The Perpetual Draft

In the late autumn of 1995, I was the night watchman at the Marigold Grand, a once-grand casino that had seen better decades. My rounds took me through the opulent but decaying upper floor, a horseshoe of private gaming suites reserved for the high rollers who never came anymore. The only entrance was the brass elevator at the east end; the west stairwell was a fire exit, chained and alarmed, its red glow a constant warning. I had worked there for three years, and from the very first night, a nameless unease clung to me like cheap perfume. It wasn’t the creaking floorboards or the flickering chandeliers; it was the feeling of being watched by something that didn’t want me there.

That particular night, I had just shut off the manager’s office light and locked her door, the click of the deadbolt echoing down the empty corridor. As I turned to check the suites, a gust of cold air rushed past me, so strong it ruffled the pages of a ledger left on a nearby table. But the windows were sealed shut, and the air conditioning had been off for hours. The draft carried a faint smell, like old books and damp leaves, and it seemed to flow from the direction of the west stairwell, the one that was supposed to be alarmed.

I shook off the chill and continued my rounds. Each suite was a small mansion, with velvet drapes, Persian rugs, and a bar stocked with dusty bottles. I checked them methodically, my flashlight beam cutting through the stale darkness. In the fourth suite, the one called the Aurelia, I found something wrong. A sliding door to a private balcony was ajar, the wind moaning through the gap. I knew I had secured it the night before. I stepped outside, and the cold air hit me again, but it wasn’t coming from the night sky. It was coming from below, from the ground floor, spiraling up as if from a drain.

I returned inside and locked the door, my heart thumping. As I walked back toward the elevator, a sound reached my ears: a faint, rhythmic tapping, like a fingernail against glass. It came from the last suite, the one nobody ever rented because it overlooked the old maintenance courtyard. I approached it, and the tapping grew louder, more insistent. I pressed my ear to the door. Inside, something was moving.

I radioed the security office, but the only response was static. I tried the elevator, but it was dead. The power was still on, but the elevator just sat there, its doors closed. I was alone, and the tapping became a rapid staccato, as if whatever was inside was trying to get out. I grabbed the master key from my belt and inserted it into the lock. The moment I turned it, the tapping stopped. The door swung open, and I was hit by a wall of cold, stale air.

The suite was empty, but the furniture was rearranged. A chair was in the center of the room, facing a mirror. On the mirror, someone had written in dust: ‘He knows.’ I backed away, my mind racing. Then I noticed the wind was back, and it was stronger. It was coming from the ventilation grate in the ceiling, and it was blowing dust and debris in a spiral, as if forming a funnel. The whistle of the wind began to take on a human quality, like a low moan.

I ran for the stairwell, but the door was locked. The alarm didn’t sound. The draft was there, pulling at me. It wasn’t just wind; it was a presence, cold and hungry. I turned to run back to the elevator, but it was now open, its lights flickering. I jumped in, pressed the ground floor button, and the doors closed. The car didn’t move. Instead, the lights went out, and the temperature plummeted. In the darkness, I heard the tapping again, right in my ear. A voice, dry as old paper, whispered: ‘You shouldn’t have come back.’

I was found the next morning, huddled in the elevator, shivering, my hair white from frost. They said I had a breakdown, that I had been trapped all night in a broken elevator. But I knew what I had seen. And to this day, I still feel that draft on my neck, especially when the wind blows from the west. They demolished the casino a year later, but sometimes, I see the smoke from the demolition forming a human shape, and I remember the words written in the dust: ‘He knows.’ But who is ‘he’? I still don’t know. All I know is that the draft never goes away.