Friday the 13th: For some people, this date simply means bad luck. For others, it means avoiding dark alleys and sleeping with the lights on. What sort of dark secrets will students discover on this evilest night as they walk home alone from the library?
Many students at the Puget Sound unwittingly practice the perpetuation of common myths and superstitions, such as lucky pens or places to study. Most of these superstitions are innocuous, but some myths can be more unsettling.
There are a few enigmatic presences on the University grounds that bewilder every generation of new students.
One popular myth is that of Ted Bundy, the serial killer who infamously walked these halls during his youth. Every student hears the rumor that bodies were hidden in the walls of their dorm—in abandoned elevator shafts, deep under the basement, even under the floors of the very rooms where they sleep.
The tale is passed on from generation to generation. As freshmen, some students told each other stories of wailing or crying coming from empty rooms, perhaps abandoned because of some malign spirit that haunts them.
Other sources of mystery come from the places that no one sees: a random locked room in the basement of the library, the tunnels underneath the frat houses, locked basements on Theme Row with no access points.
Members of campus security claim to have had access to them, and say that nothing suspicious appears inside, but are their stories trustworthy, or are they holding the dark secrets of the Puget Sound underworld at the behest of their superiors?
Strange markings on the back of the sign that welcomes you as you drive onto the University grounds suggest some sort of eldritch secret too dark to be written in any discernible language.
Even Professor John Wesley, who teaches a course on linguistics here at the University, failed to bring students to a satisfying conclusion about the nature of the markings.
What sort of places do you avoid on Friday the 13th? Do you walk by the creepy abandoned house on Alder with trepidation? Do you take a route home that does not take you by the dark and foreboding wood behind the President’s house? Or do you stride along without fear of what might be lurking in the darkness as you go about your business?
