Note: All stories in this series are exactly as told to me. No details are added for entertainment purposes. Names are often changed when people request not to be identified. Any names with * beside them have been changed.
I moved into an apartment in a large old building that was owned by my boss because he offered subsidised rent for employees. I had heard rumours over the years that the house was haunted before it was turned into apartments, but I never believed in ghosts or the supernatural so it didn't bother me.
One evening, my girlfriend *Emma was staying over and my friend *Michael and his girlfriend *Sarah called over for a drink. The topic turned to the building and it's history as a haunted house. My girlfriend was uncomfortable with the conversation as she was staying over. Sarah joked that there was only one way to find out for sure- use a Ouija board. My girlfriend freaked out and said no way and Sarah teased her that she had one in her car that she had made with a friend. For the laugh, I told her bring it in.
The board was the top of a pale wooden table so it was quite big. The alphabet and numbers from 0-10 were written in semi-circles in black permanent marker and the words yes, no and goodbye were written down the bottom. Sarah told us how she and her friend had tried it out but nothing had happened. Curiosity got the better of me and we decided to try it. My girlfriend wouldn't play and actually left the room and told us to call her when we finished.
Sarah's boyfriend wasn't interested in playing either so the two of us sat down in front of the board, using a glass tumbler instead of a planchette. We called to the ghosts of the building, people we knew who had died and eventually anyone at all who wanted to talk to us. Nothing happened and we all had a laugh and threw the board outside in the skip.
Several nights later, I woke up to Emma frantically shaking me. She was pale and shaking and she whispered that there was a man in the apartment. I jumped out of bed, grabbed a golf club and went to investigate. The apartment was only three rooms so it quickly became apparent that there was no one there. I blamed her overactive imagination or that she was dreaming and it seemed real but she was adamant that there had been a man outside the bedroom door saying something in a low voice. She stayed awake for the rest of the night and refused to stay there again.
The next week, I was cleaning the apartment and I had a large glass-encased candle burning on the shelf and I blew it out as it had been burning for a while. As I stood with my back to the shelf washing dishes, I heard a loud bang and then a smash. Whirling around, I saw my candle smashed to pieces on the ground. I grabbed the dustpan and swept up the broken glass, thankfully the wax had hardened slightly so the mess wasn't as bad as it could have been. I was very confused, how could a large heavy candle move from a secure position on a shelf to be smashed to pieces on the ground? I placed the dustpan with the broken candle on the table to show Emma and turned back to doing my dishes when there was another loud bang and a crash. Incredulously, I turned around and there was the broken candle all over the floor again. It was like the dustpan had jumped off the middle of the kitchen table. I tidied it up again and this time I put the pieces in the bin.
Soon after that incident, I was chatting to a neighbour who told me about how he had thought there was a man in his apartment and that he heard footsteps on the stairs outside his apartment and there was no one there. As Emma was too uncomfortable to stay after everything that went on, I moved out soon after. The building is empty now, all the residents moved out and some pipes burst when the building was empty, causing a lot of damage. So now it stands empty on the top of a hill in my small hometown and every time I see it, I wonder what else might have happened if I stayed.
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