Deadly Blessing
Just after six in the morning, college student Justine Edwards poured herself an oversized cup of coffee, sat down at the small kitchen table of her efficiency apartment with her eyes barely open, sipped the hot beverage and waited for the caffeine to work its magic. Her roommate, Kerry Whitman, a political science major who religiously kept abreast of current affairs, had left the Pocono Record on the table for Justine to read.
Although the subscription was in her name, Justine rarely had time to peruse the newspaper except on Sunday afternoons. Even then, she preferred reading the comics and weekly sales circulars to the depressing news stories that appeared in the paper. Yet every morning Kerry persisted in leaving the periodical on the table as if chastising Justine for ignoring the history-making events that were occurring in the world around her.
Unlike other days, Kerry had left the paper open to the local section rather than to the world news. An article at the bottom of the page caught Justine's attention: "Is MTV haunting vacant inn at Buck Hill Falls?" The article, although short on specific details, claimed that a film crew was at the inn to shoot an episode of a new reality program called Fear, a series in which contestants would spend the weekend in an "authentic" haunted location and undertake a series of frightening challenges in hopes of collecting a five-thousand-dollar prize. Apparently, a book on local legends claiming the inn was haunted served as the impetus that led the MTV crew to the historic Pocono Mountain community of Buck Hill Falls.
Above the article was a recent photograph of the inn, which had closed its doors a decade earlier. The abandoned structure, built in 1901, was a sprawling, deteriorating mass of stone and wood, a derelict monument to the bygone days of the grand resort hotels.
No wonder Kerry left the paper open to the local section, Justine thought. She wanted me to see this article.
Her roommate was well aware of Justine's fascination with the macabre. There was hardly a scary movie she hadn't seen or a horror novel she hadn't read. While Kerry spent her school breaks lying on a sunny beach or skiing down a snow-covered mountain slope, Justine took ghost tours of Gettysburg or visited witch museums in Salem. Now, right here in the Poconos, less than a half-hour drive away was a bona fide haunted inn.
Later that evening, MTV aired the first installment of Fear. The premiere episode had been filmed at the West Virginia State Penitentiary in Moundsville, which, before its closing in 1995, was considered America's most violent prison. Currently, it supposedly reigns as one of the country's most supernaturally active sites.
Justine and her boyfriend, Brendan Stanhope, missed the first half of the show but managed to catch the second. Two contestants—both women—had already left. Unable to conquer their fears, they couldn't perform their assigned dares and were therefore disqualified.
"What a creepy place!" Justine remarked as she watched the remaining three contestants bravely explore long, dark corridors and cavernous rooms that psychics claimed were hot spots of paranormal activity.
Neither Justine nor Brendan could contain their laughter when a young man—to meet the terms of his dare—had to enter the penitentiary's execution room and remove a sheet that had been draped over the electric chair. After several unsuccessful attempts, he finally steeled his nerves, approached the chair and tugged on the sheet. At that point, the electric chair, which had not been properly secured to the floor, started to slide forward with the sheet. The chair's sudden movement sent the contestant running from the room screaming with fright.
"Is this supposed to be a reality show or a comedy?" Brendan asked. "Why are we watching this, anyway?"
"Because I think it's interesting."
"You thought The Blair Witch Project was interesting," he teased good-naturedly. "I'm going out to the kitchen to make myself a sandwich. You want something?"
"No, thanks."
When Brendan returned to the living room, he saw that Justine still had her eyes glued to the television. The previous contestant—spurred on by his fellow cast members as well as the prospect of a share in the prize money—had finally succeeded in uncovering Old Sparky. Now another contestant was faced with the challenge of having to sit in the "hole," the prison's primitive solitary confinement cell, for fifteen minutes, alone in the dark without radio contact with the other contestants.
"What a wuss!" Brendan exclaimed when the young man at first flatly refused to perform the challenge.
"What are you talking about?" Justine countered. "Just look at that place. Would you go in there by yourself?"
