A 'Stanley' Visit

I and my friend were sitting on the couch and watching Stanley Kubrick's 'the shining' and then they proposed the idea for us to go and visit THE STANLEY in Colorado and we both were very into paranormal from the starting even though we never have had any paranormal experiences of our own. So we gave our applications and packed our bags for a week's visit to Colorado. We were flying from IGI, New Delhi to Denver International airport with a halt in Heathrow. The journey from New Delhi to Denver was an easy one and not that tiring as we thought it would be. Then we rented a car and took the road to The Stanley which was a two-hour drive with beautiful roads ahead which anyone can fall in love with. With the Rockys following us we did expect our whole stay at the Stanley to be all pleasant as we were skeptical that we would not have any paranormal experiences as always, little did we know that the Rockys will leave us shaken to our core.

We arrived at the hotel and were greeted by the lovely hotel staff and we were also very delighted as we thought that it will be the vacation we needed for a long time. The Hotel manager, Ron asked us if we would like to book the night tour of the hotel and we agreed which was scheduled later in the week. We were given room 401 which itself had an eerie feel as it was the last one in the long hallway having no rooms nearby. We usually liked to research a little bit about a place which we were visiting but this time it was so spontaneous none of us thought of reading about the history and all the ghost stories about this hotel. The first night was very pleasant and we both had a nice sleep and didn't find anything unusual, maybe because we were jet-lagged. We both woke up at around 4 in the evening, so we skipped both breakfast and lunch. I had brought some snacks along so we had that and just stayed in the room till it was dinner time. At 9 in the evening, we had a nice dinner in the hotel's cascades restaurant. After dinner, we thought of exploring the place a little bit as since we have arrived we have done nothing but be lazy. We were exploring the place and suddenly I hear the piano playing from somewhere so Miguel and I followed the sound which leads us to the music room and to our surprise there was no one there and I could still hear the piano, but me being still a skeptic didn't think anything of it and Miguel said it was probably just some shitty idea by the hotels managing staff to uphold the hotels haunted reputation and I completely agreed with him.then we went back to our room and slept as soon as our butt touched the bed. But the next day started at 8 in the morning for us, we went to have breakfast and then went to Denver for a bit as I had to do some shopping whilst we were there. we had lunch in Denver and arrived back at the hotel by 6. The rest of the night was just a relaxing one, ordering room service and just chilling. The next day we had something to look forward to which was the night tour, so the tour started at 11 pm with four more couples accompanying us and the tour was lead by a lovely lady, Bella.durning tour we met another sweet couple Kendall and josh which were from the UK. The tour guide told us many things about the hotel like 

This old hotel was built in the early 1900s by F.O. Stanley, who created the Stanley Steam Engine. The majestic Georgian style hotel opened in 1909, catering to the rich and famous. Freelan Oscar Stanley (F.O.) and his wife, Flora, traveled west to Colorado in 1903 because F.O. Stanley’s doctor advised him to seek the fresh mountain air. In 1906, construction started at the Stanley Hotel. In 1909, the luxury hotel was completed, with no expense spared. Equipped with running water, electricity, and telephones, the only amenity the hotel lacked was the heat, as the hotel was designed as a summer resort.

She also told us all scary and spooky stories and all the paranormal hot stops which were room 217, The vortex, the concert hall, room 401(yes that's our room!), room 428, music room, the bar, the grand staircase and last but not the least the underground caves. Whilst we were on the tour we did not experience anything paranormal and neither had an eerie feeling about any of the spots. Then during the tour, we decided to have breakfast with Kendall and josh.so next morning we went to breakfast, and during that we decided that all four of us will again explore all the hotspots with an emf reader and a spirit box which Kendall and Josh had brought along. I was looking forward to it and was not scared at all cause at that point I was sure that all the stories about Stanley were just stories.

Then the time came and at midnight we all met in the hotel lobby and started our little adventure which would turn from exciting to horror pretty quick. We first paid our visit to the concert hall which is said to have been occupied by Paul who was a jack-of-all-trades around the hotel. Among his duties where Enforcing an 11 p.m. curfew at the hotel, So josh turned on his spirit box, and as soon as it was turned on we hear a very clear 'GET OUT' in a male voice which he was rumored to say to all the people who did not follow the curfew. Another ghost known to wander about Concert Hall is Lucy, who quite possibly was a runaway or homeless woman who found refuge in the hall and on the spirit box we also heard a voice saying 'Help me' which we assumed was lucy but I and Miguel were still very skeptics about this whole thing.

Then Josh and Kendall had to leave the other day and it was already very late, so I and Miguel went to drop them to their room which was on the third floor and there I experienced something which sends chills down my spine, I turned white as a sheet after stopping in front of a particular door. Miguel asked what had happened and I said that something had run their hand from my backside up to the nape of her neck and then Kendall reminded us about what our tour guide has told us about an apparition that likes to grope young ladies and run his hand from their backside up to their neck.I was so shocked after this that I too was not happy to continue our little investigation. So I and Miguel headed back to our room and it was then when Miguel had a nightmare and he was the type of person who never had bad dreams or in fact any significant dreams that he remembered the next morning. In this nightmare of his, we were being chased by a man with no face, down the long hallways. He was drenched in sweat when he woke up around 3 in the morning, which woke me up too and then I remember clearly seeing the time it was 3:36, we heard a loud knocking on our door, I was scared shitless and so was Miguel, then we heard someone shouting "open the door...open the door!" we rushed to the door and opened it, it was a hotel staff and told us to grab only important things and leave the room and gather in the garden as soon as possible, so we grabbed our phones and ran to the garden. All of the guests gathered there which to my surprise were not more than 20 and it was peak season, so that was something weird.

All of the guests were there except Kendall and Josh, but that was very surprising as they had their flight back at 8 in the morning and there won't be any reason for them to check out that early, so we were very worried as we thought that they are still inside the hotel. Miguel rushed to the hotel staff and informed them about this and he returned to me with a white face, that was when we got to know that there were no more guests left in the hotel and the hotel desk told us later that, no Kendall and Josh checked in the hotel in 2020 but they did in 1920 and that was when we got to know about the whole story from the desk manager which was not even told by the tour guide. So apparently, A couple checked in the hotel in 1920 in the presidential suite which had a kitchen too and one of them by mistake left the stove on and there was a gas leak, both of them were still in the room but asleep and one of the maids opened the room with the master key as she had to clean the room and as soon as she entered the room there was a huge Boom! and the whole right wing of the hotel was burned down along with Kendall, josh, the maid, and 2 more guests. The right-wing and the third floor was however redone but not its reputation.

It was then we realized that the sweet couple who spent hours with us where actually not real but there we ghosts and the reason the whole hotel was evacuated was that there was a fire in the right-wing and the cause of the fire is still unknown but people speculated that it was 100 years since the previous fire occurred and it was just coming back to a full circle.

I and Miguel were very much shaken to our core and we decided to catch the next flight home, so we did, and just after 3 short days which started as a vacation and ended up in the nightmare, we were back on our couch again watching Mike Flanagan's 'Doctor Sleep'(sequel to the shining) but now as believers, not as skeptics.