after talking to my mom the other day I just remembered a shady encounter my brother had when I was 8 years old I'm 20 now my entire family moved from San Diego County to the middle of nowhere in freaking Colorado after less than 2 years of being there and having to put up with the ridiculous weather my oldest brother decided he finally had enough so we got his GED and packed up all of his things in his crappy car left his feris behind for us to take care of since they're illegal in California and headed west to move in with her friend or at least he tried to he didn't even make it 5 hours before his car completely died because he couldn't handle driving through the Rockies he was stranded in a tiny Podunk town after dark and his car got towed to a garage while the tow truck driver offered to drive him to a cheap but nice Motel to spend the night since we couldn't come get him until the next day they passed by a Motel 6 or some other chain Motel like that but the driver said H I wouldn't leave my dog in that place there's a way nicer Motel just down the road for the same price and then kept driving until they showed up at this really rundown looking place my brother thought it looked pretty bad but he's kind of a shy and non-confrontational person plus he's scrawny and completely unintimidating so he didn't say anything and just thanks the guy he couldn't see it at night but when my mom and I got there the next day we realized just how weird this place was they had a big pool right smack dab in the middle of the parking lot but it was drained dry and looked like it had never been used the entire family that owned the motel mom dad daughter and son sat on plastic lawn chairs in between the pool and the building that the front desk was in facing the motel rooms literally all day long then we saw the inside of his room the bathroom had a small window which isn't unusual but it was only 2 ft off the ground and next to the toilet with nothing covering it or obstructing the view of anyone using the toilet meaning anyone outside like the owners could catch you doing your business there wasn't even a spot for a toilet paper holder so the RO just had to sit on a shelf and the whole room looked pretty run down my brother then quietly told us he barely got any sleep the night before because he was so terrified at first we assumed it was just because he was sleeping in a strange place by himself when he was only 17 his room was the kind where it's connected to the room next to it by a hallway only a few feet long with a door in each room so large fam staying in adjacent rooms can keep it open and get between the two without having to deal with keys he said he heard faint noises coming from the room next to his the night before so he opened his door to see what was going on and there was enough of a gap underneath see that someone was standing right on the other side of the far door my brother watched for a few minutes and the guy's Shadow never shifted so we got creeped out and closed his own door making sure to lock it and then tried to go to bed he woke up at some point to a strange sound and sat there trying to identify it for a minute before suddenly he realized it was a doorknob rattling the guy had finally opened his own door and was trying to get into my brother's room the sound stopped after a few minutes but he was too scared to fall back asleep in case the guy tried again and picked a lock and he was telling us the story quietly just in case the guy could hear him through the walls never saw what he looked like but who knows if the guy watched him while he checked into the room or something I have no idea if he was planning on hurting my brother but I'm sure he was up to no good at this to the strange frustrating conversation that my mom had with the owner of the hotel over the phone on the drive up and the weird ass mechanic shop the car was tow to and the town became one of the creepiest places that we had ever had The Misfortune of stopping in it would have costed more to fix the car than it was actually worth so we just abandoned it and my brother had to come back home again which he was actually very happy to do after such a freaky experience I'll first give a little backstory to my living situation I was about 10 possibly 11: when my mom found a job working as a live-in manager to a quaint little motel at the end of my town she took the job and we packed up and left my childhood home when we first moved in it was a disaster holes everywhere and certain parts of the house smelled horrible we later learned this was because the old manager Steve was a drugie and his wife was making and dealing meth out of there a couple months until living there we had sort of fixed the place up and made it more livable at this point my mom was working full-time at the desk we had mostly stayed towards the back of the house because of the odd setup the way the front desk where you check in is laid out was basically in our living room it was a tiny cramped room with just a desk on one side and a door on the other which led to our living room a lot and I mean a lot of people decide to just open that door whenever they pleased and often got a view of Whatever video game my brother and I were playing this as a kid already freaked me out and because of the motel's past many meth heads came by looking for Steve and would just walk right in when they didn't believe my mom when she said they didn't work or live there any longer one time during summer break back a year or two after we moved in I decided to stay up all night and play video games I made a little nest in the living room and I made myself comfy it was around 1:00 in the morning after hours of Skyrim when I started to hear weird noises usually if my mom knew a regular would be late she would leave a key in an envelope for them which looking back doesn't seem smart at all I heard talking and it sounded like two men speaking a different language I figured that's what they were doing and we leave in a second but they never did continued talking for like 10 minutes before I started to hear them pull on the door at first it was gentle as if they were just testing it as they continued it seemed to get more frantic and I could almost hear grunting soon it was full-on banging on the door I was confident that my parents would hear it but the room was all the way in the back of the house which was about three hallways down so after a minute I figured I might