I'll admit I have believed in some pretty stupid stuff. Since I can remember, I've been a major scaredy cat. Can't even stand the dark. My friends all make fun of me for it, but that's to be expected. Used to be scared shitless of Slenderman.

That's about all the introduction I can give you besides my name, which is Margaret, or Margo for short. I work at an old theater in Chanhassen, Minnesota. And that's where this all began.

May 9, 2014

My first day working at the dinner theater, my brother works there as well, and he managed to get his boss to give me a job. I'm fifteen, needed the money for a new cello. Sure I had heard all the rumors about the place, but they didn't affect me. I was sure they were all fake, and they all turned out to be.

There was one rumor in particular that was rather haunting. One about a ghost named Marie. She died when the theater was built over her old home, she was stuck in the basement, never to see daylight again. The story was pretty sketchy, and had plenty of holes and flaws to it. Besides, whoever picked such a cliche name as Marie was a complete and utter moron.

My shift started at 6 that evening. I was a hostess. It was a pretty simple job that required nothing more than kindness and some social skills. I was working on the main floor, so there was no reason to be scared, although I couldn't help but notice, once all the shows had started and the floor got quiet, the eerie, old feeling that filled the air.

May 18, 2014

About a week after I began working at the dinner theater, my co-worker, Tyler, and my brother decided to show me around. From the outside, building looks pretty small, but underground in the basement tunnels made it hard to ever imagine the place as small once you've been inside. The basement had a muggy, damp feel to it, and smelled of dust and age. Although there was nothing particularly alarming about the basement, it was definitely creepy. My overall favorite room had to be one, that was hidden amongst the other random rooms. The walls were painted a light purple, a grand piano sat in the corner with other various instruments around it. A record player and rows of chairs as if they were expecting an audience. My brother tried to scare me by saying sometimes the chairs moved on their own, sliding back or tipping over as if someone was trying to stand up. Of course, I didn't believe him.

The room, which I had named the music room, became my favorite place to eat lunch or take breaks. Nobody ever bothered me there, and it held a sense of serenity and peace. The only downside was that there was never any phone service in the basement, so if someone was trying to reach me, I'd never know it. It wasn't until a month later, June 17th, that things started to get weird.

June 17, 2014

A lady had thrown up during a show, and my brother and I had to go clean it up. The cleaning supplies was located in a storage room downstairs in the basement. Once we got to the door, my brother, who was a weightlifter, couldn't manage to open the door. We tried for about ten minutes until he decided to try knocking on it. The lights shut off all through the hallway. Kolton released the doorknob and they turned back on. Our manager then appeared at the end of the hall, asking what was going on down here. We explained to him how the door was locked and the lights had gone out. A concerned look swept across his face, before he tried opening the supply closet for himself. It opened without any problems, and we were able to go on the rest of the night without any problems. That was the point in which I stopped eating my meals in the music room, and tried to avoid the basement as much as possible.

June 19, 2014

I know it all seems so immature, even now. But there were some things about that place that you just couldn't look past. Things that didn't make sense. Music would come from random rooms at random times. Laughter and singing. There were rooms full of weird things like a closet full of dusty, old, moth-bitten costumes, so full you couldn't see to the other side. There were some rooms that seemed as if they never served a purpose, with just a chair in the center. And it wasn't only the basement, behind the stages there were weird passageways that lead to nowhere, old photographs of people who used to work there. Even the manager had a fear of phantoms, so much that they wouldn't show the Phantom of the Opera. Overall, the way people reacted to the theater was incredibly out of hand.

It wasn't as if the hauntings were getting worse, it had always been this way. But with the wave of new workers, it only scared more people, and started new rumors. I didn't believe them, it was hard enough for me to believe the things I had experienced myself. I was never convinced it wasn't all a joke put on by the older staff.

June 21, 2014

I was working on the main floor. A family of four came in, and requested a booster chair for their two year old. Since the play was the Little Mermaid, many families had come in that night, and requested a booster chair for their child. Without anymore in the usual place they're stored, it was my job (unfortunately) to go to the basement and retrieve one from the supply closet. As I have originally mentioned, I haven't had many good experiences with that particular room, nor was I too intrigued about going there alone. Of course we had to be short staffed that night, and everyone else was busy with their own job. So it had to be done: I had to go down into the basement alone, and go to the supply closet.

I walk quickly to the closet, picking up my pace as the hairs on my arms and neck stood on edge. As I reached the closet, my heart pounded so loud that I could hear it in my head. I placed my hand on the door knob and turned.

