The Ghosts Of Gubby Halls

“Fucking hell Eric, you’re such an insensitive, inconsiderate, prick.”

All of us, having pre event drinks, in Johnnies room, turned to see what Amy was complaining about.

Erics costume, which was a Nazi soldiers uniform, did not surprise us.

If I had to describe Eric, all I could say about him, as its all I know about him, is that he was offensive, purely because he enjoyed being offensive. Honestly though, I think that’s all I need to say about Eric in order for you to get an accurate picture of who he was. Unfortunately, I think we all probably have, or will, meet somebody like Eric at some point. He was the type of person who ruins everything enjoyable on purpose. When I saw him that night, I instantly regretted allowing myself to be persuaded to go to the Halloween event, which was being held at our campus, the Trent Park campus. Why I hadn’t wanted to go, I don’t recall. I only remember that I hadn’t, and as a result had to throw together a costume from my own clothes, and a fake parrot I already had, which was supposed to sit on your shoulder, but kept falling off.

What did surprise us, though in my opinion it did not make his costume any less offensive, was his excuse for wearing it.

“Did you know, during the second world war, the mansion was used as a prison for Nazi soldiers?”

None of us had know this at the time, yet it is true. I might be wrong, but I believe Eric was a history student, and the history students were based at the mansion building, so this information would have been both interesting to him, as well as relevant to his degree.

“I’m going to piss off some Nazi ghosts tonight!” Eric boomed, roaring with laughter, as he ran back into the corridor, heading off to try to upset as many people as possible.

Whether any prisoners died at Trent Park to produce ghosts, I don’t know. What I do know is, people have died there since, so they probably had died there before.

At this time, and even now, I’m not sure if I believe ghosts exist.

However, many students, including Sam and Emma, did, and claimed they were experience paranormal activity, such as open doors closing by themselves, belongings moving around, and even disappearing only to reappear later.

None of which I believed was happening, until it started happening to me.

It is my opinion, most of these students were lying. What I suspect is that Erics story spread that night, then continued to spread during the following weeks, morphing into a ghost origins story, rather than a piece of trivia.

However, some female students might have been telling the truth, and because she was my next door neighbour, Sam could have genuinely been experiencing some of these things, if her room had been mistaken for mine in the beginning, because it has since been proven that I was really experiencing these things.

Maybe, I would have taken what was happening to me a bit more seriously if it hadn’t been for all the gossip about ghosts.

I need to state here, that I think, my Jewellery was stolen after this mystery was solved, during my third term of my first year.

It was half way through my second term when I began to notice my belongings moving around my room when I wasn’t there, or more often disappearing completely, in my case, never to return.

At first, I genuinely thought I was going crazy, until I noticed a pattern in when these odd things were occurring, which was mainly on a Friday.

Looking back now, it’s obvious, two factors came together to make what was really taking place a possibility. My only weekly lecture was on a Friday morning, which coincidentally was the same time the cleaner would clean my room. They never ever double locked the door on leaving, meaning, if you knew how, you could break in using any plastic card you would normally find in your purse or wallet.

Regardless, I will admit there were likely days when I just forgot to double lock my door, therefore allowing my room to be broken into on days other than a Friday. Also, I won’t pretend I definitely would have been aware something more serious was going on, if the ghost rumours hadn’t been circulating. After all, when I mentioned it to S, and asked if he thought I had a ghost in my room, he laughed and told me no, I had just misplaced or lost my missing possessions, which is, especially were I’m concerned, the most reasonable and logical answer.

Only, this couldn’t have been the case in every instance.

For example- One Friday, I forgot to take my sketch books with me to university. In the afternoon, I returned to collect them, and found them where I had left them, which was in a pile on my desk, ready to put in my bag, next to my source materials, minus several of my loose sketches that I remember putting inside the books. Those sketches had never left that room, they had never even left my desk.

There was also a very obvious pattern, now am aware of what that pattern is, in what items were going missing. It was mainly smaller and/or loose pieces of my art work, booklets from my favourite CD’s, hair clips, cheap accessories, make up, underwear, and smaller and/or thinner items of clothing. These are all things, that in disappearing, should have alerted me to the fact I was being stalked by a dangerous predator, who had marked me has his next victim.