"Sure, why not? There's nothing in there. Besides, if he doesn't go in, he loses $5,000."
"They couldn't pay me enough to venture into that hole."
"Justine, you're an intelligent, educated woman with a highly logical mind. And despite your love of monster films and ghost stories, I know you don't really believe in the supernatural. So why would you be afraid to complete the challenge?"
"Because I have an overactive imagination," she replied honestly. "I'd be seeing dead bodies in every dark corner and hearing inhuman screams in every creak of the floor."
"But you'd know they weren't real, so why would you fear them?" he persisted.
"People know horror movies aren't real, yet look at how many of them sleep with the lights on after they've seen one. It's as though half of your brain is convinced there's no danger, but the other half still causes your pulse to race, your palms to sweat and your knees to knock."
Although she couldn't explain her fear or even fully comprehend it herself, Justine accepted the paradoxical situation. Her creative writing professor would have understood. After reading several of her short stories, he had tried to convince Justine to forget about computer science and concentrate on a writing career.
"But I don't have what it takes to be a professional writer," Justine confessed. "I have no sense of composition or style, and my grammar is atrocious."
"Nonsense! You're talking about mechanics, things that you can learn from any decent grammar book. But ideas—fresh, creative ideas—cannot be taught. You, young lady, were blessed with an incredible imagination. What a shame to waste it on writing computer code!"
Whether it was a blessing or not, Justine's imagination was indeed vivid; and being fully aware of this, there was no way she would ever have gone into that solitary confinement cell alone.
* * *
Nine days later, another article on the Buck Hill Inn appeared in the Pocono Record. This one was not about MTV's Fear or a possible haunting, but rather it dealt with bankruptcy, loans and unpaid taxes. In short, the inn was up for sale, but there were no buyers. A different photograph of the decaying hotel accompanied the article, one taken from another angle. In a prominent spot atop the inn was a five-pointed star. Justine couldn't tell from the picture if the star was an old Christmas decoration, which—like the first of Dickens' immortal spirits—represented past Christmases, or whether it was a form of graffiti. Some brave young vandal might have scaled more than five stories to spray paint a pentagram on the inn's venerable old exterior. The very idea of a pentagram looming high above the Pocono Mountains whetted Justine's curiosity about the old inn even more.
Later that day, after her last class ended, the computer science student stopped at the Eastern Monroe Public Library to conduct research on the Buck Hill Inn. There was little information about the historic resort in the books on local history; however, she did find a work entitled The Last of the Grand Hotels that featured nineteen early luxury resorts from across the country, the first of which was the Inn at Buck Hill Falls.
According to the book's author, the inn was built by a group of wealthy Quakers from Philadelphia to serve as a summer retreat. When it first opened, it had no private baths and no heat, and kerosene lamps provided the only lighting. Yet, the initial year of operations was so successful that the owners decided to enlarge the inn. Over the next twenty years, they continued to expand, and by 1923, there were more than two hundred rooms in the inn itself. In addition, several cottages—some consisting of thirty to forty rooms each—stretched along the road leading to the inn. Surrounded by six thousand wooded acres, the Inn at Buck Hill Falls became the largest resort in the Poconos.
Then in 1977, the inn was sold. The main building came under the management of a private corporation, while the cottages became part of the surrounding residential community. The book, which had been published back in 1978, claimed the inn was still operating, but Justine knew from the most recent newspaper article that the resort had fallen into bankruptcy in 1985, and despite a valiant attempt by the owners to save it, Buck Hill Inn closed its doors in October 1990. For the past ten years, the inn had stood abandoned and empty in the mountains amidst the massive pines, encircled by its long-neglected landscaping.
