This is a great prompt this week. Lots of ideas came to mind for this one. Here's the best: "Haunted Philly Tours."
Haunted Philly Tours
Trish looked out the car window, frowning, as her Haunted Philly tour guide, Vance, parked at the curb. “Another haunted house?”
“Not just another haunted house,” he said. “This one’s a haunted monastery.”
“A monastery? In Pennsylvania?” Trish kept her eyes on the ramshackle building. Its classical architecture and cruciform windows intrigued her, despite herself.
Vance nodded. “Yup. This order of monks settled here—”
“How do we get in?” Trish was less into history and more into action. She was out of the car and striding across the overgrown lawn before Vance could shut off the engine. She turned back to him after scanning the facade. “Is this the back? There’s no door on this side.”
Chuckling, Vance said, “There’s no door at all.” He smiled at her shocked reaction. “The monks who built this place were an order of hermits. Once they closed the wall with the last stone, they never came out.”
“A death cult? Cool!” She ran to one of the ground floor windows. “These don’t even open.” She shaded her eyes and peered inside. “Do you think they’re still in there?”
She heard keys jingling and a metal door clang. Vance stood next to an open trapdoor above stone steps. “Do you want to find out?”
“Yes!”
Climbing down the slick steps, her flashlight revealed a small antechamber with a heavy wooden door set in the far wall. A plank table holding rib bones and several stained bowls stood against the wall.
“The local folk brought food for the monks…when they were alive,” Vance said from the top of the stairs.
“Like sacrificial offerings,” Trish whispered. She spun around as the oaken door creaked open revealing a dark tunnel. Hungry moans echoed in the darkness.
“Exactly,” Vance muttered as he slammed shut the trapdoor.
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