Real Ghost Stories Chapter 16 -Kate Morgan at the Hotel Del, a supernatural fanfic

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The Supernatural characters belong to Kripke Enterprises and the CW, not me. No money is being made from this story. It is for entertainment only.

Real Ghost Stories

Chapter 16

Kate Morgan at the Hotel Del

In 1888 a Victorian Fantasy rose beside the Pacific Ocean. A vast, sprawling wooden structure with peaked, cone shaped red roofs dotted with cupolas and windows, overhanging three stories of wide white verandas lined with gingerbread balustrades; it was one of the premier resorts in the world. The Hotel Del, as it is called, still sits beside the Pacific Ocean, with outbuildings and beach cabanas stretching like great wings along a private shoreline.

Some of The Del's most famous guests were Thomas Edison, L. Frank Baum, who wrote much of the Wizard of Oz series at The Del; and later Humphrey Bogart, Rudolph Valentino and Babe Ruth. Presidents Harrison, McKinley, Taft, Wilson, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Carter, Reagan and George H. Bush have all been guests.

It is now not only a hotel it is a State and National History Landmark. The Del was once a private experience in the 1800's for guests and staff only; now hordes of tourists wander the halls. This great hotel, like so many of its sisters, is, of course, haunted.

The most famous of The Del's ghosts is that of The Beautiful Stranger.

On November 30, 1892, The San Diego Union ran a story with the following headline:

"By Her Own Hand: A Young Woman, Suffering from Incurable Disease, Suicides. She Wanders Out into the Storm to Die -Desperate Act of a Guest at Hotel del Coronado-A Revolver the Chosen Weapon."

Headlines in the 1800's were somewhat more florid than headlines today.

However, even with the expansive headline there were a number of facts overlooked by the Union newspaper. First of all, the young woman checked in under the name Lottie Anderson Bernard; a name to which she had no claim. She was young, beautiful and seemed to be in pain a good deal of the time. She spent five days at The Del and was often seen by staff staring out over the ocean as if waiting for a boat to appear.

After her body was found and turned over to the corner the search for the true identity of The Beautiful Stranger went national. Sketches were published in papers throughout the Unites States which led to an identification of the body by one Joe Chandler of Iowa who claimed to be her paternal grandfather. He identified The Beautiful Stranger as Kate Morgen a young woman who, after the death of her only child, dumped her husband, Thomas Edwin Morgan, and ran off with a man called Albert Allen. Iowa saw Kate Morgan no more.

Joe Chandler's claim was upheld by the coroner as Mr. Chandler actually wired the money to bury Kate.

Entire books have been written about the mysterious Kate Morgan. Was she a housemaid, a secret mistress of the owner of The Del, the politically connected John Spreckels, one of the wealthiest men of his time or was she pregnant by the last King of Hawaii, David Kalahaua? All of these sceneries have their adherents.

One of the dark secrets of the Great Hotels of the Victorian era was that it was possible to order a very special service in these places; abortions.

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Dean Winchester stood on the sand and looked up at the Hotel Del. "Gee, Sam, You take me to all the best places."

Sam snickered. "Better than some of the holes you've taken me to, I've got to say."

Dean smacked into his brother's arm. "Alright, before somebody comes and drives us off their private beach, tell me the story. Why are we here?"

"Nobody's going to drive us away." Sm replied. "We've been invited." Sam led the way up from the beach through the lines of beach cabanas and up to the front entrance of the hotel. Inside Sam asked for the office of the night manager and soon the brothers were sitting in a Victorian themed office off the front lobby.

Mr. Bradman explained that he had been looking for people with their expertise to help stop a flood of visitor complaints. After a hundred years of excellent behavior from their most famous resident ghost Mr. Bradman feared that Kate Morgan had turned mean.

She was famous for scaring gusts in a almost playful manner; moving things around in the rooms, hiding their personal belongings in odd places, dragging the coverlets off in the middle of the night and a variety of scary but harmless pranks. Lately, however Kate had stepped it up.

Guests walking on the sands at night would see a lady dressed in a vintage grey gown standing at the edge of the surf, who turned to look directly at them and disappeared, The lady in gray would sometimes walk right up to people and then through them, chilling them to the bone. Even the guests who checked in after reserving the "haunted" bedroom long in advance were getting a lot more than they expected.

Unfortunately a number of the female guests who were being targeted by Kate were pregnant at the time and three of them had suffered miscarriages. Now they were trying to blame the hotel. Upper management had let their displeasure be known and the responsibility for bringing Kate to heel had moved down the chain of command until it landed on the night manager's desk.

Mr. Bradman had complained long and loudly about this impossible demand and he did so wherever he went, including bars and other public places. He had no idea how to find Ghostbusters and decided to approach those fonts of all knowledge, bartenders. It worked because here, in front of him, were the Winchester Brothers who were evidently well known the field.

Dean leaned forward and snagged a piece of wrapped salt water taffy of the manager's desk. "These things can be settled fairly easily." Dean said. "If you want her gone completely all we need to know is where she's buried."

"Why would you want to know that?" Mr. Bradman asked.

