Hey guys and gals! I just got back from a wonderful bachelorette stay with my besties in beautiful Silent Hill! We kicked off our fall season right with a mostly lovely stay at the Toluca Lake Bed and Breakfast we found on Airbnb.

We pulled up in our convertible to Toluca Lake Bed and Breakfast with only minor issues getting there. Apple Maps stopped working and started playing hissing noises instead of navigating us to the location. Luckily, Stacy used to read maps as a child, so she was able to get us through the foggy highway to get to our vacation stay. We saw some hitchhikers shambling around on the highway, but we ignored them because they were pretty ugly.

It was unfortunate that no one came out to grab our bags from the car. A loud air raid siren really killed the vibe when we got there. Amira opened up Shazam because she insisted that those noises were familiar to her. She’s never fully been alright in the head ever since her parents drowned each other when she was growing up in Silent Hill. We were able to play our music loud enough so that we didn’t have to hear those awful sirens and the loud ominous bass sounds emerging from the heart of the town.

It sucked carrying all our bags in and the concierge took forever to service us. He was a sweaty man who kept telling us “GO BACK. GO BACK. GO BACK.” Like man, we just got here and I need to charge my phone. Give us the key and let’s get this party started. The Toluca Lake Bed and Breakfast was really dusty and rusty. A lot of cobwebs all over the place and the doors all made creaky noises. At least the place wasn’t busy, and we didn’t have to hear many other guests. Which is good because Brittney has social anxiety and unprocessed trauma from when she grew up in Silent Hill and was logged in the abattoir as it burned down and she heard all the animals and workers die painfully.

It took four attempts to open our room because we had to follow a system of notes to find our actual key to get into our room. Convoluted, but it was a fun little puzzle for the gals. Despite the rest of the place looking like a dilapidated nightmare, our room was clean and sterile. It looked well made. I kept seeing what might have been a ghost of my younger self playing with mother in the final days before she died. As much as it pained me to watch my father suffocate my mother with a pillow over and over again, the accommodations were clean and I was able to ignore the memories/visions by putting on my sleep mask and turning on some white noise.

Me and the gals got sooo wasted and we called up a local stripper. He gave us a real show! He took off all of his clothes except for his rusty helmet. He scared Amira when he tried to slash her with a giant knife, but he eventually calmed down after we hid in the closet for an hour. No one called in a single noise complaint.

The worst thing about our stay was the breakfast component of the bed and breakfast. The eggs had maggots crawling all over them, which sucked because I don’t like to eat bugs. The loud sirens from the town were really too loud and gave us all a pounding headache because we were all so hungover. The coffee was cold and the waffle maker kept sparking. At least the yogurt was okay to eat after we scraped away some of the mold.

We never saw the concierge again and we had to load up our bags back into the car ourselves. The service was not great. However, the stay was overall a good experience. We didn’t have to worry about other guests complaining about us being too loud and I think it was beneficial to us to relive some of our childhood traumas of being raised in a Silent Hill cult. The price was right at $90 with the waiver signed that the Toluca Lake Bed and Breakfast would not be criminally responsible for our untimely deaths. 

I’m writing this on my phone now as we are trying to leave the town boundaries. I swear we have been driving along the exact same stretch of highway for five hours now. Fingers crossed we make it back home okay!

• xo Katie Reynolds