Photo: MorgueFile

Years ago I worked in an old building with creaking wooden floors, doors that wouldn’t stay open and according to the building’s legend, all of the keys to all of the doors had been buried with the building’s first owner.

That meant that the day after the funeral nobody could get into the building or any of the locked rooms.

I thought that was funny and guessed that was the idea, but for some reason people failed to see the humor in that situation.

Another thing I thought was funny was the way people would never walk into any of the rooms without turning a light on first- ALL of the lights. And that included the rooms with lots of windows where not only did the sunlight do it’s thing so did the lights from the streetlights or the buildings across the street. None of those rooms were ever truly ‘dark’.

Like I said- it was funny.

A few months ago I stopped by the old place and I was talking to some of my friends in the hallway when one of the new workers asked me if I had ever seen any ghosts in that building back in the day when I worked there and before I could open my mouth this guy who works there says, ” there aren’t any ghosts here, that’s all bull, I’ve worked here for twenty years and I’ve never seen or heard a thing.”

That doesn’t surprise me, this guy is not known for his listening skills, he’s known more for his masterful use of hot air.

So when he’s done telling us ‘how it is’ I said-

” Nah, ” I never saw anything.

Mr. Bloviator looks like he’s getting ready to pat me on the head and then I say, ” but sometimes I’d be in my office and I could smell flowers. It was so bad at times I’d open the window try to air the room out. Never worked though, when that happened all I could do was wait for the room to clear on it’s own.”

My Non-Ghost Believing Former Co-Worker squints at me and stomps off.

” Is that true?” a few of them asked me.

” No. I just like to get him mad. Some things never get old. Plus he hates flowers. “

So we started to make plans for lunch and as we pass by my old office- which is used as a storage room now- I could hear it and maybe a few of the others did too- but it there coming from the back of the room.

 Just like I knew it would be.

-It was the sound of keys being rattled together.