Horror stories

Fairuza Balk

Fairuza Balk appeared on Celebrity Ghost Stories in 2011 and told a story about her terrifying experience as a teenager when she stayed in a haunted hotel room. She is best known for playing a teen witch in The Craft (1996).

This is literally one of the most frightening times I can remember in my life. I was so, so terrified. The worst part of it was that it wasn't like it was a shadow of a person or an orb or some of these other things people talk about. I don't know what it was.

  I started acting when I was 6 years old and I always travelled with my mother. When we came to Los Angeles for meeting or auditions, we always stayed at this one particular hotel. It was a beautiful, old Hollywood hotel and it looked as though it was frozen in time.

  When I was about 15 or 16, it was my first trip to Los Angeles alone. I arrived at the hotel and they brought me to my room. It was on a different floor than the room I usually stayed in. When I asked them why, they told me, "Oh sorry, your room was booked so we're putting you in here."

  The room they put me in was on the first floor, close to the lobby. I ordered my dinner and got ready for bed. I noticed it was really really cold, so I got an extra blanket out of the closet. I turned all the lights off and got into bed. I tried to relax, think good thoughts and go to sleep.

  All of a sudden, there was a Click! and the lamp on the bedside table came back on. It struck me as strange, but I just turned it off, rolled back over and tried to go to sleep.

  Click! The light came back on again. I turned it back off again.

  Click! The light came back on again.

  I started to get the creeps and the room got much colder. It got so cold that I was shivering. I was sitting up in bed with the covers up around my neck and I could see my own breath in the room. It was getting colder and colder and colder and I was getting more and more frightened.

  The air itself somehow became thicker. It was tangiable as if you could reach out and grab it if you wanted to.

  Then, suddenly, the chair in front of the desk tipped over and crashed to the floor. I jumped and as I watched, the chair slowly began sliding across the floor. That was when I knew something was in there with me.

  The curtains began to billow even though the french doors were closed. Then, all of a sudden, everything in the room went berserk. The light on the ceiling was turning on and off. The desk started to move. The curtains were literally flying all over the place. It just got worse and worse and worse.

  At this point, I was freaking out. I couldn't move. I couldn't scream. No sound would come out of my throat. With every passing moment, it was getting more and more intense, as if it was feeding off my fear, like the room itself was possessed.

  I was trying to figure out how to get to the door, how to get out of the room and how to get away from whatever it was that was in there.

  I pulled the covers up over my eyes. I took a deep breath. I told myself I was a big girl. I told myself I was strong enough to handle this. I told myself not to be afraid. I told myself that whatever was in there with me, it couldn't hurt me because it wasn't alive.

  I was sucking up my all courage and as I took a deep breath and was about to get up, the bed underneath suddenly collapsed. Then, it lifted up a foot off the floor and threw me off.

  I landed on the floor and took off running. When I got to the door, I looked back. The air was thick like a fog and it came at me.

  I ran in my bare feet and my nightie. I glanced over my shoulder and I could see it in the doorway. I felt it rushing behind me. It was coming after me.

  There were gusts of wind going past me. My hair was whipping around. I wasn't even sure I was going to get to the lobby. I just had to run as fast as I could and pray that I would make it.

  I got the the lobby and I opened my mouth to tell them what had happened, but no sound came out. It was like someone had put a vice around my throat and my stomach. The only sound that would come out was a hoarse croak.

  "Theressomethinginmyroom... Theressomethinginmyroom... Theressomethinginmyroom..."

  After about an hour, I could finally talk about what happened. I told them I didn't want to go back to the room. I didn't even want to go near the room.

  "There was something in there," I insisted, "and no one can tell me there wasn't."

  I was trying to convince them, but they stopped me and said, "You don't have to convince us. We know."

  "This is something you know about?" I said. "This has happened here before?"

  "Yes," they said. "On the first floor, we've had a few incidents..."

  There was a woman who worked as a maid and I heard her say, under her breath, "She should never have been put in that room."

  I was just like... "WHAT?"

  The next day, I was on a flight home.

  Whatever it was, it was really angry and it felt, more than anything, as if it needed to be noticed and it was angry that it wasn't.

  I still visit the hotel, but I never stay there. I only go there to have lunch. The interesting thing is, the room I stayed in is sealed shut now. Nobody can stay in there anymore and it wasn't just because of me. They had other incidents and it got to the point where they felt it wasn't safe. At least then I knew that I wasn't the only one who had experienced something and that it was real...