The Old Hotel

In North Texas there is an old hotel that was built in the late 1950s as the tallest building west of the Mississippi River at the time of its completion. My grandfather worked there until the day he died and my father worked there for many years before passing the baton to me.

I was in the A/V warehouse one night working late, checking equipment when I heard a loud bang from the front of the warehouse. When I went to investigate, I saw one of our large steel storage cabinets had come open and the handle had left an impression in the cinder block wall. Knowing that the doors always opened a little on their own anyway, I closed the doors and stuck a pen in the padlock loop to keep the doors closed. Nothing else happened for the next 10 or so minutes while I waited out the clock to leave.

I locked up the warehouse and set the security system and when I turned around to start heading to the main hotel, the 300 foot distance seemed to double. The entire back house was darkened and I got this uneasy feeling. I started to quickly make my way to the skybridge that connected the convention center to the hotel. The closer I got, the more I felt this pressure weighing down on me and I had this horrifying feeling that if I turned around to look behind me, it would be the end of me. I kept feeling this pressure closing in on me and putting more and more pressure on me. Then, as soon as I stepped over the threshold of the skybridge, it was gone. Replaced with a familiar comforting feeling.