She Was One of Us
Dear Diary,
Every once in a while, I’d swear, there’s a spirit that goes around our dispatch center. I have heard a few people talking about it, so I know I’m not imagining everything. It’s like when the building is supposed to be empty except the three or four of us that are all in the same room, and we hear the doors unlocking even though there is no one there and no one on the camera, or sometimes we’ll hear the doors around the office closing. Someone will get up and look around, and sure enough, no one else is there. It’s seriously unnerving sometimes to wonder if we’re imagining it, but more than one of us has had this happen, so it can’t be our imagination. For real, one time I was in the restroom washing my face, and when I looked up and saw myself in the mirror, even though I was alone, I had the distinct feeling someone was looking back at me in the very mirror I was looking at myself in. But there was no one, so I can’t explain that feeling and don’t know what it is. Nothing is ever out of place, but you can almost feel like someone is just walking around the room, like you can almost see them with your eyes, and even though you’re looking, you just can’t see them!
One time I was taking a twenty-minute nap in the quiet room, and it turned out I had forgotten to set my alarm. After a while I heard someone whispering my name to wake up, and I went back in time. But when I was situated back at my desk, I said aloud, “Thank you to whoever woke me up. I had forgotten my alarm.” They all said no one went in there. I remember I said, “Yeah, right. Thank you, whoever it was.” They all adamantly denied it was them, and that’s when one of them said that maybe it was the dispatch ghost. I kinda thought, “Yeah, right. I mean, really. Are they just messing with me or what?” But at the same time, their tones all sounded convincing. I know I distinctly heard my name, whispering for me to wake up. But finally I just thought, “Eh, whatever. They don’t want to tell me.” And I just left it at that.
But tonight I was coming out of the restroom. I had my arm out, kind of mindlessly, like you do, ’cause I was going to switch the light off on the wall as I was walking out, right? I switched the light off with my left hand and was opening the door with my right. There was light shining in from the hallway, and I don’t know why, but I just kind of glanced back, and I saw someone was still in the restroom, standing in the dark, and I didn’t even think! I just said, “Oh, excuse me,” and quickly switched the light back on as I let the door close behind me. But then almost immediately I thought, “Wait! Who was that?” And I went right back in the restroom! I mean, I was standing right at the door, and I walked back in an instant later! I looked around, and I am serious! No one was there!
So I’m coming back from the restrooms, and I’m low-key trippin’ out, right? I decide to ask Jones. (Everyone calls her by her last name. Her first name is Michelle, but I guess there used to be too many Michelles or something.) Anyway, Jones doesn’t play. She’s fun, but she gets to work, and it’s kind of a special treat to see when she jokes around. I think maybe because she has been there for a while and seen so many people come and go, it’s easier for her to joke around with other people who have been there a long time. I’ve even seen some people get hired, not care that much, play around, and it seems they don’t last very long. When I look at Jones, I see someone steady. Anyway, when I came out of the restroom, I just felt like I was losing my mind at that point! Everyone else in the room was doing something, but it wasn’t really busy, so I thought I’d get her opinion about it. So I asked her. I said, “Hey, Jones. You ever get the feeling you’re kind of not alone, or like you’re being watched in this building? Or do you think it’s just the nighttime jitters in a mostly empty building?” And I kid you not, she had a little smile on her face as she leaned back in her chair, looking at me. She paused, like she was sizing me up, and then she told me this story that has me rethinking life. And I can’t tell it exactly like her because it’s her story, but basically, this is what she said.
“Sixteen years ago I was really just getting started in dispatch. I had been on the job close to around a year. It was autumn then, too. I took a call, and it was bad. I don’t even want to tell you what happened, but it was the kind of call that you still hear. It’s just one of those things. You know how it is. That shudder in a voice, the shrill, begging, high-pitched scream, like some kind of sick and twisted music, and you can still hear the pitch even though it’s horrible and you wish you could forget.
“Back then there was just two of us in the room, and it was short-handed anyway, so who knows if it was like that on purpose. I was working with my partner, Candace. And Candace was already about a 70-year-old lady when I met her. Back then it was smaller, so we would partner the work. We both had access to everything, but one person would ‘drive,’ and that day I was doing mostly the NCIC and the phones, and Candace was working the radio. She was driving. (Doing the main work.)
“It was the 2 a.m. hour when that call came in. The details aren’t really important, but there are things you just remember. When I was taking this call, my mind sort of went in it, and I was there on the phone with this young person. Candace was talking to the radio the whole time, but she was listening to what I was saying when she could. The kid was hiding in a closet when the first responders arrived, and I could hear them on the line. I guess when they picked her up, the phone disconnected, because she was mid-sentence, still talking to me. She ended up being safe at the end of the day. I still wonder about that girl sometimes. It just ended so suddenly, like a string being cut, but I could still hear the crying in my ears. It had been violent, sad, and shocking.
“I remember feeling my eyes open, seeing everything and nothing all at the same time. It was weird. And Candace, who was the best, saw me and said, ‘I got this. Go take five.’ I looked at her. And she looked at me. So I finally said okay, and I got up and went to the restroom, where I washed my face and put some cool water on the back of my neck. I held the sink on both sides with my hands as I looked in the mirror, just looking, breathing, getting my emotions back in order. And it was hard. That’s the part that sucks about this job. Sometimes it feels like you get a little dented. I cried for that one, but truth be told, I wish I could have cried harder and then just be done with it, but it felt like that feeling was still sitting on my chest. I went back to my seat. Candace just said, ‘It’ll probably be with you a while. You did good.’ A few hours later it died down and was quiet. We weren’t talking. I think she knew I couldn’t. We were both tired anyway. I sat there, and I remember a single tear just dropping down my face, and I leaned back and closed my eyes. Candace got up and patted my shoulder and, without a word, stepped out into the doorway to the patio to smoke.”
So finally, I asked Jones, “Well, what happened?”
“She died,” she said. “I lost touch with her for the couple of years I had moved away, but they said she got pneumonia and died. She was such a heavy smoker that it probably didn’t make it any easier for her, I suspect. I never got to say goodbye, and that really bothers me because I loved her. She was my dispatch momma. She didn’t always say much but made you feel seen and supported. She was just there. But you know, every once in a while I think of her, still here, making sure everyone is still okay.”
“What was she like?” I asked.
“She was one of us.”
Well, Diary, I don’t know what to think. I know I’m still going to keep setting my own alarms, that’s for sure. But maybe I will be extra careful to look around to see who is in the restroom with me, and maybe I’ll leave the hall light on.