If you ever get a bad feeling when staring down a long hallway, turn the other way and don’t look back. It may just save your life…
Let me backup. My name is… well, my name isn’t really important. All you really need to know about this story is that I’m an X-ray tech. But not just any old X-ray tech in a hospital. I’m actually a mobile X-ray tech. It basically just means that I take an X-ray machine on wheels around to nursing homes and take X-rays of little old lady’s hips who fall in the middle of the night while going to the bathroom. I also happen to be on the night shift. I’ve actually been doing this job for about 15 years now, so I can say I’ve definitely seen some things. I’ve had my fair share of people whining about stubbing their toe and demanding they get an X-ray because they feel entitled to it. Honestly those are probably the worst of the patients I get. I’ve also had my fair share of patients who have completely lost their mind to horrible things like Alzhiemer’s or who get X-rays ordered and when I show up… well, let’s just say they moved on to a better place.
To be honest, anything is better than some of these nursing homes. Most of them are understaffed and the people they are able to bring on are overworked and underpaid. The conditions aren’t great and, after dark, some of them are downright terrifying to navigate through. Not just because they are spooky but some are pretty run down and there’s stuff stacked in the hallway. I’m a pretty tough guy though, I always seem to manage. Nothing really scared me in the past and really not a whole lot scares me now. Most nights are mostly just boring, sitting around waiting for a call about someone’s patient who is either constipated or has a bad cough. The night shift for mobile X-ray is fairly slow but we do get the occasional slip and fall that requires a rapid response that will definitely get the blood flowing. Most of these places seem pretty creepy but they’re really not so bad once you get used to them. They keep most of the lights out at night to save money, but… sometimes it isn’t what comes out of the dark that can scare you the most. And, what I will tell you is that, when someone tells you, ominously, to stay out of the East Wing of the 3rd floor after midnight: LISTEN TO THEM!
In all my 15 years of doing this, it was the only time I ever encountered anything like this. Sure I’ve encountered some pretty weird stuff. But it was always something that I could explain away with science. After all, my whole life had been finding ways to explain the unknown using science. I liked to think that I kept an open mind, but I was really a pretty heavy skeptic about anything paranormal. It really only takes one time to change your mind though and that’s definitely all it took for me. The night started out like any normal one. I clock in as the sun starts to set and I clean up the lingering orders for the day while folks are eating their dinners and watching their nightly TV shows. Nothing really out of the ordinary.
I finished up the orders I had by around 11PM and I started my routine of sitting around in the office waiting for orders to come in. Finally, around 11:45 PM I got a bit of an odd call. It was a patient who lived in an independent living building and was willing to have their X-ray done that night and they didn’t care how late it was. Now, an independent living building is basically just a fancy apartment building for old people. Sometimes they do have night shift nurses on staff or concierge folks at the front desk, but they are usually small crews and only there in case of emergencies or to make sure folks are taking their meds at night. I don’t really even remember what the X-ray was that was ordered, I just remember being a little irritated about heading out to do it as it was across town and I wasn’t a fan of driving around on a Friday night around midnight. Nothing good ever happens after midnight, right? That’s what people always used to tell me anyway. I grumbled about it a bit but I was getting paid to do it so I soldiered on.
I remember hopping in my truck to head towards the patient and it was a little colder than usual, especially for a Colorado November evening. I mean, it does get cold, but this was chillier than normal. I zipped up my jacket and fired up the engine and headed out. As I was coming up to crosswalk outside the building, a reflection caught my eye on the other side of the street. It was really hard to see - I would have missed it if the reflection hadn’t flashed in the corner of my eye. It was a little old lady who was pushing a shopping cart across the crosswalk and it looked like she must have hit a rock or something because the cart had toppled over and her stuff was all over the street. I scratched my head for a minute wondering “what the heck is a little old lady doing walking around at midnight in November in Denver?”.
I hit the hazard lights on the truck, took off my jacket (so I didn’t get it all sweaty) and hopped out to see if I could help her out. Part of me was expecting to get ambushed by a bunch of gang members or someone was going to run out of the shadows and steal the truck but, honestly, I didn’t care at that point. If they were willing to pull something like that off in the middle of the night on a frigid November night, they could have the truck. It had Lojack on it anyway, so we could find it later. I walked over to the woman cautiously and asked if she was okay. She said: “Oh, yes, sonny. My shopping cart just took a little tumble here on my way home, but I’m just fine”.