be screwed and that I was probably going to to die I was a super paranoid kid the banging stopped and after a few seconds I started to hear tapping at the window behind the desk in the house I saw very clearly a head from behind the curtain the windows were high up and he looked to be stretching up to get it he started to yank on the window trying to break it open while he was doing this I saw a movement at the screen door in the kitchen at this point I was absolutely [ __ ] myself I mean I was petrified I'm guessing the guy who was at the desk door now circled around to the screen door while his buddy was prying at the window he jiggled the doorknob back and forth after a second of resuming what he was doing earlier and now banging on that door full force for some reason through my fear I decided to try and be a ninja top my sneak level of course and army crawled into the little office part connected to the desk there was a key drop off where people could just shove their keys into when they checked out that was basically just a hole in the wall I popped up all while they were still banging on the door and grabbed a pencil to lift up the flap I don't know what I expected to see they were clearly at the side of the house but I just had a horrible feeling like I was being surrounded well it turns out I was right because when I lifted it I saw two more men standing at the door hands in their pockets I immediately closed it and I almost cried during this I fa to notice the hallway light turn on and my parents submerged looking very distraught as soon as my dad turned on the kitchen light and shouted what the hell all the noise stopped and the guys took off running I could hear one of them shouting something and then nothing just complete silence after I told my parents about what happened the best I could through hysterics they called the police they showed up about an hour later and took the report it didn't seem like this happened to anyone else in the town but the police seemed to think it was some random workers and maybe didn't understand that we were closed I don't know it seems like they were just kind of race blaming but I never really got an explanation of that night all I know is that they didn't seem friendly and I don't know what they would have done if they got in I want to preface this story by stating that I've had my fair share of encounters with creepy men this situation however scared the literal life out of me it's the first time I genuinely felt like my life was in danger my husband and I had to drive 17 hours last week to North Carolina for a wedding it was a very tiring week and we basically spent the entire time rushing from one family gathering to another we were staying in a motel for the first time we were there we had already been at this motel for a few days by the time the day of the actual wedding rolled around the day of the wedding was hectic we were rushing around trying to get ready to leave for the venue my husband got ready before me so he could do some last minute things before we had to leave that left me alone in our motel room to get ready before he returned it was brutally hot outside and I decided to do my hair and makeup and just my underwear so I wouldn't be sweating in my nice dress the whole time the way this Motel was laid out the sink and mirror were in the General open area of the room with the toilet and shower in another room so anyone walking by a room window could see me standing in the mirror however I did have the curtains closed but these curtains were a little bit sheer so you could technically see the shadow of someone walking by on the outside or you could see maybe the silhouette of me inside the room I was curling my hair in the mirror when I noticed a silhouette of a man walking by my room window as he's passing my window I see him stop and start trying to look into my window at first I thought it was my husband trying to see if I was ready so I paid no mind to it but the longer the guy stood there bobbing his head around trying to get a better look through the curtains I began to realize it was not my husband because obviously why wouldn't he just come in now I'm starting to get a little freaked out before I could do anything though I watch as this guy starts to go from my room door my utter shock and horror came when he was actually able to open the door and walked right inside before my husband left he forgot to pull the door shut all the way till it clicked into its lock he was very upset at himself when I told him this later so now I am face to face with this man and I in my underwear no less who's at least 6t tall and standing in my room I thought to myself this is it he's going to attack you that's a very scary realization to have I also thought to myself that you're going to have to burn his eye sockets out with his curling iron if you want to survive for a few seconds probably only a second or two but it felt longer he just stood there staring at me like I was a piece of meat and he was starving ready to pounce on me like prey he then began to smile the most evil looking toothy grin I have ever seen and started mumbling something under his breath I really couldn't make out what he was saying completely but I did make out the words pretty lady and come here I don't know if it was a fight or flight response but I suddenly got pissed and I charged towards him ready to strike him with my hot curling iron I screamed as loud as I could get the heck out of here must have startled him because he jumped back out on the balcony of the motel I saw this as my chance and I ran for the door I luckily was able to get to the door and slam it shut right before he was about to make his second attempt at entering inside I immediately collapsed on the floor sobbing I was literally too scared to move from that spot until my husband came back about 15 minutes later I told him the whole thing and he was freaked out he initially wanted to find the guy so we could beat the [ __ ] out of him but I refused to let him leave my side he must have apologized at least a thousand times during the rest of our trip for not making sure that the door was locked before leaving but I told him that today and that whole trip really was so rushed I could see how it happened we went to the motel management and told him the story as well and the police were obviously called and I gave them a description of the guy so they could see if it was someone who was