Going Up?
Mariah Hammond worked on the thirtieth floor of the Continental Insurance Building where every morning she took one of the three express elevators up to her office, and every evening she took one back down to the lobby. These large-capacity elevator cars, each capable of holding fifty adults, were for the convenience of those employees who worked on the top fifteen floors; and, except in cases of an emergency, they would not stop on any of the lower fifteen floors.
Although the Plymouth, Massachusetts, native had worked for the Continental Insurance Company for more than four years, she never saw the old man until one Monday morning in early May. As usual, she walked through the lobby and stopped at the cafeteria for her cup of coffee and bagel. While Mariah ran through the crowds to catch the elevator, an executive from the twenty-fourth floor held the door open for her. When she turned to thank him, she saw the old man in the back of the car, hidden behind a quartet of secretaries from the claims department.
Mariah did not get a very good look at him then, just a vague impression of a very old man with thinning white hair and large, sad eyes. She probably would not have noticed him at all, except that the employees of Continental Insurance were all between the ages of eighteen and sixty-five, and the old man in the elevator looked closer to ninety or possibly even a hundred.
The white-haired, sad-eyed man was in the elevator again the following morning. As Mariah was whisked into the car by a group of people anxious to make it to work on time, she saw him standing in the back, all but hidden from her view. In fact, every morning that week, Mariah caught a glimpse of him in the rear of the car. She thought it an odd coincidence that she and the old man took the same elevator at the same time for one week straight, but it was hardly alarming.
When she entered the express elevator the following Monday morning, Mariah saw the old man once again, but this time he was standing midway between the doors and the back of the car. While the elevator made its long climb, she noticed a strange, unpleasant odor, one she could not readily identify. As close as she could tell, it smelled like rotting garbage, like the dumpster at her apartment building on a hot summer day.
After the elevator came to a stop on the thirtieth floor, Mariah saw that only she and four other people were left in the car. The old man must have gotten off at one of the other floors, but she did not remember him passing her as he did.
On the following day, the old man was closer to the front of the car, and the strange odor was more pronounced. When the elevator stopped on the sixteenth floor, Mariah had to move to the side to let a group of people pass. She turned and looked behind her. The old man was gone.
At lunch on Friday, Mariah sat at a table in the cafeteria with her friend Louise who worked in Human Resources on the sixteenth floor.
"Who is that old man who works on your floor?" she asked.
"What old man?" Louise replied.
"I don't know his name, but he's got to be ninety if he's a day. My guess is that he's closer to a hundred."
"There's no one that age on my floor, and as far as I know no one that old at Continental. I don't believe we have anyone over the age of seventy except for members of the board of directors, and none of them works in this building."
"Well, he must have something to do with this company. He's been on the elevator every day for the past two weeks."
"I've never seen him myself, but I doubt he works for Continental."
* * *
The following Monday morning marked the beginning of the third week that Mariah saw the elderly man in the elevator. As she got into the car, she saw that he was standing directly behind the woman next to her. The offensive odor was stronger than ever, and it made Mariah slightly nauseous.
Is that dreadful smell coming from the old man? she wondered.
Considering it rude to turn around and stare at him, she pretended to stumble. Then when she turned to apologize to the claims adjuster standing next to her, she threw a quick glance over the woman's shoulder. The old man was staring directly at her with his sad eyes.
Mariah turned away quickly. Her body shivered with revulsion. It was the first time she had gotten a good look at the old man's face. Cancerous sores covered his cheeks and forehead. No wonder he smelled so badly of decay! One did not need a medical degree to know that the old man did not have long to live.
Is that why he's here at Continental Insurance so often, to make sure that his loved ones will be taken care of? she wondered.
But the more Mariah thought along that line, the more ridiculous it seemed. Even if the man hoped to get insurance at this late stage of his illness, why would he come to the office every day? If he was having a problem, as sick as he was, why not simply telephone his insurance agent?
When she once again saw the white-haired man in the elevator on Tuesday morning, Mariah's curiosity got the better of her. She was determined to get off on the same floor and follow him. She entered the elevator and stood directly to the right side of the door where she could easily see who got on and off at each floor.
As the elevator stopped on floors sixteen through twenty-five, Mariah looked at each person exiting the car. When the doors closed and headed to the twenty-sixth floor, she looked at the six people still on the elevator. The old man was not among them.
Where could he have gone? she asked herself, knowing full well she had not seen him pass by her on any of the previous floors.
She turned to the young woman standing next to her, a data entry clerk who worked on the twenty-eighth floor.
"Did you see what happened to that old man, the one with the sores on his face?"
"I'm sorry. I don't know who you're talking about. I didn't see any old man with or without sores on his face."
Mariah then turned to the two men who worked with her on the thirtieth floor and inquired, "Did either of you see him?"
Neither one had.
* * *
When Mariah got to her office, she instructed her secretary to hold her calls. Then she shut her office door and collapsed into her desk chair. After several minutes, she buzzed her intercom.
"Brenda, could you come in here a moment, please?"
"Are you feeling all right, Miss Hammond?" Brenda asked with concern when she saw the pale, worried look on Mariah's face.
"Physically, yes. Mentally? The jury is still out, I'm afraid."
"What's wrong?"
"Have you ever seen an old man riding in any of the express elevators when you come up in the morning?"
"Yeah. There's Mr. Fisher from Sales, Mr. Perkins from Claims ...."
