If you weren’t already convinced that Walmart was a scary place, here’s this. Located in Houston’s beloved sister city, Galveston, is a Walmart that is spookier more than most. Galveston is no stranger to haunts.
Take for instance the Hendley Market and Building, said to harbor apparitions of Confederate soldiers from the 1850s and 1860s; or The Hotel Galvez, home to the ghost spirit of Audra.
Arguably scarier, and/or more haunted, is the local Walmart. The Walmart located at 6702 Seawall Blvd. was built on the nearby grounds of the St. Mary Orphan Home. The orphanage run by the Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word. During the notorious hurricane of 1900, its residents – 10 nuns and up to 90 children – were tragically killed.
Over a century later, the Walmart is the stuff of legend.
Throughout the years, a number of employees claimed to have witnessed supernatural phenomena according to Chron. Such reports include the sounds of a phantom bouncing ball, a fire extinguisher flying spontaneously off the shelf, laughing, crying, and couching sounds of children (sans children), misplaced items, automatic doors opening and closing on their own accord, and cash registers acting up…eerily like.
A story that a number of people share is that of the female voice of a child calling for its mother.
“They [the apparitions] tend to like the electronic toys, because they will turn them on and off a lot,” Kathleen Shanahan Maca, a local author and ghost tour guide, told Chron.
“And they will knock the balls out of the ball cage that they’re held in, to bounce them around. There’s evidently one little boy who bounces an invisible ball — there’s not really a ball, but [employees] can hear a ball bouncing down the aisles when you’re standing there, which would be a little bit much.”
For a closer haunt, check out this candlelit wine tavern in Houston.