Stays
FEATURE
Spooky
A LOOK AT MAINE’S SPOOKIEST HAUNTED INNS
I
t was a cold night. A fierce snowstorm was rolling in, and the inn was empty of guests. But the night auditor, Roberto Salinas, still had a job to do. Sitting at the front desk, he was crunching numbers and balancing the books when he heard what sounded like rapid footsteps on the hallway upstairs. “You know when there are a lot of kids and they’re running around together? It sounded like that,” he recalled. “Then I could hear people dancing or jumping in the room above, and I actually heard the door open three or four times.” The room directly above him was Room 8, rumored to be the most haunted room at The Lucerne Inn. 48 / BANGOR METRO October 2021
“At first I told myself it was my imagination. This is an old building. There are a lot of cracks and crevices that the wind can come through. I thought that maybe a window was left open upstairs, but then I realized the windows are sealed. They don’t open,” he said. “The ghosts were having a party.” Salinas had worked nights at the inn for several years at that point, and it wasn’t his first time hearing or seeing something strange. He was getting used to the idea that the building might be haunted. But he wasn’t necessarily afraid. After all, if there were lingering spirits, they had never harmed him. As the “party” became more rambunctious, Salinas heard water running as if fill-
ing a tub, then a toilet flushing over and over. At that point, he was worried that a pipe had sprung a leak, so he went upstairs to investigate. “As I started going up the stairs, maybe halfway up, everything quieted down. There was not a sound,” he said. “As I’m speaking to you, I’m having goosebumps all over my body.” Upon reaching the second floor, he could hear a pin drop. He walked down the hallway and past Room 8. Silence. So he continued on and headed back downstairs. “As I’m walking down the stairs, it all started up again — people running, having a good time. I said, ‘OK. I’m not going back up. You’re having a good time, I’m not
PHOTOS: (TOP) BDN FILE; (DOOR) AISLINN SARNACKI
BY AISLINN SARNACKI
