Diana's Writing Blog

From: The Springview Historical Society

To: Nick Powell and Don McGinnis

Subject: Haunted School

Dear Mr. Powell and Mr. McGinnis

The Springview Historical Society would like to hire you to determine whether or not the local school is haunted. It has been closed since the 1980′s because of strange occurrences that have happened since the murder of fifteen students there. The town is in desperate need of another school. We would like you to determine if this school is haunted and whether or not another school needs to be constructed. Thank you for your time.

Cordially,

Cecilia Pennival

Don pulled up in front of the run-down old school at around five in the evening. The sky was already overcast and the sight of bare trees surrounding the little school gave it an eerie atmosphere. Nick pulled up on his motorcycle a few seconds later. He removed his helmet and ran a hand through his blonde hair. He was wearing his usual black leather coat and matching pants. Around his neck was a silver cross. Don gestured at the building. “Spooky, huh? You really think it’s haunted?”

“I don’t know,” Nick answered, grabbing a bag of equipment from the trunk.

“I guess we’ll find out,” Don said. He grabbed two more bags from the trunk and followed Nick into the building.

The school was four stories high and had about forty-five rooms in all. At one time it had housed grades one through twelve of the small town’s children, but it had been abandoned after the murders. All of the doors and windows were boarded up to keep vandals out.

Nick and Don set up their base of operations in the office on the first floor. “Let’s get the motion detectors set up. Do you want the second and third floor or first and basement?” Nick asked.

“Hmm.” Don considered his options for a minute. “Second and third,” he answered, grabbing a bag full of the small motion detecting devices.

“Don’t forget the walkie-talkie. Use it if you see anything strange, okay?” Nick said.

Don gulped. “Okay.” He took a walkie-talkie from the desk and headed up the stairs.

Nick picked up the other walkie-talkie and bag full of motion detectors and began placing one in each of the rooms on the first floor. Half an hour later, Nick started down the steps to the basement. He was in the second room when he heard a pounding sound from the room across the hall. He slowly made his way toward it. “Don?” he said into the walkie-talkie. “I’m hearing a strange noise. I’m gonna check it out.”

“Okay. Scream if you need help,” Don joked.

“Gee thanks,” Nick said sarcastically. He pushed the door open slowly. The sound was louder now. He could tell it was coming from the far side of the room. The room was pitch black. Nick groped along the wall for the light switch, but couldn’t find it. He took a few cautious steps toward the sound. Suddenly, something brushed his face. Nick jumped back. He strained his eyes to make out what it was. As his eyes adjusted, he could make out a long white cord swinging back and forth slightly. Nick chuckled softly as he recognized what it was; a light cord. He pulled it and the old sixty-watt bulb came to life, casting a dim glow around the room.

Nick could see now that he was in the furnace room. The noise was coming from the old furnace in the corner. Nick smiled and left the room, remembering to turn off the light. “It was just the furnace,” Nick reported into the walkie-talkie. “I didn’t bother to put a detector in that room; the furnace would just keep setting it off.”

“Okay. I’m about finished up here,” Don said.

“I’ll meet you in the office in ten minutes,” Nick told him. They activated the devices as soon as Nick returned to the office and programmed them to set off the sound recorders and video cameras that had been set up before their arrival. “I also rigged it so that the cameras and recorders will activate if the detectors pick up any electromagnetic disturbances or drops in temperature. If anything gets set off it’ll show up on the laptop.” Nick gestured toward his most prized possession. It sat on the desk against the window that gave a view of the main hallway.

“Looks like we covered everything,” Don remarked. “Now, all we have to do is wait.”

“Yeah, let’s take shifts watching the monitor.”

“You take the first shift,” Don said quickly.

Nick sighed in defeat. “Fine.” He sat down at the desk. Don headed off into the principal’s room to the right, where they’d set up the sleeping bags. Nick leaned back in his chair and propped his feet up on the desk, preparing for a long night.

A beeping sound two hours later roused Nick from where he was dozing. He sat upright in the chair and checked the monitor. “Hey Don,” he called.

Don mumbled something unintelligible.

“Don?” Nick walked to the doorway. Don rolled over in his sleeping bag away from the door. Nick sighed impatiently. “The temperature just dropped in room 205 and ….” Nick looked back as the computer beeped again. “There goes the motion detector. I’m going to check it out. You can come or you can stay here. Alone. In a haunted school.”

