The Ghost Files (17 page)

The energy of the lights show starts to morph together, to coalesce into cohesive humanoid shapes. They dart back and forth, the orchestra’s melody changing to a tune to inspire confusion and fear. The darkness of the theater compounds the effect and it’s almost impossible not to think of all those times when you are alone, in the dark, and you shiver for no reason.

“I was fifteen when I had my first experience with what we commonly call ghosts today. It was at a funeral for a kid at our school that had died in a car crash. He was well liked, popular, had everything a high school kid could ask for, so why would he have just driven his car off a cliff? The police deemed it a suicide because they could find no sign of anything wrong with the car or any signs of foul play to suggest he’d been run off the road or there was some sort of accident. He’d simply driven in a straight line right off the edge.

“I remember that the church was full and the minister was preaching about how life is short and we need to seize every opportunity. It was hot and stuffy and I kept wishing he’d hurry up so we could get outside and be on our way. I did not want to be there, but my parents made me go out of respect to the boy and his family. The wallpaper was peeling in spots and I kept counting all the little pieces hanging down. That’s when I noticed the odd light. It was almost hovering around the casket. I could only see it when I turned my head to the right, when I looked out of the corner of my eye, but I saw it. At first, I tried to tell myself it was just a reflection of light from the sun, but the drapes had been pulled for the service. It couldn’t be that. When the boy’s mother stood up to speak and started to cry as she talked about her son, the temperature in the room dropped drastically. It turned almost freezing and the vase of flowers sitting on the table beside of her crashed to the floor. Everyone thought she’d done it, but she hadn’t. I’d seen that light moving frantically back and forth around her, around the vase.

“I firmly believe it was the ghost of the boy there, trying to tell his mother that he was still here, that he was right there beside her, but she couldn’t see him, couldn’t hear him. It had to be so frustrating and I think it was that frustration that allowed the ghost to harness enough raw energy to make that vase wobble just enough to crash to the floor. No one else saw the lights or felt the cold either. I was the only one. I can tell you it scared the hell out of me.”

There is a little rumble of chatter that goes through the audience, but mostly they are hushed, listening as the professor weaves his tale. He’s really good at storytelling. He has his audience enthralled.

“That’s when I started to pick up a few books on the supernatural, ghosts in particular. Back then, the library was still the main source of information. The internet hadn’t exploded yet, so I was stuck digging through old books.” He gives us all a pained look at that statement, causing many to laugh along with him. “Can you imagine not being able to Google your question? Research is much easier these days.

I think back to my own research. I Googled everything I’d wanted to search for. If I’d had to go to the library and do the same kind of research looking for answers, I’d have screamed and just thrown in the towel. No way do I ever want to try to do anything without my trusty Google search.

“So there I was, full of questions and ideas. I looked up a fairly local branch of ghost hunters. They agreed to let me “intern” with them and so I did what any fifteen year old would do. I got my best friend to tell my parents I was going fishing with him and his uncle while I was really over in rural Virginia at a supposed haunted house. I was so excited, my first time out with real ghost hunters. Biggest disappointment ever.”

Dan is frowning and leaning forward now, listening with interest. I shake my head. Mr. Disbeliever over here sure is interested all of a sudden.

“What I found was a bunch of people “looking” for ghosts where there were none. Every creak was a ghost trying to communicate. Every draft in a drafty house evidence of a ghost’s presence. Their equipment was something out of a really bad sci-fi novel. I just shook my head in disbelief. Suffice to say, I gave up on ghost hunting for a while after that. I figured maybe I was trying to see something where there had been nothing, too. I finished high school and then went to college. It was while I was in college I got interested in ghost hunting again. I was hanging out in an old dorm that had been closed years ago with some friends. We were just goofing off and making out with our girlfriends. My girlfriend, who shall be known as Jane from here on out, and I wandered into one of the empty rooms on the third floor. We had a flashlight with us and nothing more. Lights would have had campus security on us in a heartbeat. It was close to the end of the year, and summer was coming upon us. I went to school in Miami though, so it’s always hot there. With no electricity or central air, the dorm was blazing hot, which is what the guys and I were counting on.”

