Solved Murders - True Crime Stories - The Toy Room When Ghostly Laughter Almost Made Me Flee a Haunted Theatre Storage #37

Episode Date: July 14, 2025

#horrorstories #reddithorrorstories #ScaryStories #creepypasta #horrortales #hauntedtheatre #ghostlylaughter #toyroomterror #paranormalactivity #theatrehorror  In this chilling paranormal tale, a night spent in a haunted theatre storage room turns terrifying when ghostly laughter echoes through the walls. The eerie presence in the toy room pushes the narrator to the brink of fleeing, revealing a story of restless spirits and haunted memories that refuse to be silenced.  horrorstories, reddithorrorstories, scarystories, horrorstory, creepypasta, horrortales, hauntedtheatre, ghoststories, paranormalencounter, eerietoyroom, supernaturalfear, hauntedstorage, chillingexperience, ghostlypresence, spookyencounters, nightterror, restlessspirits, creepytheatre, unexplainedphenomena, hauntedplaces

Every single word I'm about to spill is real. Or at least, it's as real as my memory can manage. No exaggerations, no fluff, just the strange truth of what happened one afternoon that totally messed with my head. Back at Marquette University, there was this place we called the Toy Room. It wasn't listed on any campus map or anything official, but anyone in the theater department knew the legend. The rumor was, if you left a brand new, sealed deck of playing cards on the table, in that room overnight, you'd come back the next morning to find the cards scattered across the floor, the table, sometimes even the shelves, like they've been played with. Not by students, but by ghosts. Ghost kids, to be exact. Supposedly, they were the spirits of children who had died in that building when it used to be a hospital. Yeah. The toy room was housed in what used to be St. Francis Children's Hospital. The whole building had been repurposed and turned into prop storage for the theater department by the time I arrived at school.

But that doesn't erase the past. It just buries it under piles of forgotten chairs and chipped teacups. Here's the twist that always creeped me out, that same hospital, St. Francis, was where I had been taken immediately after I was born. I was clinging to life with only a 5% chance of survival. So while I had no conscious memories of the place, I had technically been one of those children in the building, barely hanging on to this world. Weird, right? Gives me chills even now. Fast forward 18 years and I'm back in that building, not as a patient but as a wide-eyed freshman studying theater. Coincidence. Fate. Who the hell knows? All I know is, that building had seen some serious stuff. And now it was full of props, old furniture, glassware,

hats, fake food, costumes, lamps, even fake guns, which, by the way, were always locked up tight. Anything that might end up on stage found its home in prop storage. So, one sunny afternoon during spring term, I got sent on a mission. The theater department needed a few more items for the final production of the season, and someone had forgotten to grab them earlier. Lucky me, I got the short straw. Everyone else was busy, so I got sent alone to dig through prop storage. Normally, it was a group trip. You go in with a crew, load stuff onto a truck, and peace out. But this time it was just me. I wasn't too worried. I mean, it was two in the afternoon. Bright, sunny day. What could go wrong? The building always had a weird vibe,

but I figured I'd just get in, grab the props, and be out in 20 minutes. At first, I was told totally fine. A little on edge maybe, because it's not every day you rummaged through a former children's hospital filled with dusty mannequins and antique wheelchairs. But I was moving fast, trying to finish up. I had a mental list of what I needed, and I was knocking it out. Everything was going smoothly until I realized I still needed to grab the toy. And that toy? It was in the toy room. According to the older students, the toy room was once the playroom for the hospital's young patients. Now it was stuffed with, well, toys, but also old rocking horses, creepy dolls, and those little tea sets with missing cups. You know, stuff that

belonged in a horror movie attic. Still, I told myself I was being silly. Ghosts weren't real. It was just a dusty room. I dropped the props I'd already gathered on the floor and pulled out the key ring I'd been given. Each room had a labeled key. I was searching for the one marked with a T. My hand was literally about to unlock the toy room door when I heard it. A laugh. A little kids laugh. Clear as day. Right on the other side of the door.

I dropped those keys like they were on fire and jumped back so fast I nearly tripped. My heart was doing somersaults. I just stood there, staring at the frosted glass in the upper half of the door. Sunlight filtered through, making everything look deceptively calm. Silent. No movement. No more sound. Just silence.

I tried to reason with myself. Maybe I imagined it. Maybe it was the wind. Maybe the sound came from somewhere else and just echoed weird. I picked up the keys again, hands shaking a little, and reached for the door. Another laugh. Actually, this time there were two. Kids laughing again, right on the other side.

Bright, giggly, and loud. Not muffled. Not ghostly. Just, laughing. Nope. I turned around and practically sprinted out of there. I didn't stop until I was outside, standing in the alley between the prop storage building and the one next to it. I slammed the door shut behind me and locked it, even though I knew that didn't.

make a difference if what I thought was happening was actually happening. Now, back then I smoked, a lot. I lit up a cigarette with shaking hands and started pacing. My brain was short-circuiting. Like, what the hell just happened in there? Ghost kids. Was I seriously about to tell my professor that I couldn't finish the task because some dead toddlers giggled at me? Great. They'd either think I was making it up to get out of work or that I'd totally lost my mind. As I walked, trying to calm down, I passed the toy room window. I couldn't help it, I looked up. Part of me expected to see a pale little face staring out, maybe a hand pressed to the glass, maybe, nothing. Just an empty window. Which, to my relief and disappointment, was exactly what I saw. But then I heard it again.

Laughter More children's laughter Except this time, it wasn't coming from the building. It was coming from across the alley. I turned, and for the first time, actually noticed the fenced-in playground attached to the building next door. A group of real, living kids were out there, running around, shouting, climbing on jungle gyms.

Apparently, that building housed a daycare for university staff. Yeah. All that laughter. It had drifted in through the window from the daycare. I stood there, frozen, half laughing, half horrified at how close I came to losing it. All that adrenaline, all that fear, and it was just, kids being kids, in the middle of a nice spring day. I finished my smoke, collected myself, and walked back inside. I grabbed the props I'd left on the floor and finally unlocked the toy room.

Nothing strange. No floating dolls. No sudden drops in temperature. Just a dusty room filled with old toys. I grabbed the one I needed, closed the door, and that was that. No ghost children. No spooky apparitions. Just my overactive imagination and some bad acoustics.

Still, the moment stuck with me. Maybe it was the history of the building. Maybe it was my own connection to it. it. Maybe it was just the stories I'd heard from other students messing with my head. But that experience felt real in the moment. Like, really real. It reminded me that our brains can play tricks on us, especially when we're already halfway convinced something creepy might happen. It doesn't take much, an old building, a few shadows, and a weird sound, and suddenly you're starring in your own horror movie. I told the story to a few people afterward.

Some believed me, others laughed it off. And honestly, I kind of liked that. A little mystery, a little drama, perfect for a theater kid. To this day, I don't go into creepy old buildings alone if I can help it. And I definitely don't trust laughter coming from behind closed doors. Lesson learned, sometimes, the ghosts are real. And sometimes, they're just kids on a jungle gym. but for a few long minutes that day, I swear I felt like I was the main character in a ghost story.

And in a weird way, I kind of still do. The end.