Scary Stories

Chapter 3 - Never Ending Office

I've been a janitor pretty much straight out of high school. While cleaning disgusting toilets after they've been used by dozens of people all day isn't appealing, I love the freedom of the job. Particularly during the night shift, where I could slap on my headphones and turn on an audiobook, engrossing myself in a great story as I slowly and methodically worked through cleaning the whole building with no one to interrupt me. At least it always was like this until last nights events.

It's funny how we all build this false sense of security when things fall into routine. After all there is no guarantee that whatever lurks in the shadows and around the corners doesn't show itself in the moment. I was lulled into the same docile and careless state when I first walked into the office block and got my cleaning trolley stocked up and ready to go. The humming tube lights on the high ceiling extended in a nice regular pattern across the expanse that was the open plan office. I plugged the vacuum cleaner in and gazed over the rows of desks, imagining the bustle of activity from earlier in the day that had been reduced to an eerie electric stillness at this time of the night.

There was this brief tingling in my spine, a primal warning that my instinctual brain had registered something off about the space but I dismissed it completely, putting my headphones over my head, flicking on the active noise cancelling (a grave mistake) and turning on my latest audiobook.I worked methodically, slowly walking deeper into the rows of office desks and gazing briefly into the various cubicles. It felt a bit weird invading tidbits of people's personal lives as my eyes glazed over a few family photos and sad looking pot plants but I kept most of my attention on the audiobook that had now reached a suspenseful climax.

The steady hum of the vacuum cleaner that had filled my surroundings stopped as if it was sliced away by a knife. It was so sudden that it made me jump and stop in place. Slowly I pushed my headphones onto my neck pulling myself out of my own world and into the cold empty office. The air had a slight chill to it, something I had somehow missed this whole time.

Looking back towards the cord and following its length down the aisle, I finally figured out why the vacuum had suddenly died. There was a clean cut in the cord about 5 feet away, something which could only have been done by shears. Goosebumps erupted all over my arms as I froze in place trying to make sense of how this could have happened when I noticed the cut end of the cord moving away from me like a snake. Someone was clearly pulling it away ever so slightly. I looked down the aisle to try and see who was there when I felt a fleeting sense of vertigo.

You ever look down from the balcony of a really tall building and feel dizzy as you stare down the rows of repeating windows with the ground so far that its just barely at the edges of your perception. Somehow it felt like that. The office had seemingly grown longer with the far wall that I had plugged my vacuum cord into no longer visible amongst the never ending rows of office desks. And yet my cord continued to be pulled away by some unseen person.

I ran towards the cord knowing now that it was my lifeline, one which someone was intent on taking away. The cord started to move away faster now, with the person on the other end no longer trying to be subtle. I was just about to reach that orange cord and grab it when it slipped out of my fingers at a lightning fast rate now disappearing completely away from me in the distance as if someone had hooked it up to a sports car.

I began to run towards the general direction in which I saw it being pulled away, hoping that I will find my way to the wall and the exit door. As the initial adrenaline of the sudden jolt from normalcy wore off, a new cold terror began to settle in my mind as I struggled to come to a rational explanation for why the office had suddenly become an infinite field of regularly arranged desks and chairs. I mean how are you even supposed to respond something like that?

I thought back and wondered if someone had slipped something in my drink earlier in the day or if this building had a carbon monoxide problem because accepting the utter violation of the laws of physics was less palatable than just coming to the conclusion that I was clearly going insane. Either way, I ran as far as I could but the wall never really appeared. In fact it felt like I was in a treadmill. Gasping for air with a stitch beginning to form in my side, a reminder of my utter lack of fitness, I heard a quiet subdued tapping sound. It took me a few moments to recognize it as the sound of steady typing, which would have been completely normal in any other context. It was coming from my right and sure enough, there was a man sitting in a cubicle, with only the back of his crisp white shirt visible as he leaned into the cubicle in a weird sitting posture. He was only two or three cubicles away and the slight motion in his shoulders suggested that he was typing in a very unsettling way, moving his hands up and down from the keyboard but not quite smashing it, rather, delicately placing his fingers to press each key. Or at least that's what it sounded like.

Then quite abruptly, as if he could sense my attention, he stopped. I was torn between two choices. Either ignore him and move away still trying to find the wall and exit or approach him and ask him if he knew what was up. As stupid as that latter option sounds, at the time, I was thinking worst case scenario he wasn't part of my psychotic episode and had stayed back to do some overdue work and could help me collect myself.

I walked towards him as he continued to sit completely still. Slowly, I approached his cubicle with my heart racing. He hadn't made any signs that he had heard me coming. He was completely frozen at that desk and I could not even see his face, which he kept buried in his hands as if he was crying at a funeral. Yet no sound came from him. Not even the slight disturbance of breathing. I was now directly behind him with his monitor in full view and squeaked out an unsteady "Hey" as I saw what was on his screen. The typed words on his screen made my throat clamp shut and my hands clammy

You are not safe

The man made no movements or sounds as I reread the words over and over again - the message burning onto my brain. I began to step backwards. The man began to cry. A low whimper. Thick black tears pooled down from his hands onto his desk. The lights flickered. I ran. My legs were all jittery as I ran and weaved my way through the various rows of cubicles trying to put as much distance as I could between the man and myself. Eventually my rapid breathing slowed and after hearing no footsteps behind me and seeing no signs of the man trying to chase me, I slowed and came to a complete stop somewhere in this infinite recurring plane.

My phone registers no signal. I can't call anyone for help. I've been walking around aimlessly for a long time now. Occasionally I find leftover plastic drink bottles in a cubicle and I've been drinking from them. I don't even know if its safe but I don't really have a choice. I've finally found this working computer in this random cubicle. There's nothing that differentiates it from the others apart from this computer, which was miraculously turned on when I saw it.

I browse this forum on the regular, but never did I ever expect myself to now be relying on it for my life. Please, I've tried everything I can do to get out. I've walked for what feels like miles. There is no exit to this place. I've tried to climb on top of the desks to get a higher view and all I see is an expanse of cubicles. I've been able to transfer this photo from my phone using the USB cable I found in the drawer. I don't know why but the image looks partially corrupted. Sort of warped the closer you look. I don't like it one bit. I hear some sort of noise now. It's this low steady groaning. I'm going to have to move and hide somewhere. I'll try to find this computer again to read your responses and try any solutions. If you don't hear back from me, you probably know what happened.