The Ghost in the Theater

I don't quite understand psychic phenomena. I suppose I'm not alone; but, I wonder why these things happen to me. First, it was a ghost in an old theater where I worked.

He would follow me up the stairs all the time. I would stop walking on the creaky wooden steps, and he would take another step. They would creak, just as though they had the weight of a human on them. I didn't mind it when other people were in the theater, but it scared the hell out of me when I was there alone.

I would be upstairs working in the projection booth alone. He would walk up the stairs to the point you can look out the door and see something, but he would stop before he got to that point. I could even be looking and hear him walking downstairs.

The projection booth had a heavy wooden door with one of those long screen door springs on it so it would automatically shut. It made a lot of noise that was unmistakable. In those days, we used two projectors; each one loaded with a reel of film lasting about 20 minutes. When that reel got low, we would hear a bell ding and that was our cue to look for changeover signals. You had to look closely.

I heard the screen door spring squeal when the door opened as I watched for the signals. "Blap, blap" it sounded as the door closed. I heard the footsteps. I felt a tap on the shoulder.

I said, "Just a minute; I'll be right with you after the changeover", thinking it was one of my buddies. They were always coming up to the booth during the show.

I made the changeover and there was not a damn person in that booth that I could see. Something tapped me on the shoulder...I felt it...poke, poke, and poke. Three times. I heard the door open and close; but, I didn't hear anybody leave. It scared the crap out of me because I couldn't leave either. But, I did leave anyway. Just long enough to go downstairs and ask my friends if they had come into the booth. I had to know. No one had been up there, but no one laughed either. Everyone there had had an encounter with the ghost at some time or the other.

I did a little research on the subject by talking with an older man who was manager when the theater just opened in the early thirties. He told me about a funeral home attendant that had a heart attack and died in his seat in the theater. He showed me the seat. I had seen something there before in the darkness of the theater, when I went down the aisle to go out a back exit. I looked back and saw a mist in the vicinity of the seat; before the old manager had pointed out the exact location.

This is just one of my touches with the other side. I will write more later. They do reach out to us now and then; although, I don't know why.