My Scariest Halloween was October 31st 1996, I was living downtown Salt Lake, and my younger sister Rebecca moved close to me so she was working at the same retail place I was. She had only been in Utah for a few months when it was time for Halloween, I had just started beauty school and they had a hair design contest and we made her hair into a spiderweb, it was one of the the coolest things, with wire and glitter and spiders in there. So anyway we did that in the morning and then that night we went to work. There was only about a handful of employees at this small store and I happened to be the supervisor that night.
The store closed at 10 p.m. and about 9:30 p.m. I went in the back warehouse and was ready to go back on the floor, when Rebecca hollered my name she was on some stairs above me and there was a kid with her with a old man mask and hoody on and she said Kim you are never going to guess who this was, so she ran down the stairs and the guy was behind her and when she got in front of me she said he has a gun and he wants money.
She seemed calm, which was not like Rebecca and so I was kind of laughing ha ha, but then this guy pulls a gun out of his pocket and says this isn't a joke I need the money now. Well the only cash I had access to at that time was what we kept in the front of the stores for the registers change. He handed me a blue bank deposit bag grabbed Rebecca and said come on we are going to get it and if we tried anything he wasn't afraid to shoot.
So I had to walk to the front of the store with him and Rebecca and she started shaking and crying and that made him really nervous, so I tried to calm her down and tell her that everything would be fine and he said once he had the money he would leave. So, I walked up there past customers and other employee's like nothing was happening, and I can't believe no one caught on that this guy was in the store with a mask, I know it is Halloween but hello is anyone paying attention? Then I hear my name being paged to the computer room, and like every 3 minutes they are calling my name to be back there. So we get to the front of the store and I open the safe put all the cash in there, which was a little over $800, put it in the bag and handed it to him.
Then he grabbed Rebecca and said we are going back up stairs because he know there are more safes up there, I am freaking out Rebecca is freaking out and they keep paging my name overhead. She starts crying and says we gave you the money just go and I said I don't have anything else to give you. And honestly I didn't know what he was going to do or what I could do, I just wanted them to stop calling my name overhead so I picked up the phone to call the computer room to tell them to wait, well the minute I picked up the phone the guy bolted out the doors. I told Rebecca to call 911 and then I went and locked the doors, I didn't see where he went or what car he got in I was just glad he was gone. I will never forget looking over at Rebecca on the phone crumbling to the police dispatch with her hair braided into a spiderweb and the reality of the whole situation hit me and I got really scared and realized how much worse it could have been.
There were other employees around who were like "what happened?" "what is going on?", "I didn't see anything" "what are you talking about" and I just wanted to scream and grab them shake them and ask them how they could be so stupid and not see the guy in the mask and me emptying the safe and go and call the police. There had to have been at least 7 employees at the store at the time. So the police came and took statements and looked at everything and I finally got to talk to Rebecca, and then she told me her side, that she had went upstairs on her break about an hour before and he had grabbed her and tried to get her to open the safes and made her sit in a dark office with the gun on her until I walked back there. Fortunately nothing happened but the terror she must have had sitting there with this stranger, wondering if someone else was there, what was going to happen and if he was going to try anything. SCARY!!
Well, the detective took all the details and our information and about 3 months later he called me and said that they think this guy had robbed another place with the same mask, they had caught him and would need me to identify it, so I told Rebecca they had caught the guy and she was so relieved, although I think she quit that job about a month later, can you blame her? Well, here is the thing I never told her the detective called me back about a week later and said it wasn't the same guy because he was in jail the night we had been robbed. Which made things scary again.
The thing is, that this guy had cased the joint for a while and knew where things were in the store, and how things were done,so you had to think that he had probably been a customer, and then you always wondered if he ever came back as a customer. I remember his eyes and I always would look at customers eyes to see if it was him, but I don't think I ever saw him.
I stayed working in that store for 2 more years, I know what was I thinking? And anytime a guy would come up behind me and ask for help I would jump and pee a little I don't think I ever got over it.
It probably took about 5 years for me to like Halloween again, but to this day when I see a guy in a old man mask I just want to punch the crap out of him and run and hide.
3 comments:
Ok, that was a scary night. First off its a good thing you never told me that he was not behind bars, I would have really freaked out. I did quit because I too looked into every mans eyes and became wat paranoid. Second, when we walked up to the front of the store to give him the money I said hi to every cashier it get their attention, no one got it. Come on Frances! Third of all I was not scared while I was waiting for you, I prayed and felt peace. I did get really scared when he wanted to take us back upstairs. Four, I don't remember calling the cops, but your right I did. Last, you forgot to tell them what disturbed me the most was that, the man who they thought this was had been doing this a few nights earlier and he had his little boy waiting in the car,and gave him a game boy to play with. But I guess this was not our guy after all if he really never ended up being caught. Now I am really freaked out!
That is frecky! I would have left that job that day! You guys are brave to stay at that job for so long!
How scary. I would have pee'd my pants too.
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