A fast-moving cloud passed in front of the moon.
Garrin crept forward through wet brush, lying low as he made his way toward the looming factory building where two fifteen year old boys, using smartphones as flashlights, had just disappeared through an entrance door hanging off its hinges. Their crunching footfalls soon faded, swallowed up by the stridulation of crickets. Before entering the same door, Garrin looked over his shoulder first, and peered in through a broken window pane next to the door. The corridor beyond was empty, save for bits and pieces of debris, so he went inside, careful not to kick or scuff any litter, or to step on any loose tile. Though his steps could be loud as thunder if so chosen, tonight they were light as snow.
Many doors flanked the left side of the hall, but muddy footprints made a straight path to the farthest one. Garrin closed the gap with swift strides and stood with his back against the wall next to the door.
He listened.
In the room beyond, the boys conversed in undertones, laughing at times. He guessed them to be about a hundred feet away.
Before entering, he looked through the door window and scanned the area. It was a large room, the ceiling some three floors above, and two parallel rows of windows on the far wall overlooked a forest crowding up against it; industrious branches growing through the fragmented panes here and there. Silver beams shone through the windows along the left side of the room, suffusing the contours of ancient equipment and myriad trash, along with tables and conveyor belts whose surfaces had collected dirt, dead insects, and chunks of machinery for many years. Moss and rain water filled the cracks in the slanted cement floors; peeling paint hung in strips from the walls.
Garrin ducked down and entered the room without a sound.
The air was dank; bitter with the scent of soil and vegetation. Residual rain water dripped from a window ledge nearby onto a pipeline. Little by little he inched his way closer to the boys, who were in a far corner poking at things and rooting through refuse. When he reached a close proximity, he remained hunched and still beside an overturned table, listening to their conversation.
"Think this place is haunted?"
"Uh, yeah, that's why we're here."
A laugh. "No, but seriously."
Garrin peered out from the shadows, getting a clearer visual of the teens.
One boy, whom he knew to be Landon, sat on the bottom step of a metal staircase. The other, Hunter, stood close by, examining the screen of his phone. "I was here last week with Justin and we saw something," he went on. "I swear it. But I dropped my phone and whatever I saw was gone by the time I could look again." He cussed at the memory. "We waited forever but it didn't come back."
Landon draped his bare forearms over his jean-clad knees and leaned forward, suddenly sombre. "Ghosts aren't real, man."
Hunter glared down at him in the near darkness, the outlines of their faces made visible only by the light of their phones. "Look, I've studied this stuff . . . I mean, there's so much proof out there, and I wanna see things for myself . . . wanna try an' get a pic. Came here in the spring too, on that ghost walk—the one your parents wouldn't let you come on—remember?" His tone lowered to one of disappointment. "But it wasn't dark enough for anything to happen."
"But you saw something last week?"
"Yeah, a tall moving shadow along that ramp up there at the top of the stairs. Saw it with my own eyes."
Landon looked over his shoulder up into the gloom as Hunter held out his phone toward him, gesturing at the screen. "Look, here's a famous picture of a spectre—called The Brown Lady of Raynham Hall."
Taking the proffered phone, Landon examined the black and white photo on the screen featuring a misty veiled figure moving down a staircase. He laughed. "That's so obviously fake."
"It's not! I'm telling you, 'double-exposure' is always the excuse made by those who don't believe—and I'm not buying it. It's real." He looked around, oblivious to Garrin, who was careful to remain in the slant of shadows. "One of these days I'm going to prove it with a photo of my own."
Handing back the phone, Landon stood up from the stair and moved next to his friend. Together they peered up the barely discernible staircase as Hunter once again used his phone as a flashlight. The beam enabled them to see only a short distance ahead, but the metal stairs looked sturdy and intact enough; at least from this vantage point.
"What's up there?" Landon asked.
"Offices and stuff. Hey—don't you Christians believe in angels?"
"Uh, yeah, I guess. Why?"
Hunter let out a loud laugh but said nothing more. Landon rubbed the back of his neck in a self-conscious manner, as though embarrassed by the implication.
Garrin scanned the upper floor where several derelict offices stood hidden in the pitch beyond a palely suffused ramp some thirty feet above ground level. Hunter began mounting the stairs, while Landon switched on his own flashlight app and followed suit with steps much more tentative than his friend's.
Hunter's voice dropped to a whisper. "We need to keep quiet from now on if we expect to see anything."
"But where,"—Landon lowered his voice to a hush—"where are we going?"
"There's an office up here, I saw it in the daylight and know which one it is. It's where the spectre is said to dwell."
"Why would a ghost 'dwell' in an office?"
"They say he worked here and died in a freak accident a couple weeks before the factory closed down. Now shut up and keep quiet."
This end of the factory was so shrouded, the boys looked like floating flashlight beams moving upward. With a sudden instinct, Garrin glanced back toward the distant entry door where moonlit contours were much more visible.
A murky figure moved along the wall toward him like a mist and vanished behind some machinery.
Seconds later it reappeared, moving right past Garrin, who remained crouched and hidden, before it disappeared into the pitch beneath the raised offices.
