“Author’s note: Hello to all of you, people.
This is my first story. If someone, after the reading, thinks that in this short story there are some serious grammatical errors, please tell me about these on the comments. So, for the next stories, I’ll be careful not to make the same mistakes. Thanks to everyone. And good reading.”
“Have I never told you about that night when your grandpa came across a strange happening?”
“No, grandpa. Tell us about it.”
“Ok. So, put yourself comfortable.”
The two children sat down, with all their attention facing their grandfather.
“So. It began in the 1960. In that year I worked for the Mainstreem Corporation, here in Los Angeles. They created various things for the home cleaning. To be honest, my task was to be the nightwatcher for them. And I remember that night was raining so much which was impossible to go out there without get a shower in around two minutes.
I was there all alone, while I was reading a book, a good book. But I don’t remember the title of this last one.
Sometimes, I went around for control the situation and for lock all the doors with the keys; I also was careful about intrusions. That one was the principal task.
Honestly, it was also a good adventure. I liked it. And I liked to be there to think about my future. In those times, cellphones and crap things such those didn’t exist, so we got books or other forms of entertainment.
I turned myself toward the front automatic doors that I closed earlier. The rain was falling down incessantly. Suddenly, after that my eyes looked down for a moment, I saw a hooded man in front of the sliding doors who was screaming “Help… Incident… Call someone… Please!”
Immediately, I took the set of keys from the desk near to me and I opened the doors. When them were wide open, he fell like a sack of potatoes. I took him from under the arms and pulled inside his cold body. He already taken too much rain and was also too cold. I turned him and his conditions were unconscious. I don’t know why, but probably for the incident that he spoke before. He was completely covered of blood and he had an old scar on his face.
I took the radio that usually myself needed for the emergency calls and I tried to call someone for an ambulance, but there was no sound except for some strange noises.
I understood immediately that this fact was for the bad weather. I didn’t know what to do.
“Think. Think. And Now?”
My body was there, petrified. I didn’t know absolutely what to do. My first thought was to go along the corridor that led to various doors. I opened one of them. It was a storage room full of cleaning objects used by the scavenger.
I took an empty bucket and I filled it with water for throw this on his face, because was the only way to wake him. I returned hastily in the entrance room, but he wasn’t there.”
“Oooh, and where was him, grandpa?”
Broke off one of the two grandsons. They had their eyes wide open while they were there, awaiting for some news about the man.
“Wait a moment, boy.” continued the old man. “Then, I came back at the entrance and there was nothing but a pool of water where I left him.
“Thank you”.
He scared me. He scared so much that I spilled all the water – that was in the bucket – on the floor. So, I turned myself, trembling. He was there, all soaked and seated on one of the chairs near the wall. I asked him if he needed help and if he was fine, but no answers came out from his mouth, even if under the torture. He was standing there, hooded and silent.
“I need just to go as far away as possible from here. But, because of the car incident, I can’t move very well. My car is completely destroyed, and with this incessant rain and in conditions like these I can’t go very far. Do you have a car or something else for move out from this place?”
I said yes. But I said also that he had to go at the hospital for a visit. He accepted to pact that, after this, I lead him on the way for the Bay of Santa Monica. I said yes, again. After that, I went back in the reception to take the set of keys. I took also those of the car.
The boss would understand if I had gone out for an hour or so – after to have close the doors – because of an emergency like that.
A strange sound made me turn my head where he was sitting before, but the man wasn’t there anymore. Again.
“Sir! Sir!” I tried, so, to call him. I screamed, but no answers came to my ears.
They heard only a metallic sound, and then I lost consciousness. Fortunately, after that I woke up, I understood that my head didn’t lost so much blood from the attack. The cut wasn’t very deep and I would’ve survived even without sutures.
I also realized that the keys of the car were stolen, but it was still out there. So I thought that the stranger was still at the inside of the building.
I took the set of keys from the ground and I came back to the storage room. I found a broom and I broke its brush for use it like a weapon. It wasn’t a good protection, but was better than nothing. I pulled out the flashlight. The structure’s light went off because of the bad weather, so this last one was the only thing for push my way into the darkness.
I continued to walk in the research of the man, but nothing. There was no clue about him. I thought that he went out, running. But wasn’t so. The keys were yet in my hands and the sliding doors where closed like I’ve closed them earlier. I tried again to call someone for an help, but only the strange noises sounded, like if a fly was inside the radio. And so, nothing. I returned back at my location, took again the book and started to read from the point that I stopped before as if nothing happened.
