Silent Vigil

"Damn it, maybe I got turned around in there," he yelled as he waved for West and Spencer to follow him. "She must have fallen on the other side!"

He weaved through the crowds of pedestrians as he ran around the corner of the building, but no matter where he looked, there was no indication that anything was wrong. There was nothing on the sidewalks, nothing on the roads, no sign of an accident whatsoever.

"Could she have landed on a terrace, or on top of one of the wings?" he wondered aloud. "That has to be it. Damn it, West, where's that ambulance?"

The security guard sidled up beside him, Ethan lurching as he felt the man's heavy hand on his shoulder, a gesture that he had probably intended to be reassuring.

"You alright?" he asked. "When you arrived this morning, you told me that you hadn't slept much."

"Maybe your mind was playing tricks on you," Spencer suggested as he finally caught up with them, "that happens a lot around here."

"I didn't hallucinate," Ethan said, brushing the hand off his shoulder and turning to glare at the pair. "I saw her as plain as I see you, I watched her fall. She just...dropped. God, I've never seen anything so horrible. How can you be so calm?"

"Come back inside and collect your thoughts," Spencer insisted, "calm your nerves."

It wasn't a suggestion, West steering him back in the direction of the lobby. Once he was inside and seated on one of the padded benches, he started to mull over the events of the last few minutes, trying to slow the racing of his heart. The adrenaline was wearing off now, leaving him feeling drained.

"I saw her," he insisted, West and Spencer watching him with that same expression of concern. "Sixty-third floor, room seventeen, North face. I'm not hallucinating, damn it! Come with me, I'll show you the open window."

"Mister Lewis," Spencer began, his tone apologetic. "The windows don't open."

"What do you mean?" Ethan asked, glancing up at him.

"The windows in this building don't open, they haven't done for years. It's for liability reasons, you see. We had to seal them up to bring them up to code, to prevent precisely what you describe from happening. The only way to get through them now would be to break them."

"She got it open somehow," Ethan replied, "I was just there. Come on, I'll show you."

He rose from his seat unsteadily, still in a state of shock, the two men following him over to the elevator. The ride up was quiet and tense. Ethan wasn't stupid, it was obvious that they thought he was losing his marbles, but he knew what he had seen. When they arrived at the correct floor, he led his skeptical companions to the right door, gesturing to it.

"In here," he said, reaching down to grip the handle. When he turned it, he met resistance, a mechanical clunk informing him that the door was now locked. He looked down at it in disbelief, then back at West, who was standing behind him with his arms crossed.

"I was just here," he insisted, "it wasn't locked!"

Thinking that he had perhaps misremembered the room number, he tried the doors to the left and right of it, finding that those were locked too.

"Mister West," Spencer said after a moment of awkward silence. "If you would be so kind as to open the door for us."

West eased Ethan back, then positioned himself in front of it, raising a boot and bring it down beside the lock. After a couple of kicks, the mechanism broke, the door swinging open on its creaking hinges. Ethan followed after him, finding the room exactly as he had left it. There were the two beds, the black and white television on the dresser, the pair of leather recliners beneath the reading lamp.

"You'll see," he insisted, "the window in the bathroom was open."

He led them over to it, opening the bathroom door, his heart sinking as he saw that the pane of glass was now lowered. He ran his hands across it in disbelief, hooked his fingers beneath it and tried to lift it, but it was stuck fast. In desperation, he checked the dusty floor for footprints, but there were none besides those that he had just left.

Ethan turned to look back at Spencer and West, not knowing what to say.

"It...it was real," he muttered. "This place isn't getting to me like it did the others, I saw it."

"I have no doubt that you saw something," Spencer replied hesitantly. "Everyone here has seen or heard something that they couldn't explain. That being said, your account is a little more...vivid than most."

Ethan looked to West, the burly security guard giving him a nod in silent agreement with the concierge.

"I don't know what exactly is going on in this building," Ethan continued, "but there's no such thing as ghosts. Are we just supposed to accept that the place is haunted? Shall we just stand by while the staff becomes less and less able to do their jobs? Either someone is playing elaborate pranks, or there's something in the building that's causing this. Mold or fungus that causes hallucinations, some kind of building material like asbestos, lead in the water. Something."

