Caught...

The evening gave her a despicable look as she stared back with equal distaste. The office lay empty, save for staring monitors and toothy keyboards. She shut off her workstation and headed towards the lift.

Jessica Whitebridge always hated lifts because she always saw things in them. Rotten things. Evil things. Things that people would not believe if she told them about it. So she did not. She would never board a lift and talk about lifts to anyone till a lift ride with a sight so scary would totally freeze her existence seven years later...

She forcefully shut off the novel in her mind. She would have to stop reading the creepy novels alone at night, before their peek-a-boo activities become a part of her daily existence. Her nerves had totally become shot off late for a handful of reasons. She lived alone and she read novels which would not form a part of a regular read of the usual bookworm. She, at this moment, could not pinpoint a third reason which would offer a testimonial to her jangled senses.

She reached the lift and waited as it came up from the bowels of insanity itself. "Stop!", she screamed inside her head and felt as if her head would pop like a corn. The lift came and stopped with a lurch in front of her. The door slid open like a deathwish, almost inaudible. The lift stood silent almost waiting, asking her to step in.

Jessica would not step in ever because she knew the things always waited in hiding and never appeared till the door of the list closed. It seemed empty and there was nothing to be scared of. She would not step in, oh, how could she? She would not. She would...

"Stop!", this time aloud. A few pigeons fluttered, slightly disturbed in their quest for the 53rd root of a really long number. She got into the lift and swore to herself that she would give up reading the novels from the next morning. Tonight, she had to know what happened to the girl who was afraid of lifts. Would she die? Would she turn into something that would not communicate ever again? Would she...

She had stepped into the lift and the door had closed behind her. The single light on the roof flickered, dimmed almost into nothingness and stayed as it always did. She could feel the insides of the lift turning cold. They were coming. It was almost frigid now. She breathed hard, rasps coming out like smoke from a brick kiln. She touched the sides of the lift. They felt cold; Dead cold. There was something wriggling inside the transparent button which said "G". She could see a mist in front of her face as she breathed. Any moment now...

"Damn! No wonder this piece of rut seems to be taking forever!", she said and pressed "G" on the lift. The lift gave a slight lurch and started humming in satisfaction as it headed for the ground floor. She would read the book tonight, she thought, as she mopped a drop of sweat off her brow. She smiled to herself as the button marked "G" glowed softly, pulsing as if with a life of its own. The lift moved slyly downwards, a taskmaster who never failed to deliver people to their destination. Mostly...