When I was younger, I did catering on the TV show Prison Break for the entire first season, and most mornings my work buddies and I had to be at the Old Joliet Prison in Illinois around 3 a.m. before the crew showed up.
The place was built in the 1850s and by the time we worked there, no prisoners were left anymore. BUT, it was a pretty creepy place, and walking through the yard when alone in the dark under the imposing towers or through the prison to the lunchroom by myself in the middle of the night was eerie, to say the least.
Are you ready to hear stories from folks who experienced scary things while working the midnight shift?
Let’s see what AskReddit users had to say about this.
1. Ugh! No way!
“When I was in the oilfield, I had to take a piss so I walked to the edge of my worksite and let it rip. Halfway through a mountain lion walked right by me, like within 10 feet. That was scary.
Another time I’m standing on the edge of the site and shining my flashlight into the empty field and I see all these little green emeralds. There’s thousands of them all over the field and I have no idea what they are.
I walk out into the field about 30 yards or so and lean in on one of them. Yep, they were all spiders.”
2. IHOP.
“I worked at IHOP graveyards for 7 years.
The fights during the bar rush were next level with 3 bars near by. I delivered a baby in the bathroom, hand to God I’m not joking. But the all time most IHOP thing ever was a fight that broke out in the smoking section back when that still existed and the glass walls still separated smoking from non smoking.
So there’s like 10 people in there, drunk, loud, laughing… My kind of night. Out of nowhere stuff starts flying and I get merced with a boysenberry syrup in the f*cking head. Before the cops show up every single syrup container has been thrown and there’s syrup dripping from the ceiling.
My manager was like, please don’t quit, just go home… You know just take tomorrow off… I had to hose myself off with a garden hose before I got in my car. It’s hysterical now but if I even smell a hint of boysenberry I immediately get straight up hostile.
Syrup is like glitter, you never can get all of cleaned up and everything is sticky forever. Syrup getting in your eyes is extremely painful, who would have ever guessed that?
Oh and in 7 years we got robbed 3 times around the 3rd time I was like please just shoot me, this job is literally killing me anyway.”
3. Taxi driver.
“I’m a cab driver in a small mountain town.
I’ve seen a plain clothes police officer hit in the head with a skateboard by a young teen having a psychotic episode. He died from his injuries later. I’ve seen a cougar running up the main street hissing at every movement.
I’ve seen a man get into my cab wearing a huge unsheathed machete strapped to his leg and ramble about in a deranged fashion until he told me to pull over and he ran away.
All these things are not necessarily scary as the occult-ish type things you hear about nightshift, but they were still scary. (I’m a female cab driver btw and yes I carry pepper spray) .”
4. Whoa.
“I worked the overnight shift at a 7-11. One night someone dumped a dead body behind the store. Cops found it the next morning. I’ve always wondered if I sold the killer(s) a Slim Jim or something.
Another night the store got swarmed with like 200 people in Halloween costumes. They stole the place blind. I was too terrified to say sh*t. Manager was super pissed.”
5. Haunted.
“I never got an uneasy feeling at this job site/warehouse ever. But this one night about 2am felt off. I could shake it. It was like I was being watched but I was the only one at the warehouse and we do have security that would watch us on CCTV.
The security isnt on site. Literally a warehouse that we keep products in and ship back out.
Anyways, back to me feeling weird about 2am as I was alone picking up more items to run back out to stores. I kept shaking this feeling off I’d pause look around the parking lot out side and the other surrounding warehouses. There was not a single sound just crickets and wind.
I felt off. I decided to roll down the warehouse doors and secure my truck and step inside to take a leak.
I was in the bathroom inside and actually ended up having to p*op when my phone alerts me. It’s security. I ignore the first three calls. Fourth call I pick up.
Mr.steemshovel we’ve detected movement at the warehouse inside. Are you secure where is your current position?. I tell them I’m not in the warehouse and doors are all secure. They make note the alarm system is active and doors outside the warehouse are closed etc. I’m wrapping up p*oping and I get the goose bumps. They said they would check the cameras and call me back to stay put.
I finish up and look out through the doors to the warehouse, its empty besides product. Doors are definitely secured nothings unlocked. You couldn’t get in trust me.
