Ever since I saw the movie Nightwatch a long time ago, I decided I’d NEVER work a night shift at a business.
It’s just too creepy and too many things would scare the absolute hell out of me.
Here’s the trailer for the movie if you want to check it out.
Things that go bump in the night are real, people!
And we’re about to get really weirded out…
Here are some creepy tales of terror from folks on AskReddit.
1. No explanation.
“I used to work at a 24hr Subway. (I know, great start to a paranormal experience story, huh?).
Well one day I was doing the dishes, and my coworker was cleaning the toaster oven and bread oven. Out of nowhere, around 3:30am, I heard our door chime go off. Out of habit I say “welcome to Subway” as I turn the corner. Nobody there. Coworker gone.
I thought “Okay, maybe he hopped the counter and went for a cigarette outside” as he did from time to time. Heading back to the sink to finish the dishes, I hear the door chime again. Nobody. Checked the bathrooms. Nobody. “What…the…hell”.
I ignore the dishes, and stand at the front counter, eyeing the doors. Couple minutes later, my coworker comes through the back door where we get our deliveries
“Where’d you go?”, I asked him, turning towards the back door area.
“To take out the trash”, he replies.
Door chime. He does the same thing as me– “Welcome to Subway”, turns corner to see nobody there but this time the door was wide open. Our doors are weighted to where they’ll close on their own if you let go of them. Door stayed open for a couple minutes as we stared… Then suddenly slammed.
Not a windy night, and our doors wouldn’t even stay open like that on the windiest of days. Have no idea what caused this, or why it happened on that particular night, but after I got a different job I was told it never happened again.
Told my boss about the incident and we all looked at the cameras. Nobody could explain it.”
2. Creepy.
“I was a manager at a theater and would also do the basic projection work sometimes (thread projectors and the occasional build-up/tear down of films).
Our setup had a row of four theaters, so we also had a long, dark booth. It was really just a tiny corridor with the projectors sitting in it that dead-ended with the projector for theater 4 (what a fire hazard).
One day I was alone there in the dark threading up projector 3. This thing had a history and everyone knew about it: it would turn on and off by itself. Once it came on and someone unplugged it, but it kept running. Anyway, it was harmless enough, so we just laughed it off.
So there I was threading it up before the first shows of the day when I was overcome with this intense feeling of dread. I felt the temperature drop to frigid just like people describe, my body hairs stood on end, the whole nine yards. I wasn’t on anything and I’ve never felt something else like that before or since.
I had a fight or flight moment and ran out of there without looking back. I went into my office and just sat there for a bit. Our projectionist, who had just finished his real projectionist sh*t he was working on, came in with someone he was training.
I told him to take the trainee and finish up the last two projectors since it would be good practice for her, so off they went. No need to let them know anything else.
Both of them came back into the office pale and looking shocked. They described the same thing I’d felt in the same spot I’d felt it, and they did the same thing and ran.
We eventually had to get a fourth person in there, and they had zero issues. I made it a habit to find an excuse to take someone with me whenever I went there after that but it never happened again.”
3. Night nurse.
“I’m a dedicated night shift nurse. Several years ago the unit that I worked on was kinda off on its own, the oldest part of a 100+ year old hospital. During some basic repairs they found some mold, and according to rumors, asbestos, in the walls. So my unit got shut down for a couple months for repairs.
They kept the nurses on wherever they could, with the result that we were occasionally really, really bored thanks to acting as clerks or doing random odd jobs. A co-worker/friend at the time was really in to ghost hunting, to the point of buying a decent-quality ghost hunting kit.
Thanks to not exactly being needed, we had ample time to wander the spookier corners of the hospital overnight. We didn’t find a whole lot, just the occasional EMF spike or whatever that could be easily explained.
After a couple of weeks, they took down the strict construction isolation stuff for our unit and we decided to check out some of our supposedly haunted rooms. The place was eerie af. They had all the utilities shut off (remember, it was seperate from the rest of the hospital) and it was so quiet you could hear a pin drop.
We went into one of the rooms where a lot of deaths had occured, thanks to being close to the nurse’s station where we could put more critical patients. We set up a voice recorder, thermometer, and an EMF detector.
Then we started to ask “any present spirits” questions. Standard stuff like if they had died in the room, etc. Within a few minutes of us asking random questions, the temperature dropped a couple of degrees. Then, the EMF monitor started going off in short little bursts.
Right as I asked the question “are you angry you died here?” the EMF squealed like a stuck pig and we decided to get the hell out of there.
The next morning, we went to my place to play the audio recording through my computer. Everything was on it – our questions and the EMF noises. Right as I asked my last question of the night, there was this sound that coincided with the EMF burst we heard in the room.
It was this low, drawn out moaning sound that sounded like an enhanced version of a death moan/rattle. It made that hairs on the back of my neck stand up, along with the worst case of goosebump ever.
I’ve seen a lot of weird sh*t in my time as a nurse. I’m also a firm skeptic and love my peer reviewed evidence. But I can’t quiet believe that recording noise/temperature drop/EMF readings were something normal that happened in an isolated unit of the hospital with all the utilities shut off.”
