I was talking with a friend recently and was told to upload this story. For some background info, I (34 M) worked as a mall security guard for about six years. The mall I worked at was fairly large and in the busier part of town so on a normal day, there would probably be around 200 people in there at a time. In all the time I worked there, I never had to deal with too much shit. Most of the time, my job was chasing down shop-lifters or removing pissy customers that would throw tantrums at the register. Never anything I couldn’t handle. But I wouldn’t be writing this if that remained to be the case.
This happened to me about three years ago and if I’m gonna be honest, I’m still fucked up from it. So, this happened on a weekend. I would always work from mid-afternoon to the early morning (2 PM to 2 AM). I think it was around 3 PM when I first noticed a particular person in the mall. The fact that I kept spotting this dude was strange because out of all the people that I’d see coming through the mall, I never really consistently saw the same person more than two or three times. Working in a place like that, you really see every type of person but there was just something so wrong with this man in particular. Every 20 minutes as I would scan through the crowds, I would always spot him. He would always be looming on the opposite side of the aisle, just staring at me.
He was probably the tallest person I’ve ever seen, like 6’8 at least. He looked like he hadn’t eaten or showered in years. He was wearing an old suit that that looked like it was four sizes too big. It was all moth-bitten and stained. The what probably used to be a white undershirt was now a nasty gray with a plethora of stains on it, the same for the blazer. His pants were also stained with scattered rips and holes. He looked sick. His skin was somewhat discolored and pale. His sunken eyes had dark circles under them and his cheekbones protruded from under his paper-thin skin. Every time my eyes landed on this freak show, a slight smile would appear from his thin-lipped mouth. The grin would never reach his eyes, though. God… I think his eyes had to be the worst part. He had such light gray eyes that from a distance, you could really only ever see his tiny pupils. A few times, he would smile with his teeth. You’d think this guy never discovered toothpaste. It was hard to determine the age of this person. Based off how little hair he had, I’d say he was maybe in his late 50’s. He was bald on top with stringy brown and white hair scattering the sides of his head.
As it got later, I saw the man less and less. It wasn’t until around 7 PM when I finally stopped seeing the guy all together. I thought that was the end of it and I could just laugh it off but if that were the case, I wouldn’t be telling you all about this. This mall closed at 9 PM and I still had five hours left of my shift. After hours, there would always be two guards on duty. One in the surveillance room and one out on the floor, I was the unlucky son of a bitch who had to be out on patrol. At the time, I wasn’t too upset about this because I hadn’t seen my stalker for over two hours which gave me a false sense of security. Before I began patrol, I stopped by the office to let the other guard, Murray, know about the person I saw today and told him to just keep an eye out even though I was positive he was gone by now. Everything was going smoothly. It felt like a normal boring shift. Nothing exciting, just me walking through the empty aisles.
Things started to get weird around midnight. As I was making my rounds, I would occasionally hear the faint sound of someone walking. Every time I heard it, I’d turn and shine my flashlight in the direction it was coming from and just like it is in the horror movies, I would never see anything. I’m a relatively big dude. I’m 6’2 and back then, I was around 215 lbs and spent a lot of my time off at the gym. I’ve been told that I’m intimidating because of my stature and all my tattoos. Even though I knew I was probably more dangerous than the lanky creep I kept seeing, I couldn’t help but feel vulnerable. To comfort myself, I kept my hand on the baton all the security guards had on their belts. I kept doing my rounds, passing all the stores that now had metal gates sealing them shut. Everything was quiet until I heard the deafening noise of one of said gates being rattled. I spun around and of-fucking-course, saw no one. I went from being uneasy to just straight up pissed off.
“Malls closed! Get your ass outta here!” I shouted out, seemingly to no one. Just to be sure, I investigated the area and when I found nothing, I continued on.
