Ghost or Earthquake?

I joined the military when I was sixteen. My father didn't like it, so he marched me straight down to the recruiter's office and had them tear up the contract. Then I decided a few months before my eighteenth birthday that I was going for it again, but keeping it secret. I did not have a horrible childhood. I knew that my parents loved me even though there was conflict. I knew that they didn't agree with what I wanted out of life, so the nearest thing to a fresh start was in the service. My parents were disappointed, my siblings were upset with me, the church was against it and none of my friends understood.

I set out to change the world. I made it through Boot camp, the second time around. I had an attitude and had a problem keeping my mouth shut. A.T. school was easier, but my first assignment was the best! I got stationed on Coronado Island, California. Surrounded by the ocean, SEALS buds marching day and night while chanting, mess hall across the street and the club just two blocks down. What else could I ask for?

I went through about six roomies in the barracks in a four month period. I was one of the lucky ones who only had either two or three others in my room. As I worked in the barracks, I kept changing the numbers in the system so that it looked as if my room was only set up for two. I conveniently skipped that room on inspection walks so it became the "contraband" room. Anything that was illegal during an inspection was placed in the ceiling to floor lockers that were empty. I had a "black list" and emptied these items into the locker, only to disperse them after an inspection.

The night before the Commanding Officers inspection was a busy night. People from all four floors were standing in line for some locker space. My roomie was taking notes and we were in full swing getting ready for a complete inspection. After everyone left, we locked up the two lockers asking each other what we would keep for the collateral on all the goods. We both fell into the deep and peaceful sleep of the truly exhausted.

About two in the morning, I awoke to my bed shaking. As the lights were out and I could see the hall light through the crack on the bottom of the door, I told my roomie sleepily to stop shaking my bed. I then heard the mirror on the back of the door begin to shake, next the first locker began to rattle as if someone was trying to open it, though it was padlocked. Then the second locker, then mine, next my roomie's. When it got to my roomies bed it actually sounded as if someone was picking up the foot and letting it fall down. My roomie shot up in bed and instantly yelled at me to stop messing with the bed. I was a pretty big prankster, so I can see why. With our eyes and ears, we followed the sound all around our room until it ended back at my bed.

Then it stopped. We looked at each other without a word, then jumped out of bed and ran for the hallway. We opened the door and stood in the door jam, yelling to the rooms down the hall "Did you feel that earthquake?" and all the other panicked, things an earthquake rookie yells. To our surprise, we woke our whole floor up. No one else had been woken by the shaking. We eventually went back to bed.

When daylight hit, we checked out the room for damage, and seeing none, went to get some chow. We asked a few people if they felt the quake and were asking what it would read on the Richter scale as our entire room was rippled by it, and were told there was no earthquake during the night. These guys had stood night watch, so they would have known.

The only real damage was to a gallon of unpasteurized apple cider that was never going to make it to its perfect potency. Items had been shifted and some fell, but nothing was harmed, save for our sleep and peace of mind that is.

What causes these things to happen? Was our room targeted my a ghost who was not thrilled with our contraband room? I will probably never know as I never investigated the place. I do know that my base was a former Nazi prison camp, and sky views will show that the enlisted men's barracks are still in the shape of the swastika. At least they were in 1990 when I was there. I'm not sure if you can look up photo's of the base, and I do not know if they are readily available, but it is the Naval Amphibious Base, Coronado, California.