“You can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave”

Ladies and gentlemen gather around, gather round and hear the voices from those who have disappeared! Vanished! Into the night. Nothing but their clothes and close items were found, and then their voices called from beyond! You stand near, from where the devils hand, was said to appear, to snatch foolish soldiers who dared venture the dark. Welcome to the Castle San Cristobal, and welcome to The Devil’s Guerite!

Actually its not that freaky, its more like a natural occurrence caused by the sudden collision of two bodies. I’m talking about the supposed “voices” that can be heard on the Devils Guerite. But I am getting ahead of myself, lets go back  to the beginning.

The Spaniards began construction of Castle San Cristobal on 1765, and completed by 1783. The decision to construct another major fort in San Juan, came after the Dutch were able to take the city by attacking from  land side, on the year 1625. Initially the castle was a small post for look out and armed guards, and was later expanded.

And that, my precious reader, brings us to the soldiers who worked and lived in the Castle. When the night shift came, the darkest corner of the castle held a guarite that all sentinels hated to stand guard in. Maybe it was because the darkness, or because they all felt like they could hear voices in the vicinity, only to find themselves alone above the sea.

One night, their worst fears came to life. A young sentinel by the name Sánchez, stopped responding to his fellow soldiers alerts of guard. As soon as the sun rose above the horizon, the soldiers went to Sánchez’s post expecting to find him asleep during watch. They found his musket, his armor and his item bag, all inside the guerite. Sánchez was nowhere to be found. He disappeared without a trace.

“I hear the voices”

The soldiers who found his belongings said to their superior officer that: “it was as if the devil himself snatched him away.” Those same soldiers named the place their fallen comrade was last seen as: “The Devil’s Guarite.” The voices that they once only thought  they heard, became the clear voices of the damned.

I bet you are wondering what really happened to that lone sentinel Sánchez. Well several years after the legend of the devil’s guarite had spread around the city and settlements, Sánchez was found in a settlement on Luquillo’s Forrest. Apparently it was his love Diana, and not the devil, that snatched away the soldier from his post. He wanted to forget the wars and the military life, and settle down with his Diana to have a family and live a normal life. And the voices? Nothing but the sound of the wind coursing through the narrow walls of the fort. A sonic illusion.

But who knows? Dead men tell no tales.