The only other explanation was that I really did see and touch and talk to a man that only I could see. I really did talk to what could only be described as a naked ghost with light beaming out of his eye sockets. I have to say I went to bed that night preferring to think that I had fried my brain with too much sun.
I tossed and turned in bed that evening, unable to shake the encounter with Mike. As much as I tried to convince myself that I had hallucinated the whole thing, I just couldn't accept it.
"His name is Mike Hermanson..." I muttered as I crawled out of bed, careful not to rouse my wife. I found my way down to the computer room and plopped myself down in front of the terminal. I typed his name into google and searched.
Not surprisingly, Mike Hermanson was a common name and so I narrowed down the search by adding the name of my hometown. The first thing to pop up was an archived news story from a local news website. The story was from the summer of 2006. Local man, named Mike Hermanson, aged 36, drowned while swimming at Lake Corlaw.
There was no picture of him, so I did a few more searches, and scoured a few more local news websites to see what I could come up with. I couldn't find a picture of him and the only other tidbit of information about him on the web was that he had been a seasonal worker. I kind of knew what that meant; vagrants from all over come to work in my hometown during the summer to pick fruit. You see these dirty looking hippie types hitch hiking all over, working at one orchard then the next, getting paid by the barrel or bushel or whatever the fuck for picking whatever fruit is ripe at the time.
I sat quietly trying to process all the information. It was obvious which of the three explanations had been right. This was without a doubt someone's idea of a joke. This fucking guy claiming to be Mike knew I would look up the name, and thought I was dumb enough to fall for this.
"Why though? Why?" I asked myself. Was it possible that all this time I had been thinking the creepiest and weirdest thing at that beach had been the gay orgies, but maybe all those people thought I was the creepy, weird one, so much so that they wanted to scare me off their beach? I know that sounds crazy, but when you've been kind of a social misfit like I have all your life, you get a little paranoid that people are conspiring against you.
I went back to bed, this time determined that I would go back to the beach in the morning and get some answers.
The next morning I left to go to the beach. I didn't stop and buy my usual six pack, I just rehearsed everything I was going to say to this "Mike" guy over and over again in my head. I'm sure any shy, introverts reading this can relate. You always rehearse this shit in your head and no matter how many times you do, the fucking conversation never goes the way you imagine it.
As I was rehearsing, other thoughts kept popping up and interrupting me. Like, what about the eyes? How did he do that with his eyes? I don't know, maybe it was just the way the sun reflected off his sunglasses when he took them off, or maybe he didn't actually take them off, maybe he just turned his head enough that the sun reflected straight off the lenses. Ok, well what about his hand? It was so cold and clammy.. I don't know maybe he is sick, maybe he was just in the water... I debated and re analyzed everything a hundred times before I finally made it to the beach.
I got out of my car and hiked down to the the lake. The first person I saw, standing on the beach, as if waiting for me, was "Mike". He had his sunglasses on again (or maybe he had never taken them off). Before yesterday I had never seen Mike do anything other than his usual creeper routine, yet today he was standing completely alone in the middle of the beach. Watching me.
It was early so there wasn't many other people there. I only counted 3 other couples, the closest being about 25 feet away from Mike. I walked right up and faced him.
"You think this is funny?" I asked.
"Not at all, man." He replied.
"Why are you doing this?" I hissed, "Did someone put you up to this?"
"I'm not doing anything, man." He replied, then briefly adjusted his sunglasses and, for one horrifying second, I thought he was going to take them off again.
"Do many people fall for this ghost wearing sunglasses prank or am I the first person you've tried this on?" I demanded to know.
"You're the first person that has seen me since I've been like this." He replied.
"Oh just give it up. This is pointless." I insisted.
"What more can I do to prove this to you?" He asked, then added, "Let me try this."
He then took a step back and opened his mouth and let out an ear splitting, earth shattering scream. I quickly clamped my hands over my ears and staggered backwards. He stopped screaming and started scanning the area.
"What the fuck?.." I gasped and looked around. None of the other couples, even the closest ones were looking our way. None had seemed to notice Mike's scream.
"How do you explain that?" He asked calmly. I collected my thoughts and replied.
"They are in on it, they are all in on it." I said shaking my head trying to get my ears to stop ringing.
"Man," he sighed. "This would be so much easier if you were a woman."
"Women are easier to fool?" I asked finally feeling some vindication.
"No you don't get it, even though no one can see me or hear me, people can feel my presence." He walked back towards me. "Men always seem to shrug me off as a figment of their imagination, women on the other hand, I don't know if they are more intuitive or what, but they seem to acknowledge my presence. Couples have a hard time ignoring me too because, if they both feel my presence and they know the other person is feeling my presence, it's impossible for them to completely pass me off as figment of imagination. At least that's what I've been able to come up with in the years that I've been here."
"You've been doing this for years?" I asked, feeling like I was letting myself fall right into a trap.
"I died in 2006, and I'm sure you know that as well. I know I was a real nobody but I bet they wrote about my death on the internet. I know you found out for yourself."
"I read about your death, you drowned here in the summer of 2006."
"I've counted like 5 or 6 summers here since then man. I spent the first summer running around screaming at people, trying to grab a hold of people, doing anything to get someone's attention. Nothing ever worked. No one ever saw me or heard me, and some force stopped me from touching people. That same invisible force stopped me from leaving this beach or these woods. I am stuck here man."
"So why do you creep on these people like you do?" I asked, again not sure why I was letting myself get dragged into this conversation, (this isn't how I had rehearsed things going at all).
"Sometime during my second summer here I found that if I sat next to someone quietly and concentrated on that person, I could get them to acknowledge my existence. You have no idea how much that meant to me... I can't explain it, man...I think you'd have to be in my predicament to understand."
"If what you're saying is true, then I'm the first person in 6 years who has actually seen you and conversed with you."
"Yes man, I don't know how or why that is, but you have to help me."
"Help you? Help you with what?"
"You have to help me get off this beach man."
