The Ouija Board, Part 2

 Marissa was on her way back to her dorm room after an evening tutoring remedial biology students. Science was Marissa's passion. She scoffed at superstition. Her roommate, Nikki, believed in everything from aliens building the Pyramids to the boogeyman. Marissa made a hobby out of proving to Nikki why such beliefs were a waste of energy.

Just off the walkway leading from the library to her dorm, was a piece of cardboard with handwritten letters and numbers on it. A shot glass was next to it. Marissa saw an opportunity to prove another of Nikki's myths to be false. She picked up the makeshift Ouija board, stuffed the shot glass in her backpack and walked home.

The room was empty. Nikki was probably at one of her ghost hunter meetings, Marissa mused. She put the board and the shot glass on the shelf in her closet.

A few days later, Nikki asked if she could borrow one of Marissa's shirts. When Nikki opened the closet door, the Board slipped off the shelf and into her hands.

“Where did this come from?” she asked.

“I found it the other night on the quad,” Marissa said.

“You want to try it out?” Nikki asked.

“Yeah, but not tonight. Let's ask Kate and Sasha to come over tomorrow night.”

The next night, Nikki, Marissa and their friends brought out the Board. The girls sat in a circle in the middle of the room, placing the board on the floor between them. Nikki and Sasha were first up to hold the shot glass/Planchette. Kate hovered by the door, uneasy. The first “spirit” to make contact was that of an 8 year old boy. He told them he died in the 1940's and was looking for his mother. Sasha had lost her grandmother the year before and couldn't wait to ask the boy what happens after death. Was there really a white light? Did he know her grandmother and could he relay messages? When the boy started answering questions, Marissa and Kate each noticed the other's eye roll. Kate motioned Marissa to step outside the room with her.

“This is crap. One of them is moving the shot glass,” Marissa said.

“No, it isn't crap, but if that's an 8 year old boy they're talking to, I'm the Queen of England,” Kate said.

The two analyzed some of the messages the boy was giving Nikki and Sasha. The vocabulary he was using was too advanced for a child. And if he died at 8 years old, it's not like he was going to continue his education at Purgatory Junior High, High School and University.

“It's weird, but somehow this all sounds familiar. I just can't place why,” Kate said.

The two girls went back in the room, and immediately noticed a change in the temperature. Nikki and Sasha were so entranced in their conversation with The Boy, they were unaware that they had been talking to The Boy for three hours. Marissa pointed it out to them when she looked at her watch and both Nikki and Sasha looked down at their hands on the shot glass.

“You're moving it!” Sasha accused.

“No I'm not! It's bouncing my fingers off it,” Nikki said.

That's when Kate remembered where she'd heard this story before. She ducked back out of the room and pulled out her cell phone.

“Zoe? Hi, it's Kate. I really need you to come over to Marissa and Nikki's room right now. I don't want to explain over the phone. Just get here.”

Fifteen minutes later, Zoe walked into Marissa's room, and screamed. Four girls were standing huddled in the corner of the room, terrified. On the floor, the shot glass skittered across the handwritten Board spelling out messages.

“Where did you find this?” Zoe asked. “How did THIS board get in your room?”

“It was just on the ground near the library. I found it on my way home a few nights ago,” Marissa said.

“What difference does it make?” Kate asked.

“Because this is the board my friends and I made a few months ago. It spooked us, so we got rid of it. It disappeared. The next day, our friend Kara was supposed to pack up and move out of the apartment where we used it. We never saw her again, either.”