Don sprang up immediately. “I’m up! Let’s go.”

Nick handed him a flashlight. “In case the lights go out,” he explained. They walked up the stairs to the second floor. When they got to the top of the stairs, there was a faint noise from above them. It sounded like a girl giggling. “Keep going,” Nick whispered. “I’ll check it out.”

Don nodded and headed for room 205 while Nick went up to the third floor. Nick stopped and listened at the top of the stairs. There was whispering now, from the end of the hall. Nick moved stealthily down the hall. The last room on the left had a glow coming from underneath the door. Nick could hear a boy’s voice faintly. “–we call upon the spirits in this place,” it whispered. “Rise and claim your vengeance on the anniversary of your murder.”

Nick chose that moment to burst into the room. He found himself standing in front of a circle of candles with a teenage boy and girl in the middle. Both jumped up in surprise as Nick suddenly appeared. The girl screamed and ducked behind the boy. “What are you two doing in here?” Nick demanded. He turned as he heard yelling and screaming from the second floor. “Come on,” he said, dragging them from the room.

“Hey man, watch the jacket,” the boy protested.

“Can’t you take a joke?” the girl added, struggling in Nick’s grip.

“Don!” Nick yelled as they reached the second floor.

“Nick, you’ll never guess what I found,” Don said, propelling another teen couple out of 205.

“Oh, I think I might,” Nick remarked, releasing his pair as he reached Don. He crossed his arms and faced the four kids. “Who are you and what are you doing here?”

“I’m John,” one of the boys said hesitantly.

“Bill,” the other boy admitted.

“Lisa,” the blond girl confessed.

“I’m Gina,” the brunette added guiltily.

“We were trying to raise the fifteen ghosts that died in this school,” John spoke up bravely. “It’s the anniversary tonight.”

“We know,” Don said. “We’ve heard the story: fifteen kids murdered by a crazy principal who hung himself in the furnace room after. Which, by the way, makes sixteen ghosts.”

“So what are you guys doing here?” Lisa asked. “You don’t really buy that story do you?”

“Let’s get back to the office,” Nick said, glancing around nervously.

“You really do believe this place is haunted!” Lisa exclaimed as they reached the office full of gear. “So what are you, ghost busters or something?”

“Something like that,” Nick answered, walking over to the laptop.

“What were you thinking, coming into a haunted school where fifteen kids your age were murdered?” Don demanded of the kids.

“We thought it’d be kinda cool,” Gina answered timidly.

“You think raising the dead is cool!?!” Don exclaimed irately. Gina shrugged.

Meanwhile, Nick, who had been resetting the detectors, had stopped and now stood staring at the monitor. “Don, come look at this,” Nick said, his eyes still fixed on the monitor.

Don walked over and looked at the monitor. “Yeah, that’s gonna be bad,” he remarked. Suddenly all the lights went out. Luckily, the laptop was running on a battery; its monitor cast an unnatural blue light on the group. “Uh-oh,” Don remarked softly.

Nick turned to the four teens. “We need to get them out of here. Now!”

“Why? What is it?” Gina asked, starting for the monitor. Nick grabbed her arm and pulled her toward the door, but not before she caught a glimpse of a cluster of blobs making their way toward the main hall. “What are they?” she asked as Nick herded them towards the doors.

“The ghosts you called,” Don answered in an accusing tone. “Happy now?”

Gina looked down guiltily and pushed on the door. It didn’t budge. “Locked,” she said.

Nick dug in his pocket and produced a key. He went to put it in the lock only to find that there wasn’t one. The circle of metal that had been the lock was now as smooth as if there had never been anything there. “Fused,” he announced.

“Uh-oh, that’s not normal,” Don said. “Come on kids, back to the office.”

They hurried back into the office and closed the door. Nick sat down in front of the monitor, watching the blobs representing electromagnetic fields as they moved closer and closer to the main hallway. “Maybe we shouldn’t have set up in the principal’s office,” Nick remarked.

“Yeah, considering he killed fifteen people….sixteen, technically,” Don said.

“Don’t you guys have guns, or something?” John demanded as he watched the monitor.

“They’re already dead,” Don retorted.

