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Have you ever seen the movie Nightwatch?
It’s actually a remake of a 1994 movie from Denmark (I’ve never seen the original) and it is pretty darn creepy. It stars Ewan McGregor as a young man who takes a job working the night shift at a hospital morgue…and I think it ruined any chance of me ever wanting to work the midnight shift…or wanting to work at a morgue.
But plenty of folks out there do work the midnight shift and they see some pretty disturbing stuff.
Let’s get creepy with AskReddit users, shall we?
1. Scary stuff.
“Several decades ago I did the night shift at a local corner store in one of the less nice areas of town. Highly dodgy would be generous in describing it. (Hilariously it’s now gentrified to the max).
One night the glass door slid open and in strode a half naked, bone thin dude who was obviously off his tree and high as a kite. I knew that wild look well, I’d seen this guy before on more than one occasion.
What made this night unique was the blood filled syringe he was wielding. Now after a couple of years of solo night shift in that place I’d been held up several times. Knife, baseball bat, even a gun (rare in Australia) but that syringe was new.
And frightening. Other hold ups were scary but run of the mill. hand over the $50 that was all I kept in the till and they were on their way. This guy (Gavin was his name) didn’t know what planet he was from or on while making demands about giving him everything I had. I have never been so scared in my life.
Thankfully he sodded off with his $50 and a few packs of smokes. Police picked him up 15 minutes after I called them (they knew him well, also). Found out it was his blood and he was HIV+ as well have have HEP C and a few other things. He got a stint in the physch ward.
That is my creepiest life experience by far.”
2. You get used to it.
“Working night shift in a hospital.
The staff toilets were off the ward on a corridor. As you went in there were two sinks in front of you, paper towels to the left, two cubicles to the right and a store room between the sinks and the cubicles, set back, no door. The light in the store room never worked.
Both cubicle doors open, I went into the one closest the door. As soon as I started doing what I needed to do, crying started from the cubicle next to me, quiet sobbing, not wailing. When I (very rapidly) left the cubicle I was in, the door to the other one was still open and empty.
Same ward, but a few months before was the first night I had done on there, it was an old nightingale ward, so we put chairs at one end so we could see everyone. The other nurse was reading some notes and said “footsteps are here again”.
We both heard footsteps coming from the top of the ward to where we were, then back up to the top. She didn’t even look up, just said “you get used to it”.”
3. On the highway.
“I drive semi trucks at night with multiple trailers, the style I tend to pull is rockies one long 50 foot trailer and a 28 foot pup trailer hooked behind it.
After you get out of the cities on some highways its just dark only thing lighting the roads is the moon and stars, colors in the sky that would make you think you’re seeing UFO flying around, just beautiful nights.
I’m on one of these roads with fog settling in and things are getting darker. This is a 2 lane highway, for no reason I move into the left lane. The moment I start to question why I even did that, this car with no lights appears along the white line of the break down lane.
Just parked there no lights on and a few feet in front of the car is a woman in a dress gently blowing in the wind standing on the line looking like she was ready to step in front of a truck.
Been a few years now and of all things I’ve encountered that image haunts me.”
4. Awful.
“We had a truck driver kill himself in the parking lot.
Slit his wrists and ankles. Then changed his mind, and ran into the warehouse looking for help.
That happened on the nightshift at 4am.
I came into work at 8am. There was still a few cop cars left, but no ambulance or anything. Some cleaning had been done, but I learned that you don’t really get blood out of concrete. You could see the trails in circles and how frantic he was looking for someone.
It’s sort of a repressed memory. Makes me shiver thinking of it. What a sad situation that was for him.
It was pretty creepy going into that corner of the building on my next nightshift. As creepy as I felt the building was, I hope he and his family have found peace. I really don’t have words beyond that.”
5. They both saw it.
“I’m an atheist and I don’t believe in ghosts.
Didn’t stop me and both my coworkers one night shift all seeing the same 8 foot tall solid black shadow f*cking drifting down the middle of the corridor.
I slept with the lights on for WEEKS.”
6. Terrifying.
“I worked nights in a 24 hour convenience store in a small town, being that it was a small town most of my customers were regulars. One night a couple came in and the first thing I noticed was that the woman was crying, not too unusual, she went straight to the restroom.
The guy was walking around the store. He was acting a little different, nervous and not as chatty as normal, and he kept looking out the front door across the highway. The store sits on what would be considered “main street” which runs parallel to a major highway with maybe a block separating them and on the other side of the highway is railroad tracks. So they buy their cigarettes, drinks, and snacks and leave.
After my shift I head out to my car and glance across the highway and see local police, sheriff and state trooper vehicles. Lot’s of them. Some of the guy’s who worked across the street were in the back of a truck with binoculars and call me over. They asked if anything weird happened last night and I told them not really.
