3 Creepy TRUE Alone At Night Horror Stories

From May 2010 to May 2011, I worked as a security guard at a hydroelectric dam in Virginia. It was a completely isolated location. If you ever needed an ambulance or the police, you were looking at a 20-minute wait minimum.

About a month into the job, one of the maintenance guys told me that most security guards quit after their first week. They just could not handle being completely alone out there at night. I told him I needed the paycheck, but deep down I understood why the others left.

The layout of the dam was massive and mostly underground. During my patrols, I had to walk the basement level. That meant I was 50 ft below the water line on the low side, surrounded by thick concrete walls with millions of gallons of water pressing against them.

I was the only human being in a mile and a half radius. It was loud down there, a constant low hum of machinery, but when I was up in the guard house, it was dead quiet. Sometimes I heard snapping branches in the woods or saw shadows moving just past the treeine.

I always told myself it was just deer or raccoons. One night in late October, things changed. It was a little after 11 p.

m. I was sitting in the small guard house at the entrance of the property reading a paperback. The guard house had large windows on all four sides.

The problem was that when the interior light was on at night, the glass acted like a mirror. Anyone standing outside in the dark could see me perfectly, but all I could see was my own reflection. Suddenly, I heard a tap at the glass door.

I stopped turning the page of my book. I stared at the door. I thought maybe a large moth had hit the glass.

The site was locked down. No contractors were scheduled and the main gate was secured. Then the tap came again.

It was louder. Two heavy deliberate knocks. I picked up my heavy duty flashlight from the desk.

My palms were sweating, making the metal grip slippery. I stood up, walked to the door, and pushed it open, shining the beam into the dark parking lot. Nobody was in front of me.

I let the door slip from my hand. It swung shut behind me. As it closed, it revealed the space behind it.

Standing against the brick exterior of the guard house, less than 2 ft from my left shoulder, was a massive man. He had to be at least 400 lb. He wore a gray sweatshirt and gray sweatpants.

The entire front of his sweatshirt was smeared with thick, dark, wet blood. I stopped breathing. I took two steps backward, putting distance between us.

I gripped my flashlight like a club. I didn't have a weapon, just the flashlight and a radio. The man looked at my raised flashlight, then looked down at his shirt.

He wiped his hands on his pants. He spoke in a very calm, casual voice. He asked why the power company had not started back pumping into the lake yet.

He said they usually started before 11 p. m. and the current always drew in the big striped bass.

He was a local fisherman. He had been fishing off the public bridge over the tail race about a/4 mile down the road. He had caught and gutted two large fish in the dark and wiped his hands on his clothes.

When the water didn't change, he walked up to the guard house to ask about the schedule. I exhaled. I lowered the flashlight.

I told him I didn't control the pumps and he needed to leave the property. He apologized for startling me. He realized he had approached me exactly the way an attacker in a movie would have.

He walked back down the dirt road toward the bridge. I locked the guard house door and sat back down. I wiped my hands on my pants.

I was glad I was unarmed because if I had a gun in that split second of opening the door, I might have made a terrible mistake. I thought that would be the end of it. The adrenaline slowly faded and I went back to my book.

At 1:00 a. m. , it was time for my basement patrol.

I grabbed my keys and my flashlight, leaving the guard house. I walked across the top of the dam to the main access door. I unlocked it, stepped inside, and locked it behind me.

I walked down the concrete stairwell five flights down. The air got cooler and smelled like wet cement and ozone. The hum of the turbines vibrated through the soles of my boots.

I reached the bottom floor. The lighting down here was spaced out, leaving long stretches of shadows between the yellow industrial bulbs. I started walking my route, checking the pressure gauges and electrical panels.

About halfway down the main corridor, I heard a sound that did not belong. It was a sharp metallic scrape. It came from the secondary turbine room, a large chamber adjacent to the main hallway.

I stopped walking. I kept perfectly still. The normal sounds of the dam were a constant drone.

This was a distinct sudden noise, like a heavy tool being dragged across a metal grading. I pressed my thumb over the switch of my flashlight, keeping it off. I walked slowly toward the open archway of the secondary room.

