Midwest Slacker: Ghostbuster

I moved to the East Side of Milwaukee about a month ago. I didn't look at the apartment before agreeing to move in -- I was in Savannah at the time. I didn't expect much, houses in this area were built in the 1870's, and in general are falling apart. This one is in pretty good condition, considering. But there was one problem we never anticipated-- a spirit problem.

No one has ever been able to prove the existence of ghosts, despite legions of psychics and scientists working to prove the existence or nonexistence of ghosts. Some think they are the restless dead, my own theory was that ghosts were strong memories imprinted on a place. I grew up next to a cemetery, and the house I grew up in was built as the parsonage for the church. We had ghosts, but I liked having them around. Our ghosts were a german family, a very comforting presence. I cannot see ghosts, I only feel them.

The ghosts at my new apartment are not comforting. There's one that lives in the upstairs, a man that I hear walking around at night. When my roommate Caroline was moving in, she was hit by vertigo. She figured she just needed to eat, so she did. The Vertigo did not stop. That night, she slept at her old place.

She called the old tenants the next day, Mike and Dawn, and asked if there was a ghost. They confirmed it.

Caroline brokered a deal with the ghost: She didn't want to se him, feel him, or hear him. All conditions have been broken. I still hear the footsteps, Caroline's seen him glaring at her, Ashley's bed, a mattress that sits on the floor, was punched from below repeatedly.

We decided to get help. We went to an occult shop on Murray Ave, and consulted the owner. She hooked us up with a number of protective herbs (before you think she was just trying to make a buck off of us, she gave us a good number of things for free), and her friend offered to come by to check out the problem.

Nancy is a short woman in her twenties, with dark curly hair and nothing occult about her. She wore no amulets, no otherworldly voice, just a normal looking girl. We started in the basement.

All basements are creepy. Ours is extremely creepy. As soon as you descend the stairs, your heart starts to race and your body tells you to run. It looks the same as any other basement: it has a cement floor, a furnace, and a root cellar. Immediately she told us that she felt three distinct presences. Nancy zeroed in on the root cellar.

"Is anyone there?"
"What do you want?"
"Can you hear me?"

She recieved no reply. Something about the root cellar was filling us with fear, and a feeling of being pushed away. Nancy said she heard heavy breathing in front of her. She turned to take more photos of the basement. I felt something behind me, and I grabbed Caroline's hand and strated to move to the door. She stopped me and turned around.

Now, as I said, I cannot see ghosts. But Caroline can. She saw it move from one corner of the basement to the other, and up towars the furnace. Nancy and Ashley confirmed it's movement, and also that it was wearing a noose. The Hollywood version of a glowing spirit is wrong. It's dark, dark smoke.