Episode 8: The Blue Mesa Hotel

April 12, 2020·36 min·3 clips

A man named Fate corners Graham at 3am in the hotel bar and begins describing what sounds like a drunk driving accident that killed someone Graham loved.

Graham Anderson checks into the Blue Mesa Hotel in Taos, requesting Room 1421 — the writer's room — which is said to be haunted by the ghosts of past writers who reply to messages left in a notebook. Bellhop Jack mentions past guests including Jimmy Carter, Russell Crowe, and possibly Stephen King, and gives Graham only his name on a piece of paper. Graham's first impression of the hotel is that it is strange only in an unremarkable 1990s-décor way, until she notices the copper clawfoot bathtub. Before her first meeting with the cadaver dog team, Graham performs the notebook ritual, writing a simple hello on page eleven and leaving. She meets Daniel and his two cadaver dogs, Lucy (named after Lucille Ball) and Mr. Feeny. Daniel explains the method: each dog searches independently to allow cross-verification of alerts. Day one covers Black Mountain Campground and North Fork Eureka Creek with no results. Graham returns to find the notebook has a reply in flowing feminine cursive: How are you doing, Graham? And then fine or not fine at all with instructions to circle one. She circles not fine at all. Day two is cut short by rain. During the interruption, Daniel takes Graham to the Blue Mesa Hotel's restaurant for wings, where he warns her about a man named Fate who he claims ruined his life. Graham encounters Fate at 3:37am in the hotel lobby while sleepless. Fate cheerfully recognizes Graham from her Sports Central days and describes what sounds like a drunk driving accident in the rain in which a woman asleep in the passenger seat was harmed. Fate disappears before Graham can respond. The notebook now reads Open the closet door in tearing, repeated strokes. Graham checks the closet, finds it empty, and then finds a new message: we all come back. On the third search day near Gold Hill and Black Mountain, Lucy alerts 300 yards up a hill near the area — Daniel calls it a confirmed hit and they call it in to authorities. Graham returns to the hotel and interviews locals that evening, one of whom describes a high school student who disappeared the previous year. Jack the bellhop and his sister Pat offer to show Graham around Taos on her last night.

As heard by us

A hotel check-in becomes a polite, uneasy slide into the supernatural.

Episode 8 drops Graham Anderson into the Blue Mesa Hotel, where the front desk has a joke ready for almost everything. The writer's room notebook is not just a prop; it helps the episode make small courtesies feel slightly off, and even the lightest check-in banter carries a…

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Why you'd press play

You check into the Blue Mesa Hotel and find a notebook that starts answering back.

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