Holiday Inn Jetport

From: Lauren Elise (lrizy@hotmail.com)
Story type: Ghost
Location: Newark Airport, NJ
Source: Form Submission

On my way back from a business trip in 1996, I and several of my colleagues arrived in Newark just in time to miss our connecting flight. Our flight came in late and Continental Airlines gave our seats to stand-bys. It was the last flight, so the airline gave us vouchers, put us all up in the airport's Holiday Inn Jetport for the night and assigned us to the first flight to Boston in the morning. Tired and hassled, we all retired to the hotel (it was around midnight when we finally got settled in).

I went to sleep very quickly that night, knowing that my wake up call would be at 4:30am to catch the first flight. I remember snapping open my eyes, still lying in the same position I had fallen to sleep. I looked at the clock and it was 3:17am. I noticed a faint light from the corner of my eye, looked over towards the drawn curtains and little table and chairs that most hotel rooms have and noticed a man.

He was not 'light' but he was lighter than the rest of the room so that I could see him distinctly. He was grainy, like a black and white image from a television. He faded out below the knees, but the rest of him was definable. I have never seems anything like this before or since. He looked middle aged, was bald with a rim of hair and had a bit of a pot belly. He was standing in what seemed to be boxer shorts and was slowly removing an ordinary white dress shirt. Underneath, he wore a t-shirt. I was lying in bed, looking at his profile, not quite scared, mostly uncertain about what I was looking at. I dug my thumb nail into my thigh to be sure I was awake, even though I knew I was. I suppose it was just something to do in a situation like that. The man was expressionless, blank, the area where his eyes were supposed to be were gray and hazy. He slowly folded his dress shirt and hung it over the back of the chair.

At this point, I rolled over and stared at the clock. I knew that the only reason I wasn't terrified was because he didn't look at me, he didn't seem to know I was there at all. I still kick myself over this part, wishing I was braver, and had the nerve to try to speak to him, but I just couldn't do it. I slipped into denial, faced the clock and did my best to go back to sleep. A few moments later, I felt weight on the edge of the bed. I felt him lie down and that was it. I refused to freak out and stubbornly went to back to sleep. Denial can be a very powerful thing.

The wake up call rung at 4:30am and I noticed that I had a nice bruise on my thigh from my 'awake' test. I caught my flight back to Boston and told one co-worker what I had seen. All he said was, 'I wouldn't tell anyone else that if I were you.'

The next day, I called the hotel from work. I asked to speak to a manager (though now I think I should have spoken to someone at the front desk, who had less at stake). I told her my name, that I worked for a publishing company and that a few of us had stayed there within the last couple of days. I asked her if anything had happened in room 237(I think that was the number, it's been a few years now). When I said the room number, she interrupted me and said quickly, 'I am very sorry if you were inconvenienced in any way.' I told her that something happened in that room and I wanted to speak to someone about it, but before I could get all the words out, she said again, 'I am very sorry if you were inconvenienced in any way,' and hung up on me.

I didn't pursue it any farther. I have no doubt I was awake, since I've had lucid dreams before and they are still quite different from the feeling of consciousness. After a few years now and plenty of time to think about it, I think the man simply passed away there, perhaps from a heart attack in that very bed and had no idea he was dead. I hope that he has moved on, to whatever/wherever that may be. That blank feeling, that simply clueless way of being and that very notion of repeating the same routine again and again puzzles me deeply. It seems a terrible and confusing cycle in which to be trapped.

How does one get the courage to talk to them, should this ever happen to me again? I pray for the ones I've seen and felt, and even for those I haven't sometimes. No matter what culture or faith, many people believe that the prayers of the living can help them find their way.