This happened to me about five years ago while I had the “privilege” of working in a men’s suit store while studying at a college in Cardiff, Wales. For anyone who is curious Wales sits just left of England and directly right of Ireland.
Cardiff is a nice city, nowhere near as big as England but it has gone through some pretty rapid modernisation of late. They’ve done a great job at keeping their historic architecture but there always seems to be a new Starbucks or Costa Coffee opening up every other week.
Some of the buildings in the city center have shiny new facades that wrap around the ancient structures like a shell. This became more evident to me on my first day at the store.
My interview for the job took place bright and early one February morning and I remember how cold I was as I made my way passed the hustle and bustle of early morning commuters. Having been a student for year I wasn’t used to being around so many people this early in the morning. That being said I wasn’t really used to being up in the morning period.
When I arrived a good fifteen minutes before my interview was due to start I was greeted by an immaculate looking man in a pin stripe suit who I quickly recognised to be my new potential boss. His name was Andrew, he was a friendly guy in his mid-fifties, silver grey hair and just looked how you expect a manager of a suit store to look.
After greeting me he took me down to the bowels of the building where the staff room was located. We had to make our way down two flights of stairs and through a hallway full of your standard retail fixtures. I remember almost having a heart attack when turning a corner and coming face to face with a naked mannequin just standing there with its hands on its hips defiantly. “Ah sorry about that, I stripped it yesterday as we needed the garment for another display upstairs, not very modest is he” Andrew said lightly with a chuckle. I laughed too. I felt comfortable before the interview had begun, this guy had a sense of humour.
When we entered the main stock room I was a little blown away. The walls, ceiling and flooring were completely different to upstairs. They weren’t just bricks but old carved bricks. The only thing I can compare it to off the top of my head would be something that resembles catacombs. Big archways hug over head in badly eroded red stone and the tiles beneath our feet were a dark marble.
Andrew, upon seeing my wondering eyes began to speak again. “Ah yes I forget people are usually surprised when they walk in here, I guess I’m used to it “ he opened a wooden door that lead into a posh looking staff room complete with carpeted floor, a polished oak table and a brown leather couch. “What I found amazing was when I learnt the basement down here as well as the basements in all the neighbouring buildings all look the same, they were once part of a Victorian tunnel you see, that connected every building in the street. Some kind of evacuation tunnel” Andrew finished and indicated for me to take a seat.
Two years later I had finished my course in college and had been asked by Andrew if I wanted a full time position while I figured out what my next step was going to be. Naturally I accepted as I really did love the job and the people I worked with had become like family to me.
Life being the way it was I found myself struggling to find jobs that although I was now qualified for, lacked the “experience in a similar field” it was infuriating, how could I have experience if nobody will give me a break?
Another two years after becoming a full time member of staff I was still at the store but I had managed to progress from ‘Part Time Sales Assistant’ to ‘Assistant Manager’ which was great for me as it meant a tasty pay rise and great for Andrew as it meant he could finally take more time off, take vacations and be with his family.
I actually really began to enjoy the extra responsibility, training new staff, delegating jobs and helping our team to hit sales targets. We are now coming to the reason I am writing this. The reason I will never forget that place. It all went down one Sunday Morning. Sunday’s obviously being the quieter days of trade only required a ‘skeleton crew’ to run the Store. This is usually a manager (me) and one other sales assistant (in this case a girl named Amy). I quite liked working with Amy, we were of similar ages, she was cute and really down to earth. Most of our quiet periods were spent talking about everything and anything about our lives until we realised how much time had passed and began creating jobs to do out of guilt.
One Sunday afternoon after a pretty uneventful morning I walked into our office just off the shop floor to email our sales figures to head office while Amy manned the front desk.
As we had two sales floors (upstairs was suits and downstairs was accessories / shoes) if someone went downstairs either Amy or myself would have to go with them. One of our rules was that under no circumstances were customers to walk around downstairs unattended.
As I began entering figures into a new excel spreadsheet I heard Amy’s faint voice under the store’s collection of non-threatening store music. If my memory serves me correctly I believe it was Nickelback she was quite rudely interrupting.
