Every neighborhood in America has at least one house that local legend claims to be haunted by a ghost or a demon. Every town, very village, from one coast to the other has at least one. And would you know, I happen to live in the most famous house in Benton, the famous “Sterling House''. Now, if you were standing on the street, the house would look like any other house on the block. It's a creole style cottage with a wrap around the front porch. The front yard has a big, old oak tree in it. The back yard is kind of swampy since a creek runs through it. As for the house itself, nothing really stands out, the windows might need cleaning, the floors might need mopping, the basement is cluttered with stuff. All in all it's your average house in the urban sections of Benton.
Only it's different. This house is haunted, and I know the ghost who haunts it. Ghost is the cheerful, almost playful spirit of Sterling, a teenage girl who committed suicide back in two thousand by jumping from highest point in Benton, the towns main water tower. How do I know this, because I've seen her with my own eyes and oddly enough she kind of like my big sister.
Now, others have told of that fateful night Sterling took her own life. There is no need for me to rehash it here. Heck I knew something was off about the house I minute I stepped foot in it. Everything felt off. It had been shut up for a good twenty one years at this point. But maybe that is why the house was so cheap, see I'm not from Benton, I'm from Yazoo City, my mom though was born and raised here. But when her marriage to my dad fell apart.. and boy did she take his sorry ass over the coals, pardon my french there. But boy she took him to the cleaners.
What happened to my dad? Well mom and I caught him with some french woman, dude they were going at it in my bedroom for God's sake~ Like when I walked in on them, dad had tied her up and was going all Fifty shades of gray. I screamed, mom screamed, the woman screamed, dad screamed, I think dad came the moment she started screaming.. that one mental image that I would never get out of my head. I think I should have known something was off with Dad when I started to find my old barbie dolls tied up and blindfolded. But that a story for another time and place.
Anyway, mom quickly filed for divorce, it was granted like in a day, mom got the house and the lion's share of the bank account along with a good chunk of daddies oil royalties. Mom then sold our old house for a tiny profit. Once the house was sold, mom then decided she wanted to return to her hometown. And so she uprooted me from my settled life in Yazoo City and moved me forty miles into the sticks. Mom settled on this house because it was in her words a “Steal”whatever that means. Anyway once we were settled in, she decided she was going to put her education to use and open up her own small business, because it seemed popular at the time. And her business is now thriving.
And what happened to dad? Oh he left town and resettled in New Orleans with his french marriage breaker. They live in a small apartment in the french quarters down there. I think he's working with some big law firm or something. Not sure, don't care. Don't want to see either him or that french slut, pardon my french for the rest of my natural life.
Anyway, once we moved in I knew something was off about the house. I mean, given the fact the house had been boarded up for twenty something odd years, that was a given. I mean there was dust a good three or four inches on the floor and on the stairwell. A lot of the old dishes were still in the cupboard. Safe to say it was a pretty big job, so big I had to get some friends of the family over to help. And so our forces mustered and armed for battle we tackled the job of making the house livable.
And trust me that was a job and a half. I spent hours on my hands and knees scrubbing with a scrub brush the floorboards and the baseboards of the house. The windows were caked with dust and had massive cobwebs hanging in the corners.
Anyway, since the project was so big, we kind of sectioned the house off. And I would normally spend a lot of time along, doing you know cleaning. I started cleaning, at first my room. Something felt off the minute I was left along. It was early spring, and already the highs for the day were hitting eighty or ninety, that common in Mississippi. Anyway I was scrubbing and the windows were open to help the floorboards dry and to lure some fresh air into the house, when I felt a sudden cold breeze cross the small of my neck. It was cold, like really cold and made those tiny arms on the back of my neck stand straight up.
I kind of blocked it out. And returned to scrubbing my floors, the cold breeze happened again. And this time, I kind of paused a bit longer before returning to work. Then it happened, the mop bucket, I swear to God and sunny Jesus y'all went flying through the air, spilling its contents of steaming hot water mixed with cleaner all over the floor. I freaked then and ran like hell down the wooden steps. The sound of laughter followed.
Now I come from old southern stock, so after I settled down, said a few prayers, I eased back into the room, picked the bucket up, filled it with water again and resumed my cleaning. Nothing happened. A few days later, when I started to scrub the walls in the upstairs hallway, I noticed somebody had written in the dust and grim.
