The Ninth Floor Chime

The nursing home corridors always smelled of antiseptic and regret, but my mother, Edna, never seemed to notice. She’d been here for three years, her mind slowly unspooling like a frayed rope. My father, Thomas, had moved her here after her first violent episode, and he’d visited every day until his own decline. Now, after sixty years of marriage, he was gone, and I was the one making the daily pilgrimage.

Thomas had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer six months ago. The doctors gave him a timeline, but he refused treatment, choosing instead to wither away in the home he’d shared with Edna. The last week of his life, he’d stopped eating. The hospice nurse said it was normal, a shutting down of the body. But I knew better. I saw the way his eyes would fix on the corner of the room, the way he’d whisper words that weren’t meant for the living. Two days before he died, he stopped drinking. Thirst, they said, was a mercy. I called it something else.

The funeral was yesterday. I returned to my apartment in the city of Amberton, a building with a temperamental elevator that had a reputation for hiccups. I’d lived there for a decade, and it had never done anything more than jitter on the way down. But yesterday, on my ride up to the seventh floor, it happened.

I pressed the button for ‘7’, feeling the familiar metallic click, and stepped back to the opposite wall. The elevator began its ascent, the hum of the motor a low drone. Three floors, five, six. Then, just as the display blinked ‘7’, a sharp, deliberate ring sliced through the silence. The emergency call button was being pressed. The panel lit up with a flashing ‘ALARM’, and a tinny voice crackled through the intercom, ‘This is the operator. Do you require assistance?’ Static hissed, then nothing. The doors slid open, and I stepped out, my heart hammering against my ribs. I chalked it up to a malfunction, a short circuit. But it happened again, three times today.

Morning, noon, and evening. Each time, I’d press my floor, and just as I thought I was safe, the alarm would ring. The operator’s voice, the same crackly phrase, ‘Do you require assistance?’ No matter how many times I told myself it was a glitch, the pattern felt deliberate. It was as if something on the elevator wanted to know if I needed help, but couldn’t hear my reply.

On the last ride, I was coming back from the grocery store, arms full of bags. I pressed ‘7’, and the elevator shuddered to a stop at ‘3’. The doors opened to reveal a man in a faded janitor’s uniform, his face the color of old paper. He stepped in without looking at me, pressed ‘9’, and turned to face the wall. The doors closed, and the elevator resumed its climb. At ‘7’, the doors opened, but I didn’t move. I was transfixed by the janitor. He hadn’t moved. He was still facing the wall, his head tilted slightly, as if listening for something. The doors stayed open, and the alarm began to ring. The operator’s voice came through, but this time it was different. It was my father’s voice, crackling with static, saying, ‘Help me.’

The doors slid shut, and the elevator began to climb again. I slammed my hand against the ‘7’ button, but it was dead. The janitor turned slowly, and his eyes were the same as my father’s, those hollow, parched eyes. His mouth opened, and a whisper of dust escaped. ‘Ninth floor, son. She’s waiting.’ The elevator stopped with a jolt, and the doors opened onto a corridor I’d never seen. The lights were out, but I could see a figure at the far end, shrouded in white, holding a key.

I stumbled backward into the elevator, mashing every button. The doors finally closed, and the elevator descended. When I got to my floor, I burst out, gasping. I haven’t been able to look at the elevator since. But every time I pass the call button, I feel my father’s eyes on me, and I hear the chime of the ninth floor, beckoning me upward. I know now that the elevator isn’t broken. It’s waiting for me, and it knows I’ve been ignoring the call. My father isn’t at rest. He’s stuck on a floor that isn’t on the panel, and he’s desperate for me to find a way to bring him down.