When suddenly… THUD!”
“What happened, grandpa? He killed you?” Said one of the children.
“No, no.” smiled the old man. “If he had killed me, today I wouldn’t be here. It was only a sound that came from the second floor. A side of my intellectual reader said to myself: “Go to check out the situation!”
But the other side of it said: “don’t go, it could be dangerous. Another hit and you will die.”
I was near the end of the book and the detective was trying to discover the assassin. So, my reading continued, like if I didn’t heard that sound.
Sometimes I checked the wound and it was all right. “No blood out and then I can continue to live” I thought. And so it was. Now I’m here, in front of you, my little buddies.” He stopped.
“Tudd!”
The children screamed.
“Another thud. This time was heavier. I left the book on the desk and I got upstairs to check it out. If that man had done something to the structure, I would’ve been fired. I took the flashlight because the second floor was darker than the first one. And nothing. There was no one, there. Or I thought so.
Your grandma and my parents needed money, so I took the first work that my fortune found, but they told me about the problems that it gave. I was so scared, so I didn’t continue to walk, and when I was coming back another heavy thud scared me, again. It scared me so much that my fear stopped me, for a moment. I went back in downstairs reading my book and thinking that nothing happened that night. Suddenly, I heard again the sound, and I discovered that it was just about the branches of the trees – out of the place – that slammed upon the windows. So, I sighed.
But what my eyes saw after petrified myself: the man was there, in front of me, with a gun pointed in my direction. I didn’t know where he found it.
“I must go out from here. I’m wanted. And if they’ll find me, I will go in prison. And I don’t want this. I don’t deserve it.” He said.
I didn’t know what to do and neither what to say. I wanted to ask him what he did, but the fear left me silent. After a while, I sighed again.
“Ok, you have stolen my keys. You have my car, now. What do you want from me?” I asked.
“But it didn’t start.” He said, but I didn’t believe him because –before to go at work – I did the full of gasoline for the car.
“Please, give me the keys. So, I can try to start the car, and you will go where you want to go.”
When he approached me, I gave him a head-b**t. He fell like a mannequin that fall when someone back off without attention. When his body was on the floor, I gave him a kick at the hand that gripped the gun. It slipped on the ground, far away from the man that was unconscious. I went in the scavenger’s room and I found a rope. I took him, tied him and closed him inside that room.
Then, I went in the entrance room, tried again to call someone and I discovered that the radio suddenly worked.
“Oh God, thanks.” My mouth said.
“And so, you called someone?” Ask him one of the little boys.
“Yes, Johnny. I called one of my colleagues. He called the ambulance and the police. They came after about an hour – was so because of the bad weather and all the roads were flooded – and I opened immediately the doors when I saw them.
“What’s the problem, Sir?” Said a policeman while the paramedic was waiting. I told him about the man, the gun, the wound and that I put him inside the scavenger’s room.
“Can you, please, tell me his name?”
“Well, I don’t know. He didn’t say this to me. But I can just tell you that this man wore a blue long jacket and had a gun.”
“This is so strange.” He doubted about this. I don’t know why, but he doubted.
“this is like a thing that happened to us around two hours ago. Well, could you show him to me?”
I brought him in the room, but when I opened the door, the man wasn’t there anymore. I didn’t know how was possible that he ran off with the door closed. I tried to show him the gun, but this wasn’t there anymore.
“I said that was impossible.” He smiled at me.
“Why, what is the problem about this?”
“I tell you one thing. Around two hours ago, someone called us for an incident. When we came there, It wasn’t a good show. It was so horrible” he pulled out a photo. “The Crash was a frontal. A family and the man from the other car died. He was a bank robber and he wore a blue long jacket. As the man you saw.”
And guess who was the bank robber.”
“We don’t know, grandpa. Come on, tell us about it.”
“Well, the bank robber was exactly the man who attacked me. I didn’t believe what the policeman said, and the day after they brought me at the morgue for the stranger’s identity. He was there, dead. His skin was white as if he was full of oatmeal. I was so scared about what happened to me that night. So scared. I remember that – after this fact – I fired myself from that work and I began to seek a work for the daylight. A work with the morning light and where other people were beside me.
Oh, and some days after the visit in the morgue, I did a research and discovered that, sometimes, the apparition of a ghost makes the radio going crazy.”