Tales From The Night Shift

March 29, 2023 | Nia Williams

Tales From The Night Shift


Working during the darkest hours of the night can wreak havoc on one's imagination. From hearing ghostly whispers in the attic to being pushed down the stairs by something unseen, the night shift isn't for the faint of heart. From Redditors who braved the graveyard shift, these blood-curdling stories will surely send chills down your spine.


1. Keep It Down

I'm a teacher who frequently stays late during the winter months to try and catch up on work. Sometimes I don’t leave until after 7 pm and by then it’s pitch dark outside.

Many times while alone, I have heard children giggling. I’ve gone through the building, room by room, looking for the source since the idea of little kids being locked in overnight is not pleasant. But I could never find anyone. The doors and windows are locked and there are no signs of anyone outside.

I asked around and it seems that many fellow staff members who have stayed later than normal have also heard the laughter, as well as other sounds. As a result, I began to do something bizarre.

Now, whenever I hear the giggles, I use my “teacher voice” and tell them to keep it down. It seems to work, so I’m fine with that.

Tales From The Night ShiftShutterstock

2. Blood-Curdling Moment

Back when I was a healthcare assistant, I was doing my hourly rounds of poking my head into the doorways and checking that everything was fine. About halfway down the hall, I see a resident sitting up at the edge of her bed facing the doorway. I ask if she's all right and if she needs anything. She was looking down, and as she looked up, her head kind of twisted from side to side. She looks up but maintains eye contact with me. In a hoarse voice, she replies, "HELEN ISN'T HERE ANYMORE".

I bolted back to the nursing station and reported what happened to the nurse. The nurse looks at me and kind of chuckles. She said that it was impossible as the resident is a total assist patient—basically immobile and not very verbal.

It hadn't even been two minutes since the incident. We make our way down there anyways. When we arrive, the resident is tucked nicely in her bed, snoring away as though nothing happened.

Tales From The Night ShiftFreepik,freepik

3. This Is What I Do For A Living

I'm a counselor at a psychiatric hospital. I work a ton of night shifts, and some spooky things tend to happen.

One night, I hear a sound that makes my blood run cold. It’s a door creaking open, and one of the patients leans out, exposing half his face. He's staring at me and whispering something I couldn't hear from that distance. Naturally, I ask if he's okay and if he needs something. He doesn't respond, but very slowly leans back into his room and closes the door. This repeated itself a few times during that night.

It's a story I like to tell to people who ask me what I do for a living, because in hindsight I find it quite amusing. At the moment though, it freaked me the heck out.

Tales From The Night ShiftPexels

4. What In The World Moment

I supervise the cashier area in a casino and I've always worked the graveyard shift. Back then we used to close the floor at 4 am. One night, I was working with an assistant when at about 5 am, she had to run home for a bit. I was just finishing up some paperwork so I didn't mind her leaving.

I was concentrating on my paperwork when I realized that one of the swivel chairs was slowly spinning. I stared at it until it stopped—kind of frozen with confusion as to how it moved by itself.

I was feeling pretty creeped out so I decided just to wait until my assistant got back. Suddenly, the surveillance team called and said, "Did you see that"? We laughed about the strange occurrence and wondered what the heck that was.

I wish that video got saved but I doubt it because this was well over ten years ago when tapes were wiped every two weeks. Definitely a “What In The World” moment.

Tales From The Night ShiftPxhere

5. Come Play With Me

Our organization had a building that used to be an orphanage or a children's hospital that people swore was haunted. The facility staff kept all the original toys so that during family day events, kids could play with them.

During our toy drives, we would have trucks haul toys in from across the state. Sometimes, we would put crews up in the building to sleep overnight. What they reported was bone-chilling. The night crews would talk about waking up to toys being taken out of the toy boxes and scattered like they had been played with. It got to the point where most people would rather sleep out in the trucks.

We shut the building down a few years ago and moved operations to another city. I am sure one reason was that the building was old and had many issues but the number one unspoken reason we wanted it gone was because of the overwhelming consensus that it was haunted.

Tales From The Night ShiftFlickr, Jeff Blum

6. Out Of The Corner Of My Eye

Years ago, I worked the night shift as an orderly in a small hospital. Most of the work involved just answering call lights and cleaning up messes. There was one room in which the call light would go off on its own. The patients in the room would deny pushing it. It would also go off when the room was empty.

The story is that an elderly lady named Vicky, who spent a lot of time in that room, used to always ask for help. She eventually departed us. According to the older nurses who worked in the hospital, she is still asking for help. We all laughed about the story and it soon became a long-running joke. Whenever anything peculiar happened in that room, it was just attributed to Vicky who was looking for attention.

