The standard 9-5 isn't for everyone. There are still lots of things to do after the sun goes down, and there are people who stay awake all night to do them. For some reason, after midnight, life feels different, and it can put people on edge. Sometimes that edge is a warning that someone—or something—is close by. Make sure you've got the lights on, because these night shift stories that people have shared online will send chills down your spine.
1. Feed The Baby
I worked at an all-night diner when I was in college. One night at about 2 in the morning, a 4-year-old boy wandered in and said he was there for some food for him and his little sister because they were hungry. When the manager asked where his parents were, he said they were sleeping at home and that they slept a lot.
He also said that they yelled at him and his sister to be quiet a lot. We found out that he lived in an apartment complex adjacent to the diner, and his parents were addicts. It was heartbreaking.
2. Child Abandonment
I used to work nights in a hospital setting. At one point, I was taking the city bus to work. There was a lady who got off the bus and left her baby. Her baby. The bus driver pulled over and tried to find her. He called officers, but the woman came running back before they came, realizing that she’d forgotten something.
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3. All Eyes On You
I’m a train inspector, and once I was walking a train in the middle of the night. It was pitch black, and I came up to a freight car that had four hobos sitting in it just staring at me. The guys never said a word. They just watched me. It was so unsettling. I eased by them and kept going but couldn't get past the weird feeling for a while.
4. Cats Out The Bag
I worked nights at a dog kennel. Overnight, we would walk the dogs around the parking lot so that they could do their business. A wooded area surrounded the parking lot on most sides where a stray cat colony lived. Every time I would bring a dog through the parking lot, the cats would sprint away and hide in the woods.
They did not like the dogs at all; they were terrified of them. One night, I was walking a dog and saw the cats, but this time they’re sprinting out of the woods toward me. All of the cats kind of gathered in the middle of the parking lot completely ignoring the barking dog I had. It freaked me out. What was out there?
5. Sky Is Falling
I was standing topside watch in the Navy at sea on a dark night when the sky suddenly turned bright. For about three seconds, something incoming lit all the weather decks up like daylight. This caused quite a commotion in the bridge and operations. We were forward deployed but hadn’t been expecting any active fighting.
But then the sky went dark again just as suddenly as it had lit up. I was the only one who saw it. It was a meteor. I had to repeat the report with the details many times until people were calm. It had broken up into three pieces and then vaporized in the atmosphere. It was possibly one of the southern Taurids.
It was the right time of year and right part of the globe, and the meteor shower is known for producing fireballs. Being hundreds of nautical miles out on a moonless night, it was truly spectacular. That was far and away the most dramatic meteor I've witnessed in terms of the show it put on and in terms of the context.
6. Grandma’s Sweet Tooth
I worked third shift stocking shelves in a grocery store. Every couple of nights, a sweet little old lady would come in to buy vanilla extract to make some cookies for her grandkids and neighbors. A few weeks go by, and I was outside on a break. Our sweet grandma was in her car just chugging vanilla extract for a buzz.
7. Up In The Air
I grew up on a farm. One night, I had to check the irrigation pumps at 2 AM. It was a 2-mile drive, and I was half asleep. I parked the truck with the lights aimed at the river. The headlights projected my shadow on rapid layers of fog. Above, the fog dissipated into the wildest northern lights display I had ever seen.
It was like a violently shaking sheet from one horizon to the other. The farm had no sound or noise pollution, so there was nothing else to obscure it. The northern lights have a sound; it's like sand on rough paper. I had a few moments to just take it in. My silhouette was joined visually to green mist across the sky.
8. Only Take Cash
I was working overnight at a hotel, and a guy came in with a girl and super confidently poured out a little pile of white powder on the counter. He told me that it was his payment for a room. He was more surprised than anyone should've been when it didn't work.
9. This Is The End
There's a common phenomenon among dementia patients called sundowning. A dementia patient can be sweet and innocent all day but once night falls, they do a complete 180 and become agitated and hostile. Also, it’s the end for a lot more patients on night shift for some reason. They always seem to crash at around 3 AM.
