After twenty years in the HVAC industry. I’ve seen some weird things, and witnessed others through a computer screen. When it comes to ghosts, I’ve apparently been involved in more than one, but the ones where I supposedly saw a ghost I never felt as threatened or as confused as the time I missed out on seeing a ghost,

but the two electricians who were with me that night, did not.

You can’t always work on a building during the day. Some structures only let you labor away at night, especially government buildings, and especially government buildings that are over 100 km from the office.

That late autumn night, there were 4 of us in total that occupied just such a structure:

• A security guard

• 2 electricians

• And little ol’ me…

We were working as a team to install the building’s new building automation system in the basement. The security guard and I were in one room, and the sparkies were wandering the halls, installing temperature sensors, and then blasting them with Dust Bane.

This caused the sensor to drop to almost freezing, and allowed me to verify that it was working and it was where we needed it on the system, so I was essentially locked in the room, sitting on a bucket, my computer on an impromptu desk.

It was just after midnight…

We were tired…

We were fighting the desire to do body shots of Tim’s double double off of each other when all of a sudden, the rooms at the very end of the hall dip to nearly freezing

Then the next rooms

Then the next

Each one getting closer to me, and closer to the hapless sparkies who were elsewhere on the floor.

And it’s not happening slowly, but FAST, RUNNING SPEED FAST

The furthest rooms are only just rebounding as the closest room to me drops, and that’s when I heard the electricians’ screams of terror

I jumped from my chair, my breath fogging as I ran into the hall…

Only to see the backs of the fleeing electricians as they charged into the stairwell, ran up the stairs, slammed through the emergency exit and scrambled for their work truck.

Which a screech of rubber, they peeled out of that parking lot and were GONE.

They’d left their tools.

They didn’t answer their phones.

Without them, there’s no point staying. Being sympathetic, I began cleaning up their tools. The rooms are warm again, but everything metal is wet with condensation.

They ghosted me, and refused to return my calls all the next day.

Finally their boss offers to come and finish the job and collect his employees’ tools.

We got the job done, and as I’m thanking him I ask why the guys didn’t return to site.

With a shrug he tells me they’re never going to come back to this site.

It’s not me, it’s the building.

Turns out, the building had once been a sanitarium and rumor had it that, back then, a nurse had gotten too close to a cell at the end of the hall. The patient inside the room had reached through the bars and grabbed her, tearing her face to the bones in a fit of rage. Savaged, she had run the length of the basement, screaming in agony, only to die of infection a few days later.

Apparently, she never quite left that hall.

I never “saw” her, but I had the trend logs from that night as proof that something had occurred.

I’ve never been back there at night, and I’ve changed companies since, but I still hear that there’s a high turnover anytime work is done, and security guards warn each other not to be in the basement at a certain time of night.