My Induction Into Paranormal Life…Part III

At first it was fun, asking a supposed spirit questions and getting intelligent responses.  The other guests asked the spirit to blink the lights twice for yes as instructed by our guide, and asked several yes or no questions.  This went on for about 5 minutes until finally my colleague continued on with her tour. I personally didn’t ask any questions.  I didn’t really believe that what was happening was real.  Honestly, I thought that there was something in our guide’s pocket that she pressed to make the lights blink, and later; after all the guests had gone, she’d let me in on the trick.  I thought this way until approximately 30 seconds after she resumed speaking.  What happened after that 30 seconds passed started a chain of events that made me not only a believer in the effectiveness of using a K-2 meter to gauge energy fluctuations, but also in the legitimacy of the tour.  I no longer thought there would be secret “parlor tricks” I would be let in on after my training ended for the night, to impress the guests.  I realized that the ghost tour was exactly what it was advertised to be–a tour that took guests through the purportedly haunted hot spots of St Augustine, gave them a chance to take photos and capture evidence and possibly have experiences of their own.

I stood across the street with the other tour guests as our guide took us through the  history of this particular Inn.  As I listened to her give us the details of  how the ghost of a kindly old slave woman is said to reside on the top floor, I began to feel strange.  At first I felt dizzy, and I ignored it; assuming it was only a temporary thing, and would pass. Another minute or two went by, and I started feeling even more dizzy and light-headed–to the point that I removed my jacket thinking a blast of the chilly air would make me feel better.  It didn’t.  After another moment or two I had broken out in a cold sweat and felt awful.  I was nauseous and was doing all I could to remain vertical.  I started running down a mental checklist.  Had I eaten?  Was I locking my knees?  How many hours had it been since I’d eaten?  Yes, I’d eaten.  It had only been about 2 hours since I’d last eaten, and I wasn’t locking my knees.  So why was I feeling this way? I didn’t have a logical explanation for it.  I thought that maybe I was coming down with something; after all it was September and the flu had been going around. I had taken this job after being unemployed for going on 3 months, and I really needed it!  There was no way I was going to screw it up for myself by getting sick, so I was doing the best I could to ignore how I felt.

I remember our guide pointing to the upstairs window on the top story of the building as she spoke and as I looked up to see the window of the room she was referring to, my gaze was caught by movement over to the left.  I noticed there was a porch swing on the back patio.  Because of the angle I was standing in relation to the patio, most of the swing was obscured.  I could tell it was a porch swing by the chain as well as a small part of the back, seat, and arm that were visible to me from where  stood.  I also noticed that the swing was moving back and forth. By this time I was really feeling lousy, and I didn’t want to embarrass myself by falling out in front of all our guests into the street.  I remember one of the guests asking me something, and I pretended not to hear her.  I was intently concentrating on not tossing my cookies into the street, and I was afraid that if I opened my mouth to answer her, that was exactly what would happen.  Not a great way to start a job or make a good impression!  I focused on the part of the swing I could see.  Back and forth, back and forth.  Concentrating on that instead of how awful I felt seemed to help somewhat.

Soon we were off in the direction of the patio as some of the guests had asked to take a peek since this was one of the only B&Bs in the historic city with a pool.  We all followed our guide to the patio.  As I rounded the corner where the swing was, I noticed a chain across it with a sign that said, “Please do not use the swing. It is in the process of being painted.”  I reached for my phone to take some shots of the swing and realized that the battery was dead.  I had taken pictures at the previous stop and the battery had been at 80%.  Shrugging off the confusion,  I walked over to our guide and asked her to let the guests know to take some shots of the swing.  They did, and one of the women came up to us to show us what she’d captured.  In the middle of the swing in one of her photos was an anomaly that appeared almost like a wisp of smoke, but too opaque to be smoke.  It was in sort of an S-shape.  In the next photo, it was gone.  My coworker asked me why I’d asked the guests to take pictures of the swing.  Did I know something would be there? I told her that I’d seen it moving only minutes before, and really expected to see guests sitting there when we came around the corner.  We all agreed that was a bit strange, and after speculating for a few moments on what it could be, we again turned our attention to our guide.

We left the patio, went back around the side of the building again, and our guide began telling us about experiences guests had in the room next to the one inhabited by Ms. Lilly, the kindly old woman. She said that this room had an energy that was the only negative energy documented there.  She mentioned that the experiences were documented mainly by men who stayed in the room and began describing them.  She described them feeling as though they were being held down in the bed, unable to move, and finding it hard to breathe.  She also mentioned all the symptoms I had experienced just moments before.  She said the entity in that room was thought to be a Succubus.  (If you aren’t familiar, a succubus is a demonic type of entity.  It is thought to be a rather sexual energy that seeks out men for its victims.)  Because she said it was thought to be a succubus, I figured my experience was probably nothing more than just being tired, the onset of the flu, or something I ate.  Although I felt off throughout the rest of the tour, I did start to feel a little better as the night went on.

The tour ended, my coworker and I parted ways, and I made my way up St. George street and back to the prepay lot where I had parked my car.  I remember feeling a presence behind me, like I was being followed.  I even looked over my shoulder behind me a few times, but didn’t see anyone.  I got in my car, checked the back seat, locked the doors, started it and began my hour long journey home.  I remember thinking to myself that I was not going to like walking back to my car at night in the dark.  I’d never been to St. Augustine at night by myself before; frankly, I normally don’t go anyplace I’m not really familiar with at night. I figured this was the reason that walking to my car had me feeling out of sorts. As I drove home, the closer I got to my house, and around familiar surroundings, the better I started to feel.  I arrived home and walked into the house.  Instantly, I felt a huge feeling of relief.  There was no more nausea, no more fear, no more dizziness.  My husband was waiting up to see how my night went and I proceeded to tell him about it.  I told him that I didn’t want him to worry, and since I felt better I figured it was just a case of my overactive imagination getting the better of me.  We both agreed that was the most logical explanation.  It wasn’t until a few days later when I spoke to my friend; who was also the tour manager, that I began to realize that wasn’t the case.

…to be continued…