This is an entry to a contest found here
My friend told me once this story about one of his many cousins, said it was all very hush hush at the time because their family didn't want any attention from the media. It was since written about in some of the lesser known journals but the story there is lacking.
It goes like this:
His cousin Andrej's family was a big one; grandparents, parents, five kids, a dog and a cat. They lived at the edge of Koprivnik, Slovenia; a small town counting less than 70 people, situated near the famous Kočevski Rog primeval forest where soldiers hid during second world war.
All five kids used to explore the forest all the time. The place was good for playing explorers because there was a good chance of finding something shiny or interesting. The parents had no qualms about letting kids go to the forest as they were out of the way and nobody in the family paid attention to old wives tales surrounding the place. Little did they know their whole situation could be avoided if they did.
It was the start of septembre, after school finished. The kids went out to forest with their dog. That day they were pretending to be archeologist (kinda like Indiana Jones my friend explained, apparently they loved him). It was nearing evening when the middle child (I think his name was Marko??) found an old bunker, further in the forest than they usually went. It was hidden under many layers of leaves and he found it by chance because their dog stumbled over it and uncovered it partially. He showed it to all the other children and even though they were curious they were taught to leave anything of military origin alone as most bunkers still held weapons. They went home after and miracously they all forgot about it. That is, all but Andrej. He was a bit of a historian and very, very knowledge hungry.
It was a week before he could go there alone, without telling anyone. He had trouble finding the spot again but after a few hours he did it. Andrej descended the ladder to the bunker with a flashlight in his hand. He ended up being disappointed; the bunker was just a five by five meters big hole with some chains on the walls. There weren't even any bones! He returned home and forgot all about it.
A few days later he was home alone, the others went to visit a family friend he didn't particulary like. He was taking a piss when he heard a sound. He listened carefully but didn't pay it much thought because old houses make lots of different noises. In that moment the cat started hissing at the dog and he dissmised the sound wholly.
That night when the whole family was in bed he heard it again. It sounded like rattling chains. He figured it was his fathers new project (he was a metalworker) that he probably left hanging outside in the wind. He fell asleep quickly.
The curious thing was, he kept hearing the same sound over and over so he ended up asking his father what he was doing with he chains. He didn't know anything about it and repriminded Andrej for playing too many videogames.
Andrej had a few more incidents after that. He told my friend the cat liked to hiss at walls and that their calm, old dog became restless at nights. My friend called him paranoid and left it at that.
A few weeks later when he saw his cousin again, he looked sick, tired, with big blue bags under his eyes. He said to him he looked like a ghost and found it strange when Andrej paled even more. My friend also noted Andrej was acting ˝shifty˝ that day; his mind was all over the place and his sentences were sometimes broken up. He tried to calm him down but it proved useless. Andrej kept talking about chains following him, saying they wanted to strangle him at night. My friends jokingly recommended an exorcism but his cousin took him seriously.
He heard from Andrej some days later saying he went to the bunker, salted and burned it while reciting a latin exorcism; exatly how they do it in the show Supernatural, he explained. He sounded healthier and happier but when he met with Andrej's family they said he started sleepwalking and they often found him unresponsive, gazing through the window at the forest. He never seemed to remember this episodes.
The next time my friend heard from Andrej was mid january. Andrej called him in histerics, babbling. The phone call wasn't even a minute long when he ended it. Two days later he went missing and my friend said they found his room destroyed. The police found him three days after that in the bunker after one of the children mentioned it offhandedly (none of the other children but Marko seemed to remember it, strangely). The police report is closed to the public and his family didn't want to talk about it to any media but apparently Andrej was found chained to a sooty wall with his own bloody handprints all over his body. He was catatonic and last I heard of it he still wasn't let out of a mental institution. For a while there was a rumor circling about that the police found chain tracks from the house all the way to the bunker. Some said it was the work of local gypsies and others said that drugs were involved. What I know is that the police report is restricted and fragmented.
According to the people in the village, my friend told me, the whole family left town shortly after this and even he hadn't heard from them. Funny thing is, last time I heard from him was around that time too …