* * *
October arrived. It was Justine's favorite month of the year. Not only did she look forward to the sight of the trees blazing with autumn colors, but she also enjoyed the crisp chill in the air. Most of all, she participated in the many fabulous, fun-filled festivities associated with the celebration of Halloween. It was the one time of the year when adults could put aside the pressures and anxieties that went along with maturity, dress up in costumes and for a few magical hours act like children again. Every year Justine and her friends eagerly flocked to the area's haunted houses, spine-chilling hayrides and spooky cornfield mazes. They also attended Halloween at Hershey and Dorney Park's Hallow Weekends, annual occasions when the amusement parks were decorated in true trick-or-treat fashion.
On the first morning of October, a Sunday, a sleepy Justine headed for the kitchen and her ritual cup of coffee. Her roommate, wearing a T-shirt over a pair of flannel boxers, was eating a bran muffin and reading the Sunday paper.
"Good morning," Kerry said cheerfully.
To Kerry, who usually woke at 5:15, sleeping until 7:00 was a luxury. Justine, who could have used at least two more hours of sleep herself, was not so chipper.
"There's something here I want to show you," Kerry said, thumbing through the pages of the Pocono Record.
"I don't think I'm awake enough to read about the war in the Middle East or the skyrocketing cost of gasoline."
"It's nothing like that. This is something that will really interest you. Ah, here it is."
Kerry spread the paper open on the table in front of Justine and pointed to a large ad that read in an appropriately eerie font: The spirits have had it to themselves for over ten years. Now you are invited to the Haunting at Buck Hill Inn. One hundred years of footsteps, shadows, mysterious sightings from murder, unexplained death and suicide. (No one under twelve admitted.)
"This is awesome! We've just gotta go!" Justine declared with childlike excitement, as though she were an eight-year-old being offered a two-week, all-expense-paid trip to Disney World. "I'm sure we can get a group of people together, especially since everybody at school knows that MTV has been filming up there."
"I'll go," Kerry offered. "And I know Todd will want to come along."
Todd Pettit was Kerry's current boyfriend. If ever there was a stereotype of an irresponsible, party-hardy, I'm-just-here-for-the-fun-of-it college student, Todd was it. There wasn't anything he wouldn't do for a laugh. Justine didn't really care much for Todd, but she wouldn't dream of telling Kerry that. Besides, her roommate was a sensible young woman; no doubt she'd soon tire of his adolescent behavior.
* * *
They all met in front of the college at five o'clock in the evening. Justine, Brendan, Kerry and Todd rode in Brendan's old Subaru while their four friends followed in an even older Firebird. Along the way, they stopped for pizza. Once inside the restaurant, the guys spied an air hockey table and disappeared into the game room while the girls sat at a table drinking Diet Coke.
"You two missed all the fun last weekend," announced Iris Taylor, one of Justine's classmates. "We went to that Hockey Mask party on Friday the Thirteenth. You know, the one that advertised the Camp Blood haunted house and killer clown corn maze. There was even a band and a birthday cake in honor of the twentieth anniversary of the first Friday the 13th movie."
"Sounds like it was a lot of fun," Justine said, "but Kerry and I had already made plans to go to the Ginger-Dead Castle."
"What's that?" asked Iris.
"A place in Hamburg, New Jersey," Kerry explained. "It used to be a local attraction for young children called the Gingerbread Castle. Back in the early 1800's Nabisco had a cracker factory there. The main tower of the castle was actually the kiln of their Wheatsworth Mill. When Nabisco sold the place in 1930, the new owner hired a Ziegfeld Follies set designer to turn the mill into a storybook castle. My parents took me to see it when I was about five, but when we got there we discovered it had closed a few years earlier."
"So, what's this Ginger-Dead Castle all about then? Is that place supposed to be haunted, too?"
"No. In October, the fairy tale characters are covered over, and the place is transformed into a haunted castle, which is open to the public."
The pizzas arrived and were soon devoured. The eight young people were anxious to be on their way; they longed to explore the interior of the hundred-year-old Buck Hill Inn, a scene of "murder, unexplained death and suicide," as promised by the ad in the Pocono Record.
