David B. Riley's Rants & Raves (Blog)

As Halloween draws near,  . These is an absolutely true account of when I worked at Lake Yellowstone Hotel 11 years ago.

 A mirror in the hallway

In addition to my regular duties with group tours at Lake Yellowstone Hotel, I also had to periodically cover the graveyard shift as we were short handed in that area. This hotel is the oldest surviving hotel in the Yellowstone National Park. It’s also one of the largest wood frame hotels in North America with approximately 200 rooms. There was an old wing that was over 100 years old and accessible only by stairs, plus a newer wing that had a modern elevator. All the rooms now have modern accommodations such as bathrooms, as they’ve been remodeled over the years. At this point, I’d worked there some time and heard rumors the place was haunted, though I dismissed those rumors as the work of overactive imaginations.

The graveyard crew usually consisted of two security guards, a night porter and night front desk agent. I was filling in for the regular night guy at the front desk so he could get a night off. It had been a quiet August night. There were no late check ins or guest problems. At around two o’clock, one of the security guards came down the stairs from the old wing of the building. He was shaking- Really shaking and he looked pale.

Finally, he explained what had happened. He’d gone upstairs to make his rounds. On the upstairs floor he’d gone by the mirror on the wall. The mirror was dripping blood. He thought we should call the park rangers.

I resisted that notion, if for no other reason than there was no wall mirror in the upstairs hallway where he’d encountered one. But, he had our curiosity. So, myself and the night porter and the other security guard crept up the stairs to the third floor, which is called the second floor, but that’s another story. Our curiosity compelled us to go. And, as we suspected, we found nothing. There was no mirror, dripping blood or otherwise. We went back down and gave the guy a little ribbing and went back to our respective duties. But, the poor fellow knew what he’d seen. He came in and quit the next day.

As luck would have it, my next job was at a Holiday Inn property. It turned out that the general manager of the Holiday Inn had been the manager of the very same hotel in Yellowstone a few years before I worked there. One slow night we were talking about the place and I regaled my story about the mirror that dripped blood. I noticed he had an odd grin on his face. He then told me in his tenure there the night porter had gone upstairs for a guest request for towels and encountered a mirror dripping blood. The fellow was hysterical. Like the security guard, he came in the next day and quit. And, as in my experience, there was no mirror there when he worked there, either.

Barrack was watching the workmen in the White House kitchen. Finally, he asked, "What are you guys doing?"

"Putting in a pizza oven."

"Who told you to that?" Barrack asked.

"Mr. Cain," the workman replied. "He wanted to get a head start on inauguration day."

"Oh," Barrack replied. "Michelle won’t let me have pizza."

As we wound down the reading period over at Science Fiction Trails, where I am editor, I noticed some fraudulent activity that I found a bit troubling. In the first case, an author was submitting under an assumed name. I found out about it from his blog. Many writers use pen names and that’s okay, but you still need to inform the publisher. In this case, the writer may not know any better.

A more troubling incident happened when a writer stated in his cover letter that the story he submitted was original and unpublished. The problem: it wasn’t. He should’ve read his contributor copy more carefully. I had a story in the very same magazine and recognized his immediately. Representing something as unpublished when it’s published is fraud. And this writer is a full fledged active member of SFWA. A pro writer should know better.

I leaves me wondering how much of this crap is going on out there. Any other editors care to comment?

I have a new story collection available. Flying Saucer Stories is just what it sounds like, a collection of stories that are mainly about flying saucers.