"Well, we go in, dig her up, salt n' burn her bones. Poof! No more ghost." Dean replied with a friendly smile.

"Good luck with that." Bradman answered.

"Why? Don't you know where she's buried?" Sam asked.

"Oh, I know where she's buried alright, me and most of the population of San Diego County. Kate Morgan has a lovely headstone right in the middle of the most expenses piece of ground in Mount Hope Cemetery. "

"What's special about the cemetery?' Dean asked. "We've done hundreds of cemeteries. They usually aren't a problem. We go in late at night and take care of it."

"You set foot in that cemetery at night and you'll have police up your nose in about ten minutes. The place is a tourist attraction. It costs upwards of $2,000 for a plot, if there are any available. It's 142 years of San Diego history and it's guarded around the clock. Beside the guards the surrounding neighbors have banded together to pay for motion sensor triggered lights to keep out the riff-raff. You might as well hire a brass band to escort you to the grave site."

Dean glanced at little brother. "That's definitely not very encouraging. What do you think, Sam?"

"I think that we've picked a hotel that's a tourist attraction, to take care of a ghost who's a tourist attraction and who's buried in a tourist attraction. It's a perfect trifecta and not a winning one." Sam curled his lip and grimaced. "I am definitely going to have to take the time to think about this seriously."

"Where is Kate most often seen in the hotel?" Dean asked the manager.

"The third floor corridor, near or in room 3312." Mr. Bradman answered. "Good luck. She's either there or out strolling around the beach near where her body was found back in 1892."

Mr. Bradman rose from behind his desk. "Well I certainly would appreciate anything you can do. Here's an access card for your room. Sorry but the Comp rooms are on the fifth floor and not up to our usual standards. There is a fee offered for a successful conclusion to our problem and I hope I have to pay it to you." Me. Bradman pulled open his desk drawer. "Here's a parking pass for you. I assume you have a car somewhere?"

Dean took the pass gratefully. He had definitely not liked the idea of leaving Baby on a side street all night. They shook on the deal and the Winchesters headed out. Dean went out the front door to rescue Baby and Sam found the elevators up to the fifth floor.

Sam entered their room high up on the top floor and found a neat, clean but small room with two double beds and a single window overlooking the parking lot in front of the lobby. He set up his laptop on the table under the window and began to review all the materials he had found on the Kate Morgan haunting and searched for additional sites.

He studied the site for the Mount Hope Cemetery and found he had to agree with Mr. Bradman's description. This was the most closely watched cemetery he had ever known. It challenged Forest Lawn in Los Angeles for security. He smiled at the thought. Forest Lawn actually ran ghost tours through the cemetery that needed reservations. He shook his head and had to agree, only in Southern California.

There was a scrabbling at the door and Dean came in. "Find out anything useful, Sam?" he asked and threw himself on the bed.

"Yes," aid Sam. "I found out that people will not stop writing books and articles about Kate Morgan. They find her endlessly fascinating. Even so, knowing what we do I am becoming convinced that she came here for an abortion and the doctor flubbed the operation. From the staff descriptions over the course of her last days she seemed to be in a lot of pain. I also think she was abandoned by her lover. She was constantly calling the front desk to see if there were messages from her "brother" Mr. Anderson.'

"There is testimony from a gun store owner that he sold a revolver to a young woman that fit her description the day before she died. I think in a fit of despair she killed herself; alone, abandoned and suffering." Sam's voice trailed off.

"Wow, depressing," Dean responded. "What can we do about her?"

"I think we should take a talking board down to the beach," Sam said. "We need to make her understand that attacking pregnant women is not going to bring her baby back. She needs to let go. She's certainly suffered enough. If she fears Hell, I believe we can reassure her that she has done nothing to warrant punishment." Sam began to gather up his research materials from the table.

Leaning out to see through the little window Sam saw that the sun was setting. "We should wait until the witching hour and go down to the beach. " Sam turned to his brother. "That is, if you want to go with me. I can do this by myself, if you like."

"Nah," Dean replied. "I'll go with you. You never know when something like this can suddenly go vengeful. Let's get some sleep now. It's a long while to 3 AM."

By the weak light of a crescent moon two men walked on the empty beach. They settled down on the sands and waited. In time a lady in a gauzy grey gown appeared and finally settled in the sand with the men. There were soft murmurings and chanting that sounded like prayer. When the sun rose over the hills behind the hotel the grey lady stood and stretched out her arms to the rinsing light. With a whisper like a sea breeze she became a flash of light herself and shot away.

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A/N: This is the 16th ghost story I have written for this series and I want to clarify something. The first half of each chapter describes actual accepted hauntings. This is the "real" portion of the story. When the Winchesters enter the story is the fantasy part of the story and everything there after is open to my imagination. I feel it is necessary to remind everyone about this because of something that is happening in many of the Ghost Hunting research sites on line. More and more sites are referencing the pilot episode of Supernatural, The Woman in White, as research material for the legend of La Llorona, The Weeping Woman of the South West. This is a lovely example of real life following Art. There is 'real' life and then there is a T.V. show. Let us all try to distinguish one from the other.

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