"No. No. I don't mean a man in his sixties. I'm talking about someone much older, in his nineties at least."
"I don't remember ever seeing anyone that old. But to tell you the truth, I don't always notice who else is riding in the elevator."
"What about someone who looked like he might be dying of cancer? He had open sores on his face, and he smelled like rotting garbage."
Brenda shook her head with evident disgust.
"Surely I would have remembered seeing someone like that. Why? What's all this about? Has this old guy been stalking you or something?"
"No, nothing like that. It's just that I've seen him every morning for several weeks now. Regardless of which elevator I take or what time I arrive in the morning, he's always in the same car as I am."
"Has he threatened you in any way?"
"No. He's never even spoken to me. I think ...."
Mariah began to shake.
"What's wrong?" Brenda asked. "Why are you so afraid?"
"Because I think I'm the only one who sees him."
"Are you worried that you're imagining him?"
Mariah nodded her head.
"How do you know no one else has seen him?" the secretary inquired. "Have you asked everyone on the elevator?"
"No, but I did ask three people. You see, I wanted to know who the old man was and what he was doing in this building. So, I waited to see what floor he got off on. He never left the car. It was as though he just vanished into thin air. I asked the three people who were left in the car with me, but none of them had seen him."
"I think you're overreacting, Mariah. Your old man most likely got off without your noticing him. And just because three people didn't see him, it doesn't mean that you imagined him."
* * *
The following morning Mariah got her bagel and coffee at the cafeteria and headed for the local elevators rather than the express ones. Before she boarded the car, she scanned the faces of the people ahead of her. The old man was not among them. She took the elevator to the fifteenth floor and walked up one flight to the sixteenth. There, she walked to the express elevator and pressed the up button.
The doors opened, and Mariah stood to the side to let a group of people exit. Then she stepped into the still-crowded car. She smelled him before she saw him. When Mariah turned, she saw the white-haired man with cancerous sores on his face standing beside her. She raised her hand and discreetly tried to cover her nose.
When the elevator stopped on seventeen, Mariah was roughly shoved from behind.
"Forgive me," a man said, reaching his hands out to keep her from falling. "I must have tripped over something."
"It's okay," she said.
"You're not hurt, are you?"
"I'm fine, really."
The man got off with four other people. The old man had not been one of them, yet he was no longer in the elevator.
* * *
As on the previous morning, Mariah took the local elevator to the fifteenth floor, and again the elderly man was not on it. Only this time, rather than take the express elevator from floors sixteen to thirty, she headed for the stairwell. Climbing slowly, she made it as far as the twenty-second floor. By then not only was she out of breath but she also had a muscle cramp in the back of her right calve. There was no way she could make it up another eight flights of stairs.
Walking up real stairs is a lot harder than using the stepper at the gym! she thought as she made her way down the hall.
Breathing heavily, she pushed the button for the elevator. As the doors opened, she saw the old man standing near the front of the car. Mariah had to briefly brush against him as she boarded. His stench was overpowering, and Mariah put the napkin from her bagel up to her nose. She no longer cared if anyone noticed. When she got to the thirtieth floor, she ran out of the door without looking behind her. She did not want to confirm her worst fears by seeing that the elevator was empty.
* * *
The next day, after Mariah got her bagel and coffee, she headed toward the express elevators. The door of the center elevator opened and people began piling in. Mariah boarded and immediately smelled the foul odor of the old man.
"Excuse me," she called to the people in front of her as she gently pushed forward. "Pardon me. I have to get off."
She made it out just in time. In the lobby, she turned and saw the elevator doors close in front of the old man.
With a sigh of relief, Mariah headed toward the group of people waiting for the elevator on the right. The door opened and the crowd moved forward. Mariah felt someone bump against her. She turned and saw it was the old man. His face was half eaten away, and his eyes were gone. Mariah took one look at those empty sockets and screamed. The elevator doors had already closed, but she frantically pushed the emergency button until they opened again. She fled from the car and ran directly to the ground-floor ladies' room where she was violently ill.
Once her retching stopped, she walked to the sink, wet a paper towel and held it to her forehead. Suddenly, there was a horrible crashing sound, and the floor shook beneath Mariah's feet. She ran out to the lobby and saw people running toward the crowd gathered in front of the express elevators.
Mariah spotted her friend Louise standing nearby.
"What's wrong?" Mariah asked.
"It's the elevator on the right," Louise replied. "The cable must have snapped."
"Oh, no! Was anyone hurt?"
"I don't know. The door is jammed, but the car was up on the twenty-ninth floor when it fell. I don't know how someone could fall that distance and not be killed."
The fire department arrived ten minutes later. As the firefighters broke through the elevator door, the spectators in the lobby prepared for the worst. Miraculously, there was no one inside.
Two employees later told reporters that when they got off on the twenty-ninth floor, the elevator was empty. No sooner did the doors close behind them than they heard a horrible, high-pitched screeching sound followed by a thundering crash.
Had I gotten in that car and ridden it to the thirtieth floor, I most likely would have been killed!
When Mariah walked into the elevator the following morning, the old man was nowhere in sight. His sudden absence saddened her. She would have liked to have seen him one last time—despite his frightening appearance and awful stench. She would have liked very much to thank him, but Mariah would never again see the mysterious dead man who had saved her life.
Salem is so lazy, he wanted to have an elevator installed in his cat condo.
