As The Raven Dreams Podcast - 3 True Scary Night Shift Horror Stories | Terror On The Overnight Shift

Starting point is 00:00:00 Hey there, friends. The subject matter in some of these stories may be considered sensitive, and as always, viewer discretion is advised, and also, if you have a story to send my way, you know the deal. Astherravendreams.com slash submit, or check the links down below, and of course, thank you. I've worked at a locally owned liquor store for quite a while. In fact, I'm almost at a decade working there. I started back when I was 21, and I'm about to be 30. If there's something I can tell you about working at a liquor store, they are crazy people magnets, and those crazy people like to come out at night. When they come out, they crave alcohol, and the only thing standing between them and what they want, at that point in time, is me. So, and that said,

Starting point is 00:01:15 I could probably fill out an entire novel with the weird people that I've encountered in the crazy or strange situations that I've been in. However, just for the sake of brevity, I'll talk about one customer in particular. He was a decent guy. There was just one instance that genuinely freaked me out.

Starting point is 00:01:41 A bit of a backstory about how he came to be a customer. About two years into my working there, the store actually changed its hours to be open later, because the state, or county, not sure which, had approved extended hours for liquor stores. Because of this, we went from closing at around 9 p.m. to closing at midnight. I was cool with working the late shifts, so I got put on the closing, and for the most part, everything was okay. That was until the new hours attracted a very particular man.

Starting point is 00:02:22 We're going to call this man Daryl. Daryl was a very strange guy that was very, very open about the things in his life to people that he barely knew. The first night that he came in, he grabbed a large handle, off the shelf, came up to the register and looked me dead in the eyes. And when I say dead in the eyes, I mean that he seriously looked dead, and that he stared at me with a genuinely cold and aggressive glare. I was taught from a young age that you should be nice to people that you don't know because you never know what they're going through. So, I looked him back and asked how he was doing on that fine evening.

Starting point is 00:03:13 As soon as I said that, he said back in practically a whisper, Don't talk. About 10 or 20 agonizingly silent and awkward seconds passed by, he smiles at me and says something to the effect of, all right, you're pure. At first I thought his don't-talk statement was possibly the start of a robbery, like he was about to pull a gun or something, but then he gave me his half-toothless grin and kind of put my mind at ease.

Starting point is 00:03:50 I rang him up and we moved on. Then, the next time he came in, I asked him what that whole your pure don't-talk thing was a thing, about. He smiled at me and said that he had a gift that if he stared into your eyes long enough, he could tell whether or not you were a good person. I jokingly asked him what he would have done if his so-called gift had decided that I wasn't a good person, and he said, oh, well, I probably would have killed you. This may sound like something that. that would be said by someone that's making a joke or something,

Starting point is 00:04:35 but the tone that he had sent chills down my spine. I could tell that this man was not joking. He shrugged and then followed up with, but we don't have to worry about that because you're pure. I can tell you won't be a problem for me. After this night, he came in several times over the next few months, and for the most part the conversations were, Normal. Well, as normal as they could be with him. He would talk about his job as a janitor,

Starting point is 00:05:10 though he wouldn't tell me where he worked and said it was top secret. He told me about his friends that he went to Iraq with. He would tell me about the ones that didn't make it back. Every once in a while, the short conversations would be broken by him making a really hard grimace and looking away, which told me that he had some internal issues that he was facing. Because of this, I was always polite to him, and I made it a point to keep the conversation as light as I could. There was one night where he came into the store in his underwear and paid in cash. You can guess where he was keeping it. Honestly, that was the night that I almost checked out of this whole thing, but he was incredibly apologetic, and he told me that he had forgot his pants.