4. Shivers.
“I used to work as a security guard at a hospital in Bowmanville Ontario Canada.
This particular hospital was split in half by the old hospital ( built in the late 1800’s ) and the new part of the hospital. One night I was doing my rounds when I decided to walk down this long corridor next to the main entrance of the old hospital ( they store all of the wheelchairs down this long hallway )
As I round the corner to walk down the corridor I see a woman standing at the end of the hallway. She was wearing a long blue button up coat, black shoes and some kind of winged bowler hat. She honestly scared the crap out of my so I closed my eyes and looked away for a moment.
When I turned back she was gone…
A few days later I was walking down the entrance hallway of the new hospital and stopped to look at some old hospital photos hanging on the wall.
I see a picture from the opening of the original wing and notice the same woman from the night before standing in the middle of all these nurses dressed in white. She was a head nurse or something like that.
Sent a big shiver down my spine.”
5. Something weird about that place…
“I worked overnights at a mental health crisis house. It’s a home like setting that a step below inpatient for mental heath issues. It also provided a place for people at risk of relapsing to stay to have support.
Anyway there was one room in the place people would get “weird vibes about.” I would do a room check and get the feeling I was begin watched each time. Other night staff reported stomping upstairs, hearing voices, and sudden temperature changes in the main room.
This room also had the highest rates of self-harm and “bump-up’s” (sending clients to in-patient or calling police if violent).
I tried to sage and salt the room at one time, even did the bang on pots asking it to leave. It started to do more stomping when I was there. There were times there would be no clients in the house so I could sleep on the couch in between calls. I started to have alot more lucid dreams and sleep paralysis after trying to get rid of it.
What i found interesting is how many different cultures would come in and out of the house and if someone was “spiritually connected” they would pick up on the vibe something is up with the room.
We had Kabbalah, Santeria, new age, catholic, you name it. They all picked up that something was weird about the place.”
6. What a story…
“I’m in law enforcement.
Me and my partner get sent to a call for an alarm activation. No big deal, but this is not one of our “usual” alarms. It’s a new one we’ve never been to before. Takes us longer than normal to find the house because it’s way back off the road and no lights are on.
We finally find the place, and it’s super creepy. Spiders and webs everywhere, nothing outside the house like a trash can or knickknacks. We split up, per the usual, to check the outside for open doors/windows. I go one way, he goes the other.
The house is two stories. I get this sort of garage/carport looking thing, along with a locked shop of some sort on the first floor, nothing weird seen or heard. Partner is still making his way around to me from where we started.
I find the stairs to the second floor and head up. I wind up on a giant covered porch attached to the house. And it’s huge. Literally the size of the carport below with about four sets of wicker outdoor furniture.
I’m looking around, don’t see anything super weird. Partner finally gets to me upstairs, and we talk about the weird layout for a minute.
During this time, I feel slightly unsettled but am unsure why. I start looking a little closer through the sliding glass doors at the front of the house. Partner tells me everything is locked up from his side, and there’s even vines growing over some windows and doors.
I start noticing little things in the living room: the carpet looks like it’s from 1962, no tv, no electronics in general, very 60’s layout. I thought all of that was weird, but I’ve seen weirder on this job. I then ask dispatch what the alarm activation was. I get told “attic exit”. Super weird and very specific but ok. So we start looking around best we can in the living room. No attic.
Then it occurs to me… What if it’s outside in this giant covered porch? I look up, sure enough, directly above me is an attic. I can even see the alarm sensor boxes on it. I look at my partner and tell him I’m not going up.
He suggests we rock, paper, scissors for it. I’m an idiot and agree. I lose. So I’m going up in the attic. At this point, we’ve made jokes about how weird all of this is, I’m slightly unsettled but haven’t said anything, and I’ve literally never seen an attic outside that has alarms. Also, who leaves their house looks like the 60’s?
I reluctantly pull my gun out and start climbing the ladder. (I should mention I’m chubby. Attics and ladders aren’t my friends.) Stick my head up just far enough to see there are no people and not a lot of stuff up there. And it smells really weird. It smells like old people have been living up there for 20 years. Like dead old people.
Not actual dead body, thankfully. But like the smell of old people has died up there. I quickly come back down with nothing but the weird smell to report. I shrug it off as we go to leave.
Partner pulls up next to me, jokingly saying, “we’re looking at this all the wrong way. We weren’t looking for someone getting INTO the attic. We should have been looking for something getting OUT.” We both laugh it off as weird call/weird job and drive off.
As we drive back to our hiding spot a mile or so away, me in front of him in separate cars, I see what looks like a person standing in the roadway out of the corner of my eye. It looked like a black female wearing dark clothing holding a light colored bag, though I only saw the person for a split second.
I’m not 100% sure of what I saw, so I wait and see if Partner says anything about it. A few seconds after I pass whatever I saw, Partner calls out over the radio that he and I are getting out with a person in the roadway at given intersection. I turn around with him. This all happens within probably 20 seconds.