I kept my footsteps light, rolling from heel to toe. I peaked around the corner of the concrete wall. The secondary room was mostly dark.

The overhead lights in there were turned off at the breaker to save power. Only the ambient light from the hallway spilled in. I looked at the floor.

Just inside the room on the dry concrete was a fresh wet footprint. It was a large work boot tread. I looked at my own boots.

The pattern was completely different. The water making the print was still glistening under the dim light. Someone else was down here.

The fisherman from earlier was wearing sneakers and he had gone back to the road. This was someone completely different. The main door at the top of the stairs was locked.

The only other way in was through a heavy ventilation shaft on the east side of the property which had a heavy steel grate bolted over it. I took my radio off my belt. The basement had a terrible reception, but I pressed the button to call the local police dispatch.

All I got was heavy static. The signal could not penetrate 50 ft of concrete and dirt. I was completely cut off.

I had two choices. Go back up the stairs and call the police from the surface or check the room to make sure it wasn't just a maintenance worker pulling an unannounced night shift. Sometimes the day crew stayed late without telling security.

I took a deep breath, filling my lungs, and turned on my flashlight. I swept the bright beam across the room. It illuminated the massive metal casing of the turbine, the catwalks, and the network of thick pipes along the walls.

The beam hit the far corner behind a cluster of pressure valves. A person was standing there. It was a tall, thin man wearing dark clothes and a black ski mask pulled down over his face.

He was holding a 3-ft long steel crowbar in his right hand. He was in the middle of prying open a massive copper wiring junction box. He stopped moving the second the light hit him.

He turned his head and looked directly at the flashlight beam. My grip on the heavy metal flashlight grew incredibly tight. I didn't say a word.

I didn't ask what he was doing. The man slowly pulled the crowbar out of the junction box. He didn't drop it.

He lowered it to his side and took a step toward me. I immediately turned off my flashlight, plunging the room back into near total darkness. I turned and ran.

I didn't care about making noise. I sprinted back down the main hallway toward the stairwell. Behind me, I heard the heavy, rapid thud of his work boots hitting the concrete.

He was running after me. The distance to the stairwell was about 50 yards. I pumped my arms, my boots slipping slightly on the damp spots of the floor.

The sound of his boots was getting louder. He was faster than me. I reached the bottom of the stairwell, grabbed the metal handrail, and vaulted up the first few steps.

I looked back down. The man came around the corner. The yellow light from the hallway caught the black fabric of his mask.

He swung the heavy steel crowbar at the handrail right where my hand had just been. It connected with a deafening metallic crash that echoed up the concrete shaft. I scrambled up the stairs, taking them two at a time.

My lungs burned. My legs felt heavy, but I didn't slow down. I heard his boots hitting the metal steps below me.

He was relentless. Flight after flight, I pushed upward. I reached the landing for the top floor.

I slammed my hand against the push bar of the heavy steel door, throwing my entire body weight against it. The door flew open. I stumbled out into the cool night air.

I turned around instantly, grabbed the edge of the door, and pulled it shut with all my strength. The door clicked into its heavy frame. A split second later, a massive impact hit the other side of the metal door.

The force vibrated through my hands. I jammed my key into the deadbolt and turned it. The heavy lock slid into place.

I backed away from the door. I could hear dull, heavy strikes coming from the other side. He was hitting the steel door with the crowbar.

I grabbed my radio. Now that I was above ground, the signal was clear. I called dispatch and requested emergency police assistance at the dam.

I told them there was an intruder armed with a weapon trapped in the stairwell. I retreated to the guard house, locked the door, and watched the main access point. I kept my hand on the phone, watching the clock.

It took 22 minutes for the first police cruiser to arrive. It was the longest 22 minutes of my life. During that time, the banging on the door eventually stopped.

When two more cars arrived, the officers drew their weapons and I gave them the key to the main door. They entered the dam and spent an hour searching the entire facility. They found the basement empty.

The man had not stayed in the stairwell. He had gone back down, navigated the basement, and managed to unbolt a rusted drainage grate on the low side of the dam from the inside. He had escaped into the woods before the police even got there.