Starting point is 00:06:07 And that's it. He had apparently simply forgotten to put pants on. Like I said, it was weird, but I let it go, and we moved forward. The aforementioned event that this story is actually about, took place around six months into Daryl being a regular, almost every other day kind of customer. He and I had built quite the rapport. Hell, after the whole underwear thing, I would say that we were friends, even. He had told me all about his time in the military, mentioned a few of the crazy things he was researching, and he even told me that he had a son somewhere out there that he hadn't seen for nearly a decade. Then, one night in the fall, probably sometime around October or November, he came into the store and he had a look about him that I hadn't seen before.

Starting point is 00:07:10 When I noticed that he seemed off, I said, Hey, Daryl, you okay, buddy? You aren't looking too good tonight. As soon as I asked him this, his face turned beat red and he grabbed one of the bottles off of the shelf, and he chucked it straight at me. It hit the shelf behind me and shattered, knocking several things down in the process. At that moment, I was seriously confused and scared. This guy had always seemed a bit out there, but this level of violence was not like him. I was standing in the corner, petrified, and trying to process what exactly was happening. And Darrell was standing near the shelf, smashing bottle after bottle, and screaming about something that honestly made no sense.

Starting point is 00:08:04 He was screaming about how everything in his life was going to hell, about how everyone he knew was out to kill him. He started listing off what I'm assuming were events of things going wrong in his life, and then he started screaming at me and asking me if I was in on it. He was adamant that someone out there was trying to, quote, unquote, ruin everything in his life that he had worked so hard for. So, at this point in time, it's 11 at night in this small town. I'm standing behind the counter with my back against the wall and my shoes covered in liquor and shards of glass. There were no other customers in the store.

Starting point is 00:08:49 There were no other employees there to help me, as I was the only closer. All the while, this guy that I was sort of acquainted with from his times buying alcohol at our store was shouting every kind of violent profanity at me. And he was starting to convince himself that, for some reason, I was one of the bad guys out to get him. He starts in on how the government has been trying to find him and that the only person he talks to is me, so the fact that they found him meant that I was the one telling them information. Obviously, I had no clue what the hell he was going on about,

Starting point is 00:09:30 but I was scared, and I wasn't sure how far he was going to take it. Thankfully, while I was paralyzed, the owner of the neighboring gas station had apparently called the police. I guess he heard the screaming and the glass shattering because, after about five minutes of endearing the insanity that was unraveling before me, I heard the door opening and the sound of an officer screaming get on the ground. Daryl actually started to turn his anger toward them for just a moment, but I think the weight of the situation may have dawned on him, or he came back to reality, because he started sobbing and quickly got on the ground. After the craziness finally came to an end, the owner of the store showed up and asked me, alongside the police, what happened? I told them I didn't know. I told them everything I knew about Daryl and that he just showed up, enraged, and started drashing the store.

Starting point is 00:10:32 I felt bad, honestly. It was almost midnight, and this poor guy had clearly had an episode. After all was said and done, I found out that Daryl actually did. had a few mental issues, and he was apparently off his meds for a little while. On top of that, he wasn't supposed to be drinking while taking his medication, so the whole thing was a recipe for something to go wrong. Like I said, though, he was fairly normal for most of our interactions. But this one night, he had just apparently snapped,

Starting point is 00:11:10 and I guess I had said the wrong thing to him. My manager and I talked about the situation, and he had decided not to press charges against Daryl so long as he could pay for what was destroyed. I actually pitched in for half of it. I think it was something like maybe $200. Sadly, Daryl only came into the store one more time, and he actually did so to upholding. He said that he had issues, and that he didn't mean to scare me.

Starting point is 00:11:47 He then said that I was the only person to ever really listen to the things that he was going through, and that he really did consider me a friend, and that he never meant to drag me down into his personal hell, as how he put it. I told him that I fully understood. I shook his hand and wished him well. Sadly, that was a good. was the last time that he and I ever interacted. I personally just hope that wherever he is, he's doing all right.

Starting point is 00:12:19 I have a bit of a weird story from back when I used to work nights at a hospital. For some background on this story, this happened a long time ago. This was back when this particular hospital only had one security guard per shift, and they more so had them to make sure nothing ever happened, not because something did, if that makes sense. The hospital was fairly small. It only had a few floors, but back then, in the city that I lived in, the hospital was the biggest building around.

