We Explored a Ghost Town in the Mountains, Now Something is Hunting Us | Part 1
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Hey guys, get ready for the ultimate scare this Halloween season. From number one best-selling author Tony Martirano comes The Curse of Frost Lake Manor, a terrifying tale perfect for this spooky season. As Halloween approaches, immerse yourself in the haunting story of Kevin, an ambitious executive sent to oversee the restoration of Frost Lake Manor, an eerie estate with a dark and twisted past.

But what starts as a career-making opportunity quickly spirals into a living nightmare as Kevin uncovers the horrifying secrets buried within the manor's cursed walls. Haunted by malevolent spirits and pursued by supernatural forces beyond his control, Kevin is trapped in a fight for survival. Tony Martirano, celebrated for his pulse-pounding horror novels, delivers a story guaranteed to send shivers down your spine.

The Curse of Frost Lake Manor is an exclusive Halloween special premiering on the Doctor No Sleep podcast on October 23rd at 1pm Eastern Time. This tale of supernatural terror is just what you need to get into the Halloween spirit, so make sure to click that follow button and turn notifications on. You don't want to miss the scare of the season, only on Doctor No Sleep. "Oh, look at this stuff," I said.

Looks like some sort of shrine. I said, looking up at my tall friend.

"Dude," Largo said, reaching one thick and clumsy hand out toward a human-like figurine that looked to be made of twisted plant roots. "Don't touch it!" I said, but it was too late. Largo yanked the thing from its perch and brought it up to his earnestly handsome face, his thick lips parting as his green eyes widened. I looked over at Kyler, whose face was obscured by the camera he held in both hands.

Looking directly into the camera, I made a frightened face that I hoped said, "This guy's going to be the death of us." "Man, this shit is boring," Largo said, chucking the figurine back at the shrine, knocking a couple of onyx-colored rocks off. I winced, stepping back from the shrine. "Seriously, man, stop. You don't know what you're messing with." Largo gave me an insolent look and then used one thick hand to swipe a shelf of knickknacks to the floor.

candles, shriveled chicken feet, and rocks with strange symbols carved into them clattered to the dusty wood planked floor. "Don't tell me you believe in that shit," Largo said. I kept my mouth in a shocked "oh." My eyes fixed on the floor at my feet as though the knickknacks had been a priceless vase that now lay shattered there. In my peripheral vision, I saw Kyler getting closer with the camera when I didn't answer. Largo laughed and knocked the rest of the shrine to the floor.

He stomped on the items, still laughing, until a loud bang sounded from outside, like someone smashing the side of the old wooden building with a baseball bat. We both froze and looked at each other, Largo's expression now matching mine. The bang came again. Both of us flinched. Kyler moved closer with the camera. A flurry of shoulder-tensing bangs erupted from outside. Largo and I yelled. Glass shattered.

- Okay, cut. - Kyler shouted, lowering the camera. - That was great. - The banging stopped and the other two members of our crew came through the front door of the old building. Milo, a fuzzy headed 18 year old with thick glasses and an ingratiating attitude, held two claw hammers in his hands. Haley, a 25 year old with small eyes, an upturned mouth and an outspoken personality, held an aluminum baseball bat in her hands.

"Good?" Ailey asked. "Yup," Kyler said. "Now we'll do the shot of you running down from the other side of town. After that, we'll need to get ready for the first kill." "It's a good thing we only needed one take for that one," I said. "Because Largo really smashed some of these things to bits." Everyone looked at Milo, who had supplied the knickknacks. He shrugged. "That's what I made them for. I knew they would get beat up." "You wanna save any of them?" Largo asked.

"Yeah, maybe so," Milo said, setting his hammers down on a dusty table and coming over. While Milo and Largo worked, Kyler, Haley, and I went outside. It was getting chilly as the afternoon morphed into evening. Gray, rainless clouds obscured the sky over the ghost town, giving the place the feel of winter, which was still several months away. I studied the ramshackle buildings of the once important mountain town.

We still hadn't decided which one or ones to use for the night shoot when the ghost would come after us. Not that it mattered that much which ones we chose. The place was genuinely creepy. I just hoped that creepiness translated to the screen. It had taken us nearly two hours to hike up to the ghost town. The dirt road had been washed away by a flash flood years earlier.