One of them then tells me that I was lucky because they found a guy who had been hog tied, beaten, and then shot execution style by the railroad tracks. The couple that had come in acting weird was who did it. So after they killed this guy they came into my store and bought snacks.
Apparently the woman had been cheating on her boyfriend with the guy they killed.”
7. What was that?
“I was working at my college campus history department as an undergrad at late hours. I had just finished locking the archeology lab at around midnight and I was walking across the campus towards the main gate to catch the last bus.
The campus was pitch dark and empty, no lights on, I was texting to a friend about Halloween on Facebook messenger while walking trough the dark parking lot.
That’s when the power came back, all lights in the parking lot were flickering and buzzing really loudly. I look up and there’s this circular shape floating really close to me, like a ring of Christmas lights.
I immediately start texting my friend what’s happening and he tells me to take a picture, I put my phone in camera mode and point it towards the anomaly. There’s nothing on the camera but my eyes can see it perfectly. I look down to tell him and by the time I look up again the thing is gone and all lights are off.
I ran so fast that day while looking up. I was terrified and only calmed down when I arrived at the safety of the bus. I still have those Facebook messenger texts saved and I always bring them up when my friends question my story.
I don’t know if that was an UFO, a Solar Flare, some governament experiment that required a lot of power… No idea, all I know is that nothing like that has ever happened to me since and that thing completely terrified me. I thought I was going to die.”
8. Creeper.
“Anyways, I worked at a hotel when I was in my early twenties. It was a brand new hotel in a small town that was heavy on tourism in the summer.
In the winter however, it was dead. We’d get people on business here and there but there were some nights where we literally had like 5 rooms (out of 200) rented out.
I was covering the night shift for someone on one of those nights and it was so slow that I spent the majority of the time playing WoW on my laptop.
Then at like 1230 am, this creepy looking dude strolls in. I offer to help him but he’s just ignoring me and talking to himself as he looks around the lobby. He was looking at every corner and nodding and mumbling to himself.
Finally I walked around the counter and went right up to him to see what I could do for him. He then said a whole bunch of nonsense about he used to own this building (it was just built a few months earlier) and eventually asked me for a book of matches.
I explained to him that we didn’t have any of those and he got super upset and started b*tching about how “his hotel” always had matches. I was trying to get him to leave so I went and took a lighter out of the lost and found and gave it to him.
He continued to mumble and sh*t and then lit up a cigarette right in the lobby. I told him he couldn’t do that (pretty sure the dude was on drugs or whatever) and after a few minutes he agreed to go outside.
He then stood directly in front of the lobby entrance and smoked while starring at me. At this point I felt very uncomfortable and had my cell phone and the hotel phone ready to call the police. When he finally finished his cigarette, he flicked it at the door and walked away. I shrugged it off and figured that was the end of it.
A couple hours later, I was doing my rounds to check the exits and pool and such. Well low and behold, Mr. Smoker was standing at one of the side entrances smoking and again, just starring into the building.
I told him he had to leave if he wasn’t a guest and the guy didn’t say a word, flicked his cigarette butt at me and walked away. As he was walking away I told him if I saw him again I’m going to report him for trespassing.
A couple hours later (it was like 4-5 am now) I once again saw this f*cking guy standing right outside the entrance. Before I confronted him, I called the cops. They said they were 3 minutes away. I walked out and told him the cops were coming. He flicked his stupid cigarette at me yet again and then told me to tell “Mr. Walker” that he was looking for him.
No one in the hotel had that last name. Guest or employee. So I still have no idea what he was talking about and he somehow managed to avoid the police before they got there. I never saw him again but that sh*t still creeps me out to this day.”
9. This should be a movie.
“I was painting an elevator shaft in an historic building downtown, but due to the fact that the other workers were there during the day to work on the mechanics, I worked alone at night.
The entire four story building is being painted so the floors are covered in crinkly drape cloth. I’m on the third one night in shaft painting in perfect silence when I hear the unmistakable sound of footsteps crinkling across the first story floor. No one has access to the building but me and I did NOT hear the door code buzz to open even if they did. I hold my breath and get out of sight. The activity continues and my mouth is dry as I call my roommate.
I realize that for the past month, I’ve been showing up to the same location alone, at the same time, and am a petite woman in a well lit empty home full of windows facing a darker corner of downtown. This is the serial killer check list and those footsteps have reached the uncovered stairs and stopped.
I whisper the code to roommate and grab a piece of plywood the carpenters left behind and cram myself into a corner and wait. The next two minutes are completely quiet until I hear the buzzing of the door and my roommate loudly announcing his entrance. I run out of my hiding spot and explain everything as I (with renewed confidence) search the first floor with my 2×4. All I had time to tell him was “come here now” +address.
