Bloorp.

In the company of Charlie: Part I

Halloween calls for a true ghost story. Whether or not you believe in ghosts, there’s no denying that some strange occurrences are void of logical explanation. Here is the tale of my close encounter with the ghoulish kind.

I was a staff reporter for my city newspaper in the summer of 2003. When I headed into work, I entered from the rear parking lot. Once you step through the door, you pass through a large, dim storage area. Tiny windows cast beams of opaque light on cardboard boxes, steel shelves and a cardboard cutout of a man and woman decked out in hula gear.

A sliding cage wall separates the storage items on the far side of the room. I know it’s there because they don’t want people going in, but my wild imagination wonders if it’s trying to keep something out. Which is ridiculous because we’d know if something was back there. The interspersed junk behind the cage wall couldn’t possibly provide a decent hiding spot.

Unless there’s no need a hiding spot.

One person in the newsroom will get the 2 to 10 p.m. shift and and I’ll always remember my first time. When rest of the team was leaving for the day, I whined to Dave and Joe about being alone for the rest of the evening—or, at least, until Declan came back from a late all-candidates meeting

“Don’t worry,” said Dave casually. “You’ll have Charlie to keep you company.”

Joe chuckled. I raised an eyebrow.

“Charlie?” I repeated. “Who’s Charlie?”

“Charlie’s ghost,” Dave corrected himself. His casual tone kills me sometimes. “He’s 36 years old, he’s a former employee of this building, and he’s been living in the back storage area for the last three years. Ask Joe, he wrote a story about it.”

Immediately I turned to Joe. Turns out he’d recently interviewed an 80-year-old man who’s spent over $35,000 over the past decade learning how to exorcise ghosts and spirits. When he came to the office to have his picture taken, he was waiting by the reception area at the other end of the building and could still feel a presence.

Joe showed him to the back, and there The Ghost Man discovered Charlie. A benign Charlie.

That was all I needed to know.

Dave soon left and Joe was on his way out. I didn’t like the thought of walking through the back at 10 p.m. to reach my car. But Joe had a brilliant idea—I’d move my car to the front of the building so I wouldn’t have to leave through the back.

We headed through the back together and we stopped when we reached the storage area. Right in front of the cage wall. “Here, let me show you where Charlie lives,” he said. Joe pointed to the far corner of the room, where there was a second cage wall and stacked boxes on shelves below a tiny window. “There, right there.”

I stared at the boxes. “Hi, Charlie,” I called out, waving apprehensively. I don’t think I’d have been so brave if Joe weren’t there.

We turned to head for the door. But something compelled me to turn around and suddenly, a man was standing behind us. I jumped. He gave me a strange look.

“Oh!” I cried, then tried to compose myself when I realized he was one of the distributors. I pointed at the cage. “Hey, um, did you know there’s a ghost back named Charlie?”

He laughed and walked out the exit. I turned to Joe with wide eyes, hissing, “Did you see him coming?!”

“No, I didn’t! It was like he came out of thin air.”

I moved my car, bid Joe a good night and headed back to the newsroom. Alone.

I was afraid of the dark as a kid and slept with a nightlight and my bedroom door wide open. Every little noise would cause me to bury myself deeply under the covers, and I’d shut my eyes to shut out the scary unknown.

But some 20 years later, in a grown-up office with all the lights on, I felt like that little girl more than ever. Being alone in an unfamiliar place with a ghost story didn’t help.

I kept busy, but every clank startled me and I had two hours to go until I could escape. It was shaping up to be the longest two hours of my life.

A miracle happened around 8 p.m. The door opened and relief flooded through me when the managing editor walked in.

“I’m so glad you’re here! I was afraid of being alone all night with Charlie the ghost.”

He chortled. “You know, I’ve been coming in late to work for the last…I don’t even remember how many years, and Charlie has never bothered me,” he assured, like a father to a child. “If there is a ghost, he’s harmless.”

Twenty minutes later, miracle number two happened: Declan came back.

Okay, so I was feeling pretty stupid. I’m still undecided about ghosts, like doubting the existence of Santa Claus but believing in his spirit. Only no one’s afraid of Santa Claus.

I wish that was the last I had to hear about Charlie, but as my luck would have it, another late night shift that summer gave me a real reason to get the adrenaline pumping… (For Part II, read on.)