10. Period Piece
I worked as an engineer and, unfortunately, being security detail came with the job, considering the hours were from 2 PM-11 PM. I was doing some rounds, and we’d noticed the previous day that there was a lock to an electrical room that had been removed. It was mid-winter, and we figured someone was trying to stay warm.
As much as I wanted people less fortunate to get ahead any way they could, it was my job to make sure that there wasn’t someone occupying some spot on the property. So, I went to check on the room. I walked up and noticed that the door was cracked ever so slightly. I popped my flashlight out and beamed it inside there.
There was slightly less than a foot of space between the wall and the machines that were in the room. Thinking it would be impossible for someone to be crammed inside, I did a lazy scan and went to close the door. As I was heading to the stairs, I could hear a shuffling behind me. It was late. There’s nothing going on.
I was newish to the city, so seeing owls or really big rats was still a thrill. So, I went back up and popped out the flashlight, but this time I crouched down to see the space beneath the machines. Sure enough, I saw legs. I called out to whoever it was and told them they need to vacate. They stayed still for a while.
Then they started to wriggle themselves out from the tight space. I stayed there because procedure would be to escort them off the block entirely. A woman popped out looking rough and started muttering absolute nonsense. She was taking her time, and it was snowing, so I got a little aggravated and told her to hurry up. Her insane response was absolutely horrifying.
This woman turned to look at me, stuck her tongue out at me with her mouth gaping, broadened her stance, and started to dig at her crotch. She pulled out a warm, totally used tampon and threw it at me, hitting me in the jaw and neck area. Then she proceeded to clamber away from me just yelling about something nonsensical.
11. Spiritual Play
I stocked shelves at Toys R Us overnight for five years. One night, the entirety of three walls of board games, about five shelves tall and three feet deep, fell to the floor. Everything. Except for a single Ouija board. We left early that night.
12. Absolute Darkness
I worked as a lone overnight office cleaner. One stormy night, I was on the phone while working when my connection started to fade. Suddenly, there was just a deafeningly loud shriek from my phone, and the power, even the emergency lights, went out. I looked out the tenth-floor window. The whole industrial park was black.
13. Essential Service
I worked the midnight shift at a little gas station, and I saw all kinds of bizarre characters. There was a guy who claimed he was going to win the lottery. He’d come in with an old baseball card album filled with ten years’ worth of tickets. Every week he used a new scheme, once using crystals to divine the numbers and another dividing previous winning numbers.
There was also the lady who would always pay in pennies for the pack of Camel wide non-filter; soft pack only. But the one I remember the most was an addict who passed out in his car after getting a 44oz Big Gulp and a bunch of those “energy” pills. Once a month, he'd take a twelve-pack when he thought I wasn't looking, but because he was a part of the manager’s family, no one could say anything.
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14. Tipped Off
I was a hostess at a nightclub. I had a tip jar at the front. It was a Saturday night, so it was looking nice. This dude came up and started talking to me. Apparently, while he was talking, he nudged the tip jar behind my computer screen, so I couldn't see him take $120. I only noticed when he went back into the club.
I told security who checked the cameras, saw him do it, chased him down, and forced him to give me my money back. It felt great—but then things took a dark turn. As they were dragging him out, he looked at me with this crazy look in his eyes and said that he was going to wait outside for me. All of the security guards walked me to my car that night.
15. Showing Up
One time during a floor set at Victoria Secret, we were throwing away trash and going in and out of the stock room, cleaning the floor, removing merchandise, counting registers, opening boxes, etc. We had music blaring, and we're singing and goofing off while working when suddenly, some lady walked up to the register.
She wanted to purchase her items about 45 minutes after we closed and did the nightly routines. None of us knew she was there or saw her. She was not in the store, in the back, in the bathroom, or under tables. She might’ve been in the ceiling in the dressing room waiting for us to go, so she could make off with a bunch of merchandise.
