Office Ghost

A story told to me by my Father-in-law during one of our drinking sessions. I changed the names of his workmates. :)

Joel, my father-in-law, worked in an old building in our city. The building stood next to an old apartment that burned down and was rebuilt several years ago. According to news, several people died in the apartment from the fire, most of them are either still asleep or very young children who didn't have the strength to run out of the building.

Soon enough tales of ghostly experiences circulated among the occupants of the newly rebuilt apartment building. Curiously, employees in the adjacent building began experiencing strange things in their building as well. Employees, particularly those who had been in the building for some time, would often regale visitors with stories of their "building ghosts." one of the stories was the bathroom ghost, who would sometimes lock the tenants of the building inside the comfort rooms.

One day, Ethel and Joel stayed late working overtime on a project. Feeling the call of nature, Ethel stood up and headed for the CR at the end of the corridor. Thinking to kill two birds with one stone, she snatched her vanity kit from the table so she could brush her teeth and re-apply lipstick. She left Joel working through the files.

As she stepped onto the corridor, she was hit with a creepy feeling that someone was watching her, she looked around but found no one else on the corridor, though she could see lights in two or three other offices on the floor and could hear typewriters clicking, filing cabinet drawers being opened and closed. To dispel her nervousness, she started humming to herself. But every time she pause, the last note would linger a half beat longer in the air. "There must be an echo here," she told herself.

She continued humming, louder this time and without stopping. By the time she reached the CR, she was nearly out of breath. Stumbling into one of the cubicles, she quickly completed her ritual. She tried to listen for any other unusual sound, but things seemed no stranger than usual. By the time she stepped out to brush her teeth, she had convinced herself that she was hearing things and was simply scaring herself. She was halfway through brushing her teeth when she heard a soft whimpering. She froze and listened more carefully. Yes, there it was. The sound of someone crying. Worse, as she stood listening, the crying grew louder. It sounded like a little girl. Don't panic, she told herself. It's probably the child of one of the other employees doing overtime who got lost or something.

"Hey, kid? Where are you? Why are you crying?" she called out.

From the mirror, she could see all the cubicles. One could usually see from the gap at the bottom of the stall door whether it was occupied or not. This time though, she didn't see any feet. Thinking the child was too small for her feet to reach the floor, Ethel pushed open the doors of the cubicles one by one. All the stalls were empty! Immediately, the hair on the back of her neck stood on end. Hurriedly gathering her things, she didn't even stop to gargle and rinse her mouth, she headed to the door immediately. On her way out, she made the mistake of glancing at the bathroom mirror. In the reflection she saw the silhouette figure of a child in the middle cubicle

Shrieking, she ran all the way to her office and huddled, shaking beside Joel.

“What happened?" Joel asked.

"There’s a ghost!!" she blurted out. "Let’s go home!!!"

"What? That’s just your imagination! Where’d you see that?”

“At the bathroom! A kid, first I heard it crying, and when I searched for the sound there’s no one in there but then I looked at the mirror I saw it! The ghost!”Ethel recounted, her words stumbling over each other.

Despite his skepticism, Joel packed his things and the two immediately left the building.

The following day, Ethel told everyone about her experience. To her surprise, she learned that she wasn't the only one with a ghostly experience. Several officemates already had encounters with the ghost in the CR. From then on, Ethel made sure she never went to the CR alone. Meanwhile, Joel, being a guy, tried to brush off Ethel's experience, saying it was probably Ethel's imagination. He said he wouldn't be as easily spooked if the same thing happened to him.

One night, Joel had to work overtime again. He asked Melvin to help him with the paperwork. Being both "manly men" they shrugged off attempts by Ethel and their other officemates to scare them. "We, getting scared? Hah, the ghost should be the one who’s scared of us!" Joel said arrogantly.

So the two tried to wade through the paperwork. Halfway through, Joel had to go to the bathroom. "Bro, I’ll just use the comfort room," he told Melvin who just nodded without lifting his eyes from the page he was reading. The men's comfort room was at the opposite end of the floor. This time no one else was working late, so the corridor was barely lit. as he walked along the corridor, Joel thought about what he would do if a ghost appeared to him while he was taking a leak. Feeling slightly spooked but determined not to show it, he marched determinedly to the bathroom.

When he got there he resolutely concentrated on doing his business as quickly as possible. As he washed his hands at the sink, he ventured a look in the mirror, prepared for the worst. But all he saw was his reflection. Laughing out loud at his idiocy, he checked his hair in the mirror before moving to the door.

"You’re so stupid Joel, believing in rumors, ha-ha," he scolded himself. As he tried to turn the handle of the door, however, he discovered it was locked! He pulled on the door but it won’t budge! Then he heard what sounded suspiciously like laughter coming from the other side. "Melvin! Open the door, you idiot!" he banged on the door.

Listening, he heard Melvin still laughing his head off as he moved away from the CR. "Hey! Come back here! I’m gonna punch you!" Joel swore at his friend as he pounded on the door and turned the knob in futile.

All of a sudden, the knob turned and yielded! Pulling the door open, he looked around for Melvin, intending to wring his neck the minute he got his hands on his friend. But there was no one in the corridor!

Seething now, he marched back to the office. Melvin looked up in shock as Joel barged into the room. "I’m gonna kill you! Do you want me to die to a heart attack!? Why’d you locked the comfort room!?!" Joel demanded.

“Dude, how’d you got out?" Melvin asked.

'Why? You didn’t unlock it?" Joel stopped ranting as Melvin's question sank in.

"Dude, I was just about to go there and open the door. No one is here besides us.. It’s so silent here dude, I heard your shout loud and clear" Melvin said

With that, the two "manly men" raced for the nearest exit. From then on, nobody filed for overtime.

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