WNC Scary Stories: The smell of cigarettes

DOWN THE HALL, TO THE RIGHT: Lauren Loiacono, owner of Ebb & Flow Massage Therapy Center, discusses the ghost named Sarah who haunts her business's back hallway. Photo from iStock

The back hallway of our massage center, where the treatment rooms are, has a ghost, a distinctly older female presence that is especially noticeable after sunset. Everyone who has ever worked with us after dark has sensed an eerie presence back there. And even during the day when no one else is in the building, you can smell her smoking cigarettes. Everyone has smelled it at some point. Also, the thermostats randomly get turned off and on, and everyone swears it wasn’t them.

We had a psychic come to read the space, and without telling her our experience, she said the woman’s name was Sarah and that she worked in our building for many years long ago, possibly even decades, and would sit by the window every evening, smoking cigarettes and waiting for the carriage to pick her up. She said that Sarah was killed suddenly in front of the building by a horse-and-buggy accident and doesn’t understand that she’s dead. She’s looping — continuing to do her job and waiting each night by the window to get picked up.

Gives me chills just thinking about it! At least she seems to be a friendly (enough) ghost.

Lauren Loiacono, owner of Ebb & Flow Massage Therapy Center

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