It was only a short drive from the pizzeria to the gates of the Buck Hill Inn. The parking lot was dark and already crowded. Justine got out of the Subaru and looked up. Ahead of her was the imposing structure she'd previously seen only in photographs.
"Even viewed from the side, the place is impressive," she commented. "From the front, it must be immense."
"Somebody forgot to tell them we were coming," Brendan joked. "There are no lights on."
"What did you expect?" Todd added. "The owners haven't paid their electric bill in ten years."
"Brendan is right," Justine said. "All the windows are dark."
The only illumination was provided by several spotlights shining on the stone exterior of the building from the ground below.
"Don't worry," Kerry replied, hearing the uneasiness in her roommate's voice. "There are quite a few wings in this place. This is probably one that's not on the tour."
Justine and her friends followed the crowd and entered one of the inn's outer buildings. The structure consisted of one large room that looked like a handyman's worst nightmare. Most of the windows had been boarded up. Part of the ceiling was gone, exposing the rafters of the attic above. A fire blazed in the large stone fireplace, but it did little to dispel the odor of dust and mildew that hung in the air. The room was devoid of furniture except for an old desk and chair that stood in the middle of the room under one naked light bulb.
"This isn't exactly the beautiful Mt. Airy Lodge, is it?" Brendan asked.
"No wonder tourism in the Poconos is declining," Todd added.
The room began to fill with people—mainly older high school and college students. Since no one under twelve was to be admitted, there were few families there. While a man went through the crowd collecting the admission fee of ten dollars per person, a woman walked to the middle of the room and called for everyone's attention. She then gave a very brief history of the inn, emphasizing that a number of unexplained deaths and suicides had occurred there over the years.
"One employee hanged herself in the office, just a few feet away from where we're standing."
"By the looks of this place, I'd guess it was the cleaning lady," Kerry whispered.
"This is not your traditional Halloween attraction," the woman went on. "You won't find Freddie Krueger, Jason Voorhees or Michael Meyers inside. No one is going to jump out of the shadows and try to scare you. If that's what you came for, you'll be disappointed. However, I'm sure you'll find this place is frightening enough just as it is."
Justine was excited, assuming the evening would be like the ghost tours in Gettysburg and Salem, where a guide would lead the group, relating the tragic and sometimes gruesome stories of the sites they were observing. But the woman's next words were disappointing.
"In a few minutes, we'll begin sending you up to the inn in groups of two to four people. Be careful. This is a self-guided tour, and the building is dimly lit. You'll have to go up and down some staircases, so watch your step."
Justine frowned. Without a guide to point them out, how would they know the exact locations where the mysterious deaths and suicides occurred?
When they reached the front of the line, the friends again split up into two groups. Justine, Kerry, Brendan and Todd went first. They walked out the rear door of the small building, along a short, unpaved path and up a few stone steps into what appeared to be a large shed or barn.
On both sides of the building were tools and machinery, but of what type Justine couldn't say since they were shrouded in shadows. The woman had warned that the building would be dimly lit. She certainly had a talent for understatement! At the end of the room, a tiny bulb above the exit provided the only illumination. The eerie darkness that surrounded her, coupled with the sickening stench of age and decay, unsettled Justine.
Oh, please, she prayed silently, don't let the rest of the place be like this.
It wasn't; it was worse! There were hallways where she couldn't see the end, where the dimly lit shadows were consumed by total darkness. Justine clung tightly to Brendan's arm, wishing she were somewhere else, anywhere there were bright lights and fresh air.
It wasn't long before the darkness and odor were joined by eerie sounds. A woman's scream pierced the quiet of the old inn. That was to be expected, of course. Hadn't they all paid ten dollars apiece to be frightened? Someone was obviously getting her money's worth. But after the scream faded away and Justine's heartbeat had slowed to its normal rate, a resounding BOOM seemed to shake the walls and floors of the inn.
