Working the graveyard shift already has certain disadvantages: It's quiet and lonely, mostly. And this is to say nothing of the fact that the night is dark and full of terrors, either imagined, real, or unexplained. Some night shift workers took to Reddit to share their incredibly spooky stories of things that go bump in the night.
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1. TheRealEddieMurphy has a few bloody questions.
I work in the ER and I frequently work overnight shifts.
One night I was sitting at the front desk by myself and I heard the front doors open but nobody walks in. So I get up to go see what the hell is going on or if anyone needs help. I go into the vestibule as it's empty and I want to see if anyone is outside. Nobody is there, not even any vehicles. At this point i shrug it off, but then I look down and see a massive pool of blood, like trauma level 1 massive. I immediately call the nurses to come up and we all scout out the area.
We didn't find anyone and to this day I wonder if that person survived. Just wish I could have helped. Very creepy experience.
2. Greasy put a ring on it.
Worked night shift at an amusement park. I was working during the winter, while the park was closed for the season, and i was 1 of 2 people in the entire park and the other was right next to me. We were driving around and the phones started ringing on like every ride and in every building we drove by. And i dont mean all at the same time either. But it was like the ringing phones were following us. If it was some sort of prank it was pretty impressive, because each phone had a different number and were talking like 25-30 phones were ringing. Creepy as hell.
3. Gettin' scared like maggielewiecki is FOR THE BIRDS.
I used to work overnight shifts at a restaurant with a drive-thru that I was also in charge of. There was a bird who cooed into the drive-thru speaker (and into my headset) that kept scaring the shit out of me until I finally realized what it was.
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4. And the dead shall rise, such as in this prophecy from ziadohoo.
Not my story, but when my grandma was younger, she worked at a hospital for some time as a chemist. At one point she is in the morgue doing whatever chemical stuff that she did, when she hears a noise behind her and turns around to find one of the dead guys sitting up facing her.
Turns out that if you only strap down the legs of a corpse, when it goes through rigor mortis, it will "sit up."
5. At the sound of the beep, vincentvanbr0 will be dooooooomed.
Used to work third shift as a custodian. Not too many things happened, I ended up scaring myself most of the time, but this is downright the scariest thing that happened.
It was late, I don't remember exactly what time, but definitely at an hour where it would be extremely unusual for anyone to be in the school, probably 2-3 AM. As I explain this next part, you'll be able to piece together what's going to happen next, but I can't tell the story without explaining. Anyway, to get on the intercom, you have to punch in a code on a phone, any phone, in the building, then wait for the beep and then you can speak. Well I'm doing my thing, all alone in a large building, when I hear that beeeeep over the loud speaker. I have never felt so frozen in my life, even my mind just quit working. It's like I left my body for a second. I didn't hear a phone hang up like you usually would, so I held out hope that it was some malfunction. I sprinted to the administrative offices, locked all the doors, locked myself in an office, turned off the lights and called my boss. She kinda laughed at me and told me to calm down, that there was nothing to worry about, no one could get in without a key, there were silent alarms if anyone did happen to break in and the police would be alerted, which they hadn't.
I wasn't taking any chances though, so I stayed barricaded in the admin offices until teachers started coming in around 5 AM. Nothing came of it.
6. Those dolls are creepy in the daytime, gedri13.
Used to work night shift at Toys-R-Us. At night they would turn half of the lights off to save on power, and the girls toy section....oh god the girls toy section at night was so fucking creepy. You're carrying a box down the aisle and it's perfectly silent, then the motion sensors on the dolls will catch your movement and ALL AT ONCE the toys will turn and follow you with their lifeless eyes before screaming or laughing or crying in that horrible electronic box way and flailing about. I am a fully grown, 6'4, 300 lbs hairy assed man, and I have never noped my way out as fast as getting away from that section at night.
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7. Follow the lead of this story from Pwatopus and always believe people who hallucinate.
This isn't fair, because I work night shift in a psych facility.
Basically, I've seen a lot of things working at night. From people coming in high and psychotic, to people huddling naked in the corner of a room whispering.
Scariest thing I have ever seen was a patient coming out to the nurses station and saying someone is outside of their window looking in. From admission they had been experiencing pretty strong hallucinations so we assumed this was another one.
To provide some ease, we went into the room to verify that there was no one there and provide them some relief and comfort.
