A couple days ago, I posted some of my experiences in a haunted hotel I used to work at. Well, I’ve quite a few questions and suggestions so I figured I’d do some digging and asking and see what more I can trudge up about the place.
I’ll be honest, working at that place fucked me up, a bit, and writing this all down is definitely bringing it back, but maybe it’ll help. Catharsis, or therapy, or something.
Firstly, to answer a few people’s questions, I didn’t really discuss the happenings with my coworkers. It was just one of those unsaid things that everyone experienced but nobody wanted to talk about - like I said before, I felt almost trapped there, and maybe that’s what made us all keep relatively quiet about it all.
That being said, there were a few euphemistic exchanges about the activity. Stuff like: “Floor two seemed to have lots of visitors last night,” or, “Would you mind coming with me to clean this room? Always gives me the creeps.” But never really anything deeper.
Someone suggested messaging a couple of my old coworkers and after some digging (stalking) through Facebook, I managed to find a few. Only two got back to me, but I can’t really say I’m surprised; if one of them had messaged me asking about the old hotel, I’d be a bit suspicious, not to mention apprehensive, to respond, too.
One of them, who often worked alongside me on shifts, though we didn’t really go much beyond small talk about music taste, pets and TV shows, said she used to hate cleaning on floors two and four, too. She was concerned it was just her imagining things so never thought to mention it, for fear of being thought of as crazy. She said on more than one occurrence, in one of those rooms, she’d catch a dark shape flicker through the edge of her vision.
The other coworker who responded is a similar age to me; he joined not long before I left, so whilst I didn’t interact with him too much, we did talk a little on shift, mostly due to being the youngest workers. He said he’d also seen the crying apparition, but not as intensely as I did. Apparently he’d been on the first floor, cleaning in the corridors, when he’d heard her crying and had gone to investigate. As he came down the stairs, he walked towards her from the side, but stopped dead when he spotted dark blood leaking out from between her fingers and where her palms were pressed against (what should have been) her face. At that point, he just noped out, turned around and headed back upstairs. He quit a month or two later as he was leaving for university.
Some of you wanted to hear some other experiences I had there, so I’ve managed to compile a bit of a list of some of the other activity:
Speaking of which, Grimhale seemed to maintain majorly positive reviews, online - or at least, that I could find. Even then, the more negative three-stars-and-below reviews mostly targeted the food quality, service or cleanliness, rather than anything abnormal. Maybe, as an employee, I saw these hauntings all the time, but most guests only experienced a single event, at worst, and often just defaulted to explaining anything unusual away.
I also messaged Ned, my ex-manager. I wasn’t particularly hopeful he’d come back with anything useful; he was a nice-enough guy while I worked there, but he often gave me the impression of being a skeptic and that anything abnormal was better off being ignored, ‘else you were just inviting it to keep on doing whatever it was doing.
His response was a little lack-lustre but not surprising; whilst he didn’t actually tell me if he’d experienced anything himself, he did point me in the direction of some explanations for the things I’d seen. He gave me a list of case names, told me to do my own research and asked that I don’t try to contact him again, regarding the hotel.
Apparently the female apparition I’d seen - the one in the lobby in grey - was a hit and run victim. She’d stayed at the hotel with her boyfriend, who’d dumped her and driven off in the car they’d arrived together in. He’d cheated on her with her best friend and she’d been sitting in the carpark wretched and sobbing. She couldn’t seem to get through to anyone for a lift and had resorted to attempting to hitchhike; she stepped a bit too far into the road, trying to get a passing driver’s attention and was caught by the vehicle. She somehow got caught in the tire - a ripped part of the hubcap, I think - and had been dragged along the road, which tore off her face, shredding through her lips and splintering her teeth. By the time the driver noticed, it was beyond too late.
Another case explained an apparition I saw on more than one occasion: a balding middle-aged man, wandering around the halls (I never saw him in the same place twice), wrapped in a towel and shivering. The first time I saw him, I thought maybe he’d locked himself out of his room. He was just stood there, glancing around anxiously and making these odd whimpers, like a kicked puppy. As I approached him, this overwhelming feeling of sadness washed over me. That’s when I noticed the concerningly greyish-white tinge to his skin, and the dark blood soaking his towel; it was streaked in huge patches, so brown it was almost black. I stopped dead and stared, wide eyed and panicked. The man suddenly noticed my presence and jerked his head up in my direction. He moaned out something that sounded like “help me”. His arm extended and I could see the tacky half-dry blood smeared down his forearm. I instinctually flinched back and within a moment, he had crumpled down to the floor, leaving nothing but a stained towel in the hallway.
