1. Midnight At A Swanky Hotel

I worked night audit at this semi swanky hotel next to the airport. One night I get a call from a lady in 204. She says there was arguing, loud banging and crying coming out of 206, check the computer, no one is checked into that room due to maintenance issues. Wtf?! Called my supervisor to see what to do she tells me to call on site security and follow them up with a key.

But I decide to be the bigger man and go up anyways. As we get off the elevator we can hear the crying, it’s loud. My heart starts racing as we near the door, so I hand the key to the security guard. The next 5 minutes seemed to happen in slow motion, he opens the door and immediately flicks on the light. (Keep in mind 206, we’re on the second floor, only door in was by me, and this at like 3 am and there was no one around.) As we enter the room the shower is on, steam is coming from under the door. There is only one lamp on in the room, it’s super cold, and there is a lady in a red lacy bra black panties, with super red hair curled up crying in the bed.

She was facing away from us, as Frank approached her he asked if everything was okay, she sort of stopped crying and rolled over. When she did a wave of horror came over me, she was super pale, covered in blood and was just staring behind us. That’s when we realized the shower had stopped and the door was open. There was a man about 6 ft 5 in standing in the door way, as we turned around, cops tased him, and arrested him. Turns out he was a rapist who hides in hotel rooms, kidnaps women who stay there, and cuts them open. To this day I will never go to a hotel again.

2. A Banging From The Closet

I’m currently a janitor at a gym. We have a stairwell that leads down some stairs to a door that doesn’t open because we lost the keys years ago. One night, there was a loud banging sound coming from the door. Sounded like someone was banging it every second for a couple minutes. I stood at the top of the stairs and listened and watched and it stopped. It started up again a few minutes later. I went back up there to see and it stopped again as soon as I got there. Told my manager the next day and had a lock smith come in. He got the door open and it’s just an old supply closet that’s empty. Every so often someone hears a banging sound coming from the door at bottom of the stairs.

3. “We’re Lettin’ People Know”

Third shift gas station attendant: my first night alone, I’m out cleaning trash around the pumps and refilling the windshield fluid containers. Cop pulls in, drives by really slow, staring at the store, doesn’t see me standing near pumps, parks and walks into store really fast.

He’s clearly looking for an attendant so i walk into store. He jumps when door opens and I say, “Hey! What’s up?”

“The Dunkin’ Donuts (2 streets over) just got hit and the guy doesn’t fit any profiles. We think he just likes to shoot people so we’re lettin’ people know.”

He gets in his car and drives off.

4. A Feeling I Was Being Watched

Was sitting at a desk in front of a good sized window, reading a binder. Sort of had that feeling like someone was watching me, so I looked up and there was a face pressed to the glass. No idea how long he was there before I looked up. Ran out to the foyer where there is a glass door on the porch that should be locked. It wasn’t. He started shaking the door trying to get in. Ran to the next room and he just followed me around the house while I was on the phone with the cops, watching me through the windows. They didn’t catch him. That night. HE CAME BACK the next night. They caught him. Creepy as fuck.

5. Surprise!

Sometimes patients come in for other problems and don’t mention that they sleep walk. There have been a few occasions where I have been sitting in my office watching vitals and writing reports when I turn around to get something and a patient has sleep walked into my office and is standing right behind me. At 2am in the dead quite, that gives one quite a shock.

6. She Kept Coming Back To My Room

Right out of college I got a job as a nanny for two elementary-aged girls. For their anniversary, the parents went on a week-long cruise and I stayed home with the kids. The first few nights, the 8-year-old would come into my room multiple times a night and wake me up. It was obvious she hadn’t pre-planned what she was going to give me as a reason for waking me so she would stumble through an excuse on the spot like “I just wanted to make sure we are still going to the park tomorrow” or “I think I forgot to brush my teeth and wondered if I should do it now or wait til the morning.”

I figured she was just missing her parents and feeling out-of-sorts, so I let it slide at first. But by the fourth or fifth time, knowing I needed sleep to keep up with two active kids, I told her that she wasn’t to wake me up unless there it was an emergency.