We turn around….and can’t find the person. Person vanished completely. We described the person to each other and both definitely saw it and saw the same thing. No idea where person/thing went. It was less than 1/2 mile from creepy house.
So we’re pretty sure that we’re both haunted now, thanks to work. We’ve had one more instance of weird, unexplained happenings at work. We attribute it to our ghost. So that’s the story of how I became haunted and ran into a ghost that I accidentally released.”
7. Snow removal.
“I did night snow removal this past winter, 8pm to 6am. Consistently we were sent to this old run down army barracks / armoury within the city that was turned into a historical site.
Showed up there one night around 2:15am and the guy I was working with was immediately uneasy upon us arriving. I figured we’d clean off the stairs and walks quickly and come back to polish up later when it was less spooky feeling.
About 5 minutes into blowing the snow off with backpack blowers we both heard this horrible screech come from where seemed to be below us in the ground, so we packed up and said f*ck that and left.
Came back with our CL around 3:30am after telling him what happened, and we rolled up to hundreds of ripped fabrics and twigs tied into intricate knots and designs hung around the entire building – from windows doors lights and trees, hell even stuff hanging from the roof, all within the hour that we were gone.
Also noticed that one of the doors on the building was off the hinges just laying in the doorway to give the appearance of being closed.
Didn’t stay to solve that mystery. Was some Blair Witch looking stuff that I was not getting paid enough to dive into.”
8. I’d love to go there.
“Not mines but my friend’s.
He worked at Winchester mystery house. He told me one night while they were closing down his coworker was locking up and closing all the doors down this long hallway.
Well after they both finished they turned around and all the doors were opened up again and he told me his worker straight up started screaming at the top of her lungs and freaking out.
His co-worker quit the next day.”
9. The Queen Mary.
“Once I worked security for an event at the Queen Mary. I’ve heard the stories and such but tried not to believe them. Tried…
My area was empty and my shift wouldn’t be over for another 2 hours, it was dark, cold and there was nobody around. Everyone was busy dancing and enjoying the music in the main hall. A man in a suit was walking toward me, smoking a cigar.
When he approached me, I told him this area was no smoking. But I didn’t smell anything. When he walked past me, it got REALLY cold. He continued down the corridor and I just kind of shrugged, when I looked back, he was gone.
Vanished completely, there was still 20-30 feet for him to clear and he definitely didn’t sprint the rest of the way.”
10. Casino.
“Few years ago when i was working in a casino.
At 4 am when the casino was closed we found one of the slot chairs laying on the ground. These chairs are quite stable and heavy as all hell to accommodate so many people sitting in them all day. When we looked at the surveillance videos.
The chair is up against the slot machine then just leans back and falls over onto the ground. None of the legs broke and we couldn’t find any damage.
That was the talk of the casino for a while.”
11. Being watched.
“Nightshift nurse, here.
I worked in a rural hospital that was pretty old. The nurse’s station faced a long hallway that was known for…. something. Everyone had witnessed it at one point or another. This thing was like a shadow, but you couldn’t see through it- completely solid.
It had a habit of limping down the hallway and disappearing, or poking its head out of doorways and staring after people who had just left the room. Day or night, you had this feeling that you were being watched as you walked down that hall. There were other rooms with issues, too.
The call light would go off without any patients being in that room, patients calling out and asking why there was a man coming into their room (staring at them and then leaving), and the elevator doors would open and close on their own.”
12. Something felt off…
“I work at a jail on the east coast. I work 6pm to 6am.
Usually we don’t have much going on paranormal terms. I’ve had supervisors tell me in the past about who died in cells that I walk past every night and suicides by hanging. But never really felt anything myself.
But one night I was working down in our max area and something felt off. It was 2 am. It was a bit cooler than usual down in the area too. Around 4 my fellow officers and I got a phone call from the shift captain. Said he saw something odd on the camera in the section.
I went down to his office to take a look. You see a small ball of light come out of a cell and just float around the day room area where the inmates are allowed out. It floated around the table for 20 seconds then went back to the door.
Then it came out again for another 10 and went back. It wasn’t a bug because it materialized out of the door. It was only caught on the camera too….we watch them sections all night and never saw it with our eyes…”
13. Hospitals are scary.
“My wife is a nurse and for a couple of years she was working nightshift in the Palliative Care Unit. Which is the comfort care/end of life unit. Patients in that unit are expected to die, or to be sent home or to a care home to die.
Anyways, those rooms also had a radio, and according to her it happened a few times that a radio suddenly turned on, and within an hour or so a patient would pass on.
One rather busy night, the radio turned on and my wife went into the room, stared into the darkness and said “Cut that out! I don’t have time for this sh*t!” and the radio suddenly snapped off.
No patient died during the rest of her shift, but one passed away shortly after she clocked out.”
Have you ever had any experiences with ghosts or the paranormal?
If so, please tell us all about it in the comments!
We can’t wait to hear your stories!
