On Peter, Warnings and The One Time I Came in Contact with the Ghost
1907
It was the first day of classes, and Peter’s heart raced as he clamored up the three flights of stairs with the rest of his classmates. As young men jostled to be the first to lay eyes on their new home, laughter and insults echoed up through the crowded stairwell.
Peter fell behind and stood at a wide window that looked out over the river. The sun was bouncing off the clear water, and he had to squint in order to see a a couple of geese drift past the school. He could hardly believe his luck at having been accepted to a school on the river. He’d dreamt of its rolling waters often, but had never been this close.
“Come on! You’ll end up with a saggy mattress if you don’t hurry!”
Dropping his bag at the foot of a bed in the darkest corner of the room, Peter stood and watched as the other boys began throwing off shoes and hats. Socks were left strewn on freshly-made beds. Shirts were unbuttoned and left crumpled on the floor.
“Aren’t you coming?”
As he rushed back down the stairs he’d just ascended, Peter learned that tradition had it that first-year students were to drop their bags in the dormitory and immediately race to the river for an inaugural dip. Peter burst through the front doors of the building and followed the crowd toward the water. His arms pumped at his side, his heart echoing the motions within his chest. The river rushed closer.
The water was colder than Peter expected, and his breath caught in the middle of his chest. He kicked at the depths below him and his head burst free of the icy river. Off to his right, the rest of his classmates splashed and wrestled. Peter, wanting some time alone to soak up each moment of this day, drifted further to his left.
He quickly became acclimated to the temperature of the water. One moment he would dive as far down as possible; the next he’d emerge to a watery vision of the campus on the shore. He was like a dolphin or a trout. He was like a spirit.
He loved this place and never wanted to leave.
The cramp overtook him out of nowhere. As he leapt forward to once again dive below the surface, a pain seared through his abdomen. Forgetting where he was, Peter took in a quick breath to fight the pain. As his mouth opened, his lungs took in the cold water of the river. It made its way down his throat and its iciness became like a fire to his insides.
As he struggled for air, he twisted his body in order to find the surface. But all was dark. All was cold. There was no way to tell which way was up. He tried to calm his mind and tell himself that the river was not that deep. But the pain in his chest would not allow him a rational thought. He thought only of air. He yearned for breath. The fire in his lungs ignited his willpower. It was too late.
Peter took one last breath.
2004
“You shouldn’t mock Peter. He’s going to get you.”
That warning from earlier in the day gnawed at me as I stepped off the elevator into the dark offices. That morning two students had come by to hear the stories of Peter. We told them of the usual “hauntings” – file cabinets opening on their own, pictures shifting throughout the day. They were sufficiently spooked; our job was done.
They’d been kind enough to leave a copy of Peter’s obituary that they’d uncovered in the archives. Poor kid had drowned to death on his first day of school. Written in the early 1900s, the language of the obituary was too much for me to pass up. Donning my best cockney accent, I began to eulogize poor little Peter for all to hear.
“You shouldn’t mock Peter. He’s going to get you.”
But that was earlier. Now it was close to midnight. Everyone had gone home for the day, and I was back in the building Peter would have called home if he’d have managed to stay alive a little while longer. I was heading out of town in the morning and had forgotten a few things I needed to wrap up at the office. So here I was – alone.
I stopped by my cubicle to grab my water glass. Making my way down the long hallway to the kitchen, I couldn’t help but notice all the pictures were in perfect order. No ghosts had been down this hallway recently.
I came to the end of the hallway and turned right to make my way into the kitchen. Just as I was about to step into the room, the door shut. It swiftly swung closed, banging shut a few inches from my face.
I froze.
The kitchen door was never closed. I quickly ran through all of the possible scenarios for how this could have happened. It merely swung shut? No – the door is too heavy to move on its own. The wind did it? No – it was a still summer night.
Before I could think about it, I grabbed the handle and tried to open the door. It was locked. The kitchen door was never locked. In fact, I wasn’t even sure if there was even a lock installed on the door.
Only one thing made sense. Someone or something had closed the door. Someone or something did not want me in the kitchen. Someone or something wanted to make sure I knew he was still around.
Suddenly aware that I was alone in a haunted building in the middle of the night, I backed away from the door and rushed down the hall. I dropped my glass on the first desk I saw and made my way to the elevator. Work or not, nothing was going to keep my in that building. Five beeps on the elevator and I was safely on the ground floor. Twenty-seven steps and I was outside. Another eighteen brought me to my car.
As I sped off, I looked to the river and thought of Peter. The boy who had loved the river had died there. The boy who had loved this school would never leave. Somewhere above he was watching me flee the campus in childish fear.
I would never forget that sometimes ghost stories are more than just stories.
