Just Creepy: Scary Stories - 5 Terrifying Night Shift Encounters That Still Haven't Been Explained

Episode Date: March 23, 2026

5 Terrifying Night Shift Encounters That Still Haven't Been ExplainedLinktree: https://linktr.ee/its_just_creepyStory Credits:►Sent in to https://www.justcreepy.net/Timestamps:00:00 Intro00:00:18 Story 100:08:44 Story 200:17:27 Story 300:29:56 Story 400:46:28 Story 5Music by:►'Decoherence' by Scott Buckley - released under CC-BY 4.0. www.scottbuckley.com.auBusiness inquiries:►[e-mail]#scarystories #horrorstories💀As always, thanks for watching! 💀

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I worked nights at a pharmaceutical distribution warehouse for about two years. started in March of 2022, put in my notice the following February. The building was huge, roughly 300,000 square feet of shelving, conveyor systems, and cold storage units spread across a single floor. During the day it ran with maybe 80 employees. At night it was just me and a guy named Terrence, who covered the opposite end of the building. We barely overlapped. We'd see each other at shift change, sometimes on the radio, that was about it. The building was big enough that you could go four or five hours without running into another person.

You got used to it. The hum of the refrigeration units, the way the conveyor belt would tick and settle as it cooled down, the fluorescence in certain sections that buzzed at a frequency you felt more than heard. It became background noise. Comfortable almost. This was a Tuesday night, February 7th into the 8th, 2023. I came on at 10 o'clock, same as all. always. Terence briefed me on nothing. Quiet night, no issues. The loading dock refrigeration

unit on the south wall had been cycling loud, but facilities knew about it. I poured my first coffee at 1015, started my first interior perimeter walk at 10.30, and was back at the guard station by 1140. Standard. Everything locked, everything where it was supposed to be. My second interior walk started at 150 in the morning. I moved south to north, checked the cold storage corridors first, then swung down toward the loading dock. The dock is a long corridor running along the entire south wall, about 240 feet end to end, with 10 roll-up doors spaced evenly apart. During the day it's loud and busy. At night it smells like rubber and diesel, and it's completely silent, except for whatever the refrigeration units are doing. I'd walk

I walked it maybe 400 times. I knew every light fixture, every crack in the floor. I got to door 7 at approximately 205 in the morning. The door was up about six inches off the ground, not all the way, just enough that cold air was coming in along the bottom edge. I could see it because the exterior dock lights were on outside and a thin line of pale yellow light was cutting straight across the concrete floor in front of me. My first thought was that somebody on the day crew left it unsubesied.

crew left it unsecured by accident. It happened maybe three or four times in the two years I'd worked there. I crouched down, grabbed the inside handle along the bottom rail, and that's when I noticed the temperature of the air. It was February in central Ohio, so obviously it was cold outside. The forecast that night had us sitting around 34 degrees, but the air coming through that gap was significantly colder than that, like standing in front of an open chest freezer. The kind of cold that hits your eyes. I pulled my hand back from the door. I got on the radio and called Terrence, told him I had a door unsecured at the south dock, and asked if he'd had any issues on his end. He said, no, nothing. I told him about the temperature of the air, and he paused for a second and

said, just pull it down and log it, which was the right call. That was the correct call, and I knew it. I didn't pull it down yet. I stood there looking at that line of light on the floor, and I kept thinking about the cold. It was the kind of thing that shouldn't have bothered me as much as it did. So I got out my flashlight, a streamlight protack, 200 lumens, and I got down on the floor on my stomach and shone it through the six-inch gap to look outside. The exterior apron was about 12 feet of concrete beyond each door, then a gravel service lane, then a chain-link fence roughly 40 feet out from the building. Beyond the fence was the employee parking lot.

I could see the apron. I could see the gravel. I could see the fence. There was a man standing at the fence. He was on the outside of it, not climbing it, just standing with his hands at his sides. He was wearing a dark jacket, looked black or navy, hard to tell,

and his face was turned toward the building, toward Door 7 specifically. He wasn't moving at all, not stamping his feet, not looking around, just standing there, completely still, looking at this door. I got up fast and took two steps back. I radioed Terrence and told him I had a possible trespasser on the south exterior at the fence line and to go ahead and call it in to the county non-emergency line. He asked if the person was on the property. I said no, outside the fence. He said, okay, he'd call it in and come down to me. I stayed put and watched the gap under the door.

the line of light. I told myself the man was probably homeless, cutting through the area looking for somewhere warm. People climbed that fence occasionally. In two years it had happened twice that I knew of, and both times it was someone just looking for shelter, no threat, no issue. But the cold air kept bothering me. Terrence came around the east end of the dock corridor at 2-11. I could see him from about 150 feet away, and I waved him over and pointed at the door. He nodded. crouched down and shone his own light through the gap. He looked for about five seconds. Then he looked up at me. Nobody there, he said. I crouched and looked. He was right. The apron was empty. The fence was empty. The parking lot beyond it was empty. Terrence stood up and grabbed the door handle and pulled

it down all the way and latched it. He wasn't making a big deal out of it. He slapped me on the shoulder and said something like, 2 a.m. We'll do that to you. headed back to his section. I laughed a little because what else do you do? I wrote it up in the log. Door 7 found unsecured at 0205. Secured at 0211, possible trespasser observed at south fence line, unconfirmed. I finished the walk and got back to the guard station at 240, poured my third coffee, sat down at the monitor station. The exterior camera covering the south dock was mounted above door 5, angled to take in the full apron and the fence line. I pulled up the last 45 minutes of footage on a habit.