“Let me help you pick this stuff up, it’s dangerous to be crawling around in the middle of the street at night. Too many drunks out and about at this time of the night”, I told her as I started to quickly gather her groceries up in their bags and place them back in the cart for her.
“Oh, you really don’t have to, sonny. But I do really appreciate the help”. She responded in that sweet old grandma voice. “It gets harder and harder to do these things the older we get. Don’t ever get old. Okay, sonny?”.
I laughed and said “well, I’ll try but I don’t know how much say I get to have in that”. I finished loading up her cart, reached out my right elbow for her to hold and her soft, wrinkled hand grabbed hold of my elbow and walked her across the street to make sure she got across safely. Just as we got to the middle of the intersection a black Camero came flying past us. Nearly clipping us as we walked by. I yelled at the car, trying to avoid cursing in front of this sweet old lady and as we got across the crosswalk I asked her: “where are you headed this late at night, miss?”
She looked at me with the sweetest blue eyes I’d ever seen in a person and said “just up the way here”. She pointed to the building that I was headed towards and I nodded.
“In that case, let me finish walking you the rest of the way. It’s not too much further and that black ice is all over the place this time of the year”. I smiled at her, as I usually do when I’m trying to be polite to people and she returned the smile but it was unusual. It almost sparkled in the cold, dark, Denver night. I remember being almost entranced by it. I closed my eyes and shook my head a bit to shake off the feeling and I finished walking her to the building. I really just wanted to make sure I didn’t have to come back to X-ray her hip next but it was cold and dark and the last thing I really wanted on my conscious was to think that I left an elderly woman alone in the street and she fell and couldn’t call for help and the worst happened after that. Not entirely benevolent, I know, but I’m also not a monster. I made sure to hold the door for her and she insisted that she could manage from there.
She thanked me repeatedly and offered me some money as a reward. I shook my head and told her I wasn’t really interested in money, my reward was just knowing that she was safe and uninjured. She reached out her hand as if to shake my and I chuckled a little and reached mine out to shake hers back. She looked me dead in the eyes with those bright blue eyes and that sparkling smile and said “then at least take this”. I opened my hand and it was a candy. One of those little toffee candies that old people always have in their homes in those tins with the winter scenes on them.
I laughed and said “you know I really can’t have candy, it’s not good for my diet–” I looked up and saw that she was gone. She must have walked off while I was staring at the candy in my hand. I felt a little silly and wondered how long I was actually sitting there staring at a little candy in my hand. I shook my head and said to myself “well, alright. I guess I’ll save it for later” and I put it in my pocket and headed back to bring the truck to the parking lot. As I was driving back up I couldn’t help but think of how strange that old woman’s smile was. It really did sparkle or sort of shine as if it wasn’t night at all. It made me feel like it was the middle of the day. And those eyes… I couldn’t remember seeing eyes that blue before. It was so vivid. I pulled up to the building, got my machine unloaded and headed inside to find my patient. I walked back into the front and there was a nurse there to greet me.
“Did that old woman get to her room okay?” I asked the nurse as she was walking me to the elevator.
She squinted her eyes and looked down, thinking before responding: “Just now?”.
“Well, I mean it would have been 5 or so minutes ago, but yeah, pretty recently”. I politely responded.
“I don’t think anyone is out of bed wandering around this late but I will keep an eye out for wandering residents”. She acknowledged. “ Your patient is on the 3rd floor, West Wing. Room 345. She should be up. She’s a bit of a night owl. Really likes the oldies on late at night.”
“Alright, thank you” I replied quickly.
She grabbed me by the shoulder as I entered the elevator and, as I turned to face her, I could see a stern look wash over her face. “Stay out of the East Wing on the 3rd floor after midnight. Even if you hear some weird noises or someone calling out for you. Ignore it, look away and leave the area”.
I laughed and said: “Alright, why? Is there a spooky ghost that’s gonna get me?”.