“Go AWAY!” It is what was written. I paused for a moment and shrugged my shoulders and just cleaned away the words and nothing happened. As I did that the air around me got colder and colder and I felt somebody had shifted all its attention to me.
Things started ramping up too, I would sweep and the broom would fly out of my hand, I would be knocking down some cobwebs and again the broom would just get knocked out of my hand. I would come to find my bed sheets and covers flung all over the room. Once I found my Manga collection piled up in a nice neat pile at the foot of the stairwell, with my bed sheets, and most of my stuff packed up in boxes. Mom and I had been out that day doing some shopping for the house. Both mom and eye shrugged our shoulders and she helped me get my stuff back into its proper place.
We figured we had a ghost, but the ghost seemed harmless enough. Mom called our local Episcopal Priest, Fr. Percy over to bless the house. Mom had attended school with Fr. Percy for a few years and once confined in me, the way mothers do that she had dated him for a few months. The two never broke up, but just gently floated apart. Anyway the moment Fr. Percy stepped into our house and something odd happened.
For one, nothing happened, no weird bumping sounds, no random closing or opening of windows. The house became silent and it put both mom and I on edge. Fr. Percy however started to roam around, he roamed for a good two hours. Going from room to room. I was surprised, I expected him to start chanting prayers in Latin and splashing holy water around, instead he seemed to be thinking. At times it seemed he was talking to somebody.
Finally, his tour finished and he ushered mom and I into the sitting room. Mom fixed Fr. Percy some coffee and he thanked her. After he finished his coffee. He took a deep breath, removed his collar and leaned back into the chair.
“You do have a ghost. The ghost is a young girl, fourteen or fifteen. Around Taylor's age. It seemed she killed herself, by jumping off the town's water tower some twenty one years ago. She is not ready to move on.” He paused.
“At first she was not happy with you two being here. But she took a shine to the pair of you. She is watching over you. She will reveal herself in good time. She is,” He paused. “She has become Taylor's Guardian Spirit. Their other spirits in this town.. she is one of the good ones.” With that he stood up and left.
Things settled down after that. But one day, feeling a little bold, I walked into my room and eased down upon my bed. I then took a deep breath and in a loud booming voice called out.
“Okay! So, first you wanted me gone, now you want me to stay. Listen school's going to be starting soon. I don't want to come home from six hours of school to find my room in a mess. Also, please, don't start knocking my stuff around. And I know you might not like my taste in clothing. And that's cool and all, but please don't throw myself on the floor. And the whole knocking shit over, it has to stop.”
I felt a little silly talking to the air like that. But it felt better to get all that off my chest you know. Then something happened that I did not expect. The door to my closet opened and from the confines of my closet they stepped out a girl, she wore a long skirt, and what appeared to be a turtleneck. Her raven black hair was styled back in a classic french braid.
“Okay.” She said as she moved across the floor. “Lets talk.”
And so we did, and that is how I started developing a friendship with a ghost. Don't believe me, why don't you come over to my house so you can meet her? That is, if you're brave enough of course.
Benton Academy has something of a checkered past. And that checkered past has given rise to a number of ghosts that are supposed to haunt its hall. One such ghost is the ghost of Greaser who is rumored to haunt the second floor of the school. His name has been lost to the flow of time, and only bits and pieces of his story have come down through the ages. I think this is the first complete telling of the legend. As the story this story has a beginning, a middle and an ending.
The beginning of this story is set in the early years of Benton Academy. Now, it's no secret that most of the wealthy families send their children here. They come here to learn the classics, and to receive a classical education. Students that graduate from Benton Academy are prepared to enter into the learned gentry of Mississippi. They go on to become doctors, lawyers and leading men and women of business. Heck I think even one went on to become an Episcopalian Priest.
Anyway not all of Benton Academy students come from the upper crust of the town. Some come from very humble backgrounds, some even come from the working class. One such student was a guy named Donald “Danny” Gordon. Danny as his friends called him was something of a laid back fellow. He was tall, standing at six feet three inches, skinny as a bean pole and strong as an ox. Danny often wore his hair that was pretty long greased back in a look called the “Ducktail” and he smelled of pomade.