I reached for the knob of the Hifi and turned down the volume. “…. Want me to go?” Amy called. I poked my head out of the office door. “Sorry what?” “An elderly lady just went downstairs would you like me to go down? Or do you want me to watch the shop floor and you go down?” I looked back at the barely started spreadsheet and then back to Amy. “Its fine I’ll go, maybe I can sell her a sports jacket and cufflinks” I said with a smile. “Oh do it!” Amy giggled as I walked passed her. As I made my way down the steps to the ground floor I was surprised to find that nobody was there. The room looked pristine and untouched. I took a few steps forward and stretched my neck looking along the rows of formal jackets. “Amy?” I called up stairs. I heard her shuffle along from the till to the doorway. “Yello?” she asked. “I thought you said there was a lady down here?” I asked quickly glancing back at the room. “There is… I watched her go down myself” she said again confidently. I walked the full length of the room, passed the shoe displays to the changing rooms and back. “Nope, no one here… are you seeing things?” I asked with a smile. Amy looked both confused and annoyed. “What? Can I come down?” she asked. “Yes but quickly” I watched as she made her way around the room and back. “What the fuck….” She uttered under her breath while pulling back the curtains of the changing room. “See just like I said, you’re seeing things” “I swear to god this is freaky… I literally watched her enter the store at the entrance, the doorbell even chimed, I smiled at her and she just walked down here” Amy finished. I noticed that colour seemed to be fading from her usually rosy cheeks. Just then I had a sinking feeling. “What if she’s gone down into the basement?” I asked eyebrows raised. Amy put her hand to her mouth in a “oh fuck” fashion. “Ugh what if she’s senile or something and just went down there? Did she acknowledge you when you smiled at her?” I questioned. Amy’s eyes looked upwards in thought before returning to me. “She didn’t… I thought she was just being rude.” “Okay, go back upstairs I’ll go find her” I said a little exasperated.
I really wasn’t looking forward to this part of the job. One thing I learned from working in the fabulous world of retail is you often meet people from both sides of the mental health spectrum. My second week working at the store some guy politely used one of our changing rooms to try on a shirt and in doing so took it upon himself to urinate into the small trash can in there. Guess which rookie member of the team has the pleasure of fixing this problem?
As I entered the basement level the first thing to hit me was the void of total darkness. Funny thing about wondering around in the dark, you usually have some sort of natural light so you can at least see your hand in front of your face. But here, deep underground if the lights were off you were pretty much Stevie Wondering.
My hand went to my left and frantically felt for the switch and with a sigh of relief I flicked it back. The florescent tube light bulbs flickered into existence for a few moments before bursting light to all corners of the basement and as my eyes adjusted I quickly scanned around. “Nobody” I said with relief.
The basement stockroom was quiet and untouched and also a complete mess. It was all of our jobs to keep the stockroom tidy but over the weeks of constantly deliveries it had become more or less a dumping ground with crates stacked on top of each other. Another reason to not wanting to be wondering around here in the dark.
As I began to turn back to the door while thinking how it was going to be my sad duty to inform one of my colleagues’ that she’s been hallucinating. I distinctly heard the sound of a refrigerator door closing.
I quickly turned to the direction of the staff room. The door was closed but the light from within seeped through the gap under the door. My heart began to race. The old lady was here… she must have somehow navigated her way through the stock room in the dark and was now making herself at home in our staff room, probably attempting to make herself a nice cup of tea perhaps. Without really thinking I marched forward and pushed the door open.
I was greeting with an empty staff room. The bags and coats hung neatly on peg hooks on the far wall, cutlery lay strewn around the draining board and a dirty washrag was lazily dumped on top of them (my bad).
I remember thinking that perhaps Amy and I had been coming down with something because now I seemed to be hearing things. Just as the worry began to subside my eyes locked on the small fridge under the counter with its door ajar. “Hmm” I thought and gently nudged it close with the tip of my shoe. It was at this moment my blood ran cold. “Hello?” came a shakily elderly voice from behind me. It was one of those experiences where you are so afraid that time seems to slow down. I began turning in the direction of the voice extremely slowly, almost as if on some level I wasn’t so eager to lock eyes with whoever was down here. I sighed again. Just the empty doorway. I decided I wanted to go back upstairs where the sanity seemed to be so I closed the staff room door and made my way back across the stockroom.