I did this after anything I logged, just to cover myself. The man was on the footage. He had been standing at the fence since 154 in the morning. Eleven minutes before I found the door, just standing there at the fence line, completely still, facing door 7. I watched through to the part where Terence said there was nobody there. On the footage, at 2.11, the man was,

was still at the fence. He did not walk away. He did not turn around. He did not climb the fence or move in any direction. Between the frame at 2.13 and 58 seconds and the frame at 2.14 and 0 seconds, a two-second gap in the footage which I don't have an explanation for. He was simply gone. I watched that clip six times. I'm not a person who believes in things I can't explain. I'm genuinely not. But what I keep coming back to, even now, isn't the man disappearing, and it isn't the two-second gap in the footage. It's the cold air coming through that six-inch gap. Because whatever the outside temperature was that night, he had been standing at that fence for 11 minutes before I found the door, and when I laid down

on that floor and shone my light through, he was facing directly back at me. The gap was six inches off the ground. I don't know how he could have seen a flashlight beam through a six-inch gap from 40 feet away in the dark. I don't know why the air was as cold as it was. I put in my two weeks the following Friday, February 10th. I told the site manager it was the hours. It was easier than explaining the rest of it. And honestly, I'm not sure what I would have said. Everything I experienced that night has a possible explanation on its own. It's only when you put all of it together that it stops making sense. I still think about the cold. I worked the overnight cleaning crew at Riverside Mall for 14 months. Started in September of 2021, left the

following November. The job was straightforward, clock in at 11, clean the food court and common areas on the upper level, then work your way down to the lower level by around three in the morning. Be done and out before the early maintenance guys came in at six. You used a cart with a big yellow mop bucket, a backpack vacuum, a flatbed for trash bags. You learned which stores had bright security lights that bled into the corridor and which sections went almost completely dark at night. You learned the sounds the building made. There were four of us on the crew total. Me, a woman named Gloria, who always worked the anchor store corridors, a guy named Phil who did the restrooms and service hallways, and a supervisor named Darren who floated between all of us, mostly just checking

that things were getting done. We weren't really a team in any meaningful sense. We had radios, and we'd occasionally cross paths near the trash compactor, but most nights I could go three or four hours without seeing any of them. The mall was dead quiet at night, not peaceful quiet, the kind of quiet that reminds you that a building designed for thousands of people is now empty. The storefronts were dark behind their security gates. The fountain in the center atrium was turned off. The food court chairs were all flipped up onto the tables. Walking through it at two in the morning, felt like walking through a photograph of a place.

This was a Wednesday night, October 19th into the 20th, 2021. About six weeks into the job. I was working the upper food court around 1.45 in the morning, mopping the tile between the Panda Express and the Pretzel Place, which was mindless enough work that you kind of go somewhere else mentally. I had earbuds in, one ear only, which was the rule. You had to keep one ear free for the radio. I was about halfway through the section when I noticed someone sitting at one of the tables.

This gave me a start. The chairs were all supposed to be up. I'd put them up myself when I started the section, which was my first task every night. flip the chairs, then mop, then flip them back down once the floor dried. All the chairs in the food court were up, except this one. A chair at a foretop near the railing that overlooked the lower level atrium was down, and a man was sitting in it. My first thought was that I'd somehow missed that one chair.

My second thought was to wonder how someone got into the mall at 1.45 in the morning. He was maybe 50 or somewhere in that range. heavy set wearing a gray zip-up sweatshirt. He was just sitting there with his hands on the table, not on his phone, not eating anything. Just sitting, facing slightly away from me, looking out toward the atrium. I pulled out my earbud and said, Hey, sorry, the mall's closed. I'm going to have to ask you to head out. He turned and looked at me. He nodded like he understood, and looked back toward the atrium. I stood there for a second. Sir, I need you to leave the building.

He nodded again, same slow nod. Didn't move. I got on the radio and told Darren I had someone in the upper food court who needed to be escorted out. Darren said he'd be there in ten minutes. He was all the way down in the lower level near the movie theater. Ten minutes felt like a long time. I kept mopping, slowly, because I didn't really want to get closer to the guy, but I also didn't want to stand there staring at him.

He didn't move for the same. a whole ten minutes, hands on the table, looking at the atrium. Darren showed up and I pointed, and Darren walked over and talked to the man. I watched from about 30 feet away. Darren spoke to him for maybe two minutes, and the man stood up, slowly, like his joints hurt. And Darren walked him toward the East Service exit. Before he went through the door, the man turned and looked back at me. I don't know how to explain this part without it sounding dramatic, and I don't mean it dramatically. He just looked at me the way you'd look at someone you'd met before and were trying to place. Calm, almost.

And then he went through the door. I told myself it was a homeless person who'd found a way in from the outside. It happened sometimes. There was a loading corridor on the east side that had a door with a broken latch that facilities kept forgetting to fix. Darren came back and confirmed the man was out, and the door was propped, probably how he got in. and that was the end of it. I finished mopping, flipped the chairs back down, moved on. I got to the lower level around 2.45.

The lower level food court was smaller, mostly just a subway, and a smoothie place that had closed down and was being used as storage. This section was darker than the upper level because two of the overhead light panels had been out for a couple of weeks, and facilities kept pushing the replacement job. You got used to it. You knew where the dark patches were. At approximately 3.10 in the morning, I was mopping near the smoothie place when I heard a chair scrape across tile.

I stopped. The sound had come from behind me, deeper into the lower food court, in one of the darker sections near the exterior windows. I turned around and looked. There was a man sitting at a table, gray zip-up sweatshirt, hands on the table, facing the windows. I stood there for a long moment. I told myself it was a different person. The mall was big. The east door wasn't the only way in. Maybe there were two of them. It happened. It was a shelter situation.

People knew which places had broken latches. Sir, I said, mall's closed. He turned and looked at me, and I knew it was the same man. I don't know how he got back in. Darren had walked him out a door on the opposite end of the building from where I was standing, maybe 25 minutes earlier. The lower level had its own exterior exit. but they were all alarmed.

None of them had gone off. I called Darren on the radio. I kept my voice as flat as I could. I told him the man was back, lower level food court, near the subway. Darren sounded annoyed and said he'd come back over. I didn't approach the man this time. I just stayed where I was with my mop and watched him.

He sat with his hands on the table and looked at the windows. Outside the windows was the mall parking lot, empty, lit with orange sodium lamps. It took Darren seven minutes to get to me. When he arrived, he looked toward the table, and I pointed and Darren walked over. The man was not there. I had not looked away. I had been watching that table for seven straight minutes without moving. There was no one at it. Darren looked at me, and I looked at Darren, and neither of us said anything for a moment. Then Darren said, You sure it was the same guy? I said yes. Darren called Phil on the radio and had him checked the service corridors and the restrooms on the lower level.

