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The Haunted Theater (The last part)
So finally circumstances forced me to go into work at midnight rather than at 6AM. On top of that I didn't have any help available that day. I can't remember exactly why I had to go in, I just remember that I wasn't particularly thrilled about it. The radio turning off was a weekly problem and the stall door in the Ladies room would squeak from time to time, but those things weren't threatening. What happened in the janitor's closet though, THAT seemed angry and willing to hurt us.
It was winter and there was a light snow falling. I got to the theater about 11:45 PM. The movie hadn't let out yet and the candy girls were cleaning up and shutting down the concession stand. I chatted with the assistant manager and he joked around about me being alone after midnight. I didn't appreciate that because I didn't want to remember what had happened to his brother. The candy girls and the ticket girl left, and the projectionist came down and when he saw me, he was surprised. "I thought you came in in the morning?"
"I needed to come in tonight and get it cleaned before morning." We chatted a bit since we always swapped stories when I was an usher. When he got ready to go he waved and said, "Good luck. Hope to see you tomorrow." I looked at the assistant manager who said, "He claims that it's been noisy upstairs tonight. We haven't heard anything down here, so don't worry." He laughed and they both left.
A quick side note, we had two projectionists, one guy was very old, chain smoked and hardly talked. All he ever said about the ghost was "Be glad you don't work upstairs". The other one (mentioned above) was in his late twenties and very laid back and cool. He always poo-poo'd the ghost stories and would never admit that anything had ever happened upstairs in the storage or the projectionist booth. For him to say something to the assistant manager was very un-nerving.
Before I go into the night's work, I'd like to try to describe the theater and it's layout. The theater was built in the late 60's, maybe early 70's and it had only 1 screen. The lobby was a fair size and was roughly 75 feet long running east-west and 30 feet wide. The east end held the restrooms and the concession stand was 25 ft long located in the middle of the south side with entrances to the back hallway on either side. The ceiling in the lobby was 3 stories tall with windows to the ceiling on the North side (the entrance to the theater). In the lobby between the restrooms was a self-serve pop machine. The kind where you get a small cup of soda for 40 cents. (I don't think they have those anymore).
Normally when I started work in the morning, all the lights were off except for that pop machine. I had plenty of light in the lobby from that and the shopping centers lights in the parking lot. I had to unlock the door, go in, lock the door and then cross the lobby to the right of the concession stand. Once in the back hallway, this ran east-west behind the auditorium, I would head west (and this was in complete darkness, there were NO lights in that hallway except for weak EXIT signs) to the end of the hall. I would open a door that lead up to the second floor. Before starting up the stairs, I made an immediate right into the electrical room, cross the electrical room, open the breaker panel and hit the breakers for all the lights I wanted on.
In hindsight, I should have had a flashlight since I had to travel about 75 ft in total cave-like darkness. That night, since I came in before everyone left, all the lights were on, this meant that I would have to turn everything off and walk out in the dark. Just the reverse of normal.
The whole night went without incident. I picked up all the cups and popcorn tubs in the theater, got the blower (a huge electrical leaf blower before there were leaf blowers) and blew all the loose junk to the front, shoveled all of that into a garbage can, mopped the whole theater, cleaned the restrooms and the lobby. I would like to say that the worst part of the job was running the blower. You could not hear ANYTHING except that blower. Someone could walk up behind you talking and you couldn't hear them at all. My help and I would quite often sneak up behind whoever was 'blowin' and scare the crap out of them. Needless to say, we got to be quite jumpy when we were blowin.
But as I said, nothing happened all night. I got all the supplies picked up and put away, just had to turn out the lights and leave. I walked down the back hall and into the electrical room, hit the breakers and walked back out into the lobby. It was around 6 AM and there was no sign of the sun coming up. I was standing in the center of the lobby reviewing my list of duties, making sure I hadn't missed anything, when it happened.
Again, it takes longer to explain than it took to occur. I was standing in the very middle of the lobby, my keys in my left hand and my 'cleaning shoes' in my right hand (I used seperate shoes to mop in). The light from the pop machine on my right and the light from the shopping center parking lot coming in throught the huge windows in the entrance. It was perfectly quiet. Then I felt someone behind me and heard a low chuckle in my right ear, just as if someone were almost resting their head on my shoulder from behind.
I spun around and nobody was there. No sign of someone leaving the lobby, no other sounds. Nothing. The next thing I remember, I was sitting in my car parked at the curb and I could see my keys still sticking in the door and my shoes sitting in the lobby where I dropped them. It was probably 30-40 minutes to sunrise and I wasn't going anywhere until then, not back in to get my shoes, not to the door to get my keyring that held my car keys as well, nowhere. After about 15 minutes a local cop drove by and stopped. They patrolled all time and checked on us (we gave them free movies). He asked if I was ok and I told him what happened.
He said he would go with me to get my shoes and to make sure that nobody was in there. I felt kinda stupid going back in with a cop that had his weapon pulled, but he checked everything and it was all locked and none of the exits had been touched because there were no tracks in the snow exiting the theater except mine. Nobody else was there.
He reported in that it was all clear and left. As I drove off, I swore I would never work alone after dark in that place again.
