I don't know how many of you have ever been here but one of the weirdest places I have ever had the displeasure of visiting is the La Posada Hotel in Winslow, Arizona. There has always been something about that place that makes me extremely uneasy. Ive been here all my life and I STILL have trouble even passing by this place.

The La Posada has been used as a hotel for guests passing thru riding the trains, as business offices for the BNSF Railroad and some even say as a brothel. Well, my sister worked there for about 8 years and it was difficult for me to go see her when she worked when she called me for assistance. It took a few years for me to get 'comfortable' enough to bring myself to step onto the property. It wasn't until the last few years she worked there that I was actually able to cross the buildings thresholds.

Let me give you an idea of what the building is like. To most people, when they look at this place, it seems to be just a building. I know that it not 'just a building'. Look up the La Posada in Winslow and from the pictures it does seem to be just another building.

Well, that being said, let me tell you about what I've seen of this place. Now, don't get me wrong, it IS a beautiful place. If you walk the property, look at the main "gate'. I swear you can make out a devil-like face in the wrought iron. In the huge trees on the property, look up into the treetops in the spring, summer and fall. There is a very large group of vultures that nest there. These are not your average size carrion crows, these birds are huge. As long as I can remember, these birds have nested there, each year their number and their size increases.

Like I've said, I've been here a very long time and as a kid, I used to have a recurring dream about a building that sat next to a train station. The building was dark, cold, empty, dusty, musty and covered in cobwebs. I would walk into this building and it was really cold and it felt like I was standing in the middle of a soundproof room. I could hear voices echoing in the corridors, doors creaking and people walking about. I never could see those who wandered thru the building. I would make my way into the old train station and still hear the same sounds. Suddenly the voices and walking would get loud and I mean ear shattering loud. I would start to panic and look for a place to hide from the "people". I would hear the loud whistle of the train speeding past the station. I would wake up, heart racing and wondering where I was.

This happened for years. When I moved into town, I happened to be walking past this building and I suddenly got that panicked feeling I felt during my 'dream'. I then realized that the building was in fact, the La Posada Hotel. As I stood there staring at the building, I realized that in all these years, I never knew that building was there. I had grown up living a little over a mile from this place. As I looked around the property from the sidewalk, I knew something was watching me from the upstairs windows on the far right of the building. Whatever it was moved down to the front doors, watching me from the glass and wood paned front doors.

If you've ever watched the movie "The Shining", the part when the mom was going down the hallway and it suddenly elongated as she stood there watching? Well, that's what happened to me, the view of the front doors elongated and I could see eyes reflected in the paned glass windows staring at me. I think the main reason I never knew the place was there was because the grounds were unkept, the trees and shrubs overgrown and the paint peeling and cracked on the outside of the building. I know that there is something in there and it is not very nice.

Anyway, the last few years my sister worked there, I had to go inside the building. I didn't want to go but I knew I had to, my sister's in there and she needs me. I pulled myself together and got my stuff together and crossed the threshhold into the building. As I walked thru the paned glass doors, I saw the eyes reflecting, watching me enter. As I walked towards the front desk, to my right is a set of downward stairs. It's dark down there with a very dim light glowing and something's calling my name from down there. I stopped and looked to see if I could see who it was. It was my sister's voice calling to me but I knew it wasn't my sister. A cold rush of air came up the stairs and past me. I turned back towards the front desk and started walking. As I got closer, to my left a picture hangs. It's a picture of some elderly ladies. There's a light hanging over the picture but as I walk past, the light dims and flickers and I can hear whispering. I swear on my life, the eyes of the women in the painting are following me as I pass it.

I walked up to the front desk and the clerk is busy typing away at the computer. I say "excuse me" but the clerk doesn't respond. The soundproof room effect kicks in and I can hear the voices, the footsteps echoing and the sounds of conversation. As I look around, no one's in the lobby, the right hallway or in the restaurant to the left. The sun is shining thru the big rear glass doors and suddenly intensifies, almost to the point of blinding me. I kinda freaked a little, call it deja vu, but I yelled at the clerk a few times before I finally got a response.

The girl asked if she could help me and I kinda snapped at her, becaue I just wanna get my sister and get the flock outta there, QUICK!. I said "Didn't you see me standing here? I've been trying to get your attention for the last 10 minutes.' Afterall, she was looking right at me or should I say right thru me as if I wasn't standing there. I don't know why she hadn't see me until now. I asked her to get my sister for me and she called on the walkie talkie and told her I was at the front desk.

I tried to stay near the front desk but something was pulling my attention down the rightside hallway towards a little reading nook. I couldn't resist, I had to follow that which beckoned me. As I walked into the nook, there were more pictures each more eerie than the next. These pictures lined the walls of the hallway and the nook. It wasn't so much what the pictures were of but what the pictures contained. As I looked at each painting, I could feel the anguish, the guilt, the sadness, the pain and the ditressing call of each one. All the paintings were by the same woman. I could sense her soul was a tortured one. She hadn't passed on, she was still with us, she lives!

In what seemed like an eternity, my sister finally came down. She came down from the second floor rooms. I asked her when did she go up there, I heard her calling me from downstairs. She kinda looked at me funny and said "I haven't been downstairs all day. All my rooms were on the second floor. What made you think I was down there?" OOOHHHHH!, okaaay....

Now I knew my first instinct was right. It wasn't her it was something else. I told her never mind that wasn't she ready to go. I really need to get outta there. She said she was nearly finished she just needed to turn in her keys and radio. As we walked back thru the hallway, I asked my sister "What's wrong with Gina?" She said "GINA, when did you meet her?" I told her I hadn't but she's the one who painted all the pictures, her name's on them. She said "Oh, she's just a weird lady. Don't mind her".

We went to the front desk and my sister turned in her things, clocked out and said she'll see everyone in the morning. As we walked towards the front entrance doors, I stopped at the top of the downward staircase. I could hear them calling to me. My sister kept walking and finally noticed I wasn't next to her. She called to me from the front entrance. I just looked at her and told her to come here.

I asked her "What's down there? I don't know why, but down go down there alone and stay away from the tunnels. It's not safe, somethings in there I can feel and smell it. Somethings not right". She replied "I know. None of us will go down there alone. If we have to, we go in groups, get what we need and get out real fast. I know there's something in there and none of us like it"

We walked outside and I continued to ask her questions. I needed to know if she really knew something is very wrong in there. I asked her about Gina again. She told me that she was a nice person when she got there but now....now she's 'different'. I knew what she meant by that. Whatever 'lives' in that building has taken her over. I believe her pantings are how she is trying to 'escape' what has ahold on her.

I know that if I can, I should avoid that place at all costs. Whatever is in there almost took me and has been trying to since I was a young child. As far as the tunnels go...I KNOW the tunnels are there, even though no one will admit that they do exist, and the 'thing' that lurks on that property lives deep within the buildings cold, dark, hidden tunnels...waiting ever so patiently to get out as it has always done for centuries. I know that one day it will get out and IT knows it too. It works on it's own time. Our time is the here and now and it's time.....well, that's an eternity......

Would love for you to post that in the "Haunts" area. Just click the "Haunts" link above, and then select the "add" link.

Or alternately you can just click ***HERE***