Phil came back negative on all of it. We walked the lower level together, all three of us, and found nothing. All the exterior doors were secure, alarms intact, no sign of anyone. I did not finish my shift that night. I told Darren I wasn't feeling well, which was at least partially true, and he let me go at 3.45 instead of staying until 6. I sat in my car in the parking lot for a few minutes before driving home. I want to be clear that I don't think anything supernatural happened. I still don't. I think there's an explanation, and I just don't know what it is. The man knew the building well enough to move around inside it without being seen or triggering any alarms.

He had been in there before. He'd found spots where the camera coverage was bad and the lights were out. That's the explanation that makes the most sense, and I've mostly been there. made peace with it. What I haven't made peace with and what I still think about occasionally is something I noticed when Darren walked over to the empty table that second time. The chair the man had been sitting in was warm. Darren touched the seat to confirm there'd been someone in it, and he pulled his hand back and looked at it, and then looked at me. Neither of us mentioned it out loud. There was nothing to say, but the chair was warm the way a chair is warm when someone has been

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Started in January of 2023, left the following December. The shift ran from 11 at night to 7 in the morning, which sounds brutal, but you adjust to it faster than you'd think. By March I barely noticed the hours. The job itself wasn't complicated. Check in any late arrivals. Run the nightly audit reports around 3 in the morning. Answer the phone.

Restock the coffee station. a walk-through of the lobby and first floor every couple of hours. The hotel had four floors, 86 rooms, a small indoor pool on the second floor that was always locked after 10, and a fitness room that guests used at all hours. It sat just off the highway interchange in a mid-sized town in western Pennsylvania, the kind of location that got a lot of long-haul truckers, traveling salespeople and families stopping overnight on road trips. Most nights were quiet.

the last check-ins were done, usually by midnight or one at the latest, the lobby was empty, and the phones went still, and it was just me and the hum of the ice machine down the hall, and whatever I had on my laptop. I had a clear line of sight to the front entrance from the desk, and behind me was a monitor showing a split view of eight security cameras, the lobby, the front entrance, the parking lot, and the four hallway cameras, one per floor. I looked at that monitor probably a hundred times a night without thinking about it. This was a Thursday into Friday, September 14th into the 15th, 2023. I came on at 11, and the evening clerk, a woman named Sandra, told me it had been a slow night. Forty-one rooms occupied, no issues. One guest on the third floor

had called down about a noisy air-conditioning unit, but maintenance wasn't going to touch it until morning. She handed me the key log and her clipboard and left at 1110. By one in the morning I'd had two calls, both guests asking for extra towels. I'd done my first lobby walkthrough and my audit reports were queued up and running. I was about 20 minutes into a podcast when the front door opened. The man who walked in was somewhere between 55 and 65, medium height, a little thick through the middle, wearing dark slacks and a plain blue button-down shirt, with the sleeves rolled to the elbows. He was carrying a single bag, a soft-sided overnight bag in black, over his shoulder, no luggage cart, no other bags. He walked up to the desk at a normal pace and set his bag down,

and said he needed a room. I asked if he had a reservation. He said no, walk in. I told him that wasn't a problem and asked for his name. He said, George Merchant. He said it a beat late, like he had to think about it for a second. I noticed it, but I didn't make anything of it. People are tired at one in the morning. I looked up availability, and we had plenty. On a Thursday, we usually did, and I gave him a standard king on the second floor, room 214. I asked for a credit card for incidentals. He said he'd like to pay cash for the room, and put a $50 bill on the desk for the incidental hold. I told him we actually required a card for the hold, and he nodded slowly and produced a visa from his wallet and slid it across the desk without looking at me. I ran the card. It went

through. I printed the paperwork, activated two key cards, slid them into the little paper sleeve, wrote the room number on the outside, and handed it to him. He took the key sleeve, picked up his bag, and walked toward the elevator. He didn't ask where the elevator was. which was around the corner and not visible from the front desk. He just walked directly to it. I almost said something. I almost said, Do you know where you're going?

But I didn't, because maybe he'd stayed here before, or maybe he'd just seen the sign for the elevators that was on the wall above the corridor entrance. I went back to my podcast. Around 150 in the morning, I did my second walk-through of the lobby and the first floor corridor.

Everything was fine. I came back to the desk and glanced at the, the camera monitor like I always did. The second floor hallway camera was positioned at the far end of the corridor, angled back toward the elevator. Room 214 was near the middle of that hallway, on the left side. I could see the door to 214 from the camera. The hallway was empty. The little light above 214's door that indicated an occupied room was on. That was normal. I looked at the other camera feeds. Parking lot was empty. Lobby empty. First floor hallway had no one in it. I looked at the third floor hallway camera. There was a man standing in the hallway. He was at the far end near the

stairwell door, facing away from the camera. Dark slacks, blue button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up. I watched him for a moment. He wasn't moving, just standing there about 10 feet from the stairwell door, facing the wall. My immediate thought was. that it was another guest. The third floor had more occupied rooms than the second that night. It was possible a guest had gotten up for some reason and wandered into the hall, but he was just standing there, not walking, not looking at his phone, not checking a door number, just standing and facing the wall at 1.50 in the morning. After about 40 seconds, he turned and walked to the stairwell door and went through it. I watched the camera. A minute passed. He didn't appear on the

second-floor hallway camera. He didn't appear on the first-floor hallway camera. I checked the fourth-floor camera. Nothing. I picked up the phone and dialed room 214. It rang seven times. Nobody answered. I told myself the man on the third floor was a different guest. It was a common enough shirt. The slacks were dark and half the men in that hotel were probably wearing dark slacks. I turned back to my laptop. At 2.30 I ran my audit, and at three I did my next walk-through, first floor and lobby, everything normal. I came back and got more coffee from the station in the breakfast area and sat back down. I looked at the monitor. Fourth floor hallway, far end near the stairwell door. Man in dark slacks and a blue button down with the sleeves rolled up,

facing away from the camera. I watched him for two full minutes. He did not move at all. Not slightly. The way a person stands when they're completely still is still a little bit alive. Their shoulders move when they breathe. Their weight shifts. He didn't do any of that. He just stood there. Then he turned and walked through the stairwell door.

