The Affect of Ghost Stories

Last night as a few co-workers and I were driving the two-hours home from a field office, we somehow ended up talking about ghost stories. I think that is why I had the following dream last night:

An old building on a College campus was said to be haunted. The yellow-white marble building with the Romanesque pillars lining the front looked old, but it didn't look particularly scary. A friend and I decided to investigate for ourselves.

It was dusk when were ready to check it out. I wasn’t scared at all…more excited, curious, and hopeful to actually see a disembodied spirit.

Most of the building was still being used for classes, so security lights were on, but we still needed our flashlights to see clearly. We explored the hallways on the main floor, but found nothing unusual.

We came to some spiral stairs. We looked down over the railing. Two stories below us was the basement. To avoid duplicating our efforts, we decided to start in the basement and work our way up through the five-story building.

As we reached the first landing on our way down, my flashlight flickered and went out. ‘No big deal,’ I thought. ‘I think I have some spare batteries in my pocket.’ I fumbled through my jacket pocket and found the spare batteries. We started down the stairs again as I tried to free the batteries from their wrapper.

The stairs ended in the basement just outside the open doors of a small theater. The basement wasn’t used for classes. In fact it is was empty. Inside the theater the cement floors we bare with the exception of some rusty holes where it looked like rows of chairs were bolted to the floor at one time. The floor was quilted with glue residue which, at one time, secured the carpet to the floor.

The stage was still intact and a dark burgundy velvet curtain was closed across the stage. After spanning the room, lit only by our flashlights and faint security lights, we looked up startled to see three figures on the stage just outside the curtain. They were acting as if they were having a barbecue—without Barbecue equipment. They appeared to have a faint glow around them.

One of the figures was going through the actions of tending the grill. He was a young man, tall, confident, and had blondish-brown hair. He seemed very friendly.

I was wondering if this was a residual haunting where the ghosts simply replayed actions they performed while they were alive. While I was settling on a conclusion, the tall blond young man looked at us, smiled and invited, “would you like to join us? It will be fun.” Then he and the others disappeared through the closed curtain.

Contact! We were so excited! That was more than I hoped to experience.

My friend decided to follow them. I started to follow, but remembered I still needed to put the batteries in my flashlight. While I was messing with my flashlight, my friend crawled under the closed curtain in pursuit of these entities that just interacted with us. I could hear his excited, yet un-revealing, exclamations. I could only imagine what amazing things he was discovering. I was getting jealous. I quickly finished securing the battery cover on the flashlight.

That is when I noticed it was dead silent. I could no longer hear my friend’s expressions.

Suddenly the room went completely dark for a few seconds. The lights flickered, then stayed on again. I got a little scared and ran to the stairs to the stage to find my friend. I went through the main curtain and found myself on a dimly-lit section of the stage among layers of hanging black curtains.

I saw the friendly, tall, blondish apparition waiting for me. At first I thought he would try to attack me so I swung my arm out in an attempt to push him away. To my surprise my arm went right through his body.

He remained warm and friendly and for a moment my fear turned to excitement. “You really are a ghost!” He just smiled warmly and nodded.

I attempted to poke him to verify I wasn't imagining things, but he calmly grabbed my wrists. This time I could feel his hands wrapped around my wrists as if they were a tangible substance. I was surprised that he was able to change his density in such a way.

He didn’t speak, yet he still had his warm, friendly smile.

I asked if he knew where my friend was. As I looked at him for the answer, I became startled that his grip on my arms was getting tighter. He still had the same friendly smile, but his eyes! His eyes no longer looked friendly. Fear engulfed me and I realized I was soon going to find out what happened to my friend....

...Instantly my alarm clock pierced the silence, shaking me from my sleep. I was free the grasp of this frightening apparition! I felt my tension release as I realized it was just a dream.

I was never able to find out what happened to my friend.

In a few hours its bed time again and I'm already getting tired...will I learn the conclusion of the mystery tonight?! I don't think I can keep my body awake for too much longer....