For lovers of the paranormal

Usually I try to keep my blogs lighthearted with a bit of humor thrown in for good measure, but it's not everyday that one has a paranormal experience.

Let me start by saying that I've always been the type of person who reads all the paranormal stuff and wishes it was her that it happened to. I've been on ghost tours, I've sussed out supposed haunted places but I've never seen or felt anything. That is until tonight. And it scared the hell out of me. Scared me enough that I felt physically ill. Scared me enough that my hands were shaking for about 10 minutes. Scared me enough that I was on the verge of crying in front of the rest of the staff at work.

Now at my work people talk about a ghost that haunts the place. I've always had a bit of a chuckle about it if it comes up in conversation. It was always Chinese whispers and seemed like massive exaggerations. Although that said, recently one of my Duty Managers (who is a pretty laid back sorta guy) left the store in a big hurry when noises of doors slamming around him freaked him out.

So anyway, I work in a supermarket as a night fill supervisor. So in reality I spend a heap of time in the storeroom moving around stock. About a year ago the store was renovated and what was originally our meat room (the room out of sight where the butchers cut up all the meat) is now just a storage room. It still looks like a meat room, it still has the hanging beam thingy that the carcases would slide along, it still has benches - only difference is we put cages of stock in there now. The meat room is located right at the very back of the storeroom in the left corner. You need to walk up a little hallway to get into it. The windows are all blacked out (well whited out to be exact), so you see nothing until you enter the room.

So I'm pushing a cage of boxes up the back to the meat room. There is no one in the storeroom except for me. Everyone else is out on the shop floor. As I reach the doorway I see the light is off in there but there is enough light behind me to push the cage in while still seeing fairly clearly. Pretty much at the same time I register that the light is off, I notice the room looks kind of smokey/hazy. Initially I thought "Oh my god, something is on fire" and continued pushing the cage forward so I could get inside and check. It didn't occur to me that I couldn't smell anything burning. Almost immediately the hair on the back of my neck stood on end and I felt like I was going to simultaneously vomit and start crying. I turned and ran out and quickly got out onto the shop floor. All this happened so quickly, like in a matter of 30 seconds.

I ran over to the Duty Manager and was trying to tell her what had happened, but I could hardly speak I was so freaked out. I have honestly never felt like that in my life and I hope to never feel like that again.

I'm still shivering just writing this out.