Freaky Friday – Black Friday!

Freaky Friday – Black Friday!  What a great combination!!! So, in honor of the retail holiday – I’ll share with you a few ghostly encounters in your favorite retail haunts.

In Panorama City, CA a local Wal-Mart is the permanent home of a young woman killed in an elevator accident.  The ghost appears on the third floor of the building, moves merchandise around and has been seen passing through the shelves, probably on her way to the latest sale.  One evening, a store manager heard someone called his name and actually felt someone tap him on the back.  When he turned, no one was there. People also complain of suddenly feeling chilled or having eerie feelings when they are in the elevators or on the upper floors.

In Coeur d’Alene, ID, you need to be very careful about which check-out lane you choose. According to the store manager, register two has a poltergeist that frequently takes control. The computerized register will freeze up, dump its memory and will erase items mid-transaction.  Technicians have been called in to repair the register, but when they come in, the machine performs perfectly. Once they leave it’s back to fun and games.  The store manager says that machine has a mind of its own – or is it someone else’s mind totally in control?

It used to be that as long as you didn’t build something over an old burial ground, you were safe. Not so much anymore, say the workers of a McDonald’s Restaurant in Cuero, TX.  This McDonalds was built on the site of a gas station where two deaths had occurred.  One, a young boy who died after his mother mistakenly ran over him, and the second, a mechanic who was crushed under a car.  Now both diners and employees hear strange sounds throughout the day, the toilets flush by themselves, and the walk-in cooler will mysteriously turn itself off – from the inside.  You want fries with that haunting?

If burgers aren’t your thing, welcome to the haunted Pizza Hut in Centereach, NY.  Your fine if you just want your pizza to go, but if you happen to need to go to the bathroom, that’s where you might run in to a little paranormal trouble.  According to legend, the restaurant used to be a Jack in the Box and someone died, either by murder or suicide in the bathroom. (Whichever way, it certainly wasn’t pleasant.)  Now employees hear whispering in the bathroom, sense cold spots throughout the building and pots and pans frequently levitate themselves off shelves and then go crashing down onto the floor.  Yeah, I’ll take it to go.

Of course, I had to include a haunting in the Heartland.  Dodgeville, IA has a Subway restaurant has an extra helper working the store on certain days.  The property used to house a Harvey Davidson store, but the couple who owned the store died in a head-on collision in the 1980s.  Now employees at the Subway have seen a thin woman in her 50s standing at the register, but when they approach her, she disappears.  Not to worry, she isn’t gone for good, she’s helping out in other areas of the store. Employees have had sandwiches cut themselves when they aren’t looking, items fly off shelves, door beepers go off for no reason and occasionally, a horrid stench overpowers the building.   Probably not an appetizing benefit for the restaurant.

I hope you enjoyed your Black Friday shopping and the holiday spirit was the only spirit you encountered.

Happy Friday!!!

Like what you read?  Find more stories by Terri Reid here.