From: asyoung@xmission.xmission.com (Alan Young)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.ghost-stories
Subject: Haunted Convienence Store
Date: 6 Aug 1995 04:14:21 GMT

I have always been sensitive to spiritual phenomena. I felt like I had come home when I found this newsgroup. Anyway, I wanted to relate something that has happened at the convienence store where I work.

I work the late shift (6p – 2a) and I close the store. While the store is open I don’t notice anything (I don’t think anything happens — I think that people leave a ‘residual physical’ energy which interferes with a spirit beings abilities to interact with this plane of existence which fades in time) unusual. But, about an hour after I lock the doors, I start to get some real strange feelings, like someone is in the store with me.

It started about two weeks ago, and has gotten increasingly more interesting. At first I just felt things, then I started to see movement in my peripheral vision. At first I thought the movement was cars on the road, or the air conditioner blowing something, but it was wrong somehow. The movement almost always did not conform to anything that was in that area.

Anyway, starting this week, things started falling off of shelves. Again, at first I thought it was improperly stacked items, but the stuff falling was inconsistent with that premise. Bags of candy on spikes don’t fall off (at least not when there is no rip in the hole…), cans don’t fall off the shelves if they’re stacked only one high … et cetera.

Thursday morning, when the opening clerk came in, there were several cans on the floor, bags of potato chips spread out, and several sections of candy bars were moved around. I, of course, was blamed. :/ My manager couldn’t think of a reason as to why I would do such a thing, even as a practical joke, so I was just given a tongue lashing. Up to this point I hadn’t gotten any bad feelings from whatever it was, just a feeling of frustration.

I hadn’t realized till last night that the feelings of frustration were building. Last night, after I locked the doors, I began feeling the presence almost immediately. And it seemed to be a cloying feeling, closing me off from the rest of the world. The hum of traffic (what little there was) died out, then the usual sounds in the store started to become muted (the air conditioner, the cooler, various machines, etc.).

It was a very interesting feeling, but it was also becoming scary. I tried to hurry up and finish my cleaning and to balance my till (cash register) and get out. Unfortunately, it was very busy that night and I hadn’t had the opportunity to do any cleaning, so I was in for at least an hour and a half of cleaning. The later it got, the more frantic I became. Being frantic is not a normal state for me, even with the out-of-the-ordinary events like this. I don’t know what was different.

Anyway, once I finished and was heading out the door I heard something pounding on the counters and machines (at least, that was what it sounded like) and coming my way. I got the funny feeling that if I didn’t get outside and away from the doors I would be locked in for the night. That was the wierdest feeling I’ve had in awhile … anyway, I hurried up and locked the door and started to back up. Just as I thought I was overreacting something hit the door. Very hard. I could see the widows on both doors jump and vibrate, just like they would if I had hit them. And again. I got a feeling of intense frustration and anger. Then, I can’t explain how I know, but I know, whatever it was tried to do something to me. I originally wrote ‘attack’ for ‘do something’ but I don’t think that is correct. In any case I felt this thing coming towards me and I just turned and walked away as fast as I could.

That’s it. I worked a day shift today and didn’t feel anything, which is normal, I guess. I don’t work a night shift till monday. I can’t wait … (sarcastic grin)

Thanks for letting me share … :> It feels good to get this out where at least some will understand …

Alan

From: asyoung@xmission.xmission.com (Alan Young)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.ghost-stories
Subject: Haunted Convenience Store: Update
Date: 8 Aug 1995 09:28:15 GMT

Well … I did it! I went back to work tonight! Very little happened, mainly because I was training a new clerk (I didn’t know till my manager told me tonight when I came in). However, what did happen was more … concentrated? intense? …

At first I thought everything would be great because I rarely have any of these experiences when there are more than one person present but tonight was different, sort of. I’ll explain in a paragraph or so.

Because I was training someone, I got most of my cleaning done early and I even got all the shelves faced (neatened, straightened, organized, and stocked). We were left with about an hour and a half with nothing to do but work the till, which I let the new clerk handle. Since there is always work to do, I looked around to see what I could do.

I noticed that the cooler was getting a little empty so I decided to go into the back and stock it. I know, how could I do that!!! I thought it would be okay because the front of the cooler is a bunch of see-through doors, and I could see the whole store through the doors — safe!

