The Barracks

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This will be buried by now but I've got quite a few stories, most of which pertain to a barracks I lived in while in the military. It was a newer barracks, built over land that used to have three separate buildings that dated back a long time. We also knew that a couple people had committed suicide in the new building, though we weren't sure which rooms (except for possibly one - I'll mention it, but not my story). Most of the people I interacted with had their own stories, some of which were truly creepy, but I'll start with some of the stories I personally had.

Five story building that was shaped like an 'L', we called the longer hallways 'miles', like the fifth mile, fourth mile, etc. A lot of my friend were creeped out by the second mile - myself included - and pretty much nobody used the stairwells at the end of that hallway. That stairwell frequently had lights burn out, especially on the second and fifth floors, and it was always attributed to "faulty wiring". One of my friends had the misfortune of living at the very end of the second mile. One night after some drinking in her room, I left to go back to mine, and started walking down the hallway when I just felt like something terrible was staring hatred directly into me. I turned around to look, but didn't see anything. I kept walking and continued to feel that raw emotion, and about halfway down the hall I turned and looked again. The was a face in the small window of the stairwell door, staring at me. Then the light in the stairwell burnt out and I didn't see anything. Instead of going back to my room, I pretty much ran outside and smoked for an hour before calming down enough to go back in.
My job at the time was working for a different barracks, but we all fell under the same command. One night a friend and I were chatting with our friend working the front desk when the fire alarm panel started going off with an indicator saying the fire door leading outside from the stairwell at the end of the mile had been opened. My friend and I left our working friend to make the proper phone calls while we went to check it out. When we got to the stairwell, the first thing we noticed was the door's push bar was still intact - meaning it hadn't been pushed to set off the alarm. Next, we could see the lights on the second floor flickering, but not actually burning out. Then we noticed the footprints. There were small, child-sized muddy footprints leading down the stairs from the second floor. The last footprint was cut in half by the unopened door. We quickly left, and pretty sure that was the last time either of went into that stairwell.
Slightly less creepy than the others, but something that scares me more because of my disdain for mirrors, I was brushing my teeth one night and went to spit in the sink. When I stood up, I watched a shadow in the mirror run across the wall behind me. I left and spent the rest of the night in a Denny's.
Not my story, but last one I'll tell (I have a couple more, if there's interest). There was only one room we had heard from multiple sources that there was a suicide - room 227. Apparently, the sailor who lived there had a really bad break-up before he was due to be deployed again and hung himself in his closet. The part that makes this creepy is our friend who lived in the room was asleep one night, and he woke up when he thought he heard somebody. He said he saw somebody walking around, and assumed he had a new roommate moving in who was trying to be polite by not turning any lights on. He watched the 'guy' walk into the closet on the other side of the room and rolled over and went to sleep. Now, he had been mostly asleep, so it wasn't until the next morning when he saw that no one had moved in that he realized the figure had indeed walked into the closet - through the wall side and not the door.

Edit for more: (I wish camera phones had been as readily available then as they are now, I would've definitely had some picture evidence.)

The smoking gazebo out back was in an unit area, and for the late smokers most people tried to go out in groups because it was kind of sketchy. I know at least three different people who felt relieved when they went out to smoke alone at night and saw somebody smoking - always a tall, thin shadow of a man and the flare of a cigarette being hit. By the time they got to the gazebo, there was no one there and someone leaving would've had to walk by them. Needless to say, when I smoked at the time I would go out to my car of it was late.
Not creepy, according to the person who experienced it, just made him jump a little. Same guy who helped me inspect the stairwell went to his room late one night. He walked in and saw someone sitting in his chair, he turned around to hit the light, turned back and the figure was gone. The reason it wasn't creepy to him is because the room filled up with the smell of the cigars his recently deceased grandpa smoked. Actually, after that incident, my friend never felt uncomfortable or creeped out in his room again.
Almost forgot one of the strangest things I heard, because I never really tools anyone about it. I was up playing video games late, window was open. It was about 3 in the morning, when I heard children laughing and I couldn't tell if it was from outside through the window or inside the building. Either way, or building was single sailors mostly transient or working for the barracks, so no kids inside. The three closest buildings were also barracks and another was TPU offices. Wherever it came from, I closed the window and turned up the volume.
Not building related, but the same girl who lived at the end of the second mile worked with munitions, her job was all the way out in a field on the far side of the base which also housed a family cemetery from when the government took over the land. One day she was driving back to the barracks when she drove by a man in a uniform that she didn't recognize by the side of the road. When she turned around to see if he needed a ride, she couldn't find him anywhere. She did find footprints in the grass though. Drove straight back noping all the way.
I also had plenty of stuff shifted around a bit or moved to weird places, but even now I'm standing by that being done by my dick of a roommate.

#Person/Job/Military #Object/Mirrors #Smell #Visual/Footprints #Visual/Shadow