Flagstaff, Arizona carries lots of history and odd yet interesting stories. Trees there smell like vanilla and it is located along the famous (get your kicks on) Route 66. The Grand Canyon is just minutes away and the natural sites around the city are fabulous. This story is not about the beautiful scenery nor is it about selling Flagstaff as a great vacation spot. This story is about spook and chills. It is about a building and its eeriness.
My good friend Jennifer worked at an old movie theater. We met while I attended Northern Arizona University. She would drive around town with huge movie reels sticking out the back seat of her white convertible VW Bug. I would sit on the reels to make sure they would not fly out the back of her car. She would transport the reels to her place of employment, the Orpheum Theater.
Photo Courtesy of Orpheumpresents.com
One fine autumn evening, Jennifer asked if I would like to watch the movie she had to work on that particular day. I cannot recall the movie – it is of little importance other than it had some suspenseful moments with tigers and heart racing music. Before showing me the tiger movie, she took me on a tour through the building. Jennifer showed me the booth she worked in and the back offices. The theater was empty except the two of us. She also showed me the doors one next to and one at the back of the theater screen. The theater had an underground tunnel that skirted under it as well as other buildings in the downtown area but the tunnel was closed off. It was closed because the tunnel was not secure and could collapse. Jennifer explained the tunnel was a place where many people experienced paranormal sightings. A man tired from building the tunnel told his partners to carry on and took a nap along its dirt path. He was never to be found again. It is reported Jack was sighted many times in the windows of those doors screaming for help decades after his disappearance. A filtered image of a little girl in a white pioneer dress could be seen on days it would snow hard. She could be heard singing hymns and seen circling around with her little porcelain doll all through the theater.
After learning the theaters history we grabbed a huge garbage bag of the leftover popcorn from earlier that night along with a big soda. It was 2 a.m. and the night sky pitch black. I sat alone in the seating area. Jennifer sat in the booth above winding a reel while I watched the movie. In a particular scene where the tigers were leaping out at people and with my heart already thumping… I saw a glimmer of white in the doors below. My heart flew out of my body - then back in again when I looked closer and saw the outline of a man in the window of the door to the tunnel. I sat in a silent shock with my eyes stuck wide open. I could not believe what I saw as the outline came closer and closer to me. The image disappeared for a few seconds then I heard thump, thump, thump then a loud shout of anger. I turned my head, screamed at the top of my lungs and threw the giant bag of popcorn up into the air. I covered my head as though I were experiencing an earthquake and trembled with popcorn raining all around.
An odd sound happened immediately after. I could hear shrieks of laughter. Curious, I peered up over my folded arms and saw a live person standing beside me. A few seconds later, my friend Jennifer showed up next to him laughing hysterically. Her boss showed up to check on something and discovered Jennifer had a guest. Instead of coming up politely to my seat and introducing himself, he decided to scare the insides out of me. It worked and I sighed with relief it was not Old Man Jack from the spooky story I heard an hour earlier. I tucked all my insides back in and greeted him with a proper handshake while I felt like slapping him upside the head.
A distant sound could be heard and we all stopped in silence. We could hear some sort of music. We walked out toward the front doors where we could see snow drifting outside through the windows. We heard the sound louder and stepped off toward the back offices. I stopped dead in my tracks then sighed a relief knowing this must be another trick up the bosses sleeve. Then I looked at the faces of my friend and her boss. They were stark white and shaking. I immediately realized this was for real - no spoof.
She was a beautiful little girl with dark brown ringlets under her white bonnet. She had a sad tone to her singing. She was gripping her knees sitting on the floor rocking back and forth. She sang I Need Thee Every Hour and played with the laces on her boots with one hand. She looked up suddenly with a startled expression then disappeared from our sight. We all grabbed each others hands and quickly gathered our belongings and picked up the popcorn as fast as we could. We looked around us every few minutes at any little tinkle or bump in the theater. Within 5 minutes we were done and out of the theater driving off into the dark of that snowy night. Forever the imprint will be on my mind of the Pioneer Princess sadly rocking in the old Orpheum theater.
This story is an entry to Hair Raising Ghost Story at Crash Test Dummy Diaries.
