text: *Please note, this story contains adult themes including child death and suicide, please be aware “What is that damn noise?” Council Leader Clive Peters growled to no one. He was the only one in County Hall if you didn’t count the cleaners and Clive Peters didn’t. Jumping up from his desk and leaning through the open door he could still hear it, coming from the main staircase. Voices? Sounds like a kid, maybe? Whoever it was he’d give them something to moan about. He went back to his desk, admiring the paperwork spread in front of him, his masterplan; a grand vision to really shake the council to its core. He’d soon show the officers who had the upper hand. Not elected more than a month he and his party had already begun their radical policy commitments to implement a change agenda: outsource non-essential services, slim down the leadership team, cut spending on wishy washy community programmes. ‘Trim the fat’ was the policy strap line and by God he’d deliver on his promises. A shadow at the window in his office door made him look up, it looked like a woman had stopped. Straightening his tie and running an index finger across his eyebrows he stood to greet his caller and opened the door to no-one. Looking left and right, nothing. Peters returned to his desk feeling foolish which made him more cross. That woman from the local paper had been on again, asking about that young man’s death in the building last week. Going on about allegations of bullying by councillors, a so-called workforce ‘purge’, pushing people to the edge. He’d got one of his team to draft a statement; how sad it was, change could be difficult, fragile mental state blah blah blah, nothing to do with him. Yes, the lad worked in his office and yes he’d a lot on his plate at home but he made one too many mistakes and needed to be torn off a strip to set an example to the rest of the team. Peters thought knocking on what’s-his-name’s thick skull three times shouting, “anybody in there?” was funny. If some kid can’t cope with a dressing down then that was his look-out and if he goes and kills himself then there’s no one to blame but himself. Peters couldn’t help it if the lad’s Mum had recently died and he’d recently broken up with his wife after they lost their kid to cancer. Peters had no time for sob stories. A knock on the office door made Clive jump, “Who is it?” With no reply Peters pulled the door open and looked one way then the other. No one about. The corridors were dark and empty. Whoever it was must have moved swiftly. That would be another thing for Peters to point out to the now soon to be departing Chief Executive, staff discipline was pitiful. His upcoming workforce conference to give the managers a bloody good kicking would make sure they knew their place, no more “Clive”, it was Councillor Peters to you sonny Jim and if you don’t like it, hop it! Bang! Bang! Bang! The office door shook. Peters grasped the brass handle and yanked the door open. There wasn’t a soul about. The vague hum of a vacuum cleaner over by the stairs was the only sign of life. One thing Peters didn’t like was practical jokes. He walked the corridor, looking in at the committee rooms one by one, nothing. He felt oddly uneasy. He stormed back to his office, slamming the door and glaring at it. After a few minutes of peace he forgot about the interruption and instead looked at the design for new staff lanyards, decorated with a repeated motivational statement, “Aim High”. Perfect, straddling the line between patronising and passive aggressive. The hand wringing liberals would be choking on their herbal teas once they got sight of this! Wait until they all received their ‘Thinking Caps’, printed hats they were expected to wear accompanied by demands to find ways of saving money; that’ll raise blood pressures. Bang! Bang! Bang! “Right!” bellowed Peters, rushing out of the door into the pitch darkness, voice echoing. The lights must be out, or the cleaner turned them off. He stomped towards the upper landing where County Hall’s wide spiral staircase began and leaned over the brass banister. There was movement below. “You, down there, have been playing silly buggers?” No response. Peters shivered as someone walked across his grave, to use his mother’s phrase. “Who’s that?” called a small voice with a strong local accent. “It’s the leader of the council, that’s who this is, and I want to know if you’ve been knocking on doors on floor five?” After a grumbling pause the voice replied, “Did floor five an hour ago.” The sudden wheeze of the vacuum cleaner ended the conversation. Peters looked about him, confused. Feeling jittery he put it down to too much coffee and felt his way carefully back to the sanctuary of his office in the pitch black. It was so dark he had to feel for the door handle, despite thinking he’d left his desk light on. He felt for the switch on the lamp cord and jumped as his desk was illuminated to show his paperwork had been neatly stacked in a single pile, the lanyard samples laid lengthways across his laptop keyboard, the animated words ‘Aim High’ spinning on his desktop screen. Shaking his head Peters was bewildered. He didn’t know how to create a screen saver, hadn’t sorted his paperwork or draped lanyards. “Hello?” he called, nervously. It was quiet again, a dead silence. Looking at his watch he gave himself ten more minutes before he’d have to get home, papers to prepare, speeches to correct, job advert for the new Chief Executive to proof read. A sudden noise made him freeze. It sounded like breathing, gasping, from out in the corridor. Slowly Peters moved to the door and opened it a sliver, just enough to peek. He thought he saw movement, possibly a shadow in the gloom. “You!” he called out, making to give chase when behind him, in the office, a motor began to grind away. It took Peters a few seconds to realise the office shredder was whirring, chewing through paper. He flicked the main office light on and froze as the stack of paperwork from his desk, his change blueprint, tumbled into the machine, turning into confetti. Yanking the cable from the socket he tried to retrieve the remains of his strategy. Dumping the armful of files on a meeting table he could have sworn he heard a faint voice laughing nearby. “I’ll make you laugh on the other side of your face!” he cursed, spinning around to face nothing but more darkness as the overhead light flickered out. He could hear his breathing, short and fast. Peters had