Have you met a ghost, lately?
I tried, some years ago, in Seattle.
One Sunday night I’m working alone in our offices in downtown Seattle. In a supposedly haunted office building, nearly a hundred years old.
So, I’m working about 9pm and suddenly I hear noises from our customer support area and elevator lobby, which is near me on the 3rd floor. Not like elevators moving, just noises above us, as if they were on the 4th floor, where our sales and management offices were. Late at night.
I’m pretty sure the building was empty, as it always was late at night, and the janitors usually came in later at midnight for the overnight cleaning. So I’m already thinking it’s a ghost, based on stories I’ve heard around the water cooler, about mysterious deaths in the building. Perhaps during the 1920s, perhaps in the apartment that are now part of our offices, on the 4th floor. Just above me.
Up the Stairs
So I want to meet a ghost, so I’m going up to the 4th floor to investigate. Rather than take the elevators, I take a rarely-used back stairway that links our floors. It requires a physical key, which I happen to have. Those stairs are dark, and might I say, a bit scary all alone at night in an empty building, on my way to confront a ghost.
I work my way up the stairs in the dark and on to the 4th floor; all is quiet. The stairs are on the opposite corner of the floor from the noises and old apartment. So I work my way around the floor to the elevator lobby, listening all the way.
No ghosts in the elevator lobby.
I unlock the management office door, which leads off the elevator lobby into a central waiting area, and on the right is the CEO’s office in the front corner of the building. On the left is a large board room with a small apartment behind. All are original and date from the 1920s when the building was built.
I’m standing in the CEO waiting area.
I was a bit scared. Prickly hair-standing-up kind of scared.
Silence. Not a sound now on the 4th floor, in the old office area. I look into the CEO office and all is quiet. The CEO is not there, nor his ghost, nor anyone else’s.
Into the Board Room
So I go into the board room though its only door, so if there is a ghost or monster in this area and it gets between me and the door, I’m a goner. This is scary shit.
The board room is empty, and a bit ominous with its heavy dark paneling. I slowly go through the large board room to the apartment in the back. It’s just a small one-room sleeping area, bathroom, and kitchenette; never used by us. No monsters here.
But, now I’m 25+ feet from the exit doors and feeling very vulnerable to any otherworld spirits that may come by and trap me in this large, ancient space. Scared shitless at this point, waiting for anything to arrive, or appear. Though I’m also foolishly feeling a bit brave, too.
I quickly make my way back out through the board room, the management suite, and back down to my office on the 3rd floor, locking doors on my way.
There were no more sounds that evening, or any other evening. I never found anyone who said they were in the building that night.
Was there a ghost? I don’t know, but it was damn scary going to confront one, all alone, on a dark night, in a century-old office tower.
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