She clearly wasn’t amused and in a very stern voice said again: “It’s not a joke. I have meds to pass right now and I can’t escort you but you’re a grown man and I trust that you’ll listen to a warning.”
The elevator door closed as I kinda cocked my head to the side thinking that she was being pretty condescending. I get it, my humor usually rubs people the wrong way but was I really being that big of a jerk? I shook my head and hit the 3 to head to the third floor.
As I exited the elevator I looked at the sign on the wall that told me the direction of the room number I was headed for. The sign said East Wing, rooms 300-330 and an arrow pointing left and West Wing, rooms 331 to 350 pointing to the right. The walls were pastel yellow about halfway down the wall from the ceiling and the bottom half was separated by some wallpaper that looked like it was from the 70’s. The wallpaper was blue with some fancy diamond shapes on it and the bottom half of the wall was a pastel maroon. The carpet was that nasty thin carpet that was mostly brown but speckled with some random colors here and there and I remember thinking how tacky it looked. I had been to this facility before, but never this late at night. I remember how quiet it was. Eerily so. But, I was used to things being quiet, I worked nights, after all.
I smirked a bit, looking at the sign on the wall, and just because I was a bit of an ass, I left my machine at the sign and walked a small ways into the East Wing, seeing a potted plant at the end of the hall, and did a silly little dance that ended with me jumping up and clicking my heels together, laughing like an idiot. I shook my head and thought to myself: “Weird ass nurse”… I muttered randomly to myself about how pretentious I thought that nurse was, just assuming she was having a laugh at my expense.
I walked back over to grab my machine and pushed it down the hall to the West Wing, found my patient and did the X-ray as normal. As I was leaving, I asked my patient, “So what’s up with that night nurse? She tried to tell me there was a ghost or something down the East Wing.”
The patient’s face got very serious, very fast in response to that comment. She said: “Listen to her. Do NOT go into the East Wing, please. You seem like a nice young man. Please don’t go down there. Don’t even look down that hallway.”
Now I was a little confused. But I smirked and told the lady “I walked down that hall a bit and didn’t see anything. Are you guys sure it’s on this floor? Maybe the ghost took a night off?” I laughed.
She pushed me out the door and closed it to a crack. “Go! Now! It’s not a ghost. It’s something… worse… much worse. And you better hope it didn’t see you, boy.” She panicked as she immediately slammed the door and locked up at least three different locks.
“Okay, well, jokes on you, lady. Ghosts can walk through doors.” I quipped to myself, way too content with my own silly joke.
I started back down the hallway and made it back to the sign on the wall with the room numbers and directions and heard a loud crash. I’ll be honest when I say it startled the soul out of me for a second. I felt like I was gonna jump through the roof. I looked down the East Wing, where the noise came from, and saw a roof panel on the floor. I’m the inquisitive type so I walked down the hall, leaving my machine at the sign again, to investigate. I walked up to the panel and crouched down to look at it. I looked up from the panel and it was just a normal old ceiling. Pipes and electrical up there.
“Weird. How the heck did this fall down?” I wondered to myself. I was just doing a ridiculous dance in this hall and I didn’t notice anything out of place. Maybe I did it earlier by accident? I wondered if maybe I bumped into the wall and didn’t realize it. I shook my head and stood up looking both ways down the hall again. This time, as I looked down the far end of the hall, something appeared to dart back from the corner of the hall, about where the potted plant was, and around the corner. I looked back towards the West Wing thinking someone was walking over there and… nothing. I looked back to the far end of the East Wing: “Hello?” I yelled. “Someone there? You need help?”… Silence. I shrugged and raised my eyebrows. If someone did need help, they would probably call out for it. Plus, this was getting a little weird now, so I was ready to get the hell out of there before something else happened.