Thirty-five years have passed since that time. After retiring, I found myself working in the same hospital. Vicky's room has since been converted into a bright and shiny new surgical area. But whenever I pass that area—and I swear that all of the lights are off, out of the corner of my eye, I can see someone standing there. I tell myself that it's an optical illusion but it still gives me shivers.

I recently told this story to a friend who has worked in this hospital all this time and now whenever I see her she swats at me for telling her the story because she has started seeing Vicky out of the corner of her eye too.

Tales From The Night ShiftFlickr, Judy Baxter

7. Still Hanging Around

I work in a prison. When I was new, I was working overtime one night in a housing unit that had seen a lot of casualties. It was well after midnight, and all of the offenders were supposed to be in their cells. Since this was a medium-security prison, the offenders still had access to leave their cells to use the communal bathroom at night.

As I was starting my 2 am count, I saw an offender walk down the stairs from the second level and into the bathroom. I stood at the entrance to the bathroom and yelled in to ask what cell he was in so I could add an extra body to that cell for my count. But I got no answer. I then walked into the bathroom and searched everywhere but didn't find anyone in there.

I told one of my co-workers about what had happened. His reply was chilling. The first thing he asked me was, "Was he tall and skinny with long dreads"? When I answered, “Yes”!, I was told, "That's Mr. Bones. He took his own life a few years ago but he still hangs around".

I still get goosebumps thinking about it.

Tales From The Night ShiftPicryl

8. Knock, Knock, Anyone There?

About 15 years ago, I used to work the 7 pm to 7 am shift as a nursing assistant. I worked on the surgical floor which meant that most patients were pre/post-op. But from time to time they would send up extra patients to my floor. It wasn't uncommon to have a casualty on occasion.

Hospitals are generally well-staffed at night, so I didn’t spend a ton of time alone. As an assistant, things like bathing people and changing beds were part of my job.

One night I was giving an elderly patient a bath when I suddenly heard knocking. I checked the door but no one was around. I shrugged it off and went back to work. Soon after, I heard knocking again, but this time it didn’t sound like the door. By the third time, I realized it was coming from the window. At first, this confused me, so I just opened up the blinds thinking maybe some kids were running around playing a joke—there were apartments nearby and kids liked to do weird things.

When I opened the blinds, I suddenly remembered that we were on the second floor overlooking the parking lot. This sent a chill down my spine. I waited to see if there was any movement or reasonable explanation. When nothing presented itself, I just freaked out internally and shut the blinds. I tried rushing through the rest of the bath, hoping there wouldn't be any more knocking. But when the knocking happened again, I didn’t investigate. I finished up as quickly as I could, grabbed my stuff, and got out of there.

The elderly man ended up passing away a few hours later. I told a few co-workers about the incident but nobody seemed surprised. They simply said that weird stuff happened like that, and you get used to it.

Tales From The Night ShiftShutterstock

9. Spooky Night At The Museum

I used to work as a security guard in the Louvre Museum— where the Mona Lisa is located. One night as I was walking down a corridor that housed swords on both sides, something suddenly pulled my jacket and made me almost fall. I turned around but saw nothing. I started to scream into my walkie-talkie. Another security guard had to come to get me and bring me to the main room. We both checked the cameras. What I saw sent chills down my spine. I saw that my jacket got pulled in mid-air.

The next day when we reported the incident to the chief of security, he told us to disregard it. Since that day, rounds are always done with two security guards.

Tales From The Night ShiftFlickr, david__jones

10. Woman In The Nightgown

When I used to work on the railway, I saw my fair share of ghosts—but one was more memorable than any others. There was this old woman in a nightgown walking across the tracks. After seeing the apparition, I turned to the engineer and asked, "Did you see that"? He replied, "Yup" as if it was nothing. I was fairly young but he had thirty years in.

Tales From The Night ShiftFlickr, Miroslav Volek

11. Seriously Creepy

I worked as a night shift nurse. One time, I was chatting with a patient, trying to get him settled. Living in a small town, the topic of people we both mutually knew came up including one who recently departed. Just as we are talking about the deceased, the shower in the unoccupied bathroom suddenly turned on.

I immediately went to investigate and found that the washcloth the patient had used earlier was hung to dry on the faucet. That's when the shower turned on. It was such a creepy time.

Tales From The Night ShiftFlickr, Jo Naylor

12. You Missed Something

I was working late one night at Colonial Williamsburg. It was my job to turn off the lights at the Governor's mansion and a few other places at the end of the night. When I finished turning off all the lights, I was walking to my car when my boss called me and said that I had missed a light. I was pretty new in my job at that time, so I just said, “Yes, sir”, and headed back. Sure enough, a light way up in the attic was visibly seen from the outside. So I went back inside the house and climbed up the little ladder to the top floor. Once up there, I didn't see any lights on. I didn’t think too much of it at this point, so I went all the way back downstairs and left the house.

