The Devil’s Toy Box
What buildings come to mind when you think of places you might be driven mad by purely existing in them? Perhaps the post office, the doctor’s office, the DMV. Or, maybe something more sinister comes to mind like an abandoned building or a sanitarium. According to those in the know, none of these places can compare to the Devil’s Toy Box.
It is not entirely clear if the The Devil’s Toy Box is all urban legend, creepypasta, hints at truth, or is completely true. For the purposes of this post, I am going to go with the middle option - that there is something about this story, this type of place, that gets at truth.
Now, where is this alleged evil place? Northern Louisiana. In fact, its creation was inspired by the Clive Barker Hellraiser movies. Although some debate remains about its creation and location, the most accepted explanation is that it was an attraction set up in the annual halloween attraction, Farmer Grave’s haunted Orchard.
Unlike the movies, however, this toy box is not something you can fit in your hand or even a room.
The Devil’s Toy Box is described as a shack. From the outside, it is unappealing and average. But the interior of the Devil’s Toy Box is what gives this strange room its lasting reputation. According to several sources, the inside of the shack consists of floor-to-ceiling mirrors, including the walls.
No one can last more than five minutes in this room.
People who have been unlucky enough to stumble upon this room have been hospitalized, driven mad, and run out screaming.
The man alleged to last the longest was Roger Heltz, who lasted four minutes and 37 seconds. Heltz was, by all accounts, fairly normal. He was a 52-year-old family man and father of three. Sadly, his experience in the room severely damaged him and, since that day, he has been unable to speak. Heltz’s is only one of the tales of madness and terror. Dozens of teenagers have been seriously disturbed, horrified at what lay inside, or otherwise unable to last more than just a few seconds inside the attraction.
So what happens in the room? ThoughtCatalog reports “According to the legend, if you stood inside this mirror-room alone for too long, supposedly the devil would show up and steal your soul. In most versions of this story, he did so by flaying you alive. I mention all of this because about two weeks ago, I got an email from an 18-year-old girl located in Northern Louisiana who we’ll call “Erin” (the specific town where Erin lived shall go unnamed for reasons that will soon become clear).”
The rumor mill was spinning so local law enforcement quickly stepped in and closed down the attraction. Even after it was shut down, several teens attempted to visit the property (accessible by a two-lane road near the Sawyers’ property), but it has never been discovered again.
The above image is unrelated to the story and was taken by Paulo Valdivieso, entitled
Dirt Road #1. It liscensed under Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic (CC BY-SA 2.0).