Elliot the Massey Ghost: Exposed

It was a chilly day in August when my classmate and I were torturously, mind-numbingly bored in our Wellington Marketing lecture. We were desperate for any kind of entertainment, and we couldn’t resist the temptation to stir up some mischief.  

Who can really blame us for concocting a note claiming the recipient was being haunted by a young boy who resided in the walls of Massey with his pet rat? Naturally, we threw this note at an unsuspecting classmate. The note read:  

Dear friend, 

My name is Elliot, and I am the nine-year-old boy who lives in the walls of this university. My pet rat, Geoff, was once my only friend. We used to go on adventures every day in 1932. Until we were exploring the construction site of Massey University Wellington. Geoff got spooked by a black cat and jumped out of my hands and hid between two slabs of concrete. I couldn’t lose my only friend, so I crawled into the crack to find him… but I got stuck. I cried and cried but no one heard me. Geoff never came back to me either.  

When the builders came back the next day, I was already dead. Now, my soul haunts the campus forever as I continue to search for Geoff.  

I come to you to ask, have you seen Geoff? Tell me where he is, or you’ll regret the day you awoke my spirit.  

Love, Elliot  

I’m not sure how anyone believed us considering the Wellington Massey campus wasn’t even built until 1960 and wasn’t owned by Massey until 1999.  

Perhaps we took the bit too far when we created an email account for Elliot (elliotghostyboy@gmail.com) so we could continue to contact our unsuspecting peers. Elliot was trading in his rat-chasing antics for some good old-fashioned scamming. 

The lies about Elliot grew. From saying we were going ghost hunting after class to claiming we had been contacted by Elliot ourselves.  

The word about Elliot was taken out of our hands when on last year's open day, a Massey guide began warning future students about him. Shaking Year 13s were comforted by the fact that Elliot never actually lived up to his promises of revenge. In a way, Elliot’s a bit like an ex-boyfriend – all talk and no action.  

The open day high school students followed Elliot into this year, when he began receiving a whole bunch of emails from first year groupies. We realised that our fictional creation had become a whole lot of fact.  

His inbox was flooded with people claiming they’d spotted his ghostly presence on campus. From sipping coffee at Tussock Cafe, to crying in the walls of 4B06, to running after rats in the hallways. In turn, I became Elliot’s PR manager, spending my Marketing lectures replying to fans.  

The lore got so deep that sometimes I forget Elliot isn’t real. But reality hit me when I started receiving smutty Elliot fanfiction. He’s nine-years-old, for god’s sake. At 20 years old, I’m a bit over embodying a nine-year-old boy who likes rats.  

A little lie can seem like a fact pretty easily. You can’t believe everything you hear – especially a nine-year-old ghost who can email people.