I believe the teachers at the time must have been scared out of their minds when this towering giant appeared in their mist. Dressed in engineering boots, heavy denim jeans and a leather bomber jacket. He always smelled like oil and his fingers were always dirty with grit and grime buried deep in his fingernails. His folks came from the poorer side of town, they lived out in the sticks, out in the hills past Rebecca Bridge. Even people from Haunted Hollow seemed wealthy when compared to his folks. People like that tended to drop out of school once they finished the eighth grade. Once they finished the eighth grade they could get a job at the sawmill or work the docks.
But Danny wanted more out of his life than working the six to two shift down a Benton Cotton Press or Millers Sawmill. He wanted more out of his life than that, he wanted to become something. And his folks had scraped up enough money to pay the tuition of four years of private learning. According to legend they had even mortgaged the land they owned, including their house.
Now Danny worked hard, he even took a side job repairing cars down at the local auto shop, “Benton Auto” he always took a full class load. He cracked those books from six in the morning till six in the evening, and by his Junior year, he had managed to squeak by. According to the records I've unearthed, his grades were mostly “C's” and “B's” with a few token “A's” scattered about. He was rocking a solid “B” average. Good enough to pass, now I gotta say this Benton Academy grades hard. An “B” here would be like an “A+” in the public schools.
Anyway Danny did his best and kept his nose to the grindstone. And he passed his Freshman year, and his Sophomore year passed in a blur, then his Junior year something happen. According to the lore, he fell in love with a girl from the “Town Creek” Section of town. Now Town Creek is the money part of Benton, the houses there are all fine creole-style cottages that date back to the founding of the town, back when Benton was nothing more than a tiny riverboat settlement on the banks of the Big Black River. We local's call those days “The Hannah Landing” days because the town was supposed to be named after the first mayor's wife Hannah Potter.
Anyway, he fell in love with a girl named Sarah Elizabeth Potter. Now for those not from around here, there is something I must tell you. The Potter family is one of this area's finer families. Their family has been around these parts since the beginning.
The Potter family was one of the leading families of the town, they along with the Brewers, Crofts, Bells, Perry's and Whitmores had helped transform the town from tiny side settlement to thriving village. And according to rumors they even controlled the town. Now, it gets better Sarah Elizabeth Potter's uncle, Sherman Potter was on the board of directors, it was his land the school had been built on and it was his shop that had donated large amounts of money to the construction of the school.
Now, we don't know if Sarah Elizabeth Potter returned his feelings, but we do know the two were sweet on each other and the two exchanged letters. And according to what I can gather when he asked her out to the prom that spring things kind of hit the fan. Sherman did not approve of his niece seeing somebody that he considered below the social class of the Potter Family. Worst of all, the Gordon Family was Baptist and the Potter Family were Episcopal. Now allow me for a moment to explain that. In the South the Episcopal Church has always been the church of the bourgeois.
The church is often associated with opulence, while the Baptist church by and large has always been associated with the proletariat. Sherman did not approve of his niece seeing someone from the proletariat class, much less one attending Benton Academy, and so he used his power and connections to secure a spot for Sarah Elizabeth Potter at another school, an Episcopal School named St. Katherine's Episcopal Academy.
Anyway she was transferred out of Benton Academy two weeks before the Prom. Danny took the news really hard and his grades started to slip. Sherman Potter, seeing his chance to finish the young man off then convinced then Headmaster of the school Timothy Perry, a boyhood friend of his to put the boy on academic probation, this caused Danny to spiral and as a result he became very depressed. His grades kept slipping. Finally, Danny could no longer take it, one day, shortly after lunch. Danny did something he had been planning since prom. He tied a noose, slipped the noose around his neck. Tied one end of the rope around the railing on the second floor, then he climbed over and jumped. The fall was not enough to snap his neck, but his feet did not touch the ground and he hung there for ten long minutes, slowly straggling to death.
Nobody knows how long he hung there, though it had to be less than forty five minutes. He was discovered a few seconds after the bell rang marking the end of the day's lessons. Laughter soon turned to screams. At first people thought it was just a sick joke, that is till they cut him down. Now since that day, people have reported passing a gust of fridge air as they climb the steps that lead to the second floor, others report seeing a shadow dangling from a rope.
And still others report seeing the ghostly form of Danny, sometimes he hunched over a desk, other times he reported strolling down the hallways. Other times he reported smirking as he looked out one of the windows from the second or third floor. But what is certain, he does not rest peacefully in his grave.
