The Shift That Never Ended

The Cebu DataHub sat in a converted warehouse on the edge of the city, its two floors divided into open-plan cubicles and meeting rooms. The air conditioning hummed a constant, low-frequency drone that seemed to seep into your bones after eight hours. I started there as a technical support agent, answering calls about faulty modems and forgotten passwords. I was a skeptic. I had to be. The stories were too convenient: a dead family, a vengeful mother, a little girl in a Sunday dress. I rolled my eyes at every retelling.

But the job was routine, and routine breeds complacency. My station was in the middle row, facing a wall of windows that looked out into the darkened corridor, their reflective tint turning them into mirrors during the day. At 12:00 sharp, the lunch rush would thin the floor, leaving only the unlucky few with late calls. I was on one such call, walking a customer through a router reboot, when I saw it.

In the glass of my monitor, a flicker of movement behind me. A small figure, no taller than my desk, in a frilly white dress. It paused, as if waiting, then glided past my chair and disappeared toward the break room. I spun around, but there was no one. Only the empty aisles and the distant murmur of the sales team. My heart hammered, but I forced myself to breathe. It was a glare, a trick of the light. That’s what I told myself as I finished the call.

Days later, I heard about Marcus, a burly guy from tier two. He swore that in the men’s room, while washing his hands, the stall door behind him creaked open on its own. Through the mirror, he saw a girl in a white dress sitting on the toilet, her bare feet swinging. When he turned, the stall was empty. He refused to use that bathroom again.

I tried to ignore the pattern, but the stories multiplied. A woman in accounting felt a cold hand on her shoulder, only to find no one. A night-shift supervisor saw a child’s face pressed against the glass of the fire exit, her eyes black and wide. The building began to feel heavier, the walls pressing in.

One evening, I stayed late to finish a report. The office was empty save for a few stragglers. I was in the server room, checking an error log, when the lights flickered. I froze. Then, from the corridor, I heard a sound: a soft, rhythmic thump, like a small ball being bounced. I crept to the doorway and peered out.

A little girl in the same white dress sat on the floor near the break room, bouncing a red ball. Her back was to me. Her hair was brown and tangled. ‘Hey, sweetie, are you lost?’ I called, my voice trembling. She stopped bouncing. Slowly, she turned her head, but her body remained facing away. Her face was pale, her eyes void of life, and her mouth was stretched into a grin far too wide. ‘I’m not lost,’ she said, her voice like a needle on vinyl. ‘I’m waiting for my mother.’

A cold, wet hand gripped my wrist. I looked down at a gaunt, translucent woman with a bloody gash across her throat, her hair dripping as if she had just crawled from a river. She smiled, and her lips moved without sound: ‘She’s been waiting a long time.’

I yanked my arm free and ran. I didn’t stop until I burst through the fire exit into the alley behind the building. Gasping, I looked at my wrist. There was a red mark, like fingers. I never went back to that office. I quit remotely, mailing my resignation.

But that was three months ago. And last night, I woke to the sound of a bouncing ball in my living room. My wife was asleep beside me, but the hall light was on. And in the mirror at the end of the hall, I saw her: a little girl in a white dress, and behind her, the woman with the gash. They were both smiling. And they were pointing at my wrist.

I haven’t slept since. I don’t know if it’s following me, or if it never left. But I know one thing: the call center is still there, humming its low drone, waiting for the next skeptic to take the night shift.