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I worked at an old diner a few years ago in the older part of my hometown. The buildings there are all two to three stories high, they are made of brick, and are built very close together; most of them are well over one hundred years old. Some of the buildings are actually connected to each other, but narrow alleys separate most.

The diner I worked at was connected to a building on the left and there was an alley between the diner and the building to the right. Behind all the buildings there are loading docks because at one point or another they were all businesses, so after we closed up for the night some of us would usually sit on the back porch to smoke, talk, or just chill.

One night, not long after I started working there I was out on the loading dock trying to get a signal on my cell phone when I heard footsteps coming down the alley. I didn't think much of it for a second or two but then I noticed something about the steps. They had a 'clack clack' sound that you hear with leather-soled shoes, and since it was about 11pm I found it quite odd that someone might be coming down the alley in their Sunday best at this time of night.
I hopped off the edge of the porch to look down the alley and when I touched the ground, the footsteps stopped. They did not go back toward the street, the just stopped. When I looked down the alley there was no one there. So I walked to the other end of the alley and looked up and down the sidewalk on the street, there was no one to be found. I was a little unnerved, but not scared so I went inside to tell the other guys what had just happened. Inside I told the night manager about what had just happened, afterward he sort of smiled and just asked "Really?" I thought he didn't believe me but I knew what I heard so I said "Yeah, really." He then told me one of the other guys who worked there (I'll call him Dave) had also heard something in the alley a few months ago!

The next time I worked with Dave I spoke to him about the footsteps and he confirmed that almost the exact same thing happened to him.

About a month went by before I experienced anything else near the alley, but one night after closing I was out on the back porch about to pour out some mop water when sure enough I heard "clack clack clack clack" coming down the alley. I stopped moving and tried to be as quiet as possible. I heard the footsteps get about halfway down the alley and stop. I waited about 30 seconds without hearing anything when suddenly I heard a heavy 'thud' in the alley. I craned my way around the corner of the building to see if I could see anything. However, I couldn't see anything in the alley, so I jumped off the porch and started down the alley, and still there was nothing there.

I stopped working at the diner about six weeks after my second and last experience with the footsteps, and I have not been back since. Not long afterwards, I was in the local public library when I recalled the footsteps and how in movies people used viewing machines at libraries to go through old newspapers. I decided I would see if the library had anything like that and if I could find any information about the footsteps. They did have newspaper archives on a computer, but unfortunately, after about two hours of searching I couldn't find anything in the local newspapers that would explain the footsteps.

To this day I have not found anything, but anytime I am in the library I do a little bit of searching. Hopefully one day I will have an answer as to who it is that never makes it through the alley.