She Just Snapped
One of the scariest things I ever heard was when I worked in retail. My store used to do layaway and that was where I worked. Right by the layaway counter, we had three bathrooms—a men’s multi-stall, a women’s multi-stall, and a family bathroom. Well, only the family bathroom had a door that locked. All the others had a push-and-pull swing door.
I was in the back cleaning up and I thought I heard screaming, so I walked out front by the counter. I heard more screaming. I was not sure at first where it was coming from. I ran and checked the men’s and women’s bathrooms and they were empty. But I still heard the crying and screaming. I made a terrifying realization. It was coming from the locked family bathroom.
I banged on the door but the yelling, screaming, and crying kept going on. It sounded like a child and I had no idea what was going on. I called for a manager because I had no way of getting in the door since it was locked. This whole time there is still crying, screaming, and banging. After several attempts of trying to open the door, we called for a rescue crew.
We had no idea what we were getting into, but it didn’t sound good. I think it had been about 15 minutes at this point, although it felt like forever. Then the sound just stopped. No more banging or crying. Nothing. We banged on the door until the authorities came. When they finally did, they had to kick the door in since we had no key.
As we all stood around and looked in, it was absolutely horrifying. All we saw was blood all over the place. We were not really sure what happened at first, but the officers told us to back up. That is when they pulled out a lady and a child. A bloody child, maybe three years old. We all just stood there in shock. The child was not moving. We all thought he was deceased because of all the blood.
They took the lady away in handcuffs and the child to the hospital. We all had to give statements. Later, my manager told me what had happened. She just snapped. The kid wouldn’t stop crying and she just had enough and did whatever she could to make him stop. He did survive. I was sure he was a goner, but he wasn’t. She had just knocked him out from hitting him so hard.
For that to happen right behind the door and not know what is going on or be able to help was pretty scary to me.