“So, Shai, have you heard about the ‘ghosts’ on campus yet?”
Lance’s mouth was half full as he asked me the question across a table
at the Food Court. I frowned,
picking at my pizza.
“Ghosts?
What are you talking about?” I
looked at my watch – I had class in twenty minutes.
Ghosts? What the heck
sort of thing is he talking about? I
waited, still picking at my meal. I
really wasn’t that hungry. I
shouldn’t have wasted my money.
Lance shrugged. “Oh, rumor
is that late at night, there are these weird things walking campus. Almost like the people from Faire are running around in garb
with flour all over them. You know,
ghosts.”
I grimaced. This is
getting way too weird. “And
who have you heard this from? It’s
probably just one of the Greek organizations being weird.”
“I saw them last night,” my roommate piped up quietly from next to
me.
“Did you now?” I sipped
my drink, then got up and began to put on my coat.
It was a cold walk to Au Sable, if a short one.
“Fine. Tonight, we’ll go
looking.”
“I thought you didn’t believe in this stuff,” Jude said with a
frown.
“I don’t,” I answered, picking up my bag.
“That’s why I’m going. Tonight.
We’ll meet at our room and you two can show me.”
* * *
If you’ve never walked campus at night, you’ll never realize exactly
how spooky it can be. I walk at
night all the time, and that’s probably why it doesn’t bother me as much as
it used to, but in the beginning, walking alone at night terrified me.
I was walking along the path that lead to Little Mac, back near Commons,
with Lance and Jude. We’d tried
to get Craig to come, too, but he’d had homework that couldn’t wait, he
said. I had half a mind to drag him
out with us anyway – he hadn’t really left his room except to go to class
for the past week – but I didn’t.
“So where are these ‘ghosts’ of yours, you two?”
I was skeptical – I usually was, although circumstances in my life
recently had caused me to reevaluate what was and was not possible.
“I saw them while I was walking across the bridge. It was almost like the people were walking on the bridge as
if it was a few feet lower in the middle and sagging there, instead of
arching.”
I nodded absently. I love
you both dearly, but if you believe that there’re ghosts running around this
campus—
My thought cut off in the middle as I suddenly saw a spectre heading
toward us from the other end of the bridge.
As the spectre walked, it was as Jude had described – as if the bridge
sagged in the middle instead of arching upward.
On either side of me, Jude and Lance were silent and still.
The spectre looked like Craig.