Scary Horror Stories by Dr. NoSleep - I Bought a Haunted Office Building—There’s a Killer in the Backrooms

Episode Date: June 22, 2026

A missing employee leads a ruthless CEO and his sister into an abandoned office building where the hallways shift, the dead still work, and something wearing a cheap zombie mask is waiting for its next boss. But inside this cursed corporate maze, firing someone may be impossible — and quitting may be deadly. Are you still drinking that stale, store-bought coffee? Check out ⁠⁠NoSleepCoffee.com⁠⁠ to get 20% off fresh, same-day roasted coffee delivered straight to your door. Just use promo code NOSLEEP20 at checkout for 20% off your first order! Huge thanks to our sponsors: BetterHelp: Sign up now and get 10% off at ⁠betterhelp.com/dns⁠. Shopify: Sign up for your $1 per month trial today at shopify.com/dns. Author: Matt Doggett * * * CONTENT DISCLAIMER: This episode contains explicit content not limited to intense themes, strong language, and depictions of violence intended for adults. Parental guidance is strongly advised for children under the age of 18. Listener discretion is advised.  #drnosleep #scarystories #horrorstories #doctornosleep #creepypasta #horror Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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days old. You should have ordered from Wayfair. With Wayfair, there's no what-if. Just style you love and quality you can trust. Visit Wayfair.ca. Wayfair, every style, every home. The tone sounds in my ear. My nostrils flare. Unclunching my jaw takes effort as I open my mouth to leave another voice message. You better call me back in the next five minutes or you're fired. You hear me, Boyer? This is unacceptable. Call me the fuck back. I end the call and jammed the phone into my inside jacket pocket. If he could answer, I'm sure he would. Avery says from the seat on my left and the back of the escalade. Something's wrong.

She's looking down at her phone, thumbs typing away. The sun is setting, and the glow from her phone makes my little sister's face look paler than it is. The blood-red lipstick doesn't help. I'm wasting a whole day on this shit. I shake my head and lean forward, peering to the windshield. How much longer? The Uber driver glances at the navigation screen. Two minutes.

The ride from the airport has taken nearly an hour. We've passed the towering skyscrapers of downtown. Now we're reaching the outskirts, where rows of four- and five-story buildings form a concrete canyon around the road. Fucking ridiculous, I grumble, sitting back in my seat. Avery raises a judgmental eyebrow, looking side-eye at me. If I had known you'd get like this, I would have come alone. The hell does that mean? I didn't want to do this at all.

And I asked you to come alone, remember that? Avery turns and pins me with our father's deep blue eyes. Your best friend has suddenly gone M.I.A. Running an errand for you. And you don't even want to come see what happened? See if he is okay? First of all, I'm a grown man. I don't have a best friend.

Ignoring Avery's snort at my grown man remark. I press on. Secondly, you say errand like Boyer isn't getting paid. Like he isn't out here doing his job. And third, I'm sure he's fine. probably fell off the wagon again. After three years, just like that? I shrug.

It's possible. We stop at a red light. Glancing out my side window, I see a homeless man sitting against the light pole with a sign propped between his legs. I don't bother reading the sign, reaching into my pocket and grabbing my wallet while I roll the window down.

Hey! The man scrambles up and comes over. I hand him a $100 bill. The light turns green. The driver pulls away as the guy stares down at the bill. A moment later, he snaps out of it and calls. Thanks, man! Smiling, I sit back in my seat, rolling the window up. I feel Avery's eyes on me.

What? Looking amused, my sister shakes her head. I don't get you. You're nicer to perfect strangers than you are to the people who love you. I scoff. No, I'm not. I'm nice to everyone. I gave you a job, didn't I? And Boyer? Avery rolls her eyes. The SUV turns into an empty, weed-strewn parking lot. He drives through the deepening dusk toward a four-story office building that hasn't been used in at least three decades. I know this, because it was in the brief Boyer sent me,

along with something about the previous owner dying and a sun taking over, which was the only reason it was on the market now. The windows on all four floors have been boarded up, making the building look more like a cardboard box than an office building. This is the place you want to be a place. to buy? Avery asks. Ignoring her, I noticed one car parked near the entrance, a sedan. Is that Boyer's rental? Avery nods. So if he left, he did so on foot or caught another ride. The tracking

app says his phone is still here, a reminder, hoping we don't rehash why I'm tracking Boyer's phone. She doesn't say anything. Where's the realtor? I ask as the SUV stops. I thought she was going to let us in. She gave me the code to the lockbox, Avery says. said she was otherwise engaged. I wonder if she was otherwise engaged when Boyer came to look at the place. So, I'm waiting for you guys, right? The driver asks. Yes, I say.