There were a lot of laughs at this point and several good natured shoves from girlfriends.

“So there Jane and I are doing things I will leave to your imagination, when I start to feel a little chill creep up my back. I don’t notice it at first, but when Jane remarks on how cold it is, I look around. It
had
gotten cold. I grabbed the flashlight and gave the room a quick look. As my flashlight passed the partially opened closet, Jane let out a little shriek. I figured it was a rat or something, but she swore she saw someone standing there. I rolled my eyes at her. You know how skittish girls can be,” he pauses and winks. “But ladies, we love you that way. Gives you an excuse to clutch us during horror movies.”

Mason and Dan, as well as most of the guys around us burst out laughing. I glare at them both.  Skittish? Me? So very NOT me.

“So, me being the big man and all, I go over to check it out. Jane is right behind me, refusing to stay by herself on the floor. I have my trusty flashlight pointed at the closet and there’s nothing I can see. I push open the sliding door and look inside. Nothing but empty space. I turn around and give the room a once over again. Even
I
notice how cold it’s gotten by now. I can see my breath in front of me in the light of the flashlight. I’m a little freaked, but I’m playing it cool. Can’t have Jane thinking I’m a wuss. I turn around to tell her it was nothing and suggest we head back downstairs, but I stop and stare. I don’t see anything, but Jane’s hair is floating. Not like in the movies where the hair sort of gently wafts in the air from a fan, but like someone is picking pieces of it up and holding them up for inspection. She doesn’t feel a thing. I’m debating about telling her when the closet door slams shut, trapping her hair with it. This she feels because it pulled her backwards and her head pretty much slams into the mirrors on the closet doors. She starts screaming and I frantically try to get the door open, but it’s locked tight.”

The quiet in the room is palpable. This guy can tell a story. The girls look horrified, the guys intrigued.

“She’s freaking out and I hear the guys shouting from below. I’m struggling with the door when suddenly, I can feel something cold and damp touch my face. I’ll be honest and admit, I screamed like a girl. I was so freaked, I almost ran away, but I didn’t. The dorm room door flew open and our friends piled in. Jane hadn’t stopped screaming so we were easy to find. As soon as they burst in, the temperature in the room shoots up and the door I’ve been yanking on slides easily open. Because of how hard I’m pulling on it, I go flying backwards with the force I was using to try to pry it open. Jane runs and the girls go after her. I just shrug it off and tell my friends that it was dark and she got her hair caught on the door somehow and then the door got stuck. Did you guys really think I was going to tell them it was a ghost? Even
I’m
not that much of a glutton for punishment. I never would have heard the end of it. Now as soon as I get back to my dorm room, I power up the old archaic computer and do a search on the dorm we were in to see if anything strange had happened there. Guess what?”

“It was haunted,” someone shouts out.

“No reports of hauntings,” he shakes his head, “but there
was
a girl who died there, on the third floor in the very room we were in. She overdosed. It was about a month after that they closed it down. They’d just built a brand new co-ed dorm and moved the students over to it. Did Jane and I really experience a ghost or was it the imaginations of two very hormonal kids? I think it was a ghost, but there are those I’m sure who don’t. I’m not here to make you believe in ghosts, only introduce you to the possibility that there is something else out there, something you can’t explain away or make it fit perfectly into the puzzle that is our reality.

“I started to look more closely at websites having to deal with ghosts and eventually I was able to figure out one thing. About ninety-nine point nine percent of all those websites are garbage. I did, however, find one site that got my attention. It was a guy who was trying to debunk all the ghost stories. I sent him an email and he and I started talking. And before you ask, no, I will not reveal his name as he asked me not to. He and I became friends and eventually he showed me some of his work, his equipment. Now here was a real ghost hunter. He actually had equipment that worked. The guy taught me how to work them all and why each one was in important in proving or disproving the whole ghost theory.

