The Woman in the Room (and Two Other Creepy Travel Stories)

We have three stories in this episode regarding the strangeness of travel and the darkness a dreams. We'll begin with the short one, moving on to more terrifying ords. My name is Edwin, and here the scary story the leak. Last December, I had one of the most terrifying experiences ever while flying. I know a lot of people are afraid of airplanes, so if you're one of them, I say you skip this one. It doesn't mean the plane crashed or anything. I swear I'm alive. I'll tell you about this. It definitely doesn't help make the travel experience any better. It was a red eye flight from Houston to New York, and everything had gone as normal when we boarded. The typical person trying to switch seats, someone asking for water a little too early, and almost everyone lagging in on getting their carry ons, and the compartments above the seats holding everyone else up. There was a man among all this. He was older, probably around seventy or so, and he was upset. I had seen him in the waiting area and I could tell he was over it. His face looked like he had bitten into a lemon. He was annoyed at the couple that got to board before him, even though they had a stroller. I went in after him, and they shot me a look as he stared up toward the luggage compartments and then down on my roller bag. I think his gesture was more like, hey, hurry up. So I put the bag up there and sat on the aisle seat diagonally behind from this man, since he had an ale seat too. As the rest of the passengers were boarding, he sort of lost his patience and tried to get up to talk to the flight attendant. They calmly guided him back. I tried not to make eye contact with him that time. He looked at his watch, shuffled some papers around from his binder, and started tapping his feet, trying to make sure to let everyone know that his time was valuable. I don't know. The whole thing was strange, but he finally took off. The lights were dimmed and I was starting to doze off. Then that loud ten thousand feet announcement came over the intercom, but it was late, so I tried to get some sleep. Either way, I would say about ten minutes later, I heard something moving in front of me, and then the loud gasped from a flight attendant. I opened my eyes wide as the passengers in front of me, a young family, primarily the man, who were gasping loudly, and he started scrambling for something in his bag. I watched the flat attendant rush back and had the grumpy old man a towel, and then another flat attendant came. The man tried to shew them away, asking to be left alone, but I saw those towels. The reading lights were on in front of me. I could tell that the towels were stained with blood. The old man kept one of the towels with him, and apparently the flat attendants didn't think that there was anything seriously wrong, maybe a simple nosebleed or something, so they left and started talking among themselves by the front area of the plane, staring back occasionally. I wasn't sure of what I witnessed right then, so I saw what I thought was a strap, like a bag strap or a string coming down from the luggage compartment above the seat. It's going straight down to over the old man's head. It took a few seconds from my eyes to adjust, but I was finally able to tell what it was liquid. Something was oozing from up there and falling straight onto the top of the man's head. But the man didn't budge, he didn't seem to notice. I looked around at the other passengers, watched them trying to keep their heads from bobbing in front of them. Someone else was snoring. I pressed a tenant button and a flat attendant came up next to my seat before noticing it herself. A large stain was right above this man with a latch for the carry on luggage goes. She put all of her attention toward that, getting close to it and try to find out what it was right away. She grabbed the handle and lifted it, and I got to see something that I still can't believe. It looked like an arm a hand flopping out of the storage area. Flight attendant covered her mouth and ran to the front of the plane, and two other people came, and eventually the captain came to take a look. It was causing a small commotion, though almost everybody on that plane was asleep. It wasn't long before the captain announced that we would be landing rerouting to Atlanta. After a sudden emergency on the plane, two attendants came rushing to the old man and brought more towels, offering to switch him seats, and were finally able to convince him. Audible gasps were heard and a woman screamed when she saw him. It bloodied old man, his shirt completely stained with that deep red tint that only blood can make. We landed, everyone was told to leave the plane, making sure to tell us that rose ten, eleven, and twelve were to leave their carry on luggage if we have brought any on board. I guess miceide of the plane was okay to take our stuff, because nobody stopped me when I reached for my bags. On arrival, we saw police officers and medical personnel waiting at the gate. Fortunately we were able to board relatively quickly after that. But on another plane, nobody talked about what happened that night, of what had been found in that luggage compartment. And sometimes I think that my memory is faulty, that I saw something that wasn't there. But I sometimes get flashes of that image, that arm dangling from the area of the seat, the blood dripping from there. I think of the old man and if he knew about what was going on, or if he was simply an unlucky traveler who for being so rushed and impatient and actually got it worse the woman in the room. It was just after the holidays and I had to travel for work out in some offices in Idaho they sold air conditioning and installation services, and I guess at the end of the year is when people started thinking about this stuff. Not clients necessarily, but the marketing and sales teams with plans and projections and all that. It was going to be my first time in the state, but I was, I don't know, kind of unimpressed with the area where I was going to be staying for those four nights. It was off the main highway, where