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..THIS STORY IS VERY LONGand the white on grey text will be hard on the eyes. I recommend copy and pasting.
Every bit of this story is 100% true to my experience, and almost all parts are attested to by other people.
A bit about usIn 1992, when I was a sophomore in High school, my older brother, my mother, and I moved from Dover, Delaware to a small town in northern Maine. A friend of mine from Dover, along with a friend of my brother's moved with us. We were poor kids from poor neighborhoods, and both of their parents thought they would be better off living with us in a town with a population of about 12,000.
My mom was going through another divorce (her 3rd at this point), and was gone almost all of the time. if she wasn't working, she was drinking with her friends or sleeping at some guys house. We had the place to ourselves, and we did pretty much whatever we wanted to do.
We were all pretty popular at that school just for the novelty factor. We were the only students who didn't care about the teachers' authority. We did just about whatever we wanted, and rarely got more than a talking to for it; the teacher's had no idea what to do about it, and the other students loved the entertainment. One time in the hallway after school a teacher came up and told me I had to leave. I just ignored him and kept talking to the person I was in conversation with. When the teacher put his hand on my shoulder to tell me to get going, I threw him into a locker and told him I would kill him if he ever touched me again. He was furious, but had no idea what to do. He kept yelling threats of phone calls home, detention, expulsion...I just kept ignoring him and finished my conversation. i got kicked out of school for a little bit for that, but when i came back the principal made him apologize to me for touching my shoulder. 1992...what a different time.
Anyway, there was NOTHING to do in that town at all. The locals would just drive up and down the main street for fun. Due to that fact, everyone from school would come over to our house to drink and get high... and to spend "quality time". For the record, I never did drugs until I was 18, and it was only for about 2 years of recreational use; and I didn't drink alcohol at all until I was 21. Everyone in our house was doing it all, but I hated the thought of being out of control around so many people. growing up watching my mom stumble drunk from guy to guy gave me a pretty negative impression. And my brother was a pretty violent drunk at the time.
How it beganHaving everyone over all the time started to get dull, so we tried to find ways to entertain ourselves. We started by playing a game called the 12 doors. This is a really fun game if you like to mess with people psychologically. I loved doing that, so it was usually me or my friend Dan in charge. Here's how you do it:
- The person in charge sits near the person who will be going through 12 doors; and that person needs to be lying down, eyes closed, as relaxed as possible.
- The room is dark except a candle, or some low ambient light; and all observers must remain quiet.
- The person in charge begins to take the person through visualization exercises by describing what the person should be seeing in their mind. For example: "You are sitting in a square room at at wooden table. There are 3 empty chairs around the table, an unopened envelope upon the table, and a set of very old keys on a ring. Do you see it?" the person only says yes or no, and they are not able to describe anything they see at this point.
- The visualization exercises takes about 20 minutes, and the visualizations for the person become very realistic; like dreaming but still able to communicate. The person in charge peppers the visualization with subtle ominous images; clock has 13 numbers on it, there is a drop of blood on the door knob, there are NO OTHER PEOPLE during any of this portion of the visualization, and so on, ending with them descending 13 flights of stairs below ground into a hallway with 12 doors in it (6 on each side).
- You have the person walk up to the first door, and you say, "Open the first door, look inside BUT DO NOT GO IN. What do you see?" This is the first time in the entire process that you ask them what they see; for the past 20 minutes they have only been seeing what you told them to see, and by this point their sub-conscious is racing.
People saw some of the strangest and scariest stuff. no one ever made it to the twelfth door; they always quit out of fear or because they were crying to hard. No kidding. The brain is a crazy thing! This is a great Halloween game, and I recommend giving it a try. If observers are quiet, and you keep the mood serious, you will have great results.
We dig a little deeper12 doors was always a lot of fun, but as you can imagine any game that takes 20 minutes to start per person can only go on for so long. Next thing you know, someone shows up with the classic Ouija to spice things up. I wasn't super impressed at first because, you know... it's an Ouija board... you can buy them a toys r' us. the thing that sucks with Ouija boards is that you are ALWAYS suspect that someone is pushing it. So to run it through some tests, we started asking people to stand in the hallway and hold up a number of fingers or write something on paper and have the spirits in the board guess what they were. EVERY TIME, CORRECT! We even called people on the phone in Delaware and had them to whisper a word to someone in their room, the board would write it out, then we would have the person tell us over the phone what the word was, again EVERY TIME CORRECT! I'm not sure how it all works, and that's the frustrating thing about it.
This was pretty freaky, but at this point nothing scary was happening. it was all in good fun, and we were all entertained.
