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Years and years ago I knew a young woman named Corrine. She and I were friends and nothing more, and at the time I never imagined there was a possibility that we could ever be more than friends.
We met each other at college (my second attempt to attain higher learning), in an art class I would eventually take a "W" for, as I did not like the instructor (long story for another time).
While we got along well and had several mutual interests, I considered Corrine out of my league, as she was not only very attractive and from a normal, well-off family, she was also very...how should I put it? Hoity-Toity? Snobbish? At least that was my perception of her.
My perceptions of people back then were (and somewhat still are) kinda screwy. I think I based my appraisal of her being snooty on the fact that she always wore dresses in a city were nearly all the women wore shorts or pants.
So we never dated. We did spend the night together in a supposedly haunted house once though, which was, due to my inability to pick up several hints she dropped, was all we did - spend the night in a haunted house.
This is how it went down.
One day off campus Corrine and I bumped into each other, at a record store, and we discovered we had similar taste in music (the then somewhat underground new wave/powerpop punk rock scene), though she was much more into Goth bands such as Bauhaus and Joy Division, and I was much more into bands like the Clash and the 'mats.
We ended up going to a small diner down the street from the record store together, just to chat and pass the time. We talked about the various bands we liked and the shows we'd seen, and the shows we'd like to see. After about twenty minutes of innocuous chit-chat, Corrine asked if I was into haunted houses.
I remember thinking "That's an odd question to ask in March," and just shrugging my shoulders and saying, "Yeah, I suppose, if they're not hokie like the Haunted Mansion at Disneyland."
Corrine laughed at that, and clarified for me that she meant real haunted houses, like the Whaley house in Old Town.
Now, at that point in my life I was what could best be described as a burgeoning skeptic, having been introduced to the CSICOP while I was serving in the AF, and I had pretty much adopted the adage "Extraordinary Claims Demand Extraordinary Proof" as a personal credo.
So, I replied, "Not really, don't believe in ghosts or stuff like that."
Corrine then proceeded to fill me in on how she was sensitive to the presence of ghosts, and that I should not take their existence lightly. She told me she had seen ghosts, and was absolutely positive that there were lost souls roaming the earth.
Then she said something that, at the time, confused me. She told me that she actively sought out haunted places as she enjoyed being scared. She also said she loved Horror movies, the creepier the better. For almost ten minutes she went on about how being frightened, really frightened, to the point of her heart racing like a greyhound and her body physically trembling, was the biggest thrill she had ever known.
She also asked me if I wanted to go to a haunted house with her and spend the night - she even goaded me a bit, insisting I was a chicken if I didn't go.
It was explained to me that this wasn't a haunted house put together as a Halloween attraction (it was March, afterall) but an old abandoned home she knew about that was supposedly haunted - Corrine had been told about it by some people she knew (a haunted house spotters network?) and had checked it out, but wasn't about to go inside it alone.
So I agreed to go to the haunted house with her. It was located in an older part of National City, which was not too far from where I lived, and we agreed to meet there at 7:00 in the evening two days from then, which would be a Wednesday night - not exactly a busy night of the week.
When I arrived at the address she had given me I was surprised to find that it was a condemned old Victorian that was surrounded by a chain-link fence with signs stating "No Trespassing" attached to it on all sides. Corrine was there waiting for me, holding a small gym bag (this was in the days before the small backpacks everyone carries now).
I asked how we were going to get in the house, and she lead me to a section of the fence that she had cut open just enough to allow us to get through. Then we walked around to the back of the house and she pointed out a boarded up window, and asked me if I could pry the large sheet of plywood off. I pulled at one side of the board and it gave way fairly easy, swinging out like a door would. Corrine climbed through the window opening into the dark room and I followed.
After our eyes adjusted, we discovered we were in the kitchen of the old house. Corrine whispered that we needed to be quiet for a minute, just in case anyone else had gotten the same idea she had and was in the house with us. For what seemed like 10 minutes we stood in silence until Corrine finally said, Okay, let's go upstairs."
We walked up a narrow staircase to the second floor, which made one heckuva racket - had to be the nosiest staircase ever - if someone was in that house other than us, they surely knew of our presence by then.
Corrine paused at the top of the stairs and rifled through her gym bag, pulled out a tall candle and asked me to hold it. Then she struck a match to light it. I distinctly remembered thinking at the time, "What, no flashlight? This woman is really into the Goth ambience."
She took the lit candle from me and led us down a dark hallway. Two doors on opposite sides of the hallway had been removed and were leaning against the hallway next to the now empty doorframes - we walked right past those two empty rooms and made our way to the sole door at the end of the hall. It was still on it's hinges, and Corrine opened it and stepped into a large bedroom - there was still bedroom furniture in the house, and in the flickering candlelight, the room looked pretty much like what Hollywood would use for a haunted house set.
