I’ll Be Seeing You

Welcome to Wicked Wednesday, and the final installment of my ghost stories…for now anyway.  I’m going to cheat a little bit, cause this a re-post, but it’s from my third month in at blogging so only 3 people read it.  And it is a scary story.  Also a true one.  So enjoy!  Hope you chatter with me in the comments.

I’ll Be Seeing You

When I was in high school, I worked in a video store for several years.  I had my suspicions that the place was haunted.  I would hear the sound of tapes (it was all VHS then)  being picked off the shelves and put back down down when no one was in there besides me.  The other clerks I worked with said they heard the same noises when they were alone in the store too, but our manager always denied hearing anything.

I would disregard the noises like the rest of us do when we hear creaks and squeaks in our homes, but there were more creepy happenings.  My neighbor worked out of town and enlisted me to take her dog for walks after school.  Our store was family and pet friendly; we kept dog treats behind the counter for when people would come in with their pets.  So I often walked the dog to the video store to pick up movies or my paycheck.  The thing was this dog, who any other time would run up to people, chase squirrels, and lick you to death, wouldn’t get close to the back door of the office!  She would plant her butt down and just halt!  She would not budge.  She’d stare at that door while I’d be pulling and tugging her leash to round the corner with me, dragging her across the carpet.  Eventually she would bolt past the door and halfway down the next aisle before calming down.  I’ve never seen her do this anywhere else.

My friends at the time were obsessed with ghost stories.  One night when I was closing, and it was quiet in the store, my two best friends and a coworker came over with a ouija board.  If you asked me today would I mess around with a ouija board, the answer is no.

My two friends and coworker sat themselves down in the back corner of the store and asked the ouija board some test questions about who worked in the store, what film title someone who wasn’t touching the board was looking at, and eventually who was it that lived in the video store.  Amazed, they ran up to me at the counter and told me there was most certainly a ghost in the store, and he was 13 years old.  He knew all the initials of the people that worked in the store.  And he had told them his family died in a fire years ago.

I was freaked out.  I thought for sure, any moment, my boss would walk in and we’d all get busted for conjuring up spirits in the place.  I walked home and went about my evening, getting ready for bed as normal.

Photo courtesy hpanwo-tv.blogspot.com

My night routine consisted of looping headphones over my bedpost and listening to one of the mixtapes I made while I fell asleep.  That night, I remember waking up and thinking I had only been asleep a short while, but the music wasn’t playing.  I reached up to my dresser top and picked up the tape player.  I hit play.  Nothing happened.  I hit rewind, fast forward, play again.  Nothing.  I assumed the player had died, but was surprised I didn’t wake up to the slow drowning sound it made as the batteries wore down.  I set it back on top of my dresser.

The next morning, I awoke and got ready for the day.  On a whim, while waiting for my mom, I picked up the tape player and hit play.  Billie Holiday crooned, “But I’ll be seeing you…” and the whole rest of the tape was erased.

I assure you I cannot explain how this happened.  There is no record button on my player, so I didn’t accidentally tape over it.  It was not placed next to anything electronic, so there shouldn’t have been any interference.  Whatever, or whoever, it was, from then on, I closed the store very quickly.

And my store manager, admitted to me after I left the store years later that she did think the store was haunted.

What do you think happened?  Have you ever lived or worked in a place you thought was haunted?  Have you ever heard anything like EVP (electronic voice phenomenon)?

Still hungry for more?  Check out the virtual ouija board at your own risk.