Haunted High School (2)

Allow me to share some of my paranormal experiences in my high school.

My school was established in 1902. It is one of the oldest high schools in the country. During WWII when we were under Japanese occupation, the Japanese Army commandeered the campus and turned it into their garrison. Many of my countrymen were imprisoned, tortured and/or killed there at that time. According to rumors from some of the teachers, their skeletons are still scattered in a subterranean tunnel that runs underneath the Administration Building (we call it Main). Although that rumor is unsubstantiated, historical records do show that my school has really been a garrison.

When I first entered that school as a freshman in 1995, me and my classmates in my section had no idea at all of its dark history. After all, we were just 12 year old brats. What do we care about history?

Our campus has a land area of about 4 hectares (40,000 sq. m.) When you face the campus, the building to your left is the Main, next is the Science Centrum. It is a hands-on museum of scientific gadgets, experiments and inventions. Further left is the HE Bldg housing a cafeteria, some classrooms and the Conference Room. Behind the Centrum is the soccer field. Directly behind the Main is our new building. In between our building and the soccer field are the basketball, sepak takraw and volleyball courts. Behind the field is the BL building. The BL is a very-long, one- story, L-shaped building. It contains more than 40 classrooms and 2 rest rooms. One leg of the L runs beside our building. There are more buildings on the right side.

Since we were in the elite section, we had a building all to ourselves. There are only about 120 of us (30 or less per year level) who have classes in that building out of a total school population of more than 4,000. We have our own faculty, separate from the faculty of the regulars. We also have a separate library and computer lab, both located adjacent to each other on the ground floor of our building.

Anyway, during our freshman year, we didn't experience much paranormal activity. Just that eerie feeling that someone is watching you even though you are all alone in the boys rest room. I even caught myself glancing to my rear just to see who's behind me while using the urinal. I would get goosebumps and could feel my hair standing on end for no apparent reason. Although its unsettling, I didn't feel threatened. All my other male classmates would say the same thing, but we would just shrug it off as nerves for an upcoming quiz or exam.

During our sophomore year, one of my female classmates, let's call her 'Jen', stopped going to school just 2 weeks after classes started. We were a little puzzled because we saw her earlier that day attending a school gathering. Weeks later, our class adviser gathered and informed us that 'Jen' would no longer go to that school. She told us that 'Jen' has been possessed by a spirit, and that after exorcism, 'Jen' no longer wishes to go back. She then told us that it's about time we were informed of the weird things that happen in our school. She claimed that Jen's possession was not an isolated case. She said that about once a year or so, a student will be possessed. All of the victims were females, and all of them the shy, quiet, untalkative type like 'Jen' was.

We wouldn't believe at first that in this modern and scientific day and age, things like that still happen. We thought that our adviser, a mathematician, was putting us on. But things picked up a pace after that.

Once, I was walking through the Main's deserted corridors after classes with a friend, looking for a certain teacher. All the offices we passed were closed for the day. As we just passed through an office that had a steel collapsible security gate (the kind where your hand can pass through the diamond-shaped struts) as its door, we clearly heard someone furiously tapping away at the keys of a typewriter inside. We were puzzled because we saw that the lights inside were out. We went back to check, and we saw that the lights inside were indeed out, and that there is a locked padlock outside that door. My friend and I looked at each other and ran out that building as fast as we can.

During our Junior year, after our Juniors-Seniors prom, we saw the Spaniard. We had our prom at a hotel and finished at about 2am. Since some of my classmates live too far from the city, and since we were all underaged (about 14- 15 y.o.) and couldn't sleep in the hotel, much less drive cars, they asked and was granted permission to sleep in the campus. Some of us who live in the city decided to join them.

I and my three male friends decided to walk around the campus since we couldn't sleep. We walked along the BL, turned left and passed the CAT (Citizen's Army Training) HQ then past the outdoor swimming pool, turned left again behind the Centrum. As we passed the Main on our right, for no reason, all four of us at the same time looked at the outdoor basketball court to our left. No one told us to look to the left, and in other circumstances, it would have been funny since we all turned our heads in unison.

There in the basketball court, we saw a man. Although there is something covering the face like a haze, we knew it was a man since he is wearing black trousers, and he had on a white long-sleeved shirt of a cut in the very old style. His clothes reminded me of illustrations I see in textbooks of how people dressed during the Spanish Era in my country. He was floating about a foot from the ground. As he floated towards us, we could see that his legs aren't moving at all... They were rigidly together as if he was standing at attention. As he floated nearer, he slowly faded away into thin air. I couldn't believe it. I thought my mind was playing tricks on me. I asked my friends: "Did you see what i just saw?" Someone started to reply, "You mean that floating..." Then another interrupted and shouted "RUN!" and started running. Needless to say, we all ran.

It was only later when we compared mental notes on what we saw that all our descriptions fit to the last detail.

During our senior year (I was about 16), we had to do our thesis. It was a requirement for graduation. I and about 10 others could not finish writing it up within the deadline unless we did overtime. We were granted permission to transfer some PC units from the computer lab to the library we appropriated for ourselves that week so we can work on the papers after class hours.

What we did is that after class, I would go home directly, take a shower, have dinner, and then return to the library to relieve the 10 and let them have dinner. I was pretty much alone for an hour or so.

About the third or fourth night, being alone for about 15 minutes, I heard a knock on the door. It was a most peculiar knock. In the first place, it sounded hollow and very light. Second, there is a pause of about a second in between knocks. It would knock, pause, knock. Third, it would knock only twice, then stop.

I called out asking who it is but got no verbal reply. In answer, it knocked that same knock again. I thought it was one of the guards doing his rounds, or maybe one of my companions who forgot something.

On the third set of knocking, I was already up. In the pause between the first and second knock, I opened the door. There was no one there, and immediately a very cold wind rushed into the room. It had a very bad smell too. In a tropical country, nearing summer, it is highly improbable for wind outside to be that cold. Colder even than the air conditioner running at full blast.

One of my classmates claimed he saw reflected on a glass window a platoon of Japanese soldiers marching through the BL corridor early one morning. When he looked back, there was nothing there.

There are lots of other stories about that school. Sometimes, when the guards would do their rounds during the night, they will hear a pig squealing inside one of the locked classrooms. It would push aside the chairs and throw itself on the door, as if attempting to break it down, squealing the whole time. But in the morning, when the rooms are opened, there is no sign of the pig, all the chairs are in order, and no sign of any openings for pigs to squeeze through.

Sometimes also, they will see human footprints going up the walls to the ceiling and up the blackboards of the rooms when during the day before there were none.

Sometimes you can also hear someone playing the piano in the Conference Hall in the Main at night. The peculiar thing is, the piano there is broken down. And the only working piano is in another building at the other side of the campus.

I have lots of other paranormal experiences, not only in that school, but also in the offices where I worked and houses where I stayed. Perhaps next time, I will share them here.