Every time I saw him, after this, I asked him some variation of “Sir, are you okay? Do you need help?” I remember seeing in some stupid ghost-hunters show, once, that sometimes spirits are just souls trapped here, unable to move on, and all they need is someone to help them. I don’t know whether I actually believe that - about the souls, and all - but I figured I had nothing to lose. Didn’t ever stop me seeing him, though. He always vanished the same way: crumpling down into the floor and leaving nothing but a dirty towel.
According to the article I found, the guy had attempted to take his own life (less than a year before I started working at the hotel) in his room. He’d stripped, climbed into the tub, and slit his wrists. Then, as he lay there, bleeding out into the water, I guess he changed his mind. He wrapped himself in a towel and tried to call the police, but by that time he’d lost a lot of blood; he lost consciousness before he could say anything more than “help me” to the operator.
The worst apparitions, though, were the kids. They weren’t covered in blood, or had black demonic eyes, they just got to me in a way the adult apparitions didn’t. Don’t get me wrong, I was scared of the woman with no face, and the man in the towel always made me feel even more depressed than normal for the rest of the night. But the kids just got to me; I’ve always had a soft spot for them - I used to have a younger sister, but she died of cerebral palsy when she was seven and I was fifteen, doing my GCSE’s.
There were two different child-aged apparitions - well, three, technically - the first was a little girl in a pair of faded blue dungarees and a red striped top. Out of all the apparitions, I saw her the most. I’d notice her in the corner of my eye (she always made me jump), just standing there, hands clasped in front of her, watching me. She was small, skinny and pale, no more than six, I think, with mousy hair tied up in two pigtails on top of her head. Whenever I saw her, she wouldn’t move, just stand there and watch me work. She wouldn’t ever respond to anything I said, either, and the one time I tried to approach her, she simply faded into the wall behind her, when I got within a meter or two. Of all the names Ned sent me, I couldn’t manage to find anything on her - even when I did my own research, trawling the internet for history on the hotel.
Nothing.
The other one was a pair of kids, who played in the stairwell. There was a boy, around three or four, and a girl, about eight. They’d come running past me whenever I was going up and down the stairs, giggling and shrieking with laughter, their cheeks flushed and mouths wide with grins. To start with, it made me happy to see them - I was always on my way to check a room, or clean something, and a break from all the other frightening and depressing occurrences in the hotel was very welcome. After all the negative energy, it was encouraging to see such carefree spirits. I was so enticed by their laughter and fun, that I didn’t even stop to consider why there were child apparitions, playing in the stairwell.
That was, until one shift, Ned had asked me to clean the stairwell banisters. This particular stairwell stretched all the way from the ground floor lobby up to the fifth floor. I was up by the fourth floor, scrubbing the banister. Having started from the bottom, I was nearly done. The kids had appeared when I had reached just below the third floor; immediately, a smile had formed on my face - I was glad of the pleasant company and entertainment. Around the fourth floor, though, was when it happened. A series of heavy thumps that seemed to go on far too long, then a loud and solid thud. I could hear the little girl’s laughter dissolve into nervous giggles, as her footsteps pattered down the wooden stairs. Panic bit into my heart and I stuck my head through the banisters, peering down.
The girl screamed.
My heart lurched.
Even from the fourth floor, I could see how twisted the body of the little boy was; his limbs were bent at odd angles, and his head snapped back in an uncomfortable shape. Blood was already beginning to soak into the beige carpet around him.
My hand flew to my mouth as nausea spiked in my stomach, rising up my throat at speed. I stumbled to my feet, flew up and out into the fourth floor corridor. I barely made it to the bathroom opposite the stairwell before my stomach emptied itself.
I left early that day and called in sick for the rest of the week, before handing in my notice. I lied and said I was having a hard time with all the responsibilities. I said I was leaving with immediate effect. Ned was pissed at me, but I didn’t care. If I’d told him the truth, he probably would have understood, been sympathetic, but I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. Maybe I was ashamed I’d broken so easily. I don’t know. But all I could think about was the sickening thud that little boy made when he hit the floor, and why the little girl’s spirit was stuck there, too.
I haven’t dared to research that case, if there are even any articles about it online. I’ve got enough nightmare fuel already.
I’ve moved on now, though. There’s a local college that does online classes for adults and I’ve signed myself up. Once I’ve posted this, I’m going to start looking for flats nearby; writing these things up has made me realise I need to get myself out of this depression rut and move on. Can’t let myself be haunted by the past, not anymore.