[ARCHIVIST'S NOTE: This was an article by Kurt Nowacki reposted by Becky Miller. The original author is Kurt Nowacki.]

From: "Kurt R. Nowacki" Subject: Haunted bookstore

I used to live and go to school in Stevens Point, a small city in central Wisconsin. During college, I worked a lot of different jobs, one of them as a clerk in a bookstore and another as a bartender in a restaraunt that happened to be right next to the bookstore. These were both along the main street and the buildings all along the street were very old; most were built in the mid to late 1800's. This is going to be a long post. Sorry about that, but I'd like to tell it.

When I first started working at the store, I kept hearing the other employees mention a ghost. They eventually told me that the bookstore was haunted. They were not kidding, and they said it with a straight face. Everyone that worked there absolutely believed in it. It was no big deal to them; they had gotten used to it, they said. I wasn't sure if they were just pulling my leg, seeing as I was the new guy. I guess I just assumed that that's what they were doing, because that was all they ever said about. No stories, no warnings, nothing. I eventually forgot about it.

Then, about two months later, I was closing up the store by myself. I had locked the door and was going up and down the aisles, making sure that everyone was gone. When I finished with that, I walked back up to the front and started counting the till. Pretty soon I heard the floor creaking. It was a very old building and it did this whenever anyone would walk over certain parts of it. I went and looked again and I made sure again that there was no one there. I resumed counting the till and I heard the creaking again. It went from the back of the store towards the front, and it was VERY distinct. I was not tired, I was not dreaming, I was not under the influence of any drug. I heard this.

Our magazines were kept in wooden shelves and people would pick them up, look at them and then 'PLUNK' them back down; this made a very distinct noise. When the creaking stopped, I heard the rustling of paper and then the 'PLUNK' of a magazine being dropped. I was scared to death! I couldn't move, and I heard another 'PLUNK' and then three very loud 'PLUNKs' right in a row. While this was going on I was desperately trying to find a rational explanation. There was no one in the store but me; I had checked twice. I had already straightened out the magazines before I closed, so there weren't any that were just settling in. There were no air currents in the store; I had shut the air conditioning off already. The only way that sound could be made was by dropping a magazine into the shelf.

After I came to the conclusion that there was no way this could be happening, the creaking started to move towards the front of the store again, towards me. That was the last straw. I threw the till into a cabinet, locked it quickly, and ran out the door, forgetting to lock it on my way out.

The next morning I came in early to explain to my boss why the door was unlocked and the till wasn't in the safe. I began with 'I'm sorry about what happened, but I heard something last night and-' Then she looked at me and smiled and said, 'Was the ghost looking at magazines again?' I almost fell over. I hadn't yet told a single person what had happened to me. There was no way she could have known. And since no one told me what went on with the ghost, I shouldn't have known about the magazine thing. My boss told me not to worry about it. Nothing bad ever happened. It just made a little noise, it never hurt anyone.

There were a few more instances like this. I did begin to get used to them, but I still didn't like it. And when we hired someone new, she went through the exact same thing. We told her it was haunted, she didn't believe us, she worked alone and heard it, and all of a sudden she didn't kid around about it anymore.

This next story is sort of a continuation or addendum. A few years later I got a job at a restaurant that was right next to the bookstore I used to work at. The bookstore was right in between the restaraunt and an old opera house, which was abandoned. I bartended at the restaurant and because of this I worked late a lot of the time. There was a rumor that the restaurant was haunted, but no one ever saw or heard anything unusual. One summer night, me, two other bartenders and a friend of mine were closing up. We swept, cleaned, etc. and finally finished up at about 3:30 am. We weren't tired yet, so we decided to go 'upstairs.' You see, the building that the bar was in had two stories, but the top floor was abandoned. There used to be small apartments and/or offices up there, but it was all empty now. We could get up there by using a doorway I had key to. People would go up there every once in awhile just to look around or scare the hell out of each other. There was no electricity up there and it got pretty dark and spooky.

So that night us four went up there just to relax. There was a small porch or deck that looked out over the alley behind the building. We could see the back entrance to the bookstore and the boarded up doors and windows of the opera house. We just stood on the porch with our elbows on the railing, a couple of the guys were smoking, and we just talked about the people we saw that night and some of the funny things that happened. Everybody was quiet for a minute, then all of a sudden we started hearing the 'CLOP, CLOP, CLOP' sound of horse's hooves! This was very loud and very clear and it was coming from the alley right under us. There was nothing in the alley, there hadn't been since we got up on the porch. An since it was almost 4 am, there was no traffic or people on the street. The sound was very clear and distinct. We all looked at each other our mouths hanging open; one of the guys actually lost his cigarette over the edge. The clopping sound lasted only about five seconds, and then we heard a horse whinny and snort. My mom owns a horse and I know exactly what one sounds like, and that was one. There were no more sounds after that. We just looked at each other for a second or two, and then eventually bolted down the stairs. We were scared out of our wits! The entrance came out right on the main street and we looked up and down, looking to see if there was anything there that could have made those noises. There wasn't, and I think we all knew that there wouldn't be. We were a little bit calmer by then, so I asked everyone what they had heard and they all said it was a horse, no doubts. We didn't imagine it, weren't tired or drunk or stoned or anything. All four of us heard exact same thing at the exact same time and we all heard it right up where we were standing. And we all agreed that there was nothing in the alley.

We have no idea what it was. I told them about the bookstore ghost and we thought that maybe the two had something to do with each other. I asked around a lot and no one seemed to know a story behind either occurrence. If you've got any ideas or comments, feel free to e-mail me. No flames please.