I dialed 2.14 again. Nine rings. No answer. I want to be clear about what I was thinking at that point. I was not thinking something supernatural was happening. I was thinking this man had. had checked in, couldn't sleep, and was wandering the building for some reason. Maybe he was a sleepwalker, maybe he was on something, maybe he had some kind of mental health situation. All of those things

were more likely than anything else, but the not answering the phone bothered me, and the standing still for that long bothered me. And the fact that he kept appearing in stairwell corridors, he had no reason to be in, bothered me. I called the manager on duty. Her name was Bev, and she lived about 12 minutes from the hotel and was technically on call for anything I couldn't handle. I'd called her twice in 11 months. She picked up on the third ring, sounded groggy, and I explained the situation as plainly as I could. Guests checked in around one. I'd seen a man matching his description on two different floors standing in hallways, not going anywhere, not responding to phone calls. She was quiet for a second and said she'd come in. She arrived at 322,

I showed her the camera footage I'd been watching. The third floor clip, the fourth floor clip. She watched both without saying much. Then she said, let's go check on him. We took the elevator to the second floor. The hallway was empty and quiet. Room 2.14's occupied light was on. Bev knocked on the door and said,

Hotel management, just checking in to make sure everything's okay. No answer. She knocked again and said the same thing louder. No answer. She used her master key. The door opened into a dark room. She reached in and hit the light switch. The bed was made.

The overnight bag was on the luggage rack, unzipped but with clothes still folded inside it. The bathroom light was off. The television was off. Bev checked the bathroom and came back out and shook her head. The room was empty. We walked the entire second floor. We walked the third and fourth floors. We checked the fitness room and the pool corridor, both locked.

We checked the lobby in the breakfast area. We walked the first floor corridor. We went outside and walked the parking lot. We did not find him. At 4.15, Bev sat down at the desk with me, and we pulled up all the camera footage from one in the morning forward. We went through it together. Third floor appearance at 152. Fourth floor at 304.

We looked for any footage of him returning to him. to his room, leaving the hotel, using the elevator, using the stairwell to get to a floor with an exit. We looked for 45 minutes. There was no footage of him anywhere except those two hallway appearances. At some point, Bev said, pull up the check-in, the actual lobby footage from when he came in. I pulled it up. 109 in the morning. The front entrance camera showed the door opening, showed me looking up, showed me working at the keyboard, reaching for key cards, sliding the sleep, across the desk. Bev leaned forward. On the lobby camera, which was positioned behind me and angled over my shoulder toward the entrance, the desk was fully visible. I was clearly at the desk.

I clearly checked someone in. The key sleeve left my hand and moved toward the edge of the desk. There was no one standing on the other side of it. The camera angle wasn't perfect, and there's a short section of the desk that the camera couldn't fully cover from that position. Bev said it was probably just a blind spot. She said that twice, actually. But the key sleeve didn't slide on its own. Something took it. We called the non-emergency police line at 440,

and they sent one officer who walked the building with us and found nothing and took a report and left by 5.30. George Merchant's visa had gone through, and the charge was sitting there in the system. Bev said she'd have the day manager look into it. I finished my shift at seven and drove home. I slept until three in the afternoon, and when I woke up I had a text from Bev. The card had come back as belonging to a George merchant of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

She'd spoken to him. He'd been in Harrisburg the night before. He hadn't stayed at our hotel or any hotel. He'd reported his wallet stolen three weeks prior. Bev said it was probably just someone who'd found the card and used it. She said the camera blind spot was just an angle issue. She said the man wandering the halls was probably a different guest we hadn't identified yet. I told her I understood.

I put in my notice two weeks later. The detail I keep coming back to is not the camera angle. It's not the stolen card. It's something I noticed when Bev and I were standing in that empty room at 3 in the morning. When she opened the overnight bag to see if there was any ID inside it, she lifted the folded clothes out one by one and set them on the luggage rack. Underneath the clothes, at the bottom of the bag, there was a single key card in a paper sleeve, a Hampton Inn sleeve with a room number written on the outside in my handwriting.

But the sleeve was empty, the key card was gone, both of them were gone. And I had activated two cards at check-in, which was standard, and the second one was somewhere in that building. As far as I know it still is. I worked overnight at a memory care facility in eastern Tennessee for about 16 months. The facility was called Maplewood Senior Living, which sounds nicer than it was. Not neglectful, nothing like that. Just one of those places that was built in the 90s and hadn't been significantly updated since. Linoleum floors, drop ceilings, the kind of fluorescent lighting that makes everyone look slightly unwell.

The memory care unit was on the third floor, which was its own locked ward, separated from the general assisted living floors below it by a key-coated stairwell door and a dedicated elevator that required a staff badge to operate. The overnight shift on the third floor ran from 10 at night to 6 in the morning. Two aides per shift for 32 residents. On a good night, you had two aids. On a bad night. Which happened more than it should have,

because the facility was chronically understaffed. You had one. I was alone up there more often than I should have been. My co-worker on most nights was a woman named Patrice, who had been doing memory care for a family. 11 years, and approached it the way a contractor approaches a job site, methodically, without sentiment, getting everything done in the right order. She taught me the routine in my first two weeks, and I was grateful for it because having a routine in that environment is what keeps you functional.

You check vitals at 11. You do a full room check at midnight. You do repositioning rounds at 2 for the residents who couldn't move themselves. You did another room check at 4. You documented everything, every single thing, because in memory care, the documentation is the only record of what actually happened. The residents on the third floor had varying degrees of cognitive decline. Some of them had mild to moderate dementia, and were fairly communicative, knew who you were after a few weeks, could tell you they were cold or hungry, or that they wanted the television on. Others were further along. A few were in the late stages, which means they were largely non-verbal, spent most of their time in bed and required full assistance for everything.

The resident in room 314 was a man named Walter Cobb. He was 81 years old. He had been at Maplewood for about two years before I started working there, and by the time I arrived he was well into the late stages of his disease. He didn't speak. He didn't make eye contact with any consistency. He could not walk unassisted, and his chart noted that he should not be left unseated or unattended

because his balance was essentially gone. He ate soft foods with help. He slept a lot. I want to be specific about that last part because it matters later. Walter could not walk without two-person assistance and a gate belt. That was in his care plan, signed off by his physician, documented in his chart with a date and an assessment. He was a fall risk.

