Scary Stories to Tell in RCAH
30 October 2019
RCAHtypes, the RCAH newsletter, asked readers for their favorite scary stories from RCAH, Snyder-Phillips, and MSU. They sent some real treats! [Cue maniacal laughter]
Shadow People
Submitted by an anonymous RCAH student
I started seeing them my freshman year, and I thought it was just my imagination. When I’d do laundry really late at night, I’d see these shadow people in the laundry room out of the corner of my eye. When I looked directly at them, they’d disappear, so I just assumed it was my sleep-deprived brain making something up.
And then the next year I moved down to the Terrace level.
At first, it only happened at night. Late at night, when I was going from my dorm to the laundry room, or the Pillar room to my dorm, I’d see them hanging out in the corners, peeking out from behind doors, etc. Again, I just chalked it up to lack of sleep.
That is until they stopped disappearing when I looked directly at them.
I started seeing them even when it wasn’t late. Shadowy figures who didn’t really have any features but somehow looked vaguely human.
The next year, I was planning on moving into an apartment. My last night in the dorms, I found one just standing in my closet. Giving me what I guess would be a shadow version of a smile.
Bloody Drip
Submitted by a current RCAH sophomore who wishes to have her name withheld
I'm not sure about Sny-Phi, but Mason-Abbot is HAUNTED-haunted. I had to live there this summer when I was working a camp. There is a room in the basement where a student was murdered a really long time ago, in the 1970s. This is an actual fact you can look up. But anyway, blood still drips from the paintings. I have literally witnessed this myself, the blood dripping down the walls from the paintings. I never go into that room. Except when I am feeling lonely.
[Editor's note: Some places and images described above can be seen in this video by Chrystel Lopez '22 and Alyssa Briones '22.]
Haunted Thoughts
Submitted by anonymous RCAH students
Doing laundry at midnight in SnyPhi sucks. But at least that’s when the shadows do their laundry, too.
. . .
The Weight Room is always empty. One day, you go in and turn the lights on and find out why.
. . .
The lights are off when you walk into your dorm room, meaning your roommate must not be home. You look up to their bed and see them, eyes wide pointing at the window. There’s a face smiling back at you, pressed against the window. You live on the second floor.
. . .
You set an earlier-than-usual alarm so you could get ready for graduation the next day. You woke up to your freshman-year roommate yelling, “Do you want to be late to your first-ever college class?”
Who's Crying Now?
Submitted by an RCAH student
This happened last year. We lived on the second floor of Snyder. My friends and I came back from a Stranger Things-binge party on Saturday night and heard crying from our RA's room. Probably typical relationship stuff. But she wouldn't stop and it was getting annoying. Like waking people up! We were knocking on her door but she just cried louder. We were worried something happened to her, so we were pounding on the door. Still crying. Then the weirdest thing happened. Our RA walked up behind us. She had been out at a movie with her girlfriend. They heard the crying now, and we were all freaked out because someone was in her room. She unlocked the door and there was no one there. No one. We got a new RA the next week.
Phantom Baby
Submitted by a current student in RCAH who won't stay alone anymore
My partner had just moved into their new house. We spent the day unboxing. Suddenly it was 5 a.m and we couldn't sleep. They turned on our favorite true crime podcast and just as we're drifting off, I hear a baby laughing in the corner of the room. Nobody else was home. My partner immediately rewinds the podcast. Nothing. They turned towards me and whispered softly, "You heard that too, right?"
Paw Prints in the Dust
Account and photo submitted by an RCAH upperclassperson who has chosen to remain anonymous at this time to avoid any trouble with authorities
You know there is a cat here, right? Here in Sny-Phi? It's a real cat that slinks around into peoples' rooms. How it gets in, no one knows. Very few people have ever seen it, but I have. I was in my friends' room one day and we got a photo of it. It's not a great photo, but it is a real cat, not Photoshopped. The cat is enormous, not like regular cats. Apparently it eats all the food left in peoples' rooms, the stale pizza and burritos and all the crap that people forget about. And it leaves "gifts." Like dead mice and birds and cockroaches. I'm not kidding. I know people who have found these things in their beds, with strands of cat fur. Anyway, we took the photo, then we went to that room, in Phillips Hall, and knocked on the door. The person there had no clue what we were talking about. We showed him the photo, and he couldn't believe it. We checked his window and there were no holes. But there were paw prints in the dust. If you ask the people in charge of the building, they deny it. There must be cat tunnels the cat travels through. Or like a cat portal.
Thanks to Amelia Herron '20, Chrystel Lopez '22, Kristin Phillips '14, and Morris Arvoy for helping to compile these stories.