I never believed in ghosts.

Afterlife, spirit-world, any of that stuff. I mean, if there was really something like that there would be SOME evidence by now, and not just someone's spooky tale that can't be verified - right?

Exactly. I thought exactly the same until that Tuesday...

It was getting later in the day and I had stacks to finish, then the bloody bell went off. Fire bell. Fire drill - again! The damn thing must be haunted as this was the sixth time this week! I finished the page I was on and looked up but everyone had gone already. What the hell, the fire marshals were so sick of it they didn't even check the employee register now. I stayed there and kept working.

"You must leave now."

I looked up annoyed, and a guy stood there. He wore a dark blue singlet and jeans and had a hard hat on his head. His voice was deep and echoed around the empty office. I stared at him but didn't know him.

"Who the hell are you?"

His answer was to walk over and open the emergency stairs door.

" My name is Dan O'Braden. The elevator is already out. There is a fire in the basement electrical transformer. Get out now - hurry! "

I don't know if it was the look in his eyes or the tone of his voice, bit I believed him, you know? As I headed down those stairs the lights all went out, the emergencies came on, and that's when I could smell the burnt rubber-ammonia stench of an electrics burning. Holy schemolies, this was a real fire!

Our office was on the eleventh floor, and the smell got worse as I headed down as fast as my legs would go. I got to the door that said F2 and felt the heat coming up the stairs. I chickened out, then. If the fire was down there, I was staying right here. I opened the door and there he was. What the-

"No. You can still make it if you go now. Run, you cannot stay here."

Well, I gotta tell you, I flew down those steps, and flung open the ground floor door and ran through the worst smoke I have ever seen! As I burst through the front doors I could feel the air ignite behind me and I collapsed on the pavement gasping as flashing lights started to surround the building.

Yep, you probably guessed it. They saved the brownstone, but the first three floors were reduced to ashes. A short in a basement transformer had been setting the alarm off all week, but this time it went a step further and torched the place.

I was fine. I googled Dan O'Braden and found him. He was a construction worker who was killed during the construction of that bloody building, 48 years ago. Fell down the lift well.

I am not sure if I believe in ghosts now, but I do know that I don't stay behind after work nowadays!