Or so I thought.

I spent about an hour stocking up the cooler when, quite suddenly, I felt it again. I noticed that the sounds of the fan in the cooler (quite loud till now) were muted, almost to the point of nonexistent but it was still going because I could see the streamers standing straight out like always.

And I felt that anger and frustration. And, what scared me the most, laughter. How can I feel laughter?! I don’t know, but I can. I’ve felt it before, from both visible and invisible things (physical and spiritual?).

This was not a pleasant laughter, but a bullies laughter. I got very scared. I was at the far end of the cooler from the door, and I realized that to get out of the cooler I would have to walk through whatever it was! (The cooler is small, and I’m big)

While I was trying to make up my mind I noticed a sports bottle of GatorAde (weird, how one can remember the most incidental of details :/ ) shaking/vibrating on the shelf. My first thought was a truck was going by. This happens on occassion … the only problem is that when this does happen everything shakes! As soon as I realized this the bottle stopped shaking. And started to slide to the edge of the shelf.

I could not move.

I was not being held by any outside force, but by terror I haven’t felt in years. I was sure that at any minute I would empty the contents of my bladder and intestines into my pants! This is not a normal state for me. I’m used to the presence of spiritual beings, and even being accosted in some way. I don’t know what was/is different with this situation. Maybe because this is the first real occurence since I got married?

Anyway, back to the bottle. It was sliding at a steady pace to the edge of the shelf and when it got to the edge of the shelf it did not tip, just stayed flat, as if there was an invisible shelf. The bottle did not float (the word brings to my mind a bobbing object — it didn’t bob) but just moved straight out to the center of the cooler.

I don’t know how long it stayed there, not long I think. Then it dropped slowly straight down and settled on the floor. I could not take my eyes off the damn bottle. Somewhere in my mind something was screaming and gibbering “Get out! Get the fuck out NOW!!!!”

The whole time this is happening, I am feeling this bullyish laughter. I was so terrified that I felt myself regressing to what I used to do as a child when my dad would beat me or children at school or church would pick on me, which is go into myself. I haven’t done that in years. In myself (I have never been able to come up with a better description) nothing can hurt me, and it seems I thought that I would be safe from whatever this was, and what it was planning to do to me.

But I didn’t want to do this, backslide like this. I’ve worked too hard to get where I am, in control of myself, my knowledge of myself to give it up. Now, I suspect that if I had given up and ‘gone away’ I would have given up more than just myself, but my wife and son somehow. I don’t know why, it’s a feeling …

Anyway, through this terror I recognized something about this whatever. I tried to think about it — the laughter seemed to stick out and annoy some part of me. I thought that was silly, why would bullyish laughter annoy me? I don’t know how I made the connection, but I realized that this was the same kind of laughter I felt when being bullied by kids at school. One event in particular stuck out in my mind, a time when I was almost as terrified as I was tonight.

This is what I was remembering:

I was lying on the ground staring up at a ring of boys who were laughing and kicking me. I was sure they were going to kill me. Not intentionally, just out of going to far. At this point in my life I had a lot of anger pent up, but my dad had been gone for a year or so (I think I was 10?), so I felt I could release some of that anger. Up to this point I had been a very passive boy (beaten into submissiveness you might say :). I had had enough. I decided then and there that no one would pick on me again.

I jumped up and started swinging and kicking. I put 3 of the boys in the hospital, and somehow injured the rest, I really don’t remember. To be honest, I don’t care.

As I remembered this turning point in my life, I realized what was familiar. That bullying laugh. It sounded just the same as those boys, and I was just as terrified. I thought I was going to die. I decided I didn’t want to. Don’t ask me how, because I don’t know how, but I struck out at whatever it was and I knew I hurt it. I felt a flash of surprise, then a very strong anger. But overlying everything was a feeling of impotence. I no longer felt scared, just the aftermath of that terror, and the usual feeling I get when a spiritual being is nearby.

Eventually, the feeling of a presence faded away. The only problem is that I think I got somebody’s attention. I can feel it even now. I’m not scared yet. But I think I will be sometime in the future.

By the way, although this seemed to take a very long time, it apparently only took a few minutes because when I came out I had only been in the cooler a little over an hour …

Sorry for the long post, and I didn’t mean to reveal so much about my self, but … I dunno … it feels right…

Alan

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