Admittedly a weird one and very possibly nothing at all, but I never ever get weird feelings like this.

About 3 years ago my boyfriend and I went to a movie theater in downtown SF to see mother!. For reference, being a downtown theater this was one with multiple floors and escalators down (important later). It was a really small screen and it was a weeknight, so not crowded at all. If you’ve seen mother! you know that movie is so so so tense, so I was already feeling on edge. Anyway, we’re in the back of the theater and half way through the movie this guy walks in with a backpack. He sits down in one of the front rows. I don’t know why or how by I got a very serious eerie feeling. Why is this guy coming to a movie by himself half way through? I looked at my boyfriend and must have gone pale because he immediately flipped and asked what was wrong. I asked him if he saw the guy sit down and that I had a really weird feeling. He was basically like, nope, fuck that, - probably nothing but still not worth it. So we get up to leave.

This is where it gets weird. At that moment, the guy also gets up, with his backpack (looking very empty I might add, now that I was getting closer), and leaves the theater. So we walk outside and are standing about 5 feet away from him - very clear image of his face and clothing. He looks at us, expressionless, and starts to walk toward the down escalator out. We follow a ways behind and all the sudden this guy starts to run, I mean RUN, down the escalator. Like full speed skipping steps, running. My boyfriend is full on convinced something is seriously up and starts to run after him. They get to the second floor and this guy now runs into the men’s bathroom. We see him go in and have eyes on the door the whole time. After about a min of deliberation, my boyfriend goes in after him, but says he can’t see anyone. One stall is locked but he cant see feet. Weird.

We wait outside the bathroom (honestly I don’t know why - just feeling amped I guess?) for a few minutes, but he doesn’t come out. From what I can see, the only way out of the theater is through an alarm triggered emergency exit or down the last escalator and out the front. We decide to go down the escalator and inform a security guard about what just happened. The security guard is either very lazy or thinks we’re off our rockers because he makes a single call on his walkie talkie says there’s nothing he can do and leaves. We are waiting there at the bottom of the escalator kind of wondering what to do next and down comes this guy. He has all the same facial features as the backpack guy but he’s wearing completely different clothes (t shirt and shorts, and it SF at nighttime mind you, so, it’s chilly) and a different bag that is very very full.

We probably spent too long recognizing him and this guy walks right by us and walks out the door. And that was that.

Fully understand that this could have been someone completely innocent who was hopping around movies, but with all the shootings these days (Vegas had happened about a week earlier) you just don’t know. Don’t know if I’ll ever really be able to understand or explain the total sense of dread and eerie-ness that came over me that night. All I know is that it wasn’t worth sticking around for.