There were 2 spirits who spoke through the board, and they had a lot of knowledge about everyone in the room, especially my friend Dan. It was picking out very specific, traumatic events, but just hinted at them without going into full detail. They both had unique personalities from the other. On the Ouija board there is a picture of the Sun in one corner, and the Moon in the other. 1 spirit chose the sun to identify itself, and the other chose the moon. The first named himself Ulysses, and the other named herself 5-9. Ulysses was very aggressive and sometimes very rude, while 5-9 was always calm and polite.
The GatesAs crazy at it was, over time we got bored of this too. My friend Dan went back to Delaware for a couple of weeks to visit his family, and we all made due with the old 12 doors routine & the IM chats with the Ouija board. He called the night before he came back up and said, "Man... I have this thing we need to try when we get back... supposed to be way better than 12 doors. It's called the Gates" I asked him what it was, but he just said that he would need to explain it when he returned.
So Dan gets back, and he has this look on his face like he found the Grail or something. I'm like, "Well? What is it?" He pulls a piece of paper out of his pocket, unfolds it to reveal a drawing of a circle with some diagram in the middle & markings around the edge. ("Dark_Stool," you may ask, "was it a pentagram?" "No. No it wasn't.") I didn't see what the point was, so I said, "Yeah? and?" He said, "You draw this on the ground in salt and you sit in it. within a few minutes, your soul will leave you body and be able to see into the spirit world."
I laughed my ass off. I didn't know how the Ouija worked, but I assumed that it had less to do with spirits and more with collective consciousness, or sub-conscious influence... some sort of science of the mind not yet understood. ...but this!? this was the most ridiculous thing I had ever heard. I started telling everyone what Dan was proposing, and we all thought it was childish. The Ouija board was already out, so as a joke we started asking it what it thought about us trying this. the thing was flying all over the board, telling us, "D.O. I.T. Y.O.U. W.I.L.L. S.E.E. U.S. Y.E.S. D.O. I.T."
What the hell, why not? The board never steered us wrong before.
It was really funny to see everyone's reactions. We were all giving Dan crap about it for coming up with such a goofy idea, but then... none of us were willing to actually sit in the circle. We debated awhile, and finally our friend Matt who didn't really believe in anything spiritual (despite all the Ouija stuff) said he would do it. We waited till midnight, grabbed the big thing of salt from the pantry and headed down to the Elementary School a couple of blocks away named Gouldville, simply because it was pronounced Ghoul-ville and we thought it was funny.
Dan drew the diagram on the ground big enough for someone to sit in, and we set the Ouija board up next to it to get a good chat going if anything happened. It was October in Maine, so pretty freakin cold, and we all piled into the car that was parked close by and just sat there watching Matt in the circle sitting indian-style with his head hanging down like he was meditating.
We were all giggling in the car, over half the group was pretty drunk.
Things went badAfter a few minutes of him looking like he was nodding off, he lifted his head up really fast with a jump and was staring, mouth open straight in front of him. He looked absolutely horrified. You really would have to know this guy to get the full "Holy Shit" moment we were all feeling. This guy was not the kind of guy to lie or trick people. He was a very simple, good natured guy who would rather say "This doesn't work." than to try to fool people into believing something that he knows is crap. We all ran from the car over to the circle, asking him what was going on but he paid no attention to us at all. Dan and I started asking the Ouija what was going on, and the thing was moving so fast that it would move out of our grasp at times. it was saying "HE IS WITH US. HE CAN SEE US." and it just kept repeating that over and over.
After only a few seconds of that Matt's eyes rolled back into his head and he started convulsing like he was having a seizure. None of us knew what to do, so as a last final measure of "you better not be joking..." my brother runs into the circle and punches Matt as hard as he can in the face! The guy was oblivious to it, and just laid there convulsing in the salt. I was like, "We got to get him out of there!" So a couple of us grabbed his legs, and a couple his arms and we picked his jerking body up and brought him to the car. As we were doing this, another car of our friends drove up. All they could see was Matt having a full on seizure, with the rest of us with panic on our faces stuffing him into the back seat of the car. People were screaming and crying, and the new arrivals were in absolute shock.
