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The Lodge



Estimated reading time — 4 minutes

I live in a small town in Upstate New York. No more than 600 people sleep here, and less call it home. I moved up from Brooklyn about five years ago and immediately fell in love with its charm, its closeness, and as is the subject of this tale, its mystery.

One day not long ago as I was walking down the town’s only avenue past a used book shop that only sells books you’ve never heard of, and across from the building that doesn’t seem to know what it wants to be; sandwich shop, art gallery, grocery all in recent memory, I tripped on one of many uneven sidewalk slabs. As I picked my possessions and myself up off the biting fall cement, I noticed a large sign above an abandoned building I must pass daily; a building that was not out of the ordinary to me at all. The sign was what gave me that start of unfamiliarity, as it declared the building a “Masonic Lodge” in its old, carefully flowering print.

It was the first time I had seen the sign on this building in my then-four-years of inhabitance.

“It’s probably just an old sign someone found and hung up there,” I thought to myself. But even as that thought resounded around my head I could tell that it wasn’t quite right. No, there was another motive behind the appearance of that sign, and now I was determined to find it. I went about asking locals (those who had lived there longer than my years, that is) if they had ever seen the sign before, who owned the building, had they ever seen anyone go into it, that sort of thing. To my surprise, not one of the questioned had noticed the sign, and when I pointed it out to them they were visibly startled at its unannounced appearance. You see, in this town, no one does anything without someone else hearing about it. Something as large as a building-wide sign going up would have been remembered by at least one person, but no one could recall it. As for my inquiries of ownership and use of the building, no one knew who held the deed, and no one had ever seen anyone go into or out of it.

I decided that I would have to investigate myself. Obviously the best way of doing this would be to break into the building at night, armed with only a flashlight and a tape recorder, to document my findings. In hindsight I’m not exactly sure why I chose the night to explore this old, abandoned would-be Masonic Lodge… perhaps the writing of a story was sneaking into my subconscious.

So on a Saturday night I approached the mysterious building, and upon trying the door, found it unlocked. My flashlight showed me nothing of interest on the ground floor; all that decorated the bare rooms was dust and decay. Then my light shone upon the staircase, and I knew that my investigation had only just begun. Upon mounting the second floor, I knew immediately that there was something here; maybe not intelligence, but a distinct presence of something strange hung from the walls and dripped from the ceiling. At first I thought that the second floor was just as void of furnishings as the first, and that’s when my flashlight shone into the room.

I instantly thought that I had somehow switched on a light; hundreds of splinters of brightness shone all around me. Half a second later I realized I was staring into a room of mirrors. The walls were covered in paneled mirrors; the ceiling was plastered with decorative glass and reflective metal. I don’t know a lot about Masonic Lodges, but I had the distinct feeling that this was a unique feature. Just as I was going to inspect my sudden doppelgangers, I noticed something distinctly odd in my leftmost reflection. Everything looked normal about me at first, but I knew something was off. Only when I had shone my flashlight directly at my reflection could I realize that the illusion I was seeing was nothing of the sort.

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My reflection had no eyes. Just pits of black gazed back at me from that mirror. I felt my heart skip a beat, and then my brain immediately contained it with reason. It must be a shadow from the flashlight insisted my logic. But I knew that no shadow would be so deep; no shadow would be so still in the light from my shaking arm. And as soon as that epiphany was reached, this startling event repeated itself. Now the reflection to my right was also missing its eyes just as irrefutably. It was at that point that I completely lost the resolve that I had worked so hard to keep. Turning away from those frightening reflections, I ran quickly to the room I came from. Turning from door to door I scrambled for the stairs. At one point I was sure that the halls had become a maze, that I would never find the stairs. Just as this adrenaline-fueled insanity crossed my mind, I almost catapulted myself down the flight I had been looking for for what now seemed like hours. Upon reaching the street, I looked at my watch. Five minutes had passed since I entered the Lodge.

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Just as I turned away from swinging the door shut, the final shock of my night bit into my retinas; as if the Lodge would not let me leave without suffering a heart attack first. As I rotated away from that place, I saw two distinct pairs of eyes staring back at me from the doorframe.

Neither my feet nor my heart stopped running until I was safely locked up at home, and it took me hours to fall asleep that night. Every time I would start to drift off, I would see those eyes looking back at me from a corner, from the ceiling, from the floor.

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The next day my neighbor asked me if I had ever found the answers I was looking for about the Lodge.

“No, but I think my curiosity is good for now,” I responded lamely. By next week the sign was again gone. To this date I never walk by that building unless I have to. Far away from the unknown-book store, far away from the confused storefront, that is where I want to be.


Credited to Bones.