We won't be long. The boarded-up front doors are under a flimsy awning. Avery opens the lockbox, gets the key, and unlocks the double doors. Light spills from the lobby as we enter. Power's still on? I wonder aloud. Maybe for the tour? Avery suggests.

The doors shut behind us as we peer around the gutted lobby. No furniture, gray walls, low pile carpet so worn it might as well not be there. A low ceiling with missing acoustic tiles, flickering fluorescent tube lights buzz behind translucent bug graveyard panels. Straight ahead, there's a space where a reception desk once sat. To the left, a staircase and a tucked-away elevator lobby. To the right, a hallway to the first floor offices. Boyer!

I shout. Avery flinches at the sudden outburst and slaps my arm. We listen. There's no answer. Well, let's split up. Cover more ground. No fucking way, Avery says. Not a chance. I grin. Scared? This place is creepy. What if he was killed by a homeless guy or something? For the first time since I lost contact with Boyer yesterday, a little unease slithers through my guts. What if something really terrible did happen to him? if the culprit is still here. Wait, I say, I've got an idea. I jog outside. Avery exits the building and watches as I talk to the driver. He's a big guy, muscles, a neatly trimmed beard, lively eyes, looks like he can handle himself. And he drives a luxury SUV around all

night. I'm sure he's got protection. After some explaining and haggling, he agrees to join us for an additional $300. He reaches under his seat, grabs a pistol, and follows me to toward the building, locking his car as we go. With all three of us inside, we start our search. Together. The driver's name is Marillo, and he's one of those Uber drivers who treats small talk like a deadly disease.

We soon learn that trait extends to off the wall, abandoned office building searches too. He follows behind us, pistol tucked in the front of his slacks, a bored look on his face. Boyer! I shout every so often as we search the first floor. nothing but empty, slowly deteriorating rooms. Dismissing the elevator as an option,

we head up the stairs to the second floor and turn down the first hallway we see. It's wide, lined with offices, and intersected at regular intervals with hallways. Fluorescent lights buzz overhead, casting sickly illumination on carpet that was once dark blue, but is now gray-white. Calling out and opening office doors,

we make our way down the hall. At the first intersection, we go right, The hallway stretches ahead like a massive tunnel, intersected by other hallways every 50 feet or so. I frown and think, no way it goes that far. The building isn't that big. There are a few office doors here too, only one in each long stretch of wall. Strange. I'm too focused on the strangely long hallway to call out for Boyer.

The building is quiet. Three pairs of shoes make little noise on the worn carpet. At the next intersection, a screaming woman with puffy, blonde hair runs across the hallway from right to left, disappearing as she continues sprinting. Despite the terror, turning my veins to ice, the incongruity of her appearance sticks in my head, the puffy hair, the high heels, the muted skirt and matching oversized jacket. For a moment, I'm sure we've stumbled onto a Hollywood set of a movie based in the 70s or 80s. The woman would look right at home there. But when another figure steps into view, fear wipes my mind of

all rational thought. The man strutting after the woman is wearing a woman. flimsy vintage zombie mask meant for a child. It's the kind that has an elastic string to hold it on your head. The colors are bright green for the skin, yellow for the snarling and crooked teeth, and red for the various wounds on the zombie's face. He's otherwise dressed in a pale brown wool suit from the same era as the woman's outfit. But it's not his clothes that crank my fear response up several notches. It's the blood on those clothes, and on the axe he carries across his body. His head swiveles toward us and he stops. The woman screams, fade as she continues running down the hall. Turning on his heel, the man starts toward us with long strides.

