Pete Miller shivered as he crossed the parking lot to the north entrance of Hub City High School. Clouds scudded across the first quarter moon, throwing shadows over the tarmac and making the bell tower appear as though it were pulsing with a spectral light.He could see how rumors of the building being haunted could get started.

He reached the door, inserted his key in the lock, and turned it. The door opened without a sound.

“Who’s there?”

“It’s just me, Mrs. Carson. I forgot some papers. The six weeks ends on Friday, and I need to get them graded tonight.”

“Oh, good evenin’, Mr. Miller.”

The janitor shuffled into a rectangle of light coming from the janitorial closet a short way down the hall. Mrs. Carson had been on the janitorial staff twenty years ago, when Pete had been a student here. Now that he was back in Hub City and teaching at his alma mater, she’d been one of the few familiar faces there. He’d thought she’d been old then, but now he realized she couldn’t have been any older in his student days than he was now.

“You know I told you to call me Pete.”

“I’m well aware of what you told me,” the African American woman said, “but I told you it wouldn’t feel right. You’re one of the teachers.”

Pete sighed. He knew arguing with the woman was useless.

“All right, have it your way. I’ll just be a minute.”

“You go right on ahead. Take as much time as you need. I’ll just wait down here until you get back.”

“You don’t need to wait for me, Mrs. Carson. I’m sure you want to finish up and go home.”

“No, I don’t mind. I still got plenty to do. It’s time for my break. ‘Sides, I want to make sure you’re all right when you come back down.”

“What do you mean?” Pete asked, although he was sure he knew.

“Strange things happen up there on that floor. Stranger even than some of the goings-on on the third floor.”

More rumors of hauntings. Pete tried not show is contempt for that sort of superstitious rot. Mrs. Carson had always treated him kindly when he was a student, and she still did since he’d joined the faculty at the end of the summer.

“Well, if you’re worried about me,” he said, “why don’t you come up with me. It will take a few minutes to gather up the papers. You can keep me company.”

“No, sir. I don’t go up there. Leastways not at night.”

“So how do you clean that part of the building?”

“Do it afore the sun goes down, while it’s still light. That or assign one of the other girls to do it.”

Pete knew “the other girls” were the rest of the janitorial staff. As head custodian, Mrs. Carson was responsible for making the assignments. He also knew that none of the “girls” were younger than their early thirties.

“You just hurry on up, Mr. Miller. Get your papers and come right back down. I’ll be here waiting for you. It’s not a good idea to stay up there too long.”

“Because of spooks?”

“Sumpin’ like that.”

Mrs. Carson looked him in the eyes.

“You don’t believe me, do you?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Ya didn’t have to. It’s plain on your face, Mr. Miller. But it don’t matter. Either you’ll change your mind at some point or you won’t. Now go get your stuff.”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Pete with a smile.

He took the stairs and walked down the hall. The windows at each end of the hall and several exit signs indicating the locations of the stairs along the hall provided enough light for him to find his way.

The building was one of the oldest structures in Hub City. Several wings branched off the central corridor. A secondary corridor parallel to the main corridor connected them at the other end. Pete had to pass one of the side corridors to get to his room. The rooms on the side corridors were all on the same side, and large windows faced them. The shadows cast by the moving clouds shifted and crept up over the floor and up the wall.

Pete thought he saw figures standing at the far end of the corridor just in front of the cross corridor at the other end. There were three, a two men with a woman between them. Each of them wore hats, the men fedoras and the woman the type of cloche hat that had been in style in the 1920s. He’d seen pictures of his great grandmother, who had been quite the flapper, wearing that type of hat. The men seemed to be wearing suits, while the woman was wrapped in a fur coat.

Most of their bodies were visible in the moonlight coming through the windows, but their faces were in shadow. There was enough reflected glow to make out their hats.

Pete had taken two steps past the corridor before what he’d seen registered with him. He nearly lost his footing on the slick tile floor. He couldn’t have seen what he thought he’d seen, had he?