They call back…mr.steemshovel we’ve detected movement again the sensors are saying theres movement in the warehouse are you currently in side the warehouse? I’m literally looking outside the warehouse at this point nothing is there. I report back nothing is there. Again I have the chills.
Anyways, throat is lumpy talking on the phone with security I decided to leave the warehouse and do my run. Quickly i run to my truck and take off. I’m gone for about 2 hrs and they call me once saying again movement detected and they dont seem to see anything on the million plus cameras.
I arrive back with some cardboard boxes we have to break down into different bins. I’m by my self this time in the actual warehouse and I get this feeling I’m being watched. Cant describe it but it’s like someone was around the corner just staring at me. I couldn’t shake it. I finished up my work.
I get a text message before my shift that day from my boss saying we need to talk before myshift..
Long story short he tells me someone died in the warehouse 10 or so years ago and its haunted. We walked out to the warehouse and right were I felt uneasy at the bins he stopped with out me saying anything and said “this is where I always feel someone is.watching me”
I never had another experience besides that night.
6. Spooky.
“Used work in audit.
Lots of late nights (2am or later), working overnight was not uncommon. Our office tower was the first true skyscraper built in that city and was the tallest building around for many years. Naturally, it became a popular spot for suicides for many years.
It was haunted af.
During the day when office-workers were everywhere it was pretty much normal. Late at night (after 11 or so) the building would feel very different. The way that office worked is that lowly audit drones like us didn’t have assigned desks, but had three rows of long tables for ‘floating stations”. We faced each other with a divider lengthwise across the middle of the tables, so 6 rows of seating.
Teams often worked late, and even after midnight it was common for 1 or 2 teams to be in the office. For some strange reason, even if we started the evening spread out across all the rows, we would end up clustered together on the last 2 rows by the end. The seniors experienced plenty of stuff and some became pretty numb to it. Seniors would insist we all leave together, accompany each other to the toilets (even the guys), and that no one was to work late alone.
One time it was only my team of 4 working late, past 1am at that point. We’re busy typing away at our laptops, flipping through papers, occasionally leaning back in our chairs to ask a question. We started hearing typing coming from a different corner of the office. It started when we started and stopped when we stopped. Spooked, the senior said to ignore it and quickly finish up.
We hurriedly pick up the pace and do our best to ignore the phantom typing. After that, we start to hear rustling paper and small thumps getting louder, like files/documents being dropped on a table.
We’re getting freaked out now, the office seems dark even though it’s brightly lit and there’s this terrible feeling in the air. Without saying a word we start packing our stuff because we’re not paid enough for this. Suddenly the lights above the rows in front of us flicker and we all gasp in fear.
We’re staring wide eyed at the front rows when one of the office chairs turns and rolls from pretty much the left side to the right side of the office.
We bolt out of the office. Forget the laptops & papers, we just grabbed our phones, keys & etc and we ran out of there. Didn’t even turn off the lights.
And then we were back in the office the next morning like nothing happened. I made it a point to leave by midnight after that, I’d rather work on stuff on my bed than stay in the office.”
7. What just happened?
“When I was 21 or 22, I worked graveyard as a cashier at the Chevron gas station at 82nd and Burnside in Portland, OR. I heard lots of people say this was the “ghetto.” FTR: there is no ghetto in Portland, OR.
One night, in the dead of winter, I was outside smoking a cigarette, tucked off to the side of the building so as not to light the place up. There wasn’t much traffic, as it was after 3am. Bars there close at 2. Suddenly, from the NE, a Radio cab pulled into the lot. They came in a little hot, you know, some of those taxi drivers were a little daredevil-y, so I was ready to deal with one of these cranky overnight cabbies.
The driver was an older white man, portly and bald. He looked f*cking pissed… but also sort of confused. Could be I was projecting, because I only caught a glimpse of his face as he pulled in, and stopped just long enough for the passenger to get out. He hadn’t even shut the door before the cabbie pulled away, lurching forward and speeding west on Burnside ave.
