The first time we came to the inn for our interview there was snow falling; the first snow of the season last year. Into my head popped scenes from the movie “The Shining” with Jack Nicholson and Shelley Duvall who play caretakers at an off season hotel that is shut off from the world by snow. Lots of craziness ensues involving ghosts, knives and murder or should I say “redrum”. There is even a long corridor here that has a runner all the way along it, just like in the movie.
The inn used to be the retreat house for an order of monks from Baltimore but sixteen years ago it was turned into a B & B and the fifty acres surrounding the monastery was sold for the development of lake homes. Monks, monasteries and ghosts all seem to fit together somehow. Near the end of our interview I casually asked the boss if the building was haunted. “Not exactly” was the reply, “But there was once a strange incident in Room 9. A woman staying there alone was booked for three nights at the inn, but after one night she checked out in a flat panic saying that she had had a terrifying experience in the night. She said that she woke up violently - a man was in her room trying to strangle her.” After her departure from the inn there was no recurrence of this event or any subsequent disturbances in Room 9.The were no explanations for what had happened either.
On our arrival to begin working here, the innkeepers apartment was not usable and so orders from above were to take Room 8 or 9 and use it until we could move in to the apartment. I wanted to dispel any loopy ideas in my head that Room 9 was haunted, so there we stayed for our first two weeks. I was not alone but there also did not seem to be any cold drafts or spooky bumps in the night. I felt more easy having stayed in the room right at the beginning and I was sure that one way or another it would make a pretty good story one day.
Aha!!!! Now we know the room number! Being strangled by a ghost sounds absolutely horrible. Are you sure he stays in that room?
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