The Night the Elevator Sang

My first job in this city was a housekeeping position at St. Jude’s Memorial, a sprawling, aging hospital that smelled of antiseptic and old copper. I’d taken the graveyard shift, 11 PM to 7 AM, because it paid a differential and I needed the money. My supervisor, Rosa, was a wiry woman with tired eyes who’d been there for twenty years. On my first night, she walked me through the maze of corridors, her flashlight beam cutting through the dimness. We ended up in the O.R. wing, where she showed me the cleaning protocols for the surgical suites. She didn’t mention the morgue, and I didn’t ask. That night, we cleaned one empty operating room together, and everything felt ordinary.

On my second night, I was on my own. The hospital was quiet, the usual hum of activity replaced by the distant beeping of monitors and the occasional intercom page. Around 2 AM, my radio crackled with a request to clean a room on the O.R. floor. I loaded my cart with supplies and took the service elevator up. When the doors slid open, the floor was bathed in a sickly green light from the emergency exit signs. The air was stale, and I could hear my own footsteps echoing down the long, empty corridor.

I found the room number and pushed the door open. What awaited me was chaos: surgical gowns and drapes strewn across the floor, a tray of instruments overturned, and dried, dark brown stains smeared across the linoleum—blood, I realized with a jolt. Not a fresh spill, but a congealed mess that looked like it had been left for days. The room was supposed to be cleaned after each surgery, but this looked like the aftermath of a botched procedure, and no one had told me about it.

I stood there, my heart pounding, when I heard it: a faint, melodic hum, like someone singing a lullaby. It came from the direction of the prep room connected to the O.R. I froze, listening. The sound was soft, almost tender, but it sent a chill down my spine. I called out, ‘Is someone there?’ The humming stopped. Then, a small voice, a child’s voice, said, ‘Don’t worry, I already cleaned it.’

I swung my flashlight toward the prep room. There, standing in the shadows, was a figure—a boy, maybe eight years old, wearing a hospital gown that was too big for him. His face was pale, and his eyes were dark, almost black. He smiled, and I saw that his teeth were stained with something dark. ‘I got most of it,’ he said, pointing to the bloodstains. ‘But the floor still needs a good scrub.’

I took a step back, my mind racing. There were no children on this floor at night. This was the adult surgical wing. ‘What are you doing here?’ I stammered. The boy tilted his head. ‘I live here,’ he said simply. ‘I’ve been here a long time. They left me in the basement, but I like to come up here sometimes to help.”

Before I could respond, the lights in the room flickered and died, plunging us into darkness. My flashlight was my only light, and when I swung it back to where the boy had been, he was gone. The humming started again, but this time it was coming from the intercom speaker above the door. The voice was distorted, but I could make out the words of a nursery rhyme: ‘Ring around the rosie, pockets full of posies…’

I bolted from the room, leaving my cart behind. I ran down the corridor, past the rows of identical doors, and slammed the double doors to the stairs. But instead of running down, I found myself on the ground floor, in a part of the hospital I didn’t recognize. The walls were bare concrete, the lights were buzzing fluorescent, and the air was cold. A sign on the wall read ‘MORGUE’ with an arrow pointing left.

I knew I shouldn’t go there, but my feet carried me forward as if something was pulling me. I pushed open the heavy steel door and stepped inside. The room was filled with cold, metal drawers. I heard the boy’s voice again, but now it was right behind me. ‘You shouldn’t have come down here,’ he whispered. I spun around, and he was standing there, his face inches from mine, his breath smelling of decay.

‘The doctors put me down here when I died,’ he said. ‘They didn’t want anyone to know. But I don’t mind. I have all the friends I need.’ He pointed to the drawers. ‘They’re all here. We sing together at night.’

I turned to run, but the door slammed shut. The lights went out completely. I fumbled for my keys, but they were gone. I was trapped in the dark, and I could hear the sound of drawers sliding open, one after another, and the shuffling of feet on the cold floor. I screamed, but no sound came out.

The next morning, the day shift found me unconscious in the corridor outside the morgue. They said I had a seizure and fell, hitting my head. They sent me home with a concussion and a note to see a psychologist. But I never went back. I quit that job and moved across the country. But even now, at night, I hear that humming. And sometimes, I think I see the boy standing at the foot of my bed, smiling, asking me to come play.

I’ve never told anyone what really happened in the basement that night. Not the police, not my doctors, not my family. Who would believe me? But the truth is, I left something behind in that hospital. I left my name on a drawer, and I know one day, I’ll be called back to be among the ones who sing.