all I had to eat was Wendy's that was nearby. Well, this was before Uber Eats and all those delivery apps, back when hotels used to leave the numbers for Chinese takeout in pizza deliveries. The play seemed a little quiet, small and run down. The familiar smell of musk and smoke and the curtains still brings back memories of my times at the job. That first night at the hotel was strange, and not because of that necessarily. I was so tired when I got there that I fell asleep as soon as I arrived, and annoyingly, I ended up waking up at eleven at night, unable to fall asleep again. I still had my shoes on and everything, so I got up and walked to the lobby of the hotel room down the hall, I started searching around for vending machines since I was thirsty as heck again. This hotel was small and as expected, had only a tiny lobby area, but thankfully he had three vending machines right outside of it. I had one with snacks like cold sandwiches, chips, and trail mix, the middle one had SODA's, and the last one, right next to the microwave, had frozen stuff like ice cream and these tiny sausage sandwiches that I ended up getting. I don't know why I remember this so clearly. I think I've relived it so many times when I tell this story that my mind has such a clear image of what it was like that night, the temperature outside, the color of the light bulbs, and even the cars that were parked right in the lot. I didn't have small bills or change, so I took my twenty dollars bill to the kid at the front desk, Rod's his name. He politely gave me change for the bill and asked what I was getting it down at his desk and showed me the smashed sandwiches on a paper plate, saying that they were pretty good. But then he looked at me with his stare as if waiting for me to tell him something else, to complain about something, or ask anything. He might have been used to it. Instead, he finally said, something you in two eleven. I nodded and said yeah. For a few days, but I didn't know how to keep the conversation going. He looked like he had something else to say, but stayed quiet. It got kind of awkward. So I walked outside again and stared at the vending machines, trying not to look into the office. This time, I put the pair of frozen sausage sandwiches in the microwaven waited looking out into the lot, seeing if any cars were going to pass by anytime soon. It didn't make any sense just how quiet this place was. Only the hum of the vending machines could be heard. So I stood out there, wolfing down the food, burning my mouth a little bit. On the first bite, I looked at the list of the sodas on the vedding machine, looking curiously at the old logos from those brands. Before going for a PEPSI I washed everything down in a few gulps and went back into the lobby. You know that feeling when you start a new job and don't really know how to look busy yet, That's how I felt there. I didn't want to go back to the room. Something was weird about it. I felt old, I don't know. As I sat on one of the couches looking out the window, I watched as someone else, apparently a manager from the clipboard she was holding, walk up to the guy at the desk and then look toward me. She was getting her bag and stuff ready to go home before she looked my way and started walking over. I pretended not to notice, and finally looked up when she said hello. I smiled and she smiled back, but that was it. She just stood there for a bit. My eyes rolled toward her, and she finally spoke up, just like Rod, you're from Broom two eleven. I nodded and immediately got up, looking at my watch that was still set to Connecticut time. I was pretending like I too, was calling it a night. The woman looked like she was waiting for me to say something, which I did, and it came out pretty rude. Once I thought about it, all right, well, good night, I started walking away. I heard the front door of the lobby click as I made my way down that dim hallway. I turned out that even the workers there were weird, or maybe it was only the night ones. It was on the second night when things started showing their faces. Had managed to stay awake until nine or ten at night and was getting ready to go to sleep when I saw two bags out by the front door of the room. One was a duffel bag and the other seemed to be an overstuffed backpack. I immediately rolled out of bed, thinking that I was in the wrong room, so I rushed to turn on the light, but once I did, the bags were gone. I realized it was late and that I was tired, that maybe my mind was playing tricks on me, so I let it go. I managed to sleep, sort of and woke up the next morning, once again tired. I left for work to have another day of boring meetings, team activities and having to deal with the old salesmen in their oversized suits, but I made it back with another stomach ache after having the cold sandwiches that they had for two days in a row. I sat on the bed for a while, looking at the reflection from the old television across the bed, when suddenly I heard a faucet turn and then water running. For about ten seconds, I thought it was someone from another room, until I realized that it was coming from my bathroom. I rushed over turned it off, wondering how such a thing could have happened. It was a little freaked out, so I left the room and walked to the front desk rod The attendant was there watching something on TV. When I got close to him, startling him, I told him about what happened, and he smiled. He looked at me intently and didn't say much after that. He asked a few questions, of course, but didn't offer any help or explanations as to what may have happened. Walking back down the dim hallway, I thought about his reaction, along with the night shift managers, but I was able to understand what was happening. Not long after that, when I got back into the room, I felt it again, that odd sensation. I described it as a smell, but it may have been a feeling. I left that sort of imprint that makes you remember exactly where you were, sort of like a familiar song. It's hard to explain, but I shut off the lights, got into bed, and waited as I stared toward the ceiling. Now I don't know if I had fallen