Some years ago, when I was at university, my neighbours were three lads around my age. Over time, we became close mates. One day, one of their sisters decided to play with a ouija board alongside a few friends, and that’s how they summoned a boy—who, for this story’s sake, we’ll call Alfie.
According to what the boy told them, he’d been on his way to heaven, but when he heard them calling, staying seemed far more interesting. From then on, they tried more than once to convince him to move on, but he always refused. At first, we only heard stories from those three girls and their supposed encounters with Alfie.
No one else had seen or heard a thing, so it was hard to believe them. Still, my mates had a strange habit. Every time someone visited, they’d ask Alfie not to scare them. They’d promise that once the guest left, they’d play with him. It was like a ritual, repeated with every visit.
One afternoon, the four of us were sitting in the lounge chatting—must’ve been around four or five—when a football slowly rolled down the hallway and stopped at one lad’s feet. I saw it but pretended not to notice. I told myself it could’ve been the draft, or at least that’s what I wanted to believe. My friend picked up the ball with a grin and gently rolled it back down the hall.
About fifteen or twenty minutes passed, and the ball came rolling back… right to his feet again. This time, I’d been watching the hallway closely, trying to see if there wasn’t any—