Once outside, I started back to my car. Then my boss sent me a text and asked if I was going to take care of the light or not. I told him that I did but he was upset because he thought I was lying. Regardless, I headed back to the mansion and sure enough, the same light was on. I went all the way back up the stairs only to find that the light was off again. I was literally staring out the window from where you could see the light on from the outside. At this point, I figured someone was messing with me, so I headed back out in a huff.

When I got downstairs, my boss met me at the door. At this point, he was quite upset at me and said, “Are you going to turn that dang light out or what”?

Exasperated, I replied, “It was out—are you screwing with me”?

So we both headed up to the attic only to find that the light was off.

But—there was the distinct odor of a lit candle and what appeared to be the haze of smoke around the window.

Tales From The Night ShiftPexels

13. Last Time On Night Shift

I was working the overnight shift in a Hospital/Cancer Research building. Every two hours, I alternated patrol with my co-guard—one would patrol the camera and response room while the other would do the rounds.

By 2 am, I'm on my third patrol and I am completely exhausted. When I get to the fourth floor, I reach the Records department which used to be Ward 4 Palliative Care. That's now located one floor below. It's dark and creepy, so I always do the restricted area part first. I swipe my pass, and the door buzzes and slides open. I then hang a right, and walk down a long corridor while checking all the doors, I then hang a left, walk down a short corridor and check that door. Everything is in order so I make my way back.

That's when I see the old bloke standing there, in a hospital gown with an IV pole, staring right at me. It's not an uncommon sight to see patients walking around but not at 2 am in the morning. I smile and wander over to him and ask if he's alright. He replied that he was and was just heading back to his room. Just then, my beeper goes off. I looked down to check the number. When I looked back up, he was gone. He went through the door that was accessed only with a key card!

At this point, I was beyond myself. Even when I tried to rationalize the situation: I had very little sleep from the night before and was pretty exhausted so my mind was probably playing tricks on me, I was still spooked.

I continue my rounds and wander through the dark archives section. Yeah, that was fun. I was careful just in case there actually was an old bloke floating around the ward. Just then, my beeper goes off. My co-worker tells me to head to Ward 4 for a Code Grey—to be a chaperone for a deceased patient. Great, just what I need right now.

I quickly walk through the corridor and get on the elevator to Ward 4, one floor down. I was immediately greeted by a nurse who had smokes in her hand and red around her eyes. She was heading to the smoke deck. She tells me that they had just lost a patient. I told her that I knew and was heading there for the Code Grey.

Well, not only was the deceased the same bloke I saw earlier upstairs but later on when I relayed what had happened to my co-worker, he simply laughed the whole thing off. He even showed me the footage of me pausing at the end of the corridor with absolutely no one there. He promised that he wasn't going to tell anyone about it—but that’s not the creepiest part.

Once back on patrol, a thought occurred to me: all nurses and staff need to electronically log in after hours. We have to visually check IDs as a lot of top-tier research happens in the building.

That nurse who I spoke to that night didn't exist. I could not find a single record of her—on paper—on computer— not even on the darn Smoking Area camera.

I never worked a night shift there again.

Tales From The Night ShiftShutterstock

14. Man's Best Friend

I work in a building that's built on an old state mental hospital property.

One day, I brought my six-month-old dog to work. I took him for a walk in the field next to our building. He was probably just 50 feet from the building when he started growling at nothing. About 10 seconds later, he just books it to the building leaving a trail of debris behind him. I run after him and he's totally shivering. For a good while after the incident, my dog would steer clear of men. He was just fine before this, but afterward, every time a man got near, he would drop his ears and tail and hide.

Tales From The Night ShiftWikimedia Commons, https://www.flickr.com/people/gopal1035/

15. Get Me Outta Here

I worked the overnight shift at a large corporate office—until one creepy night that scared me enough to transfer. One night while doing my usual rounds of checking doors, stairways, and boiler rooms, I walk down a long hallway that's maybe 400 feet long, with offices on both sides and a large window at the end. I'm looking into the offices and when I look at the window on the door to an office, I see what looks like someone standing behind me. I brush it off as my reflection and continue on.

While walking down the hallway, I see my reflection in a large window and see what also looks to be a second head. I start to do my rounds a little faster as I'm getting more creeped out at this point. Just then, my partner who was working in the camera room talks over the radio asking if an office employee is walking with me. I bolted out of there and asked for a transfer the next day.

