Just off a dark stretch of highway in Quebec, at certain, specific hours of the night, one may find a deserted Econolodge, hidden in the shadows of industrial buildings and surrounded by yawning wastegrounds, litter, dereliction. We rolled in around 2am, delirious and tired, having driven from Ottowa where everything was booked. Maybe it was this fatal exhaustion that led us to ignore all the warning signs.
Because if this Econolodge existed at all, and was not merely a group hallucination, it was most certainly haunted. Observe the evidence, and quake in fear:
1. reception staff with a manner that definitely suggested they had something to hide; indeed with an appearance that had a kind of indefinable intangibility about it.
2. a bloodstain that inexplicably appeared over two beds during the night.
3. an open door to an empty room, which we kept finding re-opened, despite closing it each time we passed.
4. whining noises of static and a cacophony of tv channels playing simultaneously from this cursed room, despite no one being there.
5. one of the band members had a dream of a black dog and awoke so frightened they were almost screaming
6. the few other guests we met were old old enough to seem decrepit, with odd accents and 1920s clothing
7. upon discussing this hotel with locals once we got to Montreal, we were told there hadn't been a hotel in that area for nearly 80 years!
8. ok that last one was a lie
Needless to say, after our evening of curious hauntings we felt bound to stay for another night, and Mel even dared to do her laundry. Yet I am still left with the lingering feeling that this hotel never really existed, and passers by - if indeed there were likely to have been any passers by in that remote and desolate hinterland - would have seen five figures giving the impression of sleeping, doing laundry, talking to hotel staff, all out under the night sky, the wind whistling around them, surrounded only by the littered flints and rusting wires of what seemed to be the ruins of a once-elegant hotel, marked with the scars of a horrible accident.
8 comments:
yikes scary i would of found another hotel lol
kat
Ooers. Creepy... there's something about those Canadian hotels, I think.
Sounds like a case for the Strange Happenings Investigation Group! And speaking of strange happenings, I tried to comment your blog about Hylas and the Naiads, but I don't think it was submitting. Did anything ever go through for you to approve?
Jack Torrance: You WERE the caretaker here, Mr. Grady.
Delbert Grady: No sir, YOU are the caretaker. You've always been the caretaker. I ought to know: I've always been here.
hey Allison, no, your thoughts on Hylas and the Naiads never reached this blog. I think there's something a bit wrong with the comments mechanism.
Al,
you are so flipping hysterical. I wish I had been lying there with you, in that non-existant hotel bed, possibly with a prickly twig from an old spruce tree pokin my arse.
Kelley
That's a bummer about comments. But in regard to Hylas, I suspect those nymphs must have come as welcome relief after being companion to the vigorous Herakles, who doubtless inherited some of his father's lusty proclivities. I wonder if Look & Learn ever devoted a series the man-boy love relationships of ancient Greek mythology.
The Puddle once stayed in the Riverina hotel on tour in Hamilton. My room was number 12a. There was no room 13 in the Riverina, but 12a was lucky for me that night, a fine place to entertain an adoring fan.
The Riverina no loner exists. A beautifully tiled, L-shaped Art Deco building in 2 stories.
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