I'm a security guard at Target and thought someone was pulling a prank on me with a fake child

I work the graveyard shift at my local Target store (retail not distribution). My shift is from 1am-9:30am, I've been working this shift for about 7 months now and have never had anything out of the ordinary happen.<br><br>I was sitting at the entrance doing my usual paperwork and watching the cameras to make sure everything runs smoothly and I see a car pull up to the entrance where the handicap buttons are located (They bring the shopping carts in that way for ease). I'm thinking to myself "Why in the hell is someone pulling up HERE?!". I get up and walk to the nearest camera to see if the camera is picking anything up, and lo and behold theres a car sitting there running.<br><br>I'm confused because the parking lots closed, the outer doors to Target are locked, why tf is someone out there. (Covid-19, the parking lots closed to prevent loitering). I call my manager on the radio to come to the entrance and check the camera out with me. While I'm waiting, I get the feeling like someone is standing next to me so I turn to look and theres a little girl (maybe 6-8 years old) standing there just looking at me with the creepiest stare. No joke, she just was standing there staring. I honestly jump a little, because the way she was looking at me gave me the fright of my life. She was about 3-5 feet away from me and I never heard her.<br><br>I call my manager on the radio again because at this point I'm weirded out. The little girl doesn't move and continues to stare at me till my manager comes. I tell my manager "There's random ass car out there and this little girl just popped up and wont stop staring at me" and my manager is like "What car? What girl?" And I'm like "Right there" *points to the camera* and he just looks at me and tells me to call the police because theres no car and theres no little girl.<br><br>I thought he was fucking with me but I called the police anyway and told them what I saw. The dispatcher thought I was playing a prank on them until I gave them the address of my store and they said "Sir you need to hang up and stop playing jokes on 911 this isnt funny". I assured them I was being serious and explained what happened and she said that she was going to send an officer out to take my report.<br><br>At this point I have no idea what tf is going on with me. I thought maybe it was Lack of sleep but I was positive I was not hallucinating. I told my manager what the dispatcher said and he said to go outside and check if there was anyone out there. I walked outside and didnt see anything, the parking lot was completely empty and I was still shaken up. I came back inside and my manager asked if I found anything and I said no. He then asked if I saw anything in the cameras before that and I told him that I saw a car pull up to the handicap entrance and thats when he told me to look at the camera again because there was nobody and no car.<br><br>I went back to the camera to look and sure enough theres nobody there, but now I just feel weirded out because I KNEW what I saw and I KNEW there was a little girl standing right next to me. I came to the conclusion that I was just sleep deprived and went back to my normal activities. I'm sitting at the entrance and I hear the automatic doors open, and theres a police officer. (Mind you our doors are locked down and have alarms on them, so you can't just open them from the outside). The alarm is going off and I dont understand how the Officer walked through the doors.<br><br>I go outside to see how he got in and theres no car, nothing. We come back inside and I tell him everything I told the dispatcher and he just looks at me weird. We go to review the cameras and sure enough theres no car and theres no little girl, but there is footage of the doors opening and the officer walking in. We're both confused at this point because the only thing that makes sense is that its a prank and we just cant seem to catch the prankster.<br><br>We still fill out a report and the officer leaves, telling me to be careful and keep an eye out for anything weird. I thought nothing of it and decided to go back to work. About 10 minutes later I get a call on my radio from one of my co-workers saying "Can you come to the break room for a minute". I walk into the break room and theres my manager, another co-worker and an older gentleman who I didn't recognize. My co-worker tells me that the gentleman was out in the parking lot getting into his car to leave and noticed that his windshield wipers were up and he didnt put them up.<br><br>The gentleman then said that when he looked at his car he noticed there was writing on his windshield and it read "You're next". He showed me a picture of the writing on his windshield and I just remember my heart sinking. It was written in red substance that looked like blood. All of us were confused because there was no one outside when I was walking around looking for the car and little girl. We all told the gentleman to call the police and report the incident because who ever was out there could potentially still be lurking around.<br><br>Of course theres still no report of anyone in the cameras so they send another officer out. When the officer got here and reviewed the cameras, he noticed a weird figure standing on the sidewalk, but theres no one actually there. They ended up calling our loss prevention team and they came out to review the footage and they told us not to come into work until further notice. They didn't tell us much, but they did tell us that they think it may have been a cult doing a ritual and they believed everyone in the camera was either a ghost or a demon.<br><br>I personally think that if it was a cult the cameras would have picked up something, but thats just my opinion. I still have no idea what happened that night, but I know one thing for sure, I'm not the only one who experienced that. The gentleman who had writing on his car saw something too because after that happened he quit and never came back.<br><br>So to the little girl who was pulling a prank on me at Target, lets not meet again.