I'm a female. I work a pretty standard job in an office five days a week. One thing I really like to do, though, is cook.
I cook dinner for myself almost every night. In order to do so, I go to the store for fresh ingredients probably every other day. Right on the way home from work, there's a Walmart only about a mile from my apartment, and I've found that they usually have the cheapest prices.
So, I go there for produce and protein all the time. Sometimes I go to other stores, but by far the most common one for me is Walmart. The story takes place just a few months back.
Like usual, I was stopping at Walmart after work. I would never get much—just like four or five ingredients usually—and sometimes whatever else I needed as well. I got off of work anywhere from 3 P.
M. to 4, so I got to Walmart shortly after that each day. The store was usually sort of busy.
One day, an employee by the produce area said hi to me. I mention this because the next time I was shopping, he said hi to me again when I was in the same area. Looking back, I hadn't really noticed him before, but I had never really paid attention to the employees.
He was bald, had a small dark beard, and was sort of a big guy. He seemed very friendly, and the second time he asked me how my day was going. We made very basic conversation for maybe 30 seconds before I told the man I better go, and I went on with my shopping.
This ended up becoming a regular thing. Over the next couple of weeks or so, every time I was shopping, this same Walmart employee would say hi and engage in conversation with me. I didn't mind it too much because he was always really nice, although when I was getting ingredients after work, I was sort of anxious to get home and didn't really want to chit-chat.
The man did start to ask slightly more personal questions each time, like if I was coming home from work, where I worked, and where I lived—things like that. They were starting to weird me out a little bit. I wasn't sure if the man was just a really friendly employee or something else.
I told myself he was just a nice guy, and like I said, it didn't really bother me. That was until one time I was walking through Walmart doing my usual shopping, and he approached me again. He asked me how my day was and the usual, then he asked me for my number.
I was nice, but I told the man no. I was afraid he would get the wrong idea if I said yes. Besides, he should know how weird it sounded.
I mean, come to think of it, I never really saw the guy doing any real work; he would always just be standing around and then talk to me. The man seemed offended when I said no. I started to try and explain my reasoning to the man, but he just turned and walked away.
As I started to speak, his whole body language changed. After he walked away, I resumed my shopping. He had gone further into the grocery aisles of the store, but luckily I didn't have to get anything back there.
I was inside the Walmart shopping for maybe 10 more minutes before checking out and leaving. I remember that on that day I parked in the back of the parking lot. When I got inside my car, I noticed that the Walmart employee was inside a car not too far away from mine.
I really have no idea how I noticed him, looking back, but I'm glad that I did. I was assuming that he was either on a break or had just gotten off work for the day. He did not appear to be looking at me, which I was glad to see.
I pulled out of my parking space only to see him pull out and exit the parking lot behind me. I watched in my rearview mirror, and he made the same two turns that I did to get back to my apartment. About a minute later, I was arriving at my apartment complex.
I was kind of creeped out now because I was almost positive that this man did not live here. I drove around the parking lot of my complex a little and did not want to go straight to my building. I was really suspicious; the man's car trailed mine the entire time.
When I realized that he was probably just going to follow me no matter where I went, I decided to leave. I did not know where I was going, but I needed to get out of there. I drove down the quiet road near the complex to a busier one, then I signaled to merge onto a busier road.
At this hour, that road in particular was really busy because it was almost 5 PM now and rush hour. With the man right behind me, I waited for a gap in the traffic. After about 30 seconds, there was one, but I waited until the very last moment and then pulled out.
I basically cut the car off that was driving down the road, and there were several other cars behind it. The car honked at me, but the man behind me had no opportunity to merge at all. That allowed me to basically get away from the guy.
I drove down the road for a very short time before turning. It was then that I had the idea to go back to Walmart. I was fuming with anger.
I drove straight back there to the customer service counter. When I got there, I told them about how. .
. One of their employees had followed me home. This Walmart didn't seem to be the most organized, and they had to call up someone from the produce section to help.
When I explained to them what had happened, they told me that nobody of that description works there. I realized that the man must have just put on a blue Walmart vest—maybe he had worked at a Walmart in the past, or maybe he had just bought the vest online. Either way, he wasn't an employee of the store.
