Did I ever mention that I work in a haunted building. Yup, that's right. Haunted in all its spooky glory. Once a Church, the beautiful heritage building with gorgeous outside architecture that I reside in five days a week has been converted into two offices. The first floor is occupied by gynaecologists and pediatricians and the second floor is occupied by my Company.
I am an outpost or a sub office to a larger Corporation, and approximately 4 out of 5 days a week, I wander the nine room office and long hallways by myself.
With it's screaming 70's interior decor, it says anything but spooky until...............
YOU ARE BY YOURSELF!!!!!!!!!!
That's right, several times a week, the doctors office closes early and I am locked within this spirit wandering vortex all by my lonesome! Perhaps the first thing that enters your mind is that my imagination is running wild with thoughts of being on my own. But take into consideration that not only have I witnessed many mysterious things happening while the building is in full bloom operation, but the staff down in the doctors office has been exposed too many a ghostly incident themselves.
Take yesterday for example *cue eery music*. I had wandered into the office and flicked on all the lights and when I entered the photocopy room, I was smacked in the face with a chilling view. A funny poster that has resided on the wall for ten years above the photocopier and being held by two thumb tacks in the upper corners, was waving in the wind. Except, there was no wind. Literally for an hour, the bottom of the poster flew up and straight outwards where it held perfection position. When I walked over to it and pulled it down against the wall, the two corners were still coming up from the bottom with a force that felt like it was being pulled. There is no explanation as A) our central heating vents are up in the ceiling and air would be coming down at it as oppose to coming from the floor and pushing the poster up; B) the heating system wasn't on in any event and C) there was no draft anywhere to be found.
I like to say that this is the first time something strange has happened, but I would be lying. Several years ago, I came into find a light bulb smashed on my seat. Ironically, all six light bulbs were still in the track lighting above. Hmmmmmm........
Quite often I will hear children running up the stairwell with soft, strange, distant-like giggles and then my spring loaded door that requires some strength to open, will open on its own very very slowly, kind of like someone is peeking in. But low and behold no one is there, and then when I walk to the door, it shuts with full force like someone has used their entire body strength to push against the spring loaded mechanism.
On the weekends, when everything is locked up tight, I will hear people running up and down the stairs numerous times and when I open the door quickly, surprise surprise there is no one there, no one in the foyer and the building is still locked up tight with no doctors working.
Quite often I will hear my name said ever so softly, almost like it is being whispered behind the back of my head. Many times I will be typing and the hair will stand up on my neck like someone is behind me.
And I am not the only one affected by these events either. Take the office manager working down below in the doctors office. She comes in at 6:30 am every morning to work and what she hears is best described as a veritable buffet of bone chilling sounds. She regularly has her hearing assaulted by noises best described as sounds of people walking thru our office above her some two and half hours before I open the office doors. She can hear filing cabinets opening and closing and sometimes she will hear running down the hallways of my office with doors slamming. I have to be honest, even with all that has happened to me over the years, I had somewhat questioned what she heard until two years ago. The doctors office had been closed for two hours earlier and looking thru their glass doors you could see that their office was in complete blackness. I had locked up our office and alarmed the system, walked down the stairs to the foyer and was staring out the window waiting for my better half when, out of nowhere, and stunning me into complete silence, I heard *LARGE HEAVY FOOTSTEPS RUNNING* above me, followed by a *SLAM* of one of our filing cabinet shelfs, followed by another *SLAM* of one of our interior office doors, followed by *MORE RUNNING*. Lordy, I still get chills even now when I think about it, and let's just say that I felt like Shaggy and Scooby Doo as I literally ran straight thru that locked front door to get outside and seek solace in the darkness and the rain! You would have had to give me a whole box of Scooby Snacks before I re-entered the building that night!
Believe it or not after about a year of my *ghost* playing hide and seek with papers on my desk and my utensils disappearing and reappearing at lunchtime, I decided to have a heart to heart with my mischievous unseen sidekick. I told her, because somehow it just felt like a woman, that I knew she was there and I was sorry she was trapped and that I wasn't ignoring her but that I had to get my job done. Ironically, the little talk helped and things quieted down until of course yesterday.
I suppose in my heart, she just does these little things every once in awhile to remind me that she is still there, and while I no longer feel ill at ease, she still can make the hair stand up on my neck every now and then.
Oh well, I kind of view it as a roller coaster ride. Every once in a while, you need the crap scared out of you to make sure your heart is still beating. And yup, yesterday I can tell you my heart was beating hard!
Until Next time my little goblins.
Smooches Pooches!