"It has been getting worse lately," Spencer admitted, glancing at West. "It all seems to have culminated in Mister Fairfax's episode in the elevator shaft. Before that, the reports were limited to someone hearing odd noises that sounded like footsteps or whispers, figures glimpsed out of the corner of one's eye for a brief moment. People said that they felt uncomfortable in certain parts of the building, that they felt like someone was watching them, all things that could be easily dismissed."

"And now?" Ethan asked.

"I had written it off as a kind of group hysteria brought on by the stories that circulate about the building's past," Spencer continued. "You said it yourself, the rumor-mongering is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Someone tells a ghost story, another person becomes frightened, and that's taken as further proof that the story is true. But you've only been here for a couple of days, you've not been exposed to the culture of fear that has slowly been developing."

"If someone had mentioned this during my interview, I might have been better prepared," Ethan complained.

"Wanted: facility manager for haunted building with superstitious staff," Spencer added jokingly. "Nobody would have applied."

"Fair point," Ethan grumbled, "but I'm not about to be deterred. Every problem has a solution, and I'll be damned if I'm going to fail in my task here. Mister West," he continued, trying to collect himself as he addressed the tight-lipped guard. "You're certain that there would be no way for bad actors to get in and out of the building without your knowledge? Have you reviewed any security footage in order to determine the legitimacy of the complaints from the staff?"

"Reasonably certain," he replied. "The building is old, and it was built during prohibition. There may be hidden tunnels that lead in and out, perhaps even ways to reach the subway system, but there are none in the plans, and I've never come across any. As for the tapes, I have reviewed them. I've caught reactions from staff, but nothing that I'd call evidence."

"Very good," Ethan replied. "I would like you to start taking reports when people say that they've seen or heard something. Include the time, date, and the area of the building where the incident occurred. Even if we don't find anything, it will at least let the employees know that they're being taken seriously."

"You got it," West replied. The idea of doing actual security work seemed to invigorate the man.

"I'm going to review some footage myself," Ethan added. "I saw someone on the monitor bank, that's what brought me up here in the first place. That footage must exist, and if it doesn't, then it will at least show me entering and leaving the room."

It felt good to take charge of the situation, to have a plan of action, and it seemed to make his colleagues more confident too. When they returned to the elevator, it was with the hope that they would be able to find a solution to the problems that plagued the building.

***

Ethan went over the footage again, his eyes fixed on the flickering screen, casting his face in its pale glow. It didn't make any sense. The camera feed was recorded on old VHS tapes, which were wiped and reused after a period of time had passed, so he had footage of the hallway in question going back at least sixteen hours. He knew what time of day it had been when he had seen the woman enter room seventeen, yet the video showed an empty corridor. The only activity was when he had gone up there to investigate. It showed him proceeding down the hallway from below right of the frame, then standing in front of the door, completely motionless. A chill ran down his spine as he watched himself, as still as a statue, his nose an inch from the wood. It was an eerie and unsettling feeling, watching himself do something that he had no memory of, like he had been black-out drunk.

After a couple of minutes, he abruptly sprang back to life, sprinting to the elevator with his phone in his hand.

If the footage was to be believed, then he had never entered the room at all. That would explain the lack of footprints on the dusty bathroom floor, and why the door had been locked when he had returned with Spencer and West.

Yet he knew the layout of the room, despite having never set foot inside. It was exactly as he remembered it, down to the awful carpet and the plaid bedspread. How could that be possible?

He leaned back in his chair, trying to gather his thoughts as he scratched his chin pensively. Should he doubt his own faculties? The figure in the hallway, the strange dream, the jumper in room seventeen. Could it be some kind of environmental poisoning, as he had suggested to Spencer? This building was old, it was probably full of lead paint, and mercury poisoning certainly fit the symptoms. Acute exposure could give rise to delirium, hallucinations, and psychosis.

