Thespian Initiation

From: Shelley Korch skorch@clark.net
Date: Wed, 26 Jul 95 18:27:55 GMT
Type: Ghost
Story-type: Personal experience
Location: Unknown, U.S.A.
Source: Email Submission

I've been lurking around and reading all of the stories on this archive, debating whether I should contribute this experience, and I figured hey, why not. I'm almost 15 years old, and this happened at my thespian initation on May 26, 1995.

This particular iniation was held at my drama teacher's house, which is a huge Victorian summer home dating from around 1875. The house is on about two acres of land, and the home itself occupies at least a quarter acre. Basically, it's a big ole house. After I had had my fill of shaving cream, mustard, GARLIC, chocolate syryp, jelly, and other assorted condiments smeared on me, and took my pledge, and ate dinner. My back began to burn during dinner, and I later found out this burning was a reaction from the garlic powder. Anyway, after dinner, we had the drama awards for the year, and I won the All-Around-Best-Freshman award, and the Most-Likely-To-Laugh-As-A-Senior award, which stemmed from the fact that my freshman year was riddled with small traumas. Anyway, after dinner me and some friends began to play "Mission Impossible" it was just a stupid game but, hey... Anyway during Mission Impossible, I managed to run into a tree, trip and scrape my knee, and to bang a sensitive part of me... Well, I decided that I would sneak into the house and rest on a bed for a while. Now understand, this house is decorated in furniture that dates back to the house, so it's filled with great antiques and stuff. I went up the butler's staircase to the second floor and found the most quiet remote room around.

I greatfully climbed onto the bed and rested a while. Then, I realized that the room was quite cold and there was not an air conditioner in it. I just figured that the room was cold due to great circulation. After about five minutes, the cheery green rose wall paper and dark antique furniture began to stop being cheery, and the room began to take on a heavy, opressive feeling. This, I passed off as bitterness from my initiation and continued to rest. Fifteen minutes after I first began to feel the horrid feeling, I got a really really awful feeling. I get the feeling occasionally in my basement when I go to a certain corner. When the feeling comes in my house, I run faster than I normally do and get out of the basement. The closest that I could describe it was my heart was racing, and it felt like my insides were trembling, and I felt that I should get out of the room. I did not heed the warning that my body was giving me and did not get up because my groin still hurt. By this time it was well past dusk, and I could see all of the other people in drama club happily roasting marshmellows in the grill that the drama teacher's husband had made from the chimney of a burnt down carriage house. I watched them for some time as the feeling evilness continued to boil in my gut. When I turned around to see if I was well enough to leave the room, I found myself facing a sillhouett of a woman in a long skirt holding what appeared to be a small child. That did it. I ran out of the room and ran outside. I told no one of what I'd seen and grabbed a marshmellow. Later that evening, the drama teacher gave us a tour of their house. It turned out that that portion of the house had burned down in 1883, and had been rebuilt. It was also the room in which five people had died. The first of which had been a baby who died of diptheria in the late 1880's. The second of which had been a young man of 20, who died of terburculosis (sp?), the third had been a child I don't know the age who had been hit by a train, and the fourth and fifth had been an old couple who died in their bedrooms at seperate times. Well there you go. It wasn't a scary story and it was very long winded and wordy, but I'm glad that I have finally shared this story with people.