I was even more creeped out now. They told me that they would keep an eye out for the man if he returned, which made me feel a very tiny bit better, but not a whole lot. After that, I very carefully drove back to my apartment; again, thankfully, I did not see the man or his car.
I don't believe he knew which apartment building was mine either. Since that happened a few months ago, I have not seen the man. I also have not been back to that particular Walmart.
This happened last year. I was shopping at my local Walmart, just doing some typical shopping on a random weeknight. The store was pretty quiet and was probably around eight or nine p.
m. I had been in the store for about 15 minutes or so, and I was in the aisle where they have the fitness items. I was looking at one of those massage guns; I wasn't planning on buying one that day or even buying one at Walmart, but I had been considering getting one.
When I walked by, I noticed it and stopped to read the box. I was in the aisle looking at it for a few minutes, and when I was doing so, I remember hearing some voices in the next aisle over. It happened to be a toy aisle, and this was sort of at the back corner of the store.
I heard a man's voice and then the voice of a child. At first, I paid no attention as I was looking, but soon I heard the man say, "I will buy you this toy if you come with me. " I assumed it was the child's father at first, but I didn't really know why he would say that.
I couldn't really make out what the kid said back to him, but I heard the man then say something like, "Your mom said it's okay. " Then I just had the crazy thought that maybe this wasn't the child's father. The man started saying, "Come on, let's go," a couple of times.
I heard him starting to walk to the end of the aisle. I just had a really bad feeling about it at the time. I didn't know if I was just being nosy or if I should do something, so I decided to walk by the aisle and glance down it to see.
I left the aisle that I was in and walked into the next one over, which was a toy aisle, and when I looked down, I saw a man wearing a black jacket and winter hat, holding the hand of a little kid and leading her to the other end of the aisle. Their backs were facing me. I was kind of thinking on the fly and I said, "Excuse me," to the guy.
He turned around and looked really surprised. I picked up some random toy from the shelf; it was some type of stuffed animal. I said I wanted to ask the man a question: if this would be a good gift for my niece.
I then started walking over to them. He said he had no idea, and I said I thought he might know. I then asked if that was his daughter.
He said no, and he was just watching her for the moment, but then said they really had to get going. He and the child then walked away. I really wasn't sure if I should believe him or not.
Maybe I was making too much of it. I realized it probably was a reasonable explanation, and I turned and started to walk in the opposite direction. I was telling myself that nothing was wrong and I was just paranoid, but I'm not even kidding; about 30 seconds later, I heard a woman's voice calling out a name.
For this story, let's just say the name was Sarah. The woman was calling out "Sarah" not really loud, but enough for people in the aisles nearby to hear, including me. I walked towards the voice and found the woman a few aisles down, and more towards the center of the store.
When I reached her, I asked if Sarah was her daughter. She looked concerned and said yes. I had a terrible feeling, and I said that I might have seen her daughter with a man and I thought they might be leaving.
We both started sprinting towards the front of the store. The good thing is that this was probably less than a minute since I had seen the man. When we made it to the front of the store, we saw the man and the child at the self-checkout area.
He was buying one of the toys for her. The girl's mother started shouting, and the man claimed he was just trying to be nice and buy the toy for the girl, but he quickly tried to run away after realizing nobody would believe that. He ran out the door and was able to momentarily get away.
I was just happy that the girl was okay and back with her mother. It turned out that the girl had wandered off from her mother to look at toys while her mom was shopping in another area of the store. The mother had believed that her child was nearby, but she had actually wandered off much further.
I also found out that the guy was. . .
located not long after this at all. I remember this Walmart, sort of where I live, that used to be open 24 hours. I'm not sure, but I think there were a lot of Walmarts that used to be open 24 hours.
Of the ones that I've been to in recent years, closed at like 10 PM now, though. Maybe the reason is because of things happening, like the story I'm about to tell you. This was several years ago, probably about 2014.
I remember that I worked a job back then with all kinds of crazy hours. I never really knew when I would get off of work, and some nights were really late. One time, I got off of work at close to 3 A.
M. By the time I was done, I was exhausted but also really hungry. On my way home, I stopped at the 24-hour Walmart to see what they had.
There were no restaurants nearby that were still open, and I was just going to go down the snack aisle and maybe find something to drink as well when I got inside. I made my way over to the food; the store was almost completely empty. I only saw a couple of employees here and there.
