At first glance, the office building on Colridge Street seemed like any other modern financial hub: glass walls reflecting the city’s fading skyline, the hum of air conditioning whispering through sterile corridors, and neatly partitioned desks devoid of personal clutter. But after sunset, when the office workers packed up their laptops and briefcases, the building’s silence took on a weight. It pressed against the walls and hung in the air, as if the structure itself held its breath.
Only a handful of employees ever stayed late. Those who did always left feeling watched.
Tonight, it was Greg Henshaw’s turn.
As the junior compliance officer sifted through files on overdue payments, he yawned and leaned back in his chair. His screen flickered for a moment—just a glitch, he thought—before stabilizing. The dim glow illuminated a row of framed corporate values on the wall: Integrity, Excellence, Responsibility.
"What a joke," Greg muttered, sipping lukewarm coffee.
He was here under orders from his boss, Angela Morton, to comb through old debt collection cases—the ones the company preferred to keep buried. As he scrolled past names, account numbers, and red-flagged statuses, something odd caught his eye. One file had no assigned handler, no termination date, and a large red marker: Patrick Reeves – Outstanding.
Greg frowned. The name felt familiar. Before he could investigate further, the air around him grew cold. His breath fogged the glass surface of his desk. The hairs on his arms prickled.
The lights flickered.
A crimson smear appeared on the monitor’s edge.
Greg recoiled. His first thought was that he had spilled coffee—but the cup sat untouched. Then, with a sickening sense of dread, he realized the smear wasn’t liquid. It was thick and congealed, as if someone had dragged bloodied fingers across the screen.
The room grew darker, despite the overhead lights struggling to stay on.
Then, a whisper.
"You shouldn’t have opened that."
Greg shot up from his chair, knocking it over. His eyes darted around the empty office, searching for the source of the voice. But the only sound was the faint hum of the building’s ventilation.
Breathing heavily, he leaned down to pick up the chair when a drop of blood splattered onto his sleeve. His gaze snapped upward.
A figure hovered near the ceiling—a translucent man with hollow ebony eyes that oozed thick streams of ghostly blood. His face, twisted with sorrow and fury, was streaked with vivid crimson droplets, frozen mid-motion as if time had paused at the exact moment of his death.
Patrick.
Greg stumbled backward, knocking into a filing cabinet. "Stay away! I-I didn’t mean to open your file!"
The ghost’s eyes fixed on him. "You all said that. And yet, here I am."
Before Greg could run, Patrick’s form shifted, flickering like static. One moment, he was hovering near the ceiling; the next, he stood inches from Greg’s face. His breath was icy, carrying the metallic tang of blood.
"They sent you to clean up their mess," Patrick whispered, his voice layered with pain and accusation. "You think you’re any different from them?"
"I-I don’t know what you mean," Greg stammered.
Patrick’s spectral hand brushed against Greg’s cheek, leaving a trail of cold, sticky blood. "Angela. Richard. The whole board. They know what they did to me. They know why I died. And now, you’ll know too."
The ghost faded, but his voice echoed: "Find the ledger."
Shaking, Greg grabbed his phone and called Angela Morton, but the call went straight to voicemail. Desperate, he made his way to the archive room on the lower level. The air grew colder the closer he got, and his footsteps seemed to echo longer than they should.
The archive room was a dim, windowless space filled with metal shelves stacked high with binders and boxes. Greg flicked on the light switch—it buzzed, flickered, and then dimmed to a dull yellow glow. He scanned the shelves until his fingers brushed against a worn leather ledger marked Confidential: 2010-2015.
He flipped it open, his breath quickening as he skimmed the pages. The ledger detailed bribes, falsified reports, and coerced debtors. But the entry that stopped him cold was dated March 3, 2015:
Patrick Reeves
-
Attempted whistleblower.
-
Termination approved.
-
Cause of death: Staged assault, alleyway.
Greg’s hands trembled. The company had orchestrated Patrick’s murder to prevent him from exposing their illegal practices. The blood wasn’t just a metaphor—it was literal.
As he turned the page, a chilling wind rustled the papers. Patrick’s hollow-eyed form materialized behind him, his face inches from the ledger.
"Now you see it," the ghost said, his voice laced with anguish. "But seeing isn’t enough."
Greg shut the ledger. "What do you want me to do?"
Patrick’s form flickered, and for a moment, his eyes were filled not with blood but with tears. "Expose them. Or I’ll make you part of their cover-up."
The next morning, Greg stormed into Angela Morton’s office with the ledger tucked under his arm. Her polished smile faltered when she saw the determined look in his eyes.
"We need to talk," Greg said, slamming the ledger onto her desk. "About Patrick Reeves."
Angela’s gaze darted to the closed door. "Keep your voice down."
"Why? Afraid someone will hear the truth?" He opened the ledger to Patrick’s entry and pushed it toward her. "He tried to expose what you and the board were doing. You had him killed."
Angela leaned back in her chair, her composure cracking. "You don’t understand. If he had gone public, the company would have collapsed. Thousands of jobs—gone."
"So you murdered him to protect the bottom line?" Greg’s voice shook with rage.
Angela stood, her face pale. "You don’t know what you’ve unleashed. Patrick’s death wasn’t supposed to happen like that. The ritual—it went wrong."
Greg’s blood ran cold. "Ritual? What are you talking about?"
Before she could answer, the office lights dimmed, and the temperature plummeted. Blood seeped from the walls, pooling on the floor.
Patrick’s ghost appeared between them, his hollow eyes bleeding rivers of crimson. "You can’t bury me again."
Angela screamed as Patrick lunged at her, his bloodstained hands gripping her throat. Greg backed away, horrified, as Angela’s pleas were drowned out by Patrick’s vengeful whisper: "You took my life. Now, I take yours."
Hours later, the police found Angela’s lifeless body in her office, her eyes wide with terror and her throat marked by ghostly imprints.
Greg sat in the interrogation room, shaking. He had told them everything—the ledger, the ghost, the blood—but the detectives didn’t believe a word of it.
Released due to lack of evidence, Greg returned to his apartment and locked the door. He sat on the floor, clutching the ledger, wondering what to do next.
The lights flickered.
Patrick’s voice whispered from the shadows.
"You’re the keeper now. Don’t fail me."
Blood dripped from the ceiling onto the ledger, staining Greg’s hands.
He wasn’t sure if it would ever wash off.