Does the vengeful wraith of a girl who killed herself because she failed to win the homecoming queen nomination haunt the girls locker room? Many former cheerleaders believe so. Many cheerleaders claim to have been pushed down by an unseen force, others report getting scratched, still others report coming in to find their personal items scattered about. Often the items are found torn and ripped.
The spirit has even attempted to murder some. Now the story I'm going to tell is a little out there. But I swear it's true. Now before I begin I should say that encounters with the spirit that generations of cheerleaders have dubbed “Lizzy” are rare, like once in a blue moon rare. But then such an encounter happens. A fresh wave of fear washes over the cheerleaders. And once more we were reminded that we are never truly alone.
I was a freshman when I encountered “Lizzy” in High School, so this was around five years ago. It was late September and I had stayed later than normally to help decorate the gym. Homecoming was tomorrow and it was all hands on deck to get everything squared away. We started decorating the gym around three o' clock that afternoon when the final bell rang. When seven o' clock rolled around we had barely managed to finish with everything. I was covered from head to toe in glitter, glue and dust. I had also worked up a sweat. What can I say, having to climb up and down a ladder for four hours really wears a person down.
Anyway it was late, and I was hot and sticky and I just could not wait to get home to climb into the bathtub. So I decided to take a quick shower at school using the showers in the locker room. The air inside the locker room was hot and humid, sticky almost. The locker room is always wet, and always smells like dozens of different body washes and perfumes. Mix that in with the overpowering smell of bleach and your head would quickly be swinging in fourteen different directions.
Now the moment I entered the room, I felt something was off. I felt like somebody was watching me, peering out at me from the shadows. Looking back the warning signs were there. I just chose to ignore them. The first thing I did was to turn the water on in one of the shower cubicles. Soon the sound of running water filled the air. Now it takes a good moment for the water to warm up, not too warm because it can really burn you, like I've seen girls turn the shower knob all the way to the right and the water has become scalding hot. I normally keep the shower knob in the middle, that way it's not too hot and not too cold.
Anyway, while shower was getting ready, I started to undress. I stripped off my skirt and blouse and hung them up in one of the lockers. I then walked to one of the sinks and started to brush my teeth. This is when the first warning happened. While I was digging my toothbrush out of the travel kit, I always kept a travel kit with me. The door of the locker room flew open and a loud bang filled the air as three locker doors shot open.
That really startled me. But then I thought somebody was playing a mean joke on me or just you know messing around with me. I decided to finish brushing my teeth. I finished brushing my teeth and then I remember feeling something sharp, very sharp, like claw-like sharp getting dragged across my back. I yelled and spun around to look at my back in the mirror to my horror, three long scratches appeared down my back, and it burned, it burned like hell. I mean my head started to spin from the pain and I felt myself becoming physically sick.
“Stop it!” I yelled in a loud tone of voice. “Stop this in the name of Jesus!” I shouted as I sank down on a nearby bench. The room started to feel tense and those tiny hairs on the back of my arms started to stand straight up, I could feel a prickling on my back as those tiny hairs stood straight up.
Then I heard it, giggling, somebody was giggling at me. That made me mad, really mad. Somebody or something was making a total fool out of me. Slowly I stood up and looked around me. The giggling it seemed had stopped and I was alone now.
“I command whatever is here to leave me alone in the name of Jesus!” I shouted at the top of my lungs. I had seen enough ghost shows, I knew that if you shouted that name that was supposed to stop the haunting and keep the ghost away. But, my voice quivered and I felt instead of driving whatever it was always I was just starting to taunt it. And it hatted being taunted.
The air became tense, I should have left then and there, instead I jumped into the shower. The spray of warm water felt amazing and it melted all my troubles away. I love getting a shower, it's like all the cares and troubles of the day are washed away down the drain with all the dirt and grim. I started to shampoo my hair and whistle a little tune. Then something happened, the water became hot, hotter than I ever expected. It became scalding hot, I remember each drop of water felt like a very hot needle poking me.
I remember feeling like my whole body was just starting to boil, A ear piercing scream escaped my lungs. I tried to shut the water off, but the knob was stuck. I started to panic then and before I could catch myself I started to stumble out of the shower and into the coolness of the room. I remember every inch of my skin was red and I could not even bring myself to touch myself. I just wanted to lie down in a bed of crushed ice and mellow.
