Ouija Board


"This isn't a good idea, Teddy," my best friend Angela warned me again, clinging to my arm with a strength that I previously thought that she was not capable of.

"Stop worrying!" I said, keeping my tone patient. "Ouija boards aren't dangerous, Ang. They're just fun!"

Angela stared at me with wide brown eyes. She still wasn't going to believe me. I sighed and continued down the street. Ever since Friday I had been dead set on going to the old Glenning's Center and trying out my new Ouija board there. The legend was that it was haunted with all sorts of spirits; everyone was aware of them. Every night they'd turn the light on the top floor on. And no matter what you were doing in there, you always felt like you were being watched.

Angela was my best friend, but she wasn't approving of what I was about to do. She was sort of like a spiritualist. She thought that Ouija boards were evil and that "bringing one into a place as haunted as the Glenning's Center would be as asking to be possessed." I didn't believe it. Frankly, I didn't really believe in ghosts. I just thought that she'd throw some stuff around and move the dial to scare me. I was ready for it. After all, if there were ghosts, what could they possibly do to me?

The Glenning's Center was one of the oldest buildings in the little town that we lived in. It sat across from the catholic school and next to the church. Some groups used it for meeting places and stuff, but other than that it wasn't much use except for storage. We had gotten permission to be in the building for the night, so we weren't afraid of being caught, but Angela was still scared as heck. Her fingers were shaking like leaves around my forearm, and yet still managed to cut off my circulation. They had been that way ever since we turned the corner onto the road with the building on it.

Now we stood in front of the Glenning's Center, staring up at it. The building was four stories high and made of brick. Wrapped around one side was an old rickety fire escape that looked like it was as likely to kill you as the fire that you'd be escaping from with it. The windows were dusty and covered in cobwebs. Most didn't have curtains covering them. The doors (there were three; one on every side but one) were really old. Their black paint was peeling off, and in some places there was no paint at all, just old wood. The antique doorknobs on the doors did not look ready to be useful to us. It didn't surprise me that the third story light was on.

"Theodore, PLEASE don't do this!" Angela begged me, taking a step closer so that we were pretty much shoulder to shoulder.

It threw me off that she used my real name. She almost never used my first name. "If you're so scared of this, why did you come with me?" I demanded, attempting to shake her off. Her grip was too strong; she didn't move.
"Because I don't want you to go missing." Her voice had a suddenly hard edge that took all the shaking out of it. I looked at her, and she was giving me a piercing look that I had only seen once before: when she had caught me stealing her favorite book from her room, and I had nowhere to run. That look scared me silly for a minute.

I forced myself to look away, back at the building. "One quick talk with a ghost, and then we leave. I promise." I smiled, still not looking at her. Then started up the rickety stairs two at a time, and pushed the old door open. It opened with a loud creak which echoed out through the whole building.
It was dark inside, the only light coming from the dim light from the musty windows. The staircase in the center of the building stood out as if to greet us, dark and ominous, and yet at the same time nice to see with its old charm.
Angela's fingers dug into my arm as I slowly walked down the hall toward the staircase; with each step the wooden boards creaked under our feet, moaning and groaning as we got closer to the stairs. Angela was breathing hard by the time we got to the staircase. "Please don't do this," she begged me one more time.

I ignored her.

I put my hand on the rail of the long staircase, and it was ice cold. The feeling was odd; the room was plenty warm. Why would the rail be so cold? Pulling back, I looked over the rail, and then looked over my shoulder at Angela. "Hey, Ang, touch this. It's really cold!" I said, running the tip of my middle finger down it curiously.
Angela stared at the rail for a moment, and then lightly ran her fingers down it. Her hand retracted so fast that I had to do a double-take. "This is a bad idea," she warned me, casting me a sideways glance.
I smiled at the fear in her voice. I was ready to prove to her that nothing was going to go wrong.

I leapt up the stairs with Angela stumbling after me, barely touching the rail as I did. With each step the air was getting colder and harder to breathe in, but I didn't care. I didn't stop until I was on the third floor, the one where the light was always on. I looked around, and my eyebrows rose. The light in the hall that we had seen lit from outside was now off.