The officers found a duffel bag stuffed behind the secondary turbine. Inside were heavyduty bolt cutters, a batterypowered saw, and coils of thick stripped copper wire. They also found a dirty sleeping bag and food wrappers.

The guy hadn't just broken into steel copper. He had been living down there, hidden in the dark, isolated corners of the dam. I realized that during the month I had been working there, patrolling those dark basement halls alone, I had never truly been by myself.

He had been down there the entire time, listening to my footsteps and watching me walk past. I handed my keys to the lead officer. I told him to pass them on to the site manager in the morning.

I got in my car and drove away. I never went back to that dam again. A little backstory first.

At this time, my parents were divorced and my dad had moved out. We have weekdays with my mom and weekends with my dad. I was around 10 or 11 years old.

My mother got addicted to playing a computer game called Second Life. It is an online game where you make characters and communicate with people from all over the internet. Basically Roblox, but for adults.

She would forget we even existed when she was on it. She had a group of friends and chatted with them for hours. There was one guy she was really good friends with.

Even when they weren't playing the game, they stayed on a voice call. She would constantly be on the phone with him. Even when picking us up from our dad's house, it was a Sunday and my mom picked us up so we could go to school the following week.

I was the middle child, but for some reason I was sitting in the front passenger seat while my two older siblings were in the back. It was late and completely dark outside. We stopped at a fast food drive-thru for dinner.

My mother was on a call with her online friend the entire time. When she was on these calls, we all collectively stayed quiet in the car. She spoke Spanish with him.

She isn't Hispanic, but my dad is Mexican and she learned Spanish in college. They went back and forth between English and Spanish while we drove. Our house was surrounded by woods and very secluded.

The driveway started with a small dirt patch we shared with our neighbor. After that, we had a very steep hill we had to carefully drive up, completely surrounded by thick trees. It was always pitch black.

Our front door was a giant, heavy wooden door. The door handle was just a regular knob with no lock. The deadbolt was never installed, so there was just an empty hole in the wood.

Because the house was so private, we never locked the door or replaced the hardware. We were a few feet from turning into the dirt patch when my mom's friend spoke through the car speakers. Oh, you guys are home now?

My mom stopped talking. No, we barely pulled into the driveway. For context, my mom was still logged onto the game on our home computer.

Her headset was resting on the desk. She was speaking to her friend through her cell phone in the car, but he was still at his computer. He could hear the audio coming through the open microphone in our computer room.

Yes, you are. Her friend insisted. I hear people walking around.

Two guys. My mom stopped the car at the bottom of the steep hill. I gripped the door handle.

My hands started sweating. They are talking, her friend said. I can't make out the words, but they are right next to your desk.

One of them just picked up something heavy. I heard it scrape against the wood. Mom turned on the car's high beams.

The bright lights shot up the steep dirt hill and hit the front of our house. The heavy wooden front door was standing wide open. Inside the dark hallway, a thin beam of light from a flashlight swept across the wall and then clicked off.

I stopped breathing. I sank all the way down to the floorboard of the passenger seat. I wrapped my arms around my knees and kept my eyes fixed on the dirty floor mats.

In the back seat, my older brother stopped chewing his food. Nobody made a sound. My mom slammed the car into reverse.

The tires spun and kicked up dirt before catching the pavement. She backed out fast and drove straight up the neighbor's driveway. She parked the car behind a row of tall bushes where we could still see our property through the branches.

Mom told my older brother to hand over his cell phone. She dialed 911 on his phone while keeping her friend on speaker on her own phone. They are moving fast now, her friend said through the speaker.

I hear them opening drawers. They are in the kids' room. I bit the inside of my lip.

My palms slipped against the leather seats. The police arrived about 10 minutes later. Three squad cars pulled up with no sirens, just flashing lights.

We stayed in our neighbor's yard. I squatted down in the damp grass and pressed my hands over my ears. I watched the cops walk up our steep hill with their flashlights drawn.

Two officers went through the open front door while two others went around the sides of the house. Our dog was out in the yard, but he wasn't barking. He was hiding under the back porch, pacing back and forth.

We waited in the neighbor's yard for another 15 minutes. Finally, one of the officers walked down the hill and waved us over. We drove up and got out of the car.