We decided that we needed to take him to the hospital. The car load with Matt led the way, and I hopped in with the new arrivals to try to explain what happened. We were heading up towards the hospital, and I knew everyone would make me do the talking, but what was I going to say when they asked what happened? While I was trying to figure out how I was going to tell his parents, I see that the car Matt is in is pulling over. We pull over as well, and I get out of the car to see what the deal is. Matt, Dan, and my brother get out of the car and Matt looks like he's half crazy from fear. He was looking all around him frantically like he was seeing all kinds of things that we couldn't. When he recognized me he grabbed me by the shoulders and just kept staring at my face as he was waiting for me to prove I wasn't really me. I was like, "Whoa...Matt..it's me... hang on... we're going to try to fix this." His face relaxed a little, but he was still holding my shoulders super tight. Dan explained that the convulsions stopped, and all Matt would say is "Stop the car!" Dan suggests that we just take him back to our house as he seems to be coming out of what ever state he was in. As he said this, Matt started looking at the moon and took off at full speed in its direction. I was instantly reminded that 5-9 had chosen the moon as a way to identify herself, and I thought there must have been some sort of connection. We had to chase him through people's yards and tackle him down, then drag him fighting back to the car. He was yelling really loud the whole time. I'm surprised no one called the police. When i got back in the car, I threw the Ouija board out the window. I wanted that thing as far away as possible.
By the time we got him back to our house he was like a vegetable. His body was limp, eyes drearily open, and drooling all over himself. He would start to convulse anytime his eyes were closed for too long and then he would shock wake up, eyes bulging, then drift back to the previous state. His face was covered in anxiety. It was like pulling teeth to try to get him to look at you; he just seemed oblivious to everything around him. He didn't know his name, his parents' names, where he lived, ...he didn't even know the alphabet... and it didn't seem like he cared... he had more immediate things going on in his mind that had nothing to do with any of us. Whatever he experienced seemed to knock his brain out and it was going to be awhile before it could deal with what he saw.
We had no idea what to do... how this all worked... how to fix it. Dan had gotten the diagram from a friend of his cousin's, and all she said was draw, sit, and experience. She didn't mention anything like this, or how to help the person to snap out of it. Me and a couple friends went back to the school to sweep up the salt diagram hoping that breaking the circle would get him out. We were all on the verge of nervous breakdown. We got to the school and I'm sweeping like crazy trying to get rid of any evidence until this girl who was with us started pointing at the circle and screaming. I had no idea what she was screaming at. I was standing in the middle so I took a few steps away to see what could be freaking her out so much. All I could see was the powdery mess of the salt, so I backed over to where she was. From where I was standing you could see it clear as if we had drawn it with the salt... the face of the sun symbol from the Ouija board! I almost threw-up. I ran over and started sweeping like a maniac. I closed my eyes so I wouldn't have to look at it and i kept repeating to myself, "It's going away! It's going away!" I finally threw the broom and we all took off running back to my house.
Matt was still in the same bad shape as when we left. I told Dan what happened; we were all freaked out. Dan said that he thought we needed to ask the board what to do. So he and I drove back near the hospital where I had thrown it. This thing was still moving with gusto and kept saying WE HAVE HIM WE HAVE HIM over and over. We asked what we needed to do to get him back, and it said DAN MUST GO IN> DAN MUST BE JUDGED FOR WHAT HE HAD DONE> DAN MUST GO IN. What the hell? So then Dan starts getting all emotional and telling me that he knows this spirit from some crazy occult crap that he and his cousin had done a long time ago. He said they used to summon it by placing salt on a mirror and doing some weird rituals. Ulysses would move the salt on the mirror and form words. Then he and his cousin would throw a Bible on the mirror, which apparently made him really angry. They thought it was fun. I was furious that he hadn't mentioned any of this stuff to any of us.
Dan flat out refused to do it. He said there was no way he would sit in the circle. I was like, "What about Matt?" he said, "man...I'm really sorry... but I can't do it. Besides, there are 2 spirits in this board, who knows? maybe they need 2 bodies to get out." This thought really made me think about how Matt didn't know any facts about who he was or his parents, and how his movements we so discombobulated. At this point I'm suspicious that this guy is possesed, or that his spirit has been swapped for one from the board. I had no idea what to do next. Dan wasn't going to budge on this, so I said, "then you need to be the one to tell everyone what the ultimatum was and that you refuse."
We were gone about an hour and a half by the time we got back. The majority of bystanders had left by then, wanting to distance themselves from what we had done, or to be home safe under the protection of their parents. When we got to my room I was surprised to find Matt asleep on my bed with about 8 people monitoring his well being. How long has been asleep?" I asked. "Only about 15 minutes. he shakes awake every couple of minutes than settles and fals back asleep." I said, "We need to wake him up. I have to ask him some questions."