I get a couple more hours of undisturbed sleep, but wake up with a weird feeling around 5 am. I turn over and nearly piss myself–the girl had brought over a chair right next to the bed and is staring down at me. It didn’t help that she had long, dark hair and this happened a few months after The Ring came out.

Her explanation? “I just thought it would be fun to watch you sleep. I didn’t wake you!” Touche, kiddo.

7. The Wheelchair Posse

I am a manager at a fast food store, on overnight shifts (11pm-7am) there is only myself and one person with only the drive thru open. This particular night, around 3am, we noticed the back door slightly open. So I went to investigate and as I moved the door this man ran towards me. So I shut the door and started to check the rest of the store. Moments later the drive thru indicator goes off and we see this person go straight past the windows and out of the lane. Followed by another two. They were all on motorised wheelchairs. They continued to drive around and around my store trying to get in the windows. They eventually sat one person at each drive thru window shaking them to try get in. I rang the police and they showed up and told me they couldn’t do anything cause the 4 people (three in wheelchairs and one not) told them they just wanted food and as no one threatened us we were fine.

It was like a bad horror movie. Where the people who seem like they are fine actually end up being psycho killers.

8. Had To Take The Rest Of The Night Off

My dad used to work nights for the city, spraying weeds and shit. He was doing a graveyard one night, and he said for some reason he just felt terrified suddenly, and looked behind him, and like 50 feet away there was this old guy sitting on a headstone, just giving my dad the 1000 yard stare. Apparently my dad tried to ask him what he was doing out there, told him to leave because of the chemicals, but the guy just sat there, stone still staring my dad in the eye. He took the rest of the night off and came home visibly shaken up, and he wasn’t the type to let that shit show normally.

Not saying it was a ghost or anything, just could have been some weird old man visiting his dead wife or something, but the way he described it was just fucking scary.

9. Deformed Man And His Deformed Children

This is probably not what you were expecting, but here we go.

I used to work for a relatively small security company. It was privately owned, had about 30 employees all together. They’d get a contract with a factory and then basically your job was to sit in that factory for 8-12 hours when no one was working in it. So I’d be working by myself, alone, overnight, in a completely empty factory.

In my 2 years of doing that job, I never one time saw a single thing I would call supernatural. However, I did see Dennis.

One night my captain calls me on my phone and tells me a new trainee will be coming in about 5:00Am and to show him the ropes, teach him how to make rounds (you walk around the building, that’s basically what making a round is), etc…

So it’s about 4:45AM and I step outside to the parking lot to have a smoke and wait on the new guy. After about 10 minutes a car pulls up, stops, backs up, and drives away. I was clearly visible, so I have no idea why he left, but the car passed by about 3-4 more times before finally pulling in and shutting off the engine. I can see him in the car and he’s just sitting in the driver seat staring at me. In the back seat are two kids probably around 6-8. After about three minutes of me wondering what the fuck is going on, he gets out of the car.

Dennis is fucked up looking. He’s about 4’10 and fatter than damn near anyone I have ever seen. He has a huge rash covering about 70% of his body with a white crust outlining most of it. He then speaks: “Had a little trouble finding the place.” His voice is high pitched. I mean REALLY high pitched. I’m talking Judge Doom in the final scene of Who Framed Roger Rabbit high pitched. Then he extends his hand to shake mine, without thinking much, I shake it, there’s one finger on it…. ONE. And the rest of the hand looks like some kind of stumpy flesh mitten.

One of the kids gets out of the car, has the same rash, is also very fat, is also missing fingers. He says “daddy can I get a drink.” Dennis turns around and screams in that high pitched voice “GET BACK IN THE DAMN CAR AND DON’T YOU GET OUT AGAIN!!!!”

I’m in fucking shock.

So I take the guy around the factory, show him the perimeter, tell him where emergency stuff is. About a minute into our walk I notice this guy smells like hell. I mean he literally reeks of ball sweat and fresh diarrhea. The whole time he’s asking me strange questions, like “do you have a crush on anyone that works here?” or “Can I hunt on this property?”

He finally leaves after standing in the office trying to make small talk with me for about fifteen minutes after the tour. On his way out he said “We’re gonna be good friends. Even if you don’t think so now.”

