The Midnight Cleaning Crew

It was Halloween night when the call came in. AB Clean had serviced every type of building in town—from pristine medical offices to greasy machine shops—but no one wanted to touch the Holloway Insurance building after dark. The client had been insistent, though. The cleaning had to be done that night, top to bottom, no exceptions.

The Holloway place had a reputation. Even before AB Clean took the account, office workers swapped ghost stories about it. Some swore they heard footsteps echoing in empty stairwells, others claimed printers spat out reams of blank paper long after everyone had gone home. The more dramatic ones said that no matter how clean the bathrooms were scrubbed, the smell of ammonia always lingered, sharp and chemical, like the place itself was trying to remind you of something best left forgotten.

Most crews rolled their eyes at such stories, but when the night shift roster went up, nobody volunteered. In the end, three unlucky names were written in permanent marker: Marcus, Elena, and Darius. They didn’t cheer. They didn’t argue. They just exchanged a glance that said everything.

“Just a job,” Marcus muttered as he wheeled his mop bucket through the creaking glass doors.

The plan was simple: split up and cover more ground. Elena took the top floor, Darius worked the lobby, and Marcus descended into the basement offices. The building swallowed them whole, the sound of their wheels and vacuums echoing down the corridors like distant whispers.

Marcus began in the file room, brushing years of dust from metal cabinets. As he leaned against the window to rest his back, he caught his reflection. At least, he thought it was his reflection. For just a second, someone else stood behind him—a taller figure, motionless, staring. He whirled around, mop handle raised. Nothing. Just shadows and paper stacks.

When he turned back, the window no longer showed his face. Only black glass, like he was staring into a void.

Upstairs, Elena was pushing her vacuum down a carpeted hall when she saw something that froze her in place: wet footprints. They weren’t shoe prints, not the neat ovals of rubber soles, but bare, pale impressions. Too large for a child, but strangely uneven, as though the walker dragged one leg behind them.

The trail led to the women’s restroom. Heart hammering, Elena nudged the door open. The stalls were empty, but when she looked at the mirror above the sinks, her breath caught.

Across the glass, written in streaks of condensation, were the words:

“STILL DIRTY.”

She staggered back, nearly tripping over the vacuum cord, her mind racing. She had polished that mirror herself an hour ago. She knew it had been spotless.

Meanwhile, Darius was humming through his headphones, emptying trash bins in the lobby.

He lifted one bag that felt oddly heavy. Grunting, he tore it open. Inside were cleaning supplies: rags, spray bottles, and a uniform shirt soaked in dark stains that looked a lot like dried blood.

His stomach sank when he read the stitched name across the chest.

MARCUS.

He dropped the shirt as though it burned him and glanced at the stairwell, throat suddenly dry. “Marcus? You messing with me?” His voice cracked in the silence.

No reply.

The crew regrouped on the second floor, each shaken in their own way, though no one wanted to admit how bad it was. Marcus said they should finish quickly and leave. Elena

opened her cleaning checklist, ready to tick off her last task, but her hands froze.

Every box on the list was already checked off. Not by her neat handwriting, but by someone else’s jagged scrawl. And at the bottom, written in red ink, was a new line that hadn’t been there before:

“Take out what lingers.”

They stared at one another, their unease boiling over into dread.

From that point forward, the building seemed to unravel. Vacuums switched on by themselves in empty rooms. Spray bottles hissed crimson liquid instead of glass cleaner. A janitor’s cart rolled slowly across the hallway without anyone pushing it. The walls groaned and sighed as though the whole structure were alive.

Elena swore she saw figures watching from the stairwell. Darius flat-out refused to touch the elevators after hearing someone sobbing inside. And Marcus, though he tried to stay composed, couldn’t stop rubbing his hands raw, desperate to wash away the phantom smell of bleach clinging to his skin.

At last, only the conference room remained. They had been avoiding it, silently hoping someone else would step up first, but in the end, they all went in together.

The room looked spotless. The long mahogany table gleamed, every chair tucked in neatly.

But on the table’s center sat a clipboard.

It was their nightly report. Signed. Completed.

The signature made Elena’s stomach twist. It wasn’t hers, nor Marcus’s, nor Darius’s. The jagged letters spelled out one chilling phrase:

“Cleaned by the Forgotten.”

The three stared, paralyzed, when a sound rose behind them—the slow squeak of mop wheels rolling across tile. But their cart was right outside the door. They had left it there.

The lights flickered. When they steadied, Marcus’s mop bucket was in the room with them, water sloshing violently as if something unseen was writhing inside. The crew stumbled back, knocking over chairs.

And then, darkness.

When the lights came back, the room was empty.

The next morning, the building manager arrived. He was astonished. He had never seen the place so immaculate. Floors gleamed, windows shone, trash bins were empty. Even the conference room looked like it had been scrubbed with unnatural precision.

But the van outside sat untouched, keys locked inside. The cleaning crew had vanished without a trace.

The only thing left in the building was their cart, neatly parked in the lobby. On top of it were three freshly laundered uniforms, folded and waiting.

Each had a stitched name tag: Marcus. Elena. Darius.

The manager frowned, unsettled, but shook his head. Probably a mix-up. Probably nothing.

Then, as he passed the elevator, he caught a glimpse in the mirror. Behind his reflection stood three silent figures, uniforms crisp, mops in hand. They didn’t move. They only watched.

Waiting for their next shift.