When I awoke the next morning I was interested in the fact that the CD wasn't still going.  Thinking I had made an error the previous evening,  I checked the stereo to find out what was going on.  I figured I must have gotten up during the night and stopped the CD.  Well, the power was off anyway.  Perhaps I got up and turned off the stereo? I flipped open the CD portion to find the CD was gone.  Maybe I got up, turned off the stereo and put the CD away?  This seemed highly unlikely, but I was hoping this is what had happened.  After searching the room high and low and finding no sign of the CD anywhere I gave up and met up with some friends for brunch in the dining hall.  I had related the story to them.  One was firmly someone who wanted to believe such a thing could happen and the other was a definitely a non-believer.

            They had both agreed to accompany me back to my room.  To my surprise when I entered the room, there was the CD sitting on my bed.  I told my two guests that there was no way it was there before I left the room.  The skeptic offered that perhaps my roommate had come in and put the CD there.  I agreed this could have happened but unlikely since she was out of town and that I had used the door club the nigh before.  With shrugging shoulders the two left and I waited for my roommate to come back.

When she did return I told her about the disappearing CD, she had told me a similar thing had happened to her while she was in the room.  She had left the TV on while she was in the shower.  When she emerged the TV was off and the remote was nowhere to be found.  Later when she had given up looking for the remote it had appeared in a similarly obvious place.  Hmm, so what did this all mean?  We had a presence in the room that was not into TV or music.

Halloween was just around the corner and the incidents were escalating in the room.  Our air conditioning unit would freeze up to the point that there were icicles when it was not even on.  Dark forms seemed to move and gravitate in the bathroom area of the room.  The faucet of both the shower and sink could be heard during the night as well as a variety of other noises. One evening at around 3 AM our phone rang.  On the other end were some boys who were angry at the noise we were making in the room.  My roommate confided in them that we had been asleep for sometime and were not the source of the noise.  About an hour later the boys called back to say that the noises were continuing.  The noise they had heard sounded like someone dropping marbles repeatedly on the tiled floor. 

They were not the only ones to complain that they heard noises emanating from Room 634.

Being that we had the corner room there was no other rooms to out left.  Room 633 was next door to our right and there are no rooms in back of 634 or above.  It is an  almost isolated room. At around 1:30 AM our neighbors in 633 paid us a visit.  They told us that they were certain that we had been hammering or banging on our walls.  We explained to them that we had thought they were the ones making the noise and in defense we had been banging back. But not that night. The banging lasted in short bursts and not for a great amount of time.

One evening while recording some music I had written I found that upon play back that there was a distinct female voice over my own.  Although I could not fully make out what was said it scared me enough to put off recording in that room.   By this time my roommate and I were sleeping poorly and still getting complaints from out neighbors below and next door.  We decided to contact our RA who told us to speak to our RD.  We were of course told that we were being ridiculous.  The noises were explained away as coming from the elevator (which is nowhere near room 634) and the Civic Center in the next parking lot over.  Not happy over this turn in events we went back to our room to work out what we should do.An obvious answer did not readily appear and we decided to pretend that there was nothing going on in room 634. 

Halloween 1995.  My roommate left again to visit her boyfriend and left me alone on Halloween.  Not wanting to be in that situation I went to SCAD's Masquerade Ball with the Non-Believer and the Would-Be Believer.  At around 11pm, it was decided that we all had had their fill and left the party.  On the way to my room the Would-Be-Believer who we'll call 'G' told me she knew a way to find out once and for all if my room was haunted.  Excited by this idea I followed her to the 3^rd floor where some boys had supposedly had a ghost of their own.

 I can not stress enough to anyone reading this, that I have never previously had any contact with these boys before, that being the case they had NO prior knowledge of myself or my roommate. 

Introductions were made and we settled in.  'G' mentioned that I thought I might have a ghost in my room.  The boys took interest and told me about the ghost in their room named Harry.  Harry had been a sailor during World War II.  The boys were uncertain whether Harry had died in Savannah or had just chosen to remain here. They first became aware of the presence after darts on their dartboard would be found all around the room or on the board in patterns that neither if them had made.  They bragged about how they were able to make contact with Harry through the medium of using an Ouija board.  I myself had had a bad experience with one and was not taking part in using one on Halloween!  The boys assured me that they would be the ones with their hands on the planchet and I need not worry.

