I picked up the disc which was about the size of a deck of cards and turned it around in my hands. I noticed the felt tips on the bottom of each leg, no doubt placed there to allow easier movement across the board. She placed the board on our knees, and I placed the disc on the board, and we both took a few moments with our fingers to adjust them on the disc to what we believed to be the proper amount of pressure that would constitute our fingers being lightly placed. We looked up into each other’s eyes, and she said, “You go first. Ask it a question”, and our eyes returned to our fingertips. “Okay. Is anyone there?” I asked the empty room. The disc stayed in the same location. I lightened the amount of pressure my fingers had on the disc and repeated myself, “Is anyone there?” Slowly the disc began to slide across the board, toward the word ‘Yes’ on the slick board. When it came to a stop, I looked up with what must have been some kind of accusatory look on my face because Laura meekly said, “I’ve heard that your heartbeat can cause the pulse in your fingers to move the disc.” “Maybe so,” I quipped, leaving my fingers on the disc. I decided that I would play along with the game. I asked the next obvious question, “What’s your name?”. With more than a little help from me, and I’m positive that Laura was moving it as well, the disc slowly moved to the letters M - A -R -Y. From that point forward, we went back and forth asking questions. Sometimes I would push the disc to spell out an answer, and other times I was sure that Laura was answering the questions with the disc. It started to become amusing as we began to make up questions. It wasn’t as exciting when I was supplying the answer, but I was enjoying what Laura would decide to be the answer for the questions that she asked the air. We ran the gamut of subjects. “How did you die?” “Did you die in this house?” “Are there others with you?” After our interview of the spirit that we had conjured, we asked for validation on our personal matters such as interest from boys we liked and what would occur in our adult lives.
We must have played with the board for about an hour and a half before the newness wore off of the spirit board and Laura put it back in the box. She placed it on her desk with the intention of returning it to the garage sale inventory the next day. Nothing more was mentioned about our contact with the other side. The rest of the evening we returned to watching music videos on the 18’’ television that she had in her bedroom. We threw pillows on the floor, we each grabbed a blanket, and we muttered back and forth commenting on how the choice of videos that the channel was playing was pretty decent in our opinion. A fairly lousy one here and there, but nothing that we couldn’t handle, waiting to see what video would be played next. All the lights had been turned off and the only light that remained came from the television and a clock radio that Laura kept on her nightstand. I wasn’t sure when Laura fell asleep, but I soon heard Laura snoring. “Great, she’s asleep, and I’m not the least bit tired”, I thought to myself. Noticing the time was approaching 2:30 in the morning, and I couldn’t just go wandering around like at my own house at that time of the morning, I decided that I might as well try to go to sleep.
I remained on my back for a while with my eyes closed, and tried to block out the faint music that came from the television. After a few moments, I became uncomfortable in this position. I rolled over on my stomach, with my face turned away from the television. “This is hopeless”, I thought after several moments and pressed my face into my pillow out of frustration. As I let out an irritated sigh, I began to hear something which seemed to be coming from under Laura’s bed. At the beginning, it sounded like papers shuffling and then it became louder and I could make out the sound of voices. “Close your eyes!” the voice screeched. I was terrified and complied immediately. I shoved my face so deep into the pillow that I could barely breathe. I was hoping not to hear the awful voice again. I wasn’t prepared for two voices. They were terrible, high pitched cackling voices. “Don’t look at your feet!” one of the voices screamed at me while the other laughed. I could feel hands around my ankles. I knew that if I looked toward my feet, I would see something that would terrify, if not kill me. I knew something hideous was at my feet, and I certainly did not want to see what was there. I prayed for the voices to stop. I was horrified by the whole situation that I was going through, but I wanted the voices to stop more than anything. The profanity that they spewed filled my ears and I cringed. I soon felt that if the voices did not stop I would go insane. Fingernails on a chalkboard would have been a welcomed sound at this point in the terror. “We’ll kill you if you look at us. We’ll rip your legs off if you look at your feet.” I knew the source of the voices took immense pleasure in my fear. The room filled with storm force winds, but I still felt as if I couldn’t breathe and, I hoped I would pass out either from lack of air or fear. The two voices continued laughing and chatting back and forth to each other in words I could not understand. To my horror, they slowly began dragging me across the floor. I tightly clenched my eyes. I was afraid to see what had a hold on me. “Please let me go!” I cried, but I seemed to be screaming the words through the winds of a powerful storm. Although, I knew that the words had come from my mouth, I could not even hear my own pleas. They laughed, and I continued to feel myself slowly being dragged across the room. “Don’t look at us!” they would half scream, half laugh. “Oh, please help me.” I sobbed, “Please end this nightmare.” I was sure that I was not going to survive the night if this lasted much longer and I was terrified of where they might be dragging me.
Suddenly, I felt my face buried in my pillow. Although, everything seemed still and quiet, I kept my eyes shut and remained still for what seemed like an eternity. I tried my best to feel my ankles, and now I was not sure if hands had ever grasped them or not. Was the pressure still there? I could only wait and see if the horrible voices returned. I waited and waited. Finally, I could hear the faint sound of the television, and after a while, I managed somehow to muster up the nerve and slowly raised my head, and finally to even more slowly open my eyes. The television still played, and the clock radio still glowed. I had to begin wondering if what had happened to me had occurred at all. The thing that I couldn’t get over was that according to the numbers on the clock, only about seventeen minutes had passed since I had taken, what I thought would be my last glance at the time, for the night. I told myself that I was being ridiculous. Had I had demons attacking me? I certainly felt that I should not tell anyone what I experienced when I was trying to make myself believe such a thing had to be nothing more than some kind of hallucination or maybe it was a nightmare. The incident seemed just as real as anything that had ever happened to me in my life, and although I thought about it night and day for weeks, I was extremely happy on the day of the garage sale when someone was willing