Ghost in our Mind

A Personal Essay

“I took it from my brothers room,” Charlie exclaimed. “This is supposed to be the best of the best, the scariest of all the films!” He was holding the movie box for the Exorcist, what was said to be the scariest film of the time.

“I dunno about this, cant we watch something else? I don't really like horror movies.” I replied. “Remember the story your parents were telling us? The one about the builder who committed suicide while building your house? My parents said the story was true. They said it was in the paper. That he hit himself repeatedly with the back side of a hammer until he bled out in the basement. Maybe its bad karma.”

“Stop being such a wimp, its just a movie,” Charlie replied. Making it very clear that my eleven year old man hood was at stake with watching this movie. ”I know, lets watch it in the basement! That will make it really scary.” Clearly my plea had not helping with the situation. The only thing worse then watching a horror film I did not want to watch was to watch it in a basement that we had spent our youth making ghost stories up about.

“If we watch this in the basement then I do not want to hear anything about this later. No matter what man,” I said as I made a safety net to make sure whatever happened did not end up becoming lunch time talk at school on Monday amongst our friends.

He popped in the tape and the VHS clicked on. I couldn't help but glance behind me, checking the dark corners of the room even before the film got on its way. Goosebumps went up and down my spine as the movie progressed; there would not be any sleep for me tonight. Each and every sequence of the movie made me a little more nervous that some two foot tall creepy pale girl would emerge from the shadows. As I sat there checking corners of the room constantly, I began to feel my hands start to sweat. I wanted to close my eyes so bad, but somehow the film was too captivating, it would not allow me to do so. As the movie came to an end Charlie and I looked at each other. “On three we run upstairs,” he whispered.

Even once we got upstairs, I could still hear all the creaks. The sounds that built suspense kept playing through my ears as I closed my eyes. I could hear the sounds of creaking floor boards, sometimes leading to horror and other times building up to nothing as the directors messed with our minds. The disgusting image of the young girl vomiting profusely, like some sort of broken faucet releasing the grimiest substances you would expect to find deep in a landfill of rotting waste kept replaying in my mind.

The hairs on my arms stood on end, we had gotten upstairs but Charlie wanted nothing more then to go back down. We loaded up two Nerf guns and made our decent into his basement. It seemed like there were people watching from every shadow, mocking us. Charlie decided it would be best to build a tent in the middle of the room with the blanket on the coach and hold fort. I agreed but at the same time could feel my eyes watering; I glanced behind me and nearly scream as one of his cats walked down the stairs casually.

As the night progressed, my eyes didn't even get tired - they just constantly darted from one corner of the room to the next searching. I looked over to see Charlie wide awake just looking forward intently focused with his Nerf gun still in his hands, as if the Nerf gun could protect him from supernatural forces. I wiped my sweaty hands on my pants and looked out the basement exit. It was starting to get light out, another hour or two and everything would be okay. Somehow the light meant everything was okay, that nothing could touch us.

As the sun came up we both lay down to go to sleep. There was a new connection between us though, an understanding of that we could out do fear together. Charlie and I are still good friends today, eight years after we watched the movie and the connections we made during event such as watching the exorcist are really what build our friendship. And even though we did end up talking about our adventure in school Monday it was more of a victory story.