Natalie's Diary

[07] Panic

PANIC

The Greyview Inn was built in 1898. In its life, it has also served as a boarding house, a private residence for several years, before being purchased and restored as the building as it stands today.

According to the pamphlet, the Greyview Inn hosted two main spirits—a woman who died falling down the stairs either in a freak accident (or an intentional slaughter) and a man rumored to hunt hidden slaves for eternity.

Kate peered over my shoulder at the dramatically lit pictures of the room we stood in. Side light and photo editing made it significantly creepier.

In person, the restored parlor, complete with frilled curtains and a display of non-fiction Greyview books for sale, didn't pack the same punch. The curtains were drawn, but the overhead chandelier threw too much light to leave any deep shadows except for under normal things like tables and chairs.

No stories meant to scare children ever began with monsters hiding beneath tablecloths.

"In this room, employees often hear footsteps coming from the stairs, even after we've closed the Inn for the night." The tour guide, maybe a few years older than me, gestured around the room. He stood in front of seven of us, a family of three being the only other people taking a ghost tour at 8 at night.

It was everything I expected from a tour of a haunted Maine hotel.

"This is riveting," I whispered to Kate. She nodded idly, but her arms remained crossed tight across her body. Every muscle in her body looked taut, tensed to run or scream or claw at anything that might require it.

Her point stuck in my mind. Natalie claimed to know things she shouldn't. Did I believe that but not the promises made by a pamphlet? 1 in 6 chance of an experience.

It only made me feel sorry for the poor woman on the stairs, doomed not only to pace up and down the instrument of her death, but doomed to an eternity of being annoyed by tourists and teenagers.

Rhys and Dean spoke surprisingly little, nodding vaguely at the tour guide's monologue. Maybe it only unsettled me because I wanted to hear my own voice. Too much quiet left room to hear things that cut through the silence.

All I could think of was Mrs. Driscoll's sobbing, how nerve-wracking that sound would be without a tangible source. If I heard that awful croaking grief in a place like this, I'd be across town faster than a Japanese bullet train.

The guide led us to the foot of the stairs, old wood clearly worn out in the middle of each step. Other things were updated. The wallpaper didn't peel enough to be more than a few decades old, a new addition to remind visitors of what it might have looked like at the time of original construction.

The only footsteps I heard on the stairs were the ones of our slow stampede up toward the hall of rooms.

"Now, the Greyview Inn is not the only building in Cullfield believed to be haunted. The Greyview is unique because it's the only one open to the public for the specific purpose of exploring the presences here," the tour guide continued his script. How long did it take him to memorize all this information? How many times a day did he repeat it?

"And what are the other alleged haunts?" Rhys asked, hands in his pockets. "Ya know, if I was a ghost, where else would I hang out?" 

Beside me, Kate sighed heavily, presumably wishing like me that the response wouldn't end up becoming a list of places we needed to explore. Ghost stories hardly increased any places odds of keeping real, tangible secrets from the last decade.