fishnetflyboy

Here's a story for anyone who happens across it. It's the story of my first dealings with the Converse ghost, and it's scary because it's true.

i find myself wondering why they don't have the annual Halloween haunted house in Converse Hall anymore.

i mean, it is a castle, and someone did really hang themself in the attic.

tonight i was up there wandering around, noting how simply creepy it is. there are rooms that no one ever goes in. in the doorway of one, i peered into the darkness, broken by the window, and hit the light.

oddly, the eerie feeling didn't leave.

there are lots of doors up there, odd little doors with numbers on them, and being the in attic i know there isn't any room behind them, just a view of some insulation and rafters.

early last semester, i noted one of these doors to be open. i found the expected supply of brillo pads and junk left by the housekeepers, and thought little of it. ealier this semester, i noted another door to be open, inside one of the creepy rooms, and found more junk but still, i felt behind the other
doors there would be something more.

so tonight i remembered the mechanics of the open doors. they are the type you could open with a credit card, swiped properly. i realized this standing by one of them, number 623. i thought of going to my room in search of the infamous paper-clip and shoelace arsenal, then remembered, 'silly, that's why you keep those old cards in your wallet.' i took out the stub of a barnes and noble gift card and worked it in. the door swung open.

i peered inside, where the light shone. then, with a flashlight, i peered a little left, then a thought came and i spun to look right to make sure nothing obvious would jump out at me. examining closely, i saw the tiny triangular room end in a brick wall, and on one side some light shone in though a crack. a tube of caulk lay in the corner, and at my feet was the discarded wrapper for some "monster teeth," and a little black plastic panther. i left these; they belonged there.

i went to another room and tried the door in it. this was the room where the pidgeons had found an open window and ravaged the place. the scarred furniture and discoloured carpet were accented by a bud light can.

i had the light turned on, but the proximity of a wall behind me somehow ruined the sense of security normally afforded by the light.

i put the flashlight on one of the rafters so i'd have both hands free to work. the card moved the first part of the lock, the easiest part, and stopped. i couldn't budge the large part that actually held the door shut. i pulled the card out, it was bent. trying again, i decided it was fruitless and, leaving the light on and tossing it in the trash on the way, i headed straight for the stairwell.

in my room i searched for the paper-clip and shoelace, but i didn't have either. i grabbed my trusty leatherman, a rectangular piece of steel with an odd square cut out of it, and a length of stainless safety wire. i figured it ought to do the trick.

it didn't. nothing did. the latch would budge a millimeter, far from enough.

i went back to the other door to see that my equipment would, in theory, work. it worked there. i tried another door in that area, pushing a desk out of the way, the chain around a leg clanking a little bit. i carefully moved it so that i would still have a clear exit if i needed to run. paranoid. at least here the wall wasn't right behind me.

i opted to knock first. i suppose i should have known i was flipping out or in over my head then, but i imagined a male's falsetto mocking "come in" and stuck the steel in the latch. again nothing worked. i replaced the desk and turned off the lights. walking past a closed door, i heard voices within and decided to go to the other side. Converse is shaped like a C, you know, and i was in the bottom end, so I went to the top end.

the first one i looked at was too tight for the steel, so i carefully bent the safety wire back into a curve to loop around the latch. as i did this, i kept looking left and right. something was watching me, but i couldn't figure out from which direction. i figured it was the paranoia that petty thugs feel while outwitting security systems to illegally enter fort knox, and smiled to myself. the wire didn't work. i moved across the room to the other side.

this door was much looser. there was at least a quarter of an inch with which to work my magic. i knocked first, and between the knocks and the echoes the door rattled, sounding like a rushing motion. i selected the piece of steel, and stuck it in the crack.

of course, the latch wouldn't move, so i tried repositioning it, using the different angles of the steel. something was odd though. it was as if there wasn't any wood behind the door, and i realized i was holding the piece of steel very much like a knife and it was shaped very much like a meat cleaver.

finally it hit me in full force. what i was doing was wrong. i wouldn't manage to get any of them open, because something didn't want them to be opened.

there's the joke that the place is haunted. some students, when asked under the right circumstsances, will describe an instance when they felt "the presence" a little too strongly for comfort. but these are stoner kids and so we all kinda laugh and say 'aint it cool living in a haunted castle.' but actually feeling it yourself, caught in the act, man, creepy.

i believe in the spook now. it accepts students living in the lower floors, allows them to study in the cryptic silence of the attic, so long as they don't go where they're not supposed to. behind the doors, with the rafters and dust and attic, behind the walls that were put up in some renovation between now and when he hanged himself up there, that's its place.

the scary thing is, it's hard to feel normal again, to stop the chill on the spine and hackles raising, knowing there are walls all around me here. and they belong to him.

i got to sleep that night, at some late hour, after imagining that a ghost was displeased with me and the things it might do to make it known. my last thought was that i hoped my alarm would go off in the morning. of course it didn't. in fact, it was twenty minutes behind other clocks as well. i guess i just need a new battery but... you know. it wasn't like that before.