“No worries, I’ll be there as soon as I can to take care of your issue,” I reassured in the best customer service voice I could muster at two in the morning. Great, another issue that required me to drive into work in the middle of the night. Again. For the third time that week, I rolled myself out of bed and slapped on the first pair of slacks I could find, followed by a dress shirt. Having eyed the pair of loafers in the corner, I grabbed my black Converse instead. If I had to go in this early, at least my shoes could be comfortable. Gently closing and locking the door to my apartment, I loped down the stairs and slid into my car. “Man, feels like I just left, too,” I muttered, backing out and leaving the complex. I made the drive four minutes faster since there were only two cars between me and the hospital. Naturally, of all of the places that need IT, the hospital was probably the only one in town that never closed for the day. Emergency Response, Radiology, and the Lab were always up and running, and if they couldn’t do their job due to something tech-related, then it fell on my shoulders.
“Evening, Mark, what brings you in tonight?” I glanced at the nurses' station. “Morning, Debbie, same as usual. Someone in radiology wiped the imaging machine again.” She chuckled, her curly brown hair bouncing along with her weighty build. “Anyways, I'd better get to it if I want any more sleep for the day. See ya later, Deb.” Turning left out of the ER, my pace quickened as I entered the hallway. A sterile expanse of tile and drop ceiling sprawled before me, lit only by every 5th fluorescent light. I took the most direct route possible to Radiology and shot into the back door. The woman in the imaging room nearly jumped out of her skin with surprise. “Jesus dude, you scared the shit out of me!” Calming my nerves, I approached the side room where she was sitting. “Why were you moving so fast?” “Sorry about that. When it's only the emergency lights on, this place freaks me out a little.” She sighed, relaxing back into her chair once more. “You get used to it after a while, but next time give a girl a heads up before you come barreling into her room.” I glanced around the space, “Will do. Which machine is the issue?” She rolled her head to the side and eyed the desktop, “It's that one over there, same one as Tuesday.” Figured. I reimaged the machine, and this time turned PXE boot off, so this hopefully wouldn’t be an issue again. “Alright, the machine has been imaged, and I put the PACS software back on it. Now I just need to reassign the license, so give it 15 minutes, and it will be up and working again.” The rad-tech gave a thumbs up without even looking up from her phone.
The door locked behind me with a click, once again leaving me alone in the expanse of long, low-lit hallways. Now I just had to assign a license, close the ticket, go home and salvage the rest of my sleep. My office was in the basement, an area lovingly referred to by the rest of the staff as the “IT Dungeon.” It was aptly named, especially at night. With not a window in sight and always warm due to sharing a wall with the boiler room, sometimes that room drove me crazy. After a minute or two of walking, I came to the stairwell. A brief respite from the dim maze, the stairs were always fully lit, and each echoed step banished the silence as I marched down toward the basement. My relief was slain the moment my eyes touched the door. Through the small viewing window, I saw… nothing? The hallway beyond was pitch black, save for the light pouring in from the stairwell. Cautiously, I depressed the crash bar and swung the door outwards. I slipped my phone from my pocket and shook it twice, turning on the flashlight. The illumination only reached a few yards in front of me, but at least it was something. Why were the lights off? The emergency lights were wired to stay on all the time. Looks like the exit signs were out, too. “One step at a time, it’s just a creepy old building,” I muttered to no one in particular. I began making my way down the black expanse.
Halfway to my office, the hair on the back of my neck rose, and a sudden chill shot down my spine. I felt eyes boring into my back. I spun around and cast my light around the hall. It looked the same as when I walked through it. “Hello?” I probed the darkness, but to no avail. I sucked in a deep breath and turned back towards my office, a renewed vigor in my step. Clop, clop, clop. My footfalls pierced the curtain of silence with the familiar sound of dress shoes on tile. Wait a minute. I brought my pace to a stop and looked down. The converse I opted to wear when I woke up stared back at me. I took another step. The solid sound of dress shoes on tile behind me hit my eardrums with a spike of fear. I stood frozen, unable to turn and face whoever or whatever was behind me. My breathing came in quick palpitations, and my heart beat out of my chest. Without a word, I broke into a sprint. CLOP CLOP CLOP CLOP. The sound followed my foot pattern perfectly. Gasping for air, I pushed on.
Almost there, just a few more… The sound was gaining on me. Still matching my every step, it was somehow getting closer?! There, I see it, my office! They’re right behind me, rapid steps resounding so loudly I couldn’t hear anything else. The chill returned up my spine, and I screamed, side-stepping and leaping into my office. I flung the door shut with a resounding slam and locked it. Clawing for air, lungs burning, I sank to the floor. “Who the fuck are you?!” I rasped at the wood grain, the only barrier between me and whatever was on the other side. Silence. The air was so thick with tension, I could almost taste it. A few moments passed. Finally, clop… clop… clop. The sound of the dress shoes slowly pulled away from the door. I crawled to my feet and listened as the sound continued down the hallway. “I’m not falling for that.” I spat at the door. A scream split the air, vibrating around me. Deep and coming out of something too large to be a person, its guttural, wet, and voracious cry caused me to fall backwards. I shuffled away from the door and pressed my back against the cool block wall. BAM! The door rattled as something pounded against it from the other side, its cruel facade of human presence abandoned. BAM! The frame held through the weighty slam. BAM! Dust shook from the ceiling. BAM!
Then nothing. Wary, I remained where I was, holding my breath. The popping and cracking of wood being split traced a path down the door. I sat there, made of stone, praying to anyone or anything that would keep that door intact. Down the hall, the door to the stairwell opened and closed, reverberating around the basement. The thing outside my office grunted and, with the soft wooden step of dress shoes on tile, walked down the hallway. I kept my office locked and did not step out into the hallway until I knew daylight had come. My morning alarm chirped with the message “7:25, time to wake up!” I laid my hand on the handle and twisted, pulling the door open. To my horror, there were three large claw marks from the top of the door, diagonally down to the bottom. Ragged and uneven, they gouged deeply into the wood and were each a few inches across. Pale and feeling sick, I walked straight out to my car and started driving home. My phone rang after I stepped through my front door. “Hey, this is morning shift for Radiology. That machine you worked on last night is saying it doesn’t have a license assigned? Could you come take a look at it?” I laughed into the phone. “Mark? It's not working, what's so funny?” I hung up, turned my phone off, and climbed into bed.
***This is my second short story and would love some feedback! :)***