Have you ever asked yourself the following question? What causes a place to become haunted? Or to become infested with demons? That is the million dollar question that is often debated among theologians and paranormal scholars alike. I'm not here to answer that question. I'm here to tell you a story of a building that is haunted. Haunted by the lost soul of a wayward teenage girl who tragically took her own life in a fit of religious fever and my personal encounter with her. But first a brief history lesson.

In the year two thousand two  a number of local pastors and religious leaders banded together and pooled their limited resources to form a non-denominational youth ministry called “The Way Cafe” remember this was in the early two thousands and so the name may sound a little corny now. But their intention was to provide a safe place for the local youth of the town to come and hang out and in their words “Hear the Word of God.” But as the old saying goes, and how often I've found that it rings true, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. And over the fourteen years the “Cafe” as the local kids came to call it was in operation it became anything but a youth ministry, it became as my late grandfather once said around the dinner table “Little Sodom and Gomorrah.”

The “Cafe” attracted the wrong kind of attention, some said. Others said it was plagued by poor leadership. Broken kids from broken homes came there to find shelter from their troubles at home. Homeless teenagers came there looking for shelter and guidance. And finally LGBTQ+ youth came there, looking for help. These troubled young men and women, proved fertile ground for the brainwashing techniques the leadership used to control their charges. The leadership was mostly made up of college age kids, that in many cases were not more than a handful of years old than the ones they were trying to help.

One of those troubled souls was a girl who discovered she was attracted to other girls. And was told by one of the youth leaders that that was a sin. And she should be ashamed of herself for liking other girls and she should repeat her ways. The girl came from a broken home. Her dad worked long hours in Benton Brickwork and spent all of his money down at the Mellow Fisherman. A run down bar located on the bank of the Big Black River. And her mother was an addict that often walked the streets to feed her addiction. The girl had come to depend on the “Cafe” For both food, shelter, and a safe place to crash when her father was on a drinking spree and her mother was crashing at a cheap motel with a passing trucker.

Can you for a moment, just imagine how much courage it took this teenager to come out. And instead of being accepted for who she was, she was scolded and made to feel ashamed? Can you just imagine how that must have shattered her soul into a million tiny pieces. And then the cold, cruel man took a hammer and started to smash those million tiny fragments into dust by telling her she was bound to hell? The girl felt trapped and so she did what many might have done. She turned to ending her life as a means of escape. She did so by hanging herself with her belt and she hung herself in the bathroom of the “Cafe”.

Anyway I first came across the old “Cafe” building as the local's call it when mom was giving me the grand tour of my new hometown. The building was an old cotton warehouse that was located on Cotton Exchange Street one block over from Main Street and about a stone's throw away from the town's train station.

The building at the time was this abandoned two story cotton warehouse, the “Cafe” was located on the upper level. You had to reach it by climbing up a flight of concrete stairs. Below it was one of the most notorious hell fire clubs in Benton the “Little John and Robin Hood Tavern.” Here the remaining few Klan Members gathered together to drink hot beer on table and complain about the local Democratic leadership that pretty much ran the city. Here over dirty mugs of beer, they talked about schemes to get the Republicans back in control of the city government and debated plots to in time overthrow the mayor, by force if need be and usher in a new golden age for the Klan and bring back its glory days.

Mom pointed the building out to me and told me she used to hang out there when she was my age. She also made the off-handed remark that the building was supposed to be haunted. That last comment really piqued my curiosity and caused me to ask a flurry of questions about the building. Mom really did not want to talk about the place. She warned me though to stay away from it and that the place had been shut-up for ages. Having closed down in two thousand fourteen.

Now I'm not the person who can let something go. So when I was told to stay away from there, naturally I decided I needed to check it out. So one night a few months ago, when mom was out of town on some business trip. If I recall correctly she was attending the annual veterinary conference they hold each year up in Memphis. Anyway with mom out of town I had the free rein to explore the town at my pleasure.

Anyway, it was around twilight when I left my house. The street lights had just come on and the town was settling down for the night. It took about thirty minutes by bike to peddle from the street I lived on, Croft Street to the utmost downtown section of Benton.

The old warehouse stood like a phantom. Light spilled out from the open door of “Little John and Robin Hood Tavern” and onto the uneven brick paved streets. From inside the bar you could hear people joking, yelling and shouting. Behind the bar there is a concrete paved alleyway. To access the cafe you had to walk down this concrete paved alleyway and then you would come to a door. I remember how narrow the alleyway was. And how it reeked, moss grew on the walls of the old plaster building, and then I found it, a brightly painted doorway.

In big, bold, neon letters the words “The Way Cafe” were spelled out. The glass of the door had been broken and billions of tiny shards of glass littered the doorway. Taking a deep breath I carefully stepped into the doorway, I could hear the billion tiny shards of glass breaking and cracking under the heel of my foot. My heart was racing like a steam mill as I slowly climbed the concrete steps.

I remember how narrow the hallway was, I was thankful my phone could double as a flashlight. The air inside the hallway was damp and reeked of mold. On the second landing, I saw the remains of a homeless man's meal. The smell of piss hung around the second landing like a blinding light. Carefully I counted each step, fourteen concrete steps took me from the second landing to the edge of the doorway. Again this door had been broken in, and its shattered ruined lay to the side. Another billion shards of glass twinkled in the moonlight like the stars of heaven above me. If I only knew at that moment the hell that awaited me just beyond that door.

