A spooky tale

The story begins with two friends on the computer in the year 2002.

The setting?

An older house in Kellogg set right into the mountains around it, causing it almost always be enveloped in darkness.

The computer was a comfort as it had everything the girls loved. Music, games, talking to boys. But the girls were pre-teens, so boredom came on quickly.

“Do you want to play the Ouija Board?” said one girl to the other.

The answer to this question was almost always, “yes.”

They went to the bedroom, lit a few candles, and got out the board.

It was just a game, right?

For those unfamiliar, an Ouija, or spirit board, is a flat board marked with letters of the alphabet, the numbers 0-9, and “Yes/No” and “Hello/Goodbye.” The players use a planchette (a small heart-shaped piece of wood or plastic) to spell out messages, assumedly from those who had died.

The name is said to have been taken from a word spelled out on the board when its inventor asked a “present ghost” to name it.

They had played with the board before, and weird things had happened. Odd sounds out in the woods right outside the house after playing, neighbors yelling strange stuff at the girls, cars driving by with the drivers staring right at them. Something that could be brushed off.

But this time was different. This time something happened, that couldn’t be explained.

The girls took the board out, turned all the lights off, and sat in the middle of the room.

Placing their fingers on the planchette, they began asking basic questions. Nothing happened.

Maybe the planchette moved a bit; maybe it was moved by one of the girls. But overall, it felt like a dud. Until one of the girls asked for a sign from beyond.

“If there are any ghosts here, show us a sign!”

Immediately, a poster fell off the wall.

The girls gasped. They screamed. This was everything they wanted. A sign from beyond! The fear turned to laughter, and the girls got what they wanted.

And they went back to the computer.

Before they left the room, one of the girls grabbed a CD and put it inside her stereo. (The CD? The Eminem Show. This is 2002, what else do you expect?)

The stereo was set on a small shelf, about five feet above the floor, along with two speakers, two wire towers filled with CDs, and a full glass of water set on the shelf about 1/3 of the way up the wall turning the speakers up loud enough to hear from the living room.

After about five minutes, the girls heard a loud CRASH!! From the bedroom, they were just in.

The girls were frozen. They couldn’t move. They weren’t home alone, so they began screaming for an older brother, who had been in his room in the attic.

He came downstairs, and looked in the room,

“What the…did you guys do this?,” he asked, wide-eyed.

The girls slowly walked to the room, with no idea what they would find.

Chaos.

The two speakers were on opposite sides of the room as though someone had thrown them, along with the stereo on the opposite end of where it sat on the shelf. The wire CD towers were emptied, with the discs and cases strewn throughout the room chaotically.

But strangest of all, the part I still think about to this day is the full glass of water, seemingly untouched, still sitting on the shelf.

• • •

This was an experience by staff writer Molly Roberts when she was around 12 years old. To this day, she still isn’t sure what happened.

The vibration of the music would account for the movement of the stereo, but the still glass of water has always puzzled her. Maybe it was a ghost who didn’t like Eminem.

She has visited many places that have been “deemed” haunted but never had an experience like this one.