The problem with that theory was that he hadn't been working in the Abbott and Schutzman long enough to be exposed to such contaminants. If that was the case, then the longer a person remained in the building, the crazier they'd become. Still, better call in some health inspectors and have them check for mold and heavy metals, just to be sure.

Ethan considered whether he wanted to share the chilling footage with his peers. It might be counterproductive, they might call his mental state into question. No, he would wait until he had more to go on.

A text message jolted him back to reality, and he pulled up his phone, swiping through his alerts. Good, Rodriguez had finished clearing the damaged elevator shaft. Maybe he had been able to figure out what exactly had happened in there. After taking one last glance at the bank of monitors, Ethan stowed his phone in his pocket and got up from his seat.

On his way to the elevator, he passed the door where he had seen the leaning figure. A chill came over him all of a sudden, like a cold draft, the hairs on the back of his neck rising. He spun around, getting the distinct feeling that he was being watched, but there was nobody there. He approached the door, frigid air pouring out from beneath it, gripping the handle and testing it again. Still locked. The aged wood creaked as he pressed an ear against it, listening intently. There was something on the other side, like a whisper barely heard, or a conversation happening a great distance away. It was barely audible over the sound of his own blood rushing in his ears.

No, it was gone.

He stepped back, resolving to return with a key that would finally let him sate his curiosity.

***

"What do you mean, there was no debris?" Ethan demanded. He was standing outside of an open elevator shaft, Rodriguez and his colleague packing away their tools and equipment.

"You can take a look for yourself, Sir," the engineer replied as he gestured to the parted elevator doors. Ethan gave it a tentative glance, then resolved to do as he suggested, trying to dispel the images of winged bat monsters from his mind. He leaned over the edge, peering down into the yawning shaft. It was hard to see much of anything, it was far too dark, but Rodriguez soon produced a flashlight from his belt. Ethan took it, the bright beam cutting through the gloom, illuminating the car a few floors below them.

There was nothing, no fallen rubble, so signs of any structural collapse. The metal was pretty scuffed up and dirty, but he had no way of telling if that was how it was supposed to look. The thing was three times older than he was.

"Then, you were wrong about what caused the mis-leveling?" Ethan asked.

"No, that was definitely caused by an overload," Rodriguez replied.

"So you're saying that enough weight was put on the car to damage the cables and the braking system, but that it was then removed? How?"

"I can't give you an answer that you'll like," the engineer replied.

Rather than get frustrated, Ethan closed his eyes for a moment, taking a breath and composing himself.

"Let's get this fixed," he said. "Let me know if you need anything that wasn't on the list of tools and replacement parts that you sent me, and I'll see that you get it."

Rodriguez seemed surprised that he wasn't being chewed out, giving Ethan an appreciative nod.

"We'll get it done, Sir."

***

It wasn't long before Ethan was once again called away, this time by Mister West. He headed to the security office on the ground floor, a small room with a few computers that more resembled the office of a school headmaster than the head of security. There were a few members of the female janitorial staff milling around inside as Ethan approached, giving him a half-hearted greeting when he opened the door. One of them was sitting on the chair in front of West's desk, a couple of her colleagues patting her on the back as they tried to calm her. She was sobbing, her hunched back rising and falling with the effort.

"What on Earth has happened here?" Ethan asked, West looking up from his computer monitor.

"You asked me to start taking reports if anyone witnessed anything...unusual, Sir," West replied. "This is the first, I thought that you might want to be here in person."

Ethan nodded his approval, taking up a position beside the desk so that he could observe.

"Tell us what happened from the top," West said, the sobbing woman catching her breath and drying her eyes on her sleeve. West rummaged in one of his desk drawers for a moment, locating a pocket-sized packet of tissues and passing it to her. The two men waited as she blew her nose, trying to compose herself.

"I...I was cleaning one of the rooms on the fifty-third floor," she replied, her voice cracking as one of her colleagues rubbed her back sympathetically.

"What's on fifty-three?" Ethan asked, his question directed towards West. "Sorry to interrupt."

