The Guild Inn

The Guild Inn
Toronto, Ontario, Canada

I don’t remember how long I ran. Five, maybe ten minutes tops… The Guild Inn got the better of me.

I dropped my camera. Lost it on some plush mound of grass, and when I returned to the Guild Inn the next morning it was gone. And so, like most ghost stories before this, I have only words to share — I drove to the Inn at 2:00am and parked in the back lot. There I readied a pen and paper, and slung my trusty camera around my neck. This was my first trip to Toronto’s infamous Guild Inn, and I wanted to be prepared for any supernatural disturbances. You see, this seemingly innocent hotel once housed a medical facility in the basement where odd experiments were said to have taken place. This would have been during WWII and the atrocities committed here were no different than those carried out in German and Japanese Internment camps. Many “test subjects” died here, in ways too gruesome to comprehend.

I came here to get answers. There have been countless reports from eye witnesses that ghosts walk these hallways. Some of the lighter phenomena happens in daylight. Occupant possessions are mysteriously moved from one location to another, or go missing all together. A lamp will turn on without being plugged in to a wall socket. A dog will cower and whimper, for no reason at all. But at night, The Guild Inn becomes far more sinister. This was the creature I came to witness.

I only made it as far as this stretch of windows in the picture above. At the room furthest from me a light switched on. I thought this was odd since it was now 2:16am and the doors were locked shut with an old rusty chain weaved between the handles. Who turned on the light? Some late night security person? Another Guild Inn explorer like me? Or maybe it was a rat that triggered a motion sensing device… the camera around my neck became heavy and so I took it off and removed the lens cap. While I thought these options over, another light switched on in the room adjacent, this one canceling out the one before it. I took a deep breathe and waited. Nothing changed and I inched forward. I took another 2 steps and the pattern repeated. Another light closer to me and the previous one snuffed out. I could hear footsteps. I readied my camera.

I stood perfectly still – this time holding my breath. The lights and footsteps moved forward one room at a time but this was not a gradual process. The footsteps were closing in fragmented, getting louder in increments as if the walker was jumping closer every five feet, landing in complete silence, then approaching. It was cold that night and when I did breathe it formed into a soft mist that gently rose infront of my face. My camera pressed through it and I remember a distinct feeling of dread.

The closest room lit up and I choked. Something was there! I do not know what, but it had the form of something human and eyes that peered directly into mine. I heard something that sounded like bones being scrapped against one another and the lights went out. I took off, the only footsteps that I heard now were my own. I did not snap my camera that night.

 

 

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