From Audrey:

About five years ago, as a family business venture, we leased an old brick building in town and converted it into a movie studio. It was a huge old building with a full basement. We learned that it had originally been a grocery store and the lower level had been used for offices and warehousing for the store.

The building had stood vacant for quite some time so there was alot of work to be done before we could set up business. We scrubbed, painted and decorated.

My husband was in the building one day painting the restrooms in the basement when a voice behind him asked how it was going. He responded and suddenly realized that he had been alone and turned quickly .. only to find no one there. He was shaken, but decided that what he had experienced, had not really happened; and mentioned nothing.

We were beginning production on our first film when one of the stuntmen approached me and said that I was going to think he was crazy; but he had just come from the basement where he had chased an intruder into the wardrobe room..which had only one door. Yet when he entered the room, he found himself alone. He described the intruder to me as a man in his forties with a crew cut, white shirt and dark tie, I laughed it off thinking that he was kidding me and told him it must have been the store manager.

I have to admit that we teased him unmercifully about seeing "The Manager"; and it became a running joke...until just before Halloween.

We decided that since we were between movies and we had everything that it would take to build a terrific haunted house; we would do just that for charity. We used the elevated observation booth (left from when it was a market) as our sound booth. We had dozens of volunteers populating the sets...each depicting a classic horror film. But, we had one special volunteer that nobody anticipated.."The Manager" had decided to join us.

We were unaware at first that he was mingling among our zombies in the graveyard; until our corpse bride said she did not want that part anymore... it seems that the night prior; one of our zombies had walked through the wall and scared the daylights out of her.

As this occurrence became the topic of conversation; one volunteer told us that we were correct about our tenants identity. It seemed that this man (now in his forties) had worked at the market when he was in high school. He told us a story that sent shivers through us all. The man with the crew cut and white shirt that so many had seen recently was the store manager and he had hanged himself in the basement in what we were using as wardrobe, but at that time it had been the produce storage area.

The longer we occupied the building; the more frequently he was seen.. always friendly and we came to know his routine. He always seemed to traverse the same pathways as though he was at work. We actually became very fond of him and enjoyed it when he would appear to the cast and crews that filmed there.

Until our encounter; we were all skeptics.. but, we are all believers now.

The building was sold a year or so ago and it seems that although the owner knew of "The Manager," he never told the buyers. So, if you are ever in Fontana, California, drop in at the State EDD building and ask for "The Manager." We understand that he is still on duty.