Nick looked up. “We should be able to see them now.” They all watched through the windows in front of the desk. The first ghost came down the steps. It was a teenage boy, his form was semi-transparent, showing the steps behind him. When he reached the hall he turned left, displaying the knife sticking out of his back. The four teens screamed, but the ghost kept walking down the hall, oblivious to the living. Four more ghosts descended and two came from classrooms on the first level. All of the ghosts went down the hall to the left. When the ghosts stopped coming, Nick said, “Don, take them,” he gestured toward the four teens, “and find a way out of here.”

“What are you going to do?” Don asked.

“My job; I’m going to find out what those ghosts are up to.” Nick grabbed a flashlight, a walkie-talkie, and a camera fixed with a tape recorder that picked up sounds lower than human ears could detect. “Radio me when you’re out.” With that, he left the office and headed down the hall after the ghosts. Don and the kids went up the stairs.

After walking down the hall for a few minutes, Nick came to the doors of the auditorium. Cautiously, he peered through the glass. He didn’t see anyone, but he knew that didn’t necessarily mean that no one was there. He turned the camera on and entered. “Hello?” he called. He put the camera up to his eye and did a sweep of the room. As he pointed the camera at the stage, a group of vague forms appeared. He lowered the camera to get a better look. He could make out shapes moving on the stage, but they were too fast to count. Nick had a feeling that there were fifteen of them. He held the camera up, turned on the tape recorder, and moved closer, watching the moving forms through the camera. He could almost make out what they were saying. Nick moved closer. Suddenly, all of the ghosts turned to look at him. The batteries in his camera and flashlight went out at the same time. Then, all the ghosts began a spine-tingling moan. They flew in all directions, moving so quickly that Nick barely had time to duck as two flew over him. In a few seconds, he was alone.

“Don? Look out, the ghosts are on the move,” Nick said into his walkie-talkie. No answer. “Don?” He checked the batteries. They were drained of all power, just like his camera and flashlight. Nick was worried; power drains meant the ghosts were draining all energy around them. That only happened when they were planning something big. He hurried out of the auditorium and back to the office. Unfortunately, when he tried to open the door it slammed shut again. Nick tried to open it twice more before giving up. He looked through the window. His laptop was right in front of the glass and beyond that was the bag with the spare batteries. Hopefully they were still intact.

He knew that he had to get to them, so he picked up an old trashcan. He carefully aimed it so that, hopefully, he wouldn’t smash his computer and swung. The can smashed through the glass and fell to the floor, narrowly missing his laptop. Nick brushed away the leftover glass and climbed in. Immediately, there was a wailing sound and the temperature dropped; someone was in the room and they were gathering power. Nick hurriedly picked up his laptop as the door to the principal’s office started to creak open on its own. The wailing increased and a gale force wind kicked up. Nick grabbed the bag of batteries just as a dark form materialized in the doorway to the principal’s office. Broken shards of glass floated up. Nick climbed onto the desk and out the window as fast as he could. He only just managed to duck below the windowsill before the glass flung itself at him. The shards passed just inches over his head and embedded themselves in the far wall. Nick crept up cautiously. The glass shards embedded in the wall had begun to quiver; they were trying to dislodge themselves. He hurried up the steps and onto the second floor. Nick knelt in the hall for a moment and replaced the batteries in his flashlight and walkie-talkie. He tried it again, “Don?” Still no answer. That could mean that Don’s batteries were drained, he’d lost his walkie-talkie, or…he wasn’t able to answer. Nick decided to look for him. Don and the kids had to be on the second or third floor or in the basement. If he didn’t find them, he’d assume that they’d made it out and continue with his investigation.

Nick walked down the second floor hallway, doing a quick check of each of the rooms. So far, he hadn’t seen any sign of Don, the teens, or the ghosts. He stopped outside of a door. There were faint sounds of crying coming from inside. Nick pushed the door open warily, and entered the room. The sobbing grew louder. “Who’s there?” Nick demanded. He shined his flashlight around the room. It illuminated the figure of a teenage girl huddled in a corner. Her face was hidden, but she had blonde hair. “Lisa, is that you?” Nick asked. She didn’t answer, only sobbed. He inched toward the girl. “Are you okay?” Nick reached out to touch her, but his hand went right through.

The girl’s head whipped around and Nick stumbled back. Half of her face was missing, blown off with a shotgun it looked like. “My face!” she wailed. “Look what he’s done to my beautiful face!” She ran through him and out the door.