As the four friends continued to inch their way through the maze of murky hallways, they passed locked doors, barricaded rooms and unseen objects hidden under white sheets. A young blond woman, who either worked for the inn or had one hell of a sadistic sense of humor, jumped out at them from behind a curtain.
So, no one is going to scare us, huh? Justine thought bitterly.
And what about the weird noises, the strobe lights and the air jet that had blown a sudden burst of air at their heads? Were they meant to think that the people working at the Buck Hill Inn had not been responsible for these things, that these were acts perpetrated by the resort's infamous ghosts?
The four young people turned the corner and came upon yet another long, dark hallway. Halfway down its length, they passed a sign on a closed door identifying the room as one of the inn's many men's rooms.
"I wonder where the ladies' room is," Kerry said jokingly.
"Don't know, don't care," Justine replied nervously. "I'd pee in my pants before I'd ever go inside."
"This is getting boring," Todd complained, taking a small flashlight out of his pocket.
He shined it on a large plywood board meant to prevent people from taking the hallway that branched off to the right.
"Here we go," he said, pushing the plywood aside. "Let's have some fun."
"What are you doing?" Kerry asked. "We're not supposed to go that way!"
"I know, but no one's looking, so why worry?"
As Kerry and Brendan started to follow him, Justine yanked on Brendan's arm.
"I don't want to go wandering around. We don't know how safe it is."
"Come on, Justine," Todd goaded. "You're the one who's always talking about ghosts and witches and all that other occult crap. Here's your chance to see it up close and personal."
"I don't believe in ghosts," Justine insisted bravely. "And even if I did, I seriously doubt any spirits are lurking around this place. All that talk about violent and unexplained deaths was just a lot of hype to get people up here. My family has lived in this area for several generations, and no one has ever heard of any death at the Buck Hill Inn."
"Then what are you so afraid of?"
"I'm not afraid," she lied. "Just look at this place, Todd. It's old and rotting, and who knows what could have crawled inside while it's been abandoned for ten years. There could be bears, bats, skunks or even snakes."
"Co-ol!" Todd said, pronouncing the word with two syllables, as though he were the Poconos' answer to Wayne's World.
"Chill out, Justine," Kerry urged. "We've got a flashlight. We'll be able to see if there's any danger. Come on. You know you want to get a better look at this old place."
Reluctantly, the scared college student gave in, but not due to any desire to sightsee. The truth was the forbidden hallway—fairly well-lit by Todd's flashlight—was less frightening than the one they were supposed to take.
"Now I know why Robert Frost took the path less traveled," she joked.
It was the first time since she had entered the old inn that she found anything even remotely amusing.
Todd opened the door to one of the guest rooms. Justine held her breath in anticipation. Nothing! The room was empty. There were no furnishings, no lamps, not even any drapes.
"There's nothing here," Kerry said, clearly disappointed.
"Nothing but ten years' worth of dust," Brendan agreed.
"Well, well, what's this?" Todd said as he opened another door further down the hall.
Kerry and Brendan pressed forward, anxious to look inside.
"It must be an office of some kind," Brendan replied.
Papers and envelopes were strewn across the floor. Boxes of stationary, guest checks and receipts, all bearing the Buck Hill Inn logo, were stacked about the room.
"I wonder if this is where that employee was supposed to have hanged herself," he added.
"Look. Here's an old brochure printed in 1978," Kerry said, proudly waving the advertisement as if it were a trophy. "I'm taking this home with me as a souvenir."
Feeling braver than she had all evening, Justine began rummaging through the papers, hoping to find something interesting. Todd quietly sneaked out into the hall and motioned for Kerry and Brendan to follow.
"Shine the light over here, would you?" Justine called from behind a large cardboard carton. "I think I found something."
Suddenly, she heard the door slam shut, and she was plunged into darkness.
"Brendan? Kerry?"
She heard their laughter coming from the hallway.
"Real funny, you guys. Now open the door."
