The Grand Majestic Lodge markets itself as “the most haunted hotel in the Cragstone Mountains,” which is impressive, considering the competition consists mostly of abandoned ski chalets and outhouses with broken locks.
Perched on a cliff like a rotting wedding cake, the Majestic lures in ghost hunters, paranormal thrill-seekers, and the occasional unfortunate skeptic (guess who) with promises of guaranteed spirit encounters, lavish Victorian charm, and just enough black mold to qualify as its own ecosystem. If you’ve got $449.99, a high tolerance for mildew, and the spiritual discernment of a damp sponge, they’ll even throw in a “spirit alignment fee” and a souvenir flashlight that might survive long enough to illuminate the exact moment you realize you’ve been had.
The moment I stepped through the front doors, I was hit with the twin wonders of rotting carpet fumes and the sight of a kid barely old enough to rent a car handing out “ghost hunting starter kits” like he was issuing life vests on the Titanic. Each brave investigator received a flashlight that flickered out faster than common sense at a séance, a disposable camera that probably expired around the same time Blockbuster did, and a plastic baggie of “protective crystals” that looked exactly like what falls out of a landscaping truck.
My room, located in “the most active wing” (translation: the wing closest to the industrial fan that makes the walls shudder), featured a radiator that hissed like an angry cat and a window frame held together by hope and rust. The spirit guide left on the nightstand assured me that no fewer than thirty-four ghosts roamed the halls, including a lovesick bootlegger named Sal and a jilted debutante named Gwendolyn who rearranges your toiletries if you don’t show the proper respect. Apparently the afterlife runs on passive-aggressive poltergeist energy.
At midnight, they marched us down to the ballroom for the Grand Séance, led by a woman calling herself Madame Leona Moonwater, who looked like she’d lost a bare-knuckle fight with a clearance rack at Spirit Halloween. We were encouraged to join hands, close our eyes, and “raise our vibrations.” I raised an eyebrow instead. Meanwhile, the ballroom’s primary haunting turned out to be airborne particulate matter, swirling majestically in the flashlight beams while half the group breathlessly mistook dust for the spiritual essence of the departed.
The entire night turned into a parade of people shrieking at their own reflections, hearing whispers that turned out to be nothing more than creaky plumbing, and interpreting every gust of mountain air through a cracked window as a ghostly sigh. Phones recorded endless static. The “spirit box” coughed up snippets of pop music and radio ads for used car sales. Somebody claimed a ghost brushed past them on the stairs, although from the heavy reek of Axe Body Spray, I suspect it was actually Kyle from the front desk sneaking out for a smoke break.
And of course, no evening of fabricated spectral encounters would be complete without a stumble through the lodge’s gift shop, where you could pick up “authentic haunted relics” that somehow all came individually shrink-wrapped and labeled “Made in Taiwan.” Nothing says ancient spiritual artifact like a UPC code and a $9.99 markdown sticker.
I left the Grand Majestic Lodge with no ghost stories to tell, only the overwhelming sense that I had witnessed the slow, sad death of critical thinking, polished up with a layer of cobwebs and sold to the masses at $149.99 a head. The only spirits haunting that place are the ghosts of common sense, dignity, and every dollar flushed into the world’s dumbest group hallucination.