Pet Shop Ghost

It was the Sunday before Christmas, 1982, and I was working in a pet shop at the time. As one might imagine, business had been brisk and the store owner came in to help me out. After the last customer left, I locked the door and began to clean, restock, etc., while the owner went to the office located in the storeroom area at the rear of the store to take care of the daily bookkeeping.

I had finished all of my duties and was eager to go home after a very long day. I walked to the doorway that led to the storeroom/office to let the owner know that I was ready to leave as soon as she was finished, but she was too busy on the phone having an argument with her husband to pay any attention to me. I decided to stand around idly within view of her so she might remember that I was paid by the hour, thus prompting her to finish up so we could go home (I had to accompany her while she made a cash drop at a nearby bank).

I turned from my spot and looked towards the front of the store out of boredom to see a man standing about five feet from me. I was terrified! I assumed that he was there to rob us or worse and I was frozen for a moment in complete fear. My thoughts raced, I wondered how he got inside the store. Then, I suddenly noticed something wasn't right about him. He was standing motionless and although he was looking in my direction, he wasn't looking directly at me, but past me. He was in his late 20's, slender with longish dark blonde hair. He was dressed in clothes from the early 1970's, including bell-bottom pants. He looked so real, but at the same time so odd that I came to the conclusion he must be a ghost. I turned to the store owner to tell her about our "visitor", but decided that her bizarre religious beliefs would prevent her from believing me. When I turned back towards him, he had vanished. I searched the entire store and checked the lock (which could only be locked or unlocked with a key from either side) and found no one.

I worked in that store a number of times before and after this incident but never saw or sensed anything else unusual. The pet shop was located in a strip mall near where I grew up and I do remember some houses were moved and relocated to make way for the retail development. The ghost I saw may have been related to those houses somehow, I don't know.