Just as I started to walk back towards my machine, I felt a wave of dread. My body shivered and the part of my brain that’s responsible for keeping me alive started screaming to run. But the part of my brain that is responsible for all the worst decisions I’ve ever made in my life told me to turn around and look behind me. I slowly started to turn and someone was standing at the end of the hall… not someone… some… thing. It was all black, like a shadow, except I couldn’t see through it. All the light around it seemed to get extinguished and the hall started to darken as it cocked its head to the side. It stood tall like a tall, skinny man. At least 7 feet tall. Its eyes were red, but not red like I’ve ever seen before. A deep red. Unnatural and burning deep as if it was peering into my soul and stalking its next meal. It looked at me as if it wanted to speak but couldn’t. I was frozen. I couldn’t move. I felt the hair on my arms stand up and I went cold. I was paralyzed with fear. I tried to yell for help, but I couldn’t speak. I opened my mouth and nothing came out. My breathing got faster. I didn’t know what to do. It started walking forward. I could feel myself shaking with fear now, but I still couldn’t move. As it slowly inched towards me, the lights behind the creature would go out. And its red eyes burned deeper and deeper, pulling me further into its abyss. I was feeling lightheaded like I was going to faint. My thoughts immediately went to my wife… my kids… It can’t end like this…
I snapped back to reality and it was within 3 doors of me now. The lights in the hall were nearly out completely and it just… kept… walking. It would cock its head from one side to the other, unnaturally. I finally gathered up all the strength I had to turn towards my machine. If I could get to it, I could use it as a weapon. I looked back and it was gone. The West Wing was gone too. I was in an endless hallway with no exits. “N…no…” I whispered to myself. “How is this possible?”. I tried to think to myself that I was hallucinating. Some gas from a leaky pipe must have knocked that ceiling panel off and I inhaled it, fainted and this is a dream. I pinched myself to check… Nope! Not a dream. Whatever this hell was… it was really happening! I felt that feeling again like I was drifting off… I snapped back to reality again and it was within arms reach now. I jumped backwards and started to try to put distance between me and that… thing. But I couldn’t for long. I kept getting entranced by staring into its deep, red eyes. The hallway was almost completely shrouded in darkness now. My reflexes must have finally kicked in because I reached into my pockets to find a weapon… anything I could use to fight back. If this thing was really going to kill me, it wouldn’t get me without a fight. I reached into my pocket and grabbed my keys.
There was a pocket knife on them but my hands were shaking too badly and I dropped them to the floor. The creature burned out another light and it startled me. I jumped back further and now that thing was on top of my keys. I desperately fumbled around my pockets for something to use. My wallet! I threw my wallet at the thing and it passed right through it and disappeared into the darkness. My phone! I can call for help! I held my phone up, shaking hands and it was dead… I keep it on the charger constantly, “HOW IS IT DEAD?!” I yelled in frustration. I threw the phone at the thing and it passed right through it and disappeared into the darkness as well. As the creature rose up taller, to the top of the hallway now it looked down over me as if to mock me and made a sound that I couldn’t describe to you even if I tried. It was laughing at me. Mocking me. It knew I couldn’t stop it. I kept fumbling around in my pockets desperately for an answer and I grabbed the last thing that was in there… the toffee candy that the sweet old lady gave me. I held it up to my face and laughed. I laughed a little at first, but after a few seconds it turned into a hysterical laugh. I opened up the candy wrapper and put it in my mouth. “At least I was gonna die while eating something tasty.” I thought to myself.
I felt a tug on my right elbow and a soft, wrinkled hand grabbed ahold of my elbow. “I think I’ll let you walk me home after all, sonny.” A sweet elderly voice said from behind me.
I snapped back to reality again and turned to see… the sweet old lady! I smiled for a moment and realized that thing was still behind me. “Watch out, miss!” I yelled and looked behind me to see… nothing. An empty hall with a potted plant at the end. “What?”… I murmured to myself.
“It can’t hurt you if you don’t let it, sonny.” I looked back at the old lady who looked up at me with those bright blue eyes and a reassuring smile, sparkling again like a midsummer day. “My door is this one up here.” She told me. Her voice was reassuring and calming to my nerves. “Room 331.” The old lady said to me as she pulled out her keys to unlock the door. I looked at a sign next to the door that said the resident’s name and I saw “Mrs. Donahue”.
I looked back down the East Wing hall again and still saw nothing. “What… what was that?” I inquired.