To my surprise it opened with a click. Smoother than any door as old as this one should ever have opened. I peaked my head inside with a cold, panicked sweat. I knew it. I had set myself up for nothing. I sighed heavily at my own ignorance and walked inside, propping the door open behind me. I found the chair and picked it up to take it upstairs. As I removed the door prop, I heard faint music coming from the other end of the tunnel. I wondered briefly who could possibly be playing piano. Who would have enough guts to come down here alone and sit in one of these rooms all by themselves. And then I remembered that I had done that many times, and laughed at my stupidity. My laughter seemed to echo down the hall, as if it were headed towards the music room. As I reached the ramp that lead back up to the main level, I turned my head to the room. I debated for a moment, curious as to who had invaded my room. I had come to think of that room as mine, as if the idea of someone else entering it was like invading my personal privacy. Like playing that piano was playing a record of all my secrets. With my lack of common sense, I set down the chair and walked down the hallway to the room. I knocked on the door, fearing that I'd interrupt the other person. Maybe they had always been going to the music room, and we had just never crossed paths. The piano playing ceases the moment my hand reaches the door. And I turn the knob, ready to greet the person and tell them how lovely their playing had been. Instead, I was greeted by an empty room. My hairs immediately rose again. Confused and terrified, I raced out of the hallway and grabbed the chair on my way upstairs. Swearing I heard a soft giggle as I left.

I know it seems crazy. I know it is crazy. And you don't have to believe me, that's fine. I hardly even believe myself, but I know it did happen. As much as I want to, I can't deny it. And the only thing that made it worse is now that I'd seen it, and I'd heard it, I couldn't seem to pull myself away from that room. It was as if the music room were a part of me. That it was a corner of my mind. I was drawn back to it every chance I got, I started working extra shifts just so I could spend more time in the room.

The next time I went down to the basement was the day after I heard the piano being played. It was my lunch break, and I hadn't stopped thinking about it. I felt like there was some unsolved mystery that pulled my attention to it. I was exhilarated to uncover it's secrets.

June 22, 2014

At first I called the ghost Marie. I felt as though I might be offending it, though, as it could easily be a boy or just have a different name. When I entered the room, nothing seemed to be out of place. Even the chairs were as they always had been, unlike my brother's stupid stories. I immediately went to the piano, that was covered in a new layer of dust. It was the only thing that had any trace of being touched. Or not even touched, but played. It was like the keys had never been used at all, but the inside strings had been. So whatever it was, it wasn't using the piano's keys but the strings inside. I wondered to myself if a rat had just found its way inside, but unless the rat knew any Bach, I found that story hard to believe.

I sat down at the piano and began to play. I had gone through an entire song before I suddenly had an idea. A way of communicating with "Marie" or at least trying. I lay my hands down softly on the keys but not to play anything.

"Marie." I said to the empty room.

"Who composed the song you played last night?" I felt stupid talking to myself. This was stupid. Of course "Marie" wouldn't answer. "Marie" Didn't exist. The whole piano stunt had just been some joke that one of the staff members played on me. Probably Tyler. I just couldn't stop thinking about how stupid it all was until three notes interrupted me. My fingers didn't move. I didn't dare move an inch as I watched and heard a horrible chord being played. A, B, and C were all pressed down, in what seemed to be an attempt to scare me off, and it might have if I hadn't looked at the keys. The B was one octave down from A and C. And in reading order, it would have spelled BAC, or as I interpreted it, Bach.

The record player started turning, and the song Mack the Knife started playing. I was a serious music junkie, and recognized it right away. Was this a threat? It definitely scared me, but wasn't enough to make me leave. I walked about the room, and suddenly I noticed something I hadn't ever before. A crack in the wallpaper, as if someone had taken a knife to it. It made a rectangle to the floor, and was only about an inch taller than me. It was, no doubt, a door. I opened pulled on it with all my weight, and after a few tries, it finally budged. It opened up to a short hallway, that soon lead to a large room. It smelled awful, like the room itself was rotting away. But I didn't dare go inside, it was too dark. I pulled back from the door and covered my nose from the awful stench. The music was still playing although I could hardly hear it past the beating of my heart. The door slammed in front of me, nearly crushing my foot in the process. The music stopped and suddenly another song started playing. Hit the road Jack, and don't you come back no more…

The message had been received and I ran out of the room as I started to realize what the smell had been. But I still wanted to know. I needed to know. My mind raced as I went back to work for the rest of the day.

June 30, 2014

I had that week off to go to a music camp on the border of Canada and the US. With the week off, I was able to finally clear my mind of all this music room business and the ghost that haunted it. For some reason I didn't feel like it was the so called Marie anymore. Maybe it didn't even have a name.

