The Face Between the Crates

The first time I noticed the dead floor was during the Tuesday morning budget review, when I should have been scrutinizing the quarterly projections but instead found my gaze drifting across the sun-bleached plaza to the mirrored glass of the Meridian Building. Our office, on the eighth floor of the Vector Tower, faced a wing of the Meridian that had always buzzed with activity—accountants, software developers, graphic designers, all visible in their glassy cells. But that day, one window on the fifth floor was dark, a black rectangle in the otherwise glittering facade. The blinds were drawn, and through the slats I could see the humped silhouettes of storage crates, the kind used for long-term offsite archiving. The floor looked abandoned, which was odd because I knew the Meridian had a waiting list for tenants.

I mentioned it to my colleague Marco during the coffee break. ‘You ever see what’s on the fifth floor of the Meridian?’ I asked, spooning sugar into my mug. ‘The one that’s all dark and boxed up?’ Marco shrugged. ‘Maybe they’re renovating. Or maybe it’s a server room or something. Why, you planning a heist?’ I laughed it off, but the image stuck with me.

The next day, during a tedious PowerPoint about customer retention, I looked up again. The window was still dark, but now there was a light. It wasn’t the steady glow of a desk lamp or the flicker of a fluorescent fixture. It was a rapid, pulsing strobe, like a faulty bulb in a basement. It came and went in irregular intervals, and I found myself counting the seconds between flashes, trying to find a pattern. My boss’s voice droned on, a distant hum, while I was mesmerized by the rhythm of that light.

After the meeting, I told my friend Priya about it. ‘You’re not going to believe this, but I keep seeing this weird light in that dark office across the way. It’s like Morse code or something.’ Priya, who was always telling me to quit smoking on the fire escape because it was creepy, raised an eyebrow. ‘Maybe you’re going blind from all those spreadsheets. Or maybe you’ve finally snapped and you’re seeing aliens.’ She laughed, but I didn’t.

On the third day, I couldn’t concentrate at all. I had brought my binoculars from home, hidden in my briefcase like a spy. During a particularly dull ten-minute stretch, I slipped them out and focused on the window. The light was off, but the room was still dimly visible through the slats. I could see the boxes, stacked in haphazard formations, some reaching near the ceiling. They were the standard beige cardboard, but there were odd markings on them—a spiral symbol that looked vaguely familiar but I couldn’t place. And then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw something move.

I swung the binoculars toward the movement, but it was gone. A trick of the light, I thought. But then it happened again: a darting motion between the stacks, too quick to catch. My heart began to pound. I kept the binoculars trained on the window, scanning back and forth. Finally, I saw it. A face, partially obscured by a crate, staring straight at me. It was a child’s face, pale and wide-eyed, with dark hair plastered to its forehead. It was there for just a moment before it vanished behind a box. I dropped the binoculars, my hands shaking.

I spent the rest of the day in a fog. Who was that child? Why would a child be in an abandoned office? And why did it look at me, right at me? I tried to rationalize it: maybe it was a mannequin, a prop for a film shoot, some kind of art installation. But the eyes were too real, the gaze too direct. I couldn’t shake the feeling that it had seen me just as clearly as I had seen it.

That night, I couldn’t sleep. I tossed and turned, the image of that face burning in my mind. At 2:00 AM, I got up and went to my own window, looking across the dark plaza toward the Meridian Building. The office window was dark, of course. But as I stood there, I saw a tiny pinprick of light appear in the darkness of that fifth-floor window. It blinked three times, then went out. A chill ran down my spine. It was as if someone was signaling me.

The next morning, I decided I had to know. I grabbed my keys, borrowed a flashlight from the maintenance closet, and walked over to the Meridian Building, my heart thumping in my chest. The lobby was quiet, the security guard dozing behind the desk. I slipped past him, taking the stairs to avoid the elevator that might alert someone. On the fifth floor, I found the door with a sign reading ‘Storage Unit 5C’ and a brand-new padlock. The sign was handwritten in black marker, and it gave me a jolt: the handwriting was a child’s, loopy and neat.

I stood there, paralyzed. The lock looked new, the kind you could buy at any hardware store. But something told me not to touch it, not to break in. The memory of that face, the way it had looked at me, was too fresh. I turned and walked away, but as I reached the stairwell, I heard a faint sound from behind the door. It was a soft, continuous humming, like a lullaby being sung off-key. I stopped and listened, my breath catching. The humming stopped abruptly, and then a small voice said, ‘Daddy? Is that you?’

I fled down the stairs, not stopping until I was back in my office. I sat at my desk, staring at my computer screen, seeing nothing. The face, the humming, the question—it all swirled in my mind. I tried to lose myself in work, but every time I looked across at that dark window, I saw the shadow of a small figure standing behind the crates, waiting. And I knew, with a certainty that made my blood run cold, that it was waiting for me.