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asu.ghost
asu.ghost
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.ghost-stories
From: brianbet@netcom.com (Brian Bethel)
Subject: Ghosts, the universe, and everything
Date: Sun, 17 Jul 1994 02:23:06 GMT
Good e'en. all. I've been watching this group for some time (read:
lurking), and I guess it's time to introduce myself.
I have been collecting ghost lore seriously since I was about 12.
I'm 22 now, so I've a decade worth of experiences -- both personal and
otherwise -- to share.
Here's my favorite, although I use the term in its loosest sense.
:)
I attended college at Angelo State University in San Angelo, Texas.
It's a very good small school with a great journalism program. While I was
there I rose to be managing editor of our college newspaper, and thus spent
much time slogging about in the Administration/Journalism Building.
Not long after the beginning of my sophomore year, I became a copy
editor for the newspaper and had to start staying late. It was then I had
my first encounter with... her. (Ominous, isn't it? :) )
Don't worry about her name. It's probably best we don't speak it.
Don't know how far her range is.
Anyhow, I was sitting there typing away on what I'm sure I thought
was an important story. It was about 12:45 a.m., and I decided to walk down
the hallway to get a Coke.
I shuffled down the hall, intent on finding blessed caffeine. I was
humming a mantra to its power when I became aware of the distinct sound of
a second pair of footsteps behind me. I assumed it was some sort of
strange echo pattern. I walked on, although the tune I had been humming
was a bit less cheerful.
All through my life, I've been something of a psychometrist. I'm
one of those folks who suffers "feelings of dread" to find out later there
was a murder or something IN THAT VERY ROOM (Tm). And I must tell you, the
ol' feeling of dread was kicking in something fierce with each step, and
each counterpoint from something behind me -- something I couldn't see.
Thinking myself safe at last, I turned a corner to go down the
stairs to the Coke machine. I dug into my pockets, shoved 50 hard-to-come-
by cents into the red and white monolith, retrieved my beverage, and walked
back up the stairs.
There is an elevator up at the top of that flight of stairs in the
journalism building. It rests there by what is now the housing office, but
what was once a classroom. Room 200, to be exact.
This will become important later.
Anyway, I walked up the stairs, feeling that initial rush of caf-
feine-laden bliss. My foot hit the topmost stair, and the elevator opened.
It is not, as you may imagine, supposed to do this on its own.
No, no one was in the elevator, but for some reason I felt a terri-
ble sense of dread. I was the only one in the building, after all. The
elevator yawned its maw for a bit, then seemed to give up and slink reluct-
antly closed.
I had been rooted to the spot inexplicably for all that time. I ran
back to the journalism room. Something was not right. I could feel it in
the air -- sweet and cloying, yet deadly.
I typed my story and -- to be blunt -- got the hell out of dodge,
not bothering to turn off any lights along the way. The damnable footsteps
were back, this time seemingly following me all the way down the stair,
stopping at the foyer just before the front door.
I remember I slept fitfully.
I tried to find out if the elevators were tested at some point in
the night: a maintenance cycle, anything. Maintenance said no, but among my
fellow writers there seemed to be a few nervous, knowing looks.
As the semester wore on, I stayed later. And inevitably, usually
around the hour of 1 a.m., the hallway suddenly became a very unpleasant
place.
I started becoming aware of the footsteps even when I wasn't in the
hallway. The elevator would erratically perform its tricks. The feelings of
dread magnified.
But when I heard the voices for the first time, it was just about
all I could stand. A man and a woman, arguing at the end of the hall.
In desperation, I asked the old guard about my experiences. And I
found I was not alone.
There had, indeed, been a murder in the building in the mid-70s.
It was chronicled in the old issues of the paper. As the cool days of
spring were turning to the heat of summer, a young girl had been stabbed in
that building with a pair of scissors by an equally young ROTC cadet.
He ran to a priest to confess his crime. He was supposedly a quiet
type. Aren't they all?
From the front page of that old newspaper, they stared back through
the ages. He looked like a typical cadet, and even though the veloxed pho-
tograph was faded, I remember she was very beautiful.
He was a photographer there. She spurned his attentions. Rage con-
sumed him, and the scissors were there. Waiting.
He exchanged his love for hate, and the blood flowed.
He drug her to Classroom 200: what was now the housing office.
At the end of the hall.
By the elevator.
I remember it was in October when I finally asked about the past.
Suddenly, the festive paper skeletons that hung on the housing office doors
became more frightening to me than anyone could ever realize.
After comparing notes among us, it was all the same. The same ex-
periences, the same voices -- a man and woman arguing at the end of the
hall.
All in exacting detail. All the same.
After that, I became one of the initiated. No one ever told the
new reporter or staffer about her. But without fail:
"Hey, guys, I was walking down the hall and ..."
The rest was history.
We would sit outside late at night talking about her: lost, alone,
and dead so young. We would huddle around cigarettes or Cokes like they
were campfires shielding us from the night-things, and wonder what she
wanted.
I was "lucky" enough to see a few physical manifestations after a
while. Fleeting glimpses, but I remembered that face. Burned into my mind,
I can still see it.
There are really too many stories to relate in one post, but I can
guarantee all are true. Several happened to me.
If you'd like to hear more, let me know and I'll post each episod-
ically.
I'm out of college now, and this is the first I've thought of her
in a while. I suppose she's still there.
Alone and waiting in the dark.
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::"To see a world in a Grain of Sand :::: brianbet@netcom.com ::
:: And Heaven in a Wild Flower, :::: S E E K E R * O F * W I S D O M ::
:: Hold Infinity in the palm of your :::: S E A R C H E R * O F * T R U T H::
:: Hand, and eternity in an hour." ::::S P I N N E R * O F * S T O R I E S::
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