That, combined with a three-hour drive to get as close as possible, meant that to finish the shoot in a timely manner, we would need to camp out here for at least one night, and maybe two. I wasn't super jazzed about that, but I had to admit it would give the finished product the kind of realism that was hard to fake without backing from a major studio. We were just five people with a camera and a YouTube channel called Abandoned Haunts.

It was a growing YouTube channel, but certainly not one with big bucks to throw at our productions. Not yet, at least. "What do you think?" I asked Kyler. "Where should we do it?" Kyler shrugged, studying the buildings just as I had. There were two rows of them on either side of the main dirt thoroughfare. Many of them looked too dangerous to set foot inside, with half-collapsed roofs or walls that sagged drunkenly. But there was still a good dozen buildings to choose from.

at least ones that looked safe enough to shoot inside of. We'd have Milo, our resident nerd, inspect them first to make sure they were actually safe. Milo was good at that kind of stuff. It was why we'd hired him. "We should do the final sequence in the mine," Hailey said, pointing up toward the mine shaft carved into the mountain. "That would be really tempting fate," Kyler said. "Especially with all those boards over the entrance saying 'danger' and 'keep out,' don't you think?"

Haley waved his concern away. I'm sure they legally have to put that junk up, so whoever owns it has his ass covered. I bet it's fine. Besides, we can have Milo look at it. Milo looking at a building is one thing, I said. It's entirely different in a mineshaft. He's not a structural engineer. He's close enough, though, Haley said. I grimaced at that.

I had a hard enough time entrusting my life to an eccentric 18-year-old when I stepped inside wooden buildings that could collapse on me at any moment. Stepping into a mineshaft was a whole other thing. We both looked at Kyler, who was the director, and therefore had the final say. He brushed away a lock of greasy, wind-stirred black hair inside. "Hailey, why don't you look for a good place for us to sleep tonight? Heath, see if you can find a creepy building from when the ghost first attacks."

"I'll talk to Milo about the mine." Haley and I shared a look. I snarled at her, and she stuck her tongue out at me. It was all in good fun. We chuckled and then went our separate ways to do our assigned duties. As the sun moved toward the horizon on the other side of the mountain, the sky grew a little darker and the wind blew a little harder. The place we settled on for the first kill was an old sawmill at one edge of the little town.

There had once been a creek that the mill had been built over to harness the energy of running water, but the creek was gone now. It had either been diverted or had dried up. Maybe that was one reason the town had been deserted. I didn't know, but I made a mental note to ask Milo about it. He was the one who scouted locations. The reason I suggested the mill was because it had a square wooden tunnel in which we could shoot.

Given the tracks on the tunnel floor, I figured it had been used to transfer logs down the adjacent hill to the sawmill, where they would then be cut into boards or shaved into wood pulp. A section of the tunnel had collapsed sometime in the last 50 years when a tree fell on it, which made me smile. I thought of the tree giving its own life to smash the mill, maybe getting revenge for all its tree brethren that had been chopped up in the mill over the years.

From the looks of it, the tree had fallen on the tunnel after the town had been abandoned, but it was still a funny thought. That collapsed section made inside the tunnel the perfect place for the scene because it blocked any light from coming through from the other side. I told Kyler and Milo about it, and Milo went to check it out while the rest of us got the scene of Haley running down from the other side of town, looking concerned.

Then we shot the scene of Largo and I running out of the old building and meeting Haley, looking around for any source of the banging and seeing nothing. Kyler said we would have to figure out how to get our characters from the old building up to the sawmill for the first ghost attack. This was how we worked. We let the location dictate the story, got the major beats down, and then went and filled in any blanks.

As we discussed it, it became clear to me that we would probably be here for two more days, which was okay because we'd brought supplies for three. As we finished the final take on the scene, Milo came up and said the sawmill looked good. "I've already moved our pads up there for Heath's kill scene." "Alright," Kyler said, looking at the dimming sky. "Let's do it, and then make camp for the night. Did you find a place, Haley?"

There's that old warehouse up the road that looks pretty sturdy. We'll still probably want to set up our tents, because there are holes in the roof, but it should help cut the wind." "Fine with me," Kyler said. "What about everyone else?" "Sure," I said, shrugging. "Yeah," Largo said. Milo opened his mouth to speak, but Kyler was already moving on. "Okay, great. Let's get this done, people. Largo, could you please move our gear into the warehouse and then meet us at the sawmill?"

Largo nodded and headed off to move our backpacks while the rest of us headed up toward the sawmill. According to our loose skeletal script, I would be the first to die by the ghost that Largo had pissed off by smashing all that black magic stuff in the old building.

