The Flagship (Atlantic City, NJ)
Not too many strange things have ever happened to me, but the most bizarre incident occurred during a trip I took with my family, to Atlantic City, in 1997.
Atlantic City is an interesting location for strange experiences. It's "good-times" environment and the boardwalk, guarantee a great time on every visit (That's partly why Donald Trump is so rich. Oh yeah, there's also the gambling part of it!!). However, the dark side of the city emerges with reality.
Not a few people have lost excessive amounts of money here, and the poorer areas (away from the boardwalk) tell of a story quite different from the tourist-friendly boardwalk area. Of course, many people commit suicide when they lose large amounts of money anyplace where there are casinos and the power of money proves difficult to resist. This includes Atlantic City, Las Vegas, etc. The reality of life is evident, in casinos, and tragedy happens here too. This is an interesting backdrop to the story I'm about to tell:
The summer of 1997 was a typical summer. That year, my family decided to take a trip to Atlantic City for the weekend. My father arranged the trip and found a new hotel along the boardwalk with very reasonable prices. The name of the hotel was called "The Flagship." This hotel is still located at the northern end of the boardwalk far away from the other casinos.
As soon as we arrived at the parking garage, we realized how far we were from the other casinos on the boardwalk. After a long and cold winter, my family was very anxious to see the ocean and asked the concierge for an oceanfront view.
"I'm sorry sir, but the only room I have available, with two queen size beds, isn't directly facing the ocean. Still, you can see the ocean from the side of the balcony."
"Okay, that's fine." We said. Then the man at the front desk gave us 2 credit card style keys for the electronic door locks.
Our room was on the tenth floor. Looking back, all during our stay there, we never ran into many guests in the hotel. Since this hotel was new, we figured that it was still trying to establish itself on the boardwalk and was still slowly gaining its reputation. (Later on, we had a theory on why it was so empty. But more on that later!)
Once we found our room, we put in the electronic card and went inside.
"Its nice enough..." We all mentioned. But very soon, things started to go wrong.
The room was very dark and extremely cold. The hotel room was a typical one, except for the little kitchen area right before the two queen-size beds. At the foot of the second bed was a sofa-bed. Then after the bed and the sofa, was a sliding glass door leading to a small balcony. Although we were facing the interior of Atlantic City, just like the concierge said, we could see the ocean on one side of the balcony.
Very soon, we found out why the room was so chilly. The air conditioner (which was located on the wall above the sofa) wouldn't turn off. As I mentioned this, I saw my mother fidgeting with the front door electronic lock.
"When I close the door, I can still open it without the key from outside. Shouldn't it be locked from the outside?. Is there a button I can push to lock it?"
The lock was a typical hotel electronic lock and there was a sticker on the inside that clearly states that "this door is locked, at all times, on the outside."
"There must be something wrong with it" I said.
"Why don't we call them downstairs to come up and fix it. And also tell them about the AC, too!" said my father, a little annoyed that something was already wrong with our room.
As we continued checking out the new hotel room, we tried the stove in the kitchen area. The pilot light didn't light. Then when we looked at the small refrigerator, and saw a little puddle of water in front of it. It leaked! And then, just to top things off, my sister came out of the bathroom and mentioned that the toilet was clogged.....
We called the concierge downstairs and a repairman came upstairs to take a look.
"Yep, this lock should always be locked from the outside. There's something wrong with it" he said. After a lot of fidgeting and checking with some small electronic device, the repairman finally fixed the lock. Then he methodically fixed the toilet, the AC, the fridge, and the stove. Of course, we gave him a big tip, and then quickly made our way over to the casinos.
When we arrived back to our room (well after dinner), we immediately felt how cold it was in the room and turned off the AC. We all got washed up and watched some television before turning in. One of the programs was about ghosts! My mother and sister were the first to go to bed and turned off the lights, while my father and I turned on the dim kitchen table light to do a little reading. I had some trouble sleeping that night because the new sofa-bed mattress still had the plastic on. Being lazy, I just left it on and suffered from it. Still, it was just a normal night.
At breakfast the next morning, my sister told us about something strange that had happened in the night. All night long, she felt someone brushing past her bed as if trying to walk to the balcony door. At the foot of her bed, there was about a foot of space between her bed and the end of my sofa-bed. She said it felt exactly like someone was squeezing through the tight space and rubbing against her bed.
"It really felt like someone was rubbing past", she said.
At first, she thought it was myself trying to get outside to the balcony to take a look. But when she looked up, my father and I were still sitting at the kitchen table reading. Of course none of us believed her, and we went out again for a day of walking on the boardwalk and then gambling at night.
That night, I stayed up later than everyone else. I talked to my sister about what had happened to her the night before. Then I told her to let me know if she felt it again. As soon as she got in bed, I sat down by the kitchen table and watched her lying there for a few minutes. After that, I gave up and continued reading before getting up to wash up in the bathroom.
