I've since moved to a more populated city post college which makes me feel better about developing irrational fears. I worked at a hotel over winter break for a few years while I was home from college. It was managed by a friend's family, one of those off-the-highway hotel/motel hybrids with a moderately well known chain behind it.

It was the kind of highway exit that hasn't seen much renovation since the 70's; especially our hotel. You know how you kind of get disappointed when a hotel has old carpets and a TV that ways over fifty pounds with a resolution of a potato? Yeah. That was us.

In many ways, it was the easiest job ever, as most hotel desk attendant might agree in the off season, especially at night. They had a few other full time, really cool, employees, but they couldn't always work during the winter, and I was glad to fill in when I could with my buddy. This particular night though, I'd say there were only ten people booked. We had the (only) flat screen TV on in the main lobby area, and my friend was vacuuming the floor around there. I didn't have a girlfriend at the time, but my buddy did and some nights she would call him and he'd head out and I'd manage the place by myself until he came back when the morning attendant came at around 4.

So anyway, this night he got a call, I think it might have even been one of his buddies asking if he was around to get high. He asked if he could go out, two hours max, and I said sure. It wasn't unusual for one of us to go on a 7/11 run or in his case, go visit someone. So there I was alone. The TV in the lobby ended up turning off. It was probably on a timer, but now it was really quiet and something about it just unnerved me. At the lobby, the space itself opens up, at either end, to two long hallways that turn at a right angle at the end to another hallway to a set of other guest rooms.

We normally would turn those hall lights off, or at least the ones closest to the lobby to save power during the night. When I went back to the desk, I could see the hall in front of the lobby desk and it unsettled me further. It was this dense kind of silence and this really heavy feeling that I was "home alone" and everyone knew it. I eagerly looked forward to my friend who was supposed to be back in an hour, but I couldn't' help getting that sweaty feeling again and headed outside for a smoke.

I calmed down a bit. A few cars were passing outside on the exit off the highway. I'm not totally alone, I thought. I finally went back in. I tried the TV in the lobby and HUZZAH it turned on. So that made me feel a bit better. I also decided to turn on the hall lights so I wouldn't have to stare into the darkness. And then the lobby phone rang. I answered and a guest started talking. To the best of my knowledge this is how it went more or less.

"Hey, uh, is this the front desk?"

"Yes it is."

" Ok well there's a guy who was knocking on my door."

I asked if he was still there.

"He stopped knocking after a while...." He kind of went on about it being annoying, trying to sleep and what not. Just letting me now, and we laughed about it.

"Well they probably had the wrong room. If it happens again just give me a call."

We hung up and that was that....after a few minutes I had this thought. How could you screw up your room number? What are the odds of that with ten people in a hotel? Somebody drunk? High? Maybe. Maybe his guy on the phone dreamt it.And surprise, surprise, as the night went on my friend hadn't come back yet, twenty minutes past the two hour mark he promised it would take him.

I'd would say its was probably 1:15 by that point. That's when I started hearing a noise. I registered it as air conditioning or something. I get up and turn off the TV in the lobby so I could hear better and I heard distinctly the sound of knocking on a door, echoing off the halls. I remembered the phone call. I should have called my friend, but I wasn't scared. In fact, I thought I'd put on my super-manager pants and remind myself it was my duty to protect this cheap hotel from drunk assholes. So I walk down that first hall way, that knocking getting distinctly louder. I quicken my pace, and rounded that right angle to the next hallway like its nobody's business ready to give a stern questioning.

When I rounded the corner I saw the culprit in question. It was an old man. Now, old people are general really cute and lovely, but once in a while, an old person can look really, really creepy/sickly. Right off the bat I could sense that this was THAT brand of old person.

He was knocking on a door a good bit of distance down from where I was, with his head kind of dropped at an angle but looked like his eye was was trying to peer into the eyehole of the door. He had wiry white hair that was slicked back and had greyish age spotted skin. His cheeks were kind of sunken and his posture kind of hunched, about 5'7. He was wearing a black/dark navy suit, out of style by about twenty years. Old people style basically.

He had to have been about 80. He had one of those old southern kind of neck decorations, with the skinny ribbons dangling from his collar. He was weirdly contrasted against the bright light of the hallway and just looked off. His image was bordering on the line of cartoon, yet he felt REAL. And the distance actually made him look even scarier if that makes any sense. His features sort of melted together.

His hand was raised, rattling on the door with firm knocks while another clutched at the door handle. After a while of knocking he sort of moved on to the next-door, shaky but able bodied, a door towards my end of the hall, and knocked again. I called out to him and asked if he needed help. I hoped he was just creepy and senile and that someone was going to come out looking for him, apologizing for him. But no one didn't and increasingly became aware that this was happening and as much as I didn't want to, I had to deal with it.

He stopped knocking and turned to me looking me right in the eyes. That was the scary part. His eyes were white, but the pupils were hard to make out. I felt like I interrupted something by the way he looked at me, like I kind of offended him. His face was kind of rectangular, but long and narrow with one of those waddles at his neck. I felt weirdly obligated to remain cordial even though I wanted to run out of there. He didn't say anything for a while and then he half shouted back at me taking me by surpise:

"I'm looking for my family."

I don't even remember what I was going to respond with. I thought that he was just lost and confused. Or drunk. This happens all the time I bet. I'd help him out. And then his whole demeanor changed, he smiled, with a chomp of obvious dentures, and started whistling a tune at me. That sweaty feeling enveloped my entire body.

The best way I can explain it is that his body language shifted to slightly confused to a sort of "Gotcha ya!" kind of face, staring me down at the end of the hall. Like he knew what he was doing and he wasn't senile at all. That he tricked me. Just knowingly and happily insane.He would stop every few breaths to lick his lips and begin again. The whistling went on for a really long time, never stopping staring at me with that "gotcha ya" mischief face. I didn't know what to do so I muttered out a, "Sir?" But he kept going.

I've never used this word before, accurately at least, but he was just downright ghastly.

After what seemed like forever, he turned around and started to head back towards the door to the parking lot. I could hear him chuckle a few times, almost weasel like, and exited into the back parking lot. And of fucking course, the door didn't fucking close all the way. Again, should have left but I didn't feel threatened enough to call the police, but certainly didn't want him back in. So I briskly walked to the end of the hallway, ready to knock someone out, and shut that door closed.

The parking lot was dimly lit but I could see out well enough. And twenty feet in front of the door there he was, standing, but walking away to next door parking lot. He was still staring, turning his head back around to give me another glance, and I couldn't hear him, but his mouth movements indicated he was still whistling like he was putting on a show. When I saw his dark shape disappear into down past the next building, I ran my ass back to the front desk, locked the automatic doors and called my friend to get back.

I talked to a lot of people about it the next morning. I was afraid to leave until it was daylight. That was the last winter I worked there. One of the desk managers and another who worked there said they'd encountered things like that at other hotels, people wandering in. But I doubt it was anyone like this. I didn't quit until I moved, but I never stayed there by myself again.