Chapter 1

“You wanna watch out for the ghost.” Sid said with a chuckle as he swung his bag up onto his shoulder.

“Ghost?” Marek answered confused by the older man’s comment.

“Yeah,” Sid grinned at him, “A couple of the night guards have said they had heard someone giggling when they were patrolling the upper floors.” With a final wave Sid was gone.

Marek sighed heavily as he watched Sid climb into his car, this was not how his career was supposed to go! Two months ago Marek was a department manager at a large online retailer, then with no notice they shut up shop and the receiver had been called in. About a week later Marek had received a letter from the firm that was handling the closure, it appeared they would be lucky to see ten percent of their outstanding wages. Two days after that Marek’s girlfriend of six years announced she wasn’t going to be tied to a loser and bailed.

So with the rent due on his flat and his savings dwindling Marek had taken this job as a night security guard at Imerion Enterprises. The job was simple enough, Marek would spend most of his time sitting in the security gatehouse. Once an hour he would have to walk a site patrol, on odd hours Marek would walk the perimeter fence and on even hours he had to check the offices. The company obviously didn’t trust their guards to actually carry out the patrols so there was a lock box halfway around the perimeter, Marek had to enter his pin number onto the keypad in the box within a half hour window. A similar box was located in a janitor’s cupboard on the fifth floor.

“Oh well,” Marek mumbled to himself, “it may be a lousy job but at least I will be able to pay the rent and eat until I can find something better.”

Marek put his lunch box in the fridge and put the kettle on, five minutes later he was settled in with a good book.

The 7 O’clock patrol was simple and soon enough Marek was back to his book. An hour later Marek was unlocking the door to the offices.

As he opened the foyer door he chuckled to himself thinking about Sid’s parting comments, he figured it was normal to razz the new guy, get him thinking about ghosts and soon the normal sounds of an empty building would be turned into ghostly noises in their head and before the night was out they would believe they were seeing ghosts.

Marek had allowed himself plenty of time for his first office patrol as he wasn’t too sure how long it would take him to get up to the cupboard containing the keypad. Everything was straightforward until Marek was halfway through the third floor, he had just entered one of the offices intending to check the windows were all locked when...

“Ohhhh, a young one!” The woman’s voice came from behind him and was followed by a giggle.

Marek span quickly around, his eyes searching the empty room. Three quick steps took him back out into the corridor, Marek looked both ways his ears straining to hear footsteps. Pulling himself together Marek laughed at himself, he knew that Sid’s comment would put ideas into his head, he had just forgotten how good his imagination could be!

Further on beside of the stairs to the next floor were the restrooms, Marek quickly checked out the men’s room before turning to the ladies. On the other floors, knowing he was alone in the building Marek had just walked into the ladies bathrooms, he felt very silly this time knocking before he pushed the door open. Inside Marek was surprised to find one of the cubicle doors was closed, the hairs on the back of Marek’s neck rose as the toilet flushed. The clack of the door latch opening made Marek jump, he stared rooted to the spot as the door swung open onto the empty cubicle.

Marek’s eyes darted to the sinks when one of the taps was turned on, the stream of water seemed to flow over a pair of invisible hands.