Where Rose Writes Very True Stories

🎃Happy Halloween!👻

I felt like sharing a ghostly encounter I had at a hotel on Hollywood Boulevard … here is what I wrote that night 5 years ago this Halloween weekend:

This is the view I have of the window from where I’m lying in my hotel bed … [at] 3:30-ish AM …

We are currently staying at a Holliday Inn Express, room 821, right next to Hollywood Boulevard, “spared no expense” … kind of deal … Now, one of the first things I noticed when we got here about this whole place is how old everything is. I already hate the dark, add a little history to the thing and I’ll immediately start to psych myself out. “What if my room is haunted?! It’s dark and old! It’s probably haunted…” and then every little noise’ll make me perk up like a guard dog, “What’s that?!”

But I decided … that dang it, I’m not going to do that to myself this time! I’m tired! The likelihood of it being haunted is slim. Therefore, I did NOT put myself into hyper-aware mode. When I went to sleep, I was on cloud-freaking-nine, and I was sleeping like a baby.

Then a little while ago, I thought I heard someone say something very close to my ear. A guy. Not Paul. I stirred awake a little bit, told myself that … it was a dream, and went back to sleep. Then I thought I felt someone poke me in the back with their finger. My back was facing the window, it couldn’t have been Paul. I wrote it off as me being a dork, rolled over, and went back to sleep.

Then, at nearly 3:30 in the morning, I felt an ice-cold, dry hand wrap tightly around my ankle. I could feel the fingers. It absolutely RIPPED me from my sleep and I jumped up screaming. Paul was freaked out by my freak out and I leapt into his arms, my eyes darting around the room, and I swore–I swore–I heard… a laugh. A laugh that faded quickly, like the person was darting away, and I thought I saw something fly through the ceiling.

I told myself, “maybe it was Paul’s feet” and I demanded that he touch my ankles with his feet. He did. They were warm, not cold.

This was a hand. A cold hand. Like a dead hand.

How am I supposed to go back to sleep? It’s now 4:07. My ankle is still cold.