Starting point is 00:13:09 As I said, I was a security guard for the overnight shift, probably because I was the only person that applied for the job. I was a bit of a scrawny kid. I was a few years out of high school with literally no formal training, which again highlights how serious they were about their security guards. Now, this hospital, they had a 24 by 7 visitation policy, which is basically why I had a job. They held a strong policy that was basically

Starting point is 00:13:43 that the family and friends of those in the care of the hospital had unfettered rights to visitation. So, if you had someone that was in the hospital and you got off work at 4 in the morning, you were allowed to check in and see them. While this seems like a terrible idea, they implemented it well enough. So long as you were on the list of approved people, the nurses would sit down with you and go over everything that had been done, and the patient's status.

Starting point is 00:14:15 If the patient was awake, they could visit with them so long as they stayed quiet. Despite this, and, as you can probably imagine, working the overnight shift at a hospital, it was an incredibly do-nothing job. And that said, we had a couple of people that did have to be asked to leave, but nothing too crazy,

Starting point is 00:14:41 mostly just people loitering or saying things that the nurses weren't too fond of. There was one night, though, that something happened that I still, to this day, cannot explain. It was a night about as eventful as the rest of them. Nothing was going on. There were no fires to put out. And the visitor log included somewhere around three names over the past four hours of my shift. I informed the head nurse on duty that I was going to step away from the desk for a few moments for a bathroom break and to get some coffee. She agreed to sit at the desk and make sure that no one got in without signing in on the board, and I walked away.

Starting point is 00:15:30 I go do my business in the restroom, and then I take the stairs down to the cafeteria area, and I put my money in the machine for one of those fancy coffees, which was pretty much just coffee with chocolate powder. I stir it in, I added a little extra milk, and then I head back up. As I'm sitting back down at my post, I noticed that on camera 3, which is the camera for the cafeteria area, there's a guy sitting at one of the tables. He looks fairly normal.

Starting point is 00:16:06 He's wearing a polo-style shirt and jeans, and just sitting at the table staring at nothing in particular. I was a bit confused because I was just down there and I didn't see anybody. But I also wasn't being incredibly attentive, so I thought we may have just missed each other. I asked the head nurse if the guy on the camera had signed in. She looked back at me and said that nobody had walked in the front door while I was gone. I pointed to the screen and clarified that this guy had not walked in while I was away.

Starting point is 00:16:42 She confirmed that he hadn't. It was a bit weird, but I let it go. She walked back to her area, and I sat back down to watch the cameras. After a few minutes of just kind of staring at this guy, he looks up at the camera and just kind of glares. Honestly, it was a bit creepy. He was seriously just staring at the camera with a blank stare, just holding his gaze. As dumb as it may sound, it almost felt like he was staring at me, not the camera.

Starting point is 00:17:22 I call for the head nurse again, and I tell her that I'm going to head back down to talk to this guy. I asked her to watch the screen and make sure that he didn't walk away. She agrees. I get in the elevator and I head down to the seating area and the cafeteria. Much to my surprise? He wasn't there. The entire cafeteria area was completely and totally empty. I did a quick check through the entire area.

Starting point is 00:17:52 I shined my light into the back of the kitchen. I checked every single side room. There was seriously nobody in the room. The chills that I was getting from this were, unbearable. The hair on my arms was seriously standing on end. I walked back to the elevator and headed back to the desk. When I got up there, the nurse looked up and asked me what was going on. I responded by asking her when he walked away from the table. She said that he hadn't walked away and that he was still right there and then looked back at the screen. At that moment, her face went white as snow.