Is this a prank show? Marillo asks. You guys, YouTubers or something? I shake my head, backing up a few steps. Avery does the same, grabbing my arm with a steely grip. Better tell me now! Morillo says, drawing his gun. Or I might shoot this guy! The masked man keeps coming. The shaggy hair at the back of his neck bouncing with each step. Marillo levels the gun. Stop, asshole! By now, Avery and I are behind him, still backing up, still watching. Fuck this! Marillo says, turning around and running past us. Avery and I follow. A glance over my shoulder tells me we're getting away from the man. Why didn't you shoot him? I asked, unable to keep the anger out of my voice. Look at the color of my skin, Marillo says. And then look

His self-defense would be a stretch. The driver turns left. My sister and I follow. This isn't right, Avery says. This isn't the same hallway. Where are you taking us? The hallway is completely identical to the one we just turned out of. I thought this was the right one, Marillo says.

Me too, I put in. I glance over my shoulder, spotting our pursuer just as he turns the corner. He must have sprinted to catch up because he wasn't that close before. Go right, Avery says. And then take your next left. That should be the right one. We do as she says, running along. But no, this hallway is wrong too, identical to the others. What the hell?

Avery breathes. The hallway lights shut off, plunging us into darkness. After continuing for a few steps, we all stop. The lights come back on. The hallway has changed. There's a wall straight ahead with a closed door in it. Looking over my shoulder, I see a long, featureless hallway. No intersections and no doors. far as I can see.

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families are studied, contained, and sometimes unleashed. These aren't just scary stories. They're classified nightmares. Click here to listen now or search for the SCP experience wherever you get your podcasts. This is impossible, Marillo whispers. Avery lets out a sound that indicates the same. The masked man stalks toward us. Now will you shoot him?

I ask. Marillo raises his gun and screams for the man to stop. He keeps coming. Marillo fires. The sound is deafening. The masked man jerks with the projectiles impact in his upper chest, blood spewing from the wound. He stumbles forward, now 10 yards away. Marillo fires twice more, missing once and hitting once.

The guy falls to his knees. The lights go out again. No! Avery screams. I pull my phone out and turn the flashlight on. The beam illuminates the masked man standing three feet away, acts in mid-swing. I jerk back even though he's not swinging at me. Marillo fires once, point-blank.

The bullet punching through the left edge of the mask and into the man's cheekbone, blasting a chunk from his face. But he still swings the axe, right into the curve of Marillo's forehead. The blade doesn't get stuck. It cleaves flesh and bone while continuing through its arc, pulverizing the man's nose and upper teeth. Marillo falls backward into a sitting position next to the door, his split open head, affording a crimson view of his brain.

Spinning around, I push Avery back. She opens the door. We slipped through. I shut it, turn the simple knob locked, and lean there, shoulder against the wood, wondering if I'm about to piss my pants. Listening from any sound from the other side of the door takes exhausting physical effort, but there's only silence. Panic makes a mockery of rational thought. My mouth is dry, armpits, soaked, hands, rigid. My phone's flashlight casts a pool of illumination at my feet. Another pool of light appears, this one from Avery's phone. She aims it out, but I'm too busy looking at my own phone, staring at the words, no service.

Webster, Avery whispers. The tremor in her voice prompts me to look up, following her flashlight beam. I can just make out a couple of cubicles separated by an aisle between them. There's a man slumped over a desk in the right-hand cubicle, a wound on the back of his head, grinning at us. Fresh blood leaks down his neck and on his retro-collared shirt. Is this happening? Avery whispers. I don't answer. raising my own phone as high as I can without shifting my leverage on the door.

The light doesn't go far, but where it reaches, all I see are cubicles, a sea of cubicles in every direction. Something crashes into the other side of the door. I feel the powerful jolt through my entire body, the axe. Boss man! A sing-song voice calls before another impact. I won't be your zombie anymore. Avery and I stare at each other. Boyer?

I call. What are you? Another crash. Splinters fly. The front edge of the blade protrudes through the door. You can't fire me! Boyer sings madly. Because I quit! He laughs, but it's the laughter of two people.

