The Sears Southwest Spector - Tyler Gehring

Not too long ago, a coworker related a story to me of the ghost of the Sears at Southwest Plaza. To those with a weak stomach or those who are the faint of heart, this may not be the story for you. It is filled with angst, death and woe. Many of the events have been fabricated or elaborated to add to the story. I am not declaring that the story is entirely true, but it is based off of an event that did occur. I am not meaning to offend or cast offense to the deceased victim of this story; I am merely relating a relation that was related to me.

It was a kind of dark and kind of stormy night. Not quite dark out yet: the sun’s rays, barely peeking out over the top of the Rocky Mountains, cast an eerie twilight over southern Denver. Storm clouds loomed in the distance threatening to unleash their great loads. But this is not a tale about the weather mind you. I would like to bring our attention to a young man at the ripe age of twenty eight. John Smith is his name, and Loss Prevention is his game.

John Smith worked for the great Sears Holdings Company. Originally he had been hired on as a tool salesman, but ended up in a position that no one wanted: the Loss Prevention Department (LP). Instead of selling power drills and wrenches, he sat in a little office monitoring the live camera feeds from around the store. His mission was to catch individuals stealing things. Lately, it hadn’t been going well for John. You see, he was a high school dropout. He had been working odd jobs here and there to help provide for his family, but his wife, Jane Smith, had had enough. She planned on living in a nice suburban house with a couple new cars and having lots of spending money. Since John hadn’t been able to provide that she compensated by proceeding to rack up the charge on multiple credit cards thus launching them both into enormous debt. She was tired of waiting for his big break, so she left him and took their eight year old girl with her. John felt hopeless. He was in a dead end job with a divorce to settle. His debt was astronomical. Above all, John felt worthless.

It was nearing nine o’clock and just before John went to close down all of the public access doors, he received a phone call. It was Joe Shmoe from that free legal aid clinic at the YMCA. John had gone to it so that he could perhaps get some advice on what he should do for the approaching divorce and his options for the future. John eagerly answered the phone, hoping for some good news to perhaps lift his spirits. He needed something because he was on the brink of, if not at, life threatening depression. Ever since Jane had left, declaring that she wanted a divorce and complete custody their daughter, his life had fallen apart. John found it extremely difficult to show up to work anymore. He had been calling in sick frequently. He was slacking while on the job leading to an inability to catch any of the many thefts Sears had been experiencing over the past two months. The odds of him being fired were imminent; it was just a matter of time till his manager confronted him. John answered the phone and felt all his remaining hope drain out of him. Joe told him that after reviewing over his financial statements and his overall standing, John was, in lack of a better phrase, in a hole so deep he would need the closest thing to a genie’s magic wish to pull himself out. Joe suggested that John declare bankruptcy, that way they could eliminate a bit of the debt that he had, though not all of it. The debt from John’s unpaid taxes for the past year or two weren’t going to go away. Joe apologized for the bad news, and tried to console him by telling him that if he worked hard enough, he could possibly make it happen. It would be a hard road and John was basically shot, but it could be done. But this went in one ear and out the other for John. The second he heard bankruptcy, his brain went into a bit of a shutdown. With the new laws making bankruptcy unlike what it used to be he would still be unable to pay off that debt. John just shut his phone and blankly stared off into space as he felt the world just fall out from under him. He was done. There was no hope for him anymore. John knew that even if he tried, he would never make it. Slowly, John left his office and headed for the storage rooms downstairs. As he reached his destination, he pulled off his belt and began to tie it to one of the cross members…

Many years later, a witty young man with dashingly good looks, by the name of Tyler, applied and got the job as a cashier at that very same store. Now, the first few weeks were full of new experiences and things for Tyler to learn, so he never really had anytime by himself. When they finally started putting him at the register downstairs, Tyler frequently found himself alone in a deserted store, due to the fact that Sears was no longer as busy as it used to be. It is said that many people around the world experience a feeling that they are being watched when they are alone or as if there is another thing present with them. Whether they believe that it is the government, aliens, God, or the supernatural, Tyler experienced this exact feeling. It usually started as that small tingle on the back of his neck as his hairs stood on end, and expanded to a drop in temperature with a cold chill or breeze occasionally emanating from the corner section of the women’s department. The department was oddly enough, around the corner from the same storage rooms where, unbeknownst to Tyler, an employee found John many years ago. Occasionally, Tyler could swear he heard faint murmurs from the changing rooms or the back corner. Going over to investigate, he would find nobody there. Initially, he would think nothing of it until it would happen again. Sometimes there would be clothing strewn about in the changing rooms he just cleared out or racks in disarray that he had just straightened. Now, a reader might say, “maybe you just weren’t paying attention to the fact that there actually was a customer there destroying your department.” To clear things up, the department is roughly the size of a large classroom that could fit fifty people comfortably and the register faces both the entrance to the fitting room and that back corner. On one of the last nights Tyler worked there, he and a fellow co-worker were standing at the register talking about the upcoming football season and how the Broncos were going to hopefully pull through. As there was break in the conversation, both she and Tyler’s eyes were drawn to a sudden movement in the far corner of the department. It looked to be a vague figure of a man walking briskly away. Now, Tyler would admit that he was tired and perhaps his eyes were playing tricks on him, but due to past events that had occurred, and the fact that his coworker saw the same thing, lead him to question what really happened just then. He and his co-worker went to investigate, but found nothing. She then proceeded to tell Tyler the story that I retold above and of her encounters with what she believed is the ghost of John Smith. From then on, other employees at Sears have been experiencing odd happenings. Now this may just seem like a bunch of hocus pocus to many readers and that perhaps all of the employees at Sears are off their rocker. If one ever feels the need to find out for them self, feel free to venture into the store at night and see what happens. Just don’t get caught.