I know that what I'm about to tell you will sound crazy. I know that none of you will believe me. However, I need to tell you this story. I need to tell someone or else I feel like I'm going to explode. Just hear me out.

So we've all heard the stories about people who have had paranormal experiences. I've never been one to believe them, but you might. Whatever.

This however, is something that seems completely different. I'm not a religious person, but I do believe in ghosts. I have always been fascinated by the paranormal. Even if you can prove that ghosts aren't real, I'd still believe.

So one day, my friend came over to my house and said he had something to prove that ghosts were real. I just shook my head and didn't care. I already believed what I believed and I didn't care if he wanted to try to the whole "Oh, we should stand in a circle and hold hands and sing happy birthday backwards while standing on one foot and a ghost will appear" type of thing.

Mostly because he had the exact same thing to me in the past and all that happened was someone falling and breaking some fluid in their kneecap, which looked painful.

He still came to my house anyways. When he walked through the front door, the items he held made me push him right back outside and ask him just what the Hell was thinking bringing that into my house. Do you know what he tried to bring into my house? He tried to bring a fucking Ouija board into my home.

Now, I don't usually curse, I think I'm above that, but in some cases, you have to curse to get someone who just can't get it through their thick skulls that you don't want them to do something.

He just stared at me with this glazed look in his eyes and this stupid smile on his face. "Randy, this is how I can prove that ghosts are real dude..." He said. I rolled my eyes at him and blocked him from entering my home again.

"Listen, Carl, I know that all you're thinking is 'oh it's just an innocent Ouija board and I can prove to my friend that ghosts are real' and all that. You must hear me out, however, when I say that Ouija boards have the tendency to turn on you faster than lion on it's tamer. So you need to stay away. Don't mess with Ouija boards." I said while walking him off my lawn and down the street to his house.

"Randy, this is the real deal! We can communicate with ghosts dude! It will be all up and magical brotha'!" He said in his usual crazed tone. I sighed and stared at him.

"Carl, why don't you just do that by yourself." I said.

"Randy, I already used the Ouija board, that's how I know it's all up and safe man. The ghosty that I all up and communicated with told me that he all up and wanted to talk to you man. Isn't that cool dude? A fucking ghosty-whosty wants to all up and be communicating with you man!" He said. By this point I had stopped.

"No Carl, that's not cool. Ouija boards can 'all up and' summon a bad ghost. What if it's the ghost of a murderer or something? Do you really think that it would be 'all up and fine' to let your best friend talk with a dead murderer?" I tried to counter. Carl, being the thick-skulled son of a gun he is, would have absolutely none of it. He wouldn't shut up the entire way that I walked him home about how this ghost was a 'sexy chick' and how people on the internet would 'love to read a story about a relationship between realms' and other junk like that. When we finally got to his house, he suddenly looked scared and asked me to open up the door.

"Ok Carl, whatever you say..." I mumbled under my breath as I looked for his house key on my key ring and unlocked his door. The first thing that struck me when I opened the door was the utterly overpowering stench of feces being left in a musty, dark room for who knows how long. The stench was so overpowering, I had step away from the door and vomit in the nearly-dead bushes in front of his home.

"Carl, what happened to your house? What is that godawful stench?" I asked as he walked into his home, seemingly unfazed by the stench. I had to put my nose in my shirt and walk into his house that way to keep from crying.

Randy, Randy
Smells like Candy
Is so Dandy
Will meet Andy...

I looked around to see who had whispered such a strange thing. I saw that far ahead in front of me, Carl was stopped at the edge of his staircase staring at the top and whimpering. I looked up at the top and saw nothing. Confused, I grabbed my friend's shoulders and tried to get him to face me. His body turned and his head shifted slightly, but his eyes never left the top of the staircase.

"Carl, who sang that song?" I tried to ask. His lip was quivering and tears began streaming down his face. Between the state his house was in and the way he was acting, most people would have thought him a basket case.

Carl was actually a psychological doctor. We had went to high school, and then college together where we had been in the same classes and become very close. Carl was a brilliant grown man who cared very deeply for others and lived alone. About three years ago however, he was involved in a serious train wreck which mentally impaired him. He is still incredibly intelligent, but his reasoning has taken a sharp decline and his obsessive nature has consumed him entirely. Since the rest of his family is either dead or on the other side of the country, I am the only one who has been willing to take care of him.

Randy, Randy
Will meet Andy
Andy's Dandy
And smells like Candy...

"Carl, is there someone else in this house?" I asked. His lip quivered as he shook his head yes. He looked like a small child; whimpering, crying, and barely able to stand. He still didn't take his eyes off the top of the stairs. Something else I noticed, he tried not to blink. I looked at the top of stairs. I saw nothing until my eyes focused on a shadow I hadn't seen there before. The outline looked human, but since it was just a shadow, that was all I got.

"Carl, who is standing on top of the stairs?" I asked. He began to sob between the whimpers and tried to gain his composure while clutching desperately onto my shirt, removing it from over my nose allowing the overpowering stench to overtake me again. I began to gag, but tried to pay attention as Carl gently whispered, "Andy..."

At the very mention of his name, the shadow moved and was racing toward us down the stairs. I pulled Carl out of the way and vomited on the floor. The shadow ran down the hallway and into the guest bedroom. The door shut behind him and echoed throughout the house.

There was suddenly dead silence.