Tales From The Night ShiftShutterstock

16. Now You See Me, Now You Don't

I used to work the overnight shift at a halfway house. One time, a co-worker and I were chatting when I saw a guy on camera walking down an alley behind our building. The alley consisted of our building and a brick building on the other side with no doors. We thought one of our residents was running away, a pretty common occurrence. So I told my co-worker to keep watching the cameras and I'd go see who it was.

The cameras were on the same fixtures: one looking north, one looking south. The only blind spot is right underneath the cameras.

I walk out to see who it is, and there's no one in the alley. I radio back to my co-worker, and she says he disappeared off one camera and never appeared on the other one, so he must be in the blind spot. He wasn't. There are no doors or dumpsters, drains or anything in that blind spot. He literally just vanished. The only doors on the building were about 40 yards in each direction, both on camera. He literally just vanished.

Tales From The Night ShiftShutterstock

17. Frozen In Fear

I used to work the overnight shift at a group home up in Nunavut. One time, I was watching a video on this creepy phenomenon called “black-eyed children”, when I heard knocking at the door. It was well past midnight on a weekday so I just sat there frozen in fear waiting for whoever it was to either knock again or walk away. I waited about five minutes and heard nothing, not even the crunching of footsteps walking on snow. I went to check around the doors and windows but there was no sight of anyone anywhere. It freaked the living daylights out of me.

Tales From The Night ShiftPexels

18. This Happens All The Time

I work nights in a large hospital. One time, while in a patient's room, the water faucet turns on by itself. It isn't a motion-activated faucet, but one with a lever. So I turn it off and finish what I'm doing, and tell the nurse on the way out. She tells me that things like that happen in that room all the time and that a lot of them have seen apparitions.

Tales From The Night ShiftPexels

19. Are You Okay?

I work the third shift in the funeral home industry. One night, I was super stressed out and was having a very bad anxiety attack. Suddenly, I heard a voice as clear as day ask, “Are you okay? Do you need help”? There was just one problem.

I am in a locked facility, in a small office where there is nobody around. I didn't have any television or radio on. I searched the office high and low.

Yeah, that creeped me out.

Tales From The Night ShiftShutterstock

20. Odd Sensation

I'm a doorman. I had several moments that felt odd such as feeling like there was somebody behind me during a walk-through or hearing weird sounds. I usually brushed them off. But this one time really stands out. That's when I felt something pressing against my face.

Imagine the motion you make when you rub water on your face, and the sound your skin makes from the friction—that's what I heard and felt. This was during a shift change.

When my co-worker saw how freaked out I was, I simply said I was just really tired. I didn't want to be "THAT guy" so I never said anything.

Tales From The Night ShiftFlickr, Jamie Grafton

21. Reflections From The Deceased

I'm a high school Spanish teacher. One night, I stayed late at school grading exams. It was past 7 pm, so the restrooms were locked. When I had to use the restroom, I had to unlock the door before walking into a stall.

I was washing my hands—but when I looked up, my heart stopped in my chest. I saw a girl in the mirror, standing by the door, as if she was trying to hide from me. I told her it was late and that she shouldn’t be on campus. When I turned around to face her, she wasn’t there. I thought she had run off so I tried looking for her but couldn’t find her anywhere.

As I was walking back to my classroom, I realized that no one could've been in the restroom because I unlocked the door. I then went to find the other Spanish teacher and asked if she’d seen a little girl around. Surprisingly, the other teacher described the same girl I had just seen. Apparently, that little girl had been around before and seen by janitors and teachers at the school.

Tales From The Night ShiftFlickr, Ben Raynal

22. That Scared The Bejeezus Out Of Me

I worked in an old train depot that was built just before the Civil War. At the time, it had been the focal point of some brief fighting, then it got burned down—rebuilt, and now it's an event venue.

The building was very long and narrow with high ceilings. The depot, while decommissioned, sat next to active tracks that were still in use. If you weren't paying attention, you could have a train come roaring through all of a sudden and scare the bejeezus out of you.

Sometimes, events would take place late at night only for a different event to take place first thing in the morning. For instance, a wedding may go on until midnight followed by a trade show at 6 am the next morning. When events were that close together, I'd have to go out to the depot and clean and flip it by myself in the middle of the night.

One night, I was there cleaning up after a wedding. It was very late. It's not uncommon for some decorations to get left behind. Tonight they were helium balloons.

I always managed to spook myself out in the depot. There were spiders that lived in the cracks of the native stone walls that would scuttle into their holes when they got close. The floors creaked at night, and the whole place echoed. Every sound was louder in that building, especially when you were there alone at night.

That night, I was mopping the floor moving backward from the front, and swishing the mop in overlapping figure eights. I got almost to the end of the main floor when I saw some movement from the corner of my eye.