The guy who got out looked… just normal. A little handsome, didn’t seem drunk, wearing black slacks and a button-down shirt, plus a leather jacket- Not the cool motorcycle kind, mind you, but the kind Adam Scott probably wears. I’d stubbed out my cigarette and walked toward him, opening the door to the convenience store to usher him in. He looked somewhat sheepish, ruffling the hair at the back of his head as he declined to come inside. He asked if I would call him a cab.
“What was wrong with the last one?” I joked. He laughed. “I don’t know, dude. F*ckin’ guy just yelled at me to get out. Got a better fare, maybe.” Weird. So I went inside and grabbed the cordless phone. These weren’t the days before cell phones, but it was before smartphones.
I dialed the number for the company I personally had memorized, which was Radio cab. The dispatcher answered as I was walking back across the store. She asked the location, I gave the address, and then she asked the passenger’s name. “Oh sh*t,” I said, “Lemme go ask.”
I was already at the door, and stepped out. “Hey–” I called out, realizing he was no longer standing where I’d left him. “Huh,” I said to dispatch, “Hold on. I gotta find the guy.”
The building was SMALL. Behind the c-store was a Safeway with a very large parking lot. Wrapped around 2 sides of the building. The other two sides were bordered by 82nd ave. and Burnside st. A Walgreen’s was across the street. Besides that, used car lots further off. The passenger was nowhere to be seen.
That wouldn’t have been so unusual had it not been for the layout. There was NOWHERE this dude could have fully hidden or run off to in the, what? 15? Maybe 20 seconds I was inside the store. Not to mention the SNOW. Not a whole lot of hiding places
. I walked out to the sidewalk, both ways. I looked in the dumpster. I walked into the Safeway parking lot. Dude was GONE. I was sharing all this information with the dispatcher, who was amused and somewhat invested at this point.
I told her about his dropoff. I narrated my search. “That’s so weird,” she said, “what did the driver look like?” I described him as I have to you. I heard her keyboard click-clacking, pther dispatch gals in the background. “There aren’t a lot of drivers out right now because it’s so late… I only show one in the area…” she trailed off.
“And?” I was f*cking confused, and eager to solve this mystery. “The only driver in the area right now is a black lady,” she told me. We both expressed confusion and, if I’m being honest, a general feel of unease. She gave me her extension to call her back if I figured anything out, telling me she’d be off around 7am.
I never saw the guy again. I didn’t call dispatch back. That was it. There’s nothing else to the story. I didn’t stock the godd*mn cooler until my relief came in. F*ck that. I was the only one in that store that night, and I wanted to continue believing that.”
8. A bloody mess.
“Hotel night auditor here.
I work at fairly nice, middle class hotel in a decent area but because I am usually completely alone at night, aside from my senior citizen security guard, I watch my cameras all night. The monitor is right on my desk next to my computer screen, they’re not the greatest quality but they’re better than nothing.
One night I see a man walking towards the front door from the side, something about him made me pay extra attention but I’m not sure what yet. He quickly walks in and goes straight up the stairs which are located just inside the front door which means he didn’t have to walk passed my desk. I watched him go up the first few stairs thinking I had lost him and wouldn’t figure out what was off about him because unfortunately I only have cameras on the first floor.
Thankfully our second floor opens up to a balcony that overlooks the lobby and I heard the stairwell door open & close on the 2nd floor. I walked out to the lobby to see if I could see him on the second floor and almost immediately heard him banging on a door down the hall & hollering for someone.
I called out to him, “Excuse me, Hello, Sir, Excuse me.” after a moment the banging stops and he walks over to the balcony.
For the first time I see him fully and he was COVERED in blood! Head, neck, face, pants, shoes and most notably the white button up shirt he was wear was a patchwork of blood stains & splatter, lots & lots of blood!
Turned out he was seriously plastered and had just been in a bar fight! He ended up crying on the bench outside with my security guard while waiting for cops & EMT to show up. I felt so bad for the guy but let me tell y’all that when I first saw him all covered in blood I thought I was about to be the next one on hit list or something!!”
9. Terrifying.
“I used to deliver pizzas in high school in the mid 90’s before gps and Google maps. I lived in the same small town my whole life and could have probably delivered pizzas blind folded.
We stayed open till 1:00 am on weekends. I was one of the only females that delivered till close because I wasn’t cute and could handle late night drunks. So I get this order basically 30 seconds after we stopped taking orders and I decided to go ahead and do the delivery.
