What are ghosts?

Ghosts are not real. At least, that’s what the scientific community has yet to prove. I’ve seen it. I’ve seen it with my own eyes. Or rather, I haven’t seen anything with any semblance of a human being, yet the environment responded to its presence. It couldn’t have been anything earthly. It didn’t have two arms, two legs, no face, no eyes to keep contact on. It never looked like what we’ve seen in movies, a cheap visual effect, a projection of a man in poor makeup, or a puppeteered skeleton with a scythe. It just was. Something there, but not there. And it knew I knew it was there. And then it was gone.

Five years. I’ve been rotting in this padded room for five years. They say I’m delusional. That I’ve been seeing things. And it didn’t take my experience as a celebrity ghost hunter to win the docs over either. They called my work hokie. And I’d argue that there was some legitimacy to ghost hunting, that in some cases when we weren’t staging our episodes, that there were actual encounters with phenomena that we couldn’t explain. There’s only so many things a digital camcorder can pick up. Sometimes, static is just that. But a camcorder cannot pick up the atmosphere, or some strange emotion that overcomes the filming crew, or a dramatic change in temperature. As cliche as those symptoms may be in reinforcing our claims of supernatural occurrences, the real frightening matters occur after those first signs. Like I said, not captured with a camcorder.

Late into the night, after the orderlies have finished tying us down to these steel cots, while some of the other patients received magic potion injections to help them sleep, I’d hear strange footsteps walking the hallways outside. I know only a few orderlies on patrol. And there’s usually only one body making the rounds after lights are out. Those footsteps sound like a group of hooligans or Captain Crunch with a limp or sometimes a bunny rabbit with steel shoes. Tink tink tink tink. Tonk tonk tink tonk. I never encountered any sloth-like ghosts that dragged their feet. I guess even ghosts need to get where they’re going in a timely matter.

Sometimes, I’d peek through the little window in our cell door and it’d be the faintest silhouette of a man, or a shadow, or a beast, just a dark impression of some entity pass by. It would nod at me, as though it knew me and that we had been friends for some time. And then sometimes I would lay in bed and there would be some ghostly figures peering through that same window, watching me as I tried to sleep those sleepless nights. We’d exchange glances, but they didn’t seem to want to do anything. They were quite still. Floaty.

So one night, I had this horrible dream. The hospital was getting a new orderly. Some mean son bitch. In the dream, the new orderly would start riling up the cage and beating and dragging all our sorry butts in and out of our rooms. By the time we were put to sleep, we’d be covered in our own blood, vomit, and bruises. The dream didn’t end there. Not until one of the patients was hanging from the ceiling by his own neck in his room. I never could picture who it was. His body kept spinning and spinning, as in a looped video, but I could never make out his face. And then I wake up.

I couldn’t tell anyone about the dream. I had it for two straight weeks. And every one of those nights, I tried to find out who was hanging there by his neck. But I could never see.

And like most stories worth telling, there needs to be an ironic twist. Sure enough, we were introduced to new orderly Jones. Jones was a slick looking man. Quite handsome actually. He looked more like a Jude Law or something. Almost charming. But I’d never forget his hairy arms. Those were his weapons.

It was as though my dreams were coming true. One by one, the patients started complaining about how Jones had been beating them prior to lights out. But none of his superiors believed us. I had my doubts, too. Until that eventful evening when I couldn’t sleep yet again. And Jones decided to appoint himself my sandman.

His keys were rustling outside my room and he clicked and clacked and the heavy steel door swung open. He said with a snarly voice, “I hear you don’t sleep so well. You afraid of the boogey man?” He was already readying his night stick.

I should have kept my mouth shut and pretended to be sleeping. But I just had to be a smart-ass. Said something real smart. And the bastard made sure I regretted it. And it happened night after night. I refused to let this bully get me down.

The nurses never doubted Jones’ account of how I got such severe injuries. He just said I was nuts and that the wounds were self-inflicted. If I couldn’t speak during those hearings, my blood was sure boiling. One of these days, Jones was going to get his.

And the last time I saw Jones, he put me into a deep sleep. I didn’t know it until I woke up a few days later. But during that time, I thought I would actually figure out the identity of that hanged man. In this new dream, I would awaken to the most glorious day. The sun was warm and bright yellow, the birds were singing with great melody, and the room was lit with such romantic diffuse glow you’d think you were in a movie. And I’d bounce out of bed and shuffle my way through the routine of getting showered, getting dressed and getting in line for our meds and meals. My patient buddies were all in their finest attire and filled with joy and happiness. Somehow, this miserable hospital had become a weekend resort or spa or something. And we’d laugh and dance and play games and listen to music. We were like children again.

