Episode 209: The Rattling Stall – A Summer Job, A Locked Door, and Something That Shouldn’t Have Been There

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Welcome back brave listeners to
Paranormal Night Shift, the

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podcast where the past refuses
to stay buried, where the

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ordinary is often a mass for
something else, and where your

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true spine tingling stories come
to life one eerie episode at a

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time.
I’m your host Andy, here to walk

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with you through the fog, the
flickering shadows, and the

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moments that defy logic and
reason.

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Around here, we don’t chase the
unknown, We invite it in.

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Before we turn the handle on
tonight’s tale.

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I’ve got something you’ll want
to grab while the veil’s still

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thin.
Head over to

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paranormalnightshift.com and
claim your free copy of The

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Birth of Dimensional Desperado,
the first book in our

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supernatural time travel saga.
Follow Buck Shadow Sheriff

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Freeman as he steps between
haunted timelines, tracking

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echoes of the past that refuse
to stay silent.

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Ghosts, glitches, and justice.
His journey begins there.

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But now let’s return to the
present, or at least what we

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think is the present.
Tonight’s story comes from

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Matthew, one of our listeners in
Savannah, a city already famous

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for its haunted history.
But what happened to him one

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summer afternoon wasn’t in a
graveyard or abandoned house.

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It was somewhere far more
mundane and far more personal.

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This is the rattling stall.
Moved to Savannah about 18 years

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ago, and for the most part, life
here’s been good.

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It’s a beautiful city, old,
haunted, dripping with Spanish

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Moss and stories.
But back then, I wasn’t thinking

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about spirits or superstition.
I just needed a summer job.

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About 10 years ago, give or
take, I landed a seasonal

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position teaching science at the
local children’s museum’s summer

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camp.
Not a bad gig.

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The museum sat right next to the
Georgia State Railroad Museum,

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so close you could walk through
the gravel lot and touch the

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steam engines on your way in.
In our actual classes, they were

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held over at Garrison K8, tucked
behind the museums down a

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stretch of sun baked pavement.
Every day we’d walk the kids

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from the school to the museum.
Imagine 20 or so elementary

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schoolers bouncing with energy
while we staff melted under the

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relentless Georgia sun.
July, August, 100° on a cool

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day.
And that humidity, it hit you

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like a wall every time you
stepped outside.

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That place had a sunken
playground where we ran the

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programs.
And let me tell you, being

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outside all day in Savannah
summer heat, That was brutal.

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Now here’s where things got
weird.

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The only air conditioned escape
we had access to was the

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bathroom in the train museum.
A tiny little thing, one sink, 1

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urinal, and a single stall.
It wasn’t glamorous, but it was

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a haven not just for the kids,
but for us too.

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We staff would take turn
chaperoning bathroom trips and

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let’s be real, sometimes we’d
volunteer just to go sit in

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there for 5 minutes and breathe
in cool air.

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One afternoon, after what felt
like full week packed into a

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single morning, I told my Co
worker I needed a bathroom

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break.
She knew what that meant.

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Just five, maybe 10 minutes to
cool off and exist in silence.

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The bathroom door was heavy,
solid wood or something close to

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it.
When it opened, you heard it.

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No exceptions.
Same for when it closed.

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You always knew when someone
came or went.

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So I went in, nodded at my
reflection in the mirror, like

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in there, and stepped into the
stall, sat down, elbows on

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knees, and just let the AC hit
me.

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You know that kind of exhaustion
where even your eyeballs feel

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sweaty?
That was me.

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Everything was fine until it
wasn’t.

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I was just about to stand up
when the stall door suddenly

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rattled.
Hard, violent.

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It shook back and forth probably
10 times in two seconds, like

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someone had both hands on the
handle and was yanking it

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rapidly, trying to scare me or
RIP it open.

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It wasn’t a gentle knock.
It wasn’t the building settling.

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It wasn’t the air conditioner
cycling.

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It was deliberate, aggressive,
dot too fast, too intentional,

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and it came out of nowhere, my
whole body tense.

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My skin went ice cold.
You know that phrase, hair

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standing on end?
Yeah, that happened.

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Literally every hair on my body
stood at attention like it was

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reporting for duty.
The thing is, I never heard the

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bathroom door open.
It didn’t creak, it didn’t

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click, and that’s not a door you
could slip through silently.

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The room was small.
You’d see someone’s feet under

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the stall from nearly anywhere
they stood.

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But I saw nothing.
It took maybe a second for all

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of that to register.
I yanked my pants up, heart

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racing, flung the stall door
open, and the bathroom was

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completely empty.
No one was at the sink, no one

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behind the door.
No sound, no movement, no

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footprints, no way someone had
come in, done that, and left

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without me hearing or seeing
them.

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I don’t care how rational you
think you are, nothing prepares

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you for a moment like that.
I didn’t walk out of that

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bathroom.
I ran 6 foot 6, built like a

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linebacker, and I bolted out of
there like a terrified toddler.

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I didn’t stop till I got back to
the playground, face pale shirt

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soaked, practically vibrating
with adrenaline.

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My coworker took one look at me
and said what happened?

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I told her everything and she
just stared at me, then said

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quietly, yeah, you’re not the
first one.

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Turns out there’d been a few odd
things over the years.

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Sound here, strange feeling
there, but nothing like what I

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experienced.
That was something else.

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I never used that bathroom
again.

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Didn’t matter how hot it got,
that AC could have been 50° and

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full of popsicles.
I wasn’t going back in there.

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I finished the summer, but I
didn’t return the following

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year.
There was no logical

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explanation.
The air conditioning turning on

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doesn’t cause a stall door to
shake like someone’s trying to

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break in.
That building was too solid, the

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walls too thick.
No vacuum effect, no drafts, no

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prank.
Just something wrong.

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To this day, I haven’t been back
to that bathroom, haven’t even

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stepped foot inside the train
museum since.

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And if you ever visit that part
of Savannah and you feel the

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urge to cool off in that tiny
restroom next to the trains,

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maybe just wait it out.
The heat won’t kill you, but

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something else in there might
try.

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And that brings us to the end of
tonight’s unnerving journey.

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Matthew, thank you for stepping
into the light and sharing what

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many would have kept locked in
the shadows.

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The rattling stall isn’t just a
story.

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It’s a reminder that the
paranormal doesn’t always wait

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for graveyards, old attics or
midnight seances.

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Sometimes it finds you in the
most mundane of places when

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you’re simply trying to escape
the heat.

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The bathroom may have offered a
break from the Savannah sun, but

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for Matthew, it became a
threshold, a place where

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something unexplainable reached
across the veil for just a

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moment.
And once you’ve heard that kind

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of rattle, you never really
forget it.

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If you enjoyed this episode and
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a comment.
Let us know what you thought of

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Matthew’s encounter, or share
your own tale of a place that

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just felt wrong.
And don’t forget to grab your

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free copy of The Birth of
dimensionaldesperado@paranormalnightshift.com.

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Dive into the 1st chapter of
Bucks Shadow Sheriff Freeman’s

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Paranormal journey through time
where justice isn’t the only

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thing chasing you.
Finally, if you’ve got a story

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you’ve been holding onto,
something strange, unexplained,

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maybe even unbelievable, don’t
keep it to yourself.

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Head over to
paranormalnightshift.com and

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submit your story.
You never know, it might just be

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the next voice to echo through
the shadows.

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Until next time, stay curious
it, stay brave, and remember not

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every door rattles because of
the wind.