When I got to the snack aisle, I browsed around for a little bit. I wasn't really sure exactly what I was hungry for; I often have a hard time deciding what to eat or where to get food from. I browsed for maybe five minutes, and then I had this feeling like I was being watched.
It seemed a little strange, and I looked around. When I looked to the far end of the aisle, I saw a man standing there, looking towards me. He was a sort of tall and skinny guy wearing a black Adidas sweatshirt.
When he saw me looking at him, he just kept standing there. He wasn't looking at anything on the shelves in particular; he looked away from me, but I thought the guy seemed really weird. I went back to looking at the food on the shelves and tried to make up my mind.
I wandered into the next aisle; there was more food in that aisle. I was there for no more than 10 seconds when I noticed a man creeping around the corner slowly and then looking at me again from the end of the aisle. This was really strange.
I grabbed a bag of trail mix and then made my way towards the back of the store along the side. Once I was at the far back corner of the store, I decided to walk back to one of the main walkways, but when I got there, the man was already standing there, looking at me. I started walking all around the store, and the man seemed to be following me.
He kept slowly walking around the store, trailing me wherever I went, and it was really frustrating. His face was almost expressionless the entire time, and he never spoke a word. Finally, I said forget this and I went to the checkout area.
There was only one check lane still open, and I told the cashier that some guy had been following me around the store. The man did not follow me into the checkout but instead wandered off into the clothing area that was across from the check lanes. She just kind of said thanks for letting us know and agreed that it was weird.
I just wanted to get home, eat something, and go to bed. After I was done checking out, I walked down towards the exit doors. I was sure to scan over and make sure that the creepy guy was not once again following me.
I was really happy to see that he wasn't. When I made it out the door, I walked through the parking lot to my car. My car was parked a little ways from the doors.
It wasn't in the far back end of the parking lot, but it wasn't really that close either. The parking lot was mostly empty, but there were a few cars scattered all around, most of which I'm guessing were employees. Right as I was starting my engine, I looked up and noticed something—there was a man sprinting at full speed from the Walmart, headed straight for my car.
It was the same guy that had been following me around. The way that he was running was so fast, like he was running for his life, but he wasn't running away from anything; he was running for me. There was a second or two where I was so confused that I just watched him.
That was until I realized he was going to reach my car very quickly. Then, I put my car into drive and got out of there. I pulled away probably just a couple of seconds before he would have reached me.
He kept running, though, all the way until I was out of the parking lot and on the street. Then I was easily able to get away. I was really confused about who the man was, why he followed me around in the store, and why he had run full speed at me when I was in my car.
The lesson I learned from this was to not go back to Walmart in the middle of the night. I'm a female, and the story took place about four years ago. I was at Walmart shopping back then; I went there all the time.
On this day, I was only getting like two or three things. It was nighttime. The store was somewhat busy, though, and I was able to find what I needed pretty easily, and I spent a total of maybe 10 minutes inside the store.
At one point, though, a man came up seemingly out of nowhere and introduced himself to me. He was about 5'8" and had. .
. grayish hair. He asked me my name and what I was shopping for.
I saw that he didn't work there, and he came across to me as a little strange. I spoke with the man for maybe a minute, but I told him that I had to leave; he was sort of creeping me out. When I walked away, I headed straight for the checkouts, and when I got there, I saw that there were only two other people in the self-checkout area that had maybe six registers.
I went to one and began scanning my items. That's when I saw the man again. It looked as though he had followed me all the way from the aisle we were in together, and that aisle was on the whole other end of the store.
When he got to the self-checkouts, he did not go to an open one; instead, he walked straight up to me. Then he offered to pay for my items that I was getting. I told the man, "No, thanks," and I asked him why he wanted to do that.
He said he was just trying to be nice, and I said, "Thanks, but I would buy it for myself. " Then the man walked away, but he wasn't buying anything at all; he just seemed to walk out and leave the store. I finished checking out and then walked away to leave.
When I got outside, the first thing I saw was the man standing there. He said hi to me once again. It scared me, but I said hi.
The man asked if I wanted to come over to his house. It was really awkward. I told him, "Sorry, but no," and I started walking away.
At first, the man took a couple of steps towards me and was walking with me, but after about five seconds or so, he stopped. He did not continue to follow me, and I got to my car and drove home. This experience was creepy and should have been enough for me to not go back to that Walmart, but I thought it wasn't that big of a deal.
