October 29, 2022. It was the beginning of Halloweekend. But not for Rooney Martin ’26. As is the case for many underclassmen guys during Halloweekend, Rooney had no idea how he would spend his Friday night. So, he decided to embark on an adventure with his friend Max Rockwell ’26 to visit Bucknell’s biggest mystery: the old Art Building.

The building had been deserted in 1973, and legend had it that the building was haunted. Rooney and Max had gone to numerous haunted houses before, so what was the worst that could happen?

Since the building was stationed just off the southern tip of Bucknell’s campus, Rooney and Max were able to spend the trek to the Art Building discussing their game plan. The plan was simple; after entering, they would split up, conducting a peripheral search of the building. They wanted to prove to their fellow Bucknellians that the building was haunted, so they decided that Rooney  would film the entire journey on his phone to ensure that they had proof.

After arriving at the old Art Building, the two friends were disappointed in their initial findings. It looked like a normal art building, but without any modern technology and enough dust to make an elephant sneeze. But Rooney and Max shrugged and stuck to the plan, Max taking the downstairs and Rooney going up.

After 30 minutes of searching in vain, Rooney and Max were on the verge of giving up. But just as they reunited and were about to exit the building, they heard a chuckle in the distance. And it got louder, and louder and louder until it sounded as if a cackling witch was ringing in Max’s ears. His intuition turned out to be correct, as an old, wrinkly witch came into view.

“You aren’t supposed to be here!!!” cackled the witch. And before they could even blink, the witch darted toward them.

Sprinting as fast as they could, Max and Rooney descended the stairs at a record pace. Rooney’s camera was fixed on the witch as he backpedaled down the stairs, almost tripping over his own feet.

With uncanny agility for an old hag, the witch came within an arm’s reach to Max and Rooney. Luckily, Rooney slammed the door shut before she had a chance to pounce.

Exhausted and exhilarated, the two friends laid on the grass. “Let’s see the footage!” Max exclaimed.

But to Rooney’s dread, it dawned on him that he was no longer in possession of his phone. And just then, the witch’s head emerged from a second floor window, dangling Rooney’s phone in hand.

“Forgetting something?” the hag taunted.

Without another thought, Max and Rooney were sprinting as fast as they could away from that Art Building. At that point, they didn’t care about proving anything to their friends. Rooney didn’t even care about his phone.

They had never wanted to get back to campus so badly.