I continue to be an occasional fan of true scary stories found online. The “realistic” ones are cautionary tales, and might even give an important reminder to be on guard and keep one's eyes open…and the more unusual/“unexplained” stories are pretty darned entertaining and addictive!

Anyway, I have had a few scary experiences, and even an unexplained event or two. But this one is not my story.

There are probably logical explanations for what happened. However, this tale is true according to one of the most honest and trustworthy people I know…

Hope you enjoy!


My Mom is a true skeptic. She's very grounded, and not at all prone to flights of fancy. And that, most of all, is what my brothers and I loved about this story she told us a couple years back. Knowing what a realist she is made it all the more creepy.

Before her retirement last year, Mom worked in the health records department of a local hospital.

At the time, the old health records building was being shut down and everyone was working in the building next door. However, the abandoned building still held a lot of records and the staff would have to go across to the new building and fetch files from time to time.

So one day my Mom had to go over to the empty building, up to the fourth floor, and to the locked room where the additional records were kept.

She said that as she approached the door, she felt herself stiffen up. There was a thick tension in the air that she couldn't explain. Even this is a very unusual thing for my Mom to say. Perhaps it was just the strange feeling of being alone in a large, empty building. The unnatural quiet of it.

She's never been one to get nervous without reason. But she felt nervous.

When she tried to put the key into the doorknob, it wouldn't go in. She made sure she was using the right key, and tried again. It wouldn't fit.

She put her hand on the locked doorknob and it was very warm to the touch. Very, very warm.

Normally, she told us, she would have kept the door closed in that situation for fear the room was on fire. But the door had a window that allowed her to see into the records room and there was no fire. Just a few rows of filing cabinets.

At this point, my Mom describes the strong sense of being watched. As if someone has their face inches from hers. Extreme discomfort in the empty building.

She looked around and of course, she was alone in the hallway.

At this point she heard a ‘thud’ from inside the records room, as if a thick stack of papers has fallen over. This made her jump a bit, but she assumed it was, well, a stack of papers falling over. Like I said, my Mom is not one to let her imagination run away with her.

Very nervous, she told herself to just relax, get the files she needed, and get back to the other building.

In the most surprising part of this story for anyone who knows my Mom, she actually spoke out loud to nobody.

“Okay, I need to get into this room now.”

She tried the key again and it fit properly this time. She turned it.

And the key handle twisted around and came right off, as if it was made of butter. The rest of the key stayed jammed in the keyhole, the door still locked.

She stared at the broken part of the key in her hand for a moment, stunned.

And there was another thud from inside the locked room.

My mom turned and ran up the hall, down the stairs, and across the parking lot to the building where the rest of the staff were located.

Not one to lose her composure in front of anyone, she calmly told her supervisor that “Uh…the key broke. Sorry.”

She managed to avoid going into the empty records building after that.

It was torn down about a month later.





I hope you liked this little anecdote half as much as I enjoyed hearing it from my Mom! Talk to you again soon; have a good one!

-Banes