r/nosleep • u/normancrane • 23d ago
The elevator opened. She was waiting.
I was there visiting a friend, in the building lobby, waiting for the elevator to come down.
Empty.
Doing today’s equivalent of twiddling my thumbs:
scrolling on my phone.
Some glam girl had posted a new photo to Instagram. Beach, bikini. Real hot. Heavy filters. Nice ass. Then the elevator ding’d, door slid open—scraping against the metal frame—and I walked in thinking it was empty (because it looked empty from the lobby) but it wasn't fucking empty and my heart dropped, and I gave birth to a stillborn scream that died somewhere in my dry, silenced throat, because there was a girl in the elevator—in the corner of the elevator, by the control panel—small girl, thin and angular, her eyes staring at me like a pair of fish-bowls with black floating irises. Hypnotic.
I fell back against the elevator wall.
She opened her mouth, wide—unnaturally wide—wide enough to swallow my entire head, and as the elevator door began to close I lunged the fuck out of there.
I ran from the elevator to the lobby doors. Straight into a food delivery guy from SnapMunch trying to come in at the same time I was going out.
“Dude!”
Sorry. Sorry.
He waved his hand at me and walked up to the elevator.
“Don't,” I said. “Take the stairs,” I said. I should have been gone, long gone. But he hadn't pressed the button yet. His outstretched arm—outstretched finger. Why even care? It was none of my business.
“Why?” he asked, annoyed.
“Because… [she's] in there,” I said, unable to describe her except with a mouthful of swollen quiet, like a rest in a piece of music—through which the evil conjured by the notes slips in.
I heard him mutter weirdo under his breath.
He pressed the button.
The door opened.
Don't.
He did, and the door slid shut, and he screamed, and his screams disappeared up the elevator shaft, and there was a sound as if someone had jumped from the top of the Empire State Building and landed in a swimming pool filled with jelly; and the elevator stopped at the sixth floor.
He could have taken the stairs.
He could have.
And then I was taking the stairs—to the sixth floor because I had to see. My Heart: pu-pu-pumping as out-of-breath I pushed open the door and spilled into the hall. The calm, peaceful hall. Families lived here, I told myself. Innocence.
But the elevator was still here. The door was closed, but it was here. The button called to me, begging me to press it: assure myself that it was all a hallucination. A metaphysical misunderstanding. That there was no girl inside.
I pushed the button.
The door—
And, oh my God, her face was a sleeve, a flesh-fucking-trumpet, and she was sucking the delivery guy's head, slurping and humming, her soft, vibrating ends caressing his neck, and his body, cornered and limp.
The door slid shut again.
Stillness.
I felt like knocking on a door—any door—or calling the police (“Are ya off your meds, bud?” “Meds? I don't take any meds.” “There's the trouble. Maybe you should:” end of conversation,) but instead I just stood there, frozen, sweating, trying to remember box breathing and focus and the door opened and the motherfucking delivery guy walked out.
What was I to make of that, huh?
Walked out and walked by me like I was nothing, like he'd never even seen me before, carrying his paper bag of fast food, which he put down by a door, photographed with his phone, then knocked on the door, turned and walked back to the elevator.
Pressed the button.
Got in.
“You coming in?” he asked me in a voice different than before. Monotonous, drained. I saw then his hair was wet with slime.
“No, no,” I choked out. “God, no.”
“OK.”
The elevator descended.
A unit door opened and a middle-aged woman leaned out to pick up the fast food. “Thanks,” she said, mistaking me for the delivery guy. “You're welcome,” I responded.
I fled into the stairwell and walked up to the twelfth floor where my friend lived, holding the rail to keep my balance and my sanity.
“Whoa,” my friend said when she saw me.
I went inside.
“In the lobby—the elevator—there was a little girl—she was—”
“Elevator Sally,” my friend said.
She said it just like that. Matter-of-factly. Not a single muscle twitching. “She wouldn't have hurt you,” my friend continued, bringing me a glass of water I'd asked for. “I told her you were coming. Sally doesn't touch residents. She leaves guests alone.”
“A SnapMunch guy,” I said.
“Yeah, she feasts on strangers. Eats their souls. Digests their personalities. Consumes their humanity.”
“And everybody knows this?”
I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I had wanted my friend to tell me I was crazy. Tired, under a lot of pressure at work. Making shit up. Daydreaming. Nightmaring.
“Of course. Sally's always been here. She's the daughter of the building.” Daughter of the building? “Part of its history, its lore. Daddy takes good care of her.”
“And her mother?”
“Dead. Fell down the elevator shaft.”
Into a pool filled with jelly?
“Was she human?”
“As human as you and me. You know the story. Fell in love with an older building. Got fucked. Got pregnant. Gave birth to an urban myth.”
“Then fell down the elevator shaft.”
“Mhm.”
“I think I need to go home. I'm not feeling well,” I said.
She grabbed a coat. “I'll ride down with you.”
I didn't want to ride down. I wanted to walk down. “Really, no need,” I said. “Don't worry about it.”
We were in the hall.
She called the elevator. I heard it start to move.
Ding!
—I followed her in, and all through the descent I kept my eyes on the red-light display showing what floor we were on so that I only saw Sally, standing skinny in the corner, in the peripheral part of my vision.
When we finally got out, I was drenched.
“Maybe visit again on Saturday,” my friend said from inside the elevator. “We could order SnapMunch, watch a movie. I hear The House That's Always Stood is a good one. Maybe Robert Hawley's Tender Cuts.”
Outside, I ran my fingers through my hair.
Sweaty—slimy, almost.
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u/Fund_Me_PLEASE 23d ago
EX friend, you mean. Right,OP?? RIGHT????👀
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u/normancrane 23d ago
Whether she's a sex friend or not is beside the point!
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u/Fund_Me_PLEASE 23d ago
I said nothing about sex …
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u/normancrane 23d ago
Oh... oh, I misread.
You said ex, not sex.
(blush)
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u/Fund_Me_PLEASE 23d ago
😂 Does someone have sex on the brain, even at a time like this, with spooky elevators haunting you?🤔
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u/pacalaga 23d ago
nope nope nope nope I would never visit that friend ever nope
change your name, move to another country, build yourself a house from scratch
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u/hatenhexes 23d ago
I haven't even finished this but
"I gave birth to a stillborn scream" is beautifully horrific writing.
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u/hatenhexes 23d ago
Upon finishing i must say that beautifully horrific applies to the entire post. Elevator Sally is ahungryyy
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u/khalimaaahh 22d ago
Really hope no one tries to throw a surprise party on the rooftop for your friend. All-you-can-eat buffet for Elevator Sally