When I came out of the bathroom, my sister was sitting up in bed.
"What's wrong?" I said.
"While I was lying down, I could have sworn that you had just walked past my bed to the balcony. But when I opened my eyes, you were just coming out of the bathroom!" she said.
The way I lay down on the bed, my head was right next to the little space at end of my sister's bed. If someone passed by, I would have surely felt something, but that night I didn't notice anything at all (I took off the plastic cover and had a good nights rest). As usual, it took a little bit of time for me to sleep. I listening intently and tried to feel any wind or changes in the room, but eventually gave up and slept.
The next day, my father woke me up extra early to rent bikes for an early morning boardwalk ride. Then he went to my sister and woke her up as well. As soon as he did this, my mother, (who was not going with us) sat up in bed and turned on all the lights.
"Why don't you go back to sleep?" I said, puzzled.
"Nah, I'm not tired. I'll get up early today." she replied.
We all thought this was pretty odd. My mother loves to sleep late. She kept giving us vague reasons about why she wouldn't go back to sleep and even turned on the television! Later on, she told us the reason why. At breakfast, my mother told us about the strange incident that happened that night.
She had woken up in the middle of the night. It was late and she could hear all of us either snoring or breathing the natural rhythms of a very good night's rest. She was sleeping on the right-hand side of the first bed and was lying on her side facing inwards. But gradually, she realized that she felt the sensation of someone's back lying against her own! At first, she was convinced that it was my sister. But she was pretty alarmed to realize that my sister was in the other bed, 4 feet away!
Slowly, without opening her eyes, she moved closer to my father. The feeling was very real but very slowly, the other "person's" back gradually went away. My mother said that in the morning, she hadn't expected my sister to go riding bikes with us, leaving her all alone in the room! After we left, she tried valiantly to stay awake. She turned on all the lights and turned on the television, but eventually, she fell asleep anyway.
She was telling us this story during breakfast that morning. Then my sister chimed in and said that the "person" walked past her bed all of last night as well. But this time, she felt her sheets being gently pulled away to the corner of the bed by the balcony. For some reason, whenever she turned to face the balcony, it would stop. When she turned back around, she would feel the bed budge a little, as if a person were rubbing past it. Also, she felt "energy waves" from the foot of her bed.
After we came back to the room from breakfast, all of us were not so sure about our room anymore. In spite of this, we still had a day of vacationing and fun to look forward to. After we got what we needed, my father went downstairs early to get some brochures. Then my sister and I walked to the elevator while my mother got some last minute things. We were both standing there by the elevator doors when we heard my mother anxiously calling us back to the room.
When we got there, she looked a little shaken and said that the front door wouldn't lock from the outside again. She said that all the while, as she was rifling through her suitcase looking for something, she couldn't wait to get out of the room. She was getting a little scared when she finally found what she was looking for in the suitcase. She didn't like being alone the room and quickly opened the door to leave. Once safely outside, as an afterthought, she turned the handle to see if the door was locked from the outside. It didn't lock!
Downstairs, the concierge was very puzzled about the lock.
"Boy, I don't know what to tell you. That lock should be locked from the outside at all times. If it's not, I'm not sure what we can do. I recommend getting another room! Let me look on the computer to see where we can put you."
And that's exactly what we did. We got another room upstairs. This time, everything worked and the AC wasn't nearly as cold the first room. Our new room was perfect in every way. Not surprisingly, the rest of our trip was pretty relaxed. Of course, we talked and laughed about our experience for the rest of the trip and long after.
From the very first minute when we entered that first room, we all felt there was something not right about it. From the AC, to the stove, to the toilet, to the fridge, to the front door lock. Looking back, it just seems like something (or someone) didn't want us there. Not surprisingly my sister and mother definitely think there's something in that room. Although it didn't want to scare us, that "something" was gently trying to tell us to go to another room. For some reason, my mother and sister believe it was a little boy. Neither of them were very scared when they had their strange experiences. Perhaps the boy fell off the balcony. Or maybe someone died in the room. Maybe the spirit felt an affinity to the women (maybe he was looking for his mother )as opposed to myself and my father, who didn't experience anything. I guess it took us a long time to figure out that it wanted us to leave.
The Flagship is now a luxury time-share condo and is no longer a hotel. While we were there, the hotel operators aggressively tried to sell us a time-share, but of course we turned them down every time. The Flagship is still at the end of the boardwalk, and we sometimes wonder if anyone else has experienced anything strange on the tenth floor. I wonder what would have happened if we stayed in that room for another night. Would we have seen something? Maybe it would be time for my father and I to experience something strange. I wonder who bought the time-share in that room, and if anything similar happened to them. Then again, maybe that's why the hotel was so empty, even when we were there. If it was a ghost, it must have gotten pretty frustrated that we didn't understand it's many, many, many hints!! Looking back, I sure feel stupid!
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