Going Down

Crazy old ladies babbling about haunted elevators sometimes aren't so crazy...

by: Kassie Rong (age 12)

Manny really should have listened to that old lady in Room 11-56 and just taken the stairs.

If she had, she probably wouldn’t be standing inside an old rickety elevator cart with a man that had just stepped in and looking like he had just escaped while on the way to a psychiatric hospital. The man’s face was horribly deformed, scars marring his hollow cheeks and dark eyes. His greasy hair was matted down on his pale face and his lips were a blood red. 

   

“Going down,” he rasps.

The light flickers above their heads and the elevator gives a loud moan. They start speeding up.

Manny is backed up against the door. She needed to get out of there. She looks up at the floor number—7. She scrambles to press the 6. She would just walk the rest of the way down. 

The elevator passes the 6^th floor and does not stop. 

“Going down,” the man says again. 

The lights are flashing on and off above them and the elevator speeds up. 5, 4, 3, 2, they pass the ground floor and do not stop. There is no floor below the basement and the cart was going too fast; they were going to crash. 

Manny huddles into the corner and squeezes her eyes shut. She really should have believed what the old lady had said about the elevator being cursed. The lights go out completely. They pass the basement. The man stands completely straight in the darkness, staring at the doors.  

“Going down.”