But every time I walked past my room, there it was. The lifeless body hanging there. It was in my room now. Then in the next man’s room. And the next. And the next. Until it was hanging there in the middle of the hallway, and the lights had dimmed down with a single blinking bulb haloing the hanged man. And the hanged man was spinning around and around, but I could never see his face. And then I was alone. All the doors seems to have shut themselves. And the hallway stretched into the distance and behind me. I tried to approach the hanged man to get a closer view, but he kept spinning and spinning, as though he was taunting me to figure out his identity.

Eventually, I reach the corpse. And the rustling sound of keys awaken me from my dream.

I wake up, covered in sweat and shoot a glance to the door. There wasn’t anyone there. My bindings were free. A little confused, I quickly rolled out of bed and approached the door. It unlocked itself and swung opened. I was officially scared.

I poked my head out the door and looked down the hall both ways. No one was around. Who could have freed me? Was this a trap? Was Jones setting me up for something? That evil bastard.

Either way, I questioned myself whether or not I was still dreaming. But surely, there’d be a hanging man somewhere. I looked back into my room, and there was nothing. I slapped myself hard across the face, and it hurt. Surely, I wasn’t dreaming. Or was my mind playing tricks on me? I am in the nut house, hee hee.

I quickly get dressed and scramble down the hall. I make the corner and stick in the shadows. Today must be my liberation. No one’s going to tell this ghost hunter he’s crazy! With what strange things are happening right now, I need to get that ultimate proof of these fanciful existence of the paranormal. That’s how I’m going to become THE GHOST HUNTER.

And then there he was.

Hiding in the shadows, it seems as though the corner over there moved. And he emerged from the shadow in the corner. I was awestruck but cautious. He approached me in a non-threatening matter. He seemed to whisper to me, pssst, beckoning me to follow him. To where? I was curious. So I followed him.

The shadow lead me down several levels of stairs, into corridors I didn’t know existed in the hospital. Not that we were allowed in these restricted areas anyway. Well, the shadow gently took me by the wrist and nudged me into the cellar. And I heard a raucous.

I turned around to ask the shadow what the meaning of all this was, but it had disappeared into the darkness. But up ahead, I could make out a long shadow bleeding over from around the corner. It looked like a man hanging from the ceiling. And it was surrounded by a group of men. Now surely I was was dreaming. So I didn’t hesitate to approach it. I had to know who this man was! I ran around the corner and…

Keys rustling. His lifeless, purple-faced body was hanging from some steel pipes in the ceiling, tied at the neck by some electric cables. Jones was a dead duck. And he had just been killed by a mob of patients who were now dancing around him in glee. I dropped to the floor and sobbed with my face in my hands.

One of the killers approached me as though he’d known me for some time, all chummy, asking me if I’d like to join the party. He said he’s seen what Jones had done to me and how awful the experience must have been. They’ve felt his wrath, too. I told him it couldn’t have warranted killing him. And the man bursted out laughing. He calmly slid down next to me and put a hand on my shoulder.

“Look,” he said. He pulls down his shirt collar. And there, around his neck were deep purply hand marks, wrapped around his thin, veiny neck.

I didn’t know what to say. And we didn’t exchange any words. But then it became clear to me. And the man smiled at me with a twinkle in his eye, and we nodded at each other. I turned to look at Jones’ corpse hanging there, his big hairy harms swaying… and it all made sense. And then the man who was sitting right next to me was gone. And so were all the other men. It was just me and Jones.

And deep into the darkness of the hallway, I could hear locks unshackling. A door swung open and the light blinded me for a second until I realized the full picture. From the shadows, a voice whispered, “This is the only way out. Or you will become like us… at his hands… eventually, as we were by another of his kind. You can see us. But you won’t ever get any peace for it. You need to live. Live. Let us, death, revive your hope in life.”

And the shadow took me be the wrist and walked me out the door never having to return to that hospital again.

I learned later that upon discovery of Jones’ body, the police also found the remains of missing patients, the ghosts responsible for giving Jones’ final lesson. However, the hospital couldn’t account my missing body. As I never really had to thank my reluctant friends for freeing me anyway.

I’ve been dead for, what year is it anyway? I fell through a weakened, crickety floor of an abandoned haunted house while filming an episode. What ya gonna do?