The door slammed, echoing down the long hall. The sound repeated several times as more doors were heard slamming closed, their metal bodies hitting metal door frames. Fluorescent lights illuminated the dingy, faded green walls from above. One light at the end of the hallway buzzed loudly and flickered on and off, creating shadows that jumped back and forth. As the echoes from the doors faded, a faint giggle was heard from some indiscriminate place. It was soon lost in the buzzing of the light but was suddenly replaced by a loud bang and a clattering of what some had described as falling dishes. Others would swear it was a mirror falling off a wall in one of the rooms.

No matter what the suspicion was, no source or evidence could ever be found. Decades of police visits, religious cleansings, psychic readings, and ghost hunter expositions had never answered the questions. The clatter was followed by a muffled shout, then a cat’s low, mournful wail. These sounds were a nightly occurrence and well known by locals. They generally manifested around the same time each night, but were known to vary slightly. It wasn’t precise.

“The hauntings,” as they were superstitiously called, had been happening for so long that no one could remember a time they weren’t heard. No one feared them anymore.  The younger crowd adopted the phenomenon into their pranks, Halloween costumes, and role-playing. Their parents were convinced they had heard the slamming and crying as children. It had scared them then but held no threat now.

The “haunted” hallway was part of the offices of an abandoned shopping mall. An old drug store was repurposed and annexed as the business office of the new mall in the 1980’s. In the early 2000’s, the mall was upgraded, and solar panels were installed to provide essential power in times of electrical outages.

Hidden away in the ductwork of the annexed offices was a tiny speaker on a small radio.

Well before mp3 players were common, someone had figured out how to record a bit of ghostly sounds for a little Halloween party for the elementary school in the old drugstore. Plugged into an outlet powered by the mall's solar panels, it replayed its program nightly. Daylight Saving Time, heavy snowfall, shade from towering trees, and aging equipment all affected the timing of the replay. Even so, it continued to happen and the locals continued to believe that the hallway was haunted.