She probably realized that we weren't leaving and thought it best to come out. It was the absolute scariest moment of my whole time working there. There were 12 of us in the store that night all over the place, and none of us saw her. She totally could have gone through our personal items and taken our things. But she paid for random things and left.
16. Didn’t Mean To Intrude
I used to work late shift as classroom IT support for a college. We didn't get a lot of high priority jobs from night classes, so we would get a lot of repairs and maintenance done that couldn't be done when the classrooms were in use during the day. I usually didn’t turn on the lights if it was something really quick.
I had a ticket to install something on the instructor PC in a classroom I had never been to before. It’s around 10 PM when I got around to the ticket, and I headed into the room. I was about halfway across the room and suddenly froze. The hair on the back of my neck was standing up, and I felt that I was being watched.
Actually, I was surrounded! Then as my eyes started to adjust, I saw them. The entire classroom had hospital beds sticking out from the walls, and in every bed, there was a person sitting up looking right at me! I was blurting out a frazzled apology before realizing that they're just plastic dummies in a nursing class.
17. Chest Beating
I work at Disney World in Florida, specifically at Animal Kingdom, which is half theme park and half zoo. Now, because of conservation efforts, the animals have quite a bit of freedom. They’re enclosed, but the enclosures are very large, and their sleep areas are well outside of guest view; it’s actually a nice setup.
We also don't confine them to their sleep areas at night. So, I was working the graveyard shift, and as I was turning the corner to cross a bridge into the next area, I saw a massive figure on the other side of the bridge. One of the gorillas had gotten out and was just strolling about the park. I nearly pooped myself.
Gorillas are very strong and can be pretty scary. I called it in to my boss, and they told me that that happened sometimes and to just stay away from it and they would get the caretakers to come do their thing. Honestly, it was the craziest thing I've seen in my time there.
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18. Bump In The Night
I was leaving work after 11:30, and I hit a really fat raccoon with the door when I was leaving. It scared the wits out of both of us.
19. Cry Baby
I used to work overnight at Walmart. I stocked the automotive section in the furthest corner of the store away from my other coworkers. The doll aisle was only a few feet away from where I was stocking. This was one of the few times I wasn't listening to music with earbuds in so I could hear if someone was near me messing around.
I walked past the aisle coming from the warehouse, and a doll on the opposite end of the aisle started crying. It scared the bejesus out of me.
20. Heading In
I worked in a bar as a karaoke host. There was a hotel next door to the bar where some of the less fortunate people in town stayed. One of the hotel “guests” was a regular. This dude, his girlfriend, and I had a drink to celebrate him finding a good job and getting accepted to a trailer park. He left to go get a snack.
He said he would be right back. A half-hour later, we saw flashing lights outside. His “snack” was actually drugs, and he passed out in the parking lot close to his car. Another guest had “run over” him while pulling in to the adjacent parking spot. I'll never forget what he looked like—it haunts my nightmares. It bore a similarity to a watermelon at a Gallagher show, post-finale.
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21. Catching A Break
I started working the graveyard shift at a plant that fills cylinders with different gasses like oxygen, different medical gasses, gas for welding, that sort of thing. During that shift, it gets very dark, and it’s just me and two other guys. Working graveyard is different...like a different reality or a different dimension.
Years and years ago, there was an accident at the plant where two or three men lost their lives due to human error. Since then, there have been huge safety updates to ensure it never happens again. Outside of our plant, we have a “bunker” where we store filled cylinders in case of a leak or something. It’s all outside.
About once a week, I would see people who are not there and are not real. Sometimes on the forklift outside alone moving pallets, I would see a man in the bunker watching me. I’d drive to him thinking it’s a co-worker, but there’d be no one there. Sometimes I’d see a man taking a break by leaning against the cylinders.
He would be wearing the old-style uniforms like he’s from an old movie. There are two different men with different builds and 100% not my coworkers. They’re probably the ghosts or spirits of the men who passed at the plant. They’re calm and don’t scare me; they’re just watching us work while taking breaks and relaxing.