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Copyright Statement: Unless explicitly stated, all stories published on Creepypasta.com are the property of (and under copyright to) their respective authors, and may not be narrated or performed under any circumstance.

65 thoughts on “The Lodge”

  1. ThisIsANameForAComment

    A book store that sells only books that you’ve never heard of. I want a local book store like that.

  2. Officer Friendly

    Honestly guys, please try some /constructive/ criticism. Writing isn’t easy, and Bones had some very nice descriptions in this story.

    But honestly, constructive criticism.

  3. Three things:

    “I decided that I would have to investigate myself. Obviously the best way of doing this would be to break into the building at night, armed with only a flashlight and a tape recorder, to document my findings.”

    Yes, obviously, because exploration during the day was obviously impossible, as the story explained so well (nowhere), and certainly one would never offer situations where a first aid kit or weapon was necessary.

    “Then my light shone upon the staircase, and I knew that my investigation had only just begun.”

    Because you couldn’t tell the building was two stories from the outside?

    “Only when I had shone my flashlight directly at my reflection could I realize that the illusion I was seeing was nothing of the sort.”

    Has there been anyone in the history of mankind who EVER saw their reflection more clearly by shining a flashlight dead into a mirror? Or did they just manage to blind themselves?

    That said, Bones mentioned this was a stream of consciousness story done in 40 minutes, which makes this an impressive piece of work. While the first sentence was a run-on, I loved the description, and the mirror room was nicely disturbing. I did keep wondering if the eyes watching our hero were the disembodied floating eyeballs missing from the reflections or something else. :)

  4. As soon as the pasta started talking about looking in the mirror and having no eyes, I immediately thought of eight-ball fractures,, you know when blood fills your eyes and they appear red-tinged or blackk?

  5. Look at the neighbor’s hand! It’ll be just like in National Treasure, he’ll have a little masonic ring. Then you can interrogate him and find out where the jewgold is hidden.

  6. Good idea, poor excecution. I would have made every mirror show a different defect, but that’s just me.

    Fear the Darkness

    -Nex

  7. Sweet baby Bacchus, you have no idea how much this fucking freaked me out. Not the story itself (no offense, it was pretty good), but the fact that I stumbled across this at such a time. for about half an hour prior to reading this, I was discussing with a friend how the Masonic Temple in Binghamton, NY gave us such odd feelings as kids. http://nyslandmarks.com/treasures/08oct.htm
    should sum up everything. I am not even fucking kidding though, the whole idea of no one noticing it is EXACTLY what has been bugging me! It’s this gigantic, ancient thing, smack dab in the middle of downtown, between a CVS, gas station, supermarket, and pizza place, yet I’ve never heard anyone ever talk about it unless I asked them, getting the usual “huh, never noticed that place.”
    This doesn’t seem too odd, but it definitely means something when me, a total atheist, starts thinking something is just a bit off.

  8. i kept waiting for the story to make some sort of interesting connection with the masonic order and the lodge but it never happened.

    i feel entirely misled

  9. > not exactly sure why I chose the night to explore this old,
    > abandoned would-be Masonic Lodge

    Well duh, if you explored it in broad daylight, it wouldn’t be scary! =)

  10. some one the commenters below me need to realize that the long sentence in the exposition is NOT a run-on sentence. a run a sentence is a sentence that combines dependent and independent clauses without proper punctuation between them.

    however, the writer used semi-colons and commas appropriately, so it is completely grammatical. the sentence is just long, that’s all.

    good story by the way, but the climax was very vague. it created a lot of excitement that just led of to a quick ending, like you finished it in a hurry.

  11. “Obviously the best way of doing this would be to break into the building at night, armed with only a flashlight and a tape recorder, to document my findings.”

    wut?

  12. @28

    Duly noted, touche :D

    Hmm, besides the already pointed-out grammar flaws, I kinda liked this story… And also, as someone already pointed out, yeah… someone needs to die sometime =X Am I sick in the head for wanting that?

  13. Jesus Tapdancing Christ

    The IDEA was great, the execution was a little poor. If it was written in 40 mins for a contest, I can understand.

    If it was edited and made a little less rushed, I think it could become a much better story.

  14. you should have said that the next morning his eyes were gouged out. I’m so creeped out now, I’m not gonna be able to look in a mirror without freaking out for the next few weeks. someone should do a creepypasta about why we’re scared of mirrors.

  15. @Cyarm

    Then why are you here exactly? This is a site where people can tell each other ghost stories that are intentionally creepy and/or spooky. What were you expecting out of a site named “creepypasta”? Stories about a little train going up a mountain? This is creepypasya for craps sake, if you can’t handle the spooky, don’t visit the site.

  16. If I had better grammar, I would try entering a creepypasta of my own. As it stands, I read stories like these and become frustrated. Not bad, but not creepy, either. Just… well, Eliza Dushku horror, if you know what I mean.