We have removable draw curtains in rooms and they were shut. Walked up to it and asked if it was this window. Patients told us that it was. Drew it open and had quite possibly the biggest scare of my life.
THERE WAS SOMEBODY THERE WIDE EYED AND STARING RIGHT BACK AT US THROUGH THE WINDOW.
He ran off when we saw him and we ended up calling the police as well as security.
They never found the guy and we never saw him again.
Still creeps me out to this day.
8. But paperzombie_ brings up the biggest question in the universe: are dogs just stupid, or can they see ghosts?
I've worked overnight at a cage-free dog facility. They needed me to "sleep over" when they had dogs with medical needs that need to be monitored in a room overnight during the holidays. It was a big room in the middle of the building, so no windows. There was a queen-size bed for me to hang out on/keep some pups up with me on while I read and watched them. Like I said, it's cage-free dog boarding so it's actually a pretty great deal: I get to hang out with and monitor a bunch of big, older dogs all night while I get some work done on my laptop.
Now you know that stupid thing dogs do when they wake you up, barking at some random noise that, to you, appears to be the dark corner of the room or your open bedroom door? Imagine that and multiply it by 15. Same spot in the room, too. Every single one of them. Some of them even had their hackles up. Barking directly at the foot of the bed.
9. Give Gopherbashi some room.
I work in an ICU. When there's a code blue in the unit, it automatically goes through to our pagers as soon as someone in the room hits the big emergency button on the wall.
Middle of the night, we get three code blue calls to room 117 within a span of 20 minutes.
We don't have a room 117. It's not that room 117 isn't a patient room - there isn't a room 117. Period. Not even on the building blueprints. It simply doesn't exist. Never found out what caused it, and it never happened again.
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10. You know this story is going to have ghosts in it once Teddy_thatsmyname uses the phrase "Victorian house."
I used to work the overnight shift at a group home for children. It was a creepy old Victorian house and it certainly had a history as a couple children had passed away there over the 50 years it was open. One night, around 3 am, all of a sudden a tissue box went flying off of the TV in the staff room, no apparent cause. I sat there shaking for a minute and then thought to go check on the kid in the room on the other side of the wall. As I went to the door, the kid fell out of bed all of a sudden and immediately woke up. He looked at me and said "did you see it? That's what's been getting me. The dark thing." I didn't work too many overnights after that.
11. According to e_lizz, the difference between a bank and a savings & loan is that a savings & loan doesn't have a ghost.
My husband used to do overnight security for a bank. If someone messed with any of the doors from the outside a signal would go off in the patrol truck, but regardless every hour he'd have to walk the perimeter of the building. A few times he came across one of the back doors open just a few inches. The signals didn't go off and it was especially bizarre because that particular door only opened from the inside. He'd report it, higher ups and local PD would come check it out, and they could never figure out how the door was opening. Happened about 5 or 6 times in the time he worked there.
12. Come see sailor_doctorwho for spooktacular savings.
Worked overnight changing grocery store prices.
We were all convinced the place was haunted. Those big, heavy, swinging doors to the back would literally open all the way and nobody was there.
Cans and other products would FLY off the shelves. Like scoot, then go all the way to the other side of the aisle before hitting the ground.
My second day, I was working in the freezer ice cream section and heard a triple knock from the back. Decided to answer back. I knocked twice. The knocking continued for awhile and followed me down the doors.
I found out later that there is no access back there. It's a solid wall.
And the one that made me jumpy as Fuck if I was alone was when I went to catch a frog that had gotten inside. It went underneath a shelf, so I got on my knees and without looking because I'd seen him right at the edge, I was feeling around for it. AND SOMETHING GRABBED MY HAND! I screamed as loud as I could, sprang backwards on my butt, knocked stuff off the shelf behind me, and ran out the door.
One of the managers ran after me and asked what happened. I told her. She goes, "Oh. Yeah. That happens here sometimes. Nobody has been hurt though."
I then stood stopped forward so my feet were away from the shelves. That was a very terrifying place.
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13. "ICU, ghost!" - DyingLion
I've always worked as a night nurse and have seen some creepy shit. One night, I had a patient die unexpectedly in their room. I found her while she was gasping for her last breath and quickly called the Code Team to intervene and get her to the ICU. She did not make it. But shortly after, the patient call light in her now empty room kept going off frequently. I would answer the call light, go into the room to try and troubleshoot what was setting it off, but never found anything amiss. Finally, after like the 10th time it went off in an hour, I answered the call light using the speaker and addressed my now dead patient. "Mrs. SoAndSo, you have passed on and this is no longer your room". The call light stopped ringing after that!