“Wait!” Nick yelled. He ran after her, but there was no sign of her when he reached the hallway. Nick continued on. He reached the stairs and went up to the third level. At the top of the stairs, he opened the first door on his left and cautiously entered. Immediately, his flashlight lit up the form of a boy. He was hanging from a rope attached to the ceiling, swinging slightly. “Hello?” Nick asked.

The ghost didn’t answer. Nick was about to leave when he heard a thump from the closet. He walked over to it, keeping plenty of distance between himself and the ghost. Bracing himself for another gruesome sight, Nick opened the door. There was a girl huddled in the corner, just like the first ghost. This time, however, when he reached out to touch her, his hand didn’t pass through. She screamed and jumped up.

“Lisa?” Nick said. Her eyeliner was smeared and runny from her crying and she was shaking all over, but she seemed unharmed.

“N-Nick?” She rushed forward and threw her arms around him. “It was horrible! We were on the second floor, then all these ghosts came and I ran up here.”

“Where are Don and the others?” he asked.

“I-I don’t know. I didn’t see,” she stuttered.

“Okay, come on, we’ll go find them,” Nick said. He ushered her out of the closet and toward the door. She was still clinging to him. As they neared the ghost, she squeezed her eyes shut and clung even harder to his jacket. They made it out the door without being attacked. “We’re out,” Nick told her.

Lisa looked up, from where she’d been hiding her face on his shoulder. “Where do we go now?”

“Well, we should check the rest of these rooms. If we don’t find them here, I’ll check the basement.” He moved down the hall with Lisa still clutching his arm. At the end of the hall, he and Lisa entered boy’s bathroom. “Don,” Nick called.

“John, Bill, Gina, are you in here?” Lisa added.

“Lisa?” the answer was faint. It sounded like it was coming from the last stall.

“John!” Lisa rushed to him.

Nick began checking the other stalls. He pushed open the first stall: empty. Second stall, third stall, both empty. He pushed open the fourth stall and jumped back. There was a kid with his head submerged in the toilet. Nick edged closer and figured out that the boy had been drowned. Once again, when Nick tried to touch the kid his hand passed through.

Nick went back to check on Lisa and John. They were waiting just outside the bathroom door. “Do you know where the others are?” he asked John.

“Bill and Gina escaped,” John answered. “I saw them go out a window. I don’t know where that other guy is.”

“If Bill and Gina escaped, why didn’t you?” Nick asked.

“I tried, but the window just kinda disappeared.”

“Okay,” Nick said, “I guess….”

He was cut off by a sudden voice from his walkie-talkie, “Nick?”

Nick grabbed the walkie-talkie from his belt and answered it, “Don!”

“I’m in the basement,” Don said.

“Meet me on the first floor. We’ll be there in a minute,” Nick answered.

“No. You have to come to the basement, Nick. Now!”

Nick gulped but agreed. “Okay, I’ll be right there.”

“No!” Lisa exclaimed. “Don’t go in the basement. You can’t go down there! That’s where the principal is,” her voice lowered to a whisper as if just talking about him would conjure him into their midst.

“I’ll be careful,” Nick assured her. He led them to one of the empty rooms. “No matter what happens, don’t leave this room.” Lisa and John nodded. Nick ran down the stairs to the basement. “Don!” Nick yelled. “Where are you?”

“In here.” The voice came from the furnace room.

Nick swallowed the growing sense of fear and moved towards the room. He opened the door. “Don?” He could just make out a figure standing against the far wall. He moved into the room. “Don what are you….” The door slammed shut on its own. He fumbled for the flashlight and shone it wildly around. It illuminated the figure against the far wall. It was a middle-aged, balding man. The principal!

Nick darted for the door and tried to force it open. No luck. He kicked it with all his might, but it still didn’t budge. He turned and found himself face to face with the ghost. The temperature around them dropped to the point where Nick could see his breath. “What do you want?” Nick asked, with more courage than he felt.

“I want…” the specter moaned. “I want the truth to be revealed!”

“What is the truth?” Nick demanded.

The principal placed a transparent hand on Nick’s camcorder. “The truth….” the principal moaned before disappearing.

“The truth,” Nick repeated. He held the camera up and pressed the power button. To his surprise, the batteries had been restored. Nick pressed the play button on his tape. Instead of the recordings he’d been making, the camera showed 15 living kids on stage happily rehearsing their play. Nick settled himself on a box to watch. The teens on the tape took various positions. They were reciting lines but suddenly stopped and turned as a man ran into the auditorium. He held up a gun and shot two of the children. The rest scattered, running out of every door they could. The man followed two as they ran up to the first floor. Nick winced as the man cornered a girl in a room and shot her in the face. Nick realized that she was the ghost he’d first met. Next, the man chased two more up to the second floor and shot them, as well. After a while, the man ran out of bullets, but that didn’t stop him. He hung one boy, drowned another, and then electrocuted a third.

