Ghost Stories Compilation

Fun times in the University

I had a fun time in my old university -- it was an ancient place brimming with superstitious beliefs and ghost tales.

I live in the Philippines, and I’m talking about the University of the Philippines Los Baños (UPLB). It’s one of the oldest (first college established in 1909) and largest premiere universities in the country; it’s at the foot of a mountain (and actually extends to about halfway to the top); and within its grounds are a couple of high schools.

So it’s big, it’s old, and it’s steeped in Philippine culture, which is in and of itself rich in unique creepy crawlies, ghouls, and spirit-beings touched by native, Spanish, American, and Japanese influences. It’s basically a great, big, boiling cauldron of creepy-ass stories.

I remember this one urban legend of a sophomore student studying for his exam late into the night. At around 3AM he looked up and saw a jogger by his window. Some people like to jog real early around the campus and Freedom Park, so he thought it was no big deal. The jogger invited him to join, but he said he needed to finish reviewing, and so he buried his face back into his studies. A few minutes later he remembered he was in the fourth floor of his dormitory and out his window is just a sheer straight drop.

The dormitories are fun. Students keep hearing and seeing stuff, and urban legends abound.

So I never really believed in spirits or the afterlife.

One night, when the student publication was up all night finishing an issue (we did this nearly daily – or nightly – back in the day), something happened that led to me revising my views on the matter. Our offices are at the second floor of the Student Union building – the empty (and dark, since we’re working throughout the night) Freedom Park is in front of it, a road and a shrine of (we call it “Mariang Banga” or Mary of the Jar), a river is behind it, and a parking lot is to its left adjacent to Baker Hall; the one place in all the lower campus that everyone agrees is  haunted.

Basically, the SU building is like a perfect location for a horror shoot.

We were always the only ones left in the building, with just a single night shift guard keeping watch on the first floor, and typically all the lights in the building are off except for the second floor hallway that also slightly illuminated the stairs and our office.

My pals and I just got back after visiting a 7-11 for some presswork food, as we called it. We rushed through the front door, up the two flights of stairs and straight to the office. We noticed that one of us was missing – but a few minutes later he caught up too. But something was off.

He was pale; he didn’t speak a word for a few minutes. He just stared at the wall.

When we noticed and asked him about it, he said he was the last one of us to reach the foot of the stairs, but he didn’t ascend immediately because he saw a kid hugging her knees with her head snuggled against her forearms. She was in the far corner of the area beneath the stairs. She had long hair and she wore a white-ish dress that covered her ankles.

Our pal froze, unsure of what he was seeing. This guy wasn’t particularly brave,but he was curious.

So he edged closer, peculiarly aware of how unlikely it is for some random kid to be sleeping in that position in a dark corner under the stairs of a guarded building so late at night. So his brain was asking what the hell else could it be and why was he moving toward it?

But then he said the kid jumped. She didn’t change her position, she just jumped, all curled up like a ball, and landed back in the same spot without changing position. And he ran.

Upstairs he went, slowing his pace as he reached our office door, and with all the composure he could muster he went in and thought long and hard about how fucked up that experience was.