I turned and saw a balloon, floating about chest high so that the end of its string was just barely touching the floor. It was moving towards me down the middle of the building. The depot, which was already conspicuously silent, was at that time as silent and still as a winter's night.

The balloon floated from the hallway that connected the rear rooms of the depot to the big main event floor as smoothly as if someone was drawing it along with a rod and reel. It stopped a few feet away from me.

It was hard staying calm and finishing up that night, but I imagine I set a time record.

Tales From The Night ShiftFreepik, freepik

23. New Job Insecurities

In 1997, I started a new job as a security guard and was immediately put on the night shift for training. The front lobby of the office building I was working in was under renovation and was basically tarped off from the sidewalk. Part of my duties involved walking through the lobby to make sure no one was trespassing or stealing anything from the area under construction.

As I was walking through the area where they were installing a new revolving door, my eye caught some movement directly above me. I immediately pointed my flashlight straight up and saw a man in a suit hanging upside-down, his face about three feet from mine and looking right at me with his eyes wide open! For just a few seconds, I was freaked out more than I have ever been in my life. I was a bit jumpy to begin with as this was my first time as security on the night shift so my brain took a moment to process what was happening. When I realized what it was, I burst out laughing.

It was my own stupid reflection in the shiny new, stainless steel finish of the yet-to-be-installed revolving door. Never have I been so terrified in my entire life as I was in those five seconds. What a blockhead.

Tales From The Night ShiftShutterstock

24. You're Being Watched

When I was a grad student, I was doing work with one of the university's wind tunnels. Often, when I'm behind schedule, it's not uncommon for me to do a lot of experimental runs late at night.

One night, after 2 am, I just finished a run with the wind tunnel and was setting up another. I was pretty sure I was the only person in the building. It was deathly quiet, which was a relief because when the wind tunnel is running it is so noisy you have to wear ear protection.

Suddenly, I got hit by a sudden feeling of the willies. I can't explain it. One second I was entering run parameters into the computer, and the next second, my skin was crawling and my heart was pounding. The hairs on my arms were actually standing on end, and I felt —with no visual proof— that I was no longer alone. It occurred to me that while the wind tunnel was operating, anybody could have slipped into the lab without being noticed. The door was locked, but there were plenty of keys.

I wandered around the big lab. The room is full of large machinery engulfed by dark corners. I was jumping at every dark shadow I saw out of the corner of my eye. It was still deathly quiet. The only noise was the gentle whir that came from the fan on the computer, and the sound of my footsteps on the concrete floor. I didn't find anybody, but the feeling of being watched was overwhelming.

I started shutting everything down, and by the time I was done, my hands were trembling. Thank goodness the lab doors were self-locking, because I wouldn't have been able to hold a key. I literally ran out of the building. I never worked on the wind tunnel late at night again.

Tales From The Night ShiftFreepik, wayhomestudio

25. Thanksgiving Fright

I was doing a big overnight pie bake for Thanksgiving. I kept seeing someone in a red shirt out of the corner of my eye, standing near the pantry/stock area. I checked multiple times but there was nobody there. The only other person working was the night maintenance/cleaning guy and he was wearing a white shirt. This freaked me out a little bit.

Tales From The Night ShiftFreepik,stockking

26. A Sleepless Night

I used to be a maintenance worker for a public school in Queens, NY. One time, I was caught in a snowstorm and had to spend the night there. When I was doing my rounds around 10 pm, I heard basketballs bouncing in the gym. That, in and of itself, scared the heck out of me but because I was responsible for locking the building down, I had to go check it out. Big mistake.

I walked into the gym and saw a ball roll out of the shadows. I immediately dashed right out of there. I couldn’t leave the building because of the snowstorm, but I ran like I saw a ghost—literally. I locked myself in the custodian's office and didn’t leave that room for the rest of the completely sleepless night.

Tales From The Night ShiftPexels

27. Unwelcome Sightings

I work in a care home from 8 pm to 8 am. Whenever a resident is close to passing away, we would hear strange bangs, people talking, footsteps, and other strange phenomena. We believe it is the deceased relatives of the nearly departed resident coming to take them away.

I wasn't much of a believer in weird happenings until I saw a shadow slowly drift into someone's room one night, with no explanation at all. I've also seen a dog, cat, and a care worker that have all passed on some time ago, in the doorways of the rooms.

Tales From The Night ShiftShutterstock

28. No Longer A Skeptic

I worked the overnight shift at a drug rehab center. Patients would report strange things happening at night, and the former overnight staff also told me of creepy occurrences including apparitions.

There was a particular room in the building where a client regularly experienced sleep paralysis. I also felt cold spots in that room in the midst of winter even with the heater on high.

