This story is from when I am a security guard used to fill in extra coverage at various sites. I am one of the guys they can send anywhere and during this time I fill in shifts at some 60 different projects.
Background:
First off, I know not all believe in otherworldly things. No cheese off my biscuit. You do you. I’m not here to tell you you’re wrong. I can only share what I experienced for myself and leave you to draw your own conclusions.
I am assigned to an extended coverage over the better part of a year in a hundred-year-old haunted building in the downtown area of our Major City. I will spend most of my weekend nights patrolling while they are in the process of re-construction and asbestos removal. Every weekend, I arrive to find different areas inaccessible due to asbestos abatement or other construction needs. The project takes longer as a fair amount of the building is being actively used by businesses, which makes the re-construction trickier.
Many of the changes being made are a post-modern insult to the classic features of the building. It hurts my heart to watch the beautiful and elegant appointments give way to the new stylish and moronic ones. The bathrooms had solid granite stall dividers. Now they feature mundane modern metal ones. Classic one hundred year old chandeliers get replaced by LED moon-ring lights. It’s like putting bright lipstick and rave glasses on the Mona Lisa!
At the beginning of the construction, there are two side hallways that remain intact from the original build-out of the building and that feature the original office configuration. They will both be destroyed before the construction is finished. One of them is on the 12th floor, and even in the brightest light of day, that particular corridor is oppressive and creepy. You simply cannot get enough light into that space to make it feel bright and cheery.
Now I am told tales by the tenants and staff of various deaths associated with the building over its 100 year history: the lawyer shot by his jilted lover on the top floor – it was the long-forgotten trial of the century from the same century that saw the OJ Simpson case. She was also acquitted, despite having confessed to doing it. The young woman in white who purportedly tried to fly from the roof, and failed. The three-year-old who cries in the basements – something to do with childhood measles I’m told. But nowhere do I find any reports that feature the 12th floor. That notwithstanding, there is something dark and brooding in that corridor. If the light is out down that hall at night, I shine my flashlight down it and move on quickly.
The Full Moon:
Now there is one particularly active night, by which I mean the whole building seems to be vibrating with energy and strange things afoot. It is the 13th of the month, and a full moon at that. Wheeled scaffolding in one area under construction is in a different location on every patrol. I never see or hear it move, but it is all over that place that night. Now this has happened before, and remains a creepy curiosity, but this night it was just more than normal.
On the second to top floor, I see what appears to be the shadow of another person coming up behind me, and from the position of its head relative to my own head they are maybe 5 feet (1.5 meters) away when I spin around and see… nothing. Just an empty hallway. Looking back the other way, the second shadow is gone. And so I go on down quickly to the 12th floor.
As I walk down the long main corridor towards the old creepy side corridor, I feel like I am being watched. I look down that creepy pit of darkness without use of a light, and there to my horror see in blackest black against the black the shadow figure of a man standing in the middle of the hall with his head flopped to one side in a most unnatural way. If not for it being at eye level, it really looks like a hanging man. With no hesitation, I shine my flashlight down the hall to get a better look, and see… nothing. Just an empty hallway. I lower the flashlight again, and now it is just a black hallway. The figure does not reappear in the returning darkness.
I’ve had enough of this corridor for the night. I will not patrol it again this shift. I turn to go down the stairs to 11th floor. I have this intense feeling like I should watch my step. Like someone or something wishes to push me down the stairs. I grip the rails on both sides and as I descend, a few steps down, I feel a gust of air at my back. There is NOTHING in the building that can produce a draft on these stairs. This weekend is the only time I ever feel a gust of air on any of the stairs in the building. But now, while feeling like I need to watch my step, I do.
In the early morning shortly after sunrise, I turn the keys over to my relief for the next twelve hours. I say nothing to him of the events of the night. When I return twelve hours later for my next shift, he shares with me having felt unsafe on one of the stairs in the building and even feeling wind at his back on it. He can’t figure out where it came from. I ask him which stairs: Of course, it’s the same stairs from the 12th floor to the 11th floor where I had felt it on the night before.
My first patrol that night, I again feel unsafe on that stair and a much smaller puff of air at the back of my head. I turn and yell, “You’ve gotta do better than that if you really want to scare me!” Nothing else happens this shift. The building returns again to quiet and calm.
After:
Until they tear out this creepy corridor to replace it with a modern office configuration, I always make sure to get all the lights down it turned on before the sun goes down. Some four months later I learn from one of the tenants that a man had hung himself in that hall on the 12th floor during the 1930’s. Somehow, this news came as no surprise to me.
Meanwhile, the scaffolding still moves around at night, even with no one in the building to move it. I once or twice hear a crying sound in the basement. The first time I think it might be a cat, but the building manager assures me there are no cats. It’s the three-year old ghost, he says. He also says he doesn’t believe in ghosts, so…
One tenant relates being approached on the top floor by a dapper older gentleman in a very outdated suit who simply vanishes before saying anything. He thinks it is the shot lawyer. I never see anything there. That floor feels at peace. If he is there, he is not as upset about things as the hungman on the 12th floor.
