Halloween Story - Strange but not fiction

27 October 2023

1098

R. Linda:

The night before the last Halloween, I had a chance encounter with Gerry AKA Captain Jack. He had been in Boston for a party where he and a few of his buddies were hired to impersonate the Pirates of the Caribbean crew. In the very same hotel, I was at a party for one of our executives who was retiring. About 10:20 p.m. I went out to the lobby to check my phone before retiring for the evening. It was then I ran into Gerry in full Captain Jack costume. We were amazed to see each other and well, we went to the bar (naturally in the Captain's case) for a drink. He was done with his engagement and was staying the night at the hotel since it was too far to drive home to upper Maine. I was staying at the hotel as well because I knew the retirement party would run late and I had to be back at the old grind early the next morning.

One drink led to a few drinks and one of the captain's buddies joined us. I will say we were being gawked at in the bar lounge by EVERYBODY. One rather inebriated man came up to our table and toasted Gerry for his Pirate movies and we toasted back with a "Har Matey!" and just this small act had everyone else in the lounge convinced Johnny Depp was in the room. 

Think about that. They all had to be in their cups because why would Johnny Depp dress up as Captain Jack in a hotel bar lounge? 

It was 'mischief night' Gerry reminded me, and that led to an exchange of childhood stories about pranks we pulled on that particular night growing up. That led to some chilling Halloween legends we three shared and the atmosphere at our small corner table made it feel like we were worlds away from everyone else in the room. It was getting late and the lounge was closing, so we were thinking of moving our small gathering to one of our hotel rooms when George (the buddy and crew mate) got an idea that he thought was just perfect since it was the night before Halloween. He had a friend just a few blocks away and he was going to ring him up to meet us in a graveyard, one of Boston's most notorious haunted places, not far from our hotel and Paul Revere's house.

"Increase Mather, who was a part of the Salem Witch craziness, is buried there. Most of the graves are from the 1600s and it's quite a spooky place, psychic phenomena have been documented there and I think we should go see for ourselves, it is the 'season' and all.

"What say I call my friend Reilly and have him bring a Oiuja board and a couple of six-packs and we try to raise the dead?"

"How many people do you know that just happen to have a Ouija board handy?" I asked George.

"Hey, Reilly is a dealer in antiques, he's got one I saw it out in his Halloween display. Dontchaworry."

Oh no, here I go again. What is it I can't get away from these Halloween nut trips. And Weasil wasn't even the culprit this time. Gerry was all for a little fun, and he looked at me, but I shook me head no, I was going up to me room and sleep.

"Ah come on," Gerry urged. "It's almost Halloween and we are an hour away from the bewitching hour Mate, let's do this."

He was right, we had been in the lounge drinking for a while, so I caved, yes I did, I didn't want to do it, but I didn't want to appear the wuss and I wasn't about to explain all me Halloween trials and tribulations to drunken jokesters.

So off we went, the two still dressed like pirates and me Mr. Suit. We took a cab to the cemetery and I think the driver was thinking Halloween came early with two pirates in the backseat. It wasn't until Gerry got out to pay the man that the driver got a big stupid grin on his face thinking he was looking at the real thing, Johnny Depp. He started gushing over Gerry or Johnny and was all about joining us for a drink, we were his last fare. We weren't going for a drink, it was late and no bars still open that I saw, but somehow Gerry talked the man out his urge to be among the famous and sent him on his way with a sizeable tip I think, which would only add more to the man thinking he drove you-know-who around Boston.

Reilly arrived at the cemetery entrance a few minutes later with the spirit board in hand and two six-packs of beer. We went into the cemetery but as we were going in four young men were coming out, laughing and hooting at each other. Here we were all set for spooky doings and their appearance was quite loud and the laughter dispelled any scary feelings we had had. They saw the beer and asked if they could join us. Honestly, we were all in our cups and Reilly said, "Sure," before anyone could object. We went into the cemetery and shared a few bottles with them. We had a rather good time joking around and they were all about Captain Jack, it was revealed they thought Gerry was the real thing and that's why they wanted to join us. They didn't seem let down by the truth (actually Gerry was doing quite a good impersonation, they couldn't help but believe he might indeed be the real thing), we were all having a good time and Gerry had stayed in Jack Sparrow's character to entertain us. He was so funny I commented that I had never had so much fun in a graveyard until that night. I know, nutso, but my sides hurt from laughing so hard, as he was in rare Captain form. It must have been all the booze. 

A slight breeze came up at one point and the moon scooted behind some clouds that looked like a creepy hand. 

"Will ya look at that!" George pointed at the sky. "An omen?"

This sobered us all up. The lads decided they needed to leave and I do believe they were finally spooked. After they left us, we set ourselves the task at hand, seance.

With our happy companions gone, we suddenly were aware of our surroundings. The sky held its creepy look, like the moon's fingers were going to reach down at us. 

A creepy hand in the night sky

We settled in and finally serious, with the chill of the evening creeping into our drunk bones, the quiet of the place was unsettling, but we started to concentrate on the Oiuja board by asking questions. Remarkably, if you believe in those sorts of things, we got someone named Bartholomew who told us someone we knew was going to be "killed" in a rather violent manner. In short, he told us the spirits were aware that this event was going to happen and that they were quiet "listening." We didn't understand any of that and decided to call it a night, because this information spooked us. We all agreed we were pretty sketched out by Bartholomew's warning and it was getting colder, so off we went back to our hotel and Reilly to his house. I think we were as hungover as we could be as well, so all this was freaking us out and no one spoke much on the way back to the hotel (to which we walked, no cabs at that time of night in sight). Are minds were adrift with the experience and the information, so much so no one wanted to broach the subject, but it was on our minds.

A few days later at my work, a report came in that a young man was killed in a freak accident. He had been out with friends and got into a fight with one of them and was punched in the head. The young man fell and hit his head on the stone wall by the sidewalk and died. The event happened a block away from the cemetery and it happened around the time we met the 4 boys. We never got any names so we don't know if this boy was one of the four we met that night. We never asked "Bartholomew" for a name, so to this day we don't know, but we are suspicious. The way we got "the spirits are listening" made it sound like this happening was close by and that's the impression we all had. It was very quiet in the cemetery that night, of course, it would be, but it was a different kind of quiet that quite unnerved yours truly and the others. 

I will leave Bartholomew's message and the news of the accident for you to ponder. I think we did get a real spirit because if the lad was indeed one of the four, then we were told ahead of his demise. We couldn't have done anything about it, and we accept that this was the truth of the event being foretold. Still bothers me to this day, but there was no way we knew for sure what we were being told was true or even to whom the catastrophe would happen at the time.

Happy Hauntings!

Gabe

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