A Ghost Tale

For college, I selected a small, private university in Austin; at the time they had one of the highest rated theater arts departments in the country.

The campus had a large cathedral like main building; it used to be a private school before it was expanded to a university. When it was first founded, the students slept in the main building on the 2nd or 3rd floor and the brothers/teachers slept on the 4th floor.

The campus legend was that one of the brothers hung himself from the bell one night, and that his ghost still haunted the 4th floor of the main building.

One night, a bunch of us decided to check out the 4th floor of the main building, which was off limits and locked away from the student body. A group of us scaled the fire escape and pried open a window on the 3rd floor.

We made our way to the locked stairwell that led to the 4th floor, cursing every creaking floorboard. One of the guys knelt at the door and tried to pick the lock; another held the flashlight, me and two other guys just held back, watching and waiting; I was the very farthest from the door, with my back to the hallway behind us.

I'll never forget the sudden chill I felt- all the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. (I'm getting goosebumps remembering it right now.) I just had that feeling that someone was behind me, and I slowly turned around.

Standing in the hallway intersection, I swear I saw the faint shadow of a catholic priest, with his long robe and bald head. He was looking at us and shaking his head.

I let out a yell that would have given any helden-tenor a run for their money and I bolted down the hall, away from the apparition. The others chased after me. I tore open the window and bolted down the other fire escape, my comrades in arms screaming at me to slow down and asking what I saw.

When we reached the ground and assembled under a small grove of trees, the guy with the flashlight shined it on my face-- he said I was white as a sheet; I don't doubt it--I was shaking like a leaf.

I'm sure many will dismiss it as an overactive imagination... if I heard this tale myself I probably would be skeptical too. But 20 odd years later, I still get the goosebumps and the sweat when I think of that night.