The Last One | Project Fear

𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐑𝐓𝐘-𝐎𝐍𝐄

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Dakota brings us to Wisconsin for the final location of the winter road trip. I'm exhausted, I'm freezing, but this last location is such a testament to how much we've grown. Though, when he tells us that he saved the worst for last, it definitely doesn't surprise me. But being told that we're the second paranormal group to venture inside—and the first to spend a whole night—at Sheboygan County Asylum definitely surprises me.

The amount of untapped energy inside makes me nervous, but we also get to be the ones to set the tone.

Since Wisconsin itself is a hotbed of paranormal, supernatural, and unexplained activity, Dakota takes us on a little pit stop to a restaurant before we read the packet. Benson's Hide-A-Way is definitely . . . quirky, but in an endearing way. Bill, the owner, tells us that a lot of customers see UFOs around Lake Michigan and to keep our eyes open around the lake.

According to the packet, Sheboygan County Asylum is one of Wisconsin's largest mental institutions and opened in 1941. It's three floors and has six wings. It had three-hundred-and-fifty patients in its time and serviced those who were 'unfit' to be in society, ranging from legitimate mental and physical disorders to those who were not considered 'normal.' The asylum operated for sixty-two years but not much history about the asylum has been reported. It's considered a black mark of the county and most people want to just bulldoze it and not learn the history.

Overwhelmed staff would employ experimental procedures on patients, including a lobotomy at one point. Despite this, the employees were also abused but patients and administration alike. One nurse was beaten brutally by a patient while trying to bathe him and she quit after her first shift. Another was murdered by a patient when he hit her over the head with a cribbage board. Employees suffered anxiety and depression, causing seven of them to take their lives in the nurse's ward.

In the 1990s, admittance declined and eventually, the asylum closed in 2002. Only a handful of people have been inside since then, but no one has been able to investigate the entire facility.

The women's lockdown on the first floor, which is where the patients on suicide watch were placed, has never been investigated before. The morgue, a small room in the back of the basement, has only been unlocked once since 2002. People believe that whatever was locked up in there was let out that one time. The nurse's ward, where the nurses resided in their own apartments, is where the seven employees took their own lives. The tunnel is plagued by shadow figures who does not want anyone down there. People report their hair being tugged and hearing things being dragged across the floor.

But when the morning comes, I can't hide from everything we've read. As the day draws on, we get closer and closer to the asylum. We're all in the dark on this one, so that fact is a bit comforting. It's going to be one hell of a finish line.

When Tanner and I sit up front to see the asylum as we roll up, I'm absolutely floored by the sheer size of it. We get out of the RV, making our way across the icy pavement to head inside and set up our gear room.

"This is it, though," Dakota says to our cameras after he introduces what we're doing and where we are. "This is our final location of this road trip. This is where it all ends. This is our last shebang in Sheboygan."

I can't help the cackle that escapes my lips at that. Tanner groans and Dakota asks, "What?"

"It was a bad joke," my cousin responds.

"How long were you holding onto that one?" I ask Dakota, giggling still.

Dakota gives me a glare, but smiles halfway through it. He reaches forward and bops my nose with his finger. I scrunch my nose on instinct and shake my head.