I believe this story to be good enough to share. That said, it won't be one of the more exciting stories that anyone here has read. It's hard to convey in writing what it's like to have a sudden sense of panic or alarm without any immediate cause to someone who wasn't there but here is my attempt.
I was in the United States Air Force for a while, training as a Security Forces Apprentice and living in the dorms at of the Security Forces Academy in Lackland AFB near San Antonio Texas. Security Forces are basically the Air Force equivalent of Army MPs.
Unfortunately for me though, soon after completing basic training I was found medically unfit to serve for reasons beyond my control. I was transferred to what is known as Flight "X-Ray" which is full of people who they've determined for one reason or another to be unfit for service. We were kept separate from the regular training squad and given odd jobs to do on the base while they decided what to do with us on a case-by-case basis.
I was given a midnight assignment as dorm security at the academy, or what is known as CQ duty. There were several dorm buildings spread throughout this portion of the base, Security Forces trainees occupied the ones known as "Firehouse" (named because it supposedly had to be rebuilt after a trainee once attempted to burn the building down by setting his room on fire), "Jailhouse" (because it once had served as jail on the base) and "E bay", "F bay" and "G bay".
There were many stories circulating about the dorms being haunted. E, F and G bays were extremely run-down, old buildings. F and G bays in particular were said to have had suicides occur in them. Trainees in these dorms would have odd stories from pens or notebooks being pushed off of tables to hearing the sound of doors opening and shutting while they were in the shower, and they either didn't have a roommate at the time or their roommate was someplace far off that day. The third or fourth story balcony of Firehouse was closed and locked with "do not enter" signs everywhere. According to trainees who had been stuck on X-Ray longer than me this was after someone was said to have jumped off and committed suicide.
The dorm with the most stories about it by far was G bay. Each room has its own cork board on the wall near the beds for hanging things. And one particular room on the first floor has a very eerie mural drawn in ballpoint pen covering the entire cork board. It depicts, among other strange things, a skull melting as if it were made of wax, a bizarre landscape of some kind, a large black bird or crow and in the dead-center in great detail is a mermaid with its mouth opened and bearing razor sharp fangs whose eyes are completely blacked out. Underneath this image it is written "don't listen to the siren's song" also in pen. The story passed down, but obviously unconfirmed by anyone in charge on the base, is that a girl living in that room once drew this enormous picture before hanging herself in there.
My first assignment was in Firehouse which is very modern and brightly lit and I had no unusual experiences. My shift was 12 am to 8 am or 4 am to noon depending on who was in charge that week.
After my first couple of weeks we got moved around as more people were assigned to X-ray while others were being discharged or returned to duty and I was reassigned to G-bay. This didn't bother me since I heard it was quieter there, the NCOs were never around to ride us and we could get away with having books or listening to headphones as long as we were awake, whereas we couldn't in Firehouse. Here is where the weirdness began. The building consisted of a lobby on the first floor with hallways with balconies overlooking the lobby on each of the three stories. All trainees were to be in their rooms, doors shut and locked at 9 pm. It was our job to make sure they did it and report them if they didn't. We could easily hear any movements in the building from our desk in the lobby due to the building's layout. If a door opened, we would hear it. Nonetheless we would repeatedly hear footsteps both running and walking, roller chairs on the upper floors being pushed around and lights left on would be shut off the next time we did a walk-through.
It wasn't like any of us were terrified, it was more of a pesky nuisance since we were all very tired and by the time you just got comfortable again, it was your turn to get back up and go see what the heck was making so much noise up there only to find everything just the way it should be and everyone's door shut and locked. Night shifts are long and I think we were all too tired to be scared though.
Security Forces training is quite demanding and rigorous, both physically and mentally. I had never even heard of a trainee being caught messing with the CQ people, and I can't imagine why they would. I think they would need all of the sleep and downtime they could manage to get. I don't think most of them even knew we were down there at night or why.
The two instances that did frighten me happened very sporadically and suddenly though. I lived in Firehouse which was much cleaner looking and more modern that the smaller and older dorms. I believe that this was one of the days I started my shift at midnight but it could have been one of the 4am days too. What I do remember was it was the dead of night and there wasn't supposed to be anyone out walking around who wasn't on CQ.
