Mr. Nightmare

True Mall Horror Story #3

"I used to work in a 24/7 general store in a mall in South Carolina, so while the mall itself would close around 9:30 our store would stay open all night. There were two entrances to the store, one from inside the actual mall itself and then a back door that people could enter through after the mall closed. Past 9:30 I would always have to shut the gate separating the store from the mall, given that this was a smaller store it was never really busy in the deep night hours which also made my job very uneventful most of the time but there was one night shift that turned out to be anything but uneventful. It was towards the middle of my shift, the gate between the store and the mall was down but I could still see through it obviously into the dark half-lit hallways of the mall. The mall always had night lights on which were much dimmer but bright enough for the security guards to see what's going on in the cameras. I was doing my own thing, organizing the shelves, making sure everything was neat when I heard a rattle at the metal cage. I looked and saw some guy standing on the other side grasping the gate with his hands, at first I thought it was a security guard on duty, it was the only logical explanation even though it was rare to ever see them walking around but as I got closer and asked if there was a problem, I realized it wasn't a security guard, it was just some random man, he was wearing a dirty black and white plaid shirt and very baggy blue jeans.

Most notably though what made this exceptionally strange was that he was just looking up at the ceiling. I inched a little closer and again asked if something was wrong and if he needed help but he just kept looking up and shaking the gate, now there was some kind of protocol I was supposed to follow in case of something like this in order to get the mall security, however, I didn't know how, I didn't know what number to dial, I didn't know how to work any kind of intercons, so all I could really do was shut it out. I turned my back to the creepy man and went back to my register behind the counter as far away from him as possible, unfortunately, the shelves are angled perpendicularly to the counter, not parallel, so the man at the gate was in direct line of sight from me still. He finally seemed to back away, like literally walked backwards though with his head still up at the ceiling, all that was going through my mind was where could security be. It was to my understanding that there would be at least one person watching the cameras at night, anyway, I tried to just move past it, resuming my cleaning activities. I couldn't help but look back outside to the mall every once and a while though, thankfully he was gone now. Eventually, someone came into the shop, I heard the back door slide open. I was in between two shelves and I couldn't see them so I continued with my work. After finishing up sweeping the aisle, I went back to the register to wait for the customer. I saw the customer now, they were standing at the end of the aisle to the left, the alcohol aisle. He was looking up, at first I thought he was looking at the top shelf so I looked away, I only looked at him for maybe a second. I bent down under the counter to put the broom and dustpan underneath and when I stood back up to look at the customer I felt like my heart nearly stopped. He was looking at me with a smile, not a grin but a wide lip smile and this all sank in right away now that this was the same man that was out in the mall from earlier, only now he had apparently taken off his black and white plaid shirt. I stared at him and he stared at me and I think this went on for 30 seconds, I didn't know what to do and I had actually frozen up in fear. The face he gave, a smile, was a pure look of horror, something straight from a horror film or someone's nightmares. I felt like he stared into my soul, I opened my mouth to speak and my voice trembled, I think I said, "Get out or I'm calling the cops", he didn't move, he didn't even bat an eye. I ran to the back room and locked the door so I could call my manager, she wouldn't pick up after several attempts though. When I gave up, I heard a tap at the door, not a knock, just a very gentle tap. I sat like a nervous wreck in that back room for a good five minutes wanting to be anywhere but there but when the fear of this person stealing a bunch of items and losing my job became greater than the actual fear of the person, I stepped back outside and looked around but the man was gone, he was gone for good this time. Our shop has cameras so they caught all of it. When my shift ended I told my manager about what happened and showed her the video footage, she was shocked and kind of freaked out herself. I only worked there for another month after that, then moved on".
-Unknown, Mr.Nightmare did not say who this story was by.