Now, when they do start to dismantle that original hallway on the 12th floor, the creepy presence brooding down there becomes rather more active and a bit less predictable. I now feel it increasingly out in the main corridor that still remains essentially unchanged from the original build. At first it feels angry towards me. It wants me scared and it wants me hurt.
I dread going to that floor on every patrol. Some patrols I take the elevator from the floor above or below, look out at that floor and then go on to the next floor and leave it at that. Then I start to feel it there in the middle of the main corridor in front of the elevators waiting for me.
If I take the stairs down that are next to the side corridor, I always feel the malicious presence wanting me to slip, trip or fall down those stairs.
But to be honest, I hate going there for a completely different reason too. I cannot begin to express how much I dislike the tacky changes they are making to this classic building. It feels like a violation of her beautiful turn-of-the-century soul.
On one occasion when the creepy, brooding presence seems to be absent I look over what they are doing to the space that had been the side corridor and I shake my head and honestly weep a little. It is such an affront. Suddenly, I realize I’m not alone. That unseen being is there. But it is no longer angry towards me. It seems to have decided I’m not part of the problem, but feel the same way about the changes as it does. It follows me down two more floors before it withdraws. As it leaves it feels to me like it just can’t stay away from the 12th floor – its floor – for very long at all.
This changes my patrols for the remainder of the time I’m working this site. It is never again an angry, creepy experience to visit that floor. This despite the door to the new offices in the area of the old side corridor constantly unlocking itself. I have to relock it at least three times a night.
I often feel its presence a floor or two before the 12th floor, and it stays with me for a floor or two after. Sometimes I feel thoughts in my head – it’s sort of like the experience I often have where I’m about to open my mouth and say something just to have a friend or sibling say the exact thing like they had thought it first and I had somehow gotten it from them before they spoke. Or like the way I always know when my children are lying to me. They really hate that!
It feels like the being wants me to know that he hadn’t killed himself. This was done to him by others. This is repeated often. But then a few months later a quiet admission, “I did it. I can’t take it back.” accompanied with a wave of such a feeling of sorrow, regret and remorse.
Then it feels like it wants to leave here and maybe go home with me. I simply say, “That will never work. My family wouldn’t want you around.” That floor feels very sad the rest of that shift.
I look into it. I can never find his name or likeness or the full story of his hanging. Only the rumor shared by a tenant of his death. I never have a name to call him by.
Since this particular contract ended, I’ve never been back to the building. I suspect if I ever do return, I’ll still have a strange friend waiting for me there.
submitted by /u/Internal-Car8922
[link] [comments]This story is from when I am a security guard used to fill in extra coverage at various sites. I am one of the guys they can send anywhere and during this time I fill in shifts at some 60 different projects. Background: First off, I know not all believe in otherworldly things. No cheese off my biscuit. You do you. I’m not here to tell you you’re wrong. I can only share what I experienced for myself and leave you to draw your own conclusions. I am assigned to an extended coverage over the better part of a year in a hundred-year-old haunted building in the downtown area of our Major City. I will spend most of my weekend nights patrolling while they are in the process of re-construction and asbestos removal. Every weekend, I arrive to find different areas inaccessible due to asbestos abatement or other construction needs. The project takes longer as a fair amount of the building is being actively used by businesses, which makes the re-construction trickier. Many of the changes being made are a post-modern insult to the classic features of the building. It hurts my heart to watch the beautiful and elegant appointments give way to the new stylish and moronic ones. The bathrooms had solid granite stall dividers. Now they feature mundane modern metal ones. Classic one hundred year old chandeliers get replaced by LED moon-ring lights. It’s like putting bright lipstick and rave glasses on the Mona Lisa! At the beginning of the construction, there are two side hallways that remain intact from the original build-out of the building and that feature the original office configuration. They will both be destroyed before the construction is finished. One of them is on the 12th floor, and even in the brightest light of day, that particular corridor is oppressive and creepy. You simply cannot get enough light into that space to make it feel bright and cheery. Now I am told tales by the tenants and staff of various deaths associated with the building over its 100 year history: the lawyer shot by his jilted lover on the top floor – it was the long-forgotten trial of the century from the same century that saw the OJ Simpson case. She was also acquitted, despite having confessed to doing it. The young woman in white who purportedly tried to fly from the roof, and failed. The three-year-old who cries in the basements – something to do with childhood measles I’m told. But nowhere do I find any reports that feature the 12th floor. That notwithstanding, there is something dark and brooding in that corridor. If the light is out down that hall at night, I shine my flashlight down it and move on quickly. The Full Moon: Now there is one particularly active night, by which I mean the whole building seems to be vibrating with energy and strange things afoot. It is the 13th of the month, and a full moon at that. Wheeled scaffolding in one area under construction is in a different location on every patrol. I never see or hear it move, but it is all over that place that night. Now this has happened before, and remains a creepy curiosity, but this night it was just more than normal. On the second to top floor, I see what appears to be the shadow of another person coming up behind me, and from the position of its head relative to