Spooked - Hotel Hell-o Dolly

Episode Date: October 7, 2022

Hotels and dolls can be full of charm — others are horrifying and cause alarm. STORIES: Hotel Hell Kimberly was expecting a luxurious hotel room. Someone in it… was expecting her. Thanks to Kimberly and Colin for sharing your story! Produced by Anne Ford, original score by Doug Stuart Dolly Some dolls are pretty, some dolls are nice, some dolls are waiting for you... in the night. BIG thanks, Mary, for sharing your story with us! Produced by Zoë Ferrigno, original score by Ella June Pierson Artwork by Teo Ducot Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

There's green, there's red, there's white, there's blue. There's also nothing you can do to stop the spell once it's been cast. Oh, scream and shout. That's steal your ass. Ha ha ha, ha. You're listening to spooked. Stay tuned. Several years ago, when my boy was born, there was a problem.

And I've told you parts of the story before. A tiny family sucked into the bowels of the medical industrial complex, the neonatal intensive care unit, the NICU, a place I pray no parent ever has occasion to enter a land of monitors and tubes and instruments of all sorts protruding from our tiny baby boy. Worry, fear, we sit near his bedside, wedged into these almost medieval

seating contraptions. And quickly notice that mistakes, the wrong medicine, an incorrect formulation, a medical miscommunication, mistakes are often made right as one shift of nurses and doctors pass off their duties

to the next shift. And a watchful parental eye can be the difference between hope and tragedy. We can't afford any mistakes and vow to be there 24-7 monitoring the monitors. Often sit next to him at night in the hospital gloom,

the only light, the fluorescent reflection from the hallway, or the blinks and flashes of various machines, look down at my son struggling, fighting so hard, so early, squeezed, shut, fist, holding tight to my finger, waiting for the shift change to make sure

that in that space there is no information loss, no monitors left unchecked, no accidental mishaps. Because it is an in-between space that things

often go awry. Kimberly's husband, he's a big wig in a car dealership. Every now and then, the company sends him on a nice little trip to a conference in Florida. Kimberly loves it. Her husband Colin smoothes

with his collar and she gets to pamper herself. At least, that's how it usually goes. Brawling resort, and where we were brought, was this rather grand suite with two master bedrooms, a full kitchen, a beautiful living area, a big deck that looked over the golf courses. My husband was going to be busy at the reception,

so I anticipated being able to sit there, drink a glass of wine, read a novel, and relax from the trip. I said, you go do your reception with your friends, and I'm going to get myself a nice bath here. I'll see you later. I had a particularly difficult job at the time, and I was feeling stressed. This bath was going to be my chance to put away the cares and the worries that I had been carrying over the last few months. It was after he had left, and I was drawing the bath, and getting things ready, taking out.

my book unpacking, that I started to feel really uncomfortable in the room. And that's unusual. I'm very comfortable, typically, being by myself. We live in rural Vermont. So I didn't quite understand why I was feeling, I guess, anxious might be the word. But I shook it off. I turned on the television in the living room, CNN, where you have the talking hands. head going today on Tuesday in the news, that kind of thing. I thought it would just make me feel a little less unsettled. I got into the bathtub. I started to put all the little salts in there and enjoy the bubbles.

While I'm sitting in the bathtub, I'm thinking about how I should be enjoying myself and how I am absolutely not enjoying myself. At some point, the television was getting louder slowly, like somebody was using a remote control and they turn it up twice and it's a little bit louder. It's still not loud enough so they turn it up a little bit more

and they turn it up a little bit more. I'm thinking well, Colin must have come back into the room. That's what my head is telling me but my body and my heart are not telling me that it's him because I know what he

sounds like. I know his walk. I got out of the tub put a towel around me looked around the corner, didn't see anybody, cautiously went over into the living area where the television was, and it was quite loud at this point. I'm thinking, I'm in here with something that I can't see. So you have to understand our house is very old,

and it is also very close to a cemetery. We've heard footsteps in the house that didn't make sense before, a door being closed after I know that. that it's open or vice versa, but I never felt threatened or afraid. I was like, okay, I'm out of here. I threw on my clothes very quickly and left to go find Colin. I went downstairs to the reception area where everything felt completely normal, just one of those conference gatherings.