When I returned to work, it was clear that something had been troubling my fellow workers. My brother told me on our lunch break that Carson, a waiter, had gone missing last week. I didn't see it as any big deal, he had probably ran off somewhere with his girlfriend, or had a fight with his parents. Carson was older and was already out of highschool, so he could do what he wanted.

"No trace of him or anything." Kolton (my brother) said as we finished eating.

"Do you know anything about the music room downstairs?" I asked.

"You mean the creepy one -well they're all creepy- but the one with the instruments?" He asked.

"Yeah."

"Heard there's been a lot of noise coming from it lately."

"Want to check it out tonight after our shift is over?" I asked. He looked at me and grinned.

All horror stories are the same, in my opinion. All of them giving off the same sense of fear. But it's not really fear, it's a hint of it. But now I know fear itself.

Kolton and I went down to the basement after our shift around 9:30 pm. The lights were dim and the tunnels had their usually damp atmosphere. We went straight to the room, with flashlights at hand. We went to open the door when it wouldn't budge. This had never happened before.

"You and your damn door problems." I said before pushing him out of the way and trying it for myself. It opened immediately. But the room had changed.

Chairs were tipped over, and pushed out of their usual, neat order. The instruments were moved, some of the strings on them missing. The record player was playing something but it was unrecognizable. As if it wasn't even a song but just useless noise. A loud cry came out of it singing, "I killed them! I killed them all! I burned them! And I'll burn you, too!"

My brother and I looked around as if we had entered another world. Everything was so chaotic. It was unreal. And then all at once it stopped. The record player stopped, the feeling of being overwhelmed ended. The room was dead silent. I went to the hidden door, it opened easier this time, and I crawled in with my flashlight before my brother. It flickered on, and the room lit up. There was a dripping sound, and the stench came back. I shined the light, from behind us, the record player started up again, playing moonlight serenade. It was as if the ghost could only travel through the sound, perhaps the record player itself was what was haunted.

"Margo." My brother directed my attention to the ceiling, were feet dangled. From several feet above. What… the… hell…

I shined my own flashlight up there, and just as I feared bodies hung from the ceiling, held by their feet or necks that were tied to what looked like instrument strings and piano wire cutting into their flesh. Others had already fallen to the floor. There was Carson, dangling by his feet, his mouth was half hanging open as he stared at me. He was still alive. He mouthed the words help me.

As String of Pearls played, the same voice as earlier came through. I'll burn you. I'll burn you. Same as them, I'll burn you. It was a girls voice, she sang the words triumphantly.

Kolton and I turned to leave making the unspoken agreement to go tell someone about this room. We ran out, up the stairs and to our bosses office. We told him as much as we could while leading him back down. When we entered the room, everything was back in it's place, the chairs were in their rows, the instruments were back to normal, the record player was off. My boss asked us to show him where the bodies were. So I went to where the hidden door was, but the wallpaper wasn't cut. I searched the entire wall but it wasn't cut anywhere. Kolton and I shared glances. There was no trace of anything ever happening. My brother took out a pocket knife to go over where the door was, but the wall didn't show any signs of any door. My boss had already left, seeing as we were just wasting his time.

July 13, 2014

I stopped working there, I left the dinner theater forever, not wanting to return. Even if it was all a dream, some dream that my brother and I shared, I didn't want to ever go back. But I will leave you with the final notes I took while I worked there.

Final Notes:

Jezebel Riley

Age at Death: Approx. 16

Gender: Female

Story: Authorities say her house burned down in June prior to the Theater being built over it. It was arson, with no known suspects.

Cause of Death: Most likely arson

Conclusion: Jezebel is the demon of the music room. She travels by sound. She either chooses not to, or can not leave the room. Her victims are hung by their necks or feet with piano wire, or the string of other various instruments. Jezebel is possibly Marie's sister, if Marie was ever real. Theory is that Jezebel locked Marie in the basement as she burned the house down. Authorities say that Jezebel was missing her tongue when her charred body was found. It is possible she cut it off herself, or by her sister Marie.

I saw her face today. It was in the shine of the piano behind me. She looked bored. Her expression was dull. She had darker hair, like a red or brunette, not quite black.

It feels like something is pulling at my hair. I'm scared.

Don't look at her, don't look. Even if she's there don't look at her.

I warn anyone who ever goes down into the basement, or even into the theater. Don't go to the music room. Don't ever enter. Don't fall for her tricks. She invites you in with her music and her calls for help but she only wants to off you. She never wanted your help. I don't know if there is a way for her to leave, but I would never risk it. She travels through sound. Don't go into the music room, ever.