Emeril.

Emeril.

A short story was written by

Chris Fortner

Based on a true-life event.

My name is Chris, when I was a child in the 90s, I had a strange encounter that would change my life forever. You know when you are a kid you do not have hang-ups on believing in what most people would not, and so sometimes you see things that an adult would not normally be able to see. My story takes place in a small town when I was age three. My parents had decided to go out to a friend's house for a night out. My parents and their friends who we will call John and Deborah had been talking and having a few drinks while I was playing with some toys and watching Disney movies. When it started getting late, I had been laid down to sleep in the spare room, the door was left cracked so that if I had awoken the adults would be able to hear me. Well fast forward a few hours and there was a sound like a child bouncing a ball from the floor to the wall and back again, my parents had thought it was the neighbor, but John and Deborah had stated that the neighbors next to them were gone for the week as well as the apartment above theirs having been unoccupied.

After roughly 30 minutes the door to the room in which I was asleep had slammed shut and I had started crying. All four of the adults had tried to get the door open and started to smell a distinct sharp odor like that of the old gas lanterns. When the door had finally opened and when my mother had asked me what had happened, I had told them that "the little boy's father would not let us out of the room. Well, me being a small child of course my statement held little validity, so my mom asked what the little boy's name was and what he looked like? So, I told her. "His name is Emeril, and he is taller than me (about 5) and was wearing short pants with overalls and shoes with no strings." The adults had become a little worried at this point because what three-year-old is going to come up with the name Emeril and the description that I had?

After a few days and some research, my mom had found that in the early 1900s the apartment building was used kind of like a halfway house for orphans and workhouse children. The owner who had a son around 5-10 years of age had locked the children in and killed himself and the children by setting fire with a kerosene heater. The end... No, it's not the end but more of an origin story. After this incident, I had gone on with an awfully close friend in the little boy. Now as an adult I realize his spirit became attached to me as I had been able to see him and acknowledge him providing some sort of normalcy and validity to him. As time had passed this ghost child was my best friend and confidant. I would talk to him play with him and he was like a normal friend to me, after a few years had passed he had disappeared, and I stopped seeing him. I believe that the companionship I had provided may not have been something he had experienced in life and had helped him move on.