And then we had dinner and all those things that they do at someplace like that where they say, oh, this is wonderful, you sold such and such, or we bought such and such and, you know, very boring. I didn't say anything even to Colin. I wanted him to be able to concentrate on making those connections, networking, being pleasant with the company that was hosting us. I thought, ah, it's just in my head. Maybe there's something from the flight.

I don't know. So I dismissed it and tried to just forget about it. That first night, when we got back from the reception, I can't say I was in love with the place, but I wasn't frightened the same way I was when I was alone earlier. The next day, I had the day to myself. I went in to go make something to eat in the kitchen. While I was in the kitchen, as I had my back to the counter, I have this experience of being watched. and being watched in a way that somebody really hates you. Like they're so angry, you know something bad's going to happen. It was so intense that I actually said,

I don't know who you are, I don't know what you are, but I'm leaving now. I couldn't get out of there fast enough. I was actually afraid in that moment that I wouldn't be able to open the door to get out of the room. After that, I wouldn't be in the room by myself. I spent that day walking the property, getting lunch in their restaurant, reading outside. I thought that there must be something very wrong inside of me because there was nothing that had actually happened. I didn't see anything. This was all inside me. I must have just been out of my mind. The night before we left, I was tired. I was just very much looking forward to getting up in the morning and leaving.

There was some game that Colin wanted to watch. So I went into the bedroom and he went into the other bedroom. It took me a while to go to sleep because I didn't feel safe. Middle of the night, I woke up. I felt a sense of absolute dread because I could hear somebody breathing through their nose. and I heard slight rustling as if somebody's in a dress. I knew that there was somebody next to me on the side of the bed. I was on my side where the alarm clock was.

It was 2.13. I remember staring at that 2.13 for a good long time. I'm thinking about I'm going to turn around and I'm going to do this. and if it's going to attack me, it's going to attack me to my face. I really don't know how I got the courage, but I rolled over. What I saw was a short, older woman, a little heavyset with dark hair,

with this really hateful grin on her face and these piercing eyes, not what I expected. But I didn't have much time to think about it because we locked eyes and then boom. Jumped on top of me so fast. Much faster than you could ever possibly expect some old heavyset woman to be able to move. And the weight was so much heavier than it should have been. She looked maybe five feet two. What it felt like when she was on me could have been.

been a football player. And I remember her hands being quite small, but incredibly strong, around my throat, choking me, and so gleeful in her hate and how much she wanted to cause pain and hurt. I tried to fight back. I tried to push, but the weight that was on me and the strength of those tiny hands just had me paralyzed. I don't know how I'm going to get out of this. I'm going to die.

This thing is going to kill me. While this woman was on top of me and I can't breathe, I felt another presence. It came in on the same side of the bed. I did not see any form in that second presence, but I knew that they were there. I didn't hear words, but I sensed comforting.

It's going to be okay. That second presence was equally strong, equally angry, but not at all angry with me. It was angry at that which was on me. The force of that other being shoved to get whatever was on me off of me. It was a huge shove, like a Mac truck, pushed something off of you.

And it worked. The woman that was on top of me was gone. I laid there for a minute, trying to process this. One of the thoughts that came through my head is, I've got to have bruises. I have to have handmarks on my neck. I got up and went into the bathroom and turned on the light. There was nothing on my neck.

I thought, I have to be losing my mind. This doesn't make any sense at all. I really can't tell you why I didn't go get Colin. I went in shock back to bed and watched YouTube videos, puppy YouTube videos for the rest of the evening. I did not go to sleep after that. Who could?

It was too traumatizing. Morning came, packed up all my stuff. Colin was packing up his stuff too. We had an early flight to catch. So it was still dark when we were getting ready to leave. Colin called down to the person who was driving us back to the airport, saying that we were ready to go. Colin went to lock the door, and he says,

Thank God I'm going to leave this creepy room in that creepy old lady behind. My jaw just dropped. I said, what did you just say? What do you mean? It was the last night that we were there. I woke up at one, two o'clock, directly across the room in the corner staring straight at me. It was an old woman. She was a creepy, little malevolent, plump old lady.

It's more nonchalant than anything. Kind of like, hey, I'm here. And you should be scared, maybe. It wasn't long. It was five minutes. I had tingles on my skin. in and this prickly feeling and finally she left. When you see something like that, you kind of are like, ooh, what else we got going on here?