So this guy was a bit of a creep; so what? I continued to go back to that Walmart. I went there several more times with no problems.
Probably about a month after this happened, though, I was shopping at the same Walmart once again. I was doing some typical grocery shopping, and it was like 8 PM. I was in one of the first food aisles of the store, and I noticed the man was there again.
When I first saw him, I recognized him, but I'd actually forgotten about what had happened. I didn't know where I had seen him before at first, and it took my brain about five seconds to remember. When I did, I knew I needed to get out of there because I was starting to walk away.
I saw him look up and notice me. I left the aisle and walked as far away from him as I could to the complete other end of the store. I still had a couple more things to get in the grocery department, but I wanted to wait until the man was gone; running into him again was something I needed to avoid doing.
In the meantime, I started just looking around at random items on the side of the store that I was now on. There were far fewer shoppers over there, and it was quiet. I slowly walked down a few aisles, just kind of taking my time.
As I was doing so, I noticed the man again. He seemed to be heading in my direction but was still really far away. I knew that I had to get out of there.
I started walking away as fast as I could, and I went down different aisles to block myself from the man's view. I just set my basket with several items in it on the ground and then left the store. There was no way I would have been able to check out without the man catching up to me.
Once I left the store, I drove back home. After that, I did not return to that particular Walmart for some time. I believe that it was a total coincidence that I saw the man again there that night, but when he saw me, he was going to try to talk to me again for sure.
He must shop there a lot, and I'm just glad that since then, I have never seen the guy. I used to work at a Walmart a couple of years ago. This was my strangest experience.
I mostly worked overnights and would stock shelves. It was an easy job for me. I would start at like 9 PM, and at first, the store would actually be open but would close only like two hours into my shift.
There would never be very many customers in that time anyways. A good number of us worked overnights because, obviously, Walmart is a really big store. On this one night, I happened to be working in the pets and supplies aisle, which is in the back end of the store.
I'd been working in that general area but not that exact aisle earlier in the night. But by now, it was about 11:30 PM. Our store closed at 11, so we had been closed for 30 minutes.
Now, as I was in the pet supply aisle, I was just stocking one of the shelves by myself. When the store closed, I would often put in headphones and listen to music while I worked, which is what I was doing. It helped work go by faster and easier for me, but out of nowhere, I saw something out of the corner of my eye.
It appeared as though somebody had walked by. I looked over, but they were now. .
. Gone, I assumed it to be one of my co-workers. Once a few minutes went by, I kept working.
Then, again I saw somebody at the end of the aisle out of the corner of my eye. I looked over, and this time the person did not walk away. It wasn't one of my co-workers, though; it looked like just some guy that I had never seen before.
When I looked at him, he disappeared behind the next aisle. I got up and walked over and then looked down the next aisle. When I did, I saw the man disappearing out of that aisle and into the one after that.
I took out my headphones and then radioed in on my walkie that I thought I saw somebody inside the store who wasn't supposed to be here. After that, I kept doing my work. About an hour later, I went to the back room.
That area was pretty large in our store, but I was the only one back in that section at the time. When I was walking over there, I was sure that I saw the man again. I could see him hiding behind a box underneath one of the shelves.
I didn't stare at him, and I acted like I never saw him. I was going to walk past, but I decided to turn around and then go the other way instead. He was maybe 30 feet away when I began walking back.
I heard noises behind me, even with my headphones in. I started running for the exit to go back into the sales floor. I heard footsteps behind me when I did.
When I got there, I opened the door, and the man did not come out after me. I ran to find the nearest employee, that was Al, who was working in the electronics overnight at the time. I told him that I saw a man in the back, and he decided to come back and see.
I had a bad feeling, and I wondered if the guy was dangerous. We both went back there anyways. When we opened the door to the back, we heard the sound of another door opening.
It was coming from one of the doors we had back there that opened up to the outside; they were rarely used. We walked in further just in time to see the guy walking out of the store and the door closing behind him. After that, he was gone.
I still don't know how the man got inside. My only guess is he somehow avoided all employees and hid inside the store until after we had closed. I also wonder what he was going to do to me when he was hiding in the back and then followed me.
Luckily, I quit that job not too long afterwards.