I went home about two hours later and stood in the shower for a good solid hour washing myself, trying to get the image of that guy out of my head.

Called my captain and asked him to reassign me some place else. Never had to see him again.

That’s been more than ten years and it still bothers me.

10. Like Being Buried Alive

Power outage. I was in a clean room inside another room in the basement of a building. It was pitch black and I didn’t have my phone with me.

11. Next To The Psych Ward

I used to work in one of the booths at a parking ramp for one of the biggest hospitals in the area. The ramp had two lanes, and the bathroom was in the secondary booth (they only opened it up during rushes during the day). I worked until 3AM. Every time I had to go to the bathroom, I had to go over to the other booth. Also, I drink a lot of coffee and have an small bladder. This is important.

One night, a doctor was leaving, and everything seemed normal. She paid, I hit the “CASH” button and the gate opened. She started to drive away and then this happened:

Doctor: Oh, I was wondering. Do your booths lock? The windows and the doors?
Me: Yes….
Doctor: Oh, okay. Because the building right next to the ramp is the psych ward. Sometimes the patients escape, and I wanted to make sure you were safe. Well, good night!

And off she drove. I was left to think about this for the last two hours of my shift, trying to hold it until my shift was over, and I could go back to the office and pee in safety.

12. Abduction

When I was 17 I worked at a Drive-In fast food place about a mile from where I lived. The store closed at midnight so I would start walking home usually around 12:30. There were no lights on the street I walked along until I was about 2-3 minutes away from my house ; I wasn’t too scared because my dad had bought me a stun gun and a knife to carry.

I was walking home after an uneventful day when a car passed by – the engine was surprisingly quiet when they passed me, so I recognized it when they circled around and started following slowly behind me with their headlights off. As a rule I never wore headphones so I could hear when someone say something about “behind her” and “music on.”

Trying to calm down and coax my heart out of my throat, I pulled my stun gun out of my pocket and let it go off loudly for about three seconds. The car flashed their high beams and sped off past me.

My dad started picking me up after that; we lived near the place where the Yogurt Shop Murders took place in Texas, so he was done taking chances.

13. The Empty Elevator

I used to be on overnights, often with one other person in my work center. Well, we worked in the basement of a HUGE complex and would often go outside to smoke; a five minute journey. One night we decided to take the elevator for a change because fuck stairs.

Well, approaching the elevator we see a gentleman in a red polo waiting at the elevator. When we were About 10 yards away the door opens and he enters.

We entered an empty elevator a few steps behind.

14. Working Late At The Cinema

I work at a cinema, and at the end of every night, before closing, we have to check the screens are empty – in case someone leaves their phone, or fancies trying to stay in overnight. Can’t let you do that, not least because I’ve been told it gets cold enough to kill, especially in winter.

In the cinema I work at, screen no.7 is reportedly haunted – I’ve always had a funny feeling in that one, even before I heard the stories – everyone has one, from having skittles thrown at them (after confirming it was empty) to having people whisper in their ear.

It was the end of the night, a couple weeks back, and it fell to me to check 7. We’re meant to do it in pairs, but my partner for that night was dealing with a customer and the manager wanted everything done 5 minutes ago so we could leave.

Screen 7 was dark. So dark. And it was a horror film playing in there, Annabel I believe.

As I began to climb the stairs, during the credits, the music did that horror movie thing where the strings grow in intensity and volume. Oh no.

I ran up to the top, empty. Good. And began to run downstairs. And as I got to the bottom, it happened.

Fuckin orchestra hit. Nothing ethereal or inexplicable. But I shat myself (metaphorically) and got told by my colleague that night that he heard my swearing.

15. A Wedding Party

While I was in high school I worked for a catering company/banquet hall so my hours usually started anywhere from 4-7 and ended from 11-2. So one day I was there pretty late resetting a room for a wedding we were having the next day and someone had told me to go upstairs and get some chairs from the room that hosted the wedding that night.

So when I got the room I noticed that there were still people in the room, chatting it up and having a good time. I was told the wedding ended an hour ago but I thought nothing of it and got some chairs and brought them down. When I brought the chairs down I told someone that there were still guests there and that if we need anything else from that room we should wait until they leave. The person I told said that he was up in that room just moments ago and didn’t remember seeing anyone up there so I brought him up there and, sure enough, the room was empty, and looked like it had been for hours. Easily the creepiest thing that’s ever happened to me.