I'm like, there's something in this room. I get up, I look in the closet. I go in this little sitting room. I look everywhere. I open up the door to the toilet room. Then I open up the door to the shower room. Look inside the shower. And then I looked around the common area

and there was nothing there. I didn't know what I was looking for. I assumed something had to be there or something more would happen, but it didn't. So I kind of laid there, maybe fell back in and out of consciousness, sleep for another hour. So we had to get up very early.

I think we left the room at like 5.30. And as he's shutting the door and locking it, he says, Goodbye, nasty old woman in your creepy room. I was like, are you serious? And so I told him what my experiences were. I'm just starting to tingle. Skin crawling, hair standing up, spooked.

It is that chill that comes over you where everything just seems not so real. I was just like, wow. So this really did happen. I was nervous enough that when I left, and just walking out of the hotel. I'm like, oh, hopefully she doesn't follow us on this shuttle, and hopefully she doesn't get on the plane with us. We definitely, when we do travel now, we scope out the room.

If it doesn't feel good to me, then we'll request another, which may be not the most popular among hotel staff, but after this experience, I don't take any chances. I'm not putting myself through that again. Spook listeners Kimberly and Colin sharing her story. Original score. Port of this piece was by Doug Stewart

was produced by Ann Ford. You're here from Mary Myers, a young mother in Beaumont, Texas, and Mary. Mary's just designed to dress for her daughter Morgan who wear it in a beauty pageant wants everyone to see it.

It was a really pretty peach color dress. It was high in the front, low in the back, with like a laced petticoat that showed from the front. It was a beautiful dress. After the pageant, I didn't want to just hang it in a closet. I was super proud of it. I wanted everyone that came over to see this beautiful dress

that I designed. So I wanted to go and find, like, a toddler-sized doll about the size of my daughter to put it on. It would be the perfect way to display the dress. Then I remember the... antique store that was close to my house. This antique store, it wasn't your typical store. It was an old wooden framed house, very rickety, kind of a gray color. The people in there look like an older gentleman and his wife and their daughter. And when I walk in, everyone is greeting me at the

front and asking me if they can help me, if there's anything I need. There was antiques from from wall to wall, floor to ceiling, old chairs, old lamps, China, silverware, anything you could imagine, this store had it in there. So I asked the one lady if they had the doll that I was looking for, and she said, let me go get my mom. So when her mom came up, she said that they didn't have one there at the store, but that she had one in her house that she could bring if I wanted it. So I said, absolutely, of course. So a few days later, I go back to the store to pick up the doll. The whole vibe was different. The man just kind of saw me at the door and he didn't really even greet me.

He just took me to the back. And it just felt odd that they would take me all the way to the back of the store where normally customers aren't allowed to go. The two ladies are in this back room and they just point over to where the doll is. They didn't want really to talk to me too much or really to have much to do with me at all. They just kind of nodded with her head that she was over there. So I look over to the right in, and there's this old beat-up doll.

She's about three feet tall. No clothes on her. Poor little thing was just laying there naked with her. Her face all skiffed up. She's worn out and faded. and someone had cut her hair in places. There wasn't even any hair. It was just the holes where the hair goes.

But the size of the doll was perfect. And I knew that even though she looked pitiful and sad, I knew that I could work with her and I could make her pretty. So I buy the doll. I put her in my car and I immediately start talking to this doll, telling her that I was so happy she was mine now. I was going to take her home and get her cleaned up. This isn't something I normally do.

I don't talk to dolls and toys, but I feel sad for the doll just because she's so beat up. So we get home and I run a bath for her just like I would my daughter. I'm excited because she's cleaning up really nice. The scuffs are coming off her face. The more that I clean, the better she looks. Maybe it's just me, but I think her eyes are lighting up. I dry her off, and I stand her up in front of me, and I put a little lipstick on my finger and rub it on her lips just to give her little color. Draw a little eyeliner just so her eyes will brighten up.

