This haunted elevator story comes from a night security guard in Phoenix and a fourth floor that had been gutted down to bare concrete. Nobody had any reason to go up there, but every night at 2:17, the elevator went up anyway.
I worked nights as a security guard in an office building in Phoenix for about two years. I only rode the elevator up to the fourth floor once on purpose.
This was 2015. Seven floors, downtown. Mostly insurance offices and a dental billing company.
I sat at the lobby desk from ten at night to six in the morning. Did rounds every two hours. Signed for packages nobody would pick up till Monday.
It was a good job for me. I was fifty-three and had a bad knee from twenty years of roofing. Sitting was the main skill.
The fourth floor was closed.
A law firm had the whole floor for years. They moved out in the spring. The owners decided to gut it and lease it as open space.
The contractors tore out everything. Walls, ceiling tiles, carpet. Down to the concrete and the ductwork. Then the money stopped, or the permit stopped. I never knew which.
The stairwell door on four was chained. The elevator still stopped there if you pushed 4.
The building engineer, a guy named Marty Szabo, told me my first week not to worry about it.
“Four’s dead,” he said. “Just plastic and pigeons. Skip it on rounds.”
So I skipped it.
The Same Minute Every Night
The first time was a Wednesday in July.
2:17 in the morning. I was at the desk. The elevator chimed and the doors opened on the lobby. Empty.
Then they closed, and it went up. I watched the numbers over the door.
2. 3. 4.
It stopped on four.
A minute later it came back down and opened again. Empty.
I wrote it in the log. Elevator cycled on its own.
Marty said that happens. A stuck sensor, a ghost signal in the controller. He said it with a straight face. Ghost signal. That’s really what they call it.
It happened again Thursday. 2:17.
And Friday. 2:17.
Not 2:16. Not 2:19. I started watching the clock for it. It was never off by more than a few seconds.
Marty called the elevator company. A tech came out on a Monday, ran his tests, and found nothing. He reset the controller. He said if it kept happening, it was probably the hall button on four, gummed up with construction dust.
It kept happening.
I’m not a brave man. But I’m a practical one. After two weeks of writing the same line in the log, I decided to ride it up and look at that button myself. So I could tell Marty which one to replace.
Riding the Haunted Elevator to Four
On a Tuesday night, at 2:15, I stepped into the car and waited.
I didn’t push anything.
At 2:17 the doors closed by themselves.
It went up.
It’s a slow elevator. Old. I could feel every floor go by in my knees.
It stopped on four.
The doors opened.
Dark. The only light was from the car behind me, falling out in a long yellow rectangle across bare concrete. Past that, nothing. Hanging plastic. Ductwork. Air that smelled like dust and old carpet glue.
It was hot. They’d shut off the air on four months ago, and the heat came at me like an oven door.
The hall button was on the wall to the right. I leaned out with my flashlight. It wasn’t stuck. It wasn’t lit. It was just a button.
I stood in the doorway.
Nothing moved.
I pushed L.
And the car dipped.
If you’ve ridden an old elevator, you know the feeling. When somebody steps on, the floor sinks a little and comes back. The cables taking the weight. You feel it in your feet more than anything.
I felt it.
I was standing still. Both feet. I hadn’t moved.
The car sank, the way it does when a grown man steps on behind you. Then the doors closed.
I didn’t turn around. I’d like to say I did. I stared at the doors and the numbers over them.
The car was heavier. It moved slower. I could hear the motor up top working harder.
3.
And it smelled like cigarettes. Not stale. Fresh, like somebody had just put one out.
2.
Nobody smoked in that building. Nobody was in that building but me.
L.
The doors opened on the lobby and I walked out without looking back. I sat at my desk. I heard the doors close behind me, and I listened to it go up.
It stopped on four.
It didn’t come back down until 2:31.
I told Marty in the morning. Not all of it. Just that I’d checked the button.
The next week he showed me something. The elevator company had hooked a monitor to the controller to log every trip. It printed out like a long receipt. Time, floors, doors open, doors closed.
And load. The car has a weight sensor, so it won’t move if it’s overloaded.
Most of the log was boring. People going up at eight, down at five.
Then, 2:17 a.m., Tuesday. Lobby to four. Load 192 pounds.
Four to lobby. Load 361 pounds.
Marty looked at me. I looked at him.
“Sensor’s probably off,” he said.
“Probably.”
“You weigh one ninety-two?”
I said yes.
He folded the receipt and put it in his shirt pocket. He never brought it up again.
I asked him once, later, about the law firm on four. He said nothing dramatic happened. They just moved. Then he said one of the partners used to stay late every night, till two, two-thirty. Smoked in his office with the window cracked. Everybody knew. Nobody said anything.
I asked if he was the one who died.
Marty said, “Nobody died. He retired. He lives in Scottsdale.”
I don’t know why I’d assumed somebody died. I guess I wanted it to be that simple.
I put in for day shift a month later and got it.
The night guy who replaced me says it still stops on four at 2:17. He told me like it was a funny thing about the building. Like a squeaky door.
I asked him if he ever rode it up.
He said, “Why would I?”
I told him that was the right answer.
I still take elevators. I have to, with the knee. But at night I stand with my back flat against the rear wall, so there’s no room for anybody behind me.
Have a haunted elevator story of your own?