16. The Empty Room

Working in a nursing home. A man just died in one of the rooms, which was now empty. All night the lights flickered and the call light kept turning on by itself. Likely it was just electrical problems, but was still creepy as hell.

17. The Nursing Home Intruder

Working night shift at a care home, only 2 people work at night. We get everyone to bed and tidy up, then sit down to watch TV and answer if any of the residents ring the bell.

Bout 2 in the morning, the door bell rings, this is weird as the home is in the countryside, bout 10 miles from the nearest village. We go to investigate, find a man at the front door, he asks if he can use the phone as his car’s broken down. He isn’t allowed in but we offer to phone a tow truck for him, he agrees. We go get the phone and when we come back to the door he’s gone.

Weird but we think maybe he’s just gone back to his car or something. We go back to sit down but can see down the corridor that the man is now inside, standing in the TV room. He doesn’t see us so we run and hide, we still have the phone so call the cops but they take a while to get to us.

Bout 15 minutes later the cops show up, we let them in and they search the place and calm us down. The man isn’t found anywhere, and we call management to send some more staff out to stay with us during the night. Manager arrives, police leave. We’re back watching TV and chatting, bit calmer now when we hear the front door open then close. Go to investigate, start calling the cops again. Look out the window to see the man running away down the driveway. He’d been in the home the entire time the cops were there.

No idea what he wanted, very glad I don’t work there any more. Night shifts are creepy enough in a care home even without intruders.

18. UPS Man

I was a janitor at a local gym. I was mopping the floors and had my back to the door (listening to my iPod). I turned around, and there was a man dressed in a super sketchy dollar store UPS costume. He had his face pressed to the glass smiling and tapping on the window with one 1 finger. Scared the shit out of me. He said to let him in to deliver a package. Mind you, it’s 1:30 am. I said fuck that and called the cops. They found him trying to break into a house down the road.

19. Towels

I worked as a hotel auditor in a rough area of Phoenix. This guy comes up to my night window with an ice pick and a hatchet in his hands, covered in specks of blood, asking for towels. I calmly ask him for his room number, give him the towels and wait for him to walk away. I called the police and sure enough, he had killed someone. We rented the room two days later.

20. Surrounded!

Working as a guard for a few months between other jobs.

Job is sitting in a little shack by a building. Every couple hours I go drive a patrol.

This is out in the boonies on restricted land, so there is always wildlife.

I watched a lot of movies (no one else there at night) in my little guard booth and my phone dinged that it was time to go patrol.

I am usually on autopilot, so I throw on my jacket and started to open the door.

Luckily I looked out the window and saw the 5 coyotes just hanging out by the side of the shack.

They are mostly harmless, but being 3 feet away from 5 predators that had been sitting right there for god knows how long is scary as shit.

I don’t know if they were hanging out waiting for me or if it was just a coincidence. I missed a patrol, they left about 20 min later.

Then I got to imagine them running up out of the dark every time I went outside.

21. “I’d Stay Away If I Were You”

I work the night shift as an EMT in a large city. So one night around 2a.m. we get a call for a psychiatric problem in one of our more ghetto neighborhoods. Dispatch tells us to stage and wait for police to make contact first. So we’re sitting maybe 2 blocks down the street in the ambulance and I’m looking down texting and my partner goes “ummm, hey…”

So I look up and there’s this lady walking down the street straight at us. Check the notes on the call, and the girl matches the description. I just say “well, fuck that” and put the truck in drive and go around the corner another block or so. Whatever, weird shit happens, she’s probably just walking home.

So about a minute later this chick turns the corner and she is walking FAST now. Check the call notes again, ‘patient possibly armed’ so ahhhh, another fuck this moment and drive onto a street that SHOULD run have an outlet. Nope, unmarked construction. Well shit. Turn the truck around and this girl is just standing about 20 feet away. I get out and ask her if she’s OK. She stares at me and goes “are you here for that crazy lady 3 streets over?” Me: “maybe if we are talking about the same person.” Her: “oh, she’s fine! (Gets dead serious) I’d stay away if I were you.” Wwwhhhhaaatttt the fuck.

