Hey guys I know it’s been a while since I updated this story. A lot has happened. I wanted to come back and talk about a lot of past hauntings, but the last couple weeks have been too weird not to talk about. What I wanna tell you guys about now is the teddy bear.
Alright so basically all recreational stuff for employees is downstairs in the basement. That being said, the employee bathroom is also downstairs. Most of peoples’ experiences of the paranormal in this store take place in the bathroom, actually. The most recent has left us all totally disturbed and in the middle of a police investigation. Let me explain.
So one day, as I was heading into one of the stalls after a particularly large coffee to wake me up that morning, I found a teddy bear. Just sitting on the closed toilet. I don’t know why I jumped slightly, but it just wasn’t something I expected to be there. I thought it might’ve been a coworker messing around but I’ve seen too many horror movies to write it off right away. So I kicked the bear onto the ground and pushed it into the next stall over so I could do my business as usual.
It was calm after that. On my daily route of the store I bumped into my buddy Travis. I told him about the teddy bear and asked him if he had been responsible and he said no of course, I don’t know why I thought anyone would fess up. But he also said he heard some child-like laughter around the bathroom door this morning around 8:15, which would’ve been exactly the time I had gone in there. I was freaked out, but knew where I was so I tried to forget about it.
I had a pretty normal day of customer service and pulling freight, just minding my own business, when I got a text from my buddy and coworker, Wade. “You have GOT to come see this…” Great. What now? I was thinking as I made my way to the break room.
Everyone was gathered in the bathroom looking at the teddy bear in the stall, sitting on the toilet exactly as I had found it earlier. This time it was a little bit more menacing though, as now it had its mouth open. At least, it had its little stuffed teddy bear approximation of a mouth open. Inside was one small tooth, just sitting in its bottom jaw on the left hand side. It looked like it was kinda shoved in. Looked like a baby tooth.
We were all understandably very unsettled by this and everyone had their turn around the room swearing up and down that it wasn’t them. Mark suggested calling the police and Eric just kinda looked at him like he was crazy. “It’s obviously just someone messing around, it’s just a baby tooth” he said. “Plenty of people have kids here.”
Before anyone could argue how crazy that sounded, however, the bear was gone, just like that. Wade called out first before anyone else noticed “FUCK GUYS LOOK” and we all turned around to see a completely empty stall. We checked every adjacent stall and they were all equally vacant. Weird and bad. So we dipped out of there, all with similar looks of horror on our faces and tried to forget what happened. But Wade was so freaked out that he went home early that day.
Of course, I was a tiny bit wary of the bathroom downstairs now. I tried to hold it the next time I had to pee that day, but to little avail, as my track record with energy drinks is not insignificant. So I went into the public restroom on the main floor and stepped into one of the stalls.
I opened the lid of the toilet and the water was completely gone. Already too weird for my liking, I turned quickly to go into one of the others and that’s when I heard a slight echoed shuffling noise coming from the toilet. I turned, wide eyed, and slowly crept closer to inspect further when the faintest giggle came from the empty space below. I stood there in fear and tried to listen for more but it didn’t happen again, and I ended up leaving without even using the bathroom.
Two weeks passed without incident and we kind of forgot about it. “Yeah haha terrifying bear in the stall gag, classic.” And it was fine. But then all of a sudden it very much was not fine again. The teddy showed up again in the following days and this time it had three more teeth in its mouth, which would’ve been surprising, had I not suspected this might happen since the second time it showed up.
Obviously this time we called the police. And mind you this is like the 11-hundredth time the police have been called to this place since it was built so they were expecting something a little off. But the crooked baby teeth protruding out of the mouth of this bear in a semi-smile was enough to scare the poor new officer that they sent us. It was probably some kind of hazing to be sent here.
Anyway, long story short, they did a DNA analysis on the bear’s teeth and found out that they each belonged to separate individuals, all kids who had gone missing in and around the area within a 30 mile radius in the last 10 years, give or take. We heard the news while we were all at work. Wade threw up when we found out and ended up quitting within the week, and Eric just kind of had a funny look on his face for a while after. You could tell this time the weird shit hit a little too hard.
Cut to another week later. My nerves have absolutely not calmed down and every time I had to use the bathroom I would peek under the stalls just to make sure there was no psycho killer waiting for me to be unfortunate enough to enter the wrong door. And needless to say I was not accepting overnight shifts.
It was Saturday when the final incident with this bear occurred. I remember that because the rest of the guys were off that day and I was hanging out in the break room alone. It was waaayyyy too quiet so I decided to put in my headphones and try to drown out the silence.
As I was grabbing them out of my pocket, though, I heard a faint sound coming from the bathroom door. It almost sounded like chattering, like tap-tapping at a rapid speed. I just looked up at the sky and prayed to god I wasn’t about to see this bear again with more teeth in its grotesque mouth.
I headed towards the door and opened it slowly. As soon as I got it all the way open the chattering abruptly stopped. I froze in fear and let out a vaguely whimpering “hello?” No response. I walked over to the same stall the teddy had been in before and instantly dropped on my ass, losing my footing and hitting the ground hard as I opened the stall door.
The door swung back and hit the latch, bouncing away one more time, allowing me another horrible view of the bear that sat on the toilet in front of me. It’s entire head was now replaced with a completely human skull, the empty eye sockets staring forward and down at me with malice. The skull looked adolescent, and I knew it had to be another missing child. But it looked old and dirty, like it had been in the ground for years.
I called the police again frantically and thankfully they arrived fast. I bolted out of there, having been sat on my ass staring forward at the stall door for what felt like forever. I stayed to give my statement to the cops but I hopped in my car as soon as I could, getting home and locking all the doors and windows. The boss gave me a few days PTO after that.
When I finally got back to work Mark gave me the whole story. Allegedly the police told the store manager, who then told some other people and it eventually made its way back to Mark, that the skull found on the bear was old. Like the DNA matched it up to an old cold case file of a missing child from the 70’s kind of old. As in the child went missing from the Blue Canyon hotel when it was still operational and was never found. Until now.
His name was Jonathan Kinder, and there was no one to tell of his discovery, because his only surviving parent, his mother, had committed suicide after the police had declared him most likely dead back in the early 80’s.
I’m going to end this here again. I’m super tired tonight and I just want to forget everything by staring into the back of my eyelids. So, until I have some other crazy stuff to update you guys on, sayonara.