The Polka-Dot Reflection

In the autumn of 2018, I was a lab monitor at Ridgemont Technical College, a sprawling campus of brutalist concrete and narrow corridors. My assigned post was the CAD Lab, a sterile room filled with humming workstations and the faint smell of burnt coffee. The lab had a peculiar feature: a row of old CRT monitors that still functioned, their glass screens coated with a thin layer of dust, waiting for the occasional student who preferred the retro setup.

One Saturday, I was tasked with cleaning the lab. The college was mostly empty, the corridors echoing with the distant clatter of a janitor’s trolley. I locked the door behind me, as was protocol, and began wiping down the keyboards, the desks, and finally, the ancient monitors. As I reached for the screen of the last CRT, I saw it—a reflection in the glass. A woman stood behind me, wearing a polka-dot dress that seemed decades out of fashion. The dots were like tiny, dark eyes scattered across a faded yellow fabric. She was still, her hands clasped in front of her, a faint smile on her lips.

My first thought was that one of the other lab assistants had forgotten something. But I remembered locking the door. My heart began to pound, and a chill crept up my spine. I wanted to turn around, but a primal fear froze me in place. I stared at her reflection, trying to make sense of it. The woman didn’t move. Her expression was calm, almost patient. And then, a terrible realization: she was standing so close that I should have felt her breath on my neck. I felt nothing.

Summoning every ounce of courage, I forced myself to turn. The space behind me was empty. The room was as silent as before, save for the hum of the machines. I laughed nervously, telling myself it was a trick of the light, a smudge on the screen. But when I turned back to the monitor, her reflection was still there, now closer. The polka dots seemed to swirl, and her smile had widened into a grotesque, lipless grin. I stumbled backward, knocking over a chair, and fled the lab.

I never entered that room again. I quit my assistant role and took a desk job in admin. But the image lingered. A week later, I had a student come to my office, pale and shaking. He said he’d been in the CAD Lab after hours, and he’d seen a woman in a polka-dot dress standing behind him in the reflection of a monitor. He described her smile, the same smile I had seen. I told him it was a prank, that I knew the woman, a colleague who liked to scare students. But I didn’t.

Over the next month, three more students reported the same phenomenon. They all described the same dress, the same smile, the same feeling of being watched. Security reviewed the CCTV footage from those times. The lab was empty. The door was locked. Yet in the footage, the monitors flickered, and a faint, translucent shape appeared on the glass—just for a split second. The shape was unmistakably a woman.

I began to dig into the lab’s history. The building had been constructed in the 1970s, and the original typing rooms were on the same floor. I found an old yearbook from 1975. There, in the typing club photo, was a woman in a polka-dot dress. Her name was Eleanor Vance. She had been a typing instructor, known for her strict demeanor and her favorite dress. She died in the building in 1976; the records said ‘heart attack’ but an old newspaper article hinted at something else—a student’s prank that went wrong, a fall down the stairs.

I decided to go back to the lab one last time, armed with a plan. I placed a small mirror on the desk, angled to catch the entire room. I sat with my back to the door, waiting. The monitors were off. The room was dark. Heard nothing, but I saw her in the mirror—Emerging from the wall, her polka-dot dress crisp, her smile expectant. She mouthed words I couldn’t hear, but I read her lips: ‘Typing Room 5.’ That’s when I realized: I was in the same location as the old typing room, only reconfigured.

I spoke to her, my voice trembling. ‘Eleanor, I’m sorry for what happened.’ Her smile vanished. The polka dots on her dress seemed to spiral, and her face contorted into an expression of fury. She advanced toward me, leaving a trail of dust in the air. I threw the mirror at her—it passed through, shattering against the wall. The sound snapped the spell. She disappeared, but the room grew cold.

I reported everything to the dean. They sealed the lab, citing structural issues. But weeks later, I received an anonymous letter, typed on an old typewriter. It read: ‘The dots are counting. One for every soul she takes. You’re next.’ I looked at my reflection in the window, and behind me, just for a flash, I saw a woman in a polka-dot dress, waiting.

I moved away from the town, changed my name. But sometimes, in the reflection of a dark screen, I catch a glimpse of yellow fabric and a patient smile. She found me. And she’s still counting.