Awake At Night

The Awake At Night Shift

A few years ago I started working for a company in Arizona. I was six months pregnant at the time. My job was to monitor highly functional, mentally retarded, female clients. I worked the awake at night shift (graveyard). Ironically, when I was first introduced to my clients, I remembered them because both my mother and sister worked there in the previous years past. I remembered them telling me something unusual about the house, however, I couldn't remember what because when they worked there I was only about ten years old. The only thing I remembered clearly was the name of the house.

I started the awake-at-night shift with no problems at first. I would arrive early in the evening, make dinner, pack lunches, do dishes and then put the girls to bed. After they were asleep I had a list of chores to do, such as; cleaning bathrooms, trash cans etc. One night, one of the clients refused to go to sleep. I sat with her at the dining room table, and tried to convince her to go to sleep. Suddenly, I was startled by the sound of an object falling to the floor. It sounded like a tin pie pan, and it even rattled for a minute or so until it finally stopped. I felt a presence, but quickly shrugged it off. I went to investigate and found nothing. Mind you, I was only sitting about four feet from the kitchen were the noise occurred. The noise was very distinct, and I can still hear it to this day. So, you can imagine my surprise when I searched all over for this pie pan and found nothing to make sense of what I heard. That same night I heard many things, like objects being shuffled around in the pantry, and just like before, when I checked to see what was the matter I found no logical explanation.

The worst part was the eerie presence I felt. I also felt cold rushes near my body. I was so terrified I sometimes wouldn't do my chores, but watch TBN in the living room all night with the lights on!! Around the same time I began working there so did an old high school friend of mine. I went through the local drive-thru liquor store one day and was surprized to see her working there. I asked her if she was now working two jobs. She said no, and that she decided to quite working at the house. When I asked her why she said she would only tell me if I promised to keep it a secret. Of course, I said I would. She explained that during one of her awake-at-night shifts at the house she was walking from the kitchen to the dining room when something grabbed her forcefully by her shoulder. "IT" tossed her around and threw her up against the wall. She said she saw no one, but knew something was there. She was so frightened she peed herself!! I knew then I was not imagining the things that were going on in that house. I decided to investigate further.

I first called my mom, and told her I was working at the house. I asked her if she had experienced anything unusual there. She told me of a time when she was awakened in the middle of the night to the presence of a woman standing behind the Television set. I couldn't believe my ears! I also called my sister. She had the same story of seeing the ghostly image of a woman in the house. When I returned to work the following evening something happened that I will never forget.

The evening went according to schedule, and I put the girls down to bed. One of my scheduled tasks was to defrost the refrigerator. Every time I attempted to enter the kitchen to do this I was overcome by a paralyzing fear. After trying for an hour or so, I decided to forget it. I was upset about this because my boss was getting on me for neglecting my chores, however, I couldn't tell her why. I decided to take a cigarette brake. We couldn't smoke in doors, so we had to go outside and smoke on a bench in the car-port. When I reached for a cigarette, they were all gone. I knew I had another pack in my car. I left the front door open, and went to my car. As I was bent over looking for my cigarettes, I was startled by the front door slamming shut. This was a solid, heavy oak door, so I knew a person had to of slammed it and not the wind or anything else. When I looked up to see who shut the door, I saw a woman playfully running behind the van. She was running and sort of tip-toeing at the same time. She was dressed in a wheat or ivory colored gown with a sort of shroud over her head. She seemed to be transparent. I called out to her, and no one answered. I finally went to look behind the van. No one was there. I ran into the house and woke all the clients up. I yelled at each one of them asking them who was playing a trick and who shut the door. I finally realized it was evident they had all been a sleep, and no one was playing a trick. That was it!! I called my boss, and told her I quit. I offered her no explanation. I left as soon as I hung up the phone.

I had been brought up to believe there was no such thing as ghosts, or hauntings.

Note: She sent me some other information in a different email that I thought would be a good addition here:

There are a lot of interesting rural legends about the area I live in. For example, "The Yarona" which I believe is Spanish for the "crying woman." She was an alleged Mexican prostitute who lived in the 19th century. The story goes that she drown her children in a canal and then apparently killed herself. Supposedly, she is a ghost that walks the canal banks around our area crying and moaning for her children. I have never seen her myself, however, when I was in the 4th grade my friends parents put bars on their windows after her father had been drinking one night, and walked out into the desert behind his home to "relieve" himself. I never could figure out why they believed bars would protect them. Oh well. Also, my sister's old boyfriend claimed that one night while he and a friend were driving around near a canal she jumped on the hood of his car.

~J.

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Jenny