CALLER (voicemail):
Hi, I’d rather not say my name if that’s okay... I... its just that I don’t really want any unnecessary attention. But I thought my story might be worth sharing. In 2004, I lost my husband at the Blue Mesa Hotel. Well... not exactly The Blue Mesa.. I’ll explain. My husband and I were having a bit of a rough patch in our marriage and decided that a vacation would be just the thing we needed to get us out of the rut we were in. I wanted to go to Vegas, but he wanted to visit New Mexico. Taos specifically. He was a big D.H. Lawrence fan. And an even bigger horror fan, so, of course, if you’re staying in Taos and you want to be scared, you’re going to want to stay at the Blue Mesa Hotel.
We booked ‘The Blood Room’... Accordingly to the legend, and the website, the walls of The Blood Room are supposed to drip blood at night. We thought it would be a fun little gag and at least it’d be quiet. Better than staying in ‘The Kennel Room’ and having a damn Dog-man wake you up at 2am. So, the first night comes and we’re all excited to see the blood walls. We were looking around inspecting the ceiling and walls trying to figure out how they pulled it off. But for all intents and purposes this room looked like any other hotel room. We stayed up until sunrise with no sign of the blood. The next night, Friday, we decided to try again, thinking maybe they could only afford to make the room bleed for weekend guests. So we stay up late. And again, nothing happens. Saturday afternoon my husband asked the lady at the Front Desk if there had been any recent sightings or experiences in The Blood Room because nothing had been happening for us. And she explained to us that the Blood Pipes were out of order. The blood pipes... That kinda killed the fun for us.
We decided to go for an afternoon hike to make up for all the time we’d spent sitting in the hotel room staring at the walls. It was beautiful. Lots of pretty flowers and rocks.... During our walk we found a cave and decided to do a little bit of exploring. Try to get ourselves scared the old fashioned way. The cave had a large opening with plenty of room above us and on both sides, so I didn’t really feel scared. It was... fun actually... at first. When we came upon a split leading into two separate tunnels we decided to each take a few steps in and then report back with what lay ahead so that we could decide which way we wanted to go. Simple enough.
I came back after three minutes. And then I waited.... And waited.... And waited.... After about fifteen minutes, I started shouting his name. Nothing. I cut my flashlight beam down the mouth of the tunnel... nothing. My heart started pounding. I felt light headed. My mind raced with the possibilities of what could have happened. I didn’t know what I’d do without him. An hour passed before he emerged. But instead of coming back down the tunnel he’d entered. He came back through the tunnel I’d originally gone into. I asked what happened and he said he just kept going and eventually it wrapped around. I was still full of unspent adrenaline so my body channeled it into rage. I was furious with him. We didn’t speak for the rest of the time we were in Taos.
I didn’t notice it right away, but after we got back home I started to pick up on subtle differences in my husband. Different mannerisms. Verbal ticks. He hated things he used to enjoy. And he enjoyed things he used to hate. He had trouble remembering events from our time dating. And he started going out and drinking with all kinds of people. He never did that before, either. I didn’t know who he was now, but he was no longer my husband. I was sure of that. My husband went into that cave with me. But a different man, who looked and sounded just like him, came out. We divorced in 2005 and he moved to Miami with some hot little thing... Whatever happened in that damn cave.... it took my husband from me and ruined my life.
