An invisible force stretched the woman’s arms wide, dragged her cruciform body backward, and then pinned her against the hotel wall like something out of The Exorcist. I wasn’t sure if I needed to call an ambulance or the Ghostbusters. Just add that to the list of things not covered in the Academy.
Unwanted
Getting calls for unwanted people at hotels is pretty common. Sometimes it’s the after-party that gets out of hand, other times it’s the deadbeat that stays past checkout and refuses to answer the door. And then there are those who take advantage of the hotel’s perks without being an actual guest — often it’s the homeless or the drug addict using the pool, eating the continental breakfast, or secreting themselves in some out of the way place to sleep it off. Even the nice hotels have these problems from time to time, especially downtown.
I walked into the lobby of one of our city’s nicest hotels where I was quickly greeted by the manager on duty. It was after bar-closing so I assumed they were having issues with some drunk college kids and wanted them removed. I was wrong. The manager pointed me in the direction of the far end of the lobby where the elevators were. She walked quickly across the foyer, the clatter of her high heels echoed off the tile floor. She struggled to summarize the situation for me, but I soon learned why she was having trouble with the explanation. I walked beside her trying to keep up while scanning for the origin of the strange, guttural noise that seemed to come out of nowhere.
Good Samaritan
Past the lounge area and the winding central staircase I could see two women on the floor, one on top of the other. One woman was lying on her back, the other straddling her. The woman on the bottom was younger, maybe in her 20’s or 30’s, and was disheveled. Her hair was wild, her shoes were missing, and she looked like a cartoon character who had just stuck their finger in a light socket. The other woman was on top of her, pinning her down. She was a heavier woman, professionally dressed and appeared well-to-do — pretty much the polar opposite of the other. She was face to face with the women she straddled, talking in a soothing, calm voice. The groans and shrieks came in fits from the homeless looking woman who seemed to struggle under the other’s weight, kicking her legs and whipping her head from side to side in obvious resistance, apparently experiencing some kind of episode.
The professional looking woman was certainly past middle age, and honestly it seemed to me she was way out of her league as she tried her best to be a Good Samaritan — and by league I mean not knowing what she was getting herself into. The woman she was trying to console was clearly not in her right mind, unpredictable at best and dangerous at worst. The hotel manager briefly told me that the homeless woman had come in off the street before suddenly flailing around on the floor and screaming a throaty gibberish. It seemed that the Good Samaritan had been in the wrong place at the right time and then taken it upon herself to intervene in the meantime.
Things Got Weird
Once I was close enough to the pair on the floor I highly suggested to the woman on top to get off and get back. My first concern was her safety because the woman she was trying to help looked like she wouldn’t be opposed to the taste of human flesh. The woman doing her best to help looked up, saw it was the police, and thankfully went along with my request. She gently got up, still trying to be the voice of consolation as she backed away. The distraught and shoeless woman continued writhing on her back on the tile floor and appeared to be fighting off some unseen entity. I stepped in between them and addressed the woman on the floor. And that’s when things got weird.
She sat up with a hollow, distant look on her face. Then she suddenly got to her feet and with her hands limp at her sides, dropped her chin to her chest. Slowly her head turned to one side and simultaneously turned that hand over and looked intently at the palm of her own hand. She watched her hand rise, as if pulled by a string, her eyes getting wider as her hand came up to eye level. Then, she gritted her teeth and strained to pull back as her entire arm stretched out to her side. Suddenly, she flipped her head to the other side and repeated this same process with the other hand. As she fought back against the other arm stretching out she began to shriek, “Nooooooooooooo!”
Pinned
Both arms were now spread wide in the shape of a cross. She whipped her head back and forth alternating her gaze from hand to hand shouting, “No, no, no, noooooooo!” still straining like she was trying to pull her hands back from whatever it was that was holding them apart. The next thing I know she was being pulled backward toward the wall between the lobby elevators. She backpedaled, feet shuffling and almost tripping, until she slammed into the wall, pressed flat against it like a life-sized crucifix. She stood there pinned to the wall for a few moments, then slowly slid down to the floor into a seated position, arms still spread wide. She groaned with great effort like she was lifting weights at the gym as she looked at her hands and worked to free herself, before slumping forward. Her arms dropped and she rolled onto the floor in exhaustion, her back heaving up and down while she caught her breath.
By that point I had seen enough and radioed for an ambulance since last time I checked the Ghostbusters weren’t real and we didn’t have anyone on duty that knew how to perform an exorcism. Now it would be a waiting game. I just hoped this didn’t get any weirder.
Stranger Than Fiction
The woman lay curled on her side with her face turned to the floor. She lay there panting like she had just finished a marathon. It wasn’t long before she rolled onto her back, sat up, and the process of her arms stretching out and being dragged back to the wall started all over again. When the ambulance arrived and the paramedics came in she had just slid down the wall into a seated position with her arms out to her sides, pinned to the wall. They came in, looked at her, looked at me, then back at her, then back at me. We just gave each other the look and I was like, “She’s all yours.”
I helped them get her onto the stretcher and strap her in. She muttered and grunted but nothing coherent came out of her when the medics asked her what was going on. Bath salts were popular in the city at the time so it could have been a bad trip if she had used them. It also could have been a mental health crisis, or it could have been something supernatural or demonic — although I always thought that if that was the case I would just know, you know? Whatever it was, it was strange.
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- Have you ever encountered the supernatural?
- What about a situation that just couldn’t be explained?
- How did you handle it?
- What was the outcome?
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