22. Got A Lot
A co-worker would eat a bunch of bananas every single night—not one; it was a whole bunch from the supermarket. It wasn’t really freaky but definitely baffling. He’d also regularly offer me a banana despite me saying every time I'm allergic to them. He had a drawer in his desk just stuffed full of empty staplers too.
23. The Road Home
I worked at a pub two miles from my house. My shift ended at 11, and I stayed there for a couple drinks and then left and made my way back home. I had close to $400 in cash on me that night. Between the pub and my house was just one street light about a quarter-mile from the pub. Then the walk was in complete darkness.
Not long after I left the pub, a car slowly drove by me. About a quarter-mile down the road, the car slowed to a stop, and it just sat there. I stopped walking and watched the car. It sat for a few more minutes and then slowly drove away. Later, that same car came back in the opposite lane. It did the same thing again.
Then it did a U-turn and crept back down the road towards me with the lights off. At that point, I was terrified–but the nightmare was only beginning. I didn't have a cell phone at the time. There's no one around to see what's going on. The car was between me and the pub, so I couldn't get back to the safety there. My house was still about 1.5 miles away.
There was no way I could quickly escape there. So, I quickly ran off the road into the woods and ducked down behind a bush. I watched for the car, but it was too dark to see with the lights off and the bushes, trees, and undergrowth between me and the road. I waited for about 10 minutes but didn't see or hear anything.
I was about to make my way to the road when I heard car doors closing. Now, I was really panicking. It felt like my chest was about to explode. The hairs on the back of my neck were standing up. I was imagining someone was going to sneak up behind me. I stayed hidden for a bit and hoped whoever it was couldn't find me.
I eventually heard cars passing by and ease back to the road. When I saw it was clear, I ran back to the pub and let my boss know what had happened. He said then and there that I was never to walk home at night again; somebody would give me a lift home. When the others heard what happened, they all said the same thing.
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24. Answer Us
I worked night shift at an amusement park. I was working during the winter while the park was closed for the season, and I was 1 of 2 people in the entire park. The other person was right next to me one night. We were driving around, and the phones started ringing on every ride and in every building that we would pass.
It wasn’t all at the same time either. But it was as if the ringing was following us. If it was some sort of prank it was pretty impressive because each phone had a different number, and there were like 25-30 phones were ringing.
25. Bellyaching
I worked at a movie theater in high school. The staff were funny, quirky, wholesome kids who didn't really drink or party, so we all made friends and would hang out after shifts to hang at IHOP or somebody's house. One night, I had a closing shift with some of my favorites, and most of us were opening the next morning.
It was already past midnight, and we were hopped up on free soda. We headed to L's house nearby to play flashlight tag. L lived right next to a nature preserve. We played around outside for a little, and when the sun started coming up, we brought her dog for a walk in the preserve with a dirt road and sprawling trails.
Right before we got to the trail, we saw a lifeless possum in the road. The possum's head was mushy, but it was still moving. The dog ran up to sniff it but then came straight back to us. We crept up to it and saw something crawling around inside its belly. The possum was gone on impact, but it had babies in its pouch.
They were still alive and trying to stay warm. They were covered in sort of a yellow goo and smelled terrible. Well, there wasn’t much we could do for them, so we kept walking a loop through one of the trails. Everyone was quiet. When we got back to the road, the possum was still there, and the babies were still alive.
Long story short, I brought home a shoebox of baby possums at 6 AM, gave them to my mom, and went off to work the morning shift a few hours later. Love you, Mom!
26. The Old Run Around
I worked at a bougie movie theatre overnight, which meant I had to clear out every theatre and then clear and clean all the trash bags hidden in the back hallway for the morning crew. Once, I kept seeing and hearing someone running through the hall laughing and just acting really weird. I thought it was a loose patron.
But it lasted for a good half hour even though I had already called security to come escort them out. The security guards also heard it, and we only ever caught glimpses of their back. It was freaky. Next day, I saw one of the guards who said they never found the guy, and eventually, the footsteps and laughing stopped.
