This came to me during a freewriting session some time ago, and I just discovered it again. Spooky.

Somehow, the lights still flicker in that doomed place, though the power was cut decades ago and the rats and roaches are the only tenants—except for the ghosts.

The walls are riddled with them, scattered like bullet holes, but that only makes sense if you know something about ghosts, how they only take corporeal form when a person pokes his curious head around, intent on seeing beyond the ordinary, or when someone strains her ears to hear something from the past. Until then, they blend into the walls, dozing in a kind of sleep, dreaming of vanished life.

I only visited one time, which was enough. A damaged spirit (I suppose all of them are damaged) appeared to my right and begged for help on a frequency that my soul heard, heard and consequently ached to answer. But I could do nothing, and the spirit sank back into the wall.

I could not forget the experience, of course, and so I drive by sometimes and look at the lights in that ruined house, wondering if anyone will hazard those hallways again, and if they have what it takes to make a difference. -Barbara Needly, A Brief History of Ghosts and Haunted Places, 1958