Taking small steps, I started to move toward my bag, then to my horror I found my clothing scattered about. My change of clothing, I always keep a change of clothing with me, nothing more than an oversize t-shirt and pair of sweatpants. You know in case something comes up and I need to change quickly, fast and in a hurry.
But all those clothes were scattered about, I mean my pleated school skirt, my panties, my bra, my blouse, my backpack was turned over and my notebooks had been torn to shreds, it was like some big cat had decided to sharpen its claws on them. In short everything I had was a mess. And then the lights started to flicker, they flickered on and off, on and off and then the locker doors started to open all of them opened and then all of them slammed shot, it sounded like a gun going off.
Then it appeared.
At first it was nothing but a red haze. Then the haze took on a human form, and then in the blink of an eye there it was, standing in front of me, the image of a girl maybe a year or two older than me. She wore an old fashion prom dress, you know the ones that might have been popular back in the nineties. Her hair was done up in a bun and her face was smeared with running make-up.
“WHY DON'T YOU JUST LEAVE ME ALONE!” The phantom screamed at me. “WHY DON'T YOU ALL JUST LEAVE ME ALONE! YOU'VE ALREADY RUINED MY LIFE, YOU STOLE MY BOYFRIEND AND YOU MURDERED MY PET!” She bellowed at the top of her lungs as she pointed her fingers at me. I could hear her voice, it filled my head, it filled the room. It was like somebody had held a bullhorn up to my ears and shouted that message at me.
I sat there stunned into silence, my skin was still on fire, my mind was starting to twirl around and then a wicked smile formed on her face. I then saw them, phantom flames started to dance around her, orange, yellow and red.
“YOU STOLE MY CROWN, YOU'VE RUINED MY LIFE, AND YOU'VE DAMNED ME TO HELL. I'M GOING TO DRAG YOU DOWN WITH ME.” The phantom yelled once more, and once more the voice seemed to fill every inch of my brain. I could feel my blood starting to turn cold and a sweat started to break out on my forehead and on my back. The lights started to flicker more and more and in the very back of the room, a few of the light bulbs popped, sending down shards of glass and a shower of electric sparkles.
And then the phantom vanished. I was stunned, despite the pain from the burns I managed to collect my things and get dressed. I had to get out of there. I mean I rushed out of there, only pausing long enough to snatch my purse that held my wallet, ID and phone. And a spare set of car keys. I left my textbooks, notebooks, backpack, pleated skirt, socks, shoes and such on the floor. I was not going back there, whatever that was could keep them.
I never told anyone about that night till now. And no, I did not go digging through the school archives. As far as I'm concerned the past should remain in the past. Besides, sometimes you can dig too deep and discover something that should have remained hidden. I felt digging for information would only draw attention to myself and draw the spirits eye toward me. So I put that event far from my mind. I started attending Mass more often and asked Father to bless me. It's been five years now, and I still can't get that image of that girl standing in the middle of that room, surrounded by flames out of my head. I guess I never will.
Does a malevolent poltergeist haunt the girls locker room? If you believe the number of stories that have been passed down from one generation to another then the answer is a firm yes. Now, I've had my own fair share of paranormal encounters before. I think we've all had it. And if you come from the south then you've grown up listening to ghost stories of ghosts.
Now, the story I'm going to tell you is true. I'm sure you, the lovely reader, have read a number of ghost stories that we, the members of New Midnight Society, tell each other around the dying embers of a once roaring bonfire. Our lovely leader Madeline has made an amazing effort to write down those stories, edit them and even publish them. And I'm glad, because these stories need to be told, they are the bedrock of our childhood.
Anyway, in our last story we've told you of Lily's encounter with “Lizzy”. Now I've never encountered “Lizzy” but I have encountered another spirit. It's not really a spirit in the true sense. Ghostlore would call it a poltergeist that German for “noisy ghost” or “noisy ghost” take your pick dear reader.
We cheerleaders often call this spirit “It” and it's not limited to just the locker room, though that is its main haunt. But “It” has been known to follow the cheerleaders as they travel from one event to another. Often the spirit brings misfortune and is known for having a cruel sense of humor. I have a theory about the spirit, and I'm going to tell you that theory before I go on with my tale because it makes sense to me.
I personally believe that the negativity of high school feeds this thing. The girls locker room is in a way our own personal space. A conclave where the mysteries of girlhood are discussed and rumors are exchanged. Here girls tell other girls what boys they are going after, here girls talk about crushes. And more often than not, justice is melted out to girls who have done things that go against the grain. I personally believe that all that energy has super charged the air. Making this a rich feeding ground for “It”.