I swear upon the Cross of Jesus, I would have turned around and walked down those steps. But I did not, I had to push on. I'd come too far to turn back now. Now there are two old sayings I'm going to include here before I go any further into this story. “If there is a Heaven on Earth. There also a Hell.” And one my late grandfather said. “When God builds a church the devil builds a chapel.”

I can't explain the first one. But I can explain the second one. Any for good, such as progress or reform, is by the laws of nature inevitably accompanied or closely followed by something bad. And you could sense the evil coming from that threshold. Something told me to turn around and leave. A voice that came from the very back of my head.

I wish I did. But instead I took on step into the inner chamber. I remember, feel depressed, scared, and lonely. The molding remains of a coach sat pushed beside a broken down wall. Somebody had spray painted, in dark red letters. “RIP Butters.” I remember standing there, looking at the old letters. I felt sick. The air was stale and dust hung thick. I could follow my foot prints in the dust that had settled on the floor. I remember the main hallway lead beside some kind of office, the door to this office was locked. But beside it was a board, pinned to the board were dozens of fading photos and calling cards. Neo-Christian Rock Bands it seemed had once been hosted here. A few of the cards reminded me of the Neo-Pagan/Celtic/Christian Rock Bands that seemed all the rage back in the late two thousands.

It was like walking in the ruins of Pompeii. Much remained, though ravages of time had taken its toll. Then something happen from one of the rooms, the ghostly form of a girl around my age appeared. Her skin remembered me of flour and her hair was jet back and her face seemed almost void of any emotion. She was dressed in a black skirt, and a black shirt, with black socks and black shoes. A spike collar was worn around her neck and a few plastic bracelets around her wrist.

Her fingernails, I remember her fingernails had been painted a coal black and had a high gloss finish to them. Her eyes, her eyes were green as emeralds and her lips too had been painted a dark black. For a moment our eyes met each other and in a low tone of voice she said to me.

“Don't try to stop me.” She said as she brushed passed me. I felt a cold gust of wind smack me in the face as the girl walked passed me. I followed her. I followed her, now the stories say she hung herself with her belt. What I saw in the dim light was a cord of old, brown hemp rope that seemed to six feet long. A noose had already been prepared and it was swinging from one of the rafters of the bathroom. I remember watching her walk into the bathroom. The bathroom like the rest of the building had shown signs of decay and ruination.

The walls had been gutted as thieves had taken hammers to them, searching no doubt for copper tubing to sell to the junk yard man. The sinks had been broken. The doors remained unhinged and the smell, oh god the smell. It made me want to wrench. Amid all of this this girl, who like I said appeared to around my age just stood for a moment. A wooden stool, one that had been painted a neon green

“I told you don't fucking try to stop me! None of you bitches care about me, all you want to do is gossip and shit. I'm tired of this god damn life anyway!” She bellowed as she climbed up on the stool and placed the rope around her neck. I was beyond words. It was like I was watching a movie play out. I felt like while the girl was addressing me directly, she was not talking to me. It was like she was talking to somebody who was not there.

A moment later I screamed, and my screams echoed off the walls. All it took was a second for the girl to loose her footing on the stool and for her to fall off the stool. The rope tighten around her neck and I heard. I swear to you on my mothers good name I heard the rope tighten and her neck pop like a cork. She hung there for a moment, dangling lifelessly in front of me.

For several long seconds I watched her dangle there. I was too stunned to do anything. I wanted to scream, but it was like a demon had stolen my voice away from me, the seconds turned into minutes and then much to my horror the girl opened her eyes and peered toward me. Never breaking eye contact she slowly removed the noose from around her neck and slipped down without a sound. She sighed and shook her head.

“Maybe next time.” She said as she peered toward the noose that started to swing in a none existent breeze. She then said something that chilled me to the bone. She turned toward me and in a gentle, encouraging voice said to me.

“Okay its your turn now.” She said. “Maybe you'll go to the next life and face judgment. Or maybe you'll stay here with the rest of us.”

I screamed and ran out of the room. What I saw then shook me, the lobby with the smothering coach was filled with teenagers, all looking rejected and depressed. Some held old rags around their wrist, some just sat there looking down at their wrist that had blood dripping down. The blood pooled in front of them, in their hand they held blood covered box cutters.

I recoiled in horror and then the girl behind me appeared and in my ear she whispered.

“We are the souls trapped here in this place. This is our purgatory, trapped between Heaven and Hell. We are forever trapped here in this falling down building because those who were supposed to help us, failed us and the suffering we caused because we tried to escape enslaved us. We are in a hell of our own making.” She said as she placed an ice cold hand upon my shoulder. I turned around to face her and the smile she gave me will forever haunt me.

“Remember this, Taylor Anna Croft. Though we are trapped here. We still have power over this pass. And we do not take kindly to trespassers who venture into our domain. We have agreed to let you off with a warning this time. But if you dare venture here again. It would be your lifeless body they find dangling from the rafters of the bathroom.” She said as she removed her ice cold hand from my shoulder.

Stunned I quickly rushed through the broken down door, down the concrete stairwell and out the door. Now, I shall try to answer that question. What causes a place to become haunted? I'll put my money on trauma. It's a reason I feel most hospitals are haunted. And to answer the second question, long asked by paranormal scholars and researchers. Can ghosts hurt you? I'll say yes they can. I believe if you're foolish enough to trespass into their domain then they have power over you. I believe their invisible lines all over this word. And once you walk over that line. You are entering into the ghost's domain. Within that domain they hold sway. So yes, they can hurt you. They can even kill you if they want too.

The End.