By Erin Fuhr | Echo
This Halloween, we searched in the darkest corners of TU for the scariest stories that happened on campus. These 100 percent true stories are brought to you by Taylor students who walk among us. Enjoy these chilling tales, which to this day are some of Taylor's greatest mysteries.
Monsters under the bed
Freshman year spring semester, I was sitting on my bed on the third floor. I heard this rustling under my bed, and I thought, "Oh no, that's kind of scary." I told myself it was nothing, but I was terrified.
I went to my friend and said, "There is something under my bed, but I don't know what it is."
"Oh it's probably nothing," she said, "just somebody plugging stuff into their wall!"
"I'm not an idiot," I answered. I went back into my room and a black cat darted out under my bed, and I was terrified. I don't like when cats jump out from under my bed, especially not black ones. I live on the third floor of a dorm, so you wouldn't expect to find living creatures under your bed, especially of that size or proportion.
A couple days later, I heard these chirping noises. I thought it was mice, and I really, really hate mice. Turned out it wasn't-but it was worse. I didn't want to check under my bed, so I got my friend to do it. She's an environmental science major, and she likes these things. She pulled out my winter coat which was under my bed, and she looked at me, and she said, "There's kittens."
I screamed so loud. I'm not really a screamer, but I was in that moment-cats everywhere, all over my winter coat, these little squirmy things. But it made me famous for a while-people knew me as "the cat girl."
- Gracie Fairfax, L&T Staff Writer
Expecto patronum
A group of my friends and I would go to Randall dock a few times to hang out, look at the stars, talk about life and eat junk food..
This night, it was raining and cold and foggy and lightning flashed. But we make that treacherous trip into the dark woods. We got out to the dock, and the whole time we were talking about how it felt like we were in a horror movie.
We all lied down so we couldn't see what was going on, except for one of us. She was sitting up to be the lookout. But little did we know, this man emerged from the woods. He was at least nine feet tall, pushing 10, and he wore a black cloak that made him look like a faceless figure. But all we heard was a bloodcurdling scream.
We looked up and my friend was just pointing. I was so scared to look because I've never seen someone look so scared and pale. I thought, "Oh my gosh, this is it." But we all slowly looked, and there was this figure coming towards us.
The boys who were with us were scared at first (no matter what they say-I saw it in their eyes). The boys were like, "Bro, it's over. We get it, it's a joke, you got us." But he didn't say anything, or take off his hood-he just kept walking.
He finally made his way all the way to the end of the dock, and we were freaking out thinking, "Ok, we're going to jump off and go get help," and it was all real for a second. But then he just took his hood off, and his friends came out of the woods.
They sat with us as if we were all friends, but not speaking to us. And we were all weirded out-so we just left.
- Paige Williams, L&T Staff Writer
Gorilla in the dark
So it was my freshman year, and people were making their COS 104 videos-so you saw some weird stuff happening. But I can get easily scared when something is jumping out at me.
I was walking back from a talk that was at the DC, and we were walking on the sidewalk right between Olson and Wengatz. This guy in a gorilla suit camee out from behind a tree and just growls, and it was terrifying.
I screamed because it was horrifying, and he came at me, so I hunched into a ball. Nobody else did, so they just laughed at me, and they recorded it and put it in their COS 104 video. So everybody saw it.
- Leah Knibbe, senior
The Wengatz Walker
There were a couple guys that had been awake at like three in the morning, walking around, going to the lounge or the bathroom. They'd see, down on Second East, this guy with his hood up, headphones on and wearing dark clothing, walking around the halls. No one knows where he's from, what he's doing or whether he lives in Wengatz or not. He doesn't speak to anyone or anything, and everyone's thought he was super creepy.
We decided to call him the Wengatz Walker.
In the words of Billy Goggin ('14): "Who was the Wengatz Walker? We'll never know. He was no one-and everyone. He was you. He was me. He was John C. Wengatz incarnate. He was . . . The Wengatz Walker."
- Adam Kelly, Opinions Editor
The scream and the cornfields
I was taking a drive with my boyfriend. We were driving around the cornfield, and we decided to park in this one spot because that's what couples do sometimes. We were just sitting on the hood, just talking, but there was this really weird vibe-it was really scary.
The wind was blowing, and the leaves sounded really weird. Then we stopped talking, and I just got really freaked out, and I just had the feeling that we should leave, but we didn't.
We started talking again, just trying to joke it out. I felt this presence behind me-you know how you feel when somebody is nearby. But I didn't turn around, and it started getting closer and closer, and it felt warmer and warmer. Then there was this really loud, high-pitched scream, so close to my ear-I could feel the warmth of the person behind me.
I saw nobody, and I walked away. Then we just started driving away. We weren't talking about it, just wondering who that was.
My boyfriend said, "It was probably somebody just pranking us; it's probably no big deal.
But the day before, we had been hanging out at the park, and this dog had started barking near the railroad. Then another really loud scream had happened, so I was already freaked out. It also happened a third time. So at first we thought it was a prank, but come on, who has the time to follow random people and scare them?
- Claudia Viscarra, senior