14. One time lancingtrumen saw a night nurse, but not the fun kind.
Nurse working overnight in a hospital that has been around since the 1850s. There is the spirit of a (assumed) nurse that used to work here that wakes patients up for medications. We have patients that come up to the nurses station and ask what medications they need as the, "nurse in the white scrubs and hat told me to come up." Multiple patients staying in the same room at different times have come up and asked me this. What the strangest thing to me is that no one questions why a woman in an outdated nurses uniform ( wearing caps while working is not the norm here anymore) they have never met is waking them up. One of the more eerie situations that frequently happens is when patients ask about the building being haunted. When I talk about the friendly ghost a door nearby always closes or opens, depending on its original position.
15. MrsAlmondbutter tells the tale of a spirit doomed to walk the earth and do menial office chores.
I work at a transitional living home for young women recovering from addictions and I used to do quite a few night shifts. This is a very old house and there was a story about a ghost named Charlotte who lived there. One night I was looking for a binder on the shelves in the office, but it wasn't there. This was strange because the binders are rarely anywhere else. All the girls were sleeping, the office is always locked, and we are single staffed on night shifts. I went downstairs for a bit to look for the binder and at some point went back to the office....the damn binder was back on the shelf. And then the paper shredder just started going off. I noped right the f out of the office for the rest of my shift.
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16. Salmoncubes worked at a mill that made cotton, the fabric of our afterlives.
Worked night shift security at a cloth mill that's been around since the American Civil War. Had a good few spooks while I was there, but two really stand out.
First, around 5AM on a Saturday, I was patrolling the bridge that goes out over the river, and as I was going to unlock the gate to the bridge, I totally froze. I felt an incredible unnatural presence and looked forward to see, underneath a dim light, some kind of distortion in the air. You know cloaking devices in movies where the car or ship or whatever phases out and looks like a mirror of what's behind it? Exactly like that, but with some kind of blackened aura around it. I waited a moment, staring at it. It slowly "undid" itself and I began to calm. I went about with my rounds, trying not to think about whatever it was.
Second one happened about two weeks after. I was walking through the cotton opening room, and I was overcome with that same feeling that somehing unnatural or malevolent was nearby. I looked ahead and saw a small tuft of cotton floating in the air. Cotton often floats about in there, but this tuft was dead still. I walked towards it, eyes locked, waiting for it to move. No circulating air at that time of night. I waved my hands above, below, and to both sides of it, and yet it still didn't move. It was totally frozen in place. I turned to walk away, made a few steps, and whipped my head back to it, and it was lying on the floor. I have no idea what could have kept it suspended like that.
17. AporcyphalCanon was the victim of a classic prank by a toilet ghost.
Used to be a custodian in an elementary school. I was alone for the last two hours of the shift. Every single toilet in oje bathroom flushed at once and then in a pattern. They were not auto flushing. I noped the fuck out of there, didn't even stop to punch out.
18. While daGonz thought it was a ghost, the truth was much scarier.
I used to work overnight phone support for enterprise customers. Specifically those in apac. Frankly our market segment there was very very small. On average each person working got 3-5 calls a week.
The office building we were in used to be a shipping receiving warehouse and had horrendous sodium vapor halogens. So we petitioned to have the lights turned out at night.
This one evening I was watching Frailty with headphones while waiting for my next call. I remember it being a very tense moment in the movie, and I heard a growling over my shoulder. I quickly check, nothing there, chocked it up to the movie.
A couple of minutes later, I hear the growling again. It's not a dog it's not the movie. I tap one of my coworkers ask if they hear it too. He does, so we start searching.
I end up the far corner of the cubicle farm area and I hear the growling again, and it's right behind me. I turn around and there's nothing there. The growling is right in front of me. I peek into the large managers cube and there's the growling! It the security guard asleep under the desk.
This jackass, picked the only section of the building that had people staffed overnight and the only section that required badged entry. The next morning on my way out of the building, I told the security guard that there were some odd noises coming a managers cube. He went pale and said "I'll have to add that to my report"
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