Ghost Butler at Dawn

Haunted Butler Hallway Copyright S. Giron 2013



The con was over but dozens had stayed an extra night to live out their hedonistic fantasies one last time on Bourbon Street before the harsh glare of morning set in and real life continued on.

The World Horror Convention and the Horror Writers Association's Bram Stoker Awards Weekend were combined this year in New Orleans from June 13 to 16. The business was held in the beautiful and totally haunted Hotel Monteleone. This story happened around five in the morning on Monday June 17.

It was Sunday night but that didn't matter in the French Quarter. We roamed around, throwing beads, drinking out of blinking skull heads, and watching girls in bikinis being tossed from bucking broncos. The lure of the Dungeon beckoned and a contingent of last remnants were still dancing in the pits of hell, hypnotised by heavy metal and squeezing every last drop of hedonism from their souls before it would all be over.

And then it was.

Sadly, we returned to the haunted hotel. I realized that one of my friends still hadn't been to the rooftop despite being there for days so off we went while the others went to bed.

Amazingly, the door to the pool area was still open, and no security came to kick us out. We stared out at the glittering lights of New Orleans, lamenting the impending morning. Still no security, so we settled into the metal deck chairs and watched the pool sparkle in the growing dawn.

As the sky lightened, we returned to the wrought iron fence to forlornly gaze one last time at this weird and wonderful city. We returned inside just as the morning sprinkler system baptized us into a new day. We re-entered the glass door and walked the short steps to the elevator. There was still no security. As we waited for the elevator and were still gabbing, I glimpsed over my shoulder and saw a man standing near or even kind of half into the wall, wearing black and white clothes. A suit. I turned further and he disappeared.

There was no door along the wall in the area where I had spotted him.

I nicknamed him "The Butler" since that was the first word that popped into my head. I haven't researched enough yet to know if he's a regular.

Security guards or even staff didn't have the same uniform or clothes as the man that I saw. In fact, he may have just been a man in a suit. It may have a been a woman in a suit. The face was blurry and hair kind of hung in his face. Staff would have likely acknowledged people wandering the halls at dawn. There wasn't time for the man to slip out the glass brass handled door to the pool and in fact, perhaps melted back into the wall.

Welcome to the Hotel Monteleone.

That was the first paranormal apparition that I've seen that clearly as far as I can recall. It didn't frighten me nearly as much as I had always anticipated seeing an apparition would frighten me. It happened so fast I didn't have time to even think about it. But perhaps it didn't frighten me that much because it was the last experience I had during my stay in New Orleans.

I had a few other experiences at the haunted hotel which I will share in separate blog posts that were more unsettling.

The picture of the hallway above was taken on Saturday afternoon. Something told me to take a picture there so I did. And this is where The Butler stood on Monday morning at dawn.

Please feel free to share your comments and your own stories about the Haunted Monteleone.