It slowly connects for him and he wisely suggests we don’t go looking for whoever might be there and just leave. The next day I show up during the day (cause a paycheck is a paycheck) and mention that I’m more comfortable with this arrangement to the confused mechanic.
Then he asks if anything weird happened on the third floor?? He laughed when I didn’t answer and says that the guys sometimes feel someone tapping on their shoulder but there’s no one there. I’ve never finished a job so quickly.
F*ck that place.”
10. This is nuts.
“Used to work security in a landfill with my only companion being a dog that lives there. My job was basically to make sure no one sneaks in to take scrap metal.
It was an easy laid back job especially since it was in the middle of nowhere. One night I am doing my rounds when I see the dogs there looking down the road and I see a guy just walking towards the landfill and I start walking towards him and notice he looks pretty beat up like if he got jumped or something.
He passes by a tall bush that was in the road and I wait for him to step out but he never does so I shine my light towards the bush but nothing. I wait there for about 2 minutes and nothing so I decide to get close and the dog I mentioned starts following me. We get close and I pull out my baton just in case and no one is behind the bush as if this guy just walked and disappeared.
I look down the road and don’t see anyone. After a few hours the next shift punches in and I tell her that I saw this guy and she interrupts me and asks if he looked beat up with a red ripped shirt and barefoot.
After I confirmed that she described him exact even his hair she told me that the man I saw died a couple years ago walking in that same road and was hit and dragged by a car that was rushing out of the landfill and left his body behind that bush.
I didn’t believe her since she was a prankster but it made me think and I still don’t have an explanation on who that guy was or where he went to.”
11. No more night shifts.
“I worked at a boy’s home as the graveyard staff. Basically, I stayed up and watched the kids all night to make sure nothing happened. Since there were cameras in each room, I just monitored them from the office on a screen.
Down the hallway from the office there was a little room that had a small desk and a ton of books. It was a storage room for school supplies. One night, around 2 or 3 am, I hear a pop, kinda like the ones you hear in a fire. I scan each room on the monitor to see if any of the boys were awake. All were asleep. Trying not to spook myself I just go back to reading.
A few minutes later I heard another pop, much louder this time, and I now I knew it came from that little room. I tried peering into the darkness but I couldn’t see anything. I sit there motionless, pretty spooked. Soon enough I hear a series of pops go off and my heart starts pumping.
I remember getting goosebumps on my neck and feeling chilly. I grab a flashlight from the desk drawer and shine it down the hall. The door to that little room was almost closed even though I definitely remember having it open when I clocked in. I keep the light on the door and it starts to slowly open up.
I have my phone out, ready to call 911 when I hear something drop loudly down the hall. I still can’t see in the room, the door only half open. Soon after that loud thump I hear another. And another. I hear pages being ripped books being tossed about in there.
The thrashing went on for over a minute, all the while I’m paralyzed with fear, forgetting to breathe. After a minute it goes quiet. I can hear my heart beating loudly. I keep the light on the door for what felt like a half hour. Nothing happens. I turn the flashlight off and get up to close the office door when I hear a door slam. I turn the flashlight on and focus on the door, it is now closed.
I slam the office door shut and put some filing cabinets in front of it. The rest of the night was uneventful and when the day staff come I go and check out the room. Everything is tidy and neat, like nothing happened.
I worked at that home for a little over a year and when it burned down, I didn’t come back after it was repaired, i refuse to work night shifts in any job to this day.”
12. Creepy.
“I worked in an airport as Ground Ops and we’d always have shifts drag to 3:30am to wait for arriving planes. Whatever. Used to it.
But when I first joined one time I ended up at the end of the airport (this end used to be part of a forest) and was sitting there quietly. Heard the doors slam shut behind me but there was no one. Felt cold all of a sudden and decided to let it be, without informing my officer.
A few days later, a friend (A) saw another friend (B) walking past him. A said hello and B just nodded, walking away. A then realized that B isn’t on shift at the moment. He called another friend who was B’s housemate, and was informed that B was at home sleeping. That was when I realize this part of the airport had its own stories.
After a few months of working there someone told me he was videocalling his 4 year old son at where I sat at 11pm, alone, and his screen froze. He went back home only to have his wife tell him that when it froze, they both saw a woman standing behind him and his son asked who that was.
Fast forward another few weeks and my friend was opening an arrival at 4:00am when she turned and saw some old man smiling creepily at her, at the boarding gate behind where she was. There were no departing flights at that time and security does not allow passengers to be at the gate between 1am to 5am.
I talked about all these to my friend who was a Ramp Agent and he pointed across the runway (we could see it well) and that’s when I saw a bunch of wooden crosses that are apparently graveyards there.”
What about you?
Have you ever worked the late shift and seen any creepy stuff?
If so, please share your stories with us in the comments. Thanks!
