My Ghost Story

I moved to Pittsburgh in 1997 after graduation from Christmas-town Michigan High School. I enrolled in the Art Institute of Pittsburgh in the major of Industrial Design. Students at that time were typically housed in an apartment complex called Allegheny Center, building 7. Looking back I can't remember what apartment I was in but I know it was on the 8th floor and, if you exit the elevator and turn left, it's the second to last apartment on the right... 818 rings a bell but I couldn't be sure. I'm certain about the 8th floor and second to last on the right though... like many AIP students, I was shuffled around every few quarters; you try and remember what apartment number you had 10 years ago when you've lived in about 5 different apartments in the same building.

During my first quarter I had a habit of cracking my door open at night when I went to bed. People would stop by at all hours of the night and hang out, bull-shit, whatever. One weekend my roommate Lance was out of town and I had the whole apartment to myself. It was late and I was laying in bed but was not yet asleep. The apartment had my bed in the far corner and my roommate's bed in the corner closer to the door. At night the only source of light was this gentile orange cast that shot a sliver all the way to my roommates bed.

As I lay in my bed I hear the heavy metal door creek open, orange light wash over my roommate's bed, and a long shadow enter my apartment. This was typical but usually visitors would call my name out first to get my attention. The visitor walked in and sat down on my roommate's bed.

A few moments passed as I expected the visitor to do or say something before I asked; "Carolyn?" (friend of mine at the time). There was no reply. The visitor just continued to sit there, his body cast in shadow, the sliver of hallway light illuminating his black form in contrast to the dark blue walls and dark brown bed cover.

"Lance?" I asked, thinking maybe my roommate had come home early. This time, a reply came back; "Maybe I am".

The voice was NOT that of Lance, or Carolyn, or any of my other friends for that matter. The voice was very deep but not distinctly masculine or feminine. It was certainly a voice I did not recognize so I shot out of bed and in a split second turned my lamp on.

In the instant it took for my eyes to rip off of the figure in my room, glance at the lamp, turn it on, and shoot my eyes back on the figure, it was gone. There was no violent swing of the apartment door open or slam close, as if someone had rushed out of my room. There was no sound of footsteps or movement as the figure ducked into my hallway closet or behind the couch between my and my roommate's bed. There was, however, the impression of pressure having been applied to the bed of my roommate... but nothing more.

I sat there awake for a few minutes trying to rationalize everything. I had been trying to sleep so perhaps I had had a dream. Supposedly people are prone to hallucinations in the moments immediately preceding REM sleep. Maybe, at some point, I had sat on my roommate's bed myself to make the impression. Maybe someone in the hall just decided to swing my door open and closed and I saw his shadow, mistakenly interpreted it as someone entering my room. Maybe someone was playing music or having a conversation in the apartment above me or below me or to my right or left and I interpreted those sounds as "Maybe I am".

But what if it isn't any of those things? What if my experience was exactly as I had undergone? What was that visitor? What did it want?

Tagged with: AIP, Allegheny Center, Appartment, Ghosts, Shadows