Of course, our audience knew it was all fake. Well, all except the abandoned locations we explored. But that extra dash of storytelling entertainment gave a little flavor to what had become a dull genre of urban exploration. So in the sawmill, I put a vest on under a jacket identical to the one I'd been wearing in every scene thus far. The only difference was that this jacket had a slit up the back and could be fastened with Velcro.

Milo attached a rope to a grommet on the back of the vest and then velcroed the back of my jacket closed around it. From the front, you wouldn't be able to see the rope at all. Largo and Milo would hide back in the tunnel with the rope in their hands. And when the time was right, after I said, "There's something in here with us," they would pull on the rope and yank me back into the dark tunnel. I would land on our gathered sleeping pads, which we would take out with clever visual effects during editing.

From the camera's point of view, it would look like I was being yanked off my feet and back into the dark tunnel by some invisible being. At least, that was the plan. We never got to do the scene, because all hell broke loose before we had a chance. Kyler was busy setting up the camera, while Haley asked him about the next scene, which would be her and Largo's reaction shot. Largo was still off moving our stuff, and we couldn't do the scene without him.

"So there are no pieces of wood with nails sticking out of them around where I'm going to land, right?" I asked as Milo double-checked the rope attached to my back. "No," Milo said. "I checked, but you can double-check if you want." "No," I said. "I trust you. We're good. Just had to ask." "Well, now you've got me second-guessing myself," Milo said. "I'm going to go check and make sure the sleeping pads are in optimal position."

Can't have the talent getting hurt." I chuckled at that as Milo turned on his flashlight and headed into the sawmill tunnel behind me. I jumped up and down a few times and stretched my neck to get ready for the yank. Largo sometimes didn't know his own strength.

I flinched as a sickening scream boomed from behind me. There was a crash, the sound of rotting wood breaking, and I turned around to see Milo's flashlight rolling down toward me. "Very funny, Milo," Haley said. I looked from the dark tunnel to Haley, who stood near Kyler, apparently not impressed with the little joke. Kyler had his attention fixed on the camera, which didn't surprise me at all. He would film paint drying if he thought he could make a YouTube video out of it.

When I heard nothing else from Milo, I turned to look back into the tunnel. The flashlight had come to rest against one of the metal tracks, pointing directly toward me, making it even harder to see into the tunnel. "That was a pretty good scream," I said. "Maybe now Kyler will reconsider and let you go on camera." The only answer was a gust of wind creaking the sawmill, but I soon saw movement. Someone was pulling on the other end of the rope that was currently attached to my vest.

Milo had already put the other end of it behind a large wooden board he had propped up to hide him and Largo when they did the pull. I thought it had been overkill before because I couldn't see the board in the darkness. I certainly couldn't see it now with the flashlight beam in my face. I laughed nervously. It wasn't like Milo to pull pranks. I couldn't remember a single time he had. "Pretty freaky," I said. "You got me." The rope continued to disappear into the darkness.

all the slack coming out of it. But I knew that Milo wasn't exactly a strong kid. I doubted he could pull me off my feet like Largo could. So I braced myself and prepared for a game of tug-of-war, grabbing the rope in both hands. The rope went slowly taut, but there was no tug, not for a long moment. I pulled a little, testing it.

Then there was a tug, so violent and hard it caught me off guard. The rope pulled out of my hands and yanked me around so my back was facing the tunnel. I looked into Haley's eyes and said, "It's not Milo!" Then I was pulled off my feet, landing hard on my ass in the middle of the tracks, not anywhere near the side of the tunnel where the sleeping pads were set up. A column of pain shot up my tailbone as Haley darted toward me, shouting for Kyler to help.

Kyler moved closer, but he was recording, and I didn't think he would be much help. It occurred to me that Largo and Milo could have devised this little scheme. Maybe even Kyler too, but I didn't think it was likely. Safety was always a big priority, and the violent way in which I'd been pulled off my feet made me doubt that it was my friends doing this. I could have easily hit one of the metal tracks and broken a bone,

As Haley darted over, I got my legs under me and lurched toward her. But I was pulled off my feet again. This time, I did hit the track with one butt cheek, crying out as I tumbled off. I flopped onto my stomach, the fear really digging its claws into me now. I had no doubt. This wasn't Largo. This wasn't Milo. This was something else. Gripping the rail and one of the ties, I barely managed to hang on when the third tug came.