my own head they are maybe 5 feet (1.5 meters) away when I spin around and see… nothing. Just an empty hallway. Looking back the other way, the second shadow is gone. And so I go on down quickly to the 12th floor. As I walk down the long main corridor towards the old creepy side corridor, I feel like I am being watched. I look down that creepy pit of darkness without use of a light, and there to my horror see in blackest black against the black the shadow figure of a man standing in the middle of the hall with his head flopped to one side in a most unnatural way. If not for it being at eye level, it really looks like a hanging man. With no hesitation, I shine my flashlight down the hall to get a better look, and see… nothing. Just an empty hallway. I lower the flashlight again, and now it is just a black hallway. The figure does not reappear in the returning darkness. I’ve had enough of this corridor for the night. I will not patrol it again this shift. I turn to go down the stairs to 11th floor. I have this intense feeling like I should watch my step. Like someone or something wishes to push me down the stairs. I grip the rails on both sides and as I descend, a few steps down, I feel a gust of air at my back. There is NOTHING in the building that can produce a draft on these stairs. This weekend is the only time I ever feel a gust of air on any of the stairs in the building. But now, while feeling like I need to watch my step, I do. In the early morning shortly after sunrise, I turn the keys over to my relief for the next twelve hours. I say nothing to him of the events of the night. When I return twelve hours later for my next shift, he shares with me having felt unsafe on one of the stairs in the building and even feeling wind at his back on it. He can’t figure out where it came from. I ask him which stairs: Of course, it’s the same stairs from the 12th floor to the 11th floor where I had felt it on the night before. My first patrol that night, I again feel unsafe on that stair and a much smaller puff of air at the back of my head. I turn and yell, “You’ve gotta do better than that if you really want to scare me!” Nothing else happens this shift. The building returns again to quiet and calm. After: Until they tear out this creepy corridor to replace it with a modern office configuration, I always make sure to get all the lights down it turned on before the sun goes down. Some four months later I learn from one of the tenants that a man had hung himself in that hall on the 12th floor during the 1930’s. Somehow, this news came as no surprise to me. Meanwhile, the scaffolding still moves around at night, even with no one in the building to move it. I once or twice hear a crying sound in the basement. The first time I think it might be a cat, but the building manager assures me there are no cats. It’s the three-year old ghost, he says. He also says he doesn’t believe in ghosts, so… One tenant relates being approached on the top floor by a dapper older gentleman in a very outdated suit who simply vanishes before saying anything. He thinks it is the shot lawyer. I never see anything there. That floor feels at peace. If he is there, he is not as upset about things as the hungman on the 12th floor. Now, when they do start to dismantle that original hallway on the 12th floor, the creepy presence brooding down there becomes rather more active and a bit less predictable. I now feel it increasingly out in the main corridor that still remains essentially unchanged from the original build. At first it feels angry towards me. It wants me scared and it wants me hurt. I dread going to that floor on every patrol. Some patrols I take the elevator from the floor above or below, look out at that floor and then go on to the next floor and leave it at that. Then I start to feel it there in the middle of the main corridor in front of the elevators waiting for me. If I take the stairs down that are next to the side corridor, I always feel the malicious presence wanting me to slip, trip or fall down those stairs. But to be honest, I hate going there for a completely different reason too. I cannot begin to express how much I dislike the tacky changes they are making to this classic building. It feels like a violation of her beautiful turn-of-the-century soul. On one occasion when the creepy, brooding presence seems to be absent I look over what they are doing to the space that had been the side corridor and I shake my head and honestly weep a little. It is such an affront. Suddenly, I realize I’m not alone. That unseen being is there. But it is no longer angry towards me. It seems to have decided I’m not part of the problem, but feel the same way about the changes as it does. It follows me down two more floors before it withdraws. As it leaves it feels to me like it just can’t stay away from the 12th floor – its floor – for very long at all. This changes my patrols for the remainder of the time I’m working this site. It is never again an angry, creepy experience to visit that floor. This despite the door to the new offices in the area of the old side corridor constantly unlocking itself. I have to relock it at least three times a night. I often feel its presence a floor or two before the 12th floor, and it stays with me for a floor or two after. Sometimes I feel thoughts in my head – it’s sort of like the experience I often have where I’m about to open my mouth and say something just to have a friend or sibling say the exact thing like they had thought it first and I had somehow gotten it from them before they spoke. Or like the way I always know when my children are lying to me. They really hate that! It feels like the being wants me to know that he hadn’t killed himself. This was done to him by others. This is repeated often. But then a few months later a quiet admission, “I did it. I can’t take it back.” accompanied with a wave of such a feeling of sorrow, regret and remorse. Then it feels like it wants to leave here and maybe go home with me. I simply say, “That will never work. My family wouldn’t want you around.” That floor feels very sad the rest of that shift. I look into it. I can never find his name or likeness or the full story of his hanging. Only the rumor shared by a tenant of his death. I never have a name to call him by. Since this particular contract ended, I’ve never been back to the building. I suspect if I ever do return, I’ll still have a strange friend waiting for me there. submitted by /u/Internal-Car8922 [link] [comments]