Starting point is 00:18:36 All of the color drained, and she looked like she was about to seriously scream. Apparently, she had been watching the screen the entire time, and she said that the guy hadn't moved. She said that she saw me exit the elevator, walk around the room and check everything, and she thought it was really weird how I had seemingly walked right past the guy, but not said anything to him. She then mentioned that the man was on camera, staring straight at her the entire time,

Starting point is 00:19:11 up until she looked away toward me. It was honestly creepy as hell. This guy seemingly did not exist. I saw him clear as day on the screen. She saw him just the same. But when I personally went to him. down there, he wasn't there. What's worse, I actually got to look at the archived footage the next day, and at no point

Starting point is 00:19:40 was that man in the video. I confirmed the time with that head nurse, and he did not exist. I even watched the clip where I was walking around and checking the area out, but there was nobody sitting there. I don't know if this was some sort of glitch or just. a really freaky anomaly, or maybe it was some kind of ghost that was just being really creepy, but it was honestly the most terrifying thing that ever happened at that job. Nothing like it ever happened again for the five or so years that I worked there,

Starting point is 00:20:17 and for that, I'm actually pretty thankful. I used to work the overnight shift at a certain 24 by 7 store that sold a bit of everything. You know the one. It's big, associated with the color blue and has a big asterisk for their logo. You know which store I'm talking about, but if you don't, then you probably shop at their competitor, the one with the big red circle. I think you get the picture I'm trying to paint here. Anyways, I worked for the store on the overnight shift for a few years, and I generally hated it. the worst part about working overnight in a department store is the customers.

Starting point is 00:21:16 You get some real characters coming into the store at 3 in the morning. Okay, that's a bit of an exaggeration. Most of the people that came in overnight were decent people just trying to get something last minute. That said, the people that were the aforementioned characters were weird. We had a lot of people that came in that were very clearly on some sort of substance or just completely trashed and out of their mind. So, with that being the norm, you got to think that if I have a horror story for you, then it must be something truly terrifying, right? Well, that thought would be correct. There was one night that definitely stands out to me.

Starting point is 00:22:08 one customer that really made an impact on my memory. This actually happened during my first year working there, probably around month nine. One night, me and my new buddy Jack were working, stocking the shelves, and making our comments about customers when we knew they were out of earshot. It's a bad habit and something you shouldn't do in retail, but let's be honest here. We all do it. One of those customers was some guy that was, again, pretty clearly on something. It was easy to tell.

Starting point is 00:22:46 His eyes were wide, he was twitchy, and he looked paranoid about everything around him. Anyways, we watched this guy walk through the aisles like he was trying to find something. We watched as he talked to the tortilla chips, as he squeezed some of the breadloaves. I actually paused and asked. him if he needed any help with anything, being genuine, trying to put the service part into customer service, and he told me that he was fine in a tone that was beyond dismissive. I just shrugged it off, and then went back to shoving items on the shelf. After a few minutes, Jack nudges me and tells me to come with him, so I do.

Starting point is 00:23:34 We walk away from our stock point and into another aisle where Jack, tells me that the guy from earlier, that paranoid guy that was squeezing the bread, looked like he was following a woman that had passed by, and he wanted to make sure we were ready just in case something happened. I mentioned to him that we should get a CSM involved just in case, and he agreed, grabbing his walkie and asking for CSM to come to the section we were in. We were there standing off to the side, pretending to put more stuff on the shelf, more so shuffling items that already existed, when we hear a woman shriek. We both turned to see what the hell was going on, and we seriously see this guy walking away from the woman with a baby in his arms.

