Creepy Log # 3: Elevator

 

I probably should have known that there was something off with the elevator. The moment I entered it, I immediately started shivering. It was unusually cold. Which was strange, since the temperatures outside were fine.

 

But I drew my coat tighter, and pressed the button for the fifth floor, where our offices were.

 

It was 11pm.

 

I was doing the night shift.

 

………….

The ride up the floors was uneventful.

 

But for some reason, the hairs on the back of my neck kept rising.

 

Looking around, I could only see my reflection in the mirrors around.

 

The usual elevator music was playing.

 

The lights overhead were bright as ever.

 

Everything looked okay.

 

Except that it all felt off.                        

 

…………..

Eventually, the elevator got to the fifth floor, and stopped. The doors opened, and I walked out, and to our offices, down the corridor.

 

Mike, my colleague, was there, sitting at his chair, by the monitors.

 

The screens had feeds from the various CCTV cameras installed in the building. There were feeds from the corridors, the various offices in all the floors, and the elevators in all the wings of the building.

 

Our main job was to monitor all those feeds, and essentially report if anything looked strange.

 

…………..

So I went and sat down next to Mike.

 

And he immediately made an unexpected comment:

 

“She’s pretty. You should have come with her to this office.”

 

……………

I turned to look at Mike.

 

“Huh?”

 

And he responded:

 

“The lady in the elevator with you. She looked good.”

 

I stared at Mike for a long moment. Then I told him:

 

“Mike, I was alone in that elevator.”

 

……………….

It was Mike’s turn to look surprised. His eyes widened. He said:

 

“What the….?”

 

Then he turned towards the bank of screens, and touched a few buttons on a keyboard.

 

The central screen, much bigger than the others, began playing back the feed from the elevator.

 

I could see myself in the elevator, pulling my coat tighter around myself.

 

And behind me, leaning on the mirror at the back of the elevator, there WAS a woman.

 

A woman I myself hadn’t seen when in the elevator.

 

……………

I jumped back in my seat, in sheer terror.

 

“What the hell?!” I yelped. “Who is that?”

 

Mike looked at me, just as dumbfounded.

 

“Tell me you saw this woman in the elevator,” he pleaded.

 

And I said, in a shrill voice:

 

“That woman wasn’t there, Mike. I was alone in the elevator.”

 

Mike said:

 

“Well, clearly, you weren’t alone.”

 

………….

I got an idea, right about then.

 

“Mike, play back that recording to the end. Where did the lady go?”

 

Mike played the feed.

 

The screen showed the elevator getting to our floor, and I leaving it. The lady also followed me out of the elevator.

 

I shivered, seeing this.

 

Mike changed the central feed, to show the corridor, as recorded by yet another camera.

 

That feed had me strolling towards our office.

 

The woman was not in this feed.

 

She apparently had just disappeared between the two camera feeds.

 

Both of us shouted, almost simultaneously:

 

“WHAT THE HELL??”

………………

Fully terrified, both of us shakily stood up from our seats, and walked out of the room, to the corridor outside.

 

It was a straight corridor. With four doors -counting ours – that led to other offices. The elevators were straight ahead, on the other end of this corridor.

 

There was no blind spot, anywhere, for the cameras.

 

And there was no way that woman could have gone to the other offices without the corridor camera picking her up.

 

At that moment, the elevator opened, and then closed, as we watched it. No one came out of it.

 

We looked at each other, and silently went back to our office.

 

To the bank of screens.

 

And played back the recording from the elevator camera.

 

…………………

The woman was in the elevator.

 

Right in front of us, on the central screen, we could see her, in the elevator.

 

We both yelped in mortal terror.

 

And the woman, at that exact time, turned, and looked straight at the camera in the elevator. At us.

 

She smiled.

 

We yelped again.

 

Shortly, the elevator doors opened, and she walked out.

 

The camera on the ground floor, where she had exited the elevator, didn’t pick her up.

 

Once again, between the two feeds, she simply disappeared.

 

……………….

That night was one of the longest we ever had.

 

We didn’t dare leave our post, in that office, that night, for fear of meeting that ghostly woman.

 

We tried calling our boss, but his phone was offline.

 

So we sat there, shivering with terrible fright, and basically just replaying those two feeds.

 

By morning, the video clips were pretty much burnt into our memories.

 

As our shift came to an end, two other colleagues joined us in the CCTV room, and we handed them the recordings, and narrated to them the events of the night.

 

They immediately sat down in front of the monitors, and tried to play the clips, as Mike and I stood by.

 

All the feeds for the elevator and the corridor were blank.

 

Feeds that, less than two hours earlier, had contained glaring evidence for the paranormal.