Amanda Hocking

Today’s guest blog is one of my personal favorites because it’s about me. Just kidding. It’s not really about me, but I am in it, and it is a true story. It comes from my roommate and platonic lifemate Eric J. Goldman as he regales you with the tale of how an angry ghost trapped us. 

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The night was dark, almost as dark as my soul. (Not really, but I wanted a good opening line….the night was probably about 1/3 as my dark as my soul.) Some friends and I (including the fabulous Amanda Hocking, whose blog you’re currently visiting) were going to see the non-hit film White Noise starring Michael Keaton, because for some reason we thought it looked REALLY good. After leaving the theater, we found out that it was actually REALLY bad, but it gave us an idea.

You see, at the time we were a quite rambunctious set of adolescents, and we were meddling with the supernatural via Ouija board. The thrill of this was starting to die down for us, even though a few questionable events had occurred; but those were all mostly pushed aside as someone being a douche, and trying to scare us. However, seeing this horrible film gave us the wonderful idea of adding a tape recorder to a Ouija session. In the film, Micheal Keaton uses some high-tech recording devices to capture messages of spirits, and….that’s all I remember. I think he got some message that he was supposed to tell someone something, and I recall a very horrible CGI shadow ghost in a parking garage at the end, but that’s not important. The point is, he records things.

A few nights after seeing the movie Amanda, myself, and our friend Fifi regrouped to my then bedroom. We shut the door, plopped down on the bed, and got the board and the tape recorder ready. We were asking the normal questions, in the normal awkward way you do when you’re playing with the dead with a Parker Brothers game board:

“Hi. Uh……is there anyone here?”

The holdy-movey deal (I’m not sure what the actual term is for the device that you hold, but I’m pretty sure it’s something like “holdy-movey deal” and if it’s not, well, you get the point anyway.) (Ed. Note: It’s called a planchette) moved over to YES. 

“Hooray! What’s your name, pal?”

The “piece” moved to some random letters, pretty quickly, and stopped. Unlike Shawn Spencer, I don’t happen to have a photographic memory, so I don’t exactly recall what was spelled out….let’s just say it was P-W-E-U-X or something. Use your imagination.

“Nice to meet you, Pweux. Is there anything you’d like to say to us?”

Finally, things started to get interesting. The holdy-movey deal was moving at record holdy-movey speed, and it spelled out the words “Open” and then “Door.” We were all surprised by this, but being the geniuses we are we decided it wasn’t necessary to leave my room and stop at that point. We did take a break though, and we played the tape back.

The playback consisted mostly of static and witty banter in the background (from me of course) but then the tape got quiet, and then really loud. We listened closer and it sounded like someone shouting “GET OUT!” It sounded like an even mumblier version of Ted Levine, with an even deeper voice, if that’s possible. At that point, we had had enough, and decided to go do something else that was worthy of our time. I got up to escort the two lovely ladies out, and my door wouldn’t open. At all. I could turn the handle, but the door itself wouldn’t move…and my bedroom door did not have a lock on it.

There was no reason at all that we could think of for my door to be stuck. At the time that my door was stuck, I believe it was around 11:00 PM. We were all screaming, and then I realized that my parents were right across the hall, and had to get up for work the next day. Instead of screaming to them and asking for help, I made everyone be quiet, because I didn’t want to get in trouble. I’m a pretty good kid….I risk death so my parents can get a good night’s rest.

I won’t bore you with all of the fuzzy details of the rest of the evening….let’s just say, Amanda isn’t very nice to you when you’re scared for your life. She turns off lights, pokes you, hides and jumps out at you, and laughs at you when you pee in a cup because you can’t leave your room to go to the bathroom. To be fair, Fifi also isn’t very nice in that situation. I am though. I’m angelic.

Finally, after about 5 minutes of being locked in my room (just kidding, it was more like 5 hours) we shouted for help. It took me five hours to realize that I don’t like being trapped in a room. My parents got up, tried to open the door, and it wouldn’t budge. They finally resorted to screwing off the door handle, and that somehow made the door open-able. I’m not a doorsmith, I don’t know how doors work.

Anyway, that’s my not-so-thrilling account of what happened to us one night. It was horribly frightening, but to this day I still want to Ouija it up occasionally. Know why? Because being scared is fun, and having fun is fun. I hope you all have a wonderful and spooky Halloween, and I hope you pick up a copy of Hollowland coming out this month by the woman who likes to terrorize people. Is it scary? I don’t know, I haven’t read it yet….but I know that Amanda wrote it, so it’ll definitely be fun*.

*Full Disclosure- This is a biased review. I do enjoy Amanda’s books, but when she makes money, sometimes she buys me candy bars, or things of that sort. I also enjoy this.

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1. White Noise wasn’t that bad of a movie. I mean, the first 3/4 were really good. Then the horrible CGI shadows came in and ruined everything the way CGI always ruins everything.