Starting point is 00:24:30 This dude had apparently waited for the woman to not be looking at the cart and snatched her infant son out of the seat and he was walking away nonchalant like it was his kid. He wasn't running or making a full-on getaway. He was just walking away from the woman that was screaming at him to give back her child. Obviously, the commotion caught the attention of everyone nearby, which was pretty much just employees at this time of night. Since Jack and I saw what happened,

Starting point is 00:25:07 we went over to block the guy from getting too far. I started telling the guy that he needed to stop and to give back the child. Jack kept actually trying to physically stop the guy. It was pretty clear to me that he was getting agitated. The look on his face went from calm to angered, and he started muttering something. something about how we were trying to take his son from him. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, he reaches his hand into his pocket,

Starting point is 00:25:40 pulls out a small switchblade-looking knife, and he shoves it into Jack's arm as hard as he could, and then continues to walk off slowly while Jack is screaming bloody murder, and the entire crowd of employees is freaking out. At this point, adrenaline. kind of kicked in, and I knew that I had to do something. I pretty much threw myself onto this guy's back, and started trying to choke him out as best I could. I'm not really a strong guy or anything,

Starting point is 00:26:15 but I used to watch wrestling a lot with my uncle, and while that may have been fake as hell, I guess I learned a thing or two. So, at this point, this guy has successfully stolen a child and was attempting to leave the suit, store had stabbed my co-worker and was now being choked out by me, all in the matter of around two minutes. If I were to say this was the longest two or so minutes of my life, it would be an understatement. But, thankfully, this story does have a happier ending than some. Once my

Starting point is 00:26:52 co-workers saw me trying to take the man down, they stepped in to get the child out of his arms. It actually took a couple of us to get this guy on to the ground, yet another side effect of being on certain substances. We got the baby back to the lady, but obviously asked her to stick around to talk to the police. The CSM finally did get back to the section, and started tending to Jack, who, thankfully was all right,

Starting point is 00:27:23 just in immense pain with a knife sticking out of his bicep. Once the cops got there, I had to give a statement on what happened. I explained the whole situation, and what I told them was backed up by the security camera footage. In the end, he was hauled off, she got her baby back, Jack got some time off of work, and a few stitches, and I was commended for my bravery, which, no. It wasn't bravery. I was freaking out.

Starting point is 00:27:57 It was pure adrenaline and me honestly having no idea what the hell I was supposed to do. Thankfully, though, I guess I chose the right option. So that was a collection of three. Actually pretty terrifying night shift stories. I quite enjoyed all three of these. I do feel sorry for Darrell, honestly. Poor guy obviously had some mental issues going on. Hopefully got those solved.

Starting point is 00:28:34 The second one with the cafeteria in the hospital, It's creepy as hell. I have no idea how I would react if I saw that. Hopefully it was just an anomaly on the camera. Maybe footage was messed up and playing back. I don't know. Creepy as hell. And then the last one with the Blue Store,

Starting point is 00:28:53 which Walmart, because of course it was. I don't know how I would react in that situation. I think I would panic. That person that actually jumped in to take him down, the guy down, I mean, I know they said it was adrenaline, but that is bravery, because if I saw my co-worker get stabbed, granted it was in the arm, so it wasn't terrible, but this guy stealing a child, stabbing people and just walking away like nothing happened? Um, I think I would start to panic.

Starting point is 00:29:24 Though I'm not in the situation. I may actually jump in. Who knows, right? What would you all do at that case? Um, yeah. Have any of you worked a terrifying night shift job, or had experiences? during a night shift. If so, please send them my way. I would love to feature your story

Starting point is 00:29:43 in a video, just like this one. You can go to as the ravendreams.com slash submit or check the links down below. You can also put them on my subreddit. That's an acceptable place. Or just email them straight to me. Your decision, you send it my way.

Starting point is 00:29:58 I'll feature it. That's how this goes. If you like the video, please hit that thumbs up button. You can also hit the subscribe button. If you're new to the channel, and if you want to support the channel more, you can hit join or go to be.

Starting point is 00:30:07 patreon.com slash as the raven dreams, where for $1 a month you can get early access to all of my content and support me in my efforts to continue doing this. Always appreciated and always optional. That said, my friends, I hope you have a beautiful day. I hope I'll see you on the next video. But, until then, sleep well.

As The Raven Dreams Podcast - 3 True Scary Night Shift Horror Stories | Terror On The Overnight Shift

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