We arrived in Windber on Thursday afternoon. After being in the car since
six o'clock that morning we were ready to find a room to crash for a bit
before the music and poetry and general mayhem that first night. We were met by the lovely Blair Murphy and told we could crash anywhere and to just find a couch or a corner. So we went and explored the second and third floors to see what we could find. We discovered the whole glory of the Grand Midway Hotel, which reminded both of us of the house in the movie Fight Club. During our search for that perfect corner to throw our sleeping bags and Kerouac books and later lay our precious heads, we came across a room which looked unoccupied except for a child's recliner chair with what appeared to be a monkey relaxing in it with a look of sheer terror on its face. A sick fascination came over us and we immediately ran and found Blair to ask if anyone was staying in Room 11. Of course nobody was. So we excitedly asked if we could stay there. He gave us a look of confusion and asked seriously, "Do you WANT to stay there? Nobody's ever spent the night in that room before..." We figured it would be more fun than sleeping on any unoccupied couches we could find.

The only light in the room was a soft red glow which came from a single
light bulb resting on a sink that had to be the original from some ancient
time. The sink was nonfunctioning, of course, and had some kind of bones in it. The room was filthy and extremely beat (as in beaten-up), but that
weekend anything that could be called "beat" in any sense of the word was
like a god-send from heaven and we rejoiced in the glory of the dead monkey and his room.

The monkey must have used his magicks on me, for I don't remember much about actually sleeping that night. I passed out rather quickly and was unaware of any unearthly or other-worldly activities that might have occurred. I do remember that the floor was very uncomfortable, for my sleeping bag kept rolling off the carpet and onto the wood floor next to the wall.

The next afternoon (or whenever we managed to awaken) we found Blair, who proceeded to tell us some extremely disturbing stories of what happened in that room in the past. Apparently I slept literally inches from a hole in the wall where charred human bones were found. On returning to the room, I stood in front of the sink mesmerized, thinking of the murderers of yesteryear washing the blood from their hands in that very sink. And the wall that kept drawing me closer and closer as I slept through the night seemed to imprison the ghost of a girl trying to grab me to help her escape.

We also learned the monkey was once a living creature, torn apart and
resurrected by a taxidermist. I'm not sure how he died, the expression on
his face makes me wonder. But no matter how eerie he appeared, he was the guardian of Room 11.

Needless to say, we were very happy to be moved to the third floor for the
remainder of our stay at the Grand Midway.