When he was out of bed, he was in a wheelchair. That was just how things were and had been for some time before I ever met him. He was not a frightening person. He was a small, thin man with white hair and dry hands, and he had a habit when he was awake and you were in the room with him, of turning his head slowly toward you and holding that position for a long time. Not staring exactly. More like listening.

It could be unsettling if you let it get to you, but you learned to just talk to him while you worked, same as with all the residents, and it was fine. This was a Sunday night into Monday morning, February 6th into the 7th, 2023. Patrice called out sick at 9.45, 15 minutes before shift start, I found out when I badged in at the ground floor and the charge nurse at the front desk told me, I asked if there was anyone else, and she made a face that told me no.

She said she'd try to get a float from the second floor when she could, but the second floor was short too, and I should plan on being on my own until at least two. I went up to the third floor and did my hand off with the evening aid, a young guy named Marcus, who worked days and was picking up extra hours. He told me it had been a quiet day. Most of the residents had already settled down. A woman named Dorothy in room 308 had been agitated earlier, but had taken her medication and gone to sleep around 8.

He gave me the clipboard, told me the med cart was stocked, and left. I did the 11 o'clock vitals round on my own, which took about 4.4.4.5.5. 40 minutes working solo. Everyone was asleep or in the process of settling down. I checked Walter's room at 1122. He was in bed, on his back, eyes open but unfocused the way they often were. I checked his vitals and they were normal. I told him good night even though he didn't respond, and I turned off his overhead light on my way out. His nightlight was on, which cast the room in a dim orange glow. I went back to the nurse's station, which was at the center of the war, equidistant from all the rooms, and did my documentation and ate my lunch at the desk.

The floor was quiet. The hallway stretched in a T-shape from the nurse's station, one wing going east, one going west, and then a short north corridor where the supply room, the medication room, and the staff bathroom were located. The lighting in the corridors overnight was dimmed to about a third of normal, which was protocol. Bright enough to see, dark enough that residents who woke and looked out their doors wouldn't be startled. At 1215 I did the midnight room check, starting east wing, working west. I opened each door quietly, looked in, confirmed the resident was there and appeared to be resting.

Some rooms I entered to check on residents more closely. It took me about 35 minutes to do the full circuit solo. When I got to room 314, the bed was empty. I stood in the doorway for a moment. The nightlight was still on. The bed had the side rails up on both sides, which I had confirmed at 1122. The covers were folded back on the right side, like someone had gotten out of bed on that side, but both side rails were still up. I could not figure out how that was possible.

The side rails on those beds latched with a lever mechanism, and the levers were on the outside of the rail facing away from the bed. A person in the bed would have had to reach over the rail to release it. I turned on the overhead light and checked the bathroom. Empty. I checked behind the door. Empty. I went back into the hallway. Walter? I said it quietly because I didn't want to wake the whole corridor. Nothing. I walked the east wing quickly. Checked the alcove near the ice machine. Check the little family visiting area at the end of the east corridor that had two chairs and a small table and a window that looked out over the parking lot. Empty. I walked to the west of

swing. Same thing. I checked the supply room and the medication room, both of which required my badge to enter. I checked the staff bathroom. I found him at the end of the north corridor near the stairwell door. He was standing, not leaning against the wall, not holding on to anything, standing in the middle of the hallway in his hospital gown and socks, facing the stairwell door, hands at his sides. The stairwell door required a code on the keypad to open and was also heavy. It had a strong pull-closer mechanism because of the fire code. I said, Walter, hey, it's okay, let's get you back to your room. He didn't turn around.

I got the wheelchair from his room, which I had to jog to retrieve, and I brought it back to the north corridor. He was still standing there. I positioned the chair behind him, and I took his arm gently and said his name again, and he turned his head toward me. His eyes were open, and they were focused. That's the part I keep coming back to when I think about that night. Walter's eyes were generally unfocused, tracking without settling,

the way they'd been for months according to Patrice and Marcus and his chart. These eyes were focused. They were looking at me directly. I got him into the chair and I buckled the lap belt, and I wheeled him back to his room. He was cooperative, which was not unusual. He was generally cooperative during his. care. I got him back into bed, got the side rails up, and stood there for a moment trying to figure out the mechanics of how he'd gotten out. The rails were spring-loaded and the levers were stiff.

I tested them myself. They weren't easy to operate even for me. I documented it as an unexplained found out of bed and flagged it for the morning charge nurse. I noted that the side rails were intact, that I could not determine how he'd exited the bed, and that he was found ambulatory in the North corridor, which I also noted was inconsistent with his care plan. That last part should have been a bigger deal than it was, found ambulatory. In the care plan of someone who was a documented two-person assist for ambulation, that phrase should have generated immediate follow-up. I flagged it and moved on because I was alone, and there were 31 other residents, and it was almost one in the morning. I checked on Walter every 30 minutes for the rest of the night. At one, at 1. at 1.30.

at two. He was in bed each time, eyes open, the orange nightlight doing its thing. At two, I did the repositioning round on the residents who needed it, which took about an hour because I was alone, and I checked on Walter when I finished at 305. He was in the bed, side rails up. He was on his back and his head was turned toward the door, and his eyes were open and they were doing that focused thing again, looking at the door. I came in and said his name and he tracked to me immediately, which he normally did not do, and I stood there for a second with his chart in my hand not knowing what to make of it. I did my 4 o'clock room check, room 314, bed empty, side rails up, covers folded back on the right side. This time I did not go looking right away. I stood in the

doorway and I thought of... USAA knows dynamic duos can save the day, like superheroes and side or auto and home insurance. With USAA, you can bundle your auto and home and save up to 10%. Tap the banner to learn more and get a quote at usaa.com slash bundle. Restrictions apply. He had been in that bed at 305. It was 402. In that time, I had been at the nurses station doing documentation for the most part, with a clear sight line down the east corridor, which was the most direct route from his room to anywhere else on the floor. I had not seen him come out of that room. The North Corridor was not visible from the Nurse's Station. I walked to the North Corridor. He was at the stairwell door again, standing in the same position as before,

same spot roughly in the middle of the hallway, hands at his sides, facing the door. I stood at the entrance to the North Corridor and watched him for a moment, because I was trying to decide if I was seeing what I thought I was seeing. He was standing without support, without holding anything, without leaning. Eighty-one years old, late-stage dementia, documented fall risk, care plan requiring two-person assist for any ambulation. I said, Walter, he raised his right hand and pressed it flat against the stairwell door. I want to be clear that there was nothing violent about the gesture.

