Wandering through the upper floors of the Washoe Club with my friend Jim Cleek, his daughters Kim Petty and Lily Mae Collins, their cousin Shannon Kean, and tour guide Zack Demo, we were having a grand time. It was my first time upstairs, so everything, noises, lights, creaking boards, was new to me.
The Washoe Club is perhaps the second most ‘famous’ haunted building in Nevada, behind the Goldfield Hotel south of Virginia City. It has been featured at least twice on television’s Ghost Adventures.
At any rate, the three women, accompanied by Jim and Zack, were channeling spirits while I moved up and down the hallways and into various rooms taking pictures. I missed at least one hall in my journey, as I soon learned.
Believing I’d traversed each one, I aimed my cell phone down this one corridor and pressed the camera button. The flash illuminated the area in front of me with lightning speed.
“Agak!” or “Son of a bitch,” I shouted, or something akin to it, as I jumped from fright.
Sitting in front of me at a distance of fewer than five feet was a damned mannequin dressed as an American Indian, braids and all. I had no idea it was seated on an old chair in the hall.
My jump scare made for a good laugh.
The Old Blog in the Desert 