AND IT WASN’T EVEN HALLOWEEN

A couple’s path to wedded bliss got a creepy start.

My husband, Lee, a naval officer in Fort Lauderdale, was transferred to Whidbey Island, Washington, in the mid-1940s. I followed him a few weeks later.

We were planning to live in one of the “victory homes” on the base, but had to stay in the nearby town of Anacortes until the house was ready for us.

The only hotel in town was a dark and dusty

old place called The New Wilson. The lobby had hideous brown mohair furniture and windows cloudy with dirt. There was no elevator. If this is The New Wilson, we thought,

we’d hate to see the old one.

One evening we managed to find a movie,

The Lost Weekend, playing in our sad little town. Ray Milland starred as an alcoholic writer suffering from withdrawal, causing him to see mice popping out of the walls.

After the show, we strolled home, climbed the stairs and walked down the dim hallway to our room. As Lee was putting the key in the lock, I glanced at the window beside me and saw—to my horror—a bat clinging to a moldy drape! Too coincidental after just seeing a creepy movie? Hm.

Two nights later, I was awakened at 2 a.m. by a

scritch-scratch behind my head. Certain it was a rat clawing through the wall, I woke Lee and we ran together to the phone to call the manager.

Suddenly there was a ripping noise. To our shock, a huge sheet of wallpaper fell off the wall and over the section of bed where we had been sleeping only moments before.

So it wasn’t a rodent after all—just old glue. Still, I could not wait to leave that house of horrors, which, thank goodness, we did the next day.