Candles were lit (which is against dorm policy) and 'G' and myself sat near the boys on the floor as they tried to summon Harry.  After a few moments they seemed to have someone there.  They asked him a few questions and suddenly both took their hands off the board claiming that it was not Harry but something else trying to trick them.  They tried again and this time seemed confident that they had their man, err, spirit.  Harry seemed a very amiable spirit and was happy answering questions.  He even had some comments for 'G'.  He mentioned to her that he had fought with her grandfather in a battle. (Forgive me if I cant remember where that was!).  'G' was adamant about her grandfather never fought in the area that Harry had specified.  The subject was dropped after awhile and it was then decided to ask Harry if he knew of anyone inhabiting my room beside my roommate and myself.

He did indeed and we were then put into contact with it.  A sort of spiritual operator if you will.  There was a complete change in the way this spirit communicated with us as compared to Harry.  This was certainly a female presence. 

 The way that the planchet gracefully moved around the board in long loping movements made me feel certain of that.  She was also a well spoken entity. Missing were the gruff spurts of answers we had experienced with Harry.  They were now replaced with words spelled out and whole sentences. This was something new to me.  And I had then become aware of how gullible I was being.  It was Halloween and these guys were surely having some fun with my friend and me.  Keeping this in mind I begun a battery of questions while they kept their hands on the planchet.

Question: What's your name?

Answer: Laura

Q: When did you die?

A: no response

Q: Where are you?

A: The planchet moved seeming to indicate that she was in back of me.

Q: What's in my pocket?

A: I dont play these 'parlour' games.

I was intrigued by her use of the old English spelling of 'parlour' and more aware that I may have made her angry. 

Still unsure of who or what was moving the planchet I continued with my questions.

Q: Are you annoyed that my roommate and I are in the room?

A: She had said something to the affect that she wasn't always there and did not mind our presence.

Q: Do you not like the noise in the room?

A:  no response.

Q: Did you turn off the TV and stereo?

A: She indicated that she knew not of what I was talking about. She did however indicate that there was a spirit of a young boy in the room who liked to play tricks. (Whether this was 'Rob' or the little boy who drops marbles I still dont know)

Q: What type of music do you enjoy? (Thinking we could placate her with listening to something she enjoyed.)

A: Wagner.

Q: What year is it? (Maybe this would give a clue as to when she had died.)

A: 1825

It was then that the planchet seemed to go out of control, what we at first thought was a jumble of movement was discovered to be a pattern.  We asked her to slow down.  When she did we realized she was spelling Max over and over again.

Q: Who is Max?

A: a killer.

Q: Is Max here?

A: No answer.

She then went into the Max frenzy again, and then calmed down.

Q: How did Max kill you?

A: He stabbed me. (Very nice right?)

Q: Why?

A: Because of my husband.  (Apparently some jilted lover thing)

Q: Is your husband dead?

A: No response

Q: Is your husband with you?
A: No.

Q: Where are you buried?

A: The planchet seemed to be pointing near me.

Q: Are you buried here?

A: No. (still pointing)

Q: Are you buried across the street?

A: YES! (Across the street is the Police department, Chows, and some other little buildings.  She seemed to emphasize that the Police department was the source of her grave)

This was all good fun, but could these guys still be putting me on?  I decided to test my theory.

Q: What is my roommate doing? (I asked knowing full well that she was at Armstrong)

A: 'C' is sleeping in the room. ( Ha! I had caught them. But wait, I never told them my roommate's name)

Q: What is on my desk?

A: correspondence (Lucky guess, few college students don't get letters from home or from friends. I mentioned this aloud.)

A: Laura then spelled out Names and addresses that were on the letters on my desk. (What the hell?  This was getting really scary.)

I had decided that I had heard enough and wanted to get some sleep.  Before I left though Laura had a warning for me.  She mentioned that there was a harmful spirit that hung around O'House and that 'C' and I were to be very mindful of that. She told us that the spirit was mad, as in crazy. Laura would offer what protection she could, but we were not to taunt this other spirit. 