I went downstairs through the lobby after getting into my uniform and exchanged a few jokes with the night CQ'ers there on my way out the door. I exited Firehouse and walked across the concrete patio towards G bay and suddenly it was like walking into another dimension the moment I was outside. I was engulfed by such a strong negativity that the world around me felt eerily transformed, hostile and distant. The hair on the back of my neck stood up, I felt an unprovoked sense of panic but also of despair and loneliness. I felt like I was a thousand miles away from the nearest living thing, or like I was isolated on some parallel world where only I existed and no one else could see or hear me.
The further I got from the building and its exterior floodlights and into the sheer blackness of the cloudless night sky and whipping wind, the more a sheer sense of panic overcame everything else I was feeling. I've never felt such an urge to run in my life, like a dangerous animal or person was right on my heels just waiting for the chance to jump on me. I thought about running but somehow I felt like showing my fear or showing that I was aware of whatever it was would make things worse. I felt like that's what whatever it was that was watching me wanted for a chase to ensue. I also was pleading my case to stay in the Air Force and thought being seen running through the dark like a buffoon wouldn't help my chances of being allowed to stay in.
I looked behind me and all around me several times as I continued walking to my post and never saw a reason for my unexplained sense of panic. It did not occur to me until later that the balcony where someone supposedly jumped off to their death was right above the patio that you walk across on your way out of Firehouse. Overall I felt incredibly unwanted by someone or something and like some disembodied force or perhaps my own fear of this unsettling presence was pushing me from behind or trying to chase me away.
The second frightening instance was in G bay itself. It was several days later, perhaps around 3 or 4 am again on an unusually quiet night. There were three of us on CQ that night and since there was nothing to do we decided to take the desk in shifts. One of us would sleep on a couch that was hidden away in an empty office around a corner from the lobby, one would go upstairs and do rounds and one would be at the desk watching the door and we would rotate every two hours.
It was my turn at the desk and I was reading my Nook. In front of me as a vestibule with two sets of double doors, one interior and one exterior. I had shut the exterior because the wind was howling yet again and it was getting chilly. I was completely preoccupied with what I was reading when I heard a very loud SLAM! It was the loudest thing I had heard since basic training and it made me nearly jump out of my skin. My heart was still racing when I noticed what the cause was. There was a heavy brass door stop on a hinge at the bottom of the exterior doors that was turned up on every door accept one and I realized it must have fallen down on its own. The wind was not particularly high at that moment and it hadn't done that all night when it was blowing harder than it was at that time.
Somehow I felt another alarming presence right in the vestibule like, someone was standing right in between the doors daring me to approach in a sort of "what are you going to do?!" posture. I did not feel comfortable or wanted at all suddenly. I quickly picked up my Nook and my log books and moved my entire seating arrangement all the way to the back of the room to a sofa that was up against the back wall. Sitting there, I eventually became ashamed of myself enough for being so scared that I ventured up and kicked the door stop back into its original position. It was very stiff and heavy, I could not easily move it up and down as much as I tried. By this time the presence I felt had dissipated somewhat but there was still a strange, intense, almost electric feeling in the air all around me like I was engulfed in some sort of cloud I couldn't see but could fell bearing down on me from all sides. I sat back down on the couch and after nothing happened for a few minutes, I relocated myself back to the desk until I was relieved.
I don't consider myself a sensitive or even a particularly imaginative person. I feel like very few unusual or even exciting things happen to me so it strikes me as pretty impressive that whatever spirit or "presence" as I describe it here could have a potent enough energy to be picked up even by someone like me. I can't imagine how a genuine psychic would feel alone there at night.
I have not confirmed through any kind of research that any of the deaths on base there actually occurred but I can verify that the supposedly haunted mural exists. I sat in that room on the bed alone for several minutes to see if I would see or hear anything scary. What I felt instead was a very odd sense of peace and protection, like it was some kind of sacred spot or temple more than a gloomy dorm room, sort of like I was being watched over while I was in there - the exact opposite feeling of the two other situations I described. I think if there was a girl's spirit in there, she seemed to be enjoying my company and didn't want me to leave.
If I were more tuned-in to spiritual things such as this perhaps I would have more to tell or may have actually seen or heard something rather than just felt it. In any case, thank you for reading.
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