Ghosts like to party too!

It seems many of you were intrigued and fascinated by my recent ghost tale. And as you may remember, I had said we spent several months chasing down ghosts; this was before we were actually chased by a ghost, which ended up putting a screeching halt to our ghost chasing experience.

This is the tale of another ghost story that takes place in the same small town of England, just a few months before we were scared straight! And, yes, it really did happen………We think…..?

Everyone was excited about the upcoming Navy Ball. My ghost chasing group was especially excited because we suggested the hotel that our Navy Ball would be held in. Since we were a small military operation, the brass wasn’t as stuffy and uptight with formalities as they normally would be. They actually were a bit relaxed and even went along with a good prank every now and then, which is why they didn’t protest too much when we told them we had heard the hotel was a little haunted. They jokingly informed us “Ghosts don’t scare us.” Or they just brushed us off as a group of prankster youngsters as they often did. Only we didn’t tell them just how haunted we heard the hotel was.

Many of us had decided to rent a room at the hotel the night of the Navy Ball. Everyone had planned on having a good and didn’t want to worry about driving to their residence in the middle of the night. We also had a well-known marine general who would be our guest speaker who was also staying at the hotel. And of course, the marines were proud and beside themselves that he was there, and all the brass wanted to rub elbows with the general and make sure they were nearby if anything arose. But my group had other reasons for wanting to stay at the ritzy hotel.

The Navy Ball was a blast! Everyone had a great time. The food, music and the laughter was plentiful. All navy and marine personnel looked outstanding in their dress uniforms; the spouses were pretty sharp as well in their fancy evening gowns and tuxes.

Everyone eventually left the hotel ballroom and retreated to their suites on the floor that was solely reserved for us military folks. Mike, a ghost chaser buddy, told everyone to come to his room because he was going to party all night long. Over 50 people showed up including some of the brass.

This party went on for hours, until finally, around 1 o’clock in the morning Steve whispered in my ear, “You want to go look for ghost?” With all the fun and excitement, we had all forgotten about one of our main purposes for being at this hotel. “Of course,” I said. Steve told a few others, and I grabbed a few “ghost buddies” and off we went. Mike was a little worried about drunken sailors tearing up his room, but we managed to pry him away. My date, a marine, declined to follow us on our little ghost journey. The marines were all on their best behavior because of the well-known general that was visiting. A couple of us girls were hoping they would come along for protection. We had no idea what might jump out of these dark corridors or what we would be getting into.

The hotel had eight floors. We had heard, however, that the sixth floor was never occupied; the hotel never booked reservations for the sixth floor. There were rumors of strange happenings on the sixth floor. Some say, it was once used as a secret bordello, others say they hear loud noises, stomping and music all night during the weekends, and others tell stories of partying soldiers, and bloody tales of romance gone bad.

We decided we wanted to check out the sixth floor. We sweet talked the hotel desk clerk into giving us a key to the rooms or a room on the sixth floor. He warned us not to go, and declined our request over and over again, but we finally slipped him a few colorful bills of English money, at which time he obliged us. The six of us headed off to the elevator, two other regular members of our group were too drunk to come along on this round. With keys in hand, we were on our way to the sixth floor. So we thought……

We all piled into the elevator and pressed the number ‘6’ for the sixth floor. The elevator was a little shaky and it seemed to speed up and slow down. We didn’t think much of it, being that the hotel was old. But then the elevator finally stopped---on the ‘7th’ floor? “Hey, I thought we were going to the ‘6th’ floor?” “I did press the number ‘6’,” said Steve. We all watched him press the number and watched as the elevator door slid closed and proceeded down to the sixth floor. We watched as the numer’6’ lit up at the top of the elevator, then we watched as the light passed the ‘6’ and proceeded to light up the ‘5’, then it came to a complete stop. “What is going on?” “I know I pushed number ‘6’.” “I know you did,” I said. “Yeah, we know you did, Steve.”

Just as we were wondering what was going on, we heard giggling sounds. We all laughed and knew the desk clerk probably had something to do with this, or it was some of our friends trying to be funny. We brushed it off and gave the elevator one more try for the ‘6th’ floor. The third time worked.

