Maybe you don’t really
believe in ghosts or anything paranormal. And you may even go out of your way
to avoid these types of things. No creepy thriller movies for you. You would
never go near a Ouija board or spend the night in an authentic haunted house,
either.
And maybe you are one of the few (yes, there are only
a few) who cringe and tell me to stop when I try to talk about something related
to the paranormal world you want no part of.
What if I told you that you can’t avoid it?
What if I said even your workplace could be haunted?
Several years ago, I worked in a specific department
for a large well known retailer. The store was quite large and I had been told
that before the current building was erected there, the site once housed a
local grocery store. The department I worked in had large rolling doors on two ends
of the sales floor, so that at the end of the night they could be closed and
locked, keeping out customers (and shoplifters), as the rest of the store
operated 24/7.
During my time there, the nature of the job required
that a couple of graveyard shifts be suffered through for various reasons (a
seasonal set up; a brand re-set, etc. I’m not gonna lie. It was a bitch every
time). Of course, the rolling doors would be down and locked, with only me in
the entire department so I could get the night’s work done. It got pretty quiet
in there as the night wore on; midnight, two a.m., four a.m. But every so
often, I could hear odd noises right
around me.
“That’s just things “settling”, the naysayers
pitifully try to explain.
Although not out of the question, as things can settle I suppose, the noises were
more akin to the sounds people make when they move around, and the sounds that
products and items for sale might make if they are being shifted around.
I recall standing there, as still as humanly possibly,
looking for the source of these sounds. Nothing was obviously creating them.
It didn’t happen just the one night, either. It
happened every single time I was scheduled to do it.
Naysayers:
“You were just sleep deprived; it was 3 a.m.!”
Again, nice try. But I also recall it happening while
I was still really wide awake, closer to the beginning of the shift.
In fact, it wasn’t until a co-worker who exclusively
worked only the nightshift, told me she heard noises in there pretty much every
night, after the big rolling doors were latched and locked and no one could
possibly be inside. She would peer through the transparent panels on the door
but could never see the entire department all at the same time, and therefore couldn’t
get a good visual. But she constantly heard it.
Naysayers:
“Mice! All stores have mice in them. That’s what you both heard.”
I agree stores have mice. But they are excluded as a
reasonable explanation in this case for the following reason:
Some time afterward, two things occurred:
1. I
was mentioning to my other co-workers what went on in the locked up department
when I worked the nightshift. One lady was not at all surprised and began to
tell me how weirdo things have been happening in the department for years.
Once, two employees stared in disbelief as a perfume bottle levitated off a
shelf all by itself and then floated back to its original position. (Mice don’t
do that). Incidentally, some of the evening shift workers also experienced
unexplained noises when working during quieter periods.
2. A
photograph, which I still have a copy of somewhere, captured a disembodied head
in the department. The photo was taken during a public event and several
employees and a customer had their picture taken. After my encounter with the
noises, the picture was given to me by an employee.
As a teenager, one of my first jobs was working in a
convenience store that had a deli in the back. The store was quite small and
the deli section even smaller. But since it was at the very back, I had a
perfect view of the only door the customers used. I remember one cold winter
day, I just happened to be facing the door when it opened and a very old lady
came in. She was wearing a long winter coat and she was carrying a purse. She
started down one of the aisles towards the deli (and me) and came up to the
counter and asked for something out of the show case. I sliced and wrapped
whatever it was she wanted. When I turned to give it to her, she was gone. I
assumed she went to gather other items so I grabbed the meat and looked down
the aisles so I could take it to her. No one was in that store. I decided to do
a thorough check, in case she had fallen (she was old) but there wasn’t a soul in the whole place.
I checked with the only other employee at the front
cash who couldn’t provide an explanation.
I am calling ‘ghost’ on this one.
Retail places and stores can be haunted. These are two perfectly good eye-witness accounts.
Naysayers: “But whyyyy? Why does a ghost want deli meat or perfume?”
I can’t answer that definitively. I have theories, the details of which are found elsewhere on this website. Please have a look for yourself. A good place to start is here: Classifying a Haunting (link)
Lastly, if you need further convincing, maybe you should
check out this very short video of another locally haunted retail space.
Incidentally, I found myself in this very spot about
two years ago in my beloved city of Halifax, Nova Scotia. Nothing unusual
happened while I was there but today when I stumbled across this video, I was
not the least bit surprised to learn of what’s been going on in there.
A Halifax Haunted Work Place (link)
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