Posted 27 January 2003 - 05:54 AM
The following is a true story that happened to me. It was part of the reason that I was abscent from the boards for so long, along with the reason that I was out of my freelance journalism job for quite a while.
I go to a school in Vermont, USA... Marlboro College to be exact. Me and a few friends had made a Ouija board out of two pieces of paper. On it was the alphabet, "Hello", "Goodbye", "Yes", "No", and the numbers 0-9. We used a quarter for the pointer. We had used it in a few buildings on campus, but we hadn't recieved anything conclusive. We'd fool around with it for a bit, ha-ha-ha, nothing serious out of it, but a few good chills. Woo. That sort of thing.
Well, one night, the specific date eludes me at the moment but it was a good two days before I left for Christmas break, so it would be around the 18th of December, my friend and RA Chris Jones, Lisa Sprute, and I decided to play with the Ouija board in his room. Keep in mind that this is around, oh, 12.00. We were procrastinating from studying any more, and it was amusing. Well, right away the damn Ouija board starts acting up. The coin is moving quite fast, but, you know, that's how it works, right? Nothing out of the ordinary.
Well, we get someone who claims to be Edward Schrader. Which is an interesting name because the dorm I live in is called Schrader, named after the founder of said dorm. Now, here's something interesting. Schrader is really spelled Schrahder. None of us knew that, but the board spelled it that way. It took a bit of research to find this out. Well, we made chit chat with the "ghost" for while and then he says that he was looking for someone. He was looking for someone because he was in the police... which didn't jive with the Eddie Schrader that founded the dorm. Well, we keep talking and then he tell's us that he's God. Kinda weird. Then he tells us that Lisa Sprute is going to die tonight, that she will die in bed. Really weird. Then he said there was something underground, something dangerous, that we would all die, that Lisa would die first. Even now, as I type this, I'm quite creeped out. But, keep in mind, we were just playing around... ha, ha, ha oooh! That sorta thing, but it was creepy. Then we decided to hit the hay.
I stayed up a bit late, looking of Eddie Schraders, or Schrahder as the case was. Well, there was a police officer, from far away, named Eddie who was shot when he went into a building looking for someone. Huh, I thought, weird. But that was quite far away, so I didn't think it was connected... or, rather, I was bewildered by how it could be connected. Well, Lisa went to bed and Chris went to bed, so it was just me up as I researched.
Or, so I thought. Drew Monroe, a Senior on Plan from up the hall, knocks at my door. He informs me of a foul stench in the dorm. I step out in the hall, sniff, sniff, why yes there is. I wake my roomate Jeremy Loeb, who confirms the scent. I then decide to wake Chris up, seeing as he's the RA and all. He wakes up and agrees. We go downstairs to the common room, which smells horrendous. Like gasoline. We then go down further to the basement, where we find it smokey and the scent overwhelming. Horrible wrenching and banging noises are coming from the boiler room. We call up the SLA (Student Life Advisor) on duty, Jodi, who shows up and opens the door to the heating block. Smoke and ash are billowing out, and something is spreading on the floor.
Jodi's analysis is that the heating block is backfiring. No biggee, the smell was smoke and ash, and the gas guy would be by at around 5.00. At this point it's 3.00, so Jeremy, Chris and I decide to stay up to make sure he can get up the hill to our dorm, snowy and all, and can get in. Drew left right after he told me of the smell, as he was going to work all night in the library. Jeremy, Chris and I enter Chris' room and see the Ouija board taped to the floor. Sure, we say, why not? We have to stay up.
We sit down and immediately it starts up, amazingly fast. Jeremy decides to stop, and he agrees to take notes. Chris and I are left. It spells out "Run away. So run away." Go away. Go away. Run away. Get away. Run away. Go. Go. Go. Run. Run. We're scared, but curious. Who is this, we ask. This is God. Run away. Go. Run. Run. We then ask what is wrong. "Gac." "Gac." "Gac." So run away. Run. We ask how long we have to leave, and it tells us that we have 1 hour. Will we choke? Yes.
Well, we sit back. We couldn't evacuate the dorm at 3.30 in the morning because of a Ouija board. We decide to look into this, and head back downstairs. Immediately we find that the common room is filled with smoke, and that the scent is overwhelming. We gag. We decide that, regardless of what the problem is, we should go. The three of us spread out to get out... Jeremy breaks off to organize people outside, as does Chris. I go door to door telling people that the heating block is breaking, and that it's there call. Then smoke starts coming upstairs and the scent causes me to gag. At this point a full shouting order goes out for people to please evacuate the dorm. I go door to door, double checking, and get everyone else. I go down to the basement to check to see if anyone, God forbid, went down there. Jodi is down there, and she flips the emergecny switches.
We flick the swtiches, open the inside doors (the sign that the rooms are cleared) and we run away. We go to Dalyrimple, a classroom building, and set up camp. The time is 3.45. (Marlboro is blessed in that buildings are open 24 hours a day, with the exception of Administration and AV.) At this point Jeremy feels a bit ill, Chris feels a bit more ill, and I feel terrible. My stomach aches, my head aches, and I feel sick. Keep in mind that Jeremy was in the danger area least, me the most, Chris the middle. Everyone else would have been upstairs, not quite being effected yet. The three of us had been downstairs repeatedly, me the most.
Well, I then start to have a constrained throat and breathing becomes laboured. My shoulders are pained and my arms go numb. I'm carried back to Dalyrimple. I start to hallucinate horribley. Eventually I find medical attention, where it turns out that I suffered acute carbon monoxide poisoning.
What had happened was this; the heating block had backfired. But, from there, the shaking caused the fuel regulators to break. Excess fuel poured in and started to burn off faster. What then happened was that the excess poured out, and the carbon monoxide was no longer being pumped out. So that, combined with raw fuel, was pouring out.
The boiler room is underground, or rather, it is below the ground level. Lisa Sprute's room is the lowest point in the dorm... the gas flows down and she would have died first. We had about another hour, from the time we left, before we would have completely zonked out. No one would have found us. We would have all died that night.
Now, we had no idea that anything was happening when we were told to go downstairs, or when Lisa was going to die first. We had no idea. We had no idea there was gas when we went back the second time.
This story has troubled me. It has troubled all of us to an extent. There is a bit of evidence here too... paperwork from the college cites the accident. Plus Jeremy took notes of the second session which show the warnings I listed.
I'm not sure what to think of this. I can only give you my word that it is true. I have included the names to verify that it is true, but please do not try to contact them. I say this because it was an event that has not been revealed to many outside the four of us (Chris, Jeremy, Lisa and I) involved, and I don't want them to know that I told anyone else. Please take my word for it.
"If I laugh at any human thing 'tis so I do not weep." -Lord Byron