Haley reached me and yanked on the rope, getting just enough slack to detach the D-clip from my vest. We both watched as the rope and the attached D-clip zipped off into the darkness. Haley jumped over, grabbed Milo's flashlight, and shined it into the darkness. All we saw was the large board Milo had set up. The flashlight shook in Haley's hand. Milo? Then Largo's voice came from behind us. What's up?

Both Haley and I whipped our heads around to look at him. Kyler turned the camera and pointed it at the big man's face. Then he turned back and focused on the dark tunnel. Where's Milo? Largo said, looking confused. What happened? I scrambled to my feet and grabbed Haley by the arm, dragging her backward toward Largo and Kyler. There's something back there, I said. Something took Milo.

Largo looked at Kyler, who seemed to be putting it all together now that Largo was here. He lowered the camera, but still kept it pointed toward Haley and I. "Wait," Kyler said to Largo. "That wasn't you?" "What wasn't me?" Largo asked, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. "You guys are fucking with me, right? I don't remember this in the script." I stared into the dark tunnel. Haley kept the flashlight pointed that way, like it was a weapon.

"Don't mess with me right now," Kylo said. "You didn't have anything to do with this?" Largo shrugged, the faint beginnings of a smile fading. "I really don't know what you're talking about. Seriously." Kylo turned away from the big man and shouted into the tunnel. "Milo!" Wood groaned as a part of the tunnel shifted. Then the sound of wood snapping erupted as part of the tunnel collapsed. We ran.

All four of us ran out of the sawmill, going as fast as we could while dodging the debris littering the ground. The groaning and snapping seemed to follow us, but by the time we got out into the fading daylight and reached a vantage point from which we could see the outside of the tunnel, the destruction had stopped. The tunnel lay collapsed right up to the building. Juvenile pine trees that had sprouted up around the tunnel cast ominous shadows around the collapsed tunnel's exterior.

and with every gust of wind, I was sure I saw some horrible dark beast lurking in those shadows. "Milo!" Largo shouted. "Where are you?" His voice seemed weak as the wind ripped it away and sent it careening down the valley. He turned to us and said, "What the hell happened? Someone talk to me." Kyler lifted the camera and messed around with the controls until he brought up the footage from inside the mill. He showed it to Largo,

Haley and I squeezed in, hoping to see something, some clue that would tell us this was all a hoax. We couldn't see what had happened to Milo, both because of the darkness and because Kyler hadn't exactly been focusing the camera on that area. But hearing the snapping wood and Milo's scream from the camera's tiny speakers left no doubt in my mind that it wasn't a hoax. Largo watched intently, seeing how I was yanked off my feet and into the tunnel, and the ensuing heroic rescue by Haley

When it was done, Largo shook his head. Milo couldn't do that. No way. We all looked up at the shadow-shrouded tunnel. Maybe he's still in there, Largo said. Before anyone could agree or disagree, he started up the slope toward the collapsed tunnel. Wait, Haley said. We need to think about this. I mean, someone's here with us. Largo kept moving. Yeah, well, he hasn't met me yet. We watched him move up the slope, sharing uneasy glances with each other.

Slowly, Kyler raised the camera and hit record. "What are you doing?" I hissed. "This isn't funny." "You're goddamn right it isn't," Kyler said. "Which is why I'm recording every bit of it. Maybe it'll be used as evidence one day against whoever the asshole is that hurt Milo. Or maybe someone will find it after we're all dead and know that some messed up stuff happened to us." Haley said. Kyler and I looked at her, and with her words, I realized just how alone we were out here.

Our cell phones didn't get service, so there was no way to call the cops. Even if we did have service, the nearest town was over four hours away, if you included the two-hour hike from the nearest usable road. We were out here alone, with no one to rescue us, and only our wits standing in the way of whoever was out there in the dark. I looked at the ramshackle town, wanting to just go, but I knew we couldn't leave without figuring out if Milo was in the wreckage from the tunnel.

Maybe he was still alive. Maybe this was somebody trying to scare us. Maybe someone got wind of our trip up here and decided to scare the scarers. I could only hope. Soon, Largo was up among the small trees on the rocky slope. He'd found a sturdy-looking stick from somewhere and held it like a baseball bat as he approached the pile of wood that had been the tunnel. "Pilo?" he called. His voice sounded so little thanks to the wind and the distance.

