Some years ago, when I was at university, my neighbors were three lads my own age. Over time, we became good mates. One day, the sister of one of them decided to play with a Ouija board alongside some 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 hearing himself called, he thought it far more interesting to stay. After that, they tried more than once to convince him to move on, but he always refused. At first, we only heard tales from those three girls about their supposed encounters with Alfie.
No one else had seen or heard a thing, so we struggled to believe them. Still, my mates had a strange habit. Every time someone visited, they’d ask Alfie not to scare them. They promised that once the guest left, they’d play with him. It was like a ritual, repeated with every visit.
One evening, the four of us sat in the lounge chatting—it must’ve been around four or five—when a football began rolling slowly down the hallway until it stopped at one lad’s feet. I saw it but pretended not to notice. I told myself it must’ve been the wind, or at least I wanted to believe that. My mate picked up the ball with a grin and gently rolled it back down the hall.
Fifteen or twenty minutes passed, and the ball came rolling back again… right to his feet. This time, I’d been watching the hallway. I wanted to see if there wasn’t so—