We finally arrived on the sixth floor. It was dark and damp and had a weird sense about it. No sooner than we stepped off the elevator, we saw what appeared to be an American male in an army uniform walking at the end of the corridor. He smiled and waved to us and kept walking as if he was in a hurry to get somewhere. We all were wondering “What was an American army guy doing here?” (We didn’t have any American army personnel stationed in our town.) So we decided to follow the army fellow. When we arrived at the end of the hallway, we looked left and saw a light coming from under a door. We all assumed that must be were he went. As we got closer to the door, we heard music and laughter. “Alright, a party!” everyone was up for a party. We proceeded to knock on the door—repeatedly, hoping someone would open the door and let us join the party. We couldn’t believe no one heard the knocks. So we decided to use the key we bribed from the hotel desk clerk. Mike calmly opened the door and to our surprise, there was a light on but the music had stopped playing, and no one was in the room! The room appeared clean and untouched. “Wait a minute!” “Wait a minute!” “Didn’t we hear music and partying?” “We sure did,” we all exclaimed. “What happened to that army guy?” Confused and curious, we decided to check all the rooms at that end of the corridor. There were four.

We knocked on every door, and then opened them up with our hotel key when no one answered. To our surprise, the rooms were all empty. “What in the world was going on?” we thought. Maybe we should leave now, and forget about this whole searching for ghosts thing. As we headed back to the elevator, I noticed that one of our members was missing. “Where is David?” “Yeah, where is David?” “Oh, brother, is he trying to scare us?” Just as we were about to start yelling for David, here he comes from around the corner at the other end of the corridor with a drink in his hand. “Where were you, and where did you get that drink?” “In room ‘620’, David said. There having a party for some guy that’s turning 30, and they told me to go get my friends.” “You said you were at a party in room ‘620?” “Yeah.” “Well, why didn’t you say anything when you left?” “Look do y’all want to go to the party or not?” said David. “Yeah, let’s go.” We all headed to room ‘620’.

Once we arrived at room’620’, it was no surprise to most of us that the room was empty. Something strange was going on on the 6th floor and it was time to leave. However, a few of our group members wanted to stay and explore a little more. After a little discussion, we all decided to check out more rooms. There were 30 rooms on that floor with several turns and corners that seem to be getting creepier and creepier as the night went along. But this didn’t really scare us, just that some of us were tired and annoyed with what seems like tricks being played on us. We decided to return to our suites on the 3rd floor to use the facilities and to check on how the party was going in Mike’s room.

We all agreed to meet back at the elevator in five minutes to continue our search for ghosts on the 6th floor. Once on the 3rd floor, we parted to our suites. I remember walking into the bathroom of my room, but I don’t remember anything else. The next morning I awoke to find myself in my bed, and unable to move. It took me a moment to gather my thoughts and realize where I was and what was going on. I realized I was in bed with the top sheet and blanket tucked so tight, that I couldn’t move. I had to toss from side-to-side to loosen the sheets in order for me to get out of bed. Once I was up and out of bed, I noticed I had my full uniform on including bow tie and dress jacket. I had basically been in a perfectly made bed in complete uniform with my navy hat and shoes tucked neatly under the bed. “What is this?” I thought.

Confused, I walked out into the hallway where the five other sailors from last night’s ghost search walked out of their room at the same time (Like a scene from a Twilight Zone episode). Everyone was still in uniform and had a look of shock and bewilderment on their faces. We all at once said, “What happened?” No one seemed to have an answer. I told them of my bathroom incident. Mike said he returned to his room to find a beautiful, naked woman waiting for him, but that’s all he remembered. Everyone had stories of being alert and about to do something, but didn’t remember anything else or any sort of outcome. As everyone else on our floor from the Navy Ball was packing and checking out to leave, they were laughing and pointing and asking the six of us why were we still in our uniforms at 10:00 in the morning? We couldn’t help but wonder……”Did last night really happen?” Or, were we pranked by a bunch of partying ghosts?”