O'Neill's Ghostories: Baby Shea

"Baby Shea"
from M. I. J.
Hailing From: Leakey, Texas
Where it Happened: Laity Lodge Youth Camp, 1994

My story begins on a warm summers night in the middle of July. It was the summer after my first year of college and my best friend had landed me a job at the Laity Lodge Camp. I was not looking forward to returning home for the summer, as I had grow accustomed to life away from the small town in which I was raised. The job my friend got for me though was away from home so I promptly accepted the offer.

There were a total of four of us that worked together that summer. Myself, my best friend Christopher, another good friend Robeirto, and a distant relative of mine Joelito. Our job's main responsibility was to cater breakfast, lunch, and dinner to the campers at the adult retreat center of the camp. We were roughly all the same age, a wild bunch that was happy to be reunited after high school. We were the only young people at the adult retreat center and were not allowed to mingle with the young attractive counselors from the youth center who were all our age.

One day while we were jogging up the camps long and escalated entrance we engaged in conversation with some of the female counselors who were doing the same. The conversation continued and ended in a late night invitation to meet and talk some more. We gladly accepted and parted ways.

We anxiously awaited until 11:00 that evening. Finally we began our journey to the other side of the camp were the youth center cabins were located. The trip was about 800 yards and 700 of that was along the shallow river bed. We strapped on our river shoes, equipped ourselves with a flash light and off we went. Time passed and we finally arrived at the cabin of the counselors. We visited with each other for awhile and later the girls brought out a Ouija board that they had confiscated from one of the campers. We began to play and shortly after the piece began to move around the board slowly. Startled we asked our first question: "What is your name?"

B-A-B-Y S-H-E-A was spelt out by the supposed spirit.

"How old are you Shea?", was our next question.

"Three," she replied.

"What happened to you?" we questioned.

L-O-S-T, spelt out the board.

At first I was not all that convinced of all that was happening. After all how would a three year old know how to spell. We then we began asking questions that were unbeknownst to the others around us, just to make sure it was truly the board that was responding. "What month was I born?" asked one of the girls.

D-E-C answered the board. The girl's expression was one of awe as she showed us here ID and her birthday was indeed in December.

We continued with more questions growing more and more shocked at the revelations that were taking place. The game ended abruptly with a unusual gust of wind. The spirit was no more. The night had grown late and it was time for us to trek back across to our cabin.

We entered the shallow river bed and began our way home. Half way down another gust of wind whispered through the air and with it a cold chill down each of our spines. The flashlight went out and we all came to a dead stand still. Our splashing feet came to a halt, yet the splashing sound directly behind us did not.

SPLISH SPLASH the sound seemed to echo through my ears.

Then I heard the voice of a baby giggle. I slowly turned around and saw a small white figure. Another gust of wind came and just as fast as I had seen it the figure was gone. Only one of my other companions saw what I had seen. Needless to say we all made the trip home three times as fast as we did the first time.

The next day after we had finished with breakfast we sat down ourselves off in a corner. The discussion was all about the evenings past events. One of the older maintenance men was almost at the end of the room and paid no attention to what we were talking about. That is until he heard us mutter the words "Baby Shea".

He yelled from the other side of the room "What did ya'll just say?"

We told him and he asked who told us about that. We told him that we overheard one of the campers mention the name. Not telling him the real story for fear that we would get in trouble for being at the counselors cabin. He asked if we knew the story and we said no.

He then began.

It turned out that when the camp was first built in either the early or late 1900's one of the construction workers small daughters wondered off while she was playing and was never seen again until 1991 when her remains were found near the river by some hikers almost 4 miles away from the camp.