"Teddy, that light was on," Angela reminded me, her voice gruff and somehow ominous.

"I know." My voice cracked.

More slowly now, I walked down the red-carpeted hall, listening carefully to each creak of the floor. The creaking was louder now, as if it was begging me to go back, to spare myself. My heart was pounding as I stopped by the moonlit window. I silently dropped to my knees, took the Ouija board box out from under my arm, and diligently started setting it up.

Angela stayed standing, finally releasing her grip on my arm, and watched me for a moment. Then she turned around and looked down the dark hall, as if on watch. She was still visibly tense and breathing hard. I could have sworn I could hear both our heartbeats echoing through the hall.

"…It's done," I said, gingerly placing the dial on top of the board.
Angela spun around and stared at it, her face grim, as if she were staring at a dead body. She knelt down, and slowly put her hand on the dial, as if she were being forced to. Her hands were shaking. "Okay, let's do this," she muttered.
I slowly put my hand over hers and closed my eyes. The silence around us was somehow loud, full of anticipation, as if there were a crowd waiting. I swallowed to try to get rid of the dry feeling in my throat and said, "Is there anyone here?"
At once the dial moved to "yes." My eyes widened in curiosity and I glanced up at Angela, whose face was as white as a sheet. "Did you move that?" I asked my voice no louder than a whisper.

She shook her head, and we both looked back at the dial, her eyes wide with fear.
Almost at once the dial shot across the board, left the ground, and hit Angela square in the stomach. She let out a shocked scream and doubled over, her hands immediately wrapping around the Ouija board dial. My eyes widened, and my mouth automatically opened to say something, but no words came out. I felt something pulling my hair, and my hands went to my head as I was dragged against the wall. I screamed, clawing at my hair, but I could feel no hand there.
            
Suddenly, it was all over. I was released, and Angela slowly sat back up, holding the Ouija board dial as if she expected it to jump at her again. She looked at me with wide horrified eyes that looked almost glazed over with fear.
            
There was a loud screeching sound, and we both turned to look at the window. The sound was so loud that we could not hear anything over it, and we were grounded to our spots as we watched an invisible force etch two words into the window:

GET OUT.

I jumped to my feet and sprinted down the hall as fast as I could. Without looking back I knew that Angela was right behind me. We shot down the stairs so fast that I fell on my face and skidded down one flight, but I hit the ground running. The moment before I got up, Angela had jumped over me, and I had to push myself to catch up with her. I beat her out before she slammed the door behind us.

We both jumped off the stairs outside the building and went sailing into the grass. I did a full summersault before landing on my back, and for several long seconds all I could do was stare at the sky and listen to my ravaged heartbeat until it stopped hammering in my chest.

"I told you this was a bad idea!" Angela practically screamed, stumbling to her feet next to me. Tears streamed from her eyes, but I could tell that they were pure fury. "This is all your fault! Now do you believe me?"
But I couldn't speak. I was still too scared.
Angela stared at me for a minute, and then her face softened. She sighed a long, shaky sigh, wiped her eyes, and held out her hand to me. "Come on. We're going home."

I extended my hand, and she took it and dragged me to my feet roughly. I could tell it was on purpose. We returned to the sidewalk, and in a walk too fast to be casual we returned down the road where our houses faced each other.
Angela's parting words that night stuck with me for quite a while, and every time I think of them they make me laugh and shiver simultaneously. She turned to me and with a grim smile she said, "You need to listen to me more."
I smiled and laughed shortly, still shaken. "Yeah…"

We never did go back for that Ouija board. In fact, we tried to avoid that building as often as we could after that. I told the story of what happened to some of my friends, but they didn't believe me. They said that there were two big reasons why they didn't believe me: One, there was no writing on the window when they went to see a few days later, and two, they never found my Ouija board.

After a while, I stopped trying to convince them. I know that I wasn't crazy, and that's all that matters, right? Besides, Angela and I both know what happened that night. There was no reasoning for what happened. And now, I certainly will listen to her more.