Mrs. Donahue opened her door and gestured for me to follow her in, which I did without question - I wasn’t going to stay out there with that thing for another minute. “Don’t mind him”. She said. “He’s just grouchy. But he can’t hurt you if you don’t let him.” She looked up at me and handed me my phone, wallet and keys: “I think you dropped these, sonny”.
I nodded, still confused in response. “T-thank you, miss” I said in a stupor.
Mrs. Donahue said to me with a quirky grin: “ooh, I see you ate that candy after all. Here, let me give you some more”. She walked around to her coffee table and grabbed that tin with the winter scene on it and I laughed a hearty laugh.
“I will take as many of those as you’re willing to part with, miss” I laughed as I said.
“Take the whole thing, sonny. I insist.” She responded.
She wasn’t getting an argument from me. We laughed for a while and we talked about life for a bit and she mentioned that she would usually walk to the grocery store at night because it was the best time to go since it was less crowded. She walked me to the door and said “now remember, you don’t pay no heed to people who try to tell you to be scared of The Unknown. Those things can’t hurt you if you don’t let them.”
I smiled at Mrs. Donahue, and thanked her for everything. I looked down the East Wing again and saw a shadow dart from the plant to the corner again. I shook my head. “Not this time, guy” I said down the hall. I walked towards the elevator and headed back out to my truck. The rest of the night went pretty quietly. Nothing of note really happened after that.
I was called back to that building again a few weeks later. This time it was during cleanup early into my shift, so the sun was still working on setting when I got there. I walked in, did the X-ray I needed, on the fourth floor this time but I stopped off on the third floor to see if Mrs. Donahue was home. I wanted to give her tin back and I didn’t want to forget about it. I also wanted to chat with her a bit again because I know these folks don’t see their family very often and they can get pretty lonely. I knocked on the door but there was no answer. I pursed my lips for a second and raised my eyebrows. “She must be out” I said to myself.
“Everything okay?” A nurse barked as she popped out from around the corner nearly scaring me half to death.
I breathed out heavily as I recovered. “Yeah, I was just wondering if Mrs. Donahue was in. I was just looking to visit for a few minut-” I cut myself off as I saw the sign next to the door that didn’t say “Mrs. Donahue” anymore. It said “Show Room”. I checked to make sure it said room 331 and it did.
The nurse looked at me puzzled. “Oh, dear. I’m so sorry. You must not have heard. But Mrs. Donahue hasn’t lived here in… it’s probably been 7 or 8 years now”.
“What?” I murmured. “That can’t be. I just spoke with her a couple of weeks ago. I was in this room and she handed me this tin full of toffees”. I held up the tin to the nurse trying to plead my case.
She grabbed the tin and laughed. “Oh, she did love those toffee candies. But I think she loved giving them out more than eating them herself”. She handed my back the tin and unlocked the door so I could look around.
The nurse walked through the room with me that was set up to show new, potential residents what the rooms looked like. There wasn’t a trace of anything I saw when I was here last. “I… I don’t understand”. I looked at the nurse, confused.
The nurse smiled at me reassuringly. “I know it’s hard to hear. Mrs. Donahue was killed while walking back from the grocery store one night. Her shopping cart toppled over and she was trying to pick up her groceries. That black Camero couldn’t see her at all. Of course it didn’t help that the driver was drunk, either. I’m really sorry.”
I stood there shocked to my soul. I think the nurse could feel my internal struggle and she reached out and placed a reassuring hand on my shoulder. “Take all the time you need,” she said to me.
I looked down at the ground. The nasty, brown and speckled carpet making me cringe inside. “It’s okay.” I told her. I set the tin down on the coffee table in the room. “I have some fond memories of her to make me smile”. As tears welled up in my eyes I walked out of the room. The nurse headed down the West Wing hallway towards another patient after locking up room 331. I placed my hand on the door and said “thank you, miss”.
As I walked past the East Wing hallway I got that feeling of dread again. But I remembered what Mrs. Donahue taught me. The Unknown may be scary. But it can’t hurt you if you don’t let it. I walked towards the elevator and I left the building. I won’t ever forget what happened on that day and I won’t ever forget that sweet old lady.
And… If you ever get a bad feeling when staring down a long hallway, turn the other way and don’t look back. It may just save your life…