Corrine walked over to a dresser and placed her gym bag on it. She passed me the candle and then rifled through her gym bag again until she found a candle holder. She took the candle back from me, put it in the holder, and set it in front of the dust covered dresser mirror.
The candlelight reflecting off the mirror brightened up the room to the point that I thought that someone outside the house might get suspicious and call the cops, but just as quickly as I had that thought I realized the windows were all boarded up - from the outside the room would still look dark and empty.
Looking around the room I saw a tall chest, what looked like a console table, a couple of bookcases (empty except for dust), one of those old fashioned sofas with an elaborately carved exposed wood frame that was upholstered in a well-worn red fabric, and a small bed with an old sagging mattress on it.
Walking over to the sofa Corrine gingerly sat down. She patted the cushion next to her and whispered, "It's solid, come over and sit here."
I did so and asked, "Do we have to whisper? Think anyone can actually hear us?" Corrine looked around the room and replied in a slightly louder voice, "Can't be too careful you know, don't want this to end before it even gets started."
"What gets started?" I remember thinking to myself. I prepared myself mentally for a long night of nothing but explaining away the odd sounds old houses make due to wind or settling or whatever.
Agreeing to sit in a condemned vacant house for a night was shaping up to not being one of my best decisions.
"It was in a house like this that I first felt the presence of a ghost," Corrine eventually stated. "very much like this, but in Virginia where I grew up - we lived there for twelve years before my Dad was transferred here. It was the ghost of a Sailor's wife who had been raped and murdered while he was out at sea. No one else could feel her presence but me, and I could hear her crying too - she cried constantly, and called out the name of her husband, begging him to come home and save her. I was only fifteen when I first made contact."
I thought I saw a shiver pass through her as she recalled the experience, and she shifted on the sofa, moving closer to me.
"There is something or someone in this house, too. I knew it the first time I walked past it back in January. I've been wanting to investigate it ever since but didn't want to be alone in here." She turned her head to me and I could see the candle flame flickering in her eyes. 'Thanks for coming here tonight, my skin is crawling and I'd probably be screaming if I was alone."
I probably replied with something like, "Hey, no problem," but I really can't remember. I don't actually remember word-for-word what she said, too, but you know, artistic license and all.
What I can remember is that she scooched even closer to me after she said that, to the point that we were making full body contact and I could feel her shaking a little.
Corrine continued. "There is a dark energy here, not evil, not malevolent, but dark. Something bad happened to someone who lived in this house - that's why their presence is still here. I can sense suffering, and heartbreak."
She was quiet for awhile and I could hear the creaking of the old house. It was a calm night, no wind to speak of, but I knew buildings sagged and shifted and made creepy noises all by themselves. There was also the faint sound of the occasional car driving down the street outside.
"Did you feel that?!" Corrine said in a sudden, excited loud whisper. "That cold that just snaked around us as if it were wrapping us up?! Tell me you felt that!"
As she said this she clutched my arm and pulled me tighter toward her. I could feel her heart beating fast, and she was breathing in big gulps.
I recall instinctively putting my arm around her and asking her if she wanted to leave, and she replying that there was no way she was leaving. She was going to find out who or what was in that house if it took all night.
Corrine continued to talk about her experiences with ghosts for awhile, while I sat there listening patiently and wondering what the hell I was thinking for agreeing to be there.
About ten or twenty minutes after she had made the outburst about the cold sensation she abruptly got up from the sofa and started nervously pacing in front of me. She looked at the ceiling and then to me and said, "You must think I'm a nut case for this. Thank you again for being here." Then she suddenly stopped pacing and turned to face the bed.
"I have to lay down on the bed. Whatever is here wants me to lie down." She walked over to the bed and placed both of her hands on the mattress and pushed down forcefully, then turned to me. "It's as solid as the sofa, should be okay."
She sat on the bed and removed her shoes, saying, "I can't lay on a bed, any bed, with my shoes on."
She settled into the bed and for several minutes all I heard was her breathing. She was calmer now, but her breathing was still heavy. The candle had melted down quite a bit, and I asked her, "Do you have another candle? This one is almost down to the base of the candleholder."
She said she didn't and that she thought the candle was supposed to last for 4 hours at least. I looked at my watch and was surprised to see it was almost 10:00 - we had been in that house for three hours, how did that happen?
Corrine sat up on the bed. With just a trace of nervousness in her voice she said, "Come over here and sit on the edge of the bed before the candle burns out or I'll freak out when it does."
