Why I think our building is haunted by a former accountant
I have worked the graveyard shift at the Halloway Building for nearly three years now. It is an old structure, erected in 1924, and it carries the weight of a century in its bones. The building features long, dimly lit corridors and ceilings so high that the shadows seem to swallow the light before it reaches the floor. During the day, the place is a buzz of activity with cubicles filled with chatter and the constant drone of printers. But from midnight to dawn, the building transforms. When you are the only soul left in a ten-story structure, you start to notice the tiny details that the day workers completely miss. My coworkers usually laugh when I mention the atmosphere, dismissing it as the fatigue of a long shift. They do not understand the specific weight of the silence that settles in around 3:00 AM. It is not just quiet; it is a heavy, pressurized silence that pushes against your ears like you are deep underwater. Lately, however, that silence has been broken by things that have no business being there. About a month ago, I was in the records room filing some folders. The room is tucked away at the end of a long hall on the second floor. It was about 3:15 AM when I heard it for the first time. It was the distinct, rhythmic clacking of an old-fashioned typewriter. You know the sound—the sharp, percussive strike of the metal keys against the ribbon and the metallic slide of the carriage return. It sounded like it was coming from the office right next to me. My heart started racing instantly. I knew that no one else was in the building, and we certainly did not use typewriters in our modern accounting firm. I stood perfectly still, holding my breath, hoping it was just a hallucination brought on by lack of sleep. But then it happened again—a long string of typing followed by the violent 'ding' of the carriage. I grabbed my flashlight and crept toward the door. I felt ridiculous, but I had to know. I checked every office on that floor, peering into the darkness. Every room was empty, cold, and smelled faintly of floor wax. The moment I reached for the handle of the office where the sound originated, the typing stopped completely. It was as if the air had been vacuumed out of the room. I spent the next ten minutes checking every nook and cranny, but there was nothing there. I told myself it was just the building settling or perhaps the wind rattling through the old radiator pipes, but that did not explain why my hands felt so cold and stiff for the rest of the night. I went back to my desk, but I could not focus. The strangest event occurred recently, and I still think about it every time I walk past the accounting department on the ground floor. I had been working on the third floor all night to organize some files, deliberately avoiding the accounting area because of the eerie feeling I had developed about that part of the building. When I finally finished my tasks and returned to my own desk near the lobby to pack up my bag, I froze. My legs felt like lead. Sitting right in the middle of my polished mahogany desk was a stack of yellow, brittle ledger papers. They looked like they had been pulled from a trash heap in the twenties. They were fragile, stained with age, and filled with columns of numbers written in a frantic, hurried hand. I stared at them for a long time, not daring to reach out and touch them. The ink was faded to a brownish hue, and the handwriting was elegant but desperate. I felt a strange sense of intrusion, as if I had walked into a private conversation or a workspace that did not belong to me. My boss, Dave, walked out of his office behind me just as I was staring at the pile. He stopped and looked at me, his brow furrowed. He asked if I was okay and remarked that I looked like I had seen a ghost. I forced a laugh, shoving my hands into my pockets to hide the fact that they were trembling. I told him I was just exhausted and had probably left some old paperwork out by mistake, though I knew that was a lie. I did not mention the papers or the phantom typewriter. I am a logical person; I deal with figures, software, and cold hard facts every day of the week. But there is simply no rational explanation for those ledgers appearing on my desk while I was three floors above. There is something lingering in the Halloway Building that wakes up when the sun goes down. I still work the night shift because it pays the bills and fits my life, and I still hear the typing from time to time. I have learned my lesson, though. Now, when the sound starts, I just turn up my music, put my head down, and keep working. Whatever that accountant is doing, he is still working his shift just as hard as I am. He is clearly not ready to move on, and I have decided that I am definitely not going to get in his way. Some things in this building are better left uninvestigated.