PART THREE: FRIGHT NIGHT
(Photo: Me in 1986 -effects added)
As I grew older and absorbed media (books, TV, music, and movies) at an alarming rate, my skeptical nature asserted itself more fully and I turned into the quintessential sarcastic teenager. In the 1980s this meant hanging out on the fringes of the crowd in middle and high school – skaters, punks, goth, and early grunge with a little metal thrown in for good measure. The ultra-shallow world of the 80s “preppies” as immortalized in various John Hughes movies was unappealing to me. I had no interest in being popular and embraced my strange and unusual interests. My fascination with ghosts and “life after death” developed into an interest in vampires as well after reading Anne Rice’s voluptuous novels. (The fact that a whole new generation is being introduced to Lestat and crew via the AMC+ series is absolutely delightful.)
All of this led me to read more about myths and legends of the underworld, which in turn led me to new friends who were also into the emerging “Gothic” scene. We spent the summers of our early teen years cruising around in my sister’s 1970s VW van, hanging out at the Space Port arcade, and going to see movies like Fright Night and The Lost Boys. We wore long black skirts and excessive bracelets, baggy Bermuda shorts with chains, and punk/new wave band tees.
One evening, some of us were hanging out at the townhouse of one of the gang – we’ll call her Dara – a townhouse where a woman had committed suicide in the 1870s and supposedly still roamed the building. Inevitably, someone suggested getting out the Ouija board after Dara said she had felt the ghostly presence and seen things out of the corner of her eye on more than one occasion. I was intrigued and so were the others so we dusted off her mother’s old Ouija board and created the proper atmosphere in the living room where the ghost had been seen most often.
Lights out, with only candles for illumination, we cleared the coffee table and set out the board. Four of us knelt around the table and lightly touched our fingertips to the planchette. Dara made an opening invitation to the spirits of the house and we waited breathlessly for any movement. For a long moment it seemed as though nothing would happen and then suddenly the planchette jumped about half an inch to the left as though someone had firmly tapped it from the side. After one heart-pounding second of excitement and “Did you do that? No, did you?” we asked the spirit to move it again.
At this point my skepticism overrode the initial adrenalin rush. If it hadn’t moved again I probably would have always wondered if one of us had done it, but it did move again. Slowly this time, it glided across the board to the letter “H”. I watched the others’ hands to see if I could detect any small muscle movements that might have indicated they were manipulating the planchette. I couldn’t see anything in the dim light, but it felt like someone was pushing it. The name “Helen” was soon spelled out and I was now convinced that someone at the table was guiding it.
One of the participants was obviously starting to get creeped out, as I hadn’t seen such a frightened look on her face since we and our skater friends were escorted off of private property by the police. She called a halt to our séance immediately after we got the message that Helen was “D-E-A-D” and she went to “H-E-L-L”. Of course that made me suspicious that she was the one who had been pushing the planchette, but it could have easily been someone else who didn’t even realize they were doing it. That’s the main reason I don’t like to use Ouija boards, not that you could become “possessed” or open a portal to another world, but because it can be too easily manipulated consciously or unconsciously.
Then again, it really could have been Helen.
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