This haunted elevator story comes from a night security guard in Phoenix and a fourth floor that had been gutted down to bare concrete. Nobody had any reason to go up there, but every night at 2:17, the elevator went up anyway.
I worked nights as a security guard in an office building in Phoenix for about two years. I only rode the elevator up to the fourth floor once on purpose.
This was 2015. Seven floors, downtown. Mostly insurance offices and a dental billing company.
I sat at the lobby desk from ten at night to six in the morning. Did rounds every two hours. Signed for packages nobody would pick up till Monday.
It was a good job for me. I was fifty-three and had a bad knee from twenty years of roofing. Sitting was the main skill.
The fourth floor was closed.
A law firm had the whole floor for years. They moved out in the spring. The owners decided to gut it and lease it as open space.
The contractors tore out everything. Walls, ceiling tiles, carpet. Down to the concrete and the ductwork. Then the money stopped, or the permit stopped. I never knew which.
The stairwell door on four was chained. The elevator still stopped there if you pushed 4.
The building engineer, a guy named Marty Szabo, told me my first week not to worry about it.
“Four’s dead,” he said. “Just plastic and pigeons. Skip it on rounds.”
So I skipped it.
The Same Minute Every Night
The first time was a Wednesday in July.
2:17 in the morning. I was at the desk. The elevator chimed and the doors opened on the lobby. Empty.
Then they closed, and it went up. I watched the numbers over the door.
2. 3. 4.
It stopped on four.
A minute later it came back down and opened again. Empty.
I wrote it in the log. Elevator cycled on its own.
Marty said that happens. A stuck sensor, a ghost signal in the controller. He said it with a straight face. Ghost signal. That’s really what they call it.
It happened again Thursday. 2:17.
And Friday. 2:17.
Not 2:16. Not 2:19. I started watching the clock for it. It was never off by more than a few seconds.
Marty called the elevator company. A tech came out on a Monday, ran his tests, and found nothing. He reset the controller. He said if it kept happening, it was probably the hall button on four, gummed up with construction dust.
It kept happening.
I’m not a brave man. But I’m a practical one. After two weeks of writing the same line in the log, I decided to ride it up and look at that button myself. So I could tell Marty which one to replace.
Riding the Haunted Elevator to Four
On a Tuesday night, at 2:15, I stepped into the car and waited.
I didn’t push anything.
At 2:17 the doors closed by themselves.
It went up.
It’s a slow elevator. Old. I could feel every floor go by in my knees.
It stopped on four.
The doors opened.
Dark. The only light was from the car behind me, falling out in a long yellow rectangle across bare concrete. Past that, nothing. Hanging plastic. Ductwork. Air that smelled like dust and old carpet glue.
It was hot. They’d shut off the air on four months ago, and the heat came at me like an oven door.
The hall button was on the wall to the right. I leaned out with my flashlight. It wasn’t stuck. It wasn’t lit. It was just a button.
I stood in the doorway.
Nothing moved.
I pushed L.
And the car dipped.
If you’ve ridden an old elevator, you know the feeling. When somebody steps on, the floor sinks a little and comes back. The cables taking the weight. You feel it in your feet more than anything.
I felt it.
I was standing still. Both feet. I hadn’t moved.
The car sank, the way it does when a grown man steps on behind you. Then the doors closed.
I didn’t turn around. I’d like to say I did. I stared at the doors and the numbers over them.
The car was heavier. It moved slower. I could hear the motor up top working harder.
3.
And it smelled like cigarettes. Not stale. Fresh, like somebody had just put one out.
2.
Nobody smoked in that building. Nobody was in that building but me.
L.
The doors opened on the lobby and I walked out without looking back. I sat at my desk. I heard the doors close behind me, and I listened to it go up.
It stopped on four.
It didn’t come back down until 2:31.
I told Marty in the morning. Not all of it. Just that I’d checked the button.
The next week he showed me something. The elevator company had hooked a monitor to the controller to log every trip. It printed out like a long receipt. Time, floors, doors open, doors closed.
And load. The car has a weight sensor, so it won’t move if it’s overloaded.
Most of the log was boring. People going up at eight, down at five.
Then, 2:17 a.m., Tuesday. Lobby to four. Load 192 pounds.
Four to lobby. Load 361 pounds.
Marty looked at me. I looked at him.
“Sensor’s probably off,” he said.
“Probably.”
“You weigh one ninety-two?”
I said yes.
He folded the receipt and put it in his shirt pocket. He never brought it up again.
I asked him once, later, about the law firm on four. He said nothing dramatic happened. They just moved. Then he said one of the partners used to stay late every night, till two, two-thirty. Smoked in his office with the window cracked. Everybody knew. Nobody said anything.
I asked if he was the one who died.
Marty said, “Nobody died. He retired. He lives in Scottsdale.”
I don’t know why I’d assumed somebody died. I guess I wanted it to be that simple.
I put in for day shift a month later and got it.
The night guy who replaced me says it still stops on four at 2:17. He told me like it was a funny thing about the building. Like a squeaky door.
I asked him if he ever rode it up.
He said, “Why would I?”
I told him that was the right answer.
I still take elevators. I have to, with the knee. But at night I stand with my back flat against the rear wall, so there’s no room for anybody behind me.
Have a haunted elevator story of your own?
Have you ever worked security in an empty building at night? Share your haunted elevator story, or any security guard horror story from the night shift, in the comments below.
How scary was it?
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