The Brass Call Button

For the last dozen years, I’ve made a habit of visiting the decommissioned ocean liner, the S.S. Aurelia, docked permanently in the brackish backwaters of the old port. I’d slip in through the hotel lobby’s side entrance, weaving a tale about a late-night rendezvous at the upper-deck bar, and the night staff, usually a single drowsy attendant, would wave me through with a bored indifference. Even when I was barely sixteen, my story never failed, and the ship’s cavernous, shadow-strewn corridors became my private playground.

My favorite pastime was exploring. I’d duck under velvet ropes, jimmy open doors that were supposed to be locked, and find myself in forgotten corners of the vessel. I discovered moldering ballrooms with chandeliers dripping in cobwebs, a surgeon’s office with rusted instruments still laid out, and the cavernous engine rooms where the massive pistons stood silent and oil-slicked. But the one anomaly that always drew me back was the aft elevator, the one just opposite the small, disused wedding chapel. It was a boxy, brass-trimmed relic, and the buttons were worn to illegibility. The strange thing was, no matter what floor I pressed, the elevator would always descend, its gears groaning, until the doors opened onto the dim, damp cavern of the engine room.

I always thought it was just an old elevator that had seen better days, its wiring scrambled by decades of salt and neglect. It was a quirk, a ghost in the machine. But in the autumn of ’97, I brought my then-girlfriend, now my wife, to show her the elevator’s peculiarity. We stepped inside, the doors rattling shut, and I pressed the button for the highest deck, the observation lounge. There was a lurch, a grinding sound, and then the familiar, unnerving descent began. The indicator above the door flickered, cycling through numbers before settling on a symbol I’d never seen before-a tarnished, unmarked button at the bottom, one I was certain hadn’t been there during my previous visits.

The doors slid open not to the engine room, but to a narrow, low-ceilinged corridor that smelled of brine and burnt copper. This wasn’t right. The engine room was vast, a cathedral of iron. This was a space I’d never encountered despite my exhaustive explorations. My wife clutched my arm, her eyes wide. ‘Where are we?’ she whispered. I had no answer. The corridor was lined with riveted steel walls, and a single, naked bulb hung from a frayed wire, casting a sickly yellow glow. At the end, there was a door, slightly ajar, with a brass call button next to it, the kind you’d press to summon an attendant.

Against every instinct, I approached and pressed the button. There was no sound, but the door creaked, edging open on its own. Beyond it was a room I can only describe as a nursery, but wrong. The walls were padded with stained, discolored fabric. The floor was scuffed with patterns that looked like tiny, desperate handprints. In the center, there was a steel crib, its sides high and barred, and inside, a mattress that sagged with the impression of a small body, long gone. The air was thick, heavy with a metallic taste that coated my tongue. My wife pulled at my sleeve, begging to leave. But I was rooted, staring at the far wall where a child’s drawings were tacked up in neat rows. They depicted stick figures on a boat, being led somewhere below deck by a tall figure with no face. The last drawing showed a tiny figure in a crib, with the word ‘please’ scrawled beneath it in crayon.

We fled, but the elevator wouldn’t come. The button for it was dead. We had to find another way, and the only path was deeper into the corridor. It twisted and turned, branching into other rooms. We passed a small galley with rusted pots and pans, a cramped bathroom with a cracked porcelain tub, and a room filled with old squeaky toys, their eyes long popped out. Every time we tried to find a way up, we’d come to a dead end or a locked door. The corridors seemed to shift, and the distant sound of a child’s humming would start and stop, always just behind us, but whenever we turned, there was nothing.

Eventually, we stumbled upon a ladder leading up, through a narrow shaft, to a hatch that opened onto the main decks near the promenade. We scrambled out into the cold night air, gulping the salty breeze. We never spoke of it, not fully. My wife refuses to come back, and she’s made me promise never to set foot on the ship again. But I’ve broken that promise. I’ve gone back, driven by a dark curiosity. I’ve tried to find that elevator, but it’s as if it never existed. The spot where it should be is just a solid steel wall with a faded sign for storage. And on my last visit, I found a new drawing, taped to the wall near where the elevator door once was. It showed a man and a woman in a corridor, with a small figure pointing at them, and the word ‘stay’ written in that same childish scrawl. The brass call button is still there, though, just at the edge of the wall, and sometimes, when I stand close, I can hear a faint, rhythmic hum, like a lullaby played backwards.