Eddie staggered down one flight of stairs to the maintenance storage room. His aged legs and joints carried him as fast as his gait would allow. One of his knees locked in position and he shuffled down the hallway. He’d come from the 3rd floor, which was his first stop in the building on that October morning. The sun hadn’t broken light yet at 7:15am. Eddie fumbled with his set of 17 keys. “Come on,” he said. His fingers pinched the medium sized, bronze colored key for the maintenance door. He stuck the key in the slot and pushed the door open. Anthony was sitting at the foldout table.

“Hey, Tone, got a minute? Right now?” He spoke, somewhat out of breath to his coworker. His keys were still jangling on his belt hook.

Anthony was mid bite. Both of his elbows rested on the table. He didn’t move.

Eddie’s hand tapped his thigh two beats per second. His breathing was heavy. “Tone! Listen…”

Anthony lifted his head up from his sausage, egg, and cheese croissant sandwich and stared at Eddie.

“What, man? Don’t you see me eating? What’s the noise for? It’s Monday.” Anthony, who was fifteen years younger than Eddie, carried himself in a calm matter in any situation. The urgency of Eddie bursting into the room was no different.

“I know this is gonna sound…crazy, maybe,” Eddie hesitated, “but there’s something upstairs. It’s some–something and I don’t know what it was–”

“Something, like that new coffee maker?” Anthony winked. “I put it in there over the weekend. It’s an industrial grade, top of the line deal. Scared ya, eh?” Anthony let out a loud laugh. He took a sip of his coffee. “Tastes great.”

“I knew you wouldn’t–I knew it would sound nuts,” Eddie panted. “But Tone, I saw it. I had to tell somebody.”

“It? So you mean to say you saw a thing? What’d it look like, Mr. Eddie? Describe it.”

Eddie put his hand to his forehead and squeezed his eyes shut. He had arrived to the building earlier than usual that morning . The 42 story skyscraper housed businesses ranging from doctor’s offices to print and copy services and anyone else willing to pay the above average rent in the Loop. Normally, Eddie showed up to work just before Anthony did so he can be the first to use the restroom. On this morning, Eddie skipped his coffee, and the chance to use the new coffee maker, because he saw lights coming from the third floor offices. Eddie was the last person to leave the previous day and no one from the third floor arrived until about 8:30am. No lights should have been on. “Okay, Tone, let me start from the beginning.”

“Hang on,” Anthony said. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “What time is it?” He tapped the top of his phone to bring the screen up. “Alright, you have about 3 minutes before I unlock the back doors. Let’s hear it.”

“Three minutes. Okay. I’ll be quick,” Eddie said. He turned around and shut the maintenance door behind him. “Now listen, alright, you know I don’t believe in all that mumbo-jumbo stuff like ghosts and shit. But there was something upstairs. Big time. There was a light on in J. Krain’s office. Weird. So I went to check it out, see if he was in that early, you know, on a Monday. It was nobody. Then I noticed the other light,” Eddie said, “coming from the breakroom.” His voice deepened. “At first I just assumed it a couple of folks in there, ya know, talking business or what-have-you. I was standing in front of the elevator on the north end,” he said while motioning every detail with his hands, “down by the lawyer’s office. Anyway, under the door crack, under the door where the light peeps out, I saw movement. It looked like the shadow of people except, the feet were moving real unnatural.”

“Unnatural? What the hell does that mean?” Anthony adjusted himself in his seat. He looked into Eddie’s eyes, which were wildly focused and darker than usual.

“It wasn’t normal. They looked like they were shuffling back and forth like this,” Eddie moved his feet one forward, one backward as if he were learning to tap dance for the first time. “So I watched for a few seconds trying to figure out what the guy, or gal, was up to. Then I heard a voice whisper something. I couldn’t make out what it was about. I figured whoever it was didn’t know I was standing outside the door. Then I heard the whisper again but louder. Sounded like ‘Here is everywhere’. And then…the shadow under the door was gone.”

“Gone?”

“Gone.”

Anthony stood up from his sandwich and glanced over at the door frame. He huffed as he shook his head. “Alright, Eddie, I don’t know. Kinda sounds like you’re seeing and hearing things. Whoever it was probably just walked away.”

Eddie squinted at Anthony, who was moving towards the door. Eddie stepped in front of him.

“Yes. That’s possible,” he asserted. “But Tone, I waited in that hallway for someone to come out. I waited for a while. And as I waited, I felt something cold on my back. It wasn’t like a breeze. It was a chill–just a cold, cold feeling. And something in me–inside of me– told me to go through the door. And I wasn’t even afraid. I just went for it. I grabbed the door handle but when I tried to push, it felt like somebody was holding it shut,” Eddie paused and looked sharply into Anthony’s eyes. “I couldn’t open it right away. And that whisper came back. ‘Here…here…’, it said. It was louder. And my chest was shaking–that’s what I felt like– my chest was going crazy. I pushed the door open with more force and when I got in, finally, after pushing so hard, there was no one. Tone, no one was in the room. I looked to the left and the right of the whole room. I looked behind the door. There was no one!”

Anthony gulped and crossed his arms over his chest. He cleared his throat. “Well,” he said, “I guess that is strange.”

Eddie put his hand up with his palm facing Anthony’s face. He breathed in and out through his teeth. “Tone, when I backed out of that breakroom,” his voice trailed into a murmur, “the thing was standing right behind me in front of the elevator where I first was. It turned its head, just at the neck, to look at me. Dead in the face. The eyes…the eyes were green with a red halo around the dark part of the eyeball. It looked at me and it was maybe 6 feet or more. It just looked at me and said with a gurgling voice, ‘here….everywhere is here’. And then the thing’s mouth opened wide and it screamed something so awful, Tone. It was loud and, and, blinding. Everything was shaking. It felt like the earth was shaking, Tone. I couldn’t believe it! Then it was just gone. Poof. Gone.”

Anthony stared down at the floor. His chest was tight and his left foot began to tap uncontrollably. He couldn’t lift his eyes up beyond the top of the table where the rest of his sandwich sat. He tried to glance up at Eddie, but his gaze was locked downward. “Eddie,” he said. His voice cowered, “Eddie…why can’t I move? Eddie!” Anthony began to gasp for air. “It’s cold in here,” he grabbed at his throat. “Ed–Eddie!” With one more groan, Anthony fell on his backside, which enabled him to look up towards where Eddie was standing. Anthony’s body writhed in pain and instinctual fear. The color in his face faded as he gaped up towards the thing which stood in Eddie’s place. Anthony continued to gasp for air and crawl away in a backwards crab-like walk. The thing was see-through, an outlined figure of a beastly man with fingers as long as crowbars and a horned back. Its legs were straight and stiff with feet pointed like arrowheads. The abdomen was just ribs, hollow on the inside. It was like a mirage.

The creature’s head tilted downward, just at the neck, to look at Anthony as he whimpered on the ground taking his last breaths.

“Here is everywhere.”