It wasn't like he was trying to force the door open. It was more like, and I know this sounds strange, like he was feeling for something. on the other side or listening through it. I got the wheelchair again. I came to him and took his arm, and he turned and looked at me, and his eyes were focused and clear, and he looked at me for a long time, long enough that I started to feel uncomfortable in a way I couldn't really articulate. Then he let me put him in the chair. I got him back to the bed a second time. I documented it again. I called the charge nurse on the second floor and told her what was happening, and asked her to come up when she could. She said she'd be there as soon as she had a moment. She arrived at 4.45. I showed her the

documentation from both incidents. She checked on Walter herself, who was in bed, and she pulled out her penlight and did a basic neurological check. Tracking, response to stimuli, grip strength. She came out of the room and said his grip strength was notably better than his last documented assessment. I asked what that meant. She said she didn't know. She said she'd leave a note for the morning nurse and the care coordinator. The day shift came on at 6, and I gave my report and drove home. I slept until 2 in the afternoon.

When I woke up, I had a voicemail from the care coordinator asking me to call her back about my overnight documentation. I called her back, and she told me that the morning aide had found Walter sitting up in bed when they arrived at 6.15, which he had not done unassisted in several months. She said they were going to schedule a reassessment with his physician. I told her about the stairwell door, about the focused eyes, about both times I'd found him standing in the north corridor.

She listened and said that sometimes late-stage dementia patients had periods of unexpected clarity. It was documented. It had a name, Terminal Lucidity, and that it was possible Walter was experiencing something like that. I looked up Terminal Lucidity when I got off the phone. It was real. It happened.

It was generally associated with the period. just before death in patients with severe neurological conditions. Unexpected, sometimes dramatic return of cognitive function and physical capacity, usually brief. Walter Cobb died 11 days later on February 18th. Peacefully, in his sleep, the way the notes described it. The care coordinator sent a facility-wide email. I read it in the break room before my shift. I've thought about that night a lot in the time since. I've mostly come down on the side of the medical explanation. Terminal lucidity accounted for almost everything. The focused eyes, the unexpected mobility, the apparent strength,

the brain doing something unusual and temporary before the end. What I haven't been able to fit into that explanation is the stairwell. Both times I found Walter in the north corridor, he was facing the stairwell door. The same spot, both times. Hands at his sides, except for that one moment. moment when he pressed his palm flat against the door. A few weeks after Walter died, I was doing a supply run, and I went through the stairwell door and stood on the landing for a minute, which I almost never did because we usually used the badge elevator. I looked around, concrete steps, metal railings,

cinder block walls, standard institutional stairwell. There was a framed photograph on the wall of the landing, which I hadn't noticed before, or hadn't paid attention to before, and which I realized was actually unusual, because there were no photographs in the stairwells on the other floors. This was the only one. It was a black and white photo, a family portrait, the formal kind people got done at a department store or a portrait studio, a man and a woman, and three children. The man in the photo was thin with white hair. He was wearing a dark suit. He was looking at the camera. I went back to the nurses station and looked through the binder, where we kept copies of resident information sheets. Near the back, behind a plastic divider, there was a section for deceased

residence that hadn't been archived yet. Walter Cobb's sheet was in there. It had his admission date and his emergency contact and a small photograph clipped to the top right corner, the kind of casual family photo that families sometimes provided. I unclipped it and looked at it and then I stood there for a while. It was the same photograph, not the same type of photograph, the same photograph, same positioning of the figures, same clothing, same background, same slight lean in the woman's posture. It was a copy of the photo on the stairwell wall, printed smaller, clipped to the top of a dead man's paperwork. I don't know who put that photo in the stairwell or when or why. The facility director didn't know either, when I eventually asked.

She said she'd look into it, as far as I know she never found out. I still don't know what Walter was listening for on the other side of that door, but whatever it was, I think he found it. I drove rural highway patrol for the State Transportation Department for about nine months. The job title was Highway Safety Technician, which is a way of saying I drove a designated loop of rural two-lane road every night looking for things that needed attention before the morning commute. Fallen trees across the lane.

Deer carcasses in the road. Washed out shoulders after rain. Signs that had been knocked down by a drunk driver who hadn't bothered to report it. That kind of thing. If it was something I could handle myself, moving debris, setting out cones, marking a pothole, I handled it. If it was something bigger, I called it in and waited. My loop was 47 miles of state route through the hill country of southern Missouri.

It was designated Route 9 for dispatch purposes. which was just the internal name for the circuit. Two lanes the whole way, mostly. Some of it had a center line and some of it didn't. It wound through a mix of pasture land and second-growth timber, and crossed two creek bridges and passed through one unincorporated township that had a grain elevator and a dollar general, and about 300 people, most of whom were asleep by the time I came through.

My shift ran from 11 at night to 7 in the morning. I drove the loop twice per shift, shift, sometimes three times if the first pass had been uneventful, and dispatch wanted extra coverage. The first pass usually took about an hour and 40 minutes depending on stops. The second started around 2.30 or 3. By the time I'd finished the second loop, it was getting close to 5, and I'd spend the last couple hours either doing paperwork at the district yard or doing a slow third pass if they needed it.

