My dad served during World War 2. He was in the air force. He knew some guys, and they were friends. When it got closer and closer to the end, him and some of the men he was friends with had to go over Berlin and drop a few bombs. Well, the Luftwaffe was having none of that, so they shot at them. One of the planes, one with one of Dad's friends, went down to never be seen again. They got back to the base and Dad decided he was the one to give the news to his wife. His wife was pregnant at the time, and Dad still gets choked up whenever he talks about her.

Follow up:

After that man's death, Dad said that something was...wrong, about the base. Things would go missing, people would hear somebody call their name and they'd feel as if somebody touched their shoulders. It was really starting to unnerve a lot of people. When the war was over, the base was abandoned.

Well, Dad decided to take us, me and my brothers, there one time. He said we needed to see it. It was kind of old and run down, but it was in the process of being remodeled. We walked into the main room and Dad just sort of stood there, quiet as a mouse. We didn't say anything either, just in case we would get smacked in the mouth. He took a deep breath and opened his eyes again.

“I'm sorry,” he muttered to us. “Got distracted.”

“Just fine,” my older brother, Daniel, responded.

We just stood there. Dad finally gave us permission to look around a bit, but not to go too far or to go into areas that were off limits. Well, going too far and to places that we weren't supposed to go to were the top priorities of my brothers and I. It was more of a challenge. We looked around the rickety old “computers” and at the older technology. Phones as big as your head, that sort of stuff. We weren't really the most respectful of boys, either, I'm ashamed to admit. We decided to play a game of tag, or racing, or something like that. Daniel and Jake, my other older brother, blasted ahead of me. I got lost trying to keep up with them, and I couldn't remember exactly where we had come from.

“Jake? Dan?” I called down the halls. “Guys, don't be jerks.”

Being the youngest, I was eight when this happened, I was very prone to being left behind for a few good kicks. This time, though, I didn't have Mom or Dad to scold Daniel or Jake, or to have them protect. me. If I had listened to Dad, yeah, I would have had somebody to protect me. Eight-year-olds don't really think things through well, especially when faced with peer pressure from older siblings.

What was worse was that, at that very moment of getting lost and left behind, I remembered the stories of what happened after Dad's friend died. The moving objects, the screaming to get out, the hitting. Well, that's how I remembered it at the time. Even though it was just a few things being misplaced, a warm call of somebody's name, and a tap on the shoulder. I deduced that this base was haunted with Satan and the trapped souls of many-a pissed off soldier and pilot.

“GUYS!” I yelled, stomping my foot. “Quit it!”

Then, grumbling and mumbling with language that Dad used only when things were broken and he thought my brothers and I were out of earshot, I made my way back. Lights flickered above my head and I shuddered, wrapping my jacket around me tighter. I was so screwed if I got lost. Well, I was lost, so I guess I was already screwed. I called for Daniel and Jake again, getting no response. I finally started to talk to myself, giving myself company.

“My name's Bill,” I said to a wall, holding out a hand. “I'm eight years old, and I live in Greensboro, North Carolina. Who are you?”

The wall just stood there, naturally, being a wall and all. I continued to be a bit of a moron, trying my best to talk with something that wasn't there.

“Daniel Walker,” a voice said from a door behind me.

I turned around. I saw a shadow out of the corner of my eye and I shuddered. Great, it was Satan. That's all I needed. To have my brothers lose me, my dad get pissed at me, and to have this air force based haunted by Satan eat me.

“What's your last name?” Daniel Walker A.K.A Satan asked me.

“Boone.” I responded nervously. Yup, talking to nothing.

I felt a hand on my shoulder and I grew stiff. The hand moved down to clasp mine and I shuddered. It felt cold and clammy, but sort of gross and scabbed over. Like, really scabbed over. I looked at my hand. I was holding another hand, a grown man's hand, and I could feel the skin and my hand was making the shape it did when I held hands. But I couldn't see anything.

“I knew a young man called Boone during the war,” the disembodied voice said casually.

“My dad was in the war.” I explained quietly, pretending I was still talking to the wall.

“Let's get you outta here. You're lost, aren't you?” Daniel Walker, supposedly, said and chuckled when I nodded my head.

So there I was, being lead by something I couldn't see, but could touch and hear. We talked about my dad, his service, things like that. All the time I was pretending to be talking to myself, to make myself seem less crazy. And he even mentioned that he had a child of his own, once. The door opened into the main lobby and there was Dad, with Jake and my brother Daniel. I walked into the room and felt the hand leave my grasp.

“Where were you?” Dad asked, arms crossed.

“I got lost.” I explained meekly. “I got out, though.”

“I can see that. How did you get out?” Dad was apparently trying to get me to admit that I wasn't in a familiar area. Meaning, that I wasn't in an area that I should have been.

“Daniel Walker lead me out.” I explained. Might as well tell the truth.

My dad's face. Oh, boy, my dad's face. He went as white as chalk, then he went the same color as a beet. I was able to admire this beet color when his face was a few inches from mine, eyebrows furrowed into an angry caterpillar of a unibrow.

“Where did you hear that name?” Dad's voice was surprisingly low and threatening, making me shudder.

“That's what he said his name was...” I said meekly, gesturing to the door.

“Bill, Daniel Walker was my friend that was shot down in his plane. He's been dead and buried for a long, long time.” Dad explained, still angry. “I don't want to hear a word about him, okay?”

I nodded and muttered a tiny “Yessir,” before Dad turned to leave with my brothers. I turned to look at the base again, and at the door that I had just exited. There was a man in an old pilot's outfit leaning against the frame. He lifted his hand up and waved with a smile. Half of his body was bloody, scarred and burned, the smile showing that some of his teeth on that side were missing. I waved back and smiled all the same. At the age of eight I was terrified by the sight of blood, but there was something about that man, or that image of a man, that I found comforting. Even if he was something out of a horror story, I still smiled at him.

Be polite to the next spirit you meet. Lord knows what would have happened to me in that old, rickety air base.