There are some things you only do once.
For me, one of them was touching a Ouija board.
This was my senior year of college, back when life was still measured in late-night pizza, half-finished homework, fraternity chaos, and the kind of friendships that form fast when you survive Sig Ep rush and hell week together.
That’s where Tim came in.
Tim was one of those guys everybody liked without effort. Funny without trying. The kind of person who could sit with you at two in the morning while you were both pretending to study and somehow turn it into the best conversation of the week.
He drove an orange Chevy pickup with a white cab—loud enough that you always knew when he was pulling up.
And then one night, he didn’t.
He was out visiting friends outside of town when a tire blew on a gravel road. He lost control. The truck rolled.
And just like that, he was gone.
When you’re that age, death feels like something that belongs to older people. Grandparents. Distant relatives. Not the guy you were laughing with three days ago.
We couldn’t process it.
So we did what college guys do when we don’t know how to handle grief.
We sat in the basement rec room, played foosball, and kept saying his name like maybe repetition could make it less true.
One night, a few of us were down there doing exactly that—telling stories, laughing at stupid memories, pretending we were fine.
Then Matt said it.
“What if we just asked him?”
I remember staring at him.
Before I could even ask what he meant, he disappeared upstairs and came back holding a Ouija board.
Now, I had read enough Ed and Lorraine Warren books to know this was already a bad idea.
I knew exactly the kind of stories that started with people saying,
“This will be funny.”
And ended with priests.
But grief makes people stupid.
And college makes them worse.
So we sat down around an old round table in the basement, dim light, stupid bravery, and all.
At first, nothing happened.
We asked questions.
Silence.
We asked more.
Still nothing.
Then the planchette moved.
Just a little.
Every one of us immediately accused everyone else of pushing it.
Nobody admitted to anything.
And I knew I hadn’t moved it.
So we kept going.
Question after question.
And it answered.
Slowly. Deliberately.
Some of the responses felt like things Tim would’ve said. Little jokes. Familiar patterns. Enough to make the room go quiet.
Enough to make you want to believe.
But not enough for me.
Someone decided we needed proof.
For some reason, they picked me to ask.
I already knew exactly what I was going to say.
“Prove to us you’re Tim. Tell us your pledge name.”
That answer should have been easy.
Every Sig Ep pledge name sticks with you forever.
Tim’s was Crocket.
The planchette moved.
Letter by letter.
We all watched.
And it was wrong.
Not close.
Not a mistake.
Wrong.
I felt every bit of color leave my body.
Because in every Warren book I’d ever read, there was one rule they repeated over and over:
Evil spirits lie.
They tell you what you want to hear first.
They earn trust.
Then they stay.
I didn’t wait for another question.
I grabbed that planchette, shoved it hard across the board to GOODBYE, and said, probably louder than necessary,
“We’re done.”
Nobody argued.
We left that basement so fast I’m pretty sure someone almost left a shoe behind.
And the strangest part?
We never talked about it again.
Not once.
No follow-up.
No “remember that crazy night.”
Nothing.
Like all of us had silently agreed that pretending it never happened was safer than finding out if it had.
I can’t speak for the others.
But I know I didn’t sleep much that night.
And I know this for certain—
I have never touched a Ouija board again.
If this resonated with you, you’re not alone.