The cops told us the house was empty. They said they checked every room and all the closets. They mentioned the front door being open, but said it looked like nothing had been taken.

The TVs were there, the computer was there. They told us it was safe to go inside, wished us a good night, and drove away. We walked inside.

My mom closed the heavy wooden door. The house smelled different. It smelled like wet dirt, stale cigarettes, and cheap cologne.

No one wanted to be alone. We all gathered in the dining room and sat at the table with our cold, fast food. I kept my hands flat on the table.

My legs shook against the wooden chair. My mom picked up her phone. She took her friend off mute.

"The cops just left," she said. "They didn't find anyone. " "There was a pause on the phone.

" "I know," her friend said. His voice sounded completely different now. He spoke very slowly.

I heard the cops walking through the house. I heard them talking to each other. But before the cops walked in, I heard the two men.

My mom stopped opening her food wrapper. What did they say? One of them looked out the window and said, "Car is outside.

" Then I heard footsteps running out of the computer room. I heard a door open and close, but it sounded like it was inside the house. Like a heavy door.

Then it went completely quiet before the police walked in. I looked across the dining room. Our house had an unfinished basement.

The stairs down to the basement were located behind a door inside the kitchen pantry. We used it so rarely that we kept boxes stacked in front of it. We didn't tell the police about the basement because we completely forgot about it.

I pointed at the kitchen floor. My older brother stood up from his chair. Leading from the hallway straight into the kitchen and stopping right at the closed pantry door were three large wet, muddy bootprints on the lenolium.

My mom dropped her phone on the table. She grabbed my arm and pulled me toward the front door. We didn't grab our food or our bags.

We ran out the front door, got back into the car, and locked the doors. Mom drove us straight back to my dad's house. The next day, my dad and the police went through the house in the daylight.

They found the basement window smashed open from the inside. The men had been standing down there the entire time the police were searching upstairs, and they climbed out the window after we left. We never found out who they were, but after that day, my dad installed a metal dead bolt on the front door.

I lived in a 2BHK flat on the sixth floor of an apartment complex. It was a decent place and I shared it with two friends. Let's call them Alice and Rachel.

I shared a bedroom with Rachel and Alice had the other room all to herself. It was around the time of Holi, so the entire building was practically empty. Most families and bachelors who lived on our floor had gone back to their respective hometowns to celebrate.

It was eerily quiet. Alice had told us she was going to her hometown as well and wasn't supposed to be back until the next day. So, as far as I knew, it was just going to be Rachel and me in the flat.

I was working the night shift that day. I clocked out late and didn't get back to the apartment complex until 2:00 a. m.

I was exhausted and just wanted to crash. I took the elevator up to the sixth floor. The hallway was silent.

Since we had an automatic lock installed on the main door, I didn't need to ring the bell. I just punched in the code, heard the familiar beep, and unlocked the door. The moment I stepped inside, I froze.

The complete flat was in total darkness. Not a single tube light was on. Usually, we kept a small nightlight on in the living room or the hallway, but it was pitch black.

It felt heavy, like the air was too thick. I pulled out my mobile phone and turned on the torch. The beam cut through the darkness, illuminating the empty living room.

I walked carefully toward my room. "Rachel," I called out softly. No answer.

I reached our bedroom door and knocked. "Rachel, open up. " "It's me.

" I had to call her name three or four times before I heard the lock click. The door opened to crack and then Rachel grabbed my arm and yanked me inside, slamming the door shut behind me and locking it instantly. "What is going on?

" I asked, annoyed. Why are there no lights on? I shone my torch on Rachel's face.

She looked pale, like she had seen a ghost. She was trembling. I don't know why there is no electricity.

She hissed. But that's not the problem. Someone is in the other room.

My heart stopped. "What? Alice is gone.

I know," Rachel said. Tears welling up in her eyes, but I heard noises. About an hour ago, I heard the front door open and close, but nobody came to our room.

Then I heard heavy footsteps walking around the living room and then someone knocked on our door twice. Just thump. I didn't answer.

I was too scared. We were new to this area and recently there had been news about robberies in the neighborhood. Two girls alone in an empty building on the sixth floor.

