A creak outside his office caused Micah to stop typing on the report before him. He stood up from his desk and went to investigate. Micah opened his office door and peeked out into the hallway.
He looked left and then right, but it was empty.
The only thing abnormal was the blinking overhead lights.
“Did everyone go home already?” Micah asked aloud. He took out his phone to check the time, only to find the service signal marked with a red ‘X.’
“I must have worked later than I had initially thought,” he mumbled, putting his phone back into his pocket. Closing his office door, he walked down one of the hallways, peeking into the other office windows to see if he wasn’t the only one burning the midnight oil.
But he was utterly alone.
Micah came to a stop when he saw blood smeared across the wall and on the ground as if someone or something had been dragged. Listening, he could hear footsteps up ahead. Some of him wanted to call out and ask who it was, but something told him not to. Instead, he opened the closest office door and gently shut it and his behind the desk.
Micah noticed the messy room as he waited for the footsteps to leave. It was as if his co-worker was in a hurry to go, but the computer screen above him was left on, illuminating the dark room.
Once he no longer heard the footsteps, he stood up and checked the computer. It was an article about a woman who worked here who had died on impact by falling down the elevator shaft.
The mechanic had been doing routine maintenance and had forgotten to put up an ‘out of service’ sign on the door, and when she went to walk into the elevator, the whole thing collapsed with her inside.
Since then, many people in the building have reported seeing her either in the elevator, causing it to break down, or walking up and down the hallways of each floor.
High heels tapping on the granite floor resounded outside the door, stopping just outside it. A soft knocking sound rapped upon the door. A female voice called out, “Hello, is someone here?” she asked softly, waiting for a response.
When Micah didn’t answer, she continued down the hallway, followed by the soft echo of her heels.
Breathing a sigh of relief, he walked over to the door and opened it. Looking down, he saw high-heeled footprints, as if the person had stepped into blood and tracked it everywhere.
The elevator was closed. Micah needed to get to the parking garage where his car was located.
Micah made his way to the elevator. Once he deemed it clear, he pressed the down button on the panel. He got in just as the woman’s footsteps returned down the hall towards him.
Once the elevator descended, he rechecked his cell phone to see if it had service. There was still no service. Sighing in frustration, Micah looked up to see the digital elevator numbers spinning through each number quickly.
“That’s odd,” he said aloud to himself. “It’s working like normal, so why…” Micah paused and looked beside himself, seeing the mangled body of the woman standing next to him.
Her neck was twisted unnaturally, and she was looking directly at him. A broken tooth smile was on her blood-drenched face.
“Going down?” she asked as the elevator plummeted. Her laughter and Micah’s screams echoed to the bottom.