staying in the motel after going around to the few Motel occupants they said no one matched his description and concluded that he wasn't staying there obviously we were relate to to the wedding that day and the whole experience just ruined what should have been a happy time we planned on staying another day before our long drive home but we both just wanted out of there as soon as possible we skipped most of the reception and went back to the motel packed up and left I'm usually so Vigilant with locking my doors especially when I'm home alone just goes to show you all it takes is that one time for you to forget to check your locks and that certain unwanted guest is inviting themselves in last year my best friend Ally and I went on this great American road trip trying to ski in as many states as possible in the month that we had taken off from work we did a lot of skiing and a lot of driving and even a lot of sleeping in various couches truck stops and of course in motels most motels were fine some had great free breakfasts and some had dirty hot tubs that left us scrubbing ourselves in the shower and joking about getting pregnant from the water some had weird stains that we tried to not think about some were spotless but cold and a few were amazing but only one was terrifying we stopped at the motella around 10:30 after a long day of skiing followed by a good 6 hours of driving we were tired and sore and ready for bed we had made some wrong turns and we were not exactly sure where we were we didn't want to use our data on our Canadian phone so we were navigating old school with the map it was mildly unsuccessful but we were pretty sure we had a few hours of driving until the next town and we were not looking forward to it so when we saw the Glorious neon sign that blinked motel and vacancy at us we didn't need to say anything we both knew that was where we were staying for the night as we pulled into the front of the office I noted that we were the only people staying there I told myself that it wasn't creepy we were stopping close to a summer tourist spot midwinter of course there would be an excess of rooms in fact maybe we should have considered our eles lucky that they were't open at all it was definitely not creepy we entered the office and a shrill little bell announced our entry to the world we waited for someone to come to the front desk then we waited a bit longer we shared looks with lifted eyebrows and tapped our fingers impatiently on the desk hello Ally called out in silence somebody here we waited for a few more minutes then the door behind the counter slowly opened an old man poked his head out spotted us and his face split into to a wide grin guests he said you know I thought I heard something but I told myself it was just my imagination you know just my imagination you don't get a lot of visitors around this time and two beautiful young ladies too a I'm so sorry I kept you waiting just couldn't believe that I had such luck welcome welcome welcome he was certainly an odd duck but I used to work long lonely night shifts so I know how excited you can get when something happens so travel wary strangers can I offer you a bed to rest your your head he smiled yeah how much is a double room he looked at us gr not wavering $99 for two beds and 79 for one I was ready to splurge for the two beds OE moved a lot in her sleep and hogged the covers last night she had kept waking me up let's do the two beds I looked at her pleadingly she gave me a quick look filled with annoyance and I looked back at the man his grin had faded he looked as annoyed as Ally for a moment when he noticed me looking at him his grin snapped back into place ah actually it seems we only have the one bedrooms ready I'm so sorry wait what I couldn't help but burst out there are like no people here oh yes that is the problem isn't it sometimes we don't keep all the rooms prepped in the winter safe costs you know I mean I considered that it didn't make sense at all but I was too tired to argue you know what for such pretty ladies I'll give you a discount how about $69 for the one bedroom we'll take it Ally responded before I even had time to think thank you you can pay by card right uh no I'm afraid not we don't well we never got around to that modern stuff got to stay off the grid right he laughed at his own joke after that I shuddered involuntarily we had cash it was fine it was creepy but we were tired we paid got the keys and drove up and parked in front of the room I grabbed my stuff from the car unlocked the door and surveyed the room it looked clean enough the bed was big and I was tired as hell hey I'm going to go for a little walk actually my legs are so stiff Ally said from behind me want to come I eyed the bed it looks too comfortable Ally had a good point but that bed was speaking to me nah I'll just shower and crash okay cool no problem I won't be very long she said then she turned and left I slammed the door shut behind me and stripped out of my clothes as fast as I could I jumped in the shower and the luxurious feeling of hot water ran down my body I had to force myself to get out I went into the room put on my PJs and laid down on the bed Ali still wasn't back yet but her nighttime stroll sometimes lasted as long as an hour even when she was this tired she has a hard time falling asleep sometimes and those walks apparently helped her I got my phone out and tried connecting to the Wi-Fi but it didn't work I immediately got annoyed not because I really needed the Wi-Fi but because I had paid for it and I wanted it so I just laid there kind of annoyed and glaring at the ceiling fan it was a weird model something black sticking out from the bottom I had never seen that before I wondered idly what it did then I thought about how we were the only people staying here and how Ally was walking somewhere alone in the dark and how I didn't know where she was and how creepy that guy had been when he laughed at his own joke about staying off the grid then the familiar feeling of fear started creeping into my guts I knew knew where my mind was going I have an overact of imagination I tend to turn every situation into a horror movie in my head it can be a real problem in my dating life I think most guys are serial killers and allly always makes fun of me for it I thought about how the guy had offered us two beds and then refused to give it to us did he want us in this room specifically and why he probably had some