While doing my hourly rounds one night, I went to open the door of this room when I made a disturbing discovery. I noticed the door knob turning as if someone was opening it from the other side. That wasn't surprising as sometimes if patients couldn't sleep, they would get up to talk to someone or to smoke. So I stepped aside to let this person through and the door opened—but there was no one there.

The way the room was set up it would've been impossible for someone to open the door and crawl back into bed without me noticing. Suffice it to say, I was a complete believer after this happened.

Tales From The Night ShiftShutterstock

29. Time For A New Job

I work overnight security. I once worked in a building that had a giant mirror in their security room. I remember quite a few times hearing knocking in that room—coming from that mirror. I never set foot in that building again.

Tales From The Night ShiftUnsplash

30. Come Up If You Dare

As a night shift security guard, the scariest thing that has ever happened to me was when my co-worker and I were working in this one particular building one night. We stayed in a little shack off to the side of the building and for every hour of our shift, we were to check all the floors. I was grateful for my job but was curious as to why people kept quitting. So I started asking around and was told that apparently there was a female ghost on one of the floors. Apparently, it's so bad that nobody ever goes up there.

I was a little scared, but my co-worker didn't believe it. Then one night, just as we were talking about it, we noticed a movement on the camera that was on the supposedly haunted floor. I decided to go check it out while my co-worker stayed behind in the guard station to watch the floor camera.

At first, nothing happens. I'm just checking around the floor with my flashlight and when I check this one room, my co-worker radios me asking if I saw what he just saw on the video screen. What he told me was chilling.

He said a ghost had been standing right behind me and it was visible on camera. I swore to him that there was nobody up there.

My co-worker quit the next morning.

Tales From The Night ShiftShutterstock

31. Footsteps In The Dark

I used to supervise the closing shift of the buffet in a casino. This meant that most staff except for myself were gone by 10 pm or 11 pm, depending on when we closed. Usually, I'm left alone doing paperwork until midnight or a little after that. On most nights, it was quiet except for whatever tunes I had playing on my phone or computer—which were usually turned down enough in case security decided to pay me a visit. Some nights though, I'd hear heavy footsteps walking through the dining room by my office. But every time I'd go out to investigate, there would never be anything there. Creepy as heck.

One time when I heard those steps, I darn near throat-punched the very-much-alive security guard as he walked through my door. We had a good laugh about that.

Tales From The Night ShiftFlickr, Bro. Jeffrey Pioquinto, SJ

32. Whispers In The Night

One night I was tasked with working overnight security for a craft show. It was actually pretty interesting. I'm no artist but I can appreciate it when someone else is. This event had been vandalized the year before and I was told that thousands of dollars in damage had been done and so, the decision was made to have a security guard locked in with the booths.

This was fine with me as most of the job was just checking to make sure doors were locked and then walking around every 20-30 minutes to make sure they were still locked and everything was okay. I was getting paid to binge-watch whatever Netflix show had my attention at the time. It was all easy and I also spent some time admiring the different setups while trying to stay awake.

The weird thing, though it may have been my mind playing tricks on me, was that as I am watching Netflix while using only one earbud, I think I hear whispering. I feel that's odd and think maybe the other house security guard who is tasked with watching all the monitors, was walking around in the room and talking on his phone. So I walk toward the sound of the whispering. As I round the corner, I see a display of creepy dolls—but that’s not the most terrifying part.

When I got in view of them, the whispering stopped. I check the doors and go back to my post. Everything looks okay. About an hour later, I heard the sounds again. I walk towards the sound and I can't make out what is being said but it sounds like whispering. I round the corner and see the dolls again. When I got in view of them, the whispering stopped.

I could have sworn they were in different positions so I took a picture to have a point of reference. After that, the whispering stopped. I don't know if it's paranormal or just weird and maybe I was deprived of sleep. I worked the event again on the last day and noticed that the dolls were gone. I guess someone bought them.

Tales From The Night ShiftPexels

33. I'm Not Going Up There

I'm an overnight security guard that travels to different sites all night long. There is one site that is an old hospital building. It used to be an end-of-life care facility when it was operational. I now refuse to go to the top floor of that place and fake my security reports because I was full-on pushed down the stairs one night by something.

Tales From The Night ShiftUnsplash, Collin Armstrong

34. Dark, Lurking Shadows

I worked at Spencer Gifts at The Mall of America a couple of years ago. I would close at night sometimes and I would open the store early the next morning. At night we were never alone but sometimes…weird stuff would occur. I would turn the music off five minutes before closing and alert the shoppers that we were about to close.

