I do I.T. work for a growing company in Northern Virginia. Specifically, I am one of their Exchange Admins (i.e. I am one of several people on a team that manage the company’s mailbox servers). I work on the 3rd floor of our three-story office in a room at the end of a long hallway.
I’m our team’s overnight guy, and I don’t mind filling that role in the least. In fact, I prefer it to working during the day because the building is almost completely empty at night save for a few other folks scattered throughout the building.
I’m a huge introvert and have some mild anxiety issues, so this shift is perfect for me. It’s quiet and it’s slow which means that I get to keep the lights low in the office, snuggle into my hoodie, watch YouTube or Amazon Prime, and nap. I do periodically check the health of our Exchange servers and perform routine maintenance when needed, but they rarely go down or experience issues. Overall, it’s not a bad deal.
Recently, our day crew started sharing our office (a large room full of cubicles) with some of the directory services guys, but I never see them since they don’t have anyone from their team working overnights.
A couple of weeks ago, though, I started noticing one cubicle way back in the far corner of our office that consistently had its desk lamp on and the sound of mouse clicking and typing coming from it. Not a big deal – it just meant that one of the DS guys was probably pulling some overnight shifts or doing some after hours work on the domain controllers. Whenever I’d come in and see the glow from the lamp emanating from that cubicle, I felt reassured. It meant that there was another human being in our office, which made me feel a little less lonely, but they were far enough away from my own cubicle that I felt no pressure to interact with them socially. Perfect!
Every so often, I’d hear them typing away on a mechanical keyboard and I loved the clickity-clack sound it made. Eventually, after a week went by, I figured the polite thing to do would be for me to briefly introduce myself and see who was working this shift with me. I mustered up my courage, my heart beating a bit faster than normal at the prospect of having to employ my rusty social skills, and walked purposefully back to this person’s cubicle.
The lamp was still on, and the monitor hadn’t yet gone to sleep, but the computer was locked, which probably meant that whoever it was had just ducked out to pee or grab some snacks or a drink from the vending machines down the hall.
I walked back to my desk and slumped into my chair, feeling like I’d dodged a bullet by not having to speak to whoever it was and make small talk after all. I later heard the door to the office open and heard him shuffling (it actually sounded a lot like something being dragged) over the cheap, thin carpet that lines the office floors over to that cubicle and then heard the creak of the office chair and the resuming sound of the clickity-clack of the keyboard.
Over the next week or so, I made several more attempts to meet this guy (or girl) to introduce myself, but every time I did, it would seem that I had just missed them. So, I eventually gave up and patted myself on the back for at least making a half-hearted effort to meet them.
At the end of my shift a couple of days ago (I get off at 6am), I was gathering my stuff to leave and noticed that the clack-clack-clack of the keyboard in that other cubical had gone silent around the same time. I poked my head over the top of my cube to see if maybe I could catch a glimpse of this elusive guy, and nearly had a heart attack. When I looked over to his cubicle, lit by the soft glow of the desk lamp, I finally saw him for the first time. More accurately, I saw the top half of his face. He looked to be middle-aged with stringy, black hair, and he was peering over his own cubical and staring right at me… The rest of his face was obscured by his cube wall, but it looked as if he had a huge, grin plastered on his face. His eyes were vacant, but I could tell he was grinning because of the lines and wrinkles on his face and his raised eyebrows. I was so startled and flustered by this that I ducked back down, hurriedly stuffed the rest of my belongings into my backpack and made for the exit. It was time to go anyway, and I wasn’t about to stick around with some weirdo in case he wanted to do more than just introduce himself to me.
I should stop here and clarify that, in addition to the TV shows and movies I watch to pass the time during my shifts, I listen to a lot of true-crime podcasts, so my imagination was running wild.
I briskly walked to the door, but as I did, I made the mistake of looking back to his cube one last time and saw the upper half of his face still staring unblinkingly at me but definitely now moving to exit his own cubicle.
I quickly looked away and picked up my pace. Just 10 or so more feet to go. I heard that shuffling sound again as he moved across the carpeted office floor and felt my heart rise into my throat. By the time I had the door open, it sounded like he was probably about 20 feet behind me. I booked it down the hall and heard the office door close behind me as I rushed past the empty offices, which were dark and seemed to be gaping open at me. I managed to reach the elevator, which was lit only by the light of a red exit sign and the light from the nearby stairwell.
Once I reached the elevator, I began frantically pressing the button to call it up to my floor. I could hear the muffled creak and groan of it making its way up, but it’s an old elevator, and it’s stupid slow. I hazarded a quick glance down the hallway and didn’t see anyone coming out of our office, but once the elevator doors opened, I practically dived headlong into it.
I pressed the button for the first floor, but nothing happened. The button I pushed lit up, but as I mentioned, it’s an old elevator and it was taking forever for the doors to close. As I waited, breathing heavily, I heard the door to our office open and that sound of shuffling moving quickly, this time, down the hallway towards the elevator.
I backed into the corner of the elevator and prayed the doors would close. The shuffling sound stopped just outside the elevator out of view and then my heart stopped. Slowly, this guy’s head appeared peering around the doorway to the elevator with that stupid, unnaturally wide grin plastered on his face. His head extended further still, and I finally saw his whole face and part of his neck. His mouth was open so wide in this crazy grin that it almost looked as if he’d unhinged his jaw like a snake.
His neck extended more. And more. And more still to an inhuman length, further cementing the image of a snake in my mind… I let out a strangled cry and at that moment, the doors began to close. He made no effort to stop them from closing, and I thanked God for that.
The elevator began to make the agonizingly slow descent down to the first floor, and my anxiety spiked again as I remembered the stairwell that had been shedding its light on the hallway where I had stupidly been waiting for this ancient elevator to save me… The stairwell that he would probably be running, or slithering, or whatever down in order to cut me off as I exited this infernal contraption. I smacked my forehead in fear and frustration. Why, why, why didn’t I just take the stairs myself??
I finally reached the first floor and flew out of the elevator into the lobby toward the main doors. Warm morning light was filtering through the doors, and my salvation was so close. I flung open the doors and half expected to be grabbed right then and there from behind and dragged back into the building to whatever fate awaited me there.
That didn’t happen, though. I practically ran out to my car, jumped in and peeled out of the empty parking lot. I called my site lead right then and there and pleaded with them to put me back on the day shift. I didn’t care that it was still early in the morning. There was no way I was working by myself in that building again.
My boss must have heard the distress in my voice and asked me what was wrong. Now that I was out of that building, in the safety of my car, and in broad daylight, I was already starting to rationalize the experience. So, all I could think to say to him was that I’d had a really weird run-in with some guy from DS and that I couldn’t handle another one like it.
There was a pause on the other end of the phone, and for a minute, I thought I’d accidentally hung up on my lead. When he finally responded, my heart missed a beat…he told me that there had been a lot of callouts over the last few weeks due to people catching COVID and having to quarantine. “Didn’t you see the email I sent, Mr. Exchange guy?” Ironically, I hadn’t. All the warmth drained from my face as he explained that the remaining technicians in every department had all been pulled to days and that, while there were still some techs that felt well enough to telework for their overnight shifts, I had been the only one actually in the building this whole time…