On September 9th, 1984, four college students met, as they always did, for a friendly game of Five Card Pool. They were Raymond LeFerrier, Amanda Reynolds-Dickerson, Tammy Aldrige and Andy Laird. Out of the four, three were believers in the existence of ghosts, and one, a hardcore skeptic. It was during a particularly lively hand of Five Card Pool that the subject of ghosts raised it’s head once again.

Andy, being the one who’s belief in the existence of ghosts was less than enthusiastic, almost approaching becoming a cynic on the subject, wasn’t thrilled with the evening’s conversation once again swinging towards the subject of paranormal investigation. Although he had grown up with a genuine interest in the subject, thanks to a soap opera called Dark Shadows, there had been too many instances where he found plausible explanations for what people broadly called paranormal activity. He had experienced far too many instances where the stories being researched had been outright lies from the get-go. Added to that, there was far too many occasions where said alleged hauntings had turned out to be no more than a smoke and mirror, staged events. Always ready for a debate, Andy waited for his cue to, once again, state his case against real ghost stories and people who investigated them.

That night’s debate was different, however, since he had no idea he had fallen into a trap intentionally set up by his three friends. As always, Ray started stating his case, followed by Amanda and Tammy making their cases as well. The three were pleased with themselves having hooked Andy into a conversation he often avoided, if only because the evidence put forward was, in his skeptical eyes, complete bullshit. Tonight was different, though, and Andy had become awkwardly intrigued when the subject of psychiatric institutions was introduced for the first time into the debate.

“I’ll tell you what, Andy,” said Ray, “if you actually went to a place that was haunted, and then saw for yourself a ghost, or activity associated with them, for yourself, what would you say, then?”

“Ray, if I saw for myself a ghost,” Andy laughed, “with my own two eyes, then, I guess, I would have to change my point of view, wouldn’t I?”

“Thought you were going to say that,” replied Tammy with a smile to towards Ray.

“Yup, right about now is when I get talked into being dragged to yet another place where I could see a ghost, right?” asked Andy, sinking a ball into the corner pocket of the table.

“How about a place that we can guarantee it?” asked Amanda.

Andy sighed and looked at his friends. He’d had the same conversation so often by that time that he knew he was already fighting a losing battle. He decided to tilt the chat towards his own case a little.

“Okay, fine, but what do you guys say we do this as a wager? If I do see Casper, then I buy us a case of Budweiser. If I don’t, then that’s it...these ghost chats cease, and you all buy me a case of Budweiser! And I’m talking bottles, not the canned shit!”

“Deal!” the three conspirators replied.

The following night, the four friends piled into Amanda’s car and quickly caught the highway to go north. It was agreed that the location was to be kept a secret from Andy, preventing him from doing any research into the place they were riding to, as per Tammy’s suggestion after the deal had been made the night before.

An hour later, the car was pulling onto the Danvers State Psychiatric Hospital property, skirting around the buildings to one that was clearly one of the declining campus’s abandoned buildings. Andy, Amanda, and Tammy waited in the car as Ray grabbed a paper bag containing a bottle of Dewers Scotch and walked towards the building. After a few minutes, he returned showing the three a hardy thumbs up, waving for them to join him.

A security guard stood waiting by an opened door to the brick building where the three entered through.

“Keep your flashlights low, and don’t flash them around near any of the windows,” the guard instructed. “If anyone spots you, I never saw you before and there will be trouble. Stay out of the lower levels and especially the tunnels, they’re not safe to be in.

“Got it?”

The four agreed.

The three floor, red brick building, formerly the campus’s Excitable Ward Facility, had been abandoned for two years by that time. Paint and plaster, exposed to the relentless New England weather, had fallen from the building’s ceilings and walls, littered the hallways, and many of the bedding frames, even some mattresses still remained in the rooms. The four’s feet made a crunching noise with every step as the flashlights came to life.

It was agreed between them, that if Andy so much as saw one rat, the deal was off and he would be sitting back I the car in short notice. It wasn’t a secret among the four that Andy had an absolute fear of rats! That event happening was guaranteed if they ventured into the abandoned building’s lower sub-levels.

