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I sometimes post on the European Forum and, I have to be honest, I’m sometimes a little harsh. Nevertheless, I’ve decided to tell my own haunted hotel(ish) story. Firstly, though, I have to give you some background. I’m 49 this year, which means I was 17 back in 1970. I went to high school in Indiana and back in 1970, after a few too many years of kids getting low grades, the school board decided on a radical way of improving results. Amazingly, they looked to the (then) current pop culture as a means of getting ahead. This was at a time when the Beatles had embraced the Eastern influence of that Mahareshi Yogi (sp?) guy, with all the weird stuff that it entailed. In a similar fashion, our school hired this guy (American) who had studied this meditation stuff in India as this was supposedly going to help us to concentrate and thus achieve better grades. Well this guy taught us that we needed to do this meditation for as little as 15 minutes per day in order to see a measurable change. At no point did he say that meditating for longer than 15 minutes would be harmful. I had been going through a pretty hard time in my teens, and this year was no different. Fights at home with both my parents and my brother meant that, in retrospect, I was looking for some sort of escape from it all, albeit just temporary. I found that the meditating worked and was building it up from 15 minutes to, at some points, 4 hours per day. I had perfected it so that I could get home from school, go into my room and within 5 minutes or so, be completely relaxed. Now here’s comes the first frightening part for me. I had come home as normal and started meditating whilst no one else was home (you’re still aware of what’s going on around you etc, it’s not as if you are in a trance) Something in the room made a noise. The best way for me to describe it is like someone/something made a mistake and dropped the ball. As this happened I became aware that in addition to this entity in my room, there were 2 other entities there also. At this, I snapped out of my meditation immediately and vowed never to do it again – despite the fact that it made me feel tremendously calm. Even as I type this, I feel awkward and, I suppose a little embarrassed. This was the first encounter and I had two others, the last being in a hotel room. If anyone is sufficiently interested enough, I’ll type the rest.

Arnie- I am going on vacation tomorrow and was hoping I could have an ending to the story. I look forward to coming in to work and reading your story. You should write a book...your story telling is AWESOME!! Keep up the great work!!!!!

Inky: Am I interested? In a word, no. Meditation cannot take you to bogeyland. Buzz off.

Yoooooo, Arrrnniiieeee...can you come out and play?

As Lisa continued to creep along the wall, she realized the door she had entered had mysteriously evaporated. Her eyes drawn to the bloody pickaxe, she revolted at her own compulsion to stare at the gory sight before her. Yet she instinctively knew to avert her gaze would be her downfall. His evil grin chilling her to the bone, she continued to lock eyes with the ghastly vision as she edged closer. Suddenly realizing the oil lamp was within her reach, she decided to grab the light and try to make a run for any exit in the room it might illuminate. Forcibly breaking her trance she clutched for the handle - but missed. Determined to succeed regardless of the potential heat of the lamp, she lurched forward to grab the lamp with two hands - but found her hands slapping together as the tumbled forward. She saw the image toss his head back with glee, but heard only silence, as she continued to tumble down, down, down... into the depths of the root cellar below. YOUR TURN!

I prefer the "original" Arnie...No Arnie fakes...PLEASE!!

Not an imposter. Just playing along... Like everybody else, I might add.

Hello everyone. I started reading the story on Friday. I am hooked. Arnie...great job with the story. I look forward to hearing the end soon.

Lisa struggled against the heavy wet mask being held over her face. She wondered if the moisture was her own blood or perhaps that of some other victim held captive in the same house. As she tried to scream for help, she inhaled thick acrid smoke and sputtered for air. She realized she was being pulled from the cellar, and tried to stumble back in the opposite direction. Coming to her senses, she suddenly faced the impact of heat from a fire, broke free from her captor's grasp, and felt along the wall until finding stairs to lead her out of danger. She could sense someone clamboring up the stairs behind her as she fled for her life. Not until safely out under the black sky did she realize it had been Terry trying to pull her away from the fire. She collapsed in his arms as the fire trucks and reporters gathered about the old historic inn. Lisa later described to the Van derHouts and Kerns what had led her out of bed that night. Of course, the other guests blamed it on bad brandy, while the Van derHouts assumed they had a kook for a guest. However, when the insurance adjuster investigated the claim, he found a trap door in the root cellar that the Van der Houts had never fully examined. Buried there, under the Syrus Aeckney Inn in Hadleyburg, were the skeletons of three beheaded adult bodies, and one mummified infant. The bloodied pickaxe so vividly described by Lisa in her hysteria, lay nearby.

Would the real "Scary Arnie" Please stand up Please stand up

play2: An excellent submission; you get an A. Arnie, it is your turn (and has been for quite a while.)

The Holiday Inn in Grand Island, NY (outside of Buffalo) is haunted by a little girl. She died there in a fire (I believe) and is to occupy one of the rooms and runs up and down the hall.

ARNIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE, Where are you????

Am very bummed Arnie hasn't been on since his last posting. And for all of you who have to make the point....we don't care that it's not for real...the tale is great!

An Arnie did post yesterday on: "Hyatt Kauai That Bad?" Has he run out of ideas?

Arnie-I don't care if it's real or not or if you're a repressed fiction writer or not or if you're the shooter on the grassy knoll.........FINISH THE DAMN STORY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The Inn at Aberdeen in Valparaiso, IN.