I’m Sarah, twenty-eight, and I work as a graphic designer in Manchester. Not the most exciting life, I know, but it pays the bills. This happened about three months ago, and honestly, I still can’t park in multi-storey car parks anymore. I mean, I physically can’t do it.
It was a Tuesday evening, around half seven. I’d been working late on a project deadline—you know how it is, the kind where your boss needs it “first thing tomorrow” even though they’ve had weeks to mention it. The Arndale car park was nearly empty when I finally left, just a handful of cars scattered across the levels. I’d parked on level 3 that morning, right near the lifts. I remember specifically because I’d thought how lucky I was to get such a good spot.
The thing is, when I got back to the lift, I was exhausted. My eyes were burning from staring at screens all day, and I just wanted to get home, have a bath, and forget about gradient meshes for a few hours. I pressed the call button and waited, scrolling through my phone.
The lift arrived with a soft ding.
I stepped inside without looking up, pressed 3, and leaned against the wall. That’s when I noticed something odd. The button panel looked… different. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it at first. The numbers were there—1, 2, 3, 4, 5—all lit up in that sickly yellow light that car park lifts always have. But below them, there was another button.
Level 0.
I frowned. I’d used this car park for two years. I’d never seen a level 0 button before. Maybe I was just tired. Obviously, I was tired. I’d been staring at a screen for eleven hours straight.
The lift lurched downward.
My stomach dropped. I looked at the display above the doors. The number 3 glowed for a second, then flickered. The lift kept descending. 2… 1… and then, impossibly, 0.
“No, no, no,” I muttered, jabbing at the button for level 3 again. Nothing happened. The lift continued its descent, smooth and steady, like this was perfectly normal.
The doors opened.
The air that rushed in was wrong. Cold, but not just cold—stale, like it had been sitting undisturbed for years. The fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, most of them flickering or dead entirely, casting the space in a dim, uneven glow. I could see rows of cars stretching out into the darkness, their windscreens coated in thick layers of dust.
I should have pressed the button to close the doors right then. Looking back, I realize that was my chance. But I was confused, you know? Part of me thought maybe I’d just pressed the wrong button, maybe there was a basement level I didn’t know about.
I stepped out.
The doors slid shut behind me with a soft hiss. I spun around, but the lift was already gone, ascending back up with a mechanical whir.
“Shit,” I whispered.
The silence was absolute. No hum of traffic from outside, no footsteps echoing from other levels. Just that constant, maddening buzz of the dying lights. I pulled out my phone—no signal. Of course there wasn’t.
I started walking toward the lift again, thinking I’d just call it back down. That’s when I saw the cars properly. They weren’t just dusty. They were old. Like, properly old. A Rover from the eighties. A Ford Cortina. Models I hadn’t seen on the road in decades. Their tyres were flat, paint faded and peeling. Some had spiderwebbed cracks across their windscreens.
How long had these been down here?
I felt my heart start to pound harder. This didn’t make sense. None of this made any sense.
Then I heard it. Footsteps. Slow, deliberate, echoing from somewhere deeper in the car park.
I froze.
“Hello?” My voice came out smaller than I’d intended. “Is someone there?”
The footsteps stopped.
I waited, barely breathing. Maybe it was a security guard. Maybe there was a perfectly reasonable explanation for all of this. Maybe I was just paranoid because it was dark and I was alone and—
A figure stepped out from behind one of the cars at the far end of the level.
Even from a distance, I could tell something was wrong with the way they stood. Too still. Too straight. Their head tilted at an angle that made my skin crawl.
“I didn’t want to seem rude,” I whispered to myself, trying to rationalize it. But every instinct in my body was screaming at me to run.
The figure started walking toward me.
Not fast. Just… walking. Steady, measured steps that echoed through the empty space. As they moved under one of the flickering lights, I caught a glimpse of their face.
Their eyes were too wide. I mean, wider than eyes should be able to open. And they weren’t blinking.
I ran.
My footsteps slapped against the concrete as I sprinted back toward the lift, fumbling for the call button. I pressed it frantically, over and over, glancing back over my shoulder.
The figure was still walking. Not running. Just walking. But somehow, they were covering ground faster than they should have been.
“Come on, come on, come on,” I begged, hammering on the button.
The lift dinged. The doors opened.
I threw myself inside and punched every button on the panel except 0. The doors started to close—too slowly, way too slowly. Through the narrowing gap, I could see the figure getting closer. They were twenty feet away. Then ten.
The doors closed with a solid thunk.
The lift rose. I collapsed against the wall, gasping for air, my whole body shaking. I watched the display climb—1, 2, 3—and finally, the doors opened onto level 3. My car was there, right where I’d left it. Normal fluorescent lights. Normal concrete walls. Normal everything.
I got in my car, locked the doors, and drove out of there so fast I probably left tyre marks.
I called the car park the next day to ask about level 0. The woman on the phone went quiet for a moment, then told me there was no level 0. The car park only had five levels. When I insisted, told her what happened, she got uncomfortable and said maybe I should contact the police if I thought something was wrong.
I didn’t. What would I even say?
To this day, I still can’t explain what I saw down there. I park on the street now, even though it’s expensive and inconvenient. I’ll never forget that figure’s face, those eyes that wouldn’t blink.
And sometimes, late at night, I wonder—what if I hadn’t made it into that lift in time? What if the doors had opened just a second later?
What happens to people who don’t make it back from level 0?