He slams the blade into the door again, making the hold bigger. Avery grabs my arm and yanks me into the sea of cubicles. Openings in the low walls loom up on either side. As we approach, ambient light from our phones hints at human shapes lurking inside the workstations. Raising my phone high enough to shine into the cubicle on my right, I see a man whose abdomen has been hacked open. He sits slumped in his chair, bloody organs spilling out into his lap. Like everyone else we've seen, his attire and hair are from an era 40 or 50 years gone.

But there's no rot, no decomposition. The stench of freshly spilled blood is pervasive. The sound of the door slamming open behind us hastens our flight. Boss man! Boyer calls. I'm not your son. No, be anymore. I can't help but glance over my shoulder.

As soon as I do, something reaches out from a passing cubicle and swats my phone out of my hand. My phone comes to rest, light down on the floor as I keep running, barely able to see a man's headless corpse reaching out for the device, clawing it toward him. Havry screams beside me. And the light from her phone, I can see a woman with a smashed in face, grabbing my sister's wrist, trying to wrestle the phone from her. Hustling to help, I see Boyer, strutting down the air. aisle toward us. Leave it! I shout, ganking my sister away from the dead woman. She lets go of the phone.

We dart away. Behind us, the light goes dark. Darkness engulfs us. Holding hands, we continue through the pitch black, trying to go straight. Soon, all I can hear is our breathing and our footfalls on the carpet. The hand I have stretched out in front of me runs into a wall. Left! I say, go left. There's a wall. Avery sobs. Turning that way, I feel the wall. Okay, right. Another wall. I yank Avery's arm. Back the other way! My hand hits another wall.

Avery whispers in the smallest, most desperate voice I've ever heard. Shh, I say, pulling her close. Quiet. We stand perfectly still. My eyes scan the darkness. I can't tell if I'm seeing movement or if my mind is playing tricks on me. But different shades of black seem to swirl and lurch. A sound, distant and faint, reaches my ears.

A shuffling sound from straight ahead. straight ahead. I hold my breath, judging by the lack of breathing noise, so does Avery. The sound grows louder, moves closer. It's coming from the left now, and the right. It's coming from all around, closing in. Avery whimper is next to me. Unable to help myself, I stretch my free hand forward, searching for the wall that was there moments ago. My fingers reach, touching only air. I reach a little more, a little more, and I touch something. It's not flat, not a wall. It moves, and with a sudden terrifying intake of breath, I realize what it is. A face! The lights overhead flicker on for a split second, just long enough to see that we're

completely surrounded by corpses. Boss man! Boyer whispers in my ear from behind. Havry screams. I jerk away, but it's too late. Cold hands reach out, dragging a scream from my throat. Gasping, I stumble into a lighted hallway and peer around, looking for any sign of Boyer or the corpses or my sister. But I'm all alone. Off to my right, down the hall, is an open elevator door, but there's no car waiting, just a black maw and a sheer drop. Written in blood above the door is the word, jump. To my left, the hallway stretches to infinity. The only feature I can see is a long rectangular window in the wall about 10 yards away.

A woman screams, the sound, muffled by the glass. Avery! I run over and look through the window into a conference room with a large wooden table. Avery is strapped to the polished surface, struggling to free-frey. her limbs from the electrical cords attached to the table. Hanging from the ceiling above her and swinging like they're powered by hidden perpetual motion machines or several axes, just like the one Boyer had. The simple metal arms they're attached to extend from the ceiling slowly, easing the swinging

axe blades closer to my sister's limbs. Shouting, I bang on the window, trying to shatter it. Avery hears, looking over. She pleads for help. I reeled back and punched the glass. Pain rips through my hand as the bones break, not a mark on the glass. I shout, gripping my wrist below my swelling hand. The only way to savor is to sacrifice yourself, boss man.