Put a little rouge on her cheeks, so that her cheeks are flush. And then I found an old costume wig that I had, a little black wig that you would wear for Halloween. I put it on her and she just looks so pretty. And then I get the dress, the beautiful dress. I put the dress on her and the dress is a perfect fit. And then I take her to my daughter Morgan's room and stand her up in the corner of her room, fluff the dress out, make sure she's looking beautiful. So then when my daughter and her dad come home a little later, I tell them I have a

surprise for them. I'm so excited. So I take him to Morgan's room and I show them the doll with the dress and they both just stare at the doll and they both go, no. Morgan, you could just tell by her eyes the way she was just staring at the doll that she was afraid of that doll. She had a look of fear in her eyes. Her dad was like, it's creepy. Get the doll out. That's a creepy doll. And I'm like, but look how pretty she is. And she's so happy to be there. And they're like, nope, nope, get her out of here. I was very disappointed because I put a lot of, you know, a lot of work in them to finding her and fixing her up and dressing her up. So I was, I was disappointed that they weren't as excited as I was. So I take the dress off of her, hanging in the closet.

There was no way I was going to be able to just throw her in the garbage. So I, I was, I was going to be able to just throw her in the garbage. So I took the doll and I just put her in the giant closet in the spare room and left her. Eventually, I guess I just forgot about her. One night, I'm lying in bed asleep. I leave my door open every night because every night without Phil, at some point in the night, Morgan comes and runs down the hallway to jump in bed with me. Morgan did not like to sleep alone. We have a big king-sized bed.

So Morgan would come and jump in the middle, in between us, and go back to sleep there. So it was something that I expect. So as I'm sleeping, I'm kind of waiting for it, you know. So I wake up because I can feel Morgan standing in the hallway. I open my eyes, and there she is, but she's just standing by her room. So I hold my arms out to motion to her to come on, baby, come get in bed. and then she holds her arms out and she starts running down the hallway towards me.

As she's running towards me, I realize, wait a minute, this has already happened. Morgan's already ran and got in bed with me. I turn and look to my left and there's Morgan lying right there in bed with me, sound asleep. And then I freeze. Who's in the hallway? So I finally turned back.

over and by this time the little girl is standing in my doorway of my room she has really dark auburn hair with long curls beautiful happy smile but the moment she sees my face she sees the fear and she immediately the light goes out in her eyes she's sad she has the most tearful look on her face and I turn back and I look at Morgan again and when I turn back to see her the little girl was gone so I don't know what to think I'm lying there trying to go through everything that just happened and what's going on so I convinced myself that it was just a dream none of this happens so I go back to sleep I forget about it I put it out of my mind because it was just a dream so a few months go by. I'm in the hall bathroom brushing my hair. Morgan is in her room, which is directly across

the hallway from the bathroom, playing with her two little friends from the neighborhood. They come running out of her room and they're telling me, bye mom, we're going outside to play. So I poke my head out of the bathroom door to tell the girls to go into the backyard to play. Don't go in the front yard to play. When I do that, I'm facing my bedroom door. And in the hallway, right outside my bedroom, that little girl is standing in her. Staring at me with this sad, sad look on her face. We're staring at each other. I'm frozen. And then I hear the back door slam open and shut. And then, of course, I realize I need to go with them because they're real children. And I run past her. She's still there.

She didn't dissipate into air or anything. She's still standing there as I run past her. I run to the backyard and make sure the kids are safe and playing, and then I go into the kitchen and get the house phone to call my husband to tell him what happened. And he tells me to go back and look in the hallway and see if she's still there, which I do, and she's not. She's gone.

My husband comes home, and when he comes in the door, the first thing he said to me was, where's that doll? Years passed, so I'm like, which doll? He said, the one that you had in Morgan's room with the dress was like, oh, that doll. We go to the spare bedroom, we open the door of that junk closet. And on top of the pile of junk is this doll with its arms held outstretched, like toward the sky. And I don't remember putting her in there that way. It was just kind of crazy that that's the way she was lying there

because that's how the little girl was running down the hallway, it forced me. My husband was just intent on getting that doll out of the house. Like, we've got to get that doll out of here. That doll is something's wrong with that doll. So we grab the doll, we run outside. It's garbage day, so the big green can is by the road. And it's full.

so she's on top of the garbage. The lid's on her, but it won't close because it's so full. Her little arms and legs are hanging out. The garbage man comes probably not 30 minutes later, hits her and takes her away. So after she's gone, then we kind of start telling people what happened. You know, we tell my sisters, we tell his mother, the neighbors, you know, we tell everyone. And then, you know, after a few weeks or so, it just kind of dies down in life. goes on and life goes back to normal. But a few people actually wanted me to go and talk to the

people at the antique store and get more of a backstory on the doll. I drove by it every day because it was across the street from my house. I wanted to go and ask them if maybe there was a child that had died in their family that maybe the doll belonged to or where did the doll come from? But I I just never got up the courage. I think that the doll belonged to the family that owned that store because the daughter had asked the mother if she had anything, and she said, yes, I have a doll like that at home. Eventually, within a couple of years, the antique store closed.