After closing, we'd lock the doors, clean up the store and count the money. Sometimes we'd hear something fall to the floor or music would play ever so slightly. Oddly, the knob to control the music was in the back room and the only way to control it was to physically turn the knob.

In the mornings when I opened the store alone, I would walk up to the double doors at the front of the store and I'd often see a black figure standing inside the store. It would run as soon as I'd approached the doors. I would ignore the figure, go inside, and shut the doors behind me, which were clear glass, and prep the store.

When I was ready to open at 10 am, I'd walk to the front of the store and see the same black figure standing at the front of the store. When I got closer it would run through the glass doors and disappear into the mall. It was so strange. My other co-workers saw and experienced these same exact things.

Tales From The Night ShiftUnsplash, MontyLov

35. Strange Feeling

I was working alone at home late at night. I had a strange feeling so I went to check the security cameras and saw the rocking chair of a recently deceased relative rocking by itself in the living room.

Tales From The Night ShiftPexels

36. What Was That Noise?

It was late one night at the warehouse where I worked. I was closing up and shutting the lights off. There's one big room where pallets of bottles get stacked. Everybody thinks that this room is haunted. People always hear noises and voices in the room when it's empty.

On this night, I'm the last person in the whole building, and I go to shut the lights off in this room. As soon as I turn off the lights, terrifying sounds fill the room. I hear lots of glass breaking and voices. I called out, "Hello"? a few times but no response. At that point, I said, “Forget it, I'm out of here”. I locked up the rest of the building and went home.

The next morning, I was the first one there at 7 am. When I went to check on the room, there was no broken glass. It was all clean. The supervisor said that people have heard all different things coming from that room on more than one occasion.

Tales From The Night ShiftShutterstock

37. Is This A Prank?

I used to clean a church alone late at night. There was a piano stored in the attic which I presumed was broken. One night, I started hearing piano playing coming from the attic. I immediately assumed someone was up there pranking me, so I went up to check but no one was there. When I turned around to walk away, I heard a loud bang behind a metal door, which I assume was the closet. I never worked the night shift again.

Tales From The Night ShiftFlickr, Cealwyn

38. When The Lights Go Off, Fear Sets In

I was working at a middle school as a night-shift custodian. I cleaned a long U-shaped wing full of classrooms every weeknight. I’d already locked up one set of doors to the wing and was about to lock the ones at the other end.

I made the full lap around the wing. I had been cleaning there all night alone and came to the end of the hallway where the doors to the rest of the school were. When I shut the lights off, the creepiest thing happened. The dark silhouette of what looked like a child ran from across the end of the hallway from left to right. There were doors down there, but I’d just locked them all up and no one was around.

I was so creeped out, I locked the doors connecting the wing to the rest of the school and ran to my car. I always felt like I was seeing things out of the corner of my eye working there at night, but that was the most visible sure thing I saw at that place.

Tales From The Night ShiftFlickr, Edmonton Public Schools

39. Who Did That?

This happened when I worked in a hotel right out of high school. I did the overnight shift in the laundry room, but would also help the front desk run invoices to the rooms sometimes. One night around 2 am, I was on the third floor. I bent down to slide the invoice under the door and a pen flew past my face and hit the door.

I didn’t keep pens on me and I checked around the hallway but it was silent. Hotel doors are heavy and you can definitely hear when they are being opened or shut. I was 100% positive I heard nothing. When I got downstairs, I asked my co-worker if she saw anything but she said that she wasn't watching the security screen. It really freaked me out.

Tales From The Night ShiftFreepik, KamranAydinov

40. Goosebumps At The Alley

I used to work at a bowling alley. I had finished closing and had just turned off all the lights and was about to leave. Suddenly, one of the lanes turns on. The only way they turn on is from a switch in the back. So I turned on the lane lights and started walking back to turn the lane off. I was just about to go behind the curtain of the lane when it shut off again. We didn’t have cameras in the bowling alley but I really wish we did because my boss didn’t believe me.

Tales From The Night ShiftPexels

41. Eerie Night

I was unloading a truck at the grocery store where I worked. The warehouse had two stories and was supposedly haunted. It was around 3 am and I was completely alone. Suddenly, I hear a scream as clear as day. It sounded like a woman in labor. I called my boss and she told me to go up and check it out. Heck, no. I refused. So I waited for her to arrive and we both went up to check it out.

All the rooms were empty, except for a few empty boxes. When we got back downstairs, we both heard a loud thump, like something fell down and hit the floor hard. We bolted out of there. Other employees have also claimed to have seen or heard strange things there.

Tales From The Night ShiftShutterstock

42. I See You

I occasionally work the overnight shift as a security guard at a distribution warehouse. We're in a little shack out in the yard. My job is to check the inside and outside of trailers.

