There's something eerie going on at TALES. I'm not sure if what I'm seeing is real or if my mind is playing tricks on me. Perhaps the past week has put a toll on me mentally but it doesn't explain the other times I've seen strange occurrences when the building is closed. For those who don't know, I live next door to the school. The things that have been going on are strange and hard to explain. I think there's a need to document this incase things start to escalate. My apologies for the long read. I wanted to be as thorough and detailed of the things leading up to the eerie events.
There's been a lot going on this week that has contributed to me sleeping and waking up at odd hours. On Monday, I was finally able to get my new desktop computer up and running. My previous one had broken down on me, leaving me without a computer to mainly play games on and surf the net for about two months. Those starting new with a computer know it takes quite a long time installing applications, configuring settings, and trying to remember important sites you frequently visit to save as a bookmark.
Due to this, I've been going to sleep later than usual but waking up the same time I normally do, disrupting my sleep cycle. Doing this a few times during the week will eventually lead you to crash at some point. Also occurring this week were parent teacher conferences on Thursday followed by a professional development conference in city on Friday. All these factored into me feeling very tired.
Thursday evening, I got home, ate, showered and decided to work on more housekeeping things on my computer when I felt like I needed to take a small rest in bed. It was about 8PM that I dozed off and fell asleep leaving my computer on. My mom would come in to check on me. When she notices that I had left my computer on and I had clocked out for the evening, she would turn off my monitor. She isn't so savvy with technology, therefore the computer would still be on and the blue LED lights coming from the CPU would be glowing.
At around 3:30, I woke up to shut down my computer and go to the bathroom. As soon as I open the door, my cat would run in and jump onto my brother's bed that was vacant because he's away on vacation. I do my business in the bathroom and return to chase my cat out, who had been sitting on his blanket staring out at the window that faces the school playground and the northwest side of the building where the staircases are located. I made nothing much of it at first, since it was a behavior my cat normally engages in during the day as she focuses on cars driving by, birds flying, and other things that catches the attention of a 2 year old tabby cat. I laid down in bed to catch a few more hours of sleep before waking up to make my commute to the city.
The professional development session was draining since it was mostly sitting in a tight space and listening to people speak. I got home around 5PM and luckily was able to keep myself occupied until 10PM and slept normally and remembering to shut down my computer. On Saturday, I still felt very tired. I’d been planning for the week and browsing the internet on my computer until I decided to take a break to lie down on my bed listening to a podcast on YouTube. This occurred at around 8PM. Just like before, I fell asleep, my mother came in to turn off my monitor. The computer was still on, with the LED light shining as bright as a fully charged Anakin Skywalker light saber.
At 3:35AM, I woke up to shut down my computer, go to the bathroom, then chase my cat out of the room to prevent a ruckus she'd cause if I let her stay in. Again, she was at the same spot staring out the window….
I wasn't quite sure why she always wanted to stare at this window every night so I decided to take a look outside toward the play ground. It was dark outside, but the lamppost dimly lit the garden in our school playground enough to show a figure standing by the sandbox. I wasn't sure if what I saw was accurate since I did not have my glasses on. I went to find them to prove to myself that I wasn't actually seeing a mysterious person standing on school property at such odd hours.
As I got a clearer look, the figure disappeared but the wooden rocking chair was rocking back and forth. I've watched a lot of ghost movies, ghost hunting shows, and heard ghost stories from friends and people online, but never experienced anything paranormal myself. I was always skeptical about it, kept an open mind about the subject. I immediately felt goose bumps on my arms.
I went back to bed but wasn't able to fall asleep. I kept myself occupied with my phone. Killing time on social media apps. At around 5:30, I wanted to do something productive, so I motivated myself to go for a run. I got up and got ready. I was going to take my normal route, but at that hour, I decided against it because of the sketchiness of the route and how creeped out I was of what I had seen in the playground. I ran towards Main St. As I passed the school, there was a dim blue light emitting from the Aquafina vending machine in the teacher's lounge on the second floor of the school building. This wasn't anything out of the ordinary. But it wasn't until I saw a shadow pass by the window next to the copier moving toward the telephone side of the room that had me freaked out. There's something up with this building. These events made me realized that it wasn't the only time I witnessed like this happened. In the past, I would always stare out towards the building when it was closed. Sometimes I would notice that the lights aren't shut off in the hallways. Some days, Jose works really late so it explains why the lights are on. Other days, the lights on the fourth floor would be on but the rest of the building was pitch dark. I'd figure Jose must have forgotten to shut them off, but was it really a coincidence?
I would look out to see shadows move around on the fourth floor. This would occur at 10 or 11 in the evening during the weekends. When I'd look out to the building in the morning, all of the lights were shut off. There would be times where the lights are shut off in the evening and there would be a faint red light emitting from the EXIT sign. Again, I would see figures or shadows moving across and disappearing. I'm not sure what to make of this. Sorry if this creeps you out. For those that have asked, I think I finally found a con to living next door to the place I work.
Many teachers have since opened up about their experiences, some mocking me while others telling me serious events. I've done some research about the space our school was built on before it became our haunted school. I've looked into what had been at the location before the school was built. Since I've lived in the building next door since 1995, I remember it being an empty lot with a lot of grass and fallen trees. There is also an old man that lives in my building named Louie. He's an alcoholic but at times, he is very insightful. I've had discussions about the school before it became a school. He said he remembered an old lady living in a huge house before it was sold. Before her, a man used to live in the house that would make alcoholic beverages and served it to people during the prohibition.
I've been researching on spokeo.com to see who used to live at the address and three names popped up. 2 female and 1 male. If they are still alive, their age ranges anywhere between 84-100. I am only able to find out their first initial and last name. They are...
C. Morales
D. Smith
J. Zimbalatti
It shows on the site that one of them moved to Florida. The other two are still shown to be at this address. Perhaps those two passed away?
Today, our science teacher, Christian, told me about a weird thing that happened to him when he was teaching his after school Spanish culture class. It got me thinking again about this again. I had just watched Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones the previous night. I've realized that these events should not be taken lightly. The people in the movies always do and it ALWAYS ends up bad for them.
I was thinking about these events, as I normally do, and I wanted to start documenting it. Why not use thinking maps? Thinking maps are great ways to sort and record these strange events. I've thought about all the weird things that has happened so far and have made three maps, a circle map, a multi-flow map, and a tree map.
I wonder if paranormal experts should be called into our school. The real question is should our kids know about it? I don't think the younger ones would be able to handle the idea, but maybe the older ones can? This can be an awesome learning experience.