“I went with him on several hunts. Almost every single one we went on was just a wild goose chase. I started to get discouraged and then we hit the mother lode. It was an old plantation house in Georgia.”

A murmur went through the crowd. The scene at the beginning of the lecture.

“We spent only one night in that house and I can tell you this: I will
never
set foot in that house again. All that equipment that I was starting to think was useless came alive. We picked up recordings of voices, thermal sensors picked up readings where I know for a fact there was no one. It was only the two of us and we decided almost as soon as we stepped in the house, we wouldn’t split up. That’s why we know the sensors worked. I didn’t sleep that night. I could stand here for days and tell you about what went on there, but I’m not going to. Suffice to say, it scared the hell out of me. I was a believer after that night.

“I started a website about my own experiences and a blog soon after that. I picked up a lot of readers and when Twitter exploded onto the scene, the site only got bigger. Do you guys know why my tours are so popular?” He waits a moment and then says, “I don’t lie to people. I don’t claim to know everything, I just tell you all about my experiences and hopefully entertain as much as educate you on the other realm of existence.”

“Now, I’m going to open the floor to questions. Ask me anything you want.”

People start asking stupid questions and I am about to raise my own hand to ask a question when all the gizmos and gadgets he has sitting on a table starts to light up and make noises. That’s when I see him.  Sitting on the edge of the stage, close to the curtains on the right side, is a boy. He is staring at me with a fierce determination. His face is pale and pasty, his eyes sunken and dark. His head is bent at an odd angle and he doesn’t look happy. No, he looks downright furious.

He jumps off the stage and heads straight for me.

Chapter Twenty

“Would you look at that?” Mason points to the stage. The table beside the podium, which bore a variety of different machines, is now lit up like a Christmas tree. Even the professor pauses and looks at it. His eyes go out and sweep the audience, coming to rest on me. I know my face is a frozen mask of horror.

“Dan,” I whisper. He’s not listening. He’s too busy watching the equipment. I poke him in the ribs. “Dan.”

“What?” he turns his attention to me and a look of concern crosses his face.

“Get me out of here,” I tell him, my eyes never leaving the ghost walking with purpose straight to me.

“Mattie, we can’t just leave in the middle…”

“Now, Dan.” My fingernails dig into his hand and he winces. My voice takes on a note of desperation. “Please, I need to leave right now.”

He nods and stands up.  I try to get up, but my ankle is not working properly. Dan lifts and pretty much picks me up by the waist. My feet are hanging suspended off the ground. He carries me out of the row and towards the entrance, all the while apologizing to anyone he’s stepping on.

I can barely breathe by the time we hit the hallway. I feel hands closing around my throat and squeezing. The harder I try to breathe, the more difficult it becomes. The invisible hands just grip my throat tighter. Tears spring to my eyes and I’m clawing at my own throat, but there are no hands there. Dan is shouting at me, but I can’t hear him. Black spots appear before my eyes and I know I’m going to pass out soon.

Black eyes swim up in front of my face. They are gleeful and enjoying my pain. The boy from the stage. He’s doing this to me, but why? What did I do to him? My vision blurs, the light narrowing down to just pinpricks and my lungs burn from lack of air. He’s killing me.

That’s when I get mad. No one, especially not some freaking ghost, is going to murder me. Been there done that and I won’t do it again. Okay, concentrate, Mattie, I tell myself. I’m desperate, but force my mind to calm down enough to think. I focus on the hands around my throat and I shove with all my mental might. The ghost grips my throat harder and I snarl at him. With the last little bit of energy I have, I put every thought into making him back off.

A white flash of light flares between us and I can breathe. I gulp air as fast I can into my oxygen-deprived lungs. I slowly became of aware of voices, muted at first, but then realized they were shouting. I blink and look around.  Dan and Mason are yelling at each other, not more than a few inches from where I am lying.

“What did you do to her?”

“I didn’t do anything to Mattie!”

“Then how the hell did she get all those red marks around her throat? It looks like someone tried to strangle her!”