had enough of these bloody games and was grabbing what he needed and clearing off home. His desk light seemed to be working okay so he sat to turn off his laptop. Bang! Bang! Bang! This time the noise was deafening, everywhere around him. Bang! Bang! Bang! Peters felt the air tremble with each knock. The laptop started a Windows update which gave him momentary respite to curse before a sudden sharp sequence of three raps on the office window made him look up. He watched as rapid fingers of frost scraped across the pane. A gasping voice filled his ears, the words muffled. He’d demanded the heating was turned right down to save money, but not so he could see his own breath. Peters never panicked, never got flustered, least of all by easily explained phenomena, but ice didn’t appear so rapidly, did it? Transfixed, he stepped forward to peer at the glass; a face stared in, ghostly white, eyes hollow making Peters let out a yell and stumble backwards, knocking over his waste bin. He tumbled to the floor, staring as the pale grey face receded outside his office window, five floors up. Crawling along the coal-black corridor on his hands and knees, below the sight line of windows which were now all being quickly decorated in filigree patterns of frost, Peters dragged his laptop bag and briefcase towards the spiral staircase. He’d considered then rejected using the lift as the electricity was obviously having a funny five minutes and he didn’t fancy being stuck in there all night, “I’ll kill whoever’s doing this!” At the top of the stairs, he reached up to grab the brass banister, his knuckles aching with the cold, pulling his hand back, wincing as the biting cold metal took the skin off his fingertips. A step at a time he eased himself down on his backside, the plummeting temperature making his joints ache. There was that laughter again, childlike, he spun to look over his shoulder only to see nothing but darkness. Not seeing his hand in front of his face he felt for his phone and fumbled for the flashlight setting, the meagre light allowed him to see the curve of the staircase as at the first landing his feet hit something, a wastepaper basket, like the one from his office. Peering dimly he drew a sharp intake of breath, savagely torn paper and cardboard littered the steps. Surely he’d seen these documents only moments before? Scrabbling in his briefcase he found it practically empty, the masterplan files he’d saved from the shredder were now spilling from the wastebin, littering the landing where he lay. Wide eyed, mouth dry, heart pounding, Peters fell still, listening. Was something coming up the stairs toward him? Waving the light from his phone he could only make out his steaming breath. It was a sound not of footsteps but of slithering, sliding, a dragging of something heavy. He tried to stand, stumbling, too afraid to hold the brass handrail, turning away from the source of the unknown pursuer. Retreating as quickly as he could he reached the top, following the low wall around where he slumped into a corner, balled up, hugging his knees, terrified, pointing his phone toward the sound closing on him. Barely breathing he watched unblinking as a small figure came into sight, taking each step as if weighed down. It was a child, surely? Shaking his head, Peters refused to believe a kid could be responsible for this. His shredded documents, the temperature, the eyeless face at the window... “Who are you?” he called. The slight figure carried on its struggling climb, hauling something, a blanket or sheet weighed down by an unseen shape. Peters drew himself up, there’d been enough fun and games at his expense. “Stop right there sonny Jim, wait until I get my hands...” Peters’ voice trailed off as in the wavering light of his phone he saw the figure up close, a child, a small girl, bald, dressed in a hospital gown, tubes dangling from her nose and frail arms, skin pale in the places where it hadn’t been eaten away. “Good God!” terrified he looked away, anywhere, seeking escape. The pale blue ring of the light around the lift button shone just ten feet from where he now stood. If I can get there, he thought, I can get out of this madhouse. Running from the apparition, his finger stabbed over and over at the call button. He heard the whirring of the lift behind the steel doors, screaming, “Come on, come on!” Behind him he felt something bitterly cold press into the small of his back. Too afraid to look he leapt aside, swinging around, lashing at whatever it was. The phone tumbled from his hand, offering only the briefest view of his pursuer, a thin smile on her lips. He scrambled around for his phone, the child between him and the lift door that now opened, flooding the top floor landing with bright light. A figure stood in the lift car, a woman. She stepped out towards him and stood behind the little girl, a hand on her shoulder, nails long, pallid skin clinging to protruding bones. A thin moan, one he'd heard earlier, made Peters turn and see what’d been hauled up the stairs. A tall skeletal figure unfolded and nodded to acknowledge first the woman and then the girl before swivelling to fix on Peters with the face seen at his frosted office window, eyes dark, face drawn and ashen. “I don’t know what your game is...” Peters began then fell silent as the figures took a step towards him. “Aim high” whispered the grey faced man, rapped Peters three times hard on his forehead then gave him a shove in his wide chest. Councillor Clive Peters, arms flailing as he lost his footing, spun around, striking the marble clad wall and brass banister of the staircase at his waist and fell, shrieking, to the floor far below. # This chatter at County Hall would run for years, “If that poor guy from the Leader’s office committing suicide in the gents a few weeks back wasn’t enough, now Peters is found at the bottom of the spiral staircase, broken neck.” “That wasn’t the worst of it by all accounts. One of the cleaners heard him fall and found the body. She’s the one who’s grandson killed himself in the building, and her losing her daughter and only great grandchild as well. Apparently the Police still don’t know how Clive fell, or what the chalk marks under his body were about, part of a big circle with symbols and the like so someone said, the rest got vacuumed away before they showed up.” “And another thing, I heard Peters’ mouth and throat was stuffed with paper, round his neck those stupid ‘Aim High’ lanyards!” END