The Boy Under the Patio

Witness: Eric Collentro
Location: Ridge, Maryland
Date of Encounter: October 30, 2005

I moved to the small town of Ridge, Maryland when I was about 12 years old. This town was small to the point where you knew everybody and everybody's history. Located near the panhandle of Maryland and the Chesapeake Bay, there was this very long road extending to a fishing area/lookout with boulders everywhere.

Now to the story: When I was 12, I helped participate in a haunted hayride to benefit a charity. It was very fun and there were certain things different than any other hayride. All of the participating members had roles. I was an Indian and I raked dirt near a wood structure (the front of a house with all of us inside — the "house" only looked like a house but it was just the front). Anyway, when one guy was given the cue, all of the lights went out and we all dropped to the ground, screamed, and faked being shot to death with arrows stuck in our armpits. This was a very fun charitable event, however, it was October 30th — Mischief Night. A couple of friends, my brother, and a couple of his friends and I went out to a local abandoned and potentially haunted mansion. We all wondered whether the house would be unlocked as security in Ridge was tight when local legends were at stake. We walked up the steps and very discretely knocked on the door to see if the house was currently guarded. After a few moments, we laughed and thought, "What a joke, I knew this town was too boring to have something cool happen in it." At this exact moment, we heard a knock come from below us from underneath the patio — a patio completely filled in with cement.

There is no possible way that anybody, or thing, could've been able to get under there. This was no prank. it was real. When we got back to my friend's house his mom said that back in the 1940s the parents of a teenage boy locked him underneath the patio for lack of respect, and had every intention of taking him out in a few minutes. The boy's dad got an urgent opportunity for overtime at the local Branson farm and jumped at it. He left. The mom forgot about her son also, and went to work at the county hospital. The conditions that night were very bitter and the boy froze to death because of the ignorance of his parents. In the 1970s the area under the patio was filled in due to reported strange behavior and paranormal activity. No boy was found. But one construction worker felt an eerie feeling down there, and he soon after quit his job due to insanity issues. Legend states that the boy now knocks on the deck of the patio from below, in his non-existent grave. Still waiting for his parents to come home.