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27. Busy Body
I worked for my county morgue where I retrieved bodies and delivered them there. My co-worker and I were talking as we were leaving the building. It’s about 2 AM. He’s facing me and a giant glass door. Just out of the corner of my eye, I could see this black mass peak out from one of the autopsy suites and pop back in.
I looked over his shoulder but shrugged it off quickly, but then he asked me, “You saw that too, right?” We headed down the hallway and found that the building was completely empty. When we would leave, we had the responsibility to lock up. So, we hightailed it out of there, knowing darn well what we had just experienced.
My company was a third-party contractor, so we did other forms of “body removal” including removals for funeral homes. At this particular funeral home, I had heard stories of people having experiences there but never had any myself. It was about 3 AM while on this call, and I dropped the body off in the embalming room.
When we cleaned our equipment, we sprayed it down with disinfectant spray and gave a quick wipe. For whatever reason, I felt impelled to treat this body with much more respect than others. I treated all bodies with respect, but right there, I felt the need to go above and beyond for this soul. I took extra care of him.
I made sure to clean my equipment extra thoroughly even the things that were not typically washed. I was leaving the building, and as I walked out of the door, a whisper in my ear said “thank you.” I almost had a heart attack. The worst part was, I knew I had to turn around to lock the door behind me. No one was there or lived in the funeral home.
28. Stock Still
I worked at a hotel with a huge banquet room for parties of 300-400 people. It was a weeknight, and typically, the hotel had a low guest count and no people in those rooms, so we kept the lights off. I was walking through that room to cut through and saw the outline of a person leaning against the wall at the other end.
I thought it was another worker named "Simone" since he typically hung around that area since it connected to the pool to the hotel. I gave a head nod, but no response. Strange, but I went about my way and left the room. I was back around ten minutes later and saw the same shadow outline standing there against the wall.
I greeted them and still no reply, so I began to walk over, and it became clear it wasn't Simone. I turned and left the room finding it weird that someone was just standing in the banquet room with barely any lights on and not responding. The next day, I asked Simone if he was in the room and he hadn’t worked that day.
29. Going Through Something
There was something strange happening in the office where people noticed that somebody had been rummaging through their desk drawers. I was working overnight once when I thought I was alone, and I finally found the guy who was going through the whole office’s drawers.
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30. Get A Move On
I was a security guard and had to watch the corporate pool and park in the boonies at night. Every hour, I had to walk the perimeter and key this clock thing. It could get spooky at times. One night, I was walking the perimeter, and it felt like something was watching me from the woods. I thought it was my imagination.
But I couldn't get it out of my head. My second trip around, I was walking, and I heard something in the woods. Something big. I was scared. So much so, I left work a couple hours early. The next day, when I was checking in at the main guardhouse at the factory, they asked if I saw the cow. I had a dairy cow stalk me.
31. Too Old For This
I worked for myself doing floor cleaning and waxing. A friend of mine asked me if I would do the floor of the meeting hall at his church. The church was from the late 1700s and was surrounded by the old cemetery. I would arrive there around 4 AM and finish up by 6. My friend would come around 6:30 with egg sandwiches.
We would have breakfast together as I finished. One time, it was raining with thunder and lightning. I was listening to music wearing my headphones like usual. As one song ended, I could hear some banging like someone was moving furniture in the adjoining offices. Office cleaners had come in the same time as me before.
I’d just assumed it was them. When my friend came by with breakfast, I told him about the noises. He said the cleaners were let go. A church member would do the cleaning during the day. We went and looked at the offices, and everything was fine. He told me about the haunting rumors. That was my last time working there.
32. The Last Laugh
I’m a night nurse. When you have a patient with dementia that sundowns, and you walk by their room at 3 AM and hear this normally sweet old lady just cackling at the darkness, it’s really, really, eerie.