Well, how the heck was I going to go back to my room knowing that 'C' wasn't there and I was alone? Alone with Laura and another mean-spirited ghost that is. Was the spirit Max? Or the spirit that threw things in room 600? When I got back to the room I was shocked to find 'C' in the room.  But not sleeping. 'I thought you were at Armstrong!' She had been but decided to get some work done here and came back early. 'So do you want to know about our room?' 'C' told me she knew already and for almost a full hour she had heard whispering in the room. Somehow we had both gotten to bed and the next morning I  filled her in on the situation.  But not in our room!  We often felt odd talking about our room in our room; it was like talking about someone behind their back.  So we went to the dining hall and I told her everything that had gone one last night.  She was amazed.  We were met at lunch by 'G' who looked as if she had seen a ghost herself.  She had been talking with her grandmother about lasts nights' events and asked about said battle that the grandfather was supposedly involved in.  Her grandmother was silent for a while and then asked how she could have possibly known that.  When 'G' told her grandmother that a sailor named Harry had offered up the advice 'G's grandmother told her the story of how her grandfather was in a secret mission that few had known about.  This seemed to be enough proof for 'G' that there was something haunting O'House and it was genuine.

Still some questions haunted us (no pun intended).  Did Laura need help crossing over?  Was there a record anywhere of this murder?  Was there ever a cemetery located where the police department now stands?  Did Laura really exist?  I must admit that we weren't able to find out much, and that we were kinda lazy about it as well! 

Winter break neared and the presence was still with us. It was a very crazy week before break, projects needed to be completed, bags packed and the room cleaned.  Tension was mounting in the room between my roommate and I as well.  In a bout of silliness we called upon the evil spirit that supposedly haunted O'House.  Commanding it to clean our room or finish our projects.  With no apparent repercussions we went about our work.  Within a few moments of this taunt I had cut myself rather badly with an excato knife.  When an hour had passed and the bleeding still hadn't stopped 'C' called a sibling who was living on Barnard at the time.  She suggested that we stay with her.  This was great because a totally different feeling had begun to manifest its self in the room and I didn't like it one bit.  I left the room for a few moments to give my assignment to a fellow classmate.  I was about to leave when 'C' came running up to me telling me that we had to leave now!  Terrified we went up to the room together collected our bags and were preparing to leave.  I suggested leaving a tape recorder running to catch any sounds that may be evident while we were gone. We headed immediately for the elevators and pressed the button for the lobby.  To our dismay the elevator would bounce back from the 3^rd floor to the 6^th.  Something did not want us leaving.  When the elevator had gone back to the 6^th floor for the 4^th time we got out and decided to take our chances with the stairs. We made it safely to the lobby, and were amazed to find the elevator sill on the 6^th floor. 

Epilogue January 1996

 During the winter break I related this story to friends who found it intriguing.  I also called 'C' eager to find out what had frightened her so badly the night we fled the dorm.  According to her she was making a call to her boyfriend when the line went dead.  She gave up and hung the phone up.  The phone then rang.  No one was there when she answered.  She pulled the jack out of the wall and still the phone continued to operate. There were a few times during the night where I experienced the feeling of someone violently shaking me awake. I would wake terrified. Had the evil ghost followed me home?  This continued for about two weeks and then stopped.  When 'C' and I returned to O'House to start a new term we were immediately struck by the obvious change in the room.  Gone was the gloom and claustrophobic feeling.  The room felt bright and welcoming.  We both noted stools had gravitated towards the center of the room and our drafting tables were moved as well.  We chalked this up to the maintenance staff.  It was then that I remembered the tape recorder.  Both 'C' and I were still a little edgy about our experience in the room and gave the tape to 'G' to listen to.  About two hours had gone by before 'G' called us down to her room.

There were very few noises on the tape in the beginning.  And then there were the sounds of things being dragged across the floor.  Doors slamming and voices.  One distinctly female.  I couldn't make out what was being said.  There seemed to be a point on the recording where there was a crescendo of noise and then it was silent.  Eerie. 

But who was the evil presence?  Was it Max?  Or the ghost of 600?  When we got back to the room 'C' hung a newly acquired black light near the bathroom.  When she turned it on we were both in for a shock.  Written on the door was the following: "Death takes another unborn child."  What the hell did that mean?  Was this there already?  Who knows? 

I am still searching for others who may have had an experience in room 634 or any other room at O'House.  Does anyone know of any cemeteries in the Oglethorpe area?