I am the manager of a stockroom at a discount store. The work is exactly how you might imagine. Long hours, small pay, and enough physical labor to make a horse sweat. My team and I make small miracles happen every day by turning two hundred plus containers of unorganized chaos into shoppable displays of treasure on the salesfloor. It is a thankless job hidden away behind a single swinging door with a sign that reads, ‘Employees Only’. Although working in the back is less than glamourous, I wouldn’t have it any other way. The stockroom is my home away from home. My cave segregated from the hustle and bustle of the sales floor and the madness surrounding the front-end registers.
However, I am not the only one who thinks the stockroom makes for the perfect hiding place. Most of my team are quite contented staying behind the scenes with me as well as the couple of rogue ‘associates’ we’ve all felt lurking around.
You see, the store I work for once had a functioning coronor’s office directly across the parking lot. It was visible from the front window for years, until one day the city decided to tear the building down. This was before I started my job there, although I often wondered what might have happened to those wandering souls attached to the building. It wasn’t until a few years after they tore it down, and a few months into my job, I began to find out.
Whenever I was in the stockroom working, I often felt as if someone was following me around and watching me curiously. It never felt threatening or uncomfortable, just strange. Even though these feelings were constant, I always tried to debunk them. The stockroom was full of cameras and the feeling of being watched could very well be that I was, in fact, being watched. Against my gut feeling, I persisted with the idea that there was nothing abnormal going on. Some say that doing this could cause spirits to lose energy and fade away. I, on the other hand, believe ignoring the supernatural makes them frustrated and their efforts to be heard or seen only increases.
The longer I worked in the stockroom, the more my theory strengthened. I started to hear whispers about ‘strange experiences’ from other associates and even my manager at the time claimed she was alone in the stockroom one day when suddenly a pile of boxes hurled themselves across the room in front of her. She was not the type of person to fabricate stories like that and I could hear the sincerity in her voice as she told this to our district manager. She even vowed to never enter the stockroom alone again. After hearing this, I increased my defenses and decided to investigate by asking co-workers if they too had felt or seen anything unusual in the stockroom. To my surprise, most everyone on my team had something to share. Even our janitors agreed. There was something strange about the stockroom.
Four years have passed since I first started working there, and the experiences I’ve had during this time have become just part of the job. From plastic Tupperware lids seemingly appearing from thin air and falling from the ceiling, strange voices calling my name, to half-eaten lollipops with no owners being found in the most random of places, we grew to accept our mischievous spirits as just part of the crew. However, one thing dawned upon me while sharing my daily experiences with my mother, I’ve never talked to them.
Talking to spirits is something I’ve always felt apprehensive about. What if I say the wrong thing? What if it makes things worse? What if they talk back? It took some convincing and some courage to agree that I would try the next day going into work. Being the stockroom manager means I am usually the first person to enter the store as our truck is scheduled early in the morning. I clocked in about 15 minutes before the truck was set to arrive, and after making sure the janitor had what they needed to begin their work, I knew I had just enough time to try and make contact.
I walked into the stockroom feeling nervous and holding my tourmaline necklace. I knew there was nothing to fear, the spirits there had always felt friendly in nature, but still, I didn’t know what to expect.
“Hello?” I started, already feeling a bit silly. “I just wanted to let you know I know you’re here. My mom suggested I should try and talk to you…” I listened to the soft humming of the stockroom and let out a sigh, “Although, I feel really dumb doing it.”
The energy in the stockroom almost felt as if it perked up, but with no real response I decided to leave and make my way to the office for some paperwork I needed. The distance from the stockroom to the office is a fair 70 yards away and the entire way there nothing felt out of place in the slightest, so I felt my small attempt to communicate failed and I decided to think nothing more about it. However, when I reached the office and punched in the code to open the door, I stood in disbelief. The hallway, the breakroom, and the office which all were lit up 24/7, had gone dark. I walked inside the hallway noticing that the power couldn’t have gone out completely as the vending machines in the breakroom and the computers in the office were still on. I tried for the light switch but to no avail. They simply were not responding. It was just then the assistant manager came through the door looking just as flabbergasted as I felt.
“The power went out!” Was all I could muster.
“I can see that.” He said dazed and looking around at the still functioning computers, “But how are the outlets still working?”
I didn’t have a response and we both just stood there in the darkness. I’m assuming he felt the same strange energy in the room I did because for someone who always had something snarky to say, he was dead quiet.
After a few moments, I tried for the switch again, flicking it up and down a few times, “C’mon, man!” It was then the lights came back on and all I could do was laugh, feeling a little nervous. “That was so weird!”
“Uhh, yeah. Let’s pretend that didn’t happen.” My manager said, still standing there with a look on his face which suggested he really meant that.
I laughed again and left the room. I had forgotten why I even went in there in the first place. All I could think was that I got a response. I talked to the ghosts in the stockroom and that was my response. I couldn’t tell if it was a good or bad one, but the way I felt like someone told me a funny joke got me thinking that maybe they were pranking me. The ghost had a sense of humor, and it didn’t end there.
Just then I heard an alarm towards the front end that I had never heard before, and a strange light I never noticed was flickering along with it. I couldn’t stop grinning. I didn’t feel nervous anymore, I didn’t even feel like I needed my tourmaline necklace either. That was our first conversation, and I believe it went rather well.
Occasionally, I still try to make contact, however I haven’t had a response like that since. I wonder if maybe the spirit doesn’t feel the need to respond again because it finally felt heard. Or maybe it just took a lot of energy to make such a show, and if that’s the case, peak season is approaching. The store will be full of people shopping for the holidays and producing tons of energy to fuel up on. And after four and a half years of working here, I can tell you, this is my ‘co-workers’ favorite time of year.
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