You may remember, a few months back, Bryce and I took a day trip with my daughter Gabby in search of some cool locations to have photo shoots; we found a lot of good stuff but there was this one place in particular that I just cant stop thinking about. Its an abandoned hotel in a very small town out in the middle of nowhere USA ... it definitely needs a little more exploring...
When we went there the first time with Gabby, we were only able to see the front couple of rooms because she wouldn't go in with us, she didn't want anything to do with that place and the fact that were a pair of little pink shoes on the front porch, as if the girl got snatched right out of them, did nothing to help that fact. This isn't exactly a ghost town, people live here, so I'm sure some kid just left them there.. but eerily enough there wasn't a person in sight, the town was silent. We snapped a couple pictures and headed home. Over the past couple months I have looked through those photos several times imagining what might be beyond those first couple rooms and wondering who might brave a photo shoot in an abandoned hotel... well my son Bryant's senior pictures is just about as perfect as it could get, plus as soon as he found out he could take his guitars, he was totally up for anything, so we packed up our gear, grabbed my other son Remy and and headed off for our day trip. When we arrived we walked right up to the hotel and oddly enough, sitting there on the porch 3 months later, was the same pair of little pink shoes. I looked around... once again, silence. A shiver ran down my spine but I was eager to get inside, so we pried a loose board off the window and climbed in.
It was dark and kind of creepy. The inside seemed a lot bigger than it looked from the outside. there were a lot of rooms {I guess so, it was a hotel after all} we followed the rickety staircase upstairs. The banister rail was all twisted and bent and you could see right through some of the broken steps. As we walked down the dark hallway on the second story, we all came to an abrupt halt. All of a sudden the floor was just GONE! It had fallen away. We stared at each other in disbelief, but the question we all asked ourselves as we stood there debating whether we could take another step forward OR backward, was "what's holding up the floor where we are standing now?" We looked around, the room on the left was also missing the floor, and not just the floor but one of the walls looked as if it could go at any time. I started to feel a tremendous amount of anxiety.. I mean seriously, the hotel looked like something tried to rip it in half! The floors were falling through and I swear--- I started expecting vines to come up under the floor boards and grab our feet and pull us down so the it could swallow us up! I wanted to get out of there... but we had come all this way to explore this place, so I had to compose myself--- breathe.
When we finally made it back down to the first floor I started to feel a little better even though the first floor was much bigger and much darker {because most of the windows down there were boarded up} at least we were on solid ground. "That must have been the kitchen" Bryce said as we walked past a large room. My mind started wandering as I eyed the cupboards. They looked like they could come to life at any moment. Each section was pulling away from the wall and tilting different directions like tall men with long arms ready to reach out and grab us if we walked through the room. We didn't. We found a place to set up in a room with a window and took some pictures. I was even starting to enjoy myself, until... wait a second, is that bed frame missing a leg or is the leg going through the floor? YEP, it's going through the floor... the boys voices began to fade in and out "oh, you didn't notice the door to basement? we passed it on our way to this room" CRAP!! You gotta be kidding me! If the second story floor could fall through, who's to say this one won't too? At that moment three things happened... A train flew by outside shooting through the silent town like a gunshot in the night... Birds! Flying from the direction of the kitchen as if they too wanted to find a way out, and couldn't. and, I think I died a little. I was frozen stiff but my mind was swimming into deeper and darker places. The hotel was shaking and I knew falling through to the basement would be far worse than anything I've ever seen in any scary movie. I imagined bank robbers hopping the train and needing a place to hide out and stash the loot. The basement of this place could definitely be that place. I kept picturing the shoes, where is the little girl? and then, "The Shining" enters my mind, a haunted hotel out in the middle of nowhere a ghostly little girl in the hallway on her big wheel... remember. Yeah. I cant take it anymore... I gotta get outta here! I head for the window we came in through, of course my pants get caught on a friggin' rusty nail... aRGHhhh the vines, they finally have me!!!
I can hear a swarm of Bikers pulling up, circling if you will. Bikers? In this silent town? Crap! We're gonners! I bet they came back for their loot! I don't care I'm going out. Where did they go? I swear I heard like 20 bikes just a second ago. Maybe they're ghosts? Do ghosts drive Harley's? Before I could even finish that thought, I turn around to look for them again and my heart just about fell out of my shirt when I turned and stood face to face with what must be the leader of their pack. This guy looked rough, definitely a guy who would stop at nothing to protect his loot! We stared each other down. Oh crap, here come the rest of them--- I never broke my stare, but I could feel them approaching. Where are the boys? Why didn't they follow me out? Why did the... "HEY LADY?" I turned back around slowly. "HEY LADY, CAN YOU TAKE OUR PICTURE?" Okay, this is normal, unlike The Creeper who is now directly behind me and probably getting ready to strangle me while I'm caught off guard. Pictures. They too are exploring. {or at least that's what I'm telling myself} Slowly but surely I'm drifting back to reality. The boys eventually followed me out. The bikers took off and four more trains came through at full speed while we took pictures near the tracks. I kept telling myself we were safe outside but I couldn't quite shake the boogey man feeling I was getting. I kept looking up to the windows of the hotel {now just on the other side of the tracks} It was starting to get dark, and anyone could be in there looking out at us waiting for it to get darker... It was definitely time to leave.
The boys made fun of me a lot on the way home, but that stopped when we realized one of our cameras were missing! In my hasty exit I must have forgot it. So now we have to go back, and its dark, and we don't have a flashlight, and which room was it in? Are you freaking kidding me? CRAP! Yeah, I think I just died a little bit more. If it wasn't for the boys that camera would still be in the hotel of horror and that would be perfectly fine with me. The Creeper can have it! Oh yeah and from now on you may hear me refer to the boys as Scooby and Shaggy, and if you need to find me... I'll be hiding out in the Mystery Machine, like the chicken that I am!
KIDS, DONT TRY THIS AT HOME!
HOPE YOU ALL HAVE A SAFE AND HAPPY HALLOWEEN!
Photographers: Andi Watkins and Bryce Hunt
