The Lever That Kept Giving

It was a Tuesday in late October, and the air in the school hallways felt heavy, like the building was holding its breath. I was a seventh grader at Meridian Middle, a squat, red-brick structure that had been slapped together in the late ’80s to house the overflow from the high school. Our town, Ashford, was old, with roots stretching back to the 1800s when the main drag was a dusty wagon trail. The school sat on a block where Victorian houses and a forgotten church had been bulldozed to make way for progress. The building itself was nondescript, with flickering fluorescents and a permanent smell of floor wax and stale cafeteria pizza. I’d never thought much about its past until that day.

I raised my hand in Mr. Delaney’s class, asking to use the restroom. He nodded without looking up from the whiteboard, and I slipped out into the empty hallway. The bathroom on the first floor was locked, a yellow chain looped through the handles, and the second floor had a sign taped to the door: ‘Out of Order.’ I didn’t want to wander far, but my bladder was insistent, so I climbed the narrow stairwell to the third floor. The third floor was a mystery to most students; it was used for storage and old science labs, and I’d never needed to go up there before. The corridor was dimmer, the lights humming with a tired buzz, and the air was cooler. At the end of the hall, a door marked ‘Restroom’ stood ajar.

Inside, the bathroom was surprisingly clean, with white tiles that seemed to glow under the harsh light. The stalls were empty, and the sinks were pristine. I did my business in the first stall, the door creaking slightly as I closed it. The sound echoed in the silence, but I dismissed it. When I finished, I walked to the sink and pressed the soap dispenser. It was dry. I turned on the water, letting it run warm, and then faced the paper towel dispenser on the wall. It was one of those black plastic models with a lever you pump to get a sheet. There was a small metal button below the lever that read: ‘Pump twice for one towel.’ I was in a hurry, so I ignored the button and pumped the lever repeatedly, hoping to get a handful of towels at once.

Each pump produced a single, crumpled towel, but they came out slowly, one by one. I knew I needed more, so I kept the lever pressed down, pumping rapidly. After about the sixth pump, I noticed something odd: the towels were not coming out from the slot, but from a seam at the top of the dispenser, as if they were squeezing through a crack that wasn’t there before. The dispenser itself seemed to vibrate, a low hum that I felt in my chest. I paused, and the hum stopped. I pumped again, and the towels came out faster, now in a continuous strip, like a ribbon of paper that coiled onto the floor. I watched, mesmerized, as the strip grew longer, and the dispenser’s shell began to bulge outward, as if something inside was pushing against it.

I let go of the lever, and the strip stopped, but the dispenser remained swollen, the plastic warped. A foul odor, like rotting vegetables mixed with cheap perfume, wafted from the slot. I took a step back, my heart beginning to race. Suddenly, the dispenser emitted a low, raspy breath, and the lever depressed itself, pumping on its own. The strip began to spool out faster, and the paper was no longer white pulp but stained with dark, rust-colored blotches. And between the blotches, I could make out thin, script-like marks, like handwriting that had bled through. I leaned closer, and the writing resolved into a name: ‘Mary-Anne.’ I didn’t know that name, but a chill ran through me.

The lever continued pumping, and the paper now came out in a torrent, piling up around my feet. I tried to run, but my feet were caught in the paper, which had become sticky and damp. I looked back at the dispenser, and through the clear plastic window, I saw an eye. It was milky white, with a pinprick pupil, staring out at me. I screamed and yanked my feet free, stumbling backward. The door slammed shut, and the lights flickered. The dispenser began to laugh—a wet, gurgling sound that seemed to come from everywhere. The paper strips started to wrap around my ankles, pulling me toward the sink. I fought against it, clawing at the wet paper, which smelled of earth and decay. The eye in the dispenser blinked, and a second one appeared beside it. A voice, soft but clear, whispered from the slot: ‘You kept pumping. You kept taking. Now you owe me.’

The paper now covered my legs up to my knees, and I could feel something cold and hard pressing against my shins through the fibers. The dispenser burst open, and a black, oily sludge oozed out, forming a shape—a thin, hunched figure with long arms and a pinched face. It had no mouth, but it spoke through the dispenser’s lever, which now bent backward at an unnatural angle. ‘I used to be the janitor here,’ the voice said. ‘I died in this room, in the 80s, when they were installing these dispensers. They sealed me in the wall behind this one. You’re the first to use it since. The others all used the first floor. But you came up here. You came to my place.’ The figure reached out a gnarled hand, and the paper strips tightened around me, lifting me off my feet. Instead of fear, a strange calm washed over me. ‘I need a new body to finish my rounds,’ it said. ‘You’ll do.’

I closed my eyes, and when I opened them, I was standing outside the bathroom door, the hallway quiet, the lights normal. My hands were dry, and there was no paper stuck to me. I felt a strange weight in my pocket, and I reached in to find a single paper towel, crumpled and damp. On it, in faint handwriting, were the words: ‘Next time, follow the instructions.’ I walked back to class, my heart thudding. Mr. Delaney looked up and asked if I was okay. I nodded, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was following me. At the end of the day, I went back to the third floor, but the bathroom door was locked, and a sign on it read: ‘Permitted for Staff Only.’ I never told anyone, and I never used a paper towel dispenser again. But sometimes, in the quiet halls after the final bell, I hear a rhythmic pumping sound, and the faint whisper: ‘Two pumps only. Two pumps only.’ And I don’t know if that was a ghost or something else, but it was real enough to leave a mark on my memory, and a slip of paper in my pocket that would not fade.