asleep already by this point, but I was woken up by a soft tapping by the window, like the little rod from the curtain was tapping against the glass. I turned toward it, opening one eye and waiting for some of the darkness of the room to clear up. It was then when I saw it, a still silhouette. Clearly there was a person standing right next to me between the bed and the window. I rolled the other way and got out of bed, rushing toward the light switch when I felt myself bump into what I can only descry was a twine jacket, a cold, wet fabric that slapped against my face, arm, shoulder. I couldn't hold in enough air to scream, so I dropped to the floor and crawled toward the front door. I stood up and flicked on the light, but didn't even turn back to see what may have been there. I noticed that Rod was nodding off at the front desk when I got to the lobby. I was trying to catch my breath and wasn't even wearing shoes. When I sat down, I could still feel that cold body against me. I don't know how long I was there for, but Rod had woken up after a car parked outside. He noticed me sitting there. He waved at me and smiled again in that strange, wide, thin, almost annoying kind of way. It was tiring. I already hated when people were too polite to me, and yet I could feel his eyes on the side of my face when I looked away, so I finally turned my head and looked at him. That's when I said, I saw it. I turned back in anger almost He immediately went around the desk and started walking toward me. You did, he asked excitedly. I watched as the same woman from the other night walked from out of the hallway, her clipboard still in her hand. She saw us right away. He saw it, Rod said, trying to hold back his joy. You did, she said, looking at me, and then she walked over to I started asking questions in between stories of that room, the many things that guests had described about it, and then the instructions that they had to never ask the guests about it or warn them. The room had been known to scare guests away, that a woman appeared in the room at night till lonely guests. They had given me a room, that room, the haunted one when many were empty. How many cars were ever in the lot and I almost never saw people coming and going at that place. I think they wanted to see if it was real, and the only way to do that was to bring in more guests to that room, a silly little game they played to pass the time. I went back to the room, but did and fall asleep that night. I left the light on while I packed my things to leave the next morning, and something feels off listen to it. I still have nightmares about that thing that I saw, and despite them telling me that it was a woman that appeared in the room and sure didn't feel like one. It was large, heavy, and felt much more menacing than that. Hotel has hide a lot of secrets, housing people with bad intentions or having them run it the cross of death We had taken a tour during one of our trips in southern Mexico, a type of food storytelling tour with a photographer. Had a lot of really good reviews online, so we booked them and actually had a good time. But there was one incident, a small one, that stuck with me the most about the entire trip. I don't know if it was part of the story that he was telling or if it was something genuinely paranormal, but now I lean to the second one. We had just finished up a stock for bread and coffee, almost at the end of the tour, when the guide said that he was going to be right back, that he had to use a bathroom, that if he wanted to take a look at the market place he would find us. It was during those five minutes when this older lady with gray and black hair walked up to us slowly and looked up at my wife. She smiled, and the woman smiled back the quento to Fortuna. She said. Both my wife and I are Spanish speakers, and what she said was I tell you your fortune. Yet I immediately found out that she was telling us and not asking. No, I said, grabbing my wife's hand and trying to pull her away toward the bathrooms to wait for the guide to come back. Gratis, the woman said, free, and then she followed no. We both said, fully aware of these scams and this other nonsense that you run into when you're traveling, but we both froze with what she said next. Those Ninos, Juan and Jorge, she said. I felt the brush rush away from my face at that moment. Two kids in their names, Our kids and their names, she said them. We turned around to look at her. She looked toward my wife's lower stomach and pointed to it, told her to get it checked. She looked at me and smiled, saying that I would get through death, that I was going to cross it. I'm sure of what to say. As we both stood there in front of this woman, we only managed to look at each other. That's when the guide came back and led us away from the woman, ignoring her as she repeated over and over, Guidin said, guidance, take care of yourselves. We didn't tell the guide anything about it, and we continued on the tour toward our last stop. But what that woman said never left my mind. I still think about it and I'm saying. For months, I kept thinking about death and how I was going to cross it or crossover or whatever. I thought of my two boys and what their lives would be like without me. I took out a life insurance policy. I kept seeing death everywhere. I kept thinking about how I was going to go. But why was I so convinced about this? Because we had gone to get some tests done for my wife, just to be safe, and they detected ovarian cancer. Between the time when we got the news and when she got back for follow up testing, we talked about the woman, this witch that had walked up to us. It only reassured me about how to prepare to go. But unfortunately the cancer was detected too late, and seven months later my wife was gone. It was rough after that, with long nights wondering how life could be so unfair. She never heard anyone. She was the light of her family. It took me a long time to be able to smile again, having my boys to think for that. They helped me, without realizing it, to cross the pain that death brings. Maybe that's what the woman meant when she approached us.