We got him to wake up, and he was much more coherent than he had been. He said, "i need to take a piss." So I helped him down to the bathroom. He was much more mobile... more like himself... like normal Matt would have acted if he had been hit in the head with a hammer a couple hours ago. The bathroom door was opened slightly and I could see where the sink was located. When he was done, i saw him standing in the bathroom just staring at himself in the mirror, rubbing his eyes from time to time. I opened the door and asked, "Are you alright, Matt?" He said in a very tired voice, "I'm scared shitless." I said, "I'm really sorry Matt. No one thought anything would happen." He said "I know, me either." I asked him the same trivia questions as before about his name, family, address, and alphabet; all of which he answered without trouble. i said, "i know you're exhausted, but Dan and I need to talk to you. The board said that Dan needed to go in." his eyes widened and he said, "DON'T GO IN THERE! Seriously promise you won't go in there." I'm sure Dan was relieved.
We went back upstairs, and everyone was really glad to see that Mat was doing better. So then, directly out of everyone's mouths..."What did you see?" He only told us a little bit, much of it was too difficult to put into words. He said the first thing that happened was a doorway slid open in front of him right outside the circle; he could see everything like normal before, but it was split like a curtain and he could see beyond through a doorway. He felt a presence, a guide take him and lead him in. he couldn't describe how he moved, he said it was like a mixture of walking, floating, and just having the environment around you change. he was forced by the guide to look at different events, none of which made any sense to him. He mentioned that one of the things he saw was himself laying on a really old above ground cemetery plot. he could only see the back of his own head (Matt had mullet with the curls in the back), and there was a girl with blond hair having sex with him. She had this large farm tool with a bunch of blades in it that she thrust into his chest and ripped him apart with. The scene changed and he moved on.
As soon as he mentioned this, I ran to my closet and dug through an old box of stuff to get my old yearbook from Delaware. I opened it up to a picture of Dan. At the time (and for as long as Matt had ever known Dan) Dan's hair was long and floppy, bleached blond & shaved around the sides and in the back. But when I first met Dan, and up until a little bit before we moved to Maine he had a mullet with a perm in back. The reason I got the yearbook out was that I remembered a story about this girl named nikki that Dan had had sex with at a cemetery that we used to go to that had graves from the 1800s. The scene he described was exactly like what took place, only without the ripping of the flesh with the farm tool. We found a picture of that girl Nikki, and Matt started to cry... it was the girl he saw.
Dan drew the circle... Dan was supposed to sit in it. Matt had seen a whole bunch of weird and obscure events from Dan's life mixed with symbolism he couldn't possibly understand. No wonder he was freaked out. The next day Dan ended up talking to that girl who gave him the diagram to draw on the ground. He told her what happened, and seemed to understand it all, and like we were dumb for having someone else sit in the circle.
After a few days, Matt was doing a lot better, but he stopped hanging out with us as much. He rarely laughed anymore, and sort of lapsed into depression.
Things didn't get better for usAfter that night, our house was a scary place to be. Every night something would happen; one by one things would fall off the shelf, the basement door knob would start shaking until the door opened with no one there. We heard voices, saw people out of the corner of your eye who were gone when you turned to look. One time a friend and I were both talking to each other in front of the doorway to the bedroom and we both stepped back to let someone walk through because we saw him coming out of the corner of our eyes, but no one passed, and when we looked in the room there was no one there. Nights were horrible; pokes in the back tugs on the sheets, our friend John on 2 occasions saw a bright white light fly into his face when he went to lay down in bed. We stayed up all night long, and I stopped going to school so I could sleep in the day time. One morning, I saw a this girl from school who liked my brother pull into our driveway. I thought this girl was really annoying so I went to my room to pretend to be asleep. I put the pillow over my eyes with my arm on top of it (this is how I sleep) I heard her come in the room, felt her sit down on the bed, and heard her say in a sing-song voice "Tiiime foor school." I just ignored her, and after the third time I said, "Leave me alone I'm trying to sleep!" she said "You should get up." I didn't say anything, and then I felt her grab my arm and move it away from the pillow. I sat up to yell at her to get the F out of my room, but when I sat up, my room was empty and the door was closed.
There was one night where a couple friends were over and we saw a bottle fly across the room, directly followed by a detachable lock from my door showing up in a different spot every few minutes. I would move the lock to one spot, and then a few minutes later we would find it located somewhere else. while we were all freaking out about that fact that it had moved, it would show back up in the original spot and we would be confused that we must have been mistaken. it happened several times.
It's fun to remember, but at the time I felt really tormented and thought that life was never going to be good again. Thankfully, after we moved to the midwest none of those things followed us.
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