by Ebun Lawore, Bad Habits Editor
This Halloween, everyone needs to stop worrying about killers, clowns, razorblades, and roofies and focus on the real threat at hand for the residents of Oberlin: ghosts. What? You decided to live in a town that's almost 200 years old and you didn’t think there would be ghosts around? Please wake the fuck up.
In order to educate the ignorant ones among us about the phantoms that surround us, I’ve decided to include here some very true ghost stories told by very real people, to show you all what is possible.
The most common ghosts you’ll find here are the Christian kind: either an orphan or a missionary. The thing is, this town used to be FULL of Christian missionaries. It was overflowing with them, and when those missionaries went on their very popular mission trips to China, and inevitably died there, the reigning anti-colonial spirits in China banished them back to the very town from whence they came. They are now all cursed to live in the purgatory that is watching this school stray farther from its roots, and closer to gay, deviant, liberal, and gay.
The orphan ghosts are the children of the missionaries who died in China. They were living in Tank until they all died in a fire. Oh, you don’t know about the Tank Fire? Don’t look it up.
Melody Seinfeld – Animorph Furry Grave
I first heard them during the Animorph Furry Rave in the basement of Tank a few weeks ago. I was dressed as a dolphin, and I had bought the new Meta echo-location earpiece in order to really commit to the bit. But during the transition from “Calling All the Monsters” into that one Underscores song, I started to hear a faint chant saying “I want my mommy, where’s my mommy?” I first was thinking that the DJ set was taking a strangely dark and experimental turn, but the chant only continued to grow stronger. It was debilitating, and everybody thought I was only freaking out because Aaron had accidentally spilled half a bottle of poppers into my Busch Apple. It was clear that no one else could hear it. I ran outside, ripped off my Meta earpiece and stomped it into the ground. “Damn you Katrinka!” I screamed. I knew I shouldn’t have trusted Tank’s resident witch to give me unethical technology that actually worked properly.
The sound subsided for about 10 minutes, but like three seconds into smoking my cigarette, the chant rushed back into my ears. It was like a wall of sound was surrounding me, and then the wall of sound turned into a wall of slightly translucent children. Half of them were crying for their mommies, and half of them were asking me if I was holding a candy stick and why my breath smelled like rotten apples and pool water. I actually started tweaking. It was like, no way I am hallucinating right now, I thought that poppers don’t work if you drink them? “Can you read me a Jesus story?” said one child, drooling out of his mouth and left ear. “When is my daddy coming home!” screamed one girl, prior to sinking her ghost teeth into my skin. After the chomp I immediately passed out on the floor, and woke up like ten hours later in the exact same spot. Katrinka found me, I told her what happened, and she was like, “Yup, same thing happened to me last monday. You're good.”
Lincoln Smith – Recon 101
It was a Tuesday morning at 10 am. I had just gotten out of my econ 101 midterm and decided to go sit in the Tappan Square arch to cry and pretend that I’m Rory Gilmore from Gilmore Girls trying to discover her purpose. Just as I started practicing aggressively whipping my scarf for dramatic effect, that’s when this man just appeared. Like genuinely, out of thin air. Of course I screamed and grabbed onto the post of the arch. And this apparition has the audacity to go:
“Fucking pansy.”
Like are you joking? Who says that in 2026? Especially at Oberlin in 2026? That’s when I noticed that this apparition looked oddly similar to my grandfather. Like, oddly. His gate was just as wide, his hair was equally minimal, and he reeked of the “holier than thou” stench that my grandfather loved to emit. So I decided to investigate.
“Excuse me, do you know Abraham Smith?
“Know Abraham Smith???” he replied. “I am Abraham Smith: Abraham Knowles Smith the second to be exact.”
“Ohhhhhh, I get it now. You’re the ghost of my Great Great Grandfather, the one who started living in this town like a billion years ago.”
“That is correct.”
“Okayyy, so then why the fuck are you here? And why are you kind of dressed like the guy who screams weird religious shit in front of Wilder but like if he was LARPing for a ren faire.”
“BECAUSE I WAS CURSED TO REMAIN HERE! To watch this once God-fearing community succumb to a fate such as Sodom and Gomorrah, because many believed that my actions on the mission in China were ‘unjustifiable’ and ‘borderline colonialist’ or whatever. Even still it is an exaggeration. I should not be helplessly forced to watch this town further itself into destruction, especially within my own bloodline.”
“What do you mean? I am doing fine.”
“You are a man wearing a scarf and crying! When I was your age I was dying in China for you.”
“Wasn’t that Jesus?
“No, he died in Israel.”
“You mean Palestine?”
The ghost then slapped me across the face. Apparently they can do that when they’re related to you. At least that’s what Katrinka said when we talked about it later. She told me “not to worry, just put some iced peas on your cheek and you’ll be good.”