Now my story is like a thousand other stories I've heard. What makes my story different is I've been touched if you will by “It”. Cerridwen our schools token pagan said sometimes fey can attach themselves to certain people. I asked if she thought “It” was a fey, and she just shrugged her head. And so I asked her to do a reading if you will of the girls locker room.
At first Cerridwen was very reluctant. But after a while I finally got her to agree to check things out. But the moment her hands touched the doorknob was the moment things changed her for. She turned around, looked me dead in the eye and in a hollow tone of voice said to me. And I will never forget these words. Nope, I will carry them to the grave with me. “Something very evil lives in this locker room. Two very evil spirits.” She said in a compelling tone of voice.
And then she walked away. Weird right? It was like she was totally freaked out by something. I mean I know pagan's are different, but Cerridwen has always struck me as this kind of brave girl who's not afraid of anything. But she just froze up and stood there the moment her fingers brushed up against the metal surface of the door handle. Had she sensed something? Something evil was lying in wait just behind the door. And what really freaked me out, she said that there were two spirits. Like as far as I know, nobody has told Cerridwen about “Lizzy” and I never mentioned a thing about “It” could she have been sensing them too?
Looking back, I should have known something was up. I should have stayed away from the room. I should have known better, but instead I had to poke the lion. And I learned when you poke the lion, you better have a really sharp stick, because it's going to roar and attack you.
Now we have this tradition that after each practice we draw straws, the girl with the shortest straw is the one who stays behind the others and cleans up. You know, making sure things are in pretty good shape, you gotta make sure all the lights are off, all the stuff is put up. You gotta return the keys. It's not a hassle, but it kills a good hour, sometimes an hour and a half. A drag if you will.
Anyway this one afternoon I had drawn the shortest straw and it had fallen to my small, frail shoulders to get everything cleaned up and put all the stuff away. It was during the winter months, and the sun had already set, the sky outside was gray and cloudy and a cold wind was blowing across the open fields that lay before the school. I don't know why I remember those details, but they seem to matter. It was like the quiet before the storm if you catch my drift. Just another cold, windy afternoon.
About a week or two had passed since I had asked my friend Cerridwen to do a reading. And well things had been kind of building, small things, for example my friend Taylor had lost her wallet, and since she was a member of the team we all pitched in to help her find it. We found it alright, after searching the whole school, I mean we searched that school from top to bottom without finding a trace of the wallet we found it, and guess where it was, right on top of her backpack. I'll never forget the moment she picked that wallet up was the moment this loud giggle filled the locker room. It gave us all the chills.
A few days later, somebody's phone went missing, again being a team we all pitched in and searched the school from top to bottom, and when we found the phone it was in plain sight. It was like somebody or something was messing with us. At first we kind of laughed it off, and heck we even joked about it. But as I stood there, alone in that changing room, going through the checklist of things that needed to be done. I swear I felt something watching me.
Then it happened, the door flew open, the fluorescent lights of the locker room started to flicker on and off. Then one by one they started to pop, sending a shower of sparks and glass down upon me. I was stunned and I quickly duck down and throw my arms over my head. I felt those tiny shards of glass cut my arms as they rain down on my head. It all happened in a blink of an eye, like one moment I was standing there in the center of the room, minding my own business, the next all hell had broken loose.
Then I heard a deep, dark growl that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere. Then I heard a voice, a dark, demonic voice, it came from inside my head. I heard the voice tell me, “DON'T PLAY GAMES WITH ME LITTLE GIRL.” I felt my blood run cold.
It was a total sensory overload for me, the voice, the popping of the fluorescent light bulbs above my head, the banging of the door, then to make matters worse all the showers seemed to turn on, and soon the air inside the room was filled with hot steam, the steam caused me to choke, I felt a growing sense of doom, and finally, I something took over me, somebody told me to bolt and I bolted out of that room. I ran down the hallway, I ran as quick as my feet could carry me, and I did not stop running till I had bolted out of the door and was breathing that cold, winter air.
After that, I stopped using the girls locker room. I changed in the bathroom. Or kind of changed in the staff bathroom. I guess, by asking Cerridwen to do a reading of that room I had poked something. I just know, I'm not giving that thing another chance to get at me. Once was enough.
The End.