Emily Kline

Night disturbances during a visit to a quaint bed and breakfast leave Emily Kline unnerved.

Until this Labor Day, I’d never truly underwent a life-or-death, beginning-of-a-horror-movie, well-I-probably-would’ve-died-if-that-had-gone-differently experience. To make matters more interesting, this brush with the dangerous came from the world’s least threatening places: a charming bed and breakfast. In Red Wing.

Snoozing under a frilly, floral comforter at midnight, I can’t say I expected my door––left unlocked, because hey, it’s Red Wing––to burst open to reveal the silhouette of an unknown man. After some half-asleep screaming, where my mom’s devil-voice made a truly frightening appearance, the intruder mumbled in a Southern accent that his name was Chris, he lived there, and that yes, ma’am, he would be leaving now.

After “Chris” returned two more times to try our (locked) door again, I laid awake wondering whether I would live until dawn. Was he drunk? A ghost? Both? I decided he must be the owner’s son, possibly affected by severe short-term memory loss. The next morning, my mom and I cornered the owner and asked why she hadn’t mentioned her son.

Turns out, as the owner cheerfully explained to us, Chris was not her son. Chris wasn’t even a guest. A very drunk young Southerner stumbled in the night before––surprise, the front door wasn’t locked––trying different doorknobs for an hour until he realized the kitschy B&B wasn’t, in fact, his bachelor pad.

Being well-versed from the news and Antoine Dobson on the threat an intruder poses, I’m just grateful Mr. Chris intruded politely and without any knives. And although the B&B owner houses only paying guests, the house, according to her, is home to a ghost. Somehow, that doesn’t reassure me.