Lost and Found

I live in a 3 bedroom townhouse with my dog Ralph, and myself. I used to have another roommate but they left the lease early and had already paid for their potion so I never even looked for another roommate. I decided I liked the extra rooms and the ability to pee with the door open. There was no need for another roommate. My apartment sits between 2 other townhouses (like this but without the garages) and although I have never spent time with the neighbors they had been living there the whole 4 years I had been, so I knew their names and faces.

I work for my college collecting lost and found items from campus. We get a lot from the dorms and a little from class buildings. Most of the items people lose are keys, phones, and hoodies, but we get everything! We often get weird stuff turned in sometimes too. By that I mean we have 4 bottom halves of bikinis since our university has a pool, but no tops. But I also mean that sometimes we get things like notebooks that have love obsessions, hate speeches, and creepy cryptic notes. Since we get weird stuff all of the time, I thought it wasn’t that odd when we got the Ouija Board in. You aren’t supposed to have them in the dorms but somebody must have snuck one in and lost it. So it sat in our office for 4 months.

At the end of the 4 months we throw things out or donate it to the Salvation Army. Not this though. When it was time to get rid of it, I decided to take it home instead of throwing it out. I left work with the board still in the original box and threw it in the trunk of my car since I was on my way to class. I forgot I had it in there and took it inside a few days later when I cleaned out my car.

I told some friends that I had it and we should get drunk and mess around with it the next weekend everybody was going to be available but it turns out that wouldn’t be for at least 2 weeks. I put the board in a closet and forgot about it. I should’ve paid more attention to my dog’s sudden aversion to the half of the apartment where that closet was.

A few hours later I was getting ready for bed and Ralf began to bark like a madman at my front window. I ignored it since he barks when he hears noises he doesn’t know, so I thought this wasn’t too far from the norm. Then I heard screaming coming from outside. I went to my window but couldn’t make out what all the commotion was for. I threw on some shoes and a pair of sweats and went outside with my flashlight.

A car was stopped in front of my apartment complex with its hazards on. A person was standing next to an open driver’s door and screaming hysterically. One of my neighbors was standing on his porch and talking on the phone. I looked that direction and when I heard “he just walked into traffic. I think he’s dead but send an ambulance anyway,” I knew he was on the phone with 911. I became alert. Had one of my neighbors walked into traffic and gotten hit? Is that why the driver was crying? Because she had hit somebody?

I know basic first-aid so I wandered more toward the road. I could see the body of my neighbor pinned under the front wheels of the car. I knew as soon as I saw his head impacted that he was already dead. I went over to the driver and asked if she was ok. She just said she didn’t know why anybody would do that. She kept saying that he had to be crazy or psychotic or have a death wish or something because he dove headfirst into the street from the driveway. The cops came and I told them what she told me. I left the scene after giving my statement since I hadn’t seen what had actually happened. As I walked back my neighbor (his roommate) was still on the porch. As I said, I didn’t know him well but we were friendly, so I went over and asked if he was ok. He told me that he had just gotten home and saw his roommate standing in the apartment’s driveway. He said he thought it was odd but figured he was just getting ready for a jog. Then he heard the brakes of a car lock up and the crunching sound. I asked if the guy had been acting weird or suicidal or anything but his roommate said everything had seemed normal that day. I told him if he needed anything to just knock on my door and let me know.

I got about 2 hours of sleep that night. My dog whined all night with a whine I had never heard before. He sat facing the door to my bedroom and wouldn’t look away from it. I wrote it off as being able to hear police next-door conducting their investigation. I also had a general feeling of unease but I told myself it was due to the graphic scene I had seen in front of my apartment.

When my alarm went off the next morning, I got ready for class. It was pretty uneventful but I wanted to avoid talking to people as much as I could for two reasons. First, when I am tired I get a little cranky. And second, I kept hearing mumblings from people speculating about what had happened at my apartment last night.

Class ended and I went home. As I was pulling in to my driveway, I saw my neighbors on the other side leaving their apartment. Three girls were coming out of the door. The first one out looked a little off. She didn’t have a smile like the other girls, her eyes weren’t really looking anywhere but were just staring forward, and her arms didn’t swing when she walked. I thought it was on and guess she was upset or angry. I watched her get into the driver’s seat and back out. Then I went inside.

