Please enjoy The Suzzzz's Strangerville Live story above, and today's ghost story below.
Skylar's mom visited Salt Lake City this weekend. Skylar was trying to find things to do to entertain her and at some point he made the interesting choice to ask and rely on me and Jolyn for advice, to which Jolyn responded before he even finished the question "TAKE HER ON A GHOST TOUR OR DON'T BOTHER COMING HOME."
There's a company that does these ghost tours of the city and for years Jolyn and I have wanted to go, but we've just never gotten around to it. As we understood it, you buy a ticket and then someone takes you around town on a bus and tells you ghost stories about all of the old creepy buildings and at the end you belong to Satan.
Skylar immediately found a groupon for 4 people and signed us all up.
A busload of serial cigarette smokers was waiting for us downtown on Saturday night near Temple Square. We took our seats somewhere near the back and settled in as creepy music played over our heads.
Eventually a man stood up and began a sermon-like introduction about how this tour would make even the most skeptical skeptics question their disbeliefs. We felt this was directed at Mr. I Only Believe In Science Skylar.
Then we began a journey around our town, stopping at the City & County Building to hear about a ghost bride who haunts the people who work there today.
And a cemetery where it's rumored that Butch Cassidy is buried.
And some old mansion where something or other happened to somebody or other.
And Skylar took very seriously his duty to keep track of the ghost monitor that the guide had given him at the beginning of the tour, occasionally informing the group when there was some activity.
That's not Skylar's hand. I wish it was. But it's not. That hand belongs to one of the other people who was monitoring the ghost activity. Skylar does not paint his nails. |
And the guide either loved or hated us and that's pretty much par for the course for me and Jolyn.
Things were going relatively as expected. And THAT'S when the best possible thing happened.
We had stopped in front of an old train depot and the guide was telling us all about a ghost woman who looks through the windows and she wears a purple dress and if you say "bloody Mary" three times and step on a crack it's 7 years of bad luck or something, when suddenly, a man with long hair approached the group and began yelling to the guide "I have something you will want to know!"
The train station is in a sort of sketchy part of town, and the moment the guide saw this guy coming, I noticed that he dropped the act a little and began subtly directing people back to the bus. I don't know if this is because this man is a regular interrupter or if this spot typically sees these kinds of interruptions or what, but the guide clearly was not interested in ceding tour time to an unscripted speech.
But it was kind of too late because the man already started addressing the group, giving a very dramatic account of seeing the purple-dressed ghost woman JUST THE DAY BEFORE when he was walking by as the guide was side stepping a little closer to the bus, continuing to subtly direct people to it as well.
The story went on for several minutes and I was starting to lose interest a little when suddenly the man paused and then said, "you need to be careful. I am a medium. And ghosts follow certain people. And I just noticed that there are two Sensitives in this group."
Everyone froze.
You guys.
It was so confusing.
Did I want to be one of the Sensitives or not!?
And before I could decide, he pointed at me and Jolyn and said "you are the Sensitives. Be careful and God speed."
And you better believe Jolyn and I were the most popular people on the ghost tour for the rest of the night and you better believe that we reminded the group every 3 or 4 minutes that we were Sensitives and therefore authorities, and you better BELIEVE that we lectured Mr. I Don't Believe In Science every time he rolled his eyes for the remainder of the night.
I am so adding "Medium Certified Sensitive" to my resume.
And now, a story told live by none other than The SuzzzzzZzzzzz
This time in Strangerville, the Suzzzz takes the Strangerville Live stage to explain why she plans to die alone in a house full of cats.StoryPass the Cats, by Suzanne Hickman (AKA, The Suzzzz)Production by Eli McCann and Meg Walter
~It Just Gets Stranger