I don't remember how it came about, but at some point my mom talked me into a family vacation. I chose the place and did the planning. For multiple reasons, I was obsessing over Savannah, Georgia. First, it's named one of the most haunted cities in the world. Next, I love Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil and it was entirely filmed in Savannah and the locations in the story are, of course, in Savannah. Third, Ghost Hunters had caught shadow people at the Moon River Brewing Co.. Lastly, the car drive from Raleigh wasn't too bad and could be a fun road trip for everyone?
I'll fess up now... I didn't book a ghost hunt... I booked a haunted pub crawl. Oops. But the pub crawl ended at the Moon River Brewing Co., so that's something, right?
Our vacation, of which I will not bore you with tedious details, was primarily Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil tours to grave sites and houses, a haunted Savannah tour, and just general Savannah tours. We didn't stay very long, but we had fun learning about the surroundings. Except for my husband who hated pretty much the entire trip and didn't hide it from anyone. I always suppress that detail, because I'd like to think he appreciated my effort and the company. Boy, does he hate Savannah, though.
It is in Savannah that I had one of my scariest encounters ever. We stayed at the Best Western Central Inn. They had a pool! My husband and I were in one room and my parents were in their own room. My husband and I had gone to sleep, but I woke up suddenly into the pitch blackness of the midnight bedroom. Then I had an urge to go to the bathroom and, as I looked over towards that end of the room, that's when I saw it: the Shadow Man.
I found a picture of the room, but it's clearly been remodeled since I stayed there. Here you can get the idea of where the shadow man was. He was standing under the shelf in the nook. From my position on the side of the bed closest to the front of the picture, I could see the dense, solid, black shadow full on.
I reached over to my husband to try to wake him up, but he is like a rock when he's asleep. It felt like the shadow was just staring at me and I was feeling more and more terrified the longer the encounter went on. I couldn't get out of bed. I couldn't move around. I was just frozen in fear. After what felt like an eternity of this encounter, the shadow just vanished as quick as the snap of one's fingers.
It was another eternity that I laid in my bed processing what had happened. Finally, though, I was able to force myself out of bed to turn a light on so that I could carefully walk to the bathroom. The whole time I was in that area of the room, I was getting goosebumps and chills. It also took me quite a while to fall back asleep, but this time it was with the light on.
In the wake of things, I kept thinking about the type of entity I saw. It wasn't what they know of as a shadow person. My husband pointed out that when we've seen shadow people, they're usually moving or peeking or running or something like that. That they don't usually stand, staring, menacingly. I agreed, then suddenly had a gut feeling that it was some sort of boatman or pirate. We were in a notorious pirate town and it could explain the menacing feeling I had. Perhaps that is a bit far-fetched, but it is, nevertheless, a feeling I had. Regardless, what I encountered that night was not a shadow person as I have come to conventionally understand them. It was just a shadowy man in the corner who emanated a dark energy. I have come to believe that, despite its seeming solidity, that it was some sort of apparition. I wonder if my waking eyes translated a dark aura into the thick shadow wrapped around this figure. I imagine the whole thing will remain a mystery to me.
This event has made sleeping occasionally difficult for me. It's hard to have things in the corners of the rooms where you're trying to fall asleep. I can still see the shadow man in my mind, crystal clear, and it still makes me feel uncomfortable and it happened 16 years ago. It will probably still continue to haunt me for the foreseeable future.
This wasn't the only paranormal experience I had in Savannah, Georgia, though. As I mentioned earlier, we were able to make it to the Moon River Brewing Company. We got a tour of the place, along with ghost stories, and then it was the end of the tour so we could just hang out. Having seen the Ghost Hunters episode where they caught various evidence there, including little shadow people, I was super stoked to get to look around for myself.
During my time at Moon River, I had two small experiences. The first was in the basement. I saw a light and sourceless shadow move from from left to right as we were leaving the basement. I had looked back to get that one last look before leaving and I saw it move real quick.
Once we made it back to the main floor, it was time to go upstairs to the unoccupied floors where there is a great deal of activity. The place was bare-bones and clearly being renovated, as there was lumber and construction materials all over the place. The two floors had been stripped to the floor boards. I looked around a fair bit and took photos, but I wasn't feeling anything.
Finally, people started making their way downstairs. I was one of the last few left on the second floor. I started to make my way downstairs to the first landing and all of a sudden I heard footsteps behind me. It sounded like boots, they were so heavy on the wood steps. They were coming up on me fast and I turned on the landing so that I could maybe let whoever was behind me by. As I turned around, I saw no one behind me. I did a double-take and looked all around, but the only people behind me were still up on the second floor with the tour guide.
I was so giddy with excitement over experiencing disembodied steps behind me on the stairs that I went straight to my family and told them what had happened. It was a wild and crazy night.
While Savannah may not have had as many opportunities for public ghost hunting as I had hoped, I was not disappointed with what I experienced. It was interesting and has been a place I've been interested to revisit with a better understanding of how to participate in ghost hunts.
I do, though, have one of the funniest memories of my dad from this vacation. He spilled on his shirt during breakfast and needed to dry it off, so he asked the grounds crew at the Best Western crew if he could borrow their leaf blower and he dried off his shirt.
If you knew my dad, that is like classic my-dad.
This was also the only vacation I would take with my dad as an adult, not realizing that three years later I wouldn't have the chance. But that didn't stop him from trying to be a part of my life.
Next Up on My Ghost Stories: Gone Too Soon.
No comments:
Post a Comment