It was way out in the country, I don’t think we’ve ever got an order from there. So I drive out there and when I turned down the dirt road I immediately felt something off about the whole thing. The road was barely driveable and kept getting more and more narrow. I drive all the way to the end and there’s no houses, no lights, nothing so I turn around and drive back slowly to just make sure I didn’t miss anything.
My headlights hit something white on the side of the road that hadn’t been there before and my creepy meter starts screaming. It moves, it’s a person crawling into the road wearing white. So I tear off to go get help. I come back with a cop friend. We get back to the exact spot and he informed me there weren’t any houses out there and to stay in the car while he draws his gun and stars checking it out.
After a few minutes he comes running back to his car calling for back up. He tells me there’s blood and teeth on the road. Yeah I was basically paralyzed but I’m not leaving him there alone. So I lock my doors and reposition my car so that I’m not in the way of incoming police and my headlights hit a man stumbling toward my car with no bottom jaw. I honk and scream for my friend and this guy falls on the hood my car.
Turns out this guy owed drug money to the wrong people. They took him out there and shot him in the face. They thought he was dead and left. He came to missing the lower part of his face and couldn’t see so he just kept walking hoping he’d run into someone before he bled out. He later died in surgery the next day.
The creepy part hit when I came back with a bloody hood and cold pizza without payment. Police pulled phone records and there was no incoming calls logged during the time period my manager took the order.
But I know the phone rang and listened to her take the order because I was kind of mad about the time. I could hear the male voice talking to my manager but they could never find any record of call or the number it came from.
I quit the next day. I still have have nightmares about that night and I get sick feeling when I smell pizza to this day 25 years later. They never found out who the man was that died because he had no ID or tattoos and there wasn’t much of his face left, probably an illegal immigrant.”
10. Horror story.
“Night shift at a hospital I used to work at.
Get report at beginning of shift.. patient is non verbal due to dementia… literally the report i get is they have such advanced dementia that they haven’t spoken an intelligible word in several years just mostly grunting and moaning… this hospital was old… very old… tiny rooms, kind of a dark place at night.
I’m basically trying to get this persons heart rhythm under control for most of my 12 hr night shift. It’s 230am.. I’ve been running a cardiac drip on this person for hours trying to get things under control then all of a sudden I see a lethal rhythm on the monitor (vtach) briefly and go into the room to check on the patient. Look at monitor again the rhythm is now totally normal.
The power in the entire building flickers very briefly and the patient says in perfect clear English: “I was born in 1895 I need to go home” And repeats it several times to my absolute horror.. I go get another nurse and patient is now muttering unintelligible sounds again as they had been when I assessed at beginning of shift.
Sh*t you not this really happened. I didn’t/don’t believe in ghosts, But this incident made me wonder for several months after. Who knows, maybe it was just a coincidence and the multiple meds they were on.”
11. UFO.
“I worked as a locomotive engineer for Amtrak for 37 years I just recently retired. I drove most of the lines that came out of Los Angeles. That particular night it was the summer of 97 I was driving the Sunset Limited.
The train runs through the dessert on its way to Florida, so with no one around for hours I was doing double the speed since we left LA late due to a mechanical problem. It’s about 3am I’m talking to my conductor about how Jordan just won another finals, I’m doing about 90mph now.
I happen to just light a cig and look out my window and see weird lights coming up from a ridge near us. I saw one bright orange light, then a second. A min later a third. Me knowing we were outside of Phoenix I said to myself it had to be planes leaving the airport, or f16s doing a routine training mission. I didn’t pay much mind but it bothered me since planes always have beacons and navigation lights, these orbs I’d call them seem to move around in ways it wasn’t humanly possible.
We’re still driving when my conductor suddenly moves near the windshield, points to something and says “holy sh*t wtf is that” a black triangle id estimate the size of football field was over the ridge where we had last seen the orbs and stayed there motionless. We were stunned, after a few mins it started moving at the same speed as our train, moving closer and closer.
