If you go through Gerrardstown, just past the elementary school, you will come to a four-way intersection. Take a right and you will come to a small area known as Darksville. When I was a child, I used to visit my best friend’s Grandma nearby. My friend and I sometimes would walk on a dirt road near her grandma’s house. I remember seeing an old abandoned white clapboard church. Even though it was always seen by me during the day, I remember getting cold chills up and down my spine whenever we passed it on the way to the blackberry patch. Until one night, in the summer time she invited me to stay the night with my friend. We did. It was fun at first. We made sundaes and banana splits; ate candy chips and popcorn and drank soda while we watched movies.
When her grandma fell asleep, we giggled to each other and told ghost stories, while huddled under the blanket. It was around 2am, I told my friend that I had to use the bathroom. I clearly remember turning the light on when I entered the bathroom, yet as I was doing my “business”, the light went off. I first thought it was my friend playing tricks on me, until I saw the church through the window. White mists surrounded the church. Yet instead of a cloud, like normal mist, it was made of separate little clouds that floated in and around the church. I called my friend in the bathroom and she came in but said she did not see anything. Yet her face was as pale as mine. The next morning, we said our goodbyes and thanked her grandma for the fun we had the night before. Then we left, on the way back to her house, she told me that she had lied. Then she told me why the church was abandoned, though I never really found out if it was true or not, but here is what was told to me:
The Darksville Church was small, but every Sunday it was filled with people coming to worship. Since most of the congregation was poor, when the collection plate was passed around very few people put anything in it. The church began to show signs of age, as nobody could afford to donate a lot if anything at all. One winter morning, after a heavy snowfall, the people gathered for the Sunday service when the roof, laden with heavy snow, collapsed and killed all that attended. The church was abandoned and that is why late at night, you can sometimes hear and see the congregation gathering.
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