He stuck his head around the corner for a second look. The moon was behind a cloud, leaving the corridor in darkness. Only the dim glow of the exit sign by the far stairwell provided any illumination. The reflection of the exit sign off the tiles may have been interrupted by an object in front of the sign, but the tiles had enough ripples from the uneven wear of feet over the decades that it was hard to tell.

When the Moon didn’t come out from behind the clouds for nearly a minute, Pete shrugged and headed back towards his classroom.

You’re letting your imagination get to you, he thought. Get the papers, go home, grade at least some of them, and get some rest.

Pete unlocked his classroom and turned on the light. His eyes had been adjusted to the dimness of the main hall, and he blinked at the sudden discomfort of normal levels of illumination. Once his eyes had adjusted, he located the papers on his desk. They were in four folders.

There should have been five. One was missing. Where had he put it? It had to be there; he’d seen it that afternoon. Over on top of the file cabinet.

Pete put the folder with the others in a tote bag and headed for the door.

He turned out the light and stepped into the hall. The lock on his classroom door didn’t lock automatically. It had to be turned with a key.

Pete got out his keys and tried to find the right one. It had been easier to find the key when he unlocked it. His eyes had been adjusted to the dark. Now they weren’t after having been in the classroom. Plus the tote he was holding limited the use of his left hand. The keys slipped from Pete’s hand. He cursed himself for leaving his phone at home on the charger as he fumbled for them. The flashlight on the phone would sure come in handy now.

Pete heard something as he picked up the keys.

It wasn’t the wind. It sounded like a woman weeping. How was that even possible? Was one of the cleaning crew hiding in one of the rooms, watching a YouTube video on her phone?

The lock clicked, and when it did, the sound, whatever it was, stopped.

Pete headed for the stairs and home.

He’d had no intention of looking down the corridor where he thought he’d seen the figures.

Later he would have no explanation for why he did stop and look. He just did. The figures were there.

And they were closer.

The first time he’d seen them they were at the opposite end of the hall, on the edge of the moonlight. Now the three stood only feet from him. Their faces were still in darkness.

Pete stood frozen. His right hand was still in his pants pocket, not having yet been removed from when he put his keys there. The tote bag swung with the momentum it had when he stopped. Other that the tote, there was no movement.

Pete’s heart was pounding. He tried to swallow, but his mouth had gone dry. In spite of the cool air in the hall, sweat popped out on his forehead. A drop ran down his temple and into the corner of his eye.

Then the man on the right lifted his hand to his face. Two seconds later a cloud surrounded his head, the way smoke does when a smoker exhales a lungful of smoke after taking a long drag. Only there had been no glow of the cigarette when the man inhaled.

Pete’s grandfather had been a smoker. He’d sit in the living room and smoke at night with the lights off. Pete would sneak out of bed sometimes and just watch. The end of the cigarette would glow as he inhaled, the rush of oxygen over the smoldering tobacco igniting it.

That hadn’t happened when the man inhaled.

A chill passed over Pete, and his paralysis broke. He headed for the stairs at a run. The only reason he didn’t drop his tote was because he was gripping it so tightly from fear. He’d completely forgotten about it. His only thought was to get off the second floor.

He took the stairs two, and once three, steps at a time and barely avoided a sprained ankle when he reached the first floor. He’d been expecting the floor to be another step lower than it was.

“Careful there, Mr. Miller. There’s no call to run now. They won’t be coming down this way. They never do.”

“You’ve seen them?” Pete gasped. He wasn’t as in as good a shape as he’d been when he played football here. His lungs burned, and his pulse throbbed in his temples.

“Yes, suh. I shore have.”

“Who are they?”

“Don’t rightly know. Just know they aren’t good people, and they’s best left alone.

“And now you know something, Mr. Miller.”

“What’s that, Mrs. Carson?”

“They’s why I don’t go up there.”