33. Not Invited In
I arrived at work at 4:30 AM to see a tall dark figure standing in the front doorway. I ran back to my car and locked the doors. The man didn't move from the doorway. I wasn't really sure what to do, so I waited for the next employee to arrive. We cautiously approached the front door together wondering why he was there.
That was when we realized it was because he was a vampire. Edward, I think. I worked in a restaurant, and the night shift had put up a life-sized promotional display figure of one of the Twilight vampires, but they had neglected to inform the morning crew. I guess it's a really good thing I didn't call anyone for help.
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34. Man Oh Man
When my husband was a newly qualified nurse and the only male one on the ward, patients and their families would pass on thanks to the male nurse who spent the night talking to the patient in a private room. Only thing was, no men would be on duty that night. Once or twice, you’d think the patient was probably confused.
But this happened often enough with patients that were perfectly lucid that you had to think twice about what was happening.
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35. Throw Something On
My mom was working in a gas station, which was the only one open 24/7 in my tiny hometown. When she was working one night, she looked outside the huge front window and saw two dudes wearing nothing and walking in front of the station. She stood there in shock, then called 911, but she said it was really funny.
36. Full Of Loiter
I worked at a Cold Stone in the middle of nowhere. We would stay inside until we were completely finished closing. During the closing hours, we'd see drug dealers just outside at around 11 PM, which wasn't unusual. When we took the trash out, we usually went through the back door to the dumpsters located on the furthest side.
When it got dark, it’d get very dark back there. Being the only guy who worked there besides the boss and his son, who never stayed that late, coworkers would always ask me to go with them to the dumpsters. They never wanted to be alone, which was completely understandable. Sometimes it would take us until 1 to finish.
One night, it was me and one of the girls who worked there. We just finished up a long shift in the late fall. It was late and dark. The temperatures were a little low but nothing unbearable. We both went our separate ways to our cars. As I was walking to my car, I heard a chilling sound. It was her footsteps quickly running up behind me.
She clung to me and pleaded for me to go with her to her car because someone else was there. I walked her down the road to her car. As we passed the corner of the shop, I instantly saw this person but never saw their face wearing all black clothes right underneath the one street light with their hands in their pockets.
They looked up. I leaned in and whispered, "Once we get within 15 feet of your car, run and jump in. Don't stop driving until you get home." As we got close enough, she did what I said. The second she opened the door, the person began walking towards her car. She got in her car and got away moments before reaching her.
That just left me with this mysterious person. We faced each other for a few moments. Then they turned and walked into the treeline just on the other side of the parking lot. It’s nothing too crazy, but quite terrifying for the both of us. She quit pretty soon after it happened, but I stayed for another year and a half.
37. No Rest For The Chemical
I've done plenty of night shift stuff as a process engineering and operations manager in different countries. I was at a chemical plant in China doing the night shift. The plant had a chemical warehouse that had pumps and storage and was an operator hang out area. One night, I was doing rounds and walked into the room.
There, on the ground, were four operators, just lying there. In the world of chemical plants, people on the ground meant lethal toxic gas leak and to call security! So, I slammed the door to think of my next move when I saw everyone waking up. Those guys were sleeping on the job and should have picked a better spot!
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38. Pick Up
I worked a 12-hour overnight shift in the IT dept. I was the only person in the entire upstairs, and after midnight, the only person in the building. I would run around in between cubicles passing out reports for the next day in nearly total darkness. Every once in a while, a random phone extension would begin ringing.
It would ring and not stop. I would have to hunt it down and answer it, but there would never be anyone on the line. It would always creep me out. I’d ask other operators who worked nights if they’d experienced the same thing, and they had. A technician from the phone company dismissed it as a switching system glitch.
39. Out Of Body Experience
My father was a paramedic and got called out one night to pick up a guy who was found in his truck. He was apparently there a while because rigor mortis had set in. This was all happening during a big thunderstorm. They took him out and managed to straighten all his limbs out well enough to place him on the stretcher.
