100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2025. #65. Grace Fukuda and The William Hardy Problem.

 It came with the advent of immigration to Hawai'i during the sugar plantation era.

It folded nicely into the population and the environment. No one would question it because who questions a person in authority in an authoritative position who wasn't a laborer in the fields? That's how it survived until this very day, working in offices, where it blended in with others and no one would be wiser. How did it feed? It feeds off the energy that people who work in crowded offices create. Gossip, dissension, backstabbing, bullying, ass kissing, affairs. That's how it survived, on the disparity of human nature. 

Grace Fukuda realized what it was, but purely by accident. She saw its reflection off the toaster in the break room. She was waiting for her waffles to pop up when it walked up behind her and excused itself as it reached for a powdered cream packet. Its face was a deathly gray color with a black maw for a mouth and deep, sunken black eyes. The hair wasn't hair so much as it was giant wet clumps of it, like you would pull out of a shower or sink drain. That lovely boy, William Hardy, was an emotion-eating demon. Grace knew it because outside of work, she had no friends and no real life to call her own. Her hobby was the study of demonology, which she pursued avidly, reading about it in every book, online iteration, pamphlet, and religious text across every culture. It's what happens when you have no life and you hyperfocus on one thing. Grace was also on the spectrum, so her emotional output was not wired the way normal people are who express themselves every second of the day. It's why William Hardy didn't bother her because Grace had nothing he could feed off of. Grace was also William's supervisor.

One day, while pushed up against his cubicle wall, William listened to the hushed argument between his co-worker on the other side. As he listened, he inhaled the emotion that filled his belly. Lori Tabisolo berated her husband for bringing her lunch when she didn't ask him to. Brian, her husband, didn't understand why she was so upset. 

"It's because you don't listen when I tell you something," she replied. "I said, I'm having lunch with the office today!"

"What am I supposed to do with this lunch then?" He asked. "It's my day off, I figured we could have lunch together!"

"Call next time!" Lori nearly shrieked. 

Brian walked off, but by then, William was fully drained from the emotions. Just then, his desk phone beeped. 

"William?" It was Grace calling from her office. "Come, please."

Entering the office, William was the epitome of sunshine. "Yes, Grace?"

"William, you're reassigned to the mail room," Grace said matter-of-factly. "They are short-staffed, so they need help."

"The mail room?" He said more to himself than to Grace. The thought of working in a crowded mail room in such close proximity to other people and their emotions made him dizzy. "I'll do my best!"

The very next morning, William was bright and early, watching the clock. As soon as the big hand touched the eight, William was practically salivating, and he could feel a dizzying erection in his pants. Five minutes later, and nothing. Ten minutes later, and no one. Twenty minutes and William was on the phone to Grace.

"There's no one here," William explained. "Are you going to fire a whole staff of people?"

"You're the only person in the mail room," Grace replied. "You're it. There's no one else, but you on your own by yourself in that mail room. The mail itself is to be inserted in that shoot filled with air, and the mail will be sent up to the corresponding office it belongs to."

"I don't bring the actual mail to the actual people, in person?" William shrieked.

"No, it's all done from the mail room," Grace said.

"What if I wanted to go back to my office job?" William asked.

"That position has already been filled," Grace replied. "Get back to work, William."

Grace hung up, and William screamed, cried, and begged, but Grace did not relent. William's permanent assignment was the mail room, and he'd stay there until he literally withered away and died. 

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