Walk Home

There’s a ghost that haunts the outskirts of campus. At least that’s the urban legend passed down to each new generation of first years.

No one is quite sure when it started. Some claimed the appearances began in the 80s. Others claimed to have seen her as early as the late 60s.

The origin of the story might be known, but enough students had experienced the phenomenon that it was hard to not have doubts about whether it was true. The encounters were so prolific they had even become a talking point on visitation tours to prospective students. Another thing to set the campus apart from everywhere else.

The stories started the same with a late-night walk home. The person was always alone when she appeared, making it that much more difficult to prove.

Like a mirage under the flickering lights of street lamps, she would step out of the shadows. The ones who had enjoyed too many drinks might stumble past her, but the ones that hadn't pushed their alcoholic limit would always stop. That was the thing about her. She wasn't a vengeful spirit. She wasn't there to scare or frighten them. Instead, a calmness radiated from her that made even the most anxious students feel secure.

Maybe it was the blonde curls or the faded band t-shirt that elicited a sense of familiarity. She looked just like any other student walking home from a party. There was no tell-tale paleness to her appearance or an opaqueness of her skin. By all accounts, there was nothing ghostly about her.

A conversation would ensue. Always something trivial. “How was your night?” “Where are you going?” “Where did you get your shirt?” “What’s your major?”

They would walk and talk, the time slipping away until the person found themselves standing outside their door. Most never remembered mentioning their address or asking to be walked home, but they always ended up at their front door.

Sometimes the girl would walk away, disappearing down the sidewalk into the night. Other times she would be gone when they turned around from unlocking their door. Many questioned whether she had been there at all or if they had eaten the wrong brownies at the party.

Of course, there were other variations too. Sometimes she would appear right after a lonely girl was cat-called, her middle finger raised as the moonlight reflected off her various rings. Other times she would guide a drunken frat boy home from another night of hazing.

It wasn’t until she disappeared from their doorstep that they realized she wasn’t another college kid. They had been walked home by the urban legend. The ghost of a girl from the 80s. Or maybe the late 60s? It was hard to remember.

Curious students had found nothing in university archives to point to her identity. No homicides or missing persons. Not even a mugging that matched the description of a 5' 5" ghostly blonde girl.

It's funny how stories change with time. How details can become fuzzy and simple word changes can have profound effects, like a pebble against the surface of a pond. Maybe if they had paid a bit more attention when she appeared they would have seen the holes in the story. They might have noticed it wasn't a Mötley Crüe t-shirt she was wearing, but a Blink-182 merch shirt from their Pop Disaster Tour. Or that her hair was not fastened with scrunchies, but fell straight-ironed past her shoulders, with curls protruding seemingly at random. They would have no way of knowing she meticulously determined where each curl appeared.

The central ghoul has to be at least a few decades old to constitute a true ghost story, right? There is no such thing as a ghost from this millennium.

With that thinking, they would never know the truth. They would never find her story lost in the pages of the student gazette written by a 2004 alumnus. They would never know why she frequented the back alleys of a state school when she had all of the afterlife waiting for her. What unfinished business could she possibly have?

Someone rounded the corner of Blake and Oakmont. He steadied himself against the dim street lamp post. A few more steps and he stumbled again, barely catching himself before enjoying a nice drunken meal of gravel and dirt.

"Hey," she said, walking up behind him. "Were you at the Gamma Mu party too?"

He looked at her through bleary eyes. She kind of looked like a girl he had been watching. Not watching. That was too creepy of a word. A girl he had noticed. “Yeah, but I’m in T-Rho.”

She fell into step beside him. “What was a Theta Rho boy doing at a Gamma Mu party?”

“My roommate is in it.”

"Looks like it was a fun party."

"I thought you said you were there?" he might have been stumbling, but his mind still worked a little.

She laughed at something only she understood. “I didn’t say I was at the party. I just met a few people leaving it. You looked like you might be another victim of their jungle juice.”

He nodded. "Whatever they put in that stuff is strong."

"I'm sure it was nothing a T-Rho can't handle, though?"

This girl was odd. He thought he had seen her at the party, but she claimed she wasn’t there. Now she was talking to him, a stranger, at 2 in the morning, making jokes about his frat as if she knew all his brothers personally. “Where are you coming from?”

They were on North Avenue now, only a block from his house. A group of girls walked past, all dressed in varying shades of pink and purple. As they passed, he moved aside, but the girl was no longer standing next to him. He looked back at the pink mob, but she hadn't been swept up with them.

“Nowhere in particular, I just like walking at night.” A voice said to his right.

She was back, standing on the grass next to the sidewalk. When did she move? Had she ever been gone?

“Isn’t that a little dangerous?”

She shrugged, “When you live on a campus haunted by Casper the friendly ghost, you realize there is not much to be scared of.”

“You believe the stories?”

“You don’t?”

He heard about the stories the first night in his dorm. A girl on his floor mentioned it.

“Do I believe the story about a ghostly hippie that walks drunk college kids home at the end of the night? Honestly, it sounds like an elaborate marketing ploy to enroll more kids and pay less for off-campus security.”

She laughed again. He wasn’t trying to be funny, but maybe it was humorous.

“That’s the first time I’ve been…” she paused, “...heard her described as a ‘ghostly hippie’.”

"That is just my take on her."

"Well, I would love to hear more about your takes, but I think you should get some water and go to bed."

They were standing on his porch. When had they walked up the steps?

"Oh um…you want to come in and have a beer? I can tell you all about how I think they put laxatives in the dining hall food." She might have been odd, but there was something ethereal about her too. Besides, he hadn't had much luck at the party. Now might be the universe giving him a second chance. Why else would a girl walk all the way back to his house?

"I'm not much of a drinker anymore." She turned and walked down the steps. "Also…" she called over her shoulder, "...if you are going to ask a girl to come inside, I would at least introduce yourself first."

“I’m…” he started to say, but she was already a house away.

'Ghostly hippie.' Maybe the stories would start describing her as a flower child from the 70s. It wasn't the worst decade to be associated with. She looked back at the guy's house. He was fumbling with the key in the lock.

Each walk home added a new layer. She had learned that years ago. Stories change, that is the way things go.