On the Topic of "Scary Noises"

"So, there I was..." is usually the key-in to a very 'cheesy' experience, one that is good for a laugh, but that everyone knows is mostly-fake.

This is not one of those stories.

Long ago (painfully long) and not-so-far-away, I was a security guard working the deep-night - or "Witching Hour" - shift (11:00pm-7:30AM) at a certain office building in Dallas, Texas. When you work as a security guard long enough, you are pretty well guaranteed to see things, many of which are...well, "sub-optimal" is the most polite term: drug users, drunks, prostitutes, protesters, street kids, etcetera, etcetera, ad nausea. You either get used to it, or you find another job.

In my time as a guard, I saw all of the above and much more, so I have a foundation to speak from. The night is scary - not many people are able to handle solitude, and especially the things that go "Bump" in the night; I am reminded of one young man at a post who literally threw his uniform on the desk, tossed the keys in the drawer and fled for home because he was terrified by the scary noises.

In any case, it's late, and it's Halloween. Because this is an office tower, everyone has already gone home to take the kids out on "walkies", then hit the hay, most of the revelers are somewhere else and the vandal-prone are busy hitting structures somewhere else, and the DJ's in the radio stations on the top floor re busy running their boards (I'm listening to one of them on the radio). Result? Should be a quiet night.

Wrong.

Along about 1:00AM, I have a music station playing on low and I'm in my zone, alternating between the video monitors and a textbook (it is quite common for students to take a night security post to study with limited distractions) when it happens: a flash of movement in the corner of my eye -- one that definitely should not be there.

Now, I am a former active-duty US Marine. Marines quickly learn that you need to develop a "sixth sense" about your surroundings, lest something with lots of explosive energy and sharp flying things brings you to a not-good end...But, maybe it's just a figment, right? It's late, and I'm in that weird state of concentration where the mind can play tricks on you. I know that danger, so I'm not overly...

There it is again - a face, peeking out from around the corner to my right! Eyeball, Mark 1 on camera three - nothing. The lobby is laid out in such a way that the elevators to the office floors above are right behind my desk, but the elevators to the parking garage under the building open into a separate corridor to my far right. There are only four ways in: the front door, directly in front of me; the loading dock, behind and to the right of the elevator block (covered by three cameras); and the two fire escape/evacuation stairwells. In addition to the cameras, the "Mr. Destructo Box" at the security station has an array of lights that light up every time the loading dock or fire escape stairwell doors are opened - push circuit test: nope, all lights are functioning.

Now, I've already done my first sweep, ending on the first floor lobby - no one is in any of the offices. No lights have gone off on the board, and no elevators have opened since I got back to the desk. Hit! There it is, again! Short person, maybe 5' 8", female, heart-shaped face, in a red party gown, peeking around the corner at me!

Carefully, not making any fast movements, I reach for the buck-knife in my pocket. I'm not a "commissioned" guard, so I'm not "armed", but only an idiot works the deep nights without some kind of "help"- mine is a 4" (the legal limit in Texas) Buck knife (which I still carry, incidentally). Slowly, I start to turn my head towards the figure -- 'POOF!' she's gone, back around the corner.

Up from the chair, full-speed dash through the office elevator corridor, left turn past the loading dock entrance and around the corner to the garage elevators - nothing. Back to the desk...to ponder whether I should enter this into my log book. As I'm pondering that concept - FLASH! There she is again! Snap head to the right - gone.....

I spent the next 2 hours playing cat-n-mouse with the figure, and listening to weird 'clanking' noises echoing through the stairwell behind me, and getting increasingly PO'd - try walking 72 flights of stairs sometime (14-story building, 4-level underground parking garage, 2 stairwells), convinced that you will have to fight at every corner, and see how you like it.

The figure disappeared and the noises stopped at about 4:30AM.

In the morning, I asked my supervisor about it, and we reviewed the tapes - we clearly saw me make my move to try and run down the figure, but there was noting there. He had never heard of an "woman in a red dress" haunting the premises, before.

When I asked him about the noises, he told me that several years previously, one of the building engineers had locked himself in the Key Shop (where all the building's door keys were cut) to have lunch - and had died of a massive heart attack. They didn't find him for three days, since the key shack was the one room that Security did not have access to.

I continued at that building for another 2 months before being transferred to another post, and never had that issue again.

The moral of this story?

When you burn the midnight oil, or drag your tail out of bed to go in to work at 5:00AM, take three seconds of your time and spare a kind word for the deep-night security officer, if you're lucky enough to have one - they will walk you to your car at night, and will come looking for you if there's a fire. They're most often the ones who summon the police and the fire department if ill-meaning people show up, or if someone falls ill...

...And, they even have to deal with the occasional specter.

They've got a tough job, one that you might find yourself unable to do, if you had to. Try to acknowledge that, sometime, and you'll make someone's day -- or night.