creepy fantasy of two young girl sharing a bed H I shook my head trying to stop my mind from spinning out of control I get out of the bed and I went over to the huge mirror on the wall I got my hair out of the towel and started brushing it I couldn't quite get rid of the uneasy feeling at the pit of my stomach I knew I wouldn't sleep well that night for some reason I thought of the oneway mirror scene in Cabin in the Woods God why do I watch horror movies by the way they always come back to me at the worst times I vaguely recalled that there's a way to check if it's a real mirror I touched the mirror and there was no Gap I could see my eyes widening in fear in the mirror no wait that can't be it I tried to reason with myself that's just ridiculous this is fine we're fine it's got to be the other way around but maybe I realized I could check the bathroom mirror it was one of those medicine cabinet mirrors that one was clearly real I walked slowly into the bathroom please be the same please be the same I muttered I wiped the fog mirror took a breath and slowly pressed my index finger against the surface ice filled my veins a gap I took a deep breath trying to clear my mind we needed to get out of there and where was Ally I felt Panic bubbling I need to get out of there okay but play it cool I thought they could be watching who the hell are they I can't let them know I know I have to get out of here the black thing on the fan my breath caught in my throat it had to be a camera I went back into the bedroom and started putting my stuff back in my little bag I hoped it looked innocent enough maybe we wanted an early start right maybe I had OCD and liked all my stuff in my back it was fine I went to put the bag in the car and I turned the door knob but it didn't move I tried to stay calm and to not panic they could be watching maybe it was jammed I tried to handle again nothing I used all my Force nothing I got my phone out and figured I'd text Allie and call the police I had to do something of course no signal I literally wanted to cry I looked around the room for a window for the first time I noticed they had bars in front of them I've seen that before of course it's a safety precaution my ground floor apartment in the city also had them so that people can't break in I never before considered that they also very effectively stop people from breaking out though as well I figured the door must unlock from the outside only once you're in the room you're stuck there I pinned all my hopes on that idea Ally would come back unlock the door and we get out of there the next 10 minutes were the longest of my life I kept trying to come up with a plan with something but my mind was drowning in Adrenaline finally I heard footsteps outside Ali was back I got up standing right next to the door and she put the key in the lock turned it and it opened Ally get in the car right now I said as I pushed her out of the room what what why there's a camera in the room I hissed as I pushed her back her eyes went wide and she iMed mediately obliged I unlocked the car threw my bag in the back and we both jumped in the door to the adjacent room bursted open and the old man came running out he slammed his hands on the hood as if he was trying to hold us back with his bare hands we both screamed as I skitted out of there even in my panic I could see several shapes behind him in the room he had not been alone I just kept driving praying that they weren't following us we have to call the police Ally said after an hour of driving we have to I agreed she used her precious data to find the number of the local sheriff's office and called them up I only heard half of the conversation hey I want to report a an almost crime I'm sorry I'm not quite sure what no sir it's not a joke we were staying at this hotel and there was a a camera in one of those oneway mirrors I interjected what she turned to me yeah tell him and a one-way mirror and the door didn't unlock from the inside she said said looking to me for confirmation I nodded there were people in the room behind that mirror too her eyes went wide in fear as she repeated the information then she described the location of the motel yes no she sounded uncertain we've been skiing she frowned yeah no that's fine we'd rather not I looked at her quizzically no really we're already out of state we just wanted to let you know then she abruptly hung up what was that I asked I don't know he wanted us to come back and give a statement shouldn't we I asked she didn't say anything for a little while I don't know I got a really bad Vibe I just let's not please small town American Sheriff's Office that's likely totally how you die in horror movies we're not in a horror movie though are you sure I Shrugged I wasn't really stoked in the idea of going back either frankly I was still worried that they were following us I really didn't want to get pushed off the road by some psycho hillbilly Motel manager and we had told the police we had done our part or so I thought but yesterday there was a story in the news about three young girls going missing they were road tripping in that area never made it back to Seattle I can't help but wonder if they stopped at that same Motel I also can't help but wonder what would have happened if Alie didn't take that walk if we both got locked in that room what the people in the other room expected and what were they going to do if they just watch or if well if Ally and I could have been that missing person story so this happened a little over 2 years ago now and I wanted to post it somewhere just to look back on it one day and never forget the lesson that I learned disclaimer yes this is real but I wish it wasn't it was 2016 and I had just started a new job at a motel it was low pay but I needed an office job one of my friends Michael got me this job for a few days I did training with the owner in the mornings and for two nights Michael trained me our job was 11:00 p. m. to 7:00 a.
m. nothing exciting just checking guests in and doing paperwork my boss however the owner went away with his wife on vacation for a week which is attributed to the Swift training I had to endure so it was my first night alone on the night shift there was a monitor with security cameras around the motel's property in large glass windows all around the office building with a glass door there was no night window like most motels have it was fairly early in the night at about 1:00 a. m.