I walked over to the bed and sat down - it was a small bed, what was known as a double, the largest commonly available before the queen-sized mattress was created in the 1950's, which meant that when I sat on the bed Corrine almost rolled into me. I again could feel as well as hear her breathing.
"When we first walked into this room I felt that we were not alone, and now I'm certain of it." Corrine said those words in a shaky whisper. "The presence wants us to know it is here." She trembled again as she spoke, and gripped my forearm. "The presence is trying to communicate with me, I can sense that there is a great, dark sadness within it."
As if she was speaking to someone on the telephone she asked aloud, "Who is there? Speak to me please, I am here to help you. Tell me how I can help you."
Corrine's arm was pressed up against mine as she spoke and I could feel the goosebumps on her skin. She breathed hard as she implored the presence to communicate.
"We mean no harm, nor do we mean to disturb you. We are only here to help you find peace, to shed the chains that bind you to this earthly realm and find the eternal rest you deserve."
Almost as if on cue I heard a creaking come from the area near the top of the stairs down the hall. I knew that stairs were a major source of odd noises in old homes simply due to the repeated compression of heavy footsteps and the recurrent release of that compression, but I still shuddered a little.
Corrine shuddered too. She shuddered, and appeared to writhe on the bed as if she was tossing and turning in slow motion. Her skin was still goose-pimpled, and I could feel her heart beating fast and hard.
"Please, please speak to me, trust me to help you. You deserve a final rest." Corrine said those words in whispered gulps as she continued to writhe on the bed. I did nothing but sit there on the edge of the bed, Corrine's right arm now hooked around my left arm.
The last few flickers of the candle flame bounced off the mirror and then the room was plunged into absolute darkness. I could no longer see Corrine and she could no longer see me.
"The presence is now everywhere in the house, it has completely enveloped this room - but it will not speak to me. It does not want to leave, it is afraid to let go." Corrine seemed to edge into me slightly as she spoke and her grip on my arm tightened.
I imagine I must have pondered how a ghostly presence could be afraid to let go.
"Lay down next to me, hold me - I need you to hold me, just hold me!" I did as she requested and was taken aback by the way she was shaking when I was alongside her. Her breathing was in gasps, and she turned into me, burying her face into my shoulder as she seemed to quake in absolute terror.
For several minutes we lay on the bed quietly. Her breathing calmed and I could feel her body relax. Before I knew it Corrine seemed to be falling asleep. I felt trapped with her on the bed - it was awkward to say the least.
Being as how I was then a hetero young man with a hetero young man's thoughts regarding laying on a bed with an attractive woman in a very dark room, it may seem unbelievable that all I felt was awkward, but that's the truth - I was not a lothario by any stretch, and really was a bit dense when it came to picking up signals from women back then (still am, truth be told).
I eventually drifted off to sleep next to her.
We awoke almost simultaneously at 5:30 the next morning. I got up off the bed and then helped Corrine stand up before either of us said a word.
"Wow, that was incredible." Corrine looked at me with a weird dead serious look on her face as she spoke. "I know I cannot explain to you what happened last night, but it was as real as it gets. I do not feel the presence anymore - it has moved on."
She then stood on her toes and leaned into me and planted a light kiss on my cheek. She sorta laughed and said, "You are a true gentleman! I almost appreciate that!"
Those were her exact words, or damn close to them - it was after she said those words (and quickly turned to the dresser to retrieve her gym bag) that the shoe dropped and I realized that she had actually got me to stay with her in that house for an altogether different reason than just to keep her company.
Again, I'm a bit dense at times.
'Well, glad I could help, I guess," might have been my reply. I don't clearly recollect, but I do remember thinking that I was an idiot as we made our way out of that house and through the hole in the chain link fence before anybody was out and about in the neighborhood.
Corrine and I saw each other several more times before that semester ended, but we never did anything else like that again. We lost contact over the summer - think she moved back to Virginia, or maybe met someone a little more astute at picking up signals.
Sometime after the events of that night I related what happed to my friend Kevin who no doubt started laughing his ass off (Kevin laughed at everything). "You idiot," he probably yelled for the whole world to hear, "How could you not pick up on what she wanted you to do?" Man you are a moron!"
Can't recall how I responded to Kevin, but chances are it was a combination of embarrassment and a desire to punch him.
Kevin was the sort who snorted as he laughed and while I cannot recall word for word his reactions, I know he loudly stated something obvious such as "Dude, that chick wanted you to bang her in a haunted house, chicks get off on that shit! How could you not know!"
And I still remember feeling like a bumpkin at that moment, even more so than I usually did.
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