"More hotel rooms," West replied. "The majority of the building was leased out either as office space or as a hotel."

He gestured for the woman to go on.

"I was v-vacuuming the carpet," she continued, dabbing her eyes with a balled-up tissue. "It was so dusty, hadn't been c-cleaned in years. We haven't been up past the fiftieth floor in a long time. Helen was with me," she added, gesturing to one of her colleagues. "Miss Nelson told us that we were to work in teams of two so that we wouldn't have to be alone up there. Helen went into the bathroom to mop the tiles, she was only out of sight for a m-minute..."

She began to break down again, Ethan sparing West a worried glance as they waited for her to get herself back under control. Whatever she had seen, it had frightened her out of her wits.

"I was focused on the carpet," she said, her voice wavering. "And when I looked up, there was a...a man sitting in the armchair across from me. He was..."

She hesitated, as though struggling to find the words.

"Take all the time you need," West said, trying to be encouraging.

"He had a gun in his hand," she finally said, starting to sob again. "I thought it was a burglar or some kind of vagrant who had somehow gotten inside and had been living in the abandoned room. I wanted to scream, but...I couldn't, it was like I had lost my voice."

"What did he look like?" West asked, tapping at his keyboard as he took down her report.

"He was in his late thirties, early forties maybe," she replied tearfully. "A big guy, double chin, balding. He was wearing a white undershirt, a pair of shorts, and black socks with those old-timey garters on them."

"What kind of gun?" West added.

"I don't know," she muttered, "it was silver. One of those ones with a spinning part for the bullets, like from a Cowboy movie."

"A revolver," Ethan suggested, and she nodded her head.

"What happened next?" West asked.

"He put the barrel under his chin and..."

She didn't need to elaborate, what she had seen next was obvious enough. Her colleague, Helen, chimed in next.

"I heard her scream," she said, "and I came running out of the bathroom to find Maria covering her face with her hands."

"And did you see this man too?" West asked.

"No," she replied with a shake of her head. "There was just an empty chair."

"I saw it," Maria insisted, her lip starting to tremble again.

"I believe you," Ethan said, all eyes in the office turning to him. "I saw something similar up on the sixty-third floor, a person who was there one minute, but gone the next. I've asked Mister West to start taking statements from people who report any unusual happenings. We're taking this matter seriously from now on, and we're going to get to the bottom of it."

"Do you know what's happening?" Helen asked.

"Not yet," he admitted, "but we have some theories. Heavy metal poisoning is one of them, perhaps mercury, the symptoms of which line up perfectly with what has been happening to the staff. Delirium, hallucinations, psychosis. There's no need to be alarmed, we've already arranged for city safety inspectors to survey the property for any contaminants."

That seemed to alleviate some of the tension in the room. As he had suspected, taking the complaints of the employees seriously, and offering them more reasonable alternatives to ghosts and goblins did a world of good by itself.

"I think a few days of paid leave should do Maria some good," Ethan added. "I was on my way to see Mister Spencer anyway, so I'll talk to him about it."

CHAPTER 4: TWO-FIVE-THREE

"Two-five-three?" Spencer asked, rising from his seat at the front desk and hobbling into a back room. There was a massive rack of old keys hanging from a wooden board in there, and he began to search through them, adjusting his spectacles as he read off the floor numbers. "The same floor as your office, yes?"

"That's right," Ethan replied.

"Whatever do you want to get into that room for?" Spencer asked as he pulled down the correct key ring. "Most of the suites on that floor have been vacant for decades."

"I'm just going to check something out," he replied. "There's a cold draft that comes in from under that door, I wanted to make sure that there wasn't a broken window in there or something."

"Very well," the old man replied, handing him the key ring. It was surprisingly heavy, all made from iron, it seemed. "Just return it when you're done."

***

Ethan stood before the door outside his converted office, the correct key in hand, staring at the bronze room number as he tried to drum up the nerve to unlock it. Supposing he entered the room, and saw something horrifying or unexplainable, would it really be happening? Or would he just be standing in front of the door like a motionless mannequin again?

There was only one way to find out.