There is a haunted Catholic high school in western Ohio. Most everyone that has worked late nights has had an experience in this building...including me.
The school president, the principal, administration, secretaries, custodial staff and many of the teachers have stories to share about the school. When the final bell rings at the end of the day, many of the school's dedicated employees stay behind to catch up, some working late into the evening hours. And many believe they are not alone.
Mike was the former principal for many years and his encounters are the most frequent and the most personal. He believes that the spirits of former employees and benefactors often visit the school. One of those lingering spirits is the much-loved, former basketball coach, also named Mike. It is the basketball coach's ghost that the veteran principal enteracts with on a regular basis.
For over a decade, Coach Mike and Principal Mike left the building together, locking up the old gym and the exterior doors behind them. "Good night, Mike." was their unison salutation before heading across the parking lot to their cars. After a brief battle with cancer, Coach Mike's memorial service was held in the old gym where he had spent uncountable hours leading numerous teams to state championships. Soon after the gym was renamed to honor him.
A new state-of-the-art gymnasium attached to the west end of the building was nearing completion and it saddened Principal Mike that the coach who had worked so hard to build the basketball program had not lived to see the new gym completed. He continued his nightly ritual of locking up the building and each night before pulling the wooden doors to the old gym closed, the principal would say aloud, "Goodnight, Mike." The sound of his voice reverberating off the concrete bleachers and absorbing into the velvet curtains on the stage.
Nearly a month after the coach's death, Mike was running late for a meeting downtown and rushed to lock up the building and set the alarm. As he slipped the key into the lock of the front door, he could see that the gym doors remained open. Throughout the meeting, Mike was distracted by the image of the open gym doors. When the meeting concluded, he returned to the school. He peered through the glass front doors and into the dimly lit hallway; the gym doors were securely closed. He was certain that he had been the last one out of the building and he was positive that he had not closed the gym doors that night. Shrugging it off, he gave a quick tug on the front door, double checked the alarm system, and hurried back to his car.
The closed doors were easily explained away because many people had keys to the building and knew the alarm code, so Mike kept his suspicions to himself. After another late evening alone in his office, he once again began his rounds of securing the building. When he reached the old gym, he gave his usual "Goodnight Mike" before closing the doors. But this time there was a response in the gruff timber of the former coach - "Goodnight, Mike," he heard loud and clear.
The former pricipal's stories do not end with tales of the old basketball coach. He also believes that a former custodian remains in the basement of the building. Now used for storage, the basement once housed an office complete with a desk, seperate phone line, and a cot for the nights that the custodian stayed too late to safely drive home. One morning in the mid-1960s the day staff came in and found the custodian had passed away in his sleep on the cot. New custodians were hired, but none stayed on the job for long, so eventually the school switched to a night and day staff that only put in late night hours when there was a special event at the school. Since there was no "head" of the custodial staff, there was no longer a need for the basement office; all of the equipment was moved upstairs and the phone lines disconnected.
When Mike took the job as principal, he quickly adopted the habit of working late at night when there were no interruptions. Soon calls came into his office and the light indicated the caller was from the basement. Mike would answer the phone and there would be nothing but silence. He asked around and learned that there were no active phone lines in the basement. Thinking a wire must be crossed, he called the phone company to double-check the school's wiring, but they found nothing wrong and no active line tagged "basement."
Nightly the calls from the basement to Mike's office continued until, in frustration, he picked up the phone and shouted "I'm trying to get some work done. Would you please stop calling?" and slammed down the phone. There was an eerie silence throughout the building for about five minutes. Mike held his breath, waiting for the phone to ring again. And then BANG! a loud crack as if a gun were shot in the hallway broke the silence.
Mike grabbed his coat and rushed out the door to his car without securing the building. He sat in his car for what felt like an eternity, knowing that he had to either return to the building to lock it up and set the alarm system, or humbly call someone to lock the building for him. He crept back to the building, entering as quietly as possibly, set the alarm and rushed back out, locking the door behind him.
The next evening after everyone left, Mike called the basement number. The disconnected line did not ring and he was met, once again, with nothing but silence. "Hello," Mike said. "I don't know if you can hear me, but I'm sorry I yelled at you last night and it's really important for me to get my work done at night when noone else is around. So if you want to come up to my office and visit me, that's fine, but could you please stop calling?" The calls from the basement have not rang since.
There are more stories, but I do not want to overwhelm you, so I will post them later.