To get myself through these shifts, I drank a lot of coffee or energy drinks. On that day, I had quite a few of both so after a while I made my way over to the restroom. I entered the stall and did my thing. After I was finished, I looked down to zip my pants. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw something familiar. Scuffed up, old, dress shoes caked in dirt. My gut told me to look up. Even though I was now freaking the fuck out, I slowly raised my head. I felt like I was going to throw up. Looking up, peeking over the top of the stall was the same ghostly figure I had seen and heard all night. I was so terrified that I couldn’t even scream. I just backed up against the wall and watched in horror as this psycho began to climb over the barrier and lower himself into my stall like a spider. He towered over me, staring at me with a hungry look. His freakishly long arms shot up and before I could even get my hand to my belt, he grabbed my head and began bashing it into the wall. I could feel blood oozing out of the back of my head. This man never blinked, he just stared into my eyes and breathed heavily as he rammed my skull into the wall.
The intense pain woke me up. My vision was blurry and my head was spinning. As I woke up, I found myself on the disgusting bathroom floor in a small pool of my own blood. It took me a minute to remember what happened but when I finally did, I scrambled up and out of the cubicle. I had no idea how long I had been out for. There was a moment of relief when I found that I was alone in the bathroom. That moment was cut short when I remembered that it wasn’t just me and that lunatic in the mall. My partner was still here watching the cameras. I felt so much dread as I rushed out of the restroom and did my best to run back to the surveillance room. The closer I got, the more fear I felt. I was so paranoid and afraid that at any moment I would be attacked again but I couldn’t leave without bringing Murray with me.
I stumbled into the office and was relieved to see Murray sitting in his chair, feet kicked up on the desk, back facing me as he watched the cameras. Because of my injuries, I slurred out a recap of everything that just happened and told him we need to leave. I assumed he had fallen asleep when he didn’t answer me. I called out his name again and cautiously approached him when I still got no reply. As I looked over his chair, I was horrified to discover that Murray’s uniform was splattered in blood. The worst part came when I realized, it wasn’t my coworker in that chair. Wearing Murray’s uniform, the man that had been terrorizing me all night was sat in the chair. His neck craned up, looking straight at me with a demonic smile that showed off all of his disgusting teeth. His eyes wide with spots of blood speckling his face.
I didn’t even think, I just ran out of the room as fast as I could, slamming the door closed behind me and hauled ass for the nearest exit. I raced to my car and practically threw myself in, locking the doors. I laid my head down on the steering wheel, trying to catch my breath when I remembered something. I always parked right behind where my office was located because there was a door that lead from the small parking lot directly into the room that had all the cameras. I lifted my head slightly as I remembered this. That room is where the psychopath just was. Sweat dripped from my face as I slowly looked up toward the door. The streetlamp illuminated the man as he stood completely still in front of the office door. I quickly grabbed my keys and turned the car on, ready to get the fuck out of there. Before gunning it out of there, I took one last look only to see that my assailant was now sprinting full speed right at me. I slammed on the gas and peeled out of there.
I drove myself to the hospital. I was still in shock when I got there so when I was asked how I got injured, I just mumbled something about getting into a bar fight. They stitched me up and I was on my way home. The next day, I called the police and told them what happened, told them about Murray. They didn’t believe me at first but when Murray’s wife reported him missing, the search began. As I said earlier, its been three years and they still haven’t found him or his body. I still think about Murray a lot. We were good friends. He didn’t deserve what happened to him. I know deep down that they will never find Murray. For a while, I had hope that maybe the police would find at least a trace of him but two weeks after the night of his disappearance when I got a knock on my door at 3 AM, I knew he was gone for good. I checked the peephole and saw no one so I cautiously opened my front door. On the front step was a small box. I picked up the box and reluctantly opened it. Cracked with a smear of blood across it was the watch I got Murray for Christmas last year. I knew then that he was gone for good.
Even today, I can hardly ever sleep. I always feel like I’m being watched. I rarely leave my house because I feel like one day, that thing will come back for me. It just feels like a matter of time.