Just as my hand gripped the door handle of the fire door total darkness enveloped me. It was so sudden that I couldn’t help but unleash the unmanliest yelps I’ve ever created. My hand instinctively fumbled for the light switch and toggled it on and off to no avail. The lighting was completely gone. Now retrospectively thinking, a normal person would have opened the door and ran upstairs, saying “ta ta” to this fucked up situation but something caught my eye in the darkness. A light source.
The light was emanating from under the staff room door again. This didn’t sit right with me, a lot down here today didn’t sit right with me. But in regards to the light, I knew how the electricity worked in the building. All lights on the basement level were connected at the fuse box. If one light goes, they all go. I’m by no means an electrical engineer but I knew there was no way that light should be on.
Now call it basic human curiosity or human stupidity but I found myself moving towards the light. Navigating around the crates until my hands were pressed against the wood panelling of the staff room door.
I pushed it and to my total bewilderment I was greeting by one horrifying site. All the cupboards were open now, their doors yanked wide displaying the plates and cups within. Over on the far wall the coats and bags had come away from the wall hooks and lay crumpled on the carpet below in a pile. A newspaper I had got that morning during my morning commute which had been neatly folded on the staff room table was now open and the pages had been pulled out. I remember I almost couldn’t breathe, it was a kind of terror I’ve never experience before or since. I became instantly aware of how … alone I was down here. “Hello?” I heard the voice again but this time closer than before. In fact this time it was right behind me. Now I’m not sure if this is a coping mechanism of the human brain but I remember the complete inability to turn around and face the owner of this voice. I was aware of a presence directly behind me and knew only too well that if I had turned in that moment id have seen something that I’d be describing to a therapist to this day. My body went cold, my hairs on the back of my neck were raised and I became aware of how annoyingly loud my heart beat was beating.
I looked forward and noticed the bottom half of our small cordless telephone poking out from underneath one of the newspaper pages. The phone lets us make external and internal calls around the building.
My hand slowly and shakily reached for it. Still feeling the presence behind me and the unwillingness to turn around I pressed “Int” and “1” and instantly heard the faint sound of a phone ringing above me followed my footsteps moving from one side of the store to the other. “Yellooo” Amy said amused. “Amy… can you come down here please” I whispered, my voice very slow and steady. “….. What’s wrong?” she asked. “Please just come here now” I said this time with a hint of panic in my voice. The phone disconnected and I heard the footsteps sprinting across the ceiling above and then silence. “Hello?”
The voice sounded so frail and gravely now and I swear I could feel it stepping closer. Somehow being down here and going through this had made me ultra-aware in a way that I haven’t been since. Just when I thought I was about to crawl under the table with my arms wrapped around my knees I heard the most amazing sound in the world. “Hey” Amy said. I turned around to see a very concerned looking Amy. “Hey” I whispered. “Are you okay?” I nodded slowly. “I… I just want to go upstairs.” I whispered again. I felt her arm go around mine and she slowly escorted me out of the basement.
A while after I remember saying to Amy that she was my Hero, that she saved me from quite possibly having a heart attack. She found the story interesting and would often ask me questions on what I think I would have saw if I had turned to face it. But I’m fine not knowing what it looked like.
I sometimes wonder why I had reacted the way I had, why did I feel such intense fear, was it my own insecurity and cowardice? Or had i sensed that I was in danger? Or was the voice even real at all? Perhaps I had simply imagined it? I think it’s doubtful. I mean I didn’t create the mess in the staff room and Amy had seen a women walk downstairs.
I don’t know, but I do know that I’ll always remember this experience. It will be my one unexplainable story, I’m pretty sure everybody has one and this is mine.
It took a while before I was willing to go down to the basement alone and before I even had to get used to it I ended up finding the job of my dreams and so sadly I ended up having to say goodbye to my friends at the store.
Thanks for taking the time to read my story.
Submitted July 01, 2016 at 06:06PM by GAZArts http://ift.tt/297pR23 Paranormal
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