It was around three in the morning, and the mortician wouldn't arrive at the morgue until four. They decided to drive around waiting instead of posting up at the station—and that's when their worst nightmare came true. About 15 minutes later, the guy sat straight up and let out a huge, long moan. They knew he wasn’t alive, but it had still scared everyone in the car.
40. Bready For The Day
I used to run a small bakery that was kind of hidden and quiet. I would get there at 4 AM alone, and it was pretty creepy. The actual bakery where I baked the goods was across a small alley from the store, and I was always running back and forth setting up the shop. One time, I was walking outside with a cookie basket.
There was an elderly woman walking towards me holding a newspaper. She said, “Here’s your paper.” I took it and said thank you and realized she had no shoes on even though it was wintertime. She turned away. I quickly opened the door to put the paper and cookies inside and went to see if she was okay, but she was gone.
I looked for her but couldn’t find her. I literally had my eyes off her for 30 seconds. Regulars made most of my business. I knew everyone by name who came. I asked everyone about her and described her, but nobody knew who she was. I contacted officers in case she was missing or had dementia but nothing did come of it.
41. Operator Not Found
My dad used to work as a nighttime janitor at our local mall, and there was this secluded area that had a coined-operated mini carousel. One night, he was just mopping near the secluded area when all of a sudden, he heard carnival music and went to check it out. When he got there, the carousel was on with no one on it.
42. I Insist You Have a Seat
I used to work for a private security company. Along with alarm response, we covered patrol checks and occasionally provided back-up to security guards at individual sites. One night, I was working overtime covering a particular run I had never done before. I knew the city, so finding the buildings wasn't any problem.
I was warned about one particular building. The CEO was facing charges, and the board wanted extra overnight checks to ensure the CEO wouldn't try anything. They added that the building was haunted. "Sure," I said. "I'll leave Casper a coffee for you." The building wasn’t big and would only take about ten minutes tops.
The first night I was walking the top floor back towards the front stairwell, I was shining my flashlight into various offices noticing all the ornate woodwork on the exquisitely done wood paneling and paintings of old men. About 3/4 of the way through the hallway, I heard it: A chair being dragged across the carpet.
I was alone in the building. I had just walked through all of it. I turned around and aimed my flashlight on a chair that was now placed in the exact middle of the hallway where I had walked five seconds prior. Had the chair been in that spot when I passed, I would’ve seen it. The hairs stood up on the back of my neck.
I checked the nearby offices and put the chair back against the wall beside the end table just outside the office door where it had previously been. I went downstairs to do the paperwork and heard the shuffling upstairs again. I went to the landing on the stairs where I could see the hallway and saw the chair was back.
43. Grab And Go
My first job was at a gas station in the middle of nowhere. I had only been working there a week, and around 1 AM, this cute college-age girl pulled into the parking lot and ran in, having a panic attack. She grabbed my shoulders and said, "Please, do not tell him I'm here!" and threw herself into the main office. I had no clue what she was talking about—but I was about to find out.
A big guy came in. He looked like he walked right out of an action movie with a buzz cut, tattoos, tank top, the whole nine yards. He walked up to the checkout and looked around. “Can I help you?" I asked him. He stared me down and with his eyes full of hatred said, "Thought someone would be here. I'll come later."
He bought chips and left. This girl came out of the office sobbing her eyes out, waddled over to me, wrapped her arms around me, grabbed my head, planted a kiss right on my lips, and said, "Thank you!" I found out later that the guy was her boyfriend who’d been mistreating her. He’d even tracked her across state lines.
44. All In The Bin
To pass the night away when I had insomnia, I used to walk around the city all night from about midnight until sun up. One night, I saw someone who looked to be wearing a fur coat going through a wheelie bin. As I got closer, something looked wrong, but this guy holding a slim Jim was coming over, and he distracted me.
He was opening the doors of all of the cars he walked past. He didn’t take anything from the cars. He just opened the door, left it ajar, and moved on to the next car. I didn’t want to get closer to him or cross the street either, so I just froze. The door-opener guy stopped in his tracks and turned to the wheelie bin.
