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dream - haunted Johnson Hall
Aug. 5th, 2025 10:35 amJohnson Hall was derelict. Abandoned, falling apart. Once a luxury hotel in Richmond, Virginia; converted to a dormitory for Virginia Commonwealth University; it had been evacuated suddenly, with student belongings still in some rooms.
And it was haunted.
I had roomed on the 12th floor, the top floor. The one less perfectly cleared out. Some of my belongings remained in the room, including something precious and necessary.
This was some years after the evacuation and the building was deteriorating fast. Perhaps it was scheduled to be demolished? Or in the process? The elevators were not working - no wonder, they rarely worked when I was lodging there as a student. It had always been a long trudge up the stairs.
It was even more difficult now because the stairs themselves were blocked by fallen debris. Timbers, bricks. Broken or missing steps.
There were several of us in the recovery expedition. I don't know for sure - between 5 and 10. I went to my room and began collecting my abandoned belongings. I think some of the others were breaking into random rooms to see what they could find. This woke the spirit haunting the old hotel turned dormitory. She was some sort of housekeeper, concierge ... she definitely had a sense of ownership for the place. So ... maybe a genia loca? The thing is, her perception of the place included dwellers and she was determined to keep us. Permanently. One of the explorers in our party was injured ... kind of badly. The blood is probably what focused her attention so firmly on us.
As difficult as it had been climbing up to the 12th floor, it was even more so descending with the ghost actively opposing our escape. At one point, the staircase was blocked by a sheet of iron - from a water heater or furnace by the look of it - brought up from the basement!
I had to bargain with the ghost to get out but the bargain was flawed ... probably by lack of true communication; spirits and ghosts don't really speak English, what we think they are saying is interpreted by what we expect them to be saying ... and vice versa. So while I bargained for escape, she thought I was agreeing to return later ... with belongings. Her fury at what she saw as my betrayal of that agreement ... woke me up.
And it was haunted.
I had roomed on the 12th floor, the top floor. The one less perfectly cleared out. Some of my belongings remained in the room, including something precious and necessary.
This was some years after the evacuation and the building was deteriorating fast. Perhaps it was scheduled to be demolished? Or in the process? The elevators were not working - no wonder, they rarely worked when I was lodging there as a student. It had always been a long trudge up the stairs.
It was even more difficult now because the stairs themselves were blocked by fallen debris. Timbers, bricks. Broken or missing steps.
There were several of us in the recovery expedition. I don't know for sure - between 5 and 10. I went to my room and began collecting my abandoned belongings. I think some of the others were breaking into random rooms to see what they could find. This woke the spirit haunting the old hotel turned dormitory. She was some sort of housekeeper, concierge ... she definitely had a sense of ownership for the place. So ... maybe a genia loca? The thing is, her perception of the place included dwellers and she was determined to keep us. Permanently. One of the explorers in our party was injured ... kind of badly. The blood is probably what focused her attention so firmly on us.
As difficult as it had been climbing up to the 12th floor, it was even more so descending with the ghost actively opposing our escape. At one point, the staircase was blocked by a sheet of iron - from a water heater or furnace by the look of it - brought up from the basement!
I had to bargain with the ghost to get out but the bargain was flawed ... probably by lack of true communication; spirits and ghosts don't really speak English, what we think they are saying is interpreted by what we expect them to be saying ... and vice versa. So while I bargained for escape, she thought I was agreeing to return later ... with belongings. Her fury at what she saw as my betrayal of that agreement ... woke me up.