He poked around at the wood and kept calling out for Milo as he made his way up to the shack-like structure at the top of the tunnel. The shack had been built on a patch of flat land. My guess was they stored the logs in there, out of the elements, until the workers in the mill were ready for them. Then, they loaded up logs on carts and sent them down to the mill while other workers brought more logs to the shack from what had once been a lush, old-growth forest at the top of the small mountain.

The shack was still standing, although leaning precipitously to the left. As Largo approached the shack, Haley called up to him. "Don't get out of sight!" Largo looked back at us and yelled, "I gotta check the other side!" Wind blew a chill through me, and along with it came the feeling that I would never see Largo again if he went around the shack to check the other side of the collapsed tunnel.

Even though the tunnel no longer stood, the pile of wood was high enough to obscure even someone as tall as Largo. "Wait!" I called. "I'm coming up!" I could barely believe the words as they came out, but I realized after a moment of shock that I meant them. I couldn't bear to see Largo disappear around that leaning shock alone. So I volunteered myself, despite the fear, currently gripping my heart with razor-tipped claws.

Not that it mattered, because Largo waved my declaration away and shouted, "Stay there!" Then he was gone from sight, around the corner of the shack. We all stared up at the building, although Kyler did so through the camera, and waited. Largo called out for Milo again, which eased my fear fractionally. I looked at the craggy mountaintops that created the backdrop to the sawmill.

A ceiling of clouds moved massively overhead. The sheer scale of them and the speed of their movement making me momentarily dizzy. The shadows were solidifying, taking over the landscape as the sun continued its descent. There would be nothing but absolute darkness soon. I thought about our camping gear in the old warehouse down in the town. That was where we had our lanterns and warm clothes. We would need them soon, very soon.

"Help!" The word was so little, so brief, as if the wind stole it from my ears before it could really seat itself there. It was Largo. He sounded terrified. I'd never heard him sound like that before. Then there were the sounds of a scuffle. At least I thought that's what they were. It was hard to tell what was real and what my mind was conjuring up from the wind. "Largo?" Haley called. "What's wrong?"

There was no answer, but I swear I could hear distant thuds that were whipped away on the wind. The three of us just stared up as the shadows edged closer, their tendrils close to touching, to joining. A minute or more passed before any of us spoke again. "What do we do?" Hailey asked. "I don't know," Kyler said. Then he shouted, "Largo, answer me!" Somewhere in the distance, a raven squawked.

"I'm going up there," I said, but I didn't start forward. I wanted one of them to tell me no, to talk me out of it. Something came flying through the air from the other side of the collapsed tunnel. It arced high, rotating slowly as it grew closer. I didn't move because I knew it wouldn't land near enough to pose a threat to us. But I bent forward at the waist and squinted, trying to see what it was. A rock? A misshapen ball of some kind?

Just before it hit the ground amid some rocks and shrubs about 15 yards away, I realized with terrible certainty that it was Largo's severed head. Suddenly, the distant thuds I thought I'd heard made sense. Even though I was certain I was correct about the object, I found myself rushing up the slope to where it landed. A grim and tentative hope was alive somewhere inside me, and I clung to it, still eager to prove that this was some hoax. And if it was, the severed head would be nothing more than a prop.

It didn't take me long to find it. Without thinking, or perhaps still hoping it would be a prop, I reached down and retrieved the head from where it had come to rest between a couple of steel-colored rocks. The blood was still warm, the head heavy, and undoubtedly real. I felt Largo's hair under my fingers as I turned the head to face me. I felt his ear and the cartilage flexed just like it would on a real head.

His teeth had been damaged, whether from the throw or before that, I had no way of knowing. One of his eyes was closed, the other one was open and filled with blood. Staring down at my friend's head in the fading daylight, I turned around and walked stiffly back down to Kyler and Haley. They were both asking me things, talking to me in frightened tones, but I only heard incoherent sounds. When I got close enough, I held out the head toward them. Haley screamed. Kyler bent over and vomited.

"It's really him," I said, staring down at the head. "Someone chopped off his head!" Hayley turned and ran back into the ghost town, surely headed for the trail down the mountain, wiping his mouth. Kyler called after her, but she didn't slow. I stared down at the head, only vaguely aware of these events until Kyler put a hand on my wrist. "Put it down, Heath," he said in a soft, kind voice. "Just put it down right here," I nodded.

I put the head down and wiped my bloody hands on my pants. Kyler grabbed me by the arm and pulled me along with him, heading the way Haley had gone. I was ripped back to my senses as Haley screamed from somewhere in the darkness below.