Lights! Camera! Ghost!

by Beth Bartlett

We knew the hotel was haunted. The hubby and I had worked off and on at the old hotel for years, and we both witnessed enough weird stuff to fill dozens of campfire ghost stories. But when we drove up to the hotel to celebrate a wedding anniversary, we realized the hotel was infested with weird, scary pests of an entirely different type: TV people.

A huge sign was posted in front of the hotel. With all the warmth and friendliness of a Facebook Terms of Agreement page, it basically explained that if you went into the hotel, you gave your permission to be filmed for a ghost-hunting show. I suddenly had a vision of shuffling down to the ice machine in my PJs and someone shining a flashlight on my massive butt, saying, “My God, that’s the biggest ghost I’ve ever seen!”

I shoved my trepidations aside and made an oath to drink warm cola and tap water for the entire evening as we checked in. Other than seeing an odd number of people running around in black shirts, I didn’t experience anything out of the ordinary, and I looked forward to a romantic evening in the Jacuzzi suite. Once we set down our bags, my hubby wanted to “have a look around” which, after many years of marriage, meant he spotted someone with a piece of technology he had never seen before. I’ve never been afraid of losing that man to another woman, but I’ll be seriously worried if female androids are mass-produced.

After 15 minutes, he bounced back into the room, telling me the identity of the show. At that time, it didn’t mean a thing to me, but it was the favorite show of our friend.

“Can I call him?” my hubby asked, practically dancing in place.

“Oh all right.” Hey, I’m a good sport.

He put the phone on speaker and dialed our friend’s number. Our friend is a big man. 6’4, tattooed, bald, 400 pounds, and if he walked into a biker bar, they would call him sir. He picked up the phone. We told him the news. He giggled like a blushing schoolgirl, and I’m pretty sure he squeed.

Apparently he also possessed transporter technology, because he appeared at our door in fifteen minutes. He definitely missed his calling as a pizza delivery guy. Within seconds, the two men were off hunting the ghost hunters.

I amused myself by watching the Discovery Channel and hoping a ghost would show up, because at least then I could play a game of cards. Gin, maybe some poker. But not Indian Poker, since it’s very difficult to get a card to stick to a non-corporeal forehead. As the hours passed and I sat wondering if a floating
head could even play cards, I heard the doorknob jiggle. I ignored it, thinking hubby had left his key behind.

Jiggle. Rattle.

“Weird,” I thought. I called out his name, waiting to hear “Let me in!” Nope. Nothing.

Rattle. Twist.

I peeked out the peephole but couldn’t see anything. The doorknob was silent now, so I sat down in the buttery soft leather chair and decided to watch the door.

Five minutes passed.

Jiggle.

Rattle.

Rattlejigglerattletwist.

A chill flared up the back of my neck as I approached the door. Of all the weird experiences I had in that hotel, nothing had ever tried to hurt me. Flying fuzzy balls of light, full-size apparitions walking past me into the elevator, paintings and furniture that would occasionally tip themselves had just been par for the course, but this was new.

I put my hand on the doorknob. I turned and yanked it fast in case someone was pranking me. The door whooshed open, and I was staring at the denim-clad backside of a cameraman losing his balance. Somehow he had perched one cheek on the doorknob so he could film into the room across the hall, but he lost his rear wheel drive when I threw the door open. Past him, the ghost experts were sitting in a dark room talking about electromagnetic fields and trying to maintain a spooky atmosphere while the hall lights blazed and tourists stumbled past. I blushed and muttered, “Sorry,” he apologized for freaking me out and they went back to their darkened lair.

The guys came back from their quest with autographs, our friend headed home with photos and the crew went away with some decent ghostie footage (captured later in the night) but I had the scariest story. I came this close to being on-camera, big butt, PJs and all.



Freelancer and humor writer Beth Bartlett has lots of ghost stories, and if you keep the margaritas coming, she will tell them all. The names in this story have been omitted to protect the clueless, the notso- clueless and the hubby who finally turned up to share the anniversary Jacuzzi soak. Visit Beth’s psychi -humorist side at www.wisecrackzodiac.com, and her nerdy side at www.puregeek.me.



Image: courtesy of www.freedigitalphotos.net

The Mystery of Nancy Drew and the Ghost Under Carrie’s Bed

by Harley May
        

         This entire essay will probably make our Erma Editor Stacey Graham (avid ghost hunter that she is) shudder.

In contempt.

See…I don’t like ghost stories. Before you gasp and unfollow me on every social media outlet available, PLEASE LET ME EXPLAIN. I hate being scared to the point of “TURN ON THE LIGHTS AND PLEASE DEAR GOD, HOLD ME.”

            I attribute this stifling fear of the ghostly paranormal (fictionalized or not) on my first sleepover. At the age of eight, my dear friend Carrie Franklin seemed so much more grown up than I was (also eight). She already had her own American Girl doll and she’d watched The Goonies and Grease. She led me in Nancy Drew adventures on the playground where we solved little made up mysteries. She was always Nancy and I was always Bess, which was fine. I guess. I mean, it really wouldn’t have killed her to let me be Nancy every now and then because people should share and take turns and my idea about the stolen umbrella wasn’t “stupid.”

I’m not bitter about any of this. Shut up.

Anyway, when I received the invitation to sleep over, I was thrilled. Everything went swimmingly as far as slumber parties go. We ate popcorn and watched The Sound of Music (which I brought from my house thankyouverymuch). After we’d Doe a Deer’ed to our heart’s content and giggled and been tucked in by her mother, Carrie told me a secret: a ghost lived under her bed. His name was Choon. The way Carrie told things so clear and matter of fact, I absolutely believed her and didn’t care for this information at all.

I started to cry. When Carrie’s mother came to see what all the fuss was about, I told her I wanted to go home. Only this wasn’t your typical small town America. My mother couldn’t come get me from four blocks over because my house was a thirty-minute subway ride away. No one in their right mind would or should travel the subways at this time of night.

Carrie’s mother explained all this to me, but still I cried. She stared at me sitting on the bed and said, “Well, we’re just going to have to get rid of Choon. I’ll go get a garbage bag.”

That stopped my crying right away. When she returned, she got on her hands and knees with the black garbage bag and said, “Choon, come here. Get in this garbage bag.”

My little girl self got as far away from the edge of the bed as possible while Carrie’s mother made a lot of noise as she shoved something into the bag. She stood up to walk out of the room and whatever was in the garbage back moved. It kicked and grumbled as she dragged the bag away.

So you see, that experience in my little girl mind felt just too real. When the hairs on the back of my neck stand up and I feel the need to keep my back against a wall, I stop watching/reading whatever it is that makes me feel that way. Ghost stories and I just don’t go together. Got it? Good.

And no, I won’t help you clean out the stuff under your bed.