YIKES! Let's Share Our Favorite Real-Life Spooky Stories with Ecce Homo 🎃

 (pic I took at work during renovation)

I love ghost stories, have as long as I remember (as long as it's not too creepy). The fancy dump I work at is pretty famously haunted, but the behind-the-scenes stuff is a lot scarier than what gets talked about online or in newspapers or any of those "Celebrity Hauntings" shows (it's been on most of them). But such occurrences are rare enough that it's always a surprise when something weird goes down. 

Ninety-nine percent of the time it's just work and it's exhausting, but a lot of fun. I work with some awesome people. One time, me and two coworkers -  one a lovely older lady whom I adored, the other a dreadfully pretty new-hire - were filling salt and peppers one morning at like 4 or 5am when the swinging doors to the main room blew out so hard I thought someone had kicked them out hard enough to break them. I immediately looked inside and there was no one near them. New-hire said to us in shock, "What the fuck?" Me and the lovely older lady went back to work, which left the new-hire flummoxed but really, what'cha gonna do?

One night, I saw a Black gentleman in a private room as me and my favorite coworker were resetting. Most of the lights were off - the candles were still lit, and we were polishing glasses under a spot in front of the door - and he was just sitting in the darkness next to the window. I glanced at him and assumed he was a new-hire bartender taking a break (it sorta looked like he was wearing a bartender uniform). A second later, when I looked back, he was gone. I said to my coworker, "Where'd that dude go?" and she said "What dude?" and I said "The dude that was sitting right over there," gesturing toward the corner. She looked over there, turned pale and walked right out!

And one morning (like 4 or 4:30am) I was the first server there (I'm always early to work) (I'm weird) and I'm getting the stuff I needed to set up from pastry. The prep cook's there and his back is to me and he seriously tenses up and slowly turns around and when he sees me the relief is palpable. He said something like "Son of a bitch! You scared the shit out of me!" I asked (trying to be funny), "Did you think I was one of the ghosts?" But he was not amused. He talked about the man he saw far, far down the service hallway in the corner. It was just darkness, no features, just a black void shaped like a man facing in his direction. When he saw it, it went around the corner into the dark and the motion-sensor lights lit up.

More about the pastry department. Again, during a disgustingly early AM shift (seems like these things mostly happen late at night or super-early). No one else was there and I was getting whatever was needed for my shift. There's a ramp outside this department and pastry's at the top. Tthere's multiple levels because this place is old as fuck and has been added onto forever. Out of nowhere, I heard footsteps coming up the ramp towards me. Footsteps aren't frightening at all (everyone who works here hears them on occasion). 

But these were squelching, like someone stepped on some spilled soda that dried on the floor and the closer they got the more unnerved I became and when they started to sound very close I noped the fuck out and ran into the alley and smoked till the rest of my coworkers showed up. And years ago during the day, I was in pastry when I heard coworkers screaming and freaking out. They'd seen a woman walking toward them and then she vanished. Kinda glad I didn't see that.

Anyhow, I thought it'd be fun to hear everyone's spooky tales. After all it's almost time for Halloween and my annual viewing of:

Photo Credits: CBS/Charles Schulz Enterprises, Ecce Homo