On more than one occasion, I caught the reflection of different people in the windows and glass doors of our shack. But when I turn to look, there was no one there.

Every inch of this area is under surveillance. Yet no one ever shows up on video when I review the footage. I just ignore it these days.

Tales From The Night ShiftShutterstock

43. Eerie Laughter

I work nights as a nurse. The hospital I work at is renovating the oncology unit, so it’s closed off, but the security guard has to go up there every night and check it out. Last week, he told me he heard people talking and laughing up there. When he called out to ask who was there, it went deathly silent, and then a stray mop bucket went rolling across the floor as if someone had just run out of one of the rooms and accidentally kicked it on their way out.

Tales From The Night ShiftShutterstock

44. This Floor Is So Creepy

I do the second shift at a hospital. The patient transport door likes to automatically open periodically in the Pediatrics unit. No one could have pushed the button.

Tales From The Night ShiftPexels

45. I Know What I Saw

I worked the third shift at a university as a campus law enforcement officer. Those duties included walking through the underground engineering support areas and sometimes taking deeper shortcuts on access tunnels that ran under the buildings. So I'm quite aware of what causes shadows, and what does not.

I emerged in a hallway one night from one of these deep passages and at the next hallway intersection, I saw someone quickly jump behind the corner. Tactically, I advanced quickly to see or to grapple with whoever this was. When I got to the intersection, there wasn't anyone there! Apparently, this university had a very old scribe buried on campus and people would report seeing him skulking around. I had to add my name to that list. I know what I saw.

Tales From The Night ShiftShutterstock

46. Strange Sounds In The Night

While working the night shift in a neurological rehab hospital, I heard screaming coming from a room down at the end of the ward. Just then, the emergency alarm started going off from that room—but the scary stuff didn’t stop there.

When I got there, it suddenly stopped as I got to the door. A few people have said they've experienced strange things in that room and that's why they try to keep it empty and use it only for storage.

Tales From The Night ShiftFreepik,benzoix

47. Barking Mad

I used to work overnight at a vet clinic. Late one night, we didn’t have any patients in the clinic. A co-worker and I were cleaning up and we kept thinking we heard a bark. That’s not uncommon in the village, but it was 3 am.

Just then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw something that made me stop in my tracks. A big golden retriever ran down the hallway and then vanished. I looked at my co-worker who was sheet white. We had euthanized a large golden retriever that same night and the dog was running toward the room that had the freezer in it.

The same thing happened again the next night. Oddly enough, the following night, the owners of the dog called and asked for more paw prints. They also wanted the collar they had forgotten to take off. I’m convinced the dog was sticking around for them. My co-worker, however, was terrified.

Tales From The Night ShiftPexels

48. Full Panic Mode

I worked after hours in a surgery center with one other employee. I've seen my share of weird stuff but this was the most frightening.

We were in the post-op area shutting things down for the night. My co-worker comes to find me a few rooms down and asks if I just walked by the room she was in. I said, "No, I've been in here for a few minutes, why"? She then says she saw someone out of the corner of her eye walk by while humming and wearing the same color scrubs I was wearing. That was odd.

We started to walk out of the post-op area after all the lights were turned off and everything was shut down. Suddenly, we hear a strange noise. We quickly turn around, and see the main row of hallway lights turn on. The odd thing is that these lights require a switch to turn on; they aren't motion-sensored. We both freak out then she yells out, "OK, WHO IS IN HERE TRYING TO SCARE US"?

We then proceed to walk towards that hallway and check all the rooms in it. Nothing. So we proceed into the product receiving area and notice that the room and hall lights were on there too. Although those lights are motion-activated, we hadn't been in there all night—not to mention, those lights turn off after five minutes of no motion. We decided to split up and check this out. She goes left and I go right towards the exit door that leads to the parking lot. In the door's window, I see the reflection of my co-worker—but that’s not all.

There’s also a reflection of a woman who is standing and facing the wall right next to her! The figure was literally two feet away from her. I freak the heck out and sprint back into the post-op area. My co-worker follows me screaming and asking what the heck is going on. I told her what I saw and we dashed out of there in record time.

Tales From The Night ShiftUnsplash, SJ Objio

49. Songs That Spook

I closed up a church one night, after a fundraising event. Everyone left besides four men, who were outside. I checked under all the chairs, walked through the rows, turned off the lights, and closed the doors. When I walked away, I heard a woman singing—from inside. It was faint but started to get louder. I was so scared I booked it.

Thankfully, the men came inside to check with me. They actually chuckled when I told them about what happened and they said the ghost enjoys singing and is friendly.

Tales From The Night ShiftPexels

Sources: ,


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