So she walks back the way she came, we try to keep her in sight for as long as possible, long enough that we could reasonably assume she’s the patient. A few minutes later PD gets there and clears us in. We go to the house and there are security cameras everywhere around the house. No one answers the door. I’m checking in windows to see if I see anyone. The house is just… Off. I can’t explain it but it was just not quite right. Never did make contact with someone we could confirm was the patient. Gave me the chills.

22. A Visit To The Front Desk

Working the graveyard shift in a small motel, all alone. Had a guest who requested a 6 foot extension cord. Took me a while but I found one, brought it to his room. The housekeeper found him dead the next day, hanged himself with the extension cord.

23. Watching The CCTV Replay

I work on the maintenance team in a large foundry base. It was a normal non production night in our eyes for me and one other guy, we had heard a few knocks and bangs but with the compressors being turned off things drop and bang as the compressed air pressure slowly drops due to leaks.

Anyway, we went about our night and the firm was robbed while we were there that night and we had no idea. They watched the CCTV back and at one point a man was standing with a metal bar behind me while another stood on a girder right above the other guy’s head with a crowbar in case we heard anything. So it’s a good thing we didn’t hear anything really. It was very creepy watching it back.

24. Dolls, Hundreds Of Them

I worked the night shift in a greasy spoon diner. Lots of drunks and stuff.

So the other waitress gets off at 4am, while I stay until 7am. She leaves only to come back in a few second later. She has a weird, half smiling look on her face. She says “uh, someone put something on your car.”

Judging by her look, I know it’s not good. I run out to find my car COVERED in naked dolls. Hundreds of them. Cabbage Patch, Barbies, Baby Dolls, etc. All different kinds, shapes, sizes. .. the only thing they have in common is they’re all naked. It took 4.5 55 gallon trash cans packed to get rid of them all. It was weird.

What came next, was weirder. I proceeded to gets calls at work, nightly, at 4:15am, asking if I ‘liked my gift?’. The calls started out as polite and inquisitive, and over 2 months turned into yelling and calling me a slut.

Then, one day at 4:15am like always, the phone rings, I answer, I hear a bunch of popping noise, no voices, then they hung up. I never got a call again. It’s been 9 years, and I still don’t have a clue who or why?

25. A Good Samaritan

Once, working gravy at a grocery store, I went out for a smoke. A guy in a pickup pulled up. We were a 24 hr. place, so he went in, made his purchase and came back out. He couldn’t get the truck started, and called me over for help. Apparently the screwdriver he had jammed into the ignition wasn’t working, so I told him I would go inside and call him a tow truck. He bought it and waited dutifully by the truck for the cops I had called instead to show up. After arresting him for GTA, the cops thanked me for calling him in. Turns out he had recently been deported after serving out his rape conviction, and had stolen his victim’s husband’s truck after crossing back over the border. Pretty creepy…

26. Late Night At A Rat Lab

I used to work in a lab where I would do behavioral testing on rats, that would sometimes go very late into the night, past midnight (rats are nocturnal)

There was a little creek behind the building on this college campus, and there were lots of bushes/grass everywhere. During the testing, I spent a lot of time in my car in the parking lot, waiting for the testing to be completed. One night, I was in my car, and I noticed a coyote walking very nonchalant across the parking lot. He basically crossed the view in front of my car, from the left to the right, coming about 10 feet from the front of my car. I decided to open my door, and stand up to look at him. I wasn’t too worried about him attacking me, I just thought he looked pretty cool. So I’m standing there, and we’re looking at each other, eye to eye. A grey, very healthy looking coyote, with no fear in his eyes. As he passes in front of my car, he slows and then stops, and stands there looking at me. His posture isn’t threatening, he’s just kind of looking at me the way I am looking at him. I am obviously thinking to myself how neat it is that I’m safe, and we can just look at each other for a moment, and then I start to double check weather or not I am actually safe. I had figured, if he bolted for me, I could just get in the car and close the door. And even if he got to me, I was pretty sure I could handle him with the knife clutched in my hand.

