Ghost Hunt 2: MORE Chilling Tales of the Unknown (38 page)

“Why does the groundskeeper want an investigation? What are the claims?” you ask.

“Well, he says he can hear noises coming from the dorms. It sounds like kids talking to one another. He also reports hearing squeaking noises, like the sound of people jumping on beds. He’s also heard footsteps running down the halls. He’s even seen moving shadows in the hallways. The guy was pretty freaked,” Jason says. “I think we should check it out. What do you think?”

1. You want to show the team what you’ve learned, but you don’t want to be too eager just in case this isn’t something they would investigate. After thinking it over, you say…

The team decides to investigate. On the day of the investigation, you arrive at Oakwood Academy in the early afternoon. You meet briefly with the groundskeeper. Then you and the team check out the student dorms. This is part of the sweep. You are walking up the stairway near where Robert Miller fell when you stop cold. You hear a squeaky sound—like springs in a bed. You remember what the groundskeeper said about hearing the sound of squeaky beds.

“Grant, do you hear that?” you say.

“Yeah. It’s really creepy. What do you think it is?” Grant asks the team.

2. Your teammates have several suggestions. What do you think the team should do?

Grant reminds you that it’s most important to look for normal reasons for the sound. So the team follows Lyssa’s advice. You all look through the stairwell, paying close attention to the windowpanes, the door frames, and the air ducts. Everything appears to be normal. You can’t find anything that would make the squeaking noise, so you can’t debunk it. But you’re not ready to call it evidence yet, either. You make a mental note that it should be investigated more. Eventually you move on and finish sweeping the rest of the dorm.

It’s getting pretty dark outside, so the team regroups. After setting up Central Command, you and Jason go to the main hallway in the dorms to set up equipment. This is where the groundskeeper heard the footsteps.

3. What piece of equipment should you use to find out if there really are spirits walking?

You hand Jason the geophone. You know that it will pick up very tiny vibrations—like footsteps. Then you help Mike and Mark arrange the cameras. The sun has finally set, and the team goes dark.

You go up one floor and walk slowly with the EMF detector in your hand. The readout is pretty steady until you get to the study hall. At the door to the room, the EMF detector spikes way high. So you go inside to investigate.

Wham!

The door slams shut right behind your back. Your heart jumps into your throat. You take a minute to calm down. The room is totally still and completely dark. You flick on your flashlight and scan the room. Nothing is out of place. Then you look at the door. It’s just a regular door. The kind you have to push closed. It’s not the kind that shuts itself with springs. This is really weird. You think it’s possible there is a spirit in the room. You want to try to make contact with the spirit. You decide to use the K-II meter.

4. You hold the K-II meter out in front of you, and you say…

The K-II meter blinks. Your eyes open wide. You can’t believe what you are seeing. You have actually communicated with a spirit. Or was it just an accident? You ask another question: “Did you go to school here? If you did, please make the light blink again.” You can feel your heart beating as you wait for the response. It seems like forever, waiting for the colored lights to blink. Then, three seconds later, the light blinks again! Now you’re sure there’s something going on.

5. The next thing you do is…

You’re excited by the K-II meter results, so you keep asking more questions. But the K-II meter stays unlit. You think the slamming door and the response you got on the K-II meter may be evidence of something paranormal. But now nothing is happening in this room. You decide to move on.

You walk toward the students’ bedrooms. As you get closer, you hear that squeaking noise again. You get on the walkie-talkie and ask Jason if he sees anything on the geophone. He says nothing is showing up.

By now you’re at the first set of bedrooms. You keep walking. A strange smell fills the air. It’s almost like wet wool. Suddenly, you see movement out of the corner of your eye. Just as you spin around, you see a shadow retreat into the room next to you.

You jump back and call Lyssa on the walkie-talkie for backup. Within minutes, she’s standing next to you. You tell her what you saw.

“That’s really interesting,” she says. “Moving shadows is another thing the groundskeeper said he’d seen. I’ve got a hunch, though. Watch the door.” She starts pointing her flashlight at different angles. She shines it at the wooden floor, at the walls, then sweeps it back and forth across the whole hall.

6. You think she must be…

“Look, over there.” Lyssa points at the next door down as she moves her flashlight back and forth. “Did the shadow look like that?”

“Yeah… sort of.”

“It’s possible you made the shadow yourself with your flashlight.”

“Maybe. But it was
next
to me. Not in front of me.”

You and Lyssa decide to investigate the bedroom. As you walk in, you notice the air feels stuffy. There are two beds at opposite ends of the room next to two desks. You can almost imagine the students doing homework at those desks.

Lyssa takes out the IR camera. She points it all around the room. The temperature is pretty steady, but when the light lands on the bed, she notices there are two small warm spots right in the middle.

7. They look like footprints. This means…

You look closely at the bed. You look under the bed. You try to find an explanation for the warm spots. But there isn’t anything. It seems you have evidence that something was standing on the bed. You
stay in the room for about an hour, collecting video footage and audio recordings. Then you get a call over the walkie-talkie. It’s Jason.

“Things have been pretty quiet for a while. Why don’t we call it a night?”

“Sounds good,” you say.

The next day, you start going over the evidence. You are listening to the audio recordings from the bedroom. Near the beginning of the tape, you think you hear something. You replay the tape a few times. It sounds like a boy’s voice saying, “Quiet, he’s coming.”

“I’m not sure about that,” Jen says. “I guess it would make sense… like a kid watching out for a hall monitor. But it doesn’t sound like much to me.”

“But what about the shadow and the IR camera image? We saw footprints on the bed. It all adds up.”

“Maybe. But this audio recording just sounds like fuzz.”

You listen to the recording a few more times, and you’re still pretty sure it’s an EVP.

8. There’s more evidence left to go over, so you…