I want to be clear about what it's like to drive that road at 2 in the morning for context, because it matters. There is no ambient light out there. None. The nearest city with any real glow was 40 miles north, and on a clear night you might see a faint smudge of it on the horizon, but that was it. Once you got out past the township, it was dark in a way that city people don't really have a reference for. Your headlights lit up maybe 200 feet of road ahead of you, and that was the world. Everything past that was just black. Trees on both sides, sometimes. a fence line, sometimes a field. The only things that broke it up were the reflective mile marker posts every tenth of a mile, and the occasional pair of eyes at the roadside when a deer or a coyote

caught your lights. You got used to it. You learned to read the road in a different way than you would during the day, shapes and movement rather than detail. After a few months, I could spot a deer at the shoulder from about 300 feet away just from the way the shape of the tree line changed. Your eyes adjusted. It became comfortable. Most nights I drove the whole 47 miles and found nothing more alarming than a pothole or a dead possum. This was a Wednesday night into Thursday morning, November 8th into the 9th, 2023. I came on at 11 and picked up the truck from the district yard, which was just a gravel lot with a chain-link fence and a small cinder block building that served as the office.

There were three of us in the building that night doing our pre-shift checks, me and two other techs named Owen and Carla, who ran different routes. We didn't interact much. You checked your truck, checked your radio, noted your odometer, signed out, and went. I was on the road by 1120. The first pass was uneventful. I logged a soft shoulder on the west side of the Mile Marker 41 bridge, where the gravel had washed out a few inches, set a reflective marker, and called it in for repair. A dead raccoon at Mile Marker 33. That was it. I was back at the district yard at 105 and I sat in the truck for a few minutes, riding up my log before heading out for the second pass. I started the second pass at 145. The route ran east out of the yard and then curved south. then west, and then back north to the yard in a rough oval.

The southern stretch between mile markers 22 and 31 was the most isolated part of the loop. No houses, no driveways, just timber on both sides of the road, with a shallow drainage ditch running along both shoulders. This stretch was about five and a half miles, and you could drive it without seeing a single light source except your own headlights.

I was coming through the southern stretch going west, somewhere around mile marker 26, when I saw someone walking on the shoulder, they were on the right side of the road, walking in the same direction I was traveling, which meant I was coming up behind them. From about 200 feet out, I could see them clearly enough in my headlights. Dark jacket, dark pants, no reflective anything. Walking at a normal pace, maybe three miles per hour, with their hands at their sides, average height. I couldn't tell if it was a man or a woman. from behind. I slowed down and moved left to give them room, and I reached for my spotlight, which was mounted on the driver's side door. I hit the switch to light up the shoulder more clearly.

There was no one there, not like they'd stepped off the road, not like they'd jumped into the ditch. I had been watching them the whole time, slowing down, reaching for the spotlight, and then I looked back at the road and the shoulder was empty. I pulled over and stopped and sat there for a moment with my hazards on. I got out and stood at the shoulder and shown my flashlight up and down the road. The drainage ditch on the right side was shallow, maybe 18 inches deep, and I could see the bottom of it clearly, empty. The tree line started about 12 feet past the ditch, and it was dense enough that you couldn't just step into it quietly at a walking pace, not without making noise or slowing down. I'd been maybe 70 feet behind this person when I turned on the spotlight. I stood there

for probably two minutes. I walked up the shoulder about 50 feet and walked back, nothing. I got back in the truck and sat there. The most obvious explanation was eye strain. It was two in the morning. I'd already driven 47 miles once, and it was the kind of dark that plays with your depth perception. You see shapes that aren't there. I'd heard other texts mention it before. something in your peripheral vision, a deer shape that turns out to be a particular arrangement of shadows. I'd never experienced it this clearly or this centrally, but I was willing to accept it. I logged it as a possible pedestrian sighting at Mile Marker 26, unconfirmed. I called it in on the radio and the overnight dispatcher, a guy named Ray who I'd spoken to maybe a hundred times,

and who had a very flat effect about everything, said he'd note it, and to continue the route. He didn't seem particularly concerned. Pedestrian sightings on rural routes at night weren't unheard of, apparently. People who'd broken down and were walking for help, people cutting through on foot for reasons that weren't always clear. He said if I came back around and saw the person again to pull over and render assistance. I continued the loop. I got back to the yard at 3.20 and did about 40 minutes of paperwork.

The second loop of the night was at my own discretion. as long as I logged it, and I decided to run it because the November weather had been wet, and I wanted to check the drainage situation at the Mile 41 bridge again. I started the third pass at 405. I came through the southern stretch going west just after 430. At Mile Marker 26, I reduced my speed before I even consciously decided to. Some part of me had been thinking about it the whole time. The figure was there again.

Same shoulder, same side of the road, same direction of travel. same pace, dark jacket, hands at sides, walking away from me. I was further back than before, maybe 250 feet, and I slowed to about 15 miles per hour, and I kept my spotlight off this time, and I just watched. The figure walked with an even, unhurried stride, no variation in pace. I followed at that distance for what I estimated was about a quarter mile, maybe a little more. The figure did not turn around. did not react to my headlights behind them, did not move toward the shoulder or signal in any way, just walked.

I got on the radio while I was still moving and told Ray I had eyes on the pedestrian from the earlier report, mile marker 25 heading west, and that I was coming up to render assistance per his guidance. Ray said copy that to check on them and call back. I accelerated slowly and closed the distance. At about 100 feet the figure was still there, at 75 feet. At 50. At 40 feet there was no one there. I stopped the truck in the middle of the road

and sat with the engine running and the hazards on, and I looked at the empty road ahead of me for a long time. My hands were on the wheel, and I was aware that they were gripping it harder than they needed to be. I called Ray and told him the subject was gone again. He paused and said, Gone how. I said I didn't know. I said I had been watching them the entire time I was closing the distance, and they were there, and then they weren't. Ray was quiet for a second, and then he said he'd log the second sighting, and that I should continue the route and note the location carefully. I got out of the truck. I know that probably sounds like the wrong call. I'm aware of how it sounds, but I'd been doing this route for nine months, and my entire job was to stop and assess things,

and it felt wrong to just drive away twice. I got out with my flashlight, a big mag light, the long kind, and I walked the right shoulder from roughly where the figure had been when I last saw it, which was about 250 feet west of Mile Marker 25. The shoulder in this section was a mix of gravel and packed clay. After the rain we'd had earlier in the week, the clay was soft in the low spots. I shone the light down and I walked slowly. There were footprints. They were in a low, soft patch, about 15 feet west of where I figured the figure had been when I last saw it clearly. partial impressions, but readable. The heel and the ball of a shoe, not a boot, not a work boot, something like a sneaker or a casual shoe.

