Chilling APP-arition
I was trying to play a prank on my younger cousin, but my late great-gran, Olive, had her own trick up her sleeve.
Iscanned the room with my camera phone. ‘Maybe there’s a ghost with us right now?’ I grinned at my younger cousin Spencer, then 10. It was the end of 2015 and we were at a festive family get-together. Spencer and I had been chatting about spooks, so I’d downloaded a ‘ghost hunter’ app to my phone for a laugh. When you pointed your phone’s camera around the room the app claimed to turn into a paranormal radar, identifying any nearby spooks.
After a few moments scanning the party my phone beeped and vibrated, before a grainy old photo of a random man flashed up.
George, who died in 1889, is nearby, claimed the app.
‘Ooh,’ I gasped dramatically, trying to look scared, but even Spencer wasn’t fooled. ‘I know it’s not real,’ he said. ‘Fair enough,’ I laughed. ‘It was worth a try.’
I was about to put my phone away when the screen went black, then vibrated again, before another image popped up. This time, however, I wasn’t looking at a sepia photo of a stranger, but a picture of our great-grandma,
Olive, who’d died two months earlier.
‘Very funny,’ scoffed Spencer, rolling his eyes.
‘I didn’t do anything!’ I said, my heart pounding as the photo froze on the screen.
It didn’t make any sense. The app didn’t have access to my photos and even if it did, how would it have known Olive was dead in order to pick her as a ‘ghost’ who was nearby? The picture was a few years old too, so would have been way down in my gallery, meaning it shouldn’t have just popped up on my phone now.
I’d been trying to wind Spencer up – but now I wondered: Had Olive played a prank on me instead?
Great-grandma Olive had always been a real character.
Once for school I’d interviewed her about her experiences of World War II, when she’d been a teenager.
‘Was it scary when the air raid sirens went off?’ I’d asked.
‘Nah,’ she’d winked. ‘You just made sure to get under the table with a handsome American solider!’
When I’d got my belly button pierced at 14 Mum had warned me that Olive might be shocked, but she’d actually clapped and declared she loved it when I’d shown her!
And at my 21st birthday party a year before she’d died, Olive had insisted on staying until after midnight, despite being 92!
She’d liked tech too, loving a photo slideshow I’d made for her on my iPad, enthusiastically clacking the screen with her long nails as she’d explained who everyone was.
Now her photo remained on my screen for a few moments before going blank, forcing me to reboot my phone.
No matter what I said, Spencer remained convinced I’d rigged the whole thing. But I knew my great-gran had ensured the joke was on me!
The phone vibrated again