I couldn’t tell if it was silent since the locomotive I was driving was being operated at high rpms. The ship passed on top of us slowly, I could see the same colored orbs under the ship I had seen before at the ridge but other then that nothing else since it was pretty much impossible to really get out my seat and look, it was just pure black. As the ship hovered above us we started to lose communication with the dispatcher and I started losing power from the trains generator.
They seemed to study us for about a minute and then took a sharp 90 degree turn and accelerated at high speed northwest towards Las Vegas. That’s when the train suddenly started to operate back to normal, our dispatcher called us thinking we had derailed since he heard nothing but static from our end. It freaks me out because I know it had to be a UFO, their is no other explanation for something that big moving that slow.
I was a skeptic and never believed anything about the paranormal but after seeing what I did for those brief 30 mins my life changed forever. A few years ago I realized my experience had happened only a few months after the famous “Phoenix Lights” where huge ufos were also seen by thousands in Phoenix, Arizona including military and law enforcement personal.
I’ve seen my fare shares of creepy things driving trains late at night but that topped it.”
12. Crazed.
“A woman who came into the store (smallish town convenience store) rambling about how the government had swapped out her kids for imposters and how she needed to find a way to “get rid of them”.
Luckily some of the police in town knew me, and they knew who I was talking about when I called. Last I heard a family member adopted the kids and the woman was getting help.”
13. Phew!
“I was a night shift security guard at a cemetery, and I worked alone.
I was doing my rounds one night and I noticed the metal gate to one of the old tunnels was slightly ajar. Them I heard voices. Now these old tunnels were used to store high value equipment.
And policy was that if I found a door unlocked I was to enter and secure the area, and only if I found something amiss to call the police (to be fair we found doors and gates left unlocked alllll the time). And of course I have no idea where the light switch is and all the lights are off.
So I have to go creeping through these dark tunnels with a flashlight having no idea what I’m about to find…..turns out one of the maintenance guys left a radio on and forgot to lock the gate.”
14. Out of the woods.
“I used to work a late shift in a warehouse putting together online orders. We would leave the dock doors up because it got hot in the warehouse. Normally on slow days we just hung out on the loading dock smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee.
Behind our warehouse was a small patch of woods, maybe like 2 acres. And just past the wooded area is a super ghetto apartment complex. I should mention quite regularly we’d smoke reefer and this was one of those times.
My coworker and I are sitting on the loading dock staring at the woods. Lo and behold some junkie comes stumbling out the woods in tighty whities. I, being pretty baked at this point, look to my coworker and ask him, “Hey I’m not seeing sh*t right? A dude just came out the woods in undies right?” He calmly replies, “Yup thats real.”
Then the junkie starts walking around in circles and he’s yelling, “YOOOOOOO! WHERE THE F*CK ARE YOU?!” I yell out to the junkie and ask him who the f*ck is he yelling at. He keeps saying he ‘can’t find his homie’. He kept yelling and all the sudden I hear this rustling in the woods. And, I sh*t you not, a f*ckin horse comes out the d*mn woods.
The thing was all raggedy, like it had mange, and the d*mn horse looked like it was on drugs. The junkie looks at the horse and says, “There you are dude.” Anyways I look at my coworker and ask if the horse is real and he just nods and we both just watch this junkie guy in underwear and a junkie horse wander off into the night.
Also I should probably say I don’t live anywhere remotely rural, its a pretty big city and there aren’t like farms or anything close by, so its pretty rare to see a horse unless a cop is on it.”
15. Weirdo.
“I used to be a crew chief at IHOP during the night shift but there wasn’t a crew lol it was just me and one cook.
One night a man came in and seemed so friendly and insightful, he was telling me about his time as a music producer in LA. He was so polite with me throughout our conversation, something I can’t stress enough lol. A few more customers came in, and as I took care of their orders the man I spoke to started talking to himself and laughing.
Then the laughter got louder and louder and almost maniacal. He then went on a huge rant about the world but he shouted in different pitches throughout the rant, even disturbingly changing his facial expressions. He scared off two of the other patrons and I had to call the cops.
When they showed up his whole demeanor went back to normal and he politely walked out with the police but looked back at me and winked. I was scared the whole night.”
Okay, now we want to hear from you.
If you’ve ever worked the late shift and seen some creepy sh*t, tell us about it in the comments.
We can’t wait for you to scare us!