Ralf is an anxious chewer. He gets nervous on car rides so I always have a bone for him but I had never seen him chew anything in my apartment. Until today. He had nervously chewed all the legs of chairs and my table. I was upset because I know how much I paid for my security deposit and was looking forward to it when I left this apartment. When I saw this though, I knew I’d never see that money again. That’s how bad he had chewed in a short amount of time.

As a future law enforcement officer, I like to listen to the police scanner for my town and hear what is going on. Usually things are pretty quiet with the occasional traffic stop and loud party on the weekends but today I heard a dispatch for units needed at a major accident on the freeway. I guess a car had entered the freeway on an exit ramp and hit a semi-truck head on. I listened as the paramedics got there and declared two females DOA and requested an airlift for a third passenger. I then listened as they cancelled the airlift two minutes later when the final female passenger passed away.

When I realized all three passengers were female, I got an uneasy feeling in my stomach. I worried that it had been my neighbors since I had just see three girls get into a car together. I knew an officer who had been on duty so I texted him and asked him to call me when he got the chance. Three minutes later I got a call from him, he confirmed the car make and color, which was enough for me to know it was my neighbors.

This was 4 people I lived between who had died in freak “accidents” within 2 days of each other. I got scared. I wanted to puke. What was going on here?!

Then I remembered it. That stupid piece of wood inside that stupid cardboard box. This had to be related to that! I wanted to pull the board out and try to use it. I almost did, but then I thought better of it. Ralf was still here and I’d die if anything bad happened to him. I threw Ralf in my car and took him to my parent’s house. I lied to them about going on a camping trip with some friends and need a dog-sitter. They love Ralf so they were excited about it and took him in, pretty much no questions asked. I thought about staying at my parent’s house but decided to head back to my apartment since I had work early the next morning. Again, I didn’t sleep much. Mostly out of fear this time. I was afraid of what I had brought into my house. I was afraid of what was going to happen next. I was also afraid I was just going crazy and these weren’t actually connected.

Work went smoothly the first half of the day. Campus got closed down the second half of the day after a student jumped from the top of one of the buildings and killed himself. I knew who it was before they officially released a name. I knew it was my remaining neighbor. I felt sick as I headed home.

I got home and locked up all of my sharp objects and dangerous things. I thought I would keep a knife on my hip when I pulled out the Ouija board later, but I didn’t think it would help much.

Then I realized I needed a little booze to help work up the courage to go through with this. I spent the rest of the day shopping for, and drinking beers.

When the sun went down, I let some jar candles so that the flames were harder to blow out, and I got out the Ouija board. This is what happened:

Is there something here attached to this board?

YES

Do you have a name?

NO

Do you know my name?

C-H-R-I-S

(shit. HOW DID IT KNOW THAT?)

Do you know my neighbors?

YES

Did they die because of you?

YES

Did you make them kill themselves?

YES

Are you going to kill me?

M-A-Y-B-E

(FUCK. I was freaking out before this, but now I was practically shitting myself.)

What do you want with me?

S-C-A-R-E

You want to scare me?

YES

That’s what these were about?

YES

If you wanted to scare me, WHY did these other people need to die? (I screamed this question).

C-O-L-L-A-T-E-R-A-L-D-A-M-A-G-E

I told whatever I was talking to that this was done. (I was pissed.)

GOOD BYE

I was also scared shitless. I packed up the board and thought about what to do. I googled it and thought about taking it to a church. Then an odd thought came over me. I don’t know if the thought was mine of if something was in my head, willing me to come up with a person to pass this damn board along to. Then I remember a guy I had run into a while ago. A real piece of work. His name was Jason Dalton. He had threatened to kill my dog once because it was barking at him. I don’t remember the next few hours, but there was a distinct memory of me digging a hole in the back yard of an unfamiliar house and dropping the board in. I woke up the next morning a little dirty but very well rested now that the board was out of my possession.