I looked at Carl who began to uncontrollably shake and scream, his face turning purple and his eyes bulging as he stared at the front door. I whipped my head around to where he was looking and saw a very attractive young woman crawl on the ground towards us. I grabbed Carl's hand and ran into his kitchen.

Upon entering the kitchen, I had found where the awful stench had been coming from. There was human and rat feces alike strewn across the floor like streamers that fell down from a party. He was hyperventilating and clutching at my shirt and staring all around him.

Suddenly, the kitchen door flew open and the woman walked in, not crawled, and turned to stare at us. I was right when I said she was attractive, but she was dressed in rags and had long black hair that looked like something that you would find on a Barbie doll. She smiled at us and Carl began to screech in that terrified manner again. Her face contorted at his screech and she suddenly disappeared. I took the opportunity and grabbed Carl's hand and tried to run out the front door. The door was wide open and inviting. It seemed like God's hand reaching down into this Hellhole and trying to save us.

Until it slammed shut.

I hit the door with a loud smack and an audible crack as my nose began to bleed. Carl turned around to look at the closet at the end of the hall. I looked down at him and saw that he had dropped the Ouija board at the foot of the stairs. I walked over to it and looked down at it.

I picked it up. Immediately, all the doors in the house opened up and began to close slowly.

Except for the door at the end of the hall. I looked back at Carl and helped him stand up. I held his hand as if he were a small child and walked him to the door with the Ouija board in my other hand. I looked back at Carl and smiled.

"I guess now you can prove to me that ghosts exist." I said while chuckling. I hadn't realized it, but I could suddenly hear a chorus of voices, ranging from a young girl to an old man whispering in all the rooms of the house except for the one I was standing in front of. It was completely black inside and I wanted to take a step forward. Carl held my hand and shook his head.

"There's evil that lurks inside..." He said while looking into the black hole that was once a guest bedroom. I took a deep breath. I already knew by the way the door had slammed shut that whatever was in the house wouldn't let us out until we did something.

"You see Carl? This is why I told you not to mess with Ouija boards." I said while dragging myself and him into darkness. As soon as we stepped inside, the door closed quietly and slowly behind us. We could here the click of the lock and I started feeling anxious.

"Randy?" Carl whispered in a terrified voice.

"Yeah?" I whispered back, afraid to talk normally or yell in fear of what we might attract.

"Please don't let go of my hand." He said while squeezing my hand ever tighter.

"Don't worry buddy, I won't." I said while squeezing his hand back. He felt the wall behind him, I could tell by the slight scraping noise of his fingers being rubbed against the wallpaper, looking for the light switch. When he found it, he flicked it on. The light was a faint light blue almost white color. Needless to say, It didn't light the room very much. I could see a shadow against the wall. It looked like a man hunched over, possibly in defeat, and there was a slight indentation on the bed where the shadow seemed to be coming from.

But there was nothing there. Carl looked like he was about to scream, so I covered his mouth.

"Carl, we have to be quiet now," I whispered while covering his mouth, "if we aren't quiet, bad things will happen, ok?" I said while he nodded and I removed my hand. I wasn't sure how to use the Ouija board and I pretty much just coaxed Carl into leading from there. Whenever we would get an "answer" from the ghost, I would watch the shadow on the wall look like it got up from the bed, crouched down on the floor, and move it with his hands. I kept note and wrote down everything that was said. For now, I'll just use "C" for Carl and "G" for ghost.

C: what is your name?

G: Andy.

C: when did you die?

G: While I was living in this house.

C: what do you want from us?

G: I want to meet Randy.

C: why do you want to meet randy?

G: Because I need Randy.

C: what for?

G: I need Randy for me to move on.

C: why?

G: I must pass along my gift to Randy.

C: what is this gift?

G: A gift I am no longer in need of.

By this point, I began to notice the shadow swaying and the head turning and I could see the profile. The man had a small mustache and a long slender nose. He also apparently wore glasses. Right after he said "a gift I am no longer in need of", I saw the shadow suddenly spring up and jump onto me. I felt a heavy presence but felt nothing. I could hear the whispers again, but this time instead of coming from a room, it came from the back of my mind. I could hear Andy in the voice of an old man yell out something in a language I didn't understand, but that felt evil in every aspect.

Suddenly all the lights came on. The door unlocked and we felt a force pushing us through it. The door swung shut and all the other doors in the house opened and closed in a similar manner all at once. The doors remained closed. His home no longer was in shambles. The horrible stench was gone and replaced by a sweet pumpkin-like smell. Carl lost the glazed look in his eyes. He blinked and stood up. He walked backwards to the staircase and up the stairs. I followed him and he walked into his bedroom and lay in his bed. I felt a strange force moving me out of his home and I was standing on his front porch with the Ouija board in my hand.

I stood there, dumbfounded, and I heard the doorbell ring, even though I never pressed it. I heard Carl descending the stairs and he opened the door. He saw the Ouija board in my hand and slammed the door in my face. The entire walk home, I heard whispers in the back of my head, whispers of a little girl asking for her mom while she was locked in a black room. Whispers of an old man who lost his voice and fell in a locked, black room. Whispers of a beautiful sounding young woman slowly becoming insane as she sat locked in a black room in tattered clothing.

I can still hear the whispers in the back of my head, now and forever.That was his gift.

Whispers now and forever.