They were pointed westbound, same direction the figure had been walking. There were four of them, which corresponded to about two walking strides. Then they stopped. The soft clay patch continued for another six feet or so before it met harder ground, and I walked that whole section carefully looking for where the prints continued. They didn't continue. They stopped in the soft clay with nothing after them. The edge of the soft section wasn't disturbed.

The ditch beside the shoulder was dry, and had a thin crust of dried mud on the bottom that would have shown a print clearly. There were no prints in it. I stood there in the dark on the side of that road for a while. I went back to my truck and sat, and I thought about it, and the only rational explanations I could come up with

were that I'd been misreading the end of the footprint trail, and the prints did continue and I'd miss them, or that two separate people had been walking this stretch tonight at different times, and I'd seen them both from a distance, and they'd both stepped off the road before I reached them. Neither of those felt airtight, but both were more plausible than the alternative. I continued the loop. I came around the northern stretch and was heading south again on the eastern side of the oval,

when at Mile Marker 9, I saw a car on the shoulder. This was not there on either of my two previous passes. I would have logged it. I was certain of it. It was a silver or light gray sedan, parked or stopped, on the right shoulder facing south, pointing in the direction I was heading. The hazard lights were not on. As I came up behind it, I could see that the driver's side door was standing open.

I pulled up behind it, 20 feet back, and turned on my overhead light bar. which I only used for traffic stops and roadside assistance, and I sat there for a moment. I called it in to Ray, gave the location, and described the vehicle. He said to approach with caution and assess, and he'd call county dispatch to let them know I had a potential roadside emergency. I got out. The car was a Honda accord, relatively recent, maybe three or four years old. As I got closer, I could see that the front end had damage. The right front quarter panel was buckled, and the headlight assembly on that side was cracked and dark. The airbags had deployed.

Both the driver's side airbag and the passenger side were hanging limp, already deflated, the way they look after they've gone off. The windshield had a long crack running from the lower right to the upper left. The engine was off. The headlights were off. Just the one door standing open. I looked at the door and then at the road ahead of the car, and I pointed my flashlight at the pavement.

The skid mark started about 40 feet ahead. of the car and ran back to where it was sitting. The car had braked hard and drifted right and come to rest mostly on the shoulder. I looked in the driver's side. The seat was empty. There was a cell phone in the cup holder, cracked screen, dark, out of battery, or off, a coffee cup in the other holder, a woman's purse on the passenger seat, unzipped, with a wallet visible inside and keys on the seat beside it, a pair of reading glasses on the dashboard. You don't leave your purse and your keys and your phone in a car by the side of the road at four in the morning. I stood up and looked around me.

The road was empty in both directions. The tree line was dark on both sides. I called Ray and told him what I was seeing, and he said County was already dispatching and to stay with the vehicle. I walked to the front of the car and looked at the damage more carefully. The impact on the right front had been significant, significant enough that the wheel on that side was visibly canted outward, the tire flat. Whatever it had hit, I was looking at the road and there was nothing in the road. It had hit it hard enough to deploy the airbags and disable the vehicle. I walked the shoulder ahead of the car, the direction it had been traveling before the impact. My flashlight picked up something in the soft clay of the shoulder about 30 feet ahead of the front bumper. Glass from

the headlights scattered. And then, in the soft ground beside the glass, footprints, sneaker impressions. Heading west, moving away from the car. I followed them with the flashlight. They went about 35 feet in the soft shoulder clay, crossing over a low section where the impression was deep and clear, the heel sinking almost an inch. Then they stopped, 40 feet from the car. No tree line nearby at this spot. There was a break in the timber here. A cleared section. Just flat ground with short grass past the shoulder for maybe a hundred feet before the tree line started up again. No cover. No place to step to that wouldn't have continued showing prints in the soft ground. The county sheriff arrived at 458, two deputies. I showed them

everything, and they walked the shoulder with their own lights, and one of them crouched over the footprints for a long time without saying anything. The other one ran the plates and came back and said the car was registered to a woman named Diane Hollowell, 44 years old, a dress in Poplar Bluff, which was about 60 miles north. They called it in as a missing person situation. More units came. By 5.30 there were four sheriff's vehicles and a highway patrol unit on the shoulder of that road, and they were doing a grid walk of the cleared section and the tree line. I gave my statement to a highway patrol sergeant, including the two earlier sightings of the figure walking the shoulder. He wrote everything down and didn't say much. He asked me to confirm the

locations of the earlier sightings, and I gave him the mile markers, and he wrote those down too. I was released from the scene at 640, and I drove back to the yard and clocked out. I called the district office that afternoon to ask if there was any update. The person I spoke to said they couldn't share information about an active investigation, but that they'd pass my number along to the Sheriff's Department if they needed to follow up. Nobody called. I tried a few times over the following weeks to find a news story about Diane Hollowell. I found one eventually, in the Poplar Bluff Daily Paper, a short article from late November. It said that a Poplar Bluff woman had been reported missing after her vehicle was found on Route C in Howell County, with evidence of a collision.

It said the investigation was ongoing. It said she had not been found. I put in my notice in December and took a day-shift job closer to home. The official reason I gave was the hours, which was partly true. But I keep thinking about the timeline. The car wasn't there on my first pass at 2.15, or my second pass at 4.30. By the time I found it at 448, the airbags had already deflated. That takes at least 15 minutes, sometimes longer, depending on conditions. The coffee and the cup holder was cold.

Diane Hollowell's car had been sitting on the side of that road for some amount of time before I found it. The math on that, given my pastimes, doesn't leave a lot of room, and I keep thinking about the figure at mile marker 26. Walking west. The same direction Diane Hollowell had been driving when she crashed. The same direction her footprints were pointing when they stopped. I don't know what I saw on that shoulder. I don't know if the figure I followed for a quarter mile at 15 miles per hour had anything to do with. what happened to her. What I know is that at Mile Marker 26, in a soft clay patch at the side

of a dark road in southern Missouri, I found footprints that started and did not finish. And I found them twice, in two different places on the same night. I hope she found her way somewhere. I don't think she did.