We were easy targets. "Are you sure? " I asked.

"Yes," she hissed. "Listen. " We stood in silence.

The flat was dead quiet, but then I heard it. a faint creek from the floorboards in the hallway. I didn't know what to do.

If there was a robber, were they waiting for us to come out? But we couldn't stay in the dark forever. We need to check the electricity.

If we have lights, we have an advantage. Somehow, we gathered the courage. I held my phone like a weapon.

We slowly unlocked our bedroom door and stepped into the hallway. It was terrifying. Every shadow looked like a man standing there.

We crept to the distribution board near the entrance. I shone the light on the MCBs circuit breakers. They were down.

All of them. Someone turned them off, Rachel whispered, clutching my shirt. Or they tripped, I said, trying to be rational, though I didn't believe it.

I reached up and flipped them back on. The tube lights flickered and buzzed to life. The sudden brightness was blinding for a second.

The living room was empty. Nothing was stolen. The TV was there.

The laptops were on the table. "Check Alice's room," I said. We walked toward the second bedroom.

The door was shut. I reached out and tried the handle. It was locked.

"See," Rachel said, backing away. "Alice is not here. She has her keys with her.

" Someone broke in and locked themselves inside. That was the scariest moment. Knowing someone was just a few feet away behind a thin wooden door, we didn't hear any sound from inside, just silence.

We ran back to our room and locked it again. We were hell scared by that time. We debated calling the police, but what if it was nothing but the locked door, the tripped breakers, and the knocking?

It didn't add up. We decided to wait until morning. Neither of us slept.

We sat on the bed, staring at the door, jumping at every little sound. Finally, at 5:00 a. m.

, the sun started to come up. The morning light gave us a little bit of confidence. We decided we couldn't live like this.

We had to confront whoever was in that room. We came up with a plan. We went to the main door and left it wide open.

This was our escape route or a way for us to run if the person attacked us. Then we armed ourselves. I went to the kitchen and grabbed a packet of red chili powder and a broomstick.

Rachel grabbed a sharp kitchen knife. It looked ridiculous, but we were desperate. "Ready?

" I asked. Rachel nodded, shaking the knife. We walked up to Alice's door.

My heart was pounding so hard I could hear it in my ears. Taking the name of the Lord, I banged on the door with the broomstick. "Who is inside?

" "Open the door! " I shouted, trying to sound tough. We heard movement immediately, the sound of bedsp springs creaking.

Someone was getting up. Then heavy footsteps approached the door. Rachel raised the knife.

I tore the corner of the chili powder packet, ready to throw it in the attacker's eyes. The lock clicked, the handle turned. We braced ourselves to hit.

The door swung open. Standing there wearing pajamas with messy hair and eyes half-cloed from sleep was Alice. She looked at the broom, then at the knife, then at the chili powder.

She gave us a death stare. What do you guys want so early in the morning? She groaned, rubbing her eyes.

Are you crazy? We stood there frozen. The knife lowered slowly.

The broomstick dropped to my side. We were completely shocked and speechless. Alice, I stammered.

Are you back? Yeah, she yawned. I came back a day early.

My phone died on the way, so I couldn't text you. I got in around 1:00 a. m.

I was super tired, so I just crashed. But the lights, Rachel asked. Oh, yeah.

The iron was acting weird when I plugged it in to smooth out my shirt for work tomorrow. It sparked and everything went dark. I didn't know how to fix the MCB, so I just went to sleep.

I figured I'd ask you guys in the morning. And the knocking? Rachel asked.

I knocked on your door to tell you the power was out, but you guys didn't answer, so I assumed you were asleep. We just stared at her. Not even a single time during the whole night did it occur to us that it could be Alice.

Nothing, I finally answered. Go back to sleep. We went back to our room, closed the door, and looked at each other.

The tension broke, and we started laughing. We laughed until our stomachs hurt. We had spent 5 hours terrified of a ghost or a robber armed with chili powder only to almost attack our roommate who was just trying to sleep.

It was scary in the moment, but we had a hearty laugh about it over breakfast. And that's it for tonight. Sleep tight, keep your eyes open, and thank you for watching Mr Night Stairs.

I'll be back soon with more.