Boyer says from somewhere, his voice echoing down the hall, You gotta jump! Fuck that, I think, staring through the glass at my sister's eyes. So dark and blue, they look as depthless as the ocean. Our father's eyes. I picture him here, staring back at me. That look on his face I had known so well when he was alive, the look that said,

You know what to do, so do it. The axes are inches away now. Still, I hesitate, until Avery's words from earlier whisper in my head, You're nicer to perfect strangers than you are to the people who love you. The truth in the words slices down to my core. I whirl and sprint down the hallway to the elevator shaft. I don't slow as I approach, thinking, if you knock yourself unconscious on the back wall,

you won't have to experience the terror of falling to your death. I launch myself into the elevator shaft, expecting to smash into concrete. But there is no wall. I arc through the air and tumble down, into impenetrable darkness. Terror is all. In Toronto, every arrival is a statement, and nothing says it better than this.

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As awareness assaults my senses, I realize I'm standing, holding a phone to my ear, my hand no longer broken. It's not a cell phone. There's a handset with a cord that corkscrews down to the base sitting on a desk. The phone is dead. Another crash of an object on wood. I dropped the handset, looking up. I'm in an executive office, large desk, comfortable chair,

floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking a parking lot filled with boxy cars, glass and chrome glinting in the sunlight. Crash! My office door! Someone's breaking through! I take a step back from the desk. My attire feels strange. I look down and find I'm not in my clothes.

I'm wearing a large gray suit and a wedding ring, but I'm not. These aren't my hands. This isn't my body. Turning, I look at a framed diploma on the wall. In the glass, I see my reflection. The top of my head is bald, a horseshoe of gray hair clinging to the sides, a black and gray mustache, bushy eyebrows. The name on the diploma is Richard Lampton.

Another crash, and then the office door swings open. A man in a child zombie mask walks inside, acts in hand. Beyond him, I can see my secretary lying in a pool of blood on the floor. My mouth moves without any input for me. You want your job back? I say in a voice not my own. Done. With a 50% raise.

How's that? The man behind the mask, a man who is definitely not Boyer, titters as he moves toward me. Lampton's body, now my body, moves to keep the desk between us. But I'm not doing it. I'm a passenger, no longer able to control anything. It was the donuts, wasn't it? I asked. You put something in the donuts to knock everyone out, and then you...

My eyes go to the man's blood, spattered clothes, and axe. Should have eaten a donut, boss man. Would have made this so much easier. But of course, you wouldn't dare partake in a tasty treat with the mindless zombies who work for you, would you? My eyes dart to the office door. But the man, whose name I somehow know is Kalinsky, is careful not to give me an opening. How many did you? Doesn't matter, he says.

They were dead already. They just didn't know it. Better to rip the bandage off now than suffer a long, slow death in this building-sized coffin. I faint left and then dart right, heading for the door. Kalinsky doesn't take the bait. Before I can change course, he whips the axe at my face. The blade crashes into the hinge of my jaw.

Pain explodes through my head as I collapse. Lying on the floor, I reach up to feel the damage. My eyes widen in horror when I realize my jaw is hanging slack from one side, the other pouring blood from the wound, and my broken hand is back. Kalinsky steps over me. He reaches up and removes the mask, revealing Boyer's face. No, not totally. It's a strange mixture of Boyers and Kalinsky's.

Smiling, he says, I thought we were friends, in Boyer's voice. But you treated me like shit. I guess it's true what they say. Money really does change you. Tossing the mask aside, he raises the axe in both hands. We're going to have some fun, boss man. All of us.

We can do this over and over again, and over, and over. But who knows? Maybe some other asshole CEO will send one of his overworked and underpaid employees to see if this place is worth buying. If so, we'll have even more fun. I try to speak to ask about my sister, but even though I have control again, my jaw is too damaged to form words. Still, Boyer pauses, angling his ear toward me. What's that you're asking? Oh, you're wondering about your sister. Well, let's put it this way, boss man.

Who gets all your money when you die? Is it her? It is, isn't it? Suddenly, the pain of my wound is nothing compared to the despair racking my body. Boyer grins with Kalinsky's mouth, axe raised high. Boss man or boss lady? It's all the same, he says. But don't worry, she'll be joining us soon.

Laughing, he slams the axe down. Thanks for tuning in. If you enjoyed the story, be sure to follow or subscribe and share the show with a fellow, horror fan. I'll see you in the next one.