The Girl in the Elevator (ONC 2022)

3. Lady of Bags

They'd figured out that he'd taken the stairs.

Sam could hear their calls and stampeding feet from somewhere above him. It fueled him to move faster, which was a near impossible task with the way his legs had morphed into aching noodles and his lungs had shriveled into prunes. By now, he was sweating so badly that the paper towel had turned into a damp paper mache and clung to his hips in soggy chunks. His toilet paper mask had fallen away, revealing a blotchy, gasping face.

He grasped onto the handrail with both hands, stumbling down one step at a time. If it weren't for his precarious hold on the rail, he would have slumped into a puddle and rolled his way down to the next landing.

"Just give it up," Jeffrey hollered down. His voice echoed down the stairwell, sounding as breathless as Sam's. "The police are on their way!"

"Urghgh," Sam moaned. Things were getting worse. He didn't want to go to jail! He trudged down a few more steps and made it to the next landing. He looked up at the number stenciled neatly on the wall: 77

Tears welled in his eyes. There was an awful long way to go. He didn't think he was going to make it.

His phone rang. The merry ding-a-ling thundered up the stairway, loud enough for everyone to hear it. But Sam didn't care. His grandmother hadn't abandoned him after all!

He answered the phone, crying out in relieved joy, "Gran!"

But the voice who answered did not possess the familiar smoky rasp of his grandmother.

"Samwell," came the icy tones of Mr. Eric Cole, his boss. "You are late."

The blood froze in Sam's veins. What? What was this? His boss? Not Gran? It took him a moment to process this, during which an ocean of horror rose ‌all around him. He started to sink into its depths.

"H-hello?" He whispered into the phone. His hand was shaking, so he braced it with the other. The phone still shook, though he managed to keep it from sliding out of his clammy grasp.

"I told you," said Mr. Eric Cole. He sounded grouchy, like he hadn't had his three cups of morning coffee yet. "Three strikes and you're out. This is strike three. Don't bother coming back to the office."

Click.

Sam listened to the empty silence. It was somehow louder than the entire racket coming from upstairs.

Had he just been fired?

No. Oh no, no, no. That had to have been a mistake. Maybe his boss was just playing a cruel trick, and he'd call back after his coffee and tell Sam it was all a joke. Please, just let this all be a joke. Or a nightmare. Sam was okay with that option. If he could wake up now, that would be great.

"I see him!"

The cry startled Sam, and he almost dropped his phone. He craned his head back to see someone leaning over the railing two stories above. The expression on the unfamiliar man's face contorted, like he'd just smelled something awful. Or seen something strange.

"What the-?!"

Terror yanked Sam into action. He flung himself down the stairs two steps at a time. It never occurred to him that it was pointless - he'd already lost his job - yet the urge to escape grew even stronger now.

Bits of damp paper towel broke apart with every step, falling in his wake like a scattering of breadcrumbs. He wheezed, face beet-red, eyes watering; never in his entire life had he felt so miserable. 

Yet adrenaline lent him the strength to keep going. One flight after the next flew by, and gradually, the cries of his pursuers faded into the distance. Or maybe it was the blood pounding in his ears that drowned them out. It felt like his heart was about to explode.