase into the underground chamber because her eyes needed time to get used to the darkness. Once she reached the cellar she saw that she was standing in front of a longer corridor which forked off in two directions at the end. “Oh well” she thought “at least I’m not in a dead end because the path carries on down there” and she headed towards the fork. “Aaaahh!” she screamed loudly as a sticky veil fell onto her from the ceiling and touched her face. She had walked into a massive spider’s web in the darkness and was now trying to get rid of the disgusting threads from her hair. When Kathrin noticed that something was crawling over her head, she almost fainted with fright. She quickly grabbed at her head and held a massive, black spider in her hands seconds later. “Eeee!” she called out in disgust and threw the awful creepy crawly away high up in the air. Her heart was beating like mad as she carried on.

Once Kathrin reached the end of the corridor she saw that a stony path led to a grotto on the left hand side and that there was a type of little church or chapel on the right. The girl had almost “filled her pants” being so alone in the darkness and because the chapel looked even more spooky, she decided to take the path into the grotto.

She only got a few steps further when a noise came from nowhere “Zitschzitschzitsch” came with a strange whirring in the air and Kathrin felt something fly past her. The girl shook like a leaf and held her hands protectively over her head as several bats flew all around her. Kathrin was not even able to run away quickly because she was so scared of these animals. She felt as if she would rather die on the spot if it meant that this would finally be over. She could not get rid of the bats as much as she screamed and waved her arms around. She turned around and slowly retreated step by step.

“The chapel it is,” went through Kathrin’s head. She didn’t have any other choice. She ran out of the grotto and sprinted to the little church. She gratefully saw that the church gate was wide open – thank God. As Kathrin wanted to run through the entrance gate into the church, she tripped over a chain which she hadn’t noticed because of the urgency. The chain clinked and Kathrin fell to the ground hard. “Ooww!” The fall had hurt quite a lot. She wanted to pull herself up again but her feet slipped on the clay ground. Kathrin grabbed into the darkness and her hands found something large and steady which she could hold onto and pull herself up. But when she saw what she was holding onto, the blood in her veins almost froze with fright. There was an ancient gravestone in front of her and a skeleton was lying at the bottom of it. Kathrin wanted to scream but couldn’t make a tone.

She now stood there, frozen to the spot, alone in the dark church in the cellar of an old cast and was staring at the bony remains of a dead person. “If only I hadn’t gone away from my parents!” she murmured and began to cry.

But the fright wasn’t over yet. Kathrin could clearly hear steps and a loud gasping coming towards her. Kathrin was almost as stiff as a post and didn’t have the courage to turn around. She thought “it’s probably the spirit of the dead person who wants revenge on me because I have disturbed his peace.” Kathrin closed her eyes and began to pray that whatever was behind her would spare her. The gasping came closer and closer. The steps became louder and then they suddenly stopped. The gasping was now directly behind Kathrin and “aaahh!!!” the ghost grabbed her shoulder from behind with its cold, dead hand. Kathrin knew that she would die now, but...

“There you are” said the old castle tour guide who had followed her into the cellar “we have been looking for you all over. Your parents are really worried about you.”

That is how Kathrin managed to have a gruesome experience even if she wouldn’t admit that had really been scared.