Hockey Ghost

After the 2^nd game, I was back at the hotel in La Crosse during a hockey tournament. My friends ( Joe, Dalton, and Danny) and I were swimming in the pool when Alex (our goalie) came running from one of the halls and looked at us with a face white as snow. “What’s wrong Alex?” said Dalton. “G-G-Ghost” whispered Alex. I could tell this was what we were waiting for since life at the hotel was pretty boring.

We dried ourselves and rushed to get our friends and ghost hunt. We met Alex at the front of his room. When I looked at the crowd of about six teammates I saw many different emotions. I saw people happy, scared, excited, and most of all, anxious. “Before we enter this room,” said Alex at the front of the line “I just want to say: expect to be freaked out, because this is 100% real. I’m not kidding about this guys, I’m not messing with you.”. Players including me quieted down and let the darkness swallow us whole as we entered the pitch black room.

“Well this is a lot creepier than I expected,” said Joe who obviously was scared out of his mind. Nobody said anything but we all probably agreed. “We are going to do a sound test,” whispered Alex, “we are going to stay on that side of the bed closest to the wall” Alex’s tone was sharp and quick as he motioned to one side of the bed. He explained to us that a sound test is when we ask general questions and wait for replies. A reply doesn’t have to be a voice, it could be an event such as a noise or objects moving.

We asked the first question which was “Why are you here?” there was nothing but complete silence. The second question was “Are you upset?” no reply after a minute of waiting. It was my turn to ask a question, I thought for what seemed like an eternity in the almost total dark room and popped the question “Are you mad at this hotel?” after about 45 seconds of waiting a spooky sound seemed to whisper in our ears. It wasn’t a voice or an object moving, but a sound that can’t be explained or related too, it was considered…a noise.

Out of pure fear we all rushed out of the haunted room as if our lives depended on it (some thought it did). “Did that really just happen?” said Joe with his eyes wide open. “I think so” said Dalton and others agreed. “Why do I have to sleep in there!?!?” screamed Alex. “ I don’t want to be possessed right before our most important game!”

The next day in the locker room before the final game Alex arrived late. You could almost feel the volume drop when he walked in. “I’m okay everybody” said a relieved Alex. After a while the normal pregame chatter came back to its normal volume. We won the game and the tournament but we still were a little uneasy from the event. About a month later, Dalton confessed the ghost was fake and he hid his iPod in the room and set a timer so it would play a brief sound. We laughed together and eventually forgot about the hotel room, except me, because I am still trying to figure out why Alex was scared in the first place.