Lift of Terror 2 – The Return of Lift

Lift of Terror 2

If there is one important lesson we all could have learned from the 80s it is that you can never really keep a horror movie villain down. They can never truly be defeated and they always return. The same is true of my own personal nemesis; The Lift.

Maybe I had become too cocky and let my guard down because it had been a few years since I had spent that long night trapped alone in its small confined space of steel and evil. It had long since become just an amusing story of an unlucky event. I had started using the lift again despite the fact that my co-workers would quickly exited it when ever they saw me enter because I was, “cursed.”

I should have known that the lift was not defeated, it was not silenced, it was not beaten. No. It was waiting. I should have seen the warning signs but I had become arrogant in my lift riding abilities.

As I returned to the office from a long lunch and entered the lobby the lift was already waiting for me. No one else was around. No one could have pushed the button but the doors were strangely open. I was too blinded by stair climbing laziness to question this fact. I stepped inside. I pushed the button for the third floor which lit up dimly. The doors slid slowly shut with a strained, rusty mechanical sound and then… nothing. Silence. Stillness. Lack of movement in the vertical direction that lifts are usually known to travel along.

I pushed the button for the 3rd floor again… nothing.

I pushed the button to open the doors… nothing.

I had fallen for its trick. I was trapped once more. The lift had captured me in its tiny space again. I was sure I could even hear it laughing.

However, the lift had sprung its trap too soon. It had waited for so long but it had not waited long enough. There were still other people in the building this time. I knew I would be the one who would have the last laugh. I pushed the alarm button to rally everyone to my aid but… nothing.

The alarm sounded but no one came to the rescue. It had become a joke to press the alarm button every now and then when I entered the lift so no one paid attention to it any more. I suddenly realized why the lift had waited for so long to play its little trick on me. I had become the boy who cried lift.

All seemed lost. I was doomed. I was trapped. No one was coming to my rescue. I started to pace up and down in the small space and cursed the lift. And then… suddenly… after one minute… the doors opened. The lift simply let me out. I slowly stepped out, unsure if it was a trick but it was not.

I don’t know if the lift was playing mind games with me or just reminding me that it could strike at any time. All I know is that I will not let my guard down again because I now know once again that that lift is truly evil.

Maybe there is a lift in your place of work or residence. Maybe you have ridden it up and down between floors for years. Maybe you think it is safe. I hope my experiences have proven to you that this is not the case. All lifts are evil. Prey that they don’t choose to strike next time you enter them.

Stuart

Stuart is an accident prone Englishman who has been living in the Netherlands since 2001. Even his move to the country was an unintentional accident, the result of replying to a cryptic job advertisement he found one day in a local British magazine. Since then he has learned to love the Dutch (so much so that he married one of them) and now calls the country home. He started the blog Invading Holland in 2006 as a place to share his strange stories of language misunderstandings, cultural confusions and his own accident prone nature.

14 Responses

  1. Robert says:

    LOL IT seems the elevators are getting ready to take over. I read this story earlier today:
    http://gawker.com/379384/trapped-in-an-elevator-for-two-days-the-video
    Not sure why it is popular now since it happened in 1999, but the time lapse of him in the elevator for 41 hours is surreal

  2. kiks says:

    Oh, Stu.

    Sometimes that’s all one can say.

    Oh, Stu.

  3. Anneke says:

    Oh my, now you mention it, there is a lift in my university that sort of croaks, and the doors open very slowly, just to show you that he can keep you in there, I think…

  4. Veronica says:

    This is hilarious. If you are too lazy to walk up the stairs, try to get a therapist to talk to the lift. Perhaps it is a little scared to go up in the building, who knows when the Vogons might attack…. (Now I have to check that it was the Vogons, it was eons since I read that book.)

  5. Anneke says:

    It were the vogons, yeah. As far as I remember. :D Maybe we should pity the lift of doom?

  6. zed says:

    It could only happen to you, couldn’t it?!

  7. dragonlady says:

    No comment

  8. Damaris says:

    OMG Stuart, please tell me you’re alive! LOOOOOL Whahahah

    This was in saturdays newspaper:

    http://www.telegraaf.nl/binnenland/3836677/_Politie_vindt_dode_in_lift__.html

    zo 20 apr 2008, 20:35
    Politie vindt dode in lift
    AMSTERDAM – De politie heeft zondagavond een dode man aangetroffen in de lift van een flat in Amsterdam-Zuidoost. Vermoedelijk is sprake van een misdrijf. Dat maakte een woordvoerder van de politie bekend.
    Het slachtoffer lag in de lift van de flat Gooioord. Volgens de zegsman wordt waarschijnlijk maandag pas meer bekend over de precieze doodsoorzaak en over de identiteit van de man.

  9. Ana Luisa says:

    I read on the paper about the new Youtube sensation video, of a guy who was trapped in a lift for 41 hours; made me think of this post for some reason… :P

  10. peter says:

    Hi from Spain, I’ve been reading your profile and I think you have a very interesting life. I’m an argetinian guy living in spain since 2002 and I’d love to move to The Netherlands… I’m going on reading your blog, it seems to be amusing.
    Take care, cheers from Spain!.

  11. sophie says:

    hahaha! it is incredible, I think that lift is waiting for you silently, every time the paces are slow and you feel that laziness… in the worst moment it will be expecting you missing the details and then… attack!!

  12. lucyfishwife says:

    The lifts in my last office job were made by a company called Schindler – and I lost count of how many people got in, glanced at the manufacturer’s nameplate, and then said consideringly “…Schindler’s lift…”

  13. Gez says:

    Hey Stu, is this going to turn into a triology like most films?

    Though both posts made me think of 2 things:

    1) Back in my 6th form college days in the UK, my college was an 8 story tower, with 1 lift. On the way down from class (chemistry, 7th floor), me and a couple of friends _purposely_ stopped the lift by yanking the door open whilst inside. Turns out we weren’t the first, as on the brickwork between floors was written “So you know the trick too, huh?” in permanent marker! Though we could restart the lift by reclosing the door and reselecting the floor we wanted.

    2) I myself am a fresh expat to the land of sub-sea-level living, having moved in with my girlfriend of over a year. Now, in her DVD collection exists a Dutch horror film simply called “de Lift”…
    (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087622/)
    Mebbe watching that (if your Dutch is any better these days, or you can find a subbed version) could give you some possible explanations, or survival skill? Or more nightmares?

  14. Invader Stu says:

    Robert – Everyone in my office has been sending that video

    kiks – I know Kiks, I know.

    Anneke – Don’t trust it.

    dragonlady – No response.

    Damaris – Luckily that was not me.

    Ana Luisa – I wonder why :p

    peter – Thanks. Glad you like it.

    sophie – I agree.

    Veronica – The lift is just evil. Plain and simple.

    zed – It seems so.

    lucyfishwife – Oh… My… God! The lift I keep on getting trapped in… guess what kind of lift it is… yes, you guessed it; a Schindler Lift.

    Gez – (1) Not Croydon College was it? (2) I think it would give me all three.

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