He said, “raccoon,” and I turned to look, and sure enough, it was the largest raccoon I’d ever seen. As we’re looking at the raccoon, a light in the house behind the raccoon was turned on. There was a man standing in the window wearing no clothes and aroused also watching this raccoon. The raccoon turned to look at us.
Then it waddled away down the middle of the street. The guy opening doors then went into the house in front of where we were standing, and the guy in the window turned off his light. I was left standing alone on the sidewalk wondering if I had just witnessed some elaborate performance art.
45. Monkey Business
I’d worked at an oil refinery in India. We would do actual work until around 9 every night then just needed make sure everything stayed stable. Well around 2, the compressor tripped. The whole plant went down. We checked and couldn’t figure out what happened. We chalked it up to nothing serious, and everything was fine.
But then the next night, the same thing happened, and did for like four days straight. Our chief was becoming furious with us and chewed us out about it. Luckily, we were doing commissions, so losing production was only a moderately big deal. A co-worker and I decided to put a security camera by the compressor. It tripped again.
We went to the security room and had the guard show us the video feeds. There were some lizards crawling around and a few giant flies going by. Then suddenly, we saw a dark figure approaching, maybe 3 feet tall and walking with a hunch. It approached the compressor and started turning the dials and pressing the buttons.
The compressor tripped, and it scurries out of the area. It was a monkey. The solution was to have a boy sit there at night with a cricket paddle.
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46. Coo-Coould I Get A Soda
I used to work overnight shifts at a restaurant with a drive-thru that I also managed. There was a bird who cooed into the drive-thru speaker and into my headset that kept scaring me until I finally realized what it was.
47. See No Evil
I was a night shift CNA for an assisted living facility. I had a resident that had a wild week. She didn’t have dementia/Alzheimer’s either, so it added more weirdness to this situation. It was about midnight and I was doing my rounds when she burst out of her room holding her giant cross and looking white as a ghost.
I asked her what was happening and if she had a bad dream. After she caught her breath, she told me that someone was in her room telling her to get out. We did have wanderers in our facility, and I looked in her room thinking one may have spooked her. I found nothing. She followed me around and didn’t leave until 4 AM.
The next night it happened again. She claimed that the man was in her room telling her to leave. I checked her room and nothing. Another night while I was in the back helping a resident, my buzzer went off alerting me the locked front door was opened. I quickly finished up what I was doing and bolted to the front door.
When I rounded the corner, I saw her standing outside and the door wide open; she was looking at the sky in awe. I asked her what she was doing as it was 2 AM, and she looked at me, put her hand on my shoulder, and said, “The end is coming for X. I had to let him in.” OK, now I'm starting to get freaked out—but the creepiest part was yet to come. I coaxed her inside with decaf coffee and biscuits.
She told me again about the man making it difficult for her to sleep. Curiosity got the best of me, and I asked if she could tell me what he looked like. She told me, and my blood ran cold. I can’t explain how, but she accurately described a resident who lived in her room years ago. He was an angry man who didn’t want to be in the facility in the first place.
He passed after refusing his medication. He didn’t like anybody in his room except a few CNAs. She even got his name right. Her family was concerned for her well-being and asked to transfer rooms. After switching, her nightmares stopped. The other PCWs and CNAs had never mentioned anything about the previous resident to her.
48. Dramatic Entrance
I worked frequently worked overnight shifts in the ER. One night, I was sitting at the front desk by myself and heard the front doors open, but nobody came in. So, I got up to go check what was going on or if anyone needed help. I went into the vestibule as it was empty and looked for anybody outside. Nobody was there.
At that point, I shrugged it off—but then I looked down, and my stomach dropped. I was looking at a massive pool of blood, like trauma level 1 massive. I immediately called the nurses to come up, and we all scouted out the area. We didn't find anybody, and to this day, I wonder if that person survived. Just wish I could have helped. Creepy experience.
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