I wish there was some way for me to find out who owned the store at that time. I have asked around, but no one that I know knows who they were. So months have gone by my sister and I take my daughter, Morgan, and her son to an outdoor antique flea market.

And we're walking around, looking at everything, it's so hot. It's the middle of summer. We're so thirsty. So we get in line at a lemonade stand to get some lemonade. as we're standing there, I just get this feeling that someone is glaring at me, like staring a hole through me. I turned and looked at my sister,

and she's looking at me with that same expression of what's happening, someone's staring at us, and we both turn around, and behind us is an antique booth, and by the sidewalk they have a high chair, and in that high chair, that little doll is sitting and just staring at my sister and I. This doll looked at us like,

if she could come out of that high chair, she would come out of there and just give us a good weapon. She looked mad. Of course, her face hasn't changed. She's a doll, but it was more of the feeling. The doll seemed angry at me. And the fact that my sister, and I were both feeling it at the same time, just kind of doubled it.

She's first said, is that the doll? And I said, yes, it is. We grab the kids, run out of there as fast as we can. Everyone's staring at us, wondering why we're running, but we don't care. We don't care how silly or stupid we look. We are out of there. That's the very last time I've ever gone to any antique store, to any antiques store, to any flea market. I won't even go to a garage cell. I don't buy anything secondhand. I want to know

everything and every person that's been around anything I own. When I saw the little girl, I was 25 years old, so I'm kind of young. And at that time in your life, when you're that young, you know, it's just creepy. As you get older, you look back on things in a different perspective. Now if it had happened. I would try to talk more to the little girl standing there and trying to figure out what she needed, you know. This little girl obviously had some unfinished business because she was still here. I've had a lot of family members who have passed over and people in my family that are still here have all talked about maybe going to a medium and seeing if anyone would come through with a message. But for me, I would.

would like for that little girl to come through just so that her and I could have some closure so that I would know that she is okay. It would be comforting to know that she found her way. Stay home. Thank you.

Thank you, Mary, for sharing her story with the spooked. Now, we first heard tell a Mary's story from her niece, Stephanie. And Stephanie, she's a spooked listener who knew y'all would dig it. Thank you, Stephanie. The original score for this piece was by Ella June Pearson was produced by Zoe Fergnow.

I keep hearing whispers of secret societies, of ancient organizations that have vast libraries of arcane knowledge, books, scrolls, a piracy at some thousands of years old. And if the rumors are accurate, these groups do not just hold the artifacts, no. They decipher the secrets for the ages. They know how to control the very forces that others fear to conjure.

I do not have entry into these esteemed halls. I am not permitted to pursue their guarded teachings. But if you are secure an extra plus one for me to observe merely as a fly on the wall, I promise to be a most courteous and respectful guest, spooked at snapjudgment.org. Let me know. Spooked at snap judgment. org.

There is nothing more amazing. And a spook story from a spook listener. If you need spook gear, the t-shirt you've already seen yourself wearing in your mind's eye is available right now. Snapjudgment.org. If you like your storytelling under the bright light of day, get the amazing. The stupendous sister podcast, Snap Judgment. It is storytelling. Spook was created like a team that never fools around with all discarded dolls, not under any circumstance.

This is course for Mark Ristich. He spends most weekends scouring yard sales. There's Davey Kim. Chris Hambrey, Leon Morimoto, Tailedicott, Merceda Dodd, Zoe Fergnell, and Ford, Eric Janice, Cody Harjo, Lola Abrera, Miles Lassie,

Yari Bundy, and Doug Stewart. The spook theme song is by Pat McSney Miller. My name is from Washington. And in today's world, we were often consumed with technology with things that beep and things that buzz, hiding the truth behind a screen of noise. Go ahead.

Play your video games. Check your emails. Take your pictures. But knowing the deeper powers remain just what they've always been. And they are not impressed with your 5G network or your new AI interface. They work under the old rules. They heed only. So I'm sure it makes sense to upgrade your operating system.

Remember two, not to discard. the first protections, primary among them. And please hear me when I say, ever?