Using the guard’s directions, the four quickly made their way to the wide foyer and it’s main stairwell, located at the center of the building. To the right and left were elevator doors, long since deactivated and their shafts sealed shut.

Even before entering the building, the institution gave off a disturbing “vibe” that was unmistakable. The building that they walked towards was nothing less than foreboding in it’s appearance. Tammy’s comment of, ‘Isn’t this how a lot of horror flicks start off?’ didn’t help in appeasing a growing apprehension in all of their guts. Although the campus was still very much in use, the rumors about the entire property having had it’s fair share of unexplained phenomena over the years was becoming well known. Impossible to substantiate, it was rumored one of the witch trials’ most vocal accusers, Abigail Williams, was buried somewhere of that property after her disappearance (murder?) after the trials abruptly ended in an unmarked grave.

For an early Fall night, the air was thick with humidity and the temperature was well into the high 70s.

It was decided, seeing their time was limited by the guard, afraid of someone spotting a waving flashlight inside the building, that the four would split up. Tammy and Amanda would take the first and second floors, and Ray and Andy would go to the isolation rooms, the padded cell rooms, located on the third floor. Two CB walkie-talkies were there only means of keeping in contact between the two pairs.

Upon reaching the third floor, Ray and Andy were met by what seemed to be endless rows of half opened steel doors. Only a single wired glass window at each end of the hallway allowed any light into the ward during the day, but still the men kept their flashlight’s beam at their feet. The aroma of mildewed cloth spilled from the rooms as Andy and Ray investigated each in turn.

They were about a quarter of the way down the hall when both Ray and Andy suddenly saw an older man, dressed in a johnny open in the back, emerge from a room to their left. The man looked at Ray and Andy, and the casually walked into the room directly across the hallway, closing the steel door behind him. The now familiar sound of flaked paint and fallen plaster crunched under their feet as Andy turned to Ray, almost laughing.

“Seriously, Ray?”

“What...I had nothing to do with that!”

Andy laughed out loud, “C’mon, Man. We were only talking about a freaking case of beer, here, and you guys just had to win...”

“Andy, that wasn’t anything any of us planned, man, I swear!”

“Whatever,” replied Andy, shaking his head and suddenly rushing towards the door that had just closed behind the man. Gripping the door’s steel handle, Andy pulled the door open and jumped inside the room, exclaiming, “Gotcha!”

Andy’s light instantly illuminated the padded, windowless room. The room was completely empty, save for him and an astonished Ray LeFerrier. Andy felt his heart jump, as he suddenly realized that was no sound ever came from the barefoot man’s footsteps on the plaster littered floor. The room had only one entrance in or out and it was impossible for the man to have hidden within the room or having been able to slip past them to the hallway without being seen. The room was chilled, almost cold for a moment, before the air returned to the highly humid air that filled the third floor and the rest of the building.

Andy became speechless.

“Now do you believe in ghosts?” Ray asked. “Because, guess what...you and I just came face to face with one!”

Andy was too dumbfounded to reply.

Tammy’s voice suddenly crackled over the radio, “We’re heading out. This place is off the hook and we’re spooked.”

“Be there in a minute, Andy’s a little shaken up,” replied Ray, “and we just won case of Bud!”

On the ride back to Providence, Andy was unusually quiet. In his mind he kept replaying what had just happened, as the girls filled Ray in on the closing doors and a woman’s voice repeatedly telling them to get out that they, themselves, had experienced. Ray told the girls what had happened. But despite their asking Andy to tell the story, he remained silent, deep in thought.

With the case of cold beer bought and sneaked into the dorm, Andy finally related his experience after the second beer. None of the others had ever seen Andy shaken to the point of becoming speechless before. Even as he sipped another beer and told the story, he sat in his chair shaking his head, not sure if even he believed the words coming out of his own mouth.

By 1:00AM, September 11th, the last bottle of the case had been finished, and the four decided that people needed an actual organization to investigate paranormal happenings, as Tammy put it.

The Rhode Island Paranormal Research Group and Society was born.

In loving memory of Raymond LeFerrier, Amanda Reynolds-Dickerson-LeFerrier and Tammy Aldrich.