The Graveyard Shift at St. Jude’s

Years ago, I worked the night shift as a paramedic in a sprawling metropolis. My partner, Dave, and I were stationed at St. Jude’s Hospital, one of the three we rotated through. Our shifts ran from 10 PM to 10 AM, and the city at night was a different beast. When calls were slow, we’d park in the hospital’s back lot, a dimly lit expanse surrounded by chain-link fence and the distant hum of the highway.

One night, around 2 AM, we met up with two other crews, Tom and Jerry from the Medic 7 unit, and Sarah and Mike from the ALS 3 rig. We leaned against our rigs, sipping stale coffee, trading war stories about the worst calls we’d seen. The air was cool, carrying the faint smell of antiseptic and exhaust. The only light came from a flickering sodium lamp above the ER entrance, casting long, dancing shadows.

As we were laughing about a particularly absurd call, I noticed a figure approaching from the edge of the lot. He was an older gentleman, maybe mid-70s, walking with a slow, deliberate gait. He wore a wrinkled trench coat over a threadbare suit, his white hair slicked back, and his face etched with deep lines. He didn’t look like a patient or a doctor—more like a ghost from a bygone era. He stopped a few feet away, his eyes fixed not on us, but on the ground, and gave a slight nod, as if acknowledging our presence. Then he turned and walked toward the hospital’s service entrance, disappearing behind a dumpster.

We exchanged glances, shrugging it off. ‘Probably some lost patient,’ Dave muttered. We went back to our conversation. But then, a few minutes later, we heard a faint, rhythmic tapping. It came from the direction where the man had vanished. Curious, I walked over to investigate. Behind the dumpster, there was nothing but a cracked concrete slab and a rusted fire escape leading up the side of the building. The tapping grew louder, more insistent, like something trying to get out. I felt a chill run down my spine.

Just then, my radio crackled to life. ‘Medic 12, we have a 10-50 at the corner of Fifth and Vine, male unconscious.’ It was a routine call, but the address was exactly where the old man had been standing before he disappeared. Dave grabbed the stretcher, and we jumped in the rig. As we pulled out, I saw the old man again, standing at the edge of the lot, watching us with a strange, knowing smile. He raised a hand, not in farewell, but as if beckoning.

The call was a false alarm—a homeless man sleeping off a drunk. But later that night, we had three more calls, all the same address: Fifth and Vine. Each time, the person would be fine when we arrived, but they’d be trembling, pointing at an empty corner, saying they saw a man in a trench coat who told them to call for us. By 4 AM, we were spooked. We refused to go back to that lot, staging instead near the ER entrance, under the bright lights.

As dawn broke and our shift ended, we debriefed with the other crews. Tom and Jerry had also seen the old man, and Sarah mentioned she’d seen him on her way to the bathroom, standing in a stairwell, staring at a wall. None of us could explain it. But the strangest part came when we checked the hospital’s security footage. The cameras showed the man entering the service door, but he never came out. He walked down the corridor, turned a corner, and vanished into a wall that, according to the blueprints, had been bricked up decades ago.

Later, we learned from a janitor that the lot we’d staged on had once been the site of an old tuberculosis ward, demolished in the ’80s. Rumor had it a doctor who’d worked there, a Dr. Elias Vance, had a habit of wandering the grounds after his shift, checking on patients. He’d died in a fire that had destroyed part of the hospital, and his ghost was said to appear to those who worked the night shift, always pointing toward the old entrance. We never saw him again, but to this day, whenever I hear a rhythmic tapping, I think of that empty corner on Fifth and Vine, and I wonder if he’s still out there, waiting for the next crew to arrive.