Nick watched the man murder the children until, finally, there were only four left. Nick watched as the man cornered a blond girl and teenage boy in a third floor room. He stabbed them both with a knife he’d taken from the Home Ec. room. Now, there were only two teens left. The man located them with frightening ease. He threw one, a brown haired girl through a third floor window. The other one was a boy. He ran to the end of the hall and tried to hide in the bathroom, but the man found him and strangled him with a light cord. Finally, the murderer went back down the stairs all the way to the basement, where he’d left the principal tied up. He untied the man and hung him from a pipe on the ceiling. The tape ended there. “It wasn’t the principal!” Nick exclaimed. The door flew open on its own. Nick ran to the main floor. He tried to open the doors to the outside, but they were still fused shut. “I know the truth!” he yelled. “It wasn’t the principal.”

“Who was it?” Lisa’s voice startled him. She and John were standing at the bottom of the stairs. “Who was the murderer?” she asked again.

“I-I don’t know,” Nick answered.

“Nick?” Don’s voice came over the walkie-talkie.

“Don!”

“I’ve been looking all over for you. Where are you?”

“First floor outside the office,” Nick said.

A few minutes later, Don joined them on the first floor. “Where have you been?” he demanded.

“Looking for you,” Nick answered. “I checked every level, where were you hiding?”

“I wasn’t hiding!” Don replied, angrily.

“Never mind, it doesn’t matter. Look at this, “Nick showed him the tape.

“What is this?” Don asked.

“The truth about who murdered those kids in the 1980′s.”

“Hey,” Don said, “Stop it there.”

Nick stopped the tape on a close up of the murderer’s face.

“I’ve seen him before,” Don said excitedly. “Gimme your computer.” Nick did so reluctantly and Don booted it up. “I saw him when I was doing research about the town.” Don called up the information and scrolled through it.

“There!” Nick said, pointing to the man’s picture.

“Calvin Norton,” Don read, “the school’s drama teacher until two weeks before the murders. He was fired. It doesn’t say why.”

“I’ll hazard a guess and say he was unstable,” Nick said dryly.

“So, he’s the murderer?” Don asked. “Wow, and all that time they thought it was the principal.”

“We have to contact the police,” Nick said, “This man could still be out there.”

He and Don both turned at the sudden clamor behind them. The doors were open and sunlight streamed in. “Come on!” Nick said. He and Don stepped outside.

“Well, I guess we should get these two home,” Don remarked. He turned around, but there was no sign of the two teens. “What! Where’d they go?” Don exclaimed. “Aw man, now we gotta go back!”

“Wait!” Nick grabbed Don’s arm. He rewound the tape and played it at the part where there were only four teens left. “Look.”

Don watched. “So?”

Nick paused it at a close-up of one of the kids, “Look!”

“Hey,” Don exclaimed. “That’s Lisa! But that means….they were ghosts too!”

Nick nodded.

“Well, how long have you known that?” Don demanded.

“I suspected from the beginning, but I didn’t know for sure until I saw the tape.”

“You couldn’t have mentioned this? You know, like ‘Hey don’t those four seem like ghosts to you?’!”

“I didn’t want you to freak out,” Nick answered.

“Freak out? Freak out! Me?” Don yelled.

Nick was already calling the police from the car.

Nick emerged from an interrogation room three hours later and was met by Don. “So, how’d it go?” Don asked.

“They’ll look into it,” Nick said flatly, obviously he didn’t have too much faith in them.

“Did you show them the tape?”

“Yeah, they kept it, but I don’t think they believe me. Would you believe someone claiming that they had a tape of a murder that happened twenty years ago and that it was made by ghosts?”

“Well, no, but what can we do?” Don asked. “We can’t just let this murderer go free.”

“There’s not much we can do. Maybe, just the fact that someone knows the truth will be enough to put the ghosts to rest.”

“Think so?”

Nick didn’t answer, which meant ‘no’.

“Well, at least we know what to put in the report. Was the place haunted? That’s a definite ‘yes’. Case closed.” Don said.

End