I’m thinking this when it hits me: coyotes probably don’t hunt alone. I had one of those “he’s right behind me, isn’t he?” moments, and I turned around to find another coyote, about 10 feet behind me, staring at me just as nonchalant as the on in front of me. I basically had a “clever girl” scene on my hands, and I remember what happened to the poor Australian guy trying to outsmart the raptors. Luckily, their behavior didn’t freak me out so I was calm enough to just stare at this guy too, for what felt like an eternity but was probably only 10 seconds. After that, they just turned their heads and carried on their way into center of the building complex/parking lot, where I got to watch them hang out looking for rabbits for the next few nights that I had testing. The next time I had late night testing, I didn’t see the two hunters return to their usual grass mound under the big tree.

27. Stalked Through The Brush At 2 AM

I was on a solo patrol of abandoned barracks about 2-3am. The duty was to just keep people from squatting in them after one was set on fire by the candles a squatter was using burning them alive.

Anywho, here I was doing my rounds flashlight off since there was enough light for me to get around. I hear noise behind me. I turn around to find nothing. Light it up, still nothing. Ok. Turn and continue on. A few steps later I hear footsteps in the dry leaves. Turn and nothing again.

I decide to move out of the area. Sounds follow me. The pattern continues. Turn and nothing each time.

Fuck this. I decide to go lights out again. Waited a few minutes to get my eyes adjusted again. This time I start to walk backwards. Sure enough, as I start to walk something darts out of the brush and begins following me.

Since I am facing it I light it up while still taking backwards steps. A fox. Cute little fucker almost gave me a heart attack.

He would do the same thing every time I did that patrol. Always a few yards behind me and would dart out of view if I stopped.

He never said a word, leaving the age old question unanswered.

28. Last Graveyard Shift At The Factory

This was when I was fresh out of high school and my first job. I worked as a machine operator for a factory doing grave yard shift. It was only me on the floor and the supervisor in the office. It was always a two man shift. Sometimes he comes out to help bring me stock materials from the back storage. The back storage was haunted or so I was told by the previous shift worker that I replaced, I’m not superstitious and was skeptical about it. For the first week, nothing unnatural happened and it was reinforcing my skepticism.

However, as weeks go by I started to notice that the machines closest to the storage room entrance would turn on by itself randomly. Also, started to hear people talking in the back storage and seem like they’re making noises doing some restocking but when I go there, the lights are off and it’s dead quiet. Then, this one time, my supervisor just finished helping me and said he’ll be in the office if I need him, about 20 minutes passed when a big crashing noise from the back storage scared the shit out of me. I called him to make sure that it’s not him either pranking me or crashing the fork lift in the back. He came out from the office and was asking me what the hell happened, I then freaked out and we both decided to check it out.

Once again the back storage light is off and eerily quiet. We turned on the light and we saw barrels toppled over and a broken crate with stock materials all over the ground. These crates are on a shelf about five feet off the ground and the barrels are full. We cleaned it up, he used the forklift to put the replacement crate with the materials on it back up the shelf and I rolled and repositioned three toppled barrels back to the corner by the entrance.

By the time we were done it was lunch break, he went out to get food and I was alone operating the machines again in this big factory the size of two football fields. I wasn’t troubled or scared knowing he will be back in half an hour, but I ended up shutting down the machines and waited for him outside.

When he was back, he was surprised and I told him to go by my station and tell me what he sees. Yup, there’s one of the barrels that i propped up on its side by the machine I was at. I told him that I didn’t hear the barrel fall like earlier or even the sound of a full barrel rolling and stopping by my side. Standing in front of the barrel gives you a good view of the dark entrance to the storage, it was also then that I heard a faint creepy female voice coming from there. Which is why, I was waiting for him outside.

We ended up closing the factory for the remainder of the night and explained the situation to the manager the next day. Manager thought I made this up and did it so i can leave early. The security camera however verified that the barrel just rolled out by itself from the dark storage area and stopped where I was and you see me coming into view to check where this barrel came from and hurriedly back tracking to turn off the machines.

This prompted management to abolish grave yard shift and I eventually quit that job after a year in night shift.