  17. this one was kinda retarded.

    it’s like they were trying to write it in the most convoluted way possible.

    also, the premise was unoriginal and uninteresting enough that when you add in the way it was written it was pretty much terrible.

  18. It wasn’t bad. Though no Masonic lodge would ever have a giant sign lol. I’ve visited one. It just looks like a town hall. Otherwise good work :)

  19. “Upon mounting the second floor, I knew immediately that there was something here; maybe not intelligence, but a distinct presence of something strange hung from the walls and dripped from the ceiling. At first I thought that the second floor was just as void of furnishings as the first, and that’s when my flashlight shone into the room.”

    He just went inside the building and already he’s freaked out and ready to declare this a ghost house? No sense of build up.

  20. come to think of it, I really want to see a scary story where there is no happy ending. Like, instead of the person getting out of the building, she would die. Or something like that.

  21. i certainly liked it!
    i already am creeped out from mirror that that just made it every least bit better, in my opinion.

  22. …. but a distinct presence of something strange hung from the walls and dripped from the ceiling.
    … but I had the distinct feeling that this was a unique feature.
    … I noticed something distinctly odd in my leftmost reflection.
    … I saw two distinct pairs of eyes staring back at me from the doorframe.

    Too many distincts. But a nice story…

  23. Hey bro, I liked it. While the others do have valid points in regard to grammar, I can suspend my scrutiny and enjoy a good story when I see one. Though the ending was a bit soft… it didn’t seem like there was enough of a struggle to break free from whatever evil this was.

    Good shit regardless.

  24. I’m kinda getting sick of the pastas where something spooky happens, like this or the Antiguan (sp?) Giant… and they don’t bother to go any deeper than spooky stuff happening… them surviving… and then that’s it.

  25. It was okay.. The mirrors part freaked me out but by the time the person was out of the buliding i was just like Meh.. Still a pretty good story though.. Well written.

  26. Grammar Nazi time!

    @ Allie

    The semicolon separates it into two distinct clauses. A semi colon usually (there are exceptions) cannot be used unless the two phrases it would separate can stand alone as sentences.

  27. I thought this had some good points, it also had some parts that made me question the quality of the author. It seems that this is either a highly skilled author who is trying to make the story more real and tangible to the reader or a poor author making simple mistakes.

    Either way, nice build up, could have used much more in terms of the inside of the buliding and the consequence of the break in.

  28. I thought it an entertaining story. I already have issues with mirrors, so that made it the slightest bit creepier. Unfortunately, every time I hear of faces with no eyes, I keep thinking about the “Little Apple Dolls” I collect…

  29. Excuse Testler for not liking the story, guys. Really. I’d like to point out that the fact that the building was a Masonic lodge wasn’t creepy at all, since the Masons have nothing to do with supernatural occurrences. I’d also like to say that this really wasn’t that scary. A bit spooky maybe, and definitely good for a forty minute write, but not creepy.

  30. Everyone has their own writing style. It doesn’t have to obey all of the rules you learn in English class for it to be a good read. This one is very easy to read, unless the first sentence being a run-on was some huge turn off for you. And Testler, there’s not much use in poking holes in a fictional story. That’s like looking at Harry Potter and going, “Uh, one problem. You can’t shoot fire balls out of sticks.”

  31. kind of stupid, what dumbass would go breaking into a building before even knocking at the front door, i know its stupposed to be abandoned but if theres a new sign there (even if there wasnt) only a retard would risk being arrested before obeying common sense

    and one more problem, he reached the street and turned to swinged the door shut? is his arm like the length of a girrafe neck or something/

  32. This was pretty good. You know, just smoke, mirrors and tricks. Without the smoke and the tricks.
    So, seriously, is it like his eyes remained in that building looking at him, or was it *the evil spirit*?

  33. Ah I remember this one. I wrote it for an OC contest on /x/ in 40 minutes; the first story I’d ever written. Never found out who won.
    Yeah I do have a bit of a problem there with run-ons; I’ll do a bit of editing on my copy. As for the ending, I thought myself it fell a bit flat compared to the action of the rest of the story.

  34. One day not long ago as I was walking down the town’s only avenue past a used book shop that only sells books you’ve never heard of, and across from the building that doesn’t seem to know what it wants to be; sandwich shop, art gallery, grocery all in recent memory, I tripped on one of many uneven sidewalk slabs.

    This was all one sentence. It really bugged me, because it was a run-on. >< You could say you tripped on that avenue, and then describe the avenue in a seperate sentence maybe?
    Otherwise it was good. It really creeped me out, because I can’t stand things with no eyes or no face D: It makes me squirm. :(

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