"What's the matter, Justine?" Todd taunted. "Are you afraid of the dark?"
Again, they laughed.
"Better look out! They're coming for you."
Justine heard a noise, but it was not Todd or the others. It was coming from somewhere inside the room. She stood motionless as if rooted to the spot. She felt her heart pounding and her blood racing through her veins. Again, she heard the strange scratching noise. Someone or something was in the room with her, concealed by the darkness. Like a frightened child, Justine began to whimper. Out in the hallway, her friends could hear her pitiful sobs.
"Okay, Todd, open the door," Brendan ordered, already regretting his part in the childish prank.
Todd, in his best Jack Nicholson impersonation, yelled, "Here's Johnny!" as he turned the doorknob and pushed.
But the heavy door wouldn't open.
"Enough is enough," Kerry yelled. "Open the door, Todd."
"I can't; it's stuck."
Brendan shoved him out of the way and put his weight on the door. It wouldn't budge.
"Don't worry, Justine," he called. "I'll get you out of there."
He tried to break down the door, as he'd seen so many stuntmen do in the movies, but all he got for his troubles was a throbbing upper arm and shoulder. Then he stood back and kicked, but the door continued to hold firm.
"Help me, Todd. This was your stupid idea in the first place."
Now Kerry, too, started to cry. Justine was her best friend as well as her roommate, and yet she had been party to this cruel practical joke.
"I'm sorry, Justine. I'm so sorry."
Finally, one of Brendan's furious kicks forced the door to open.
"Give me that damned flashlight," he swore as he barged into the room.
"Where is she?" Kerry sobbed.
"She's probably cowering in the corner. That poor kid! I hope you guys are satisfied. Come on, Justine, we're getting out of here."
A sudden movement beneath one of the stacks of papers made Kerry catch her breath. However, when Brandon shone the flashlight's beam on the floor, she saw that it was only a raccoon scurrying across the room.
"Justine," Brendan moaned when he found his girlfriend curled up in a fetal position, behind the large cardboard carton. "Nice going, Todd. You scared her so much that she passed out."
He gently slapped her on the face, but she didn't respond.
"Justine," he called again and shook her. "Noooooo!"
His voice rose to a mournful scream as he realized Justine would never wake again.
* * *
The Inn at Buck Hill Falls still sits nestled among the towering pines in the mountains of northeastern Pennsylvania. The television camera crews have departed, the reporters have gone on to cover other stories and the limelight has faded. Once again the dust has settled, and the inn is quiet. Its iron gates are closed. No thrill-seekers were lining up to tour the dark hallways in search of proof of a world beyond the mortal senses.
Yet the inn is not completely vacant. The lone spirit of a young woman roams its deserted hallways. Her name will forevermore be a part of the folklore of the Pocono Mountains. When youngsters gather around a crackling campfire or huddle together on a stormy night, they will remember her tragic tale and recount it in hushed voices. They will pass on to future generations the sad story of Justine Edwards who had gone to the Buck Hill Inn one October night in search of ghosts. Although there had been no restless souls wandering about the old hotel, something in the inn literally scared her to death. Oddly enough, that something was her own overactive imagination.
The image in the upper left corner is taken from an old postcard of the Buck Hill Inn.
I visited the Buck Hill Inn shortly after MTV filmed there. I was part of a large group of people who paid to walk the dark, musty halls in near total darkness. It was quite creepy. However, according to an article in the Pocono Record, there were never any suicides or murders at the Inn, despite the claims in the episode of Fear. The Inn is still abandoned, but please don't attempt to visit it. There are caretakers there to prevent trespassers from entering.
UPDATE: In October 2015 the Buck Hill Inn sold at auction. I don't know exactly what the new owners plan to do with the place, but I hope they find a way to restore it.
Speaking of vivid imaginations, Salem imagines he's a champion mouser. (Actually, he prefers Godiva chocolates to rodents.)