Taking a risk, Garrin dashed from his hiding place to the stairs and took them two at a time without a single sound, until he was only ten feet behind the boys who were now halfway across the ramp.
Here decades of rain water had severely rusted the metal and the boys were taking careful steps around compromised grating while holding onto the ramp railing for support. The flashlight beams were too weak to reach the office in question, which was still some fifty feet ahead, and they paused at each grimy window and door to determine where they were. From here one could see full across the factory to the other side where the moon was perched high in the sky beyond the rows of windows, going in and out of focus as clouds passed by.
Without warning, the wings of a startled pigeon fluttered past Garrin's face as it took off for another perch high in the rafters. At the sound of flapping, both boys whipped around just as Garrin sidestepped their flashlight beams.
Their faces illuminated by the phones, Landon's eyes were wide with evident fright while Hunter's sparked first with excitement, then annoyance. "Just a bird," he said with an exhale. "Come on." They turned around and resumed their course.
A drawn-out creak sounded in the distance, as though a door had opened.
Both boys froze.
Garrin took advantage of their hesitation and visually examined the integrity of the flooring up ahead while also scanning for the murky figure who had vanished on the lower floor. The thing could be anywhere by now, possibly waiting for them in the far office. And what was it doing here anyway? Instinct told him he had to find out fast.
The smell of mildew and bird droppings was especially strong up here; the metal office fronts copper and bronze wherever the blue paint had peeled away. There were no sounds but the occasional coo of a pigeon, the pluck pluck of dripping water, and the murmur of crickets outside. Hunter raised his flashlight beam high, trying to see farther ahead. The nearest door was closed, and the boys moved forward with wary steps and shallow breathing. Garrin remained as close behind them as possible without detection. They passed this office and soon reached the next; its door closed as well.
"We're almost there," Hunter whispered. "I bet you anything the door is open."
The final office came into view as Hunter's breath caught in his throat with a rasp.
The door was indeed wide open.
He fumbled with his phone, switching to the camera app while Landon's flashlight beam, positioned on the door, wavered just a fraction.
If only Garrin could get in front of them somehow without being spotted. He had to delay them.
"Let's get out of here," Landon murmured. "We're being idiots."
"Hush—" Hunter stepped forward, camera raised. "We heard that door open . . . he's here."
Garrin examined the rubble beside him and snatched up a crushed soda can. Without even the sound of air moving beneath his arm, he flung the can far out over the railing. It clunked and ricocheted off several protrusions before scraping across the ground and settling into silence.
Hunter let out an expletive and Landon jerked up his phone in a futile attempt to see what had made the noise down below. As they leaned over the railing, Garrin moved behind and around them with no more noise than a leaf sailing on the wind; and entered the office.
Though the room was black as tar, an even darker shadow stood behind the desk.
"What's your name?" Garrin asked without speaking a single word aloud.
A thick silence followed.
"What's your name?" he repeated.
"I am Ubel . . . " came the unspoken response.
"What are you doing here."
"What do you think? The lad . . . he wanted to see me and I am happy to oblige. . . . Seek and ye shall find."
Garrin pivoted, glancing through the office's clouded window pane behind him. Hunter and Landon remained where he'd left them, speaking back and forth in fierce whispers, likely debating their next move. He hoped they would simply turn around and leave the building.
"You will have a difficult time stopping me now," Ubel said without speaking, moving out from behind the desk and standing before Garrin; its face still nothing more than a gradient of black. "If you leave the room now, they will see you." At that, the figure leaned down and picked up a splintered chair leg, raking it across the floor and letting it drop with a clatter.
"Think fast," Ubel said with a laugh, "here comes the photographer. Whose form shall he capture—yours or mine?"
"Don't you avoid the camera?"
"When I can, but it hardly matters. No one believes such things—they will merely say it is staged or 'Photoshopped.' "
Unlike the rest of the factory, which was mild and humid, this room was colder than ice; yet Garrin sensed body heat nearby, and it wasn't the boys. He shot a glance through the window. Hunter was approaching now, eyes wide and camera raised. Within seconds he'd be upon them.
In one bound, Garrin leaped over the desk, scaled a filing cabinet and reached up into the exposed roofing where a mother raccoon lay curled up with her babies. Taking the animal in both hands, he silently jumped the desk again and let her loose at the door with a jerk forward. The bewildered creature stumbled outside and collided with Hunter, who came to an abrupt stop.
Hunter hollered and stomped his foot. "You have got to be kidding me!"
Landon let out a tremulous laugh and ran a hand across his sweaty forehead, smiling with obvious relief. "He really had you going—"
"Shut-up, Lan, just shut-up."
Ubel brushed passed Garrin and went out onto the ramp where he stood still as a statue beyond the reach of Landon's flashlight beam which was positioned on the frightened, blinking raccoon. Hunter's back to the figure, he switched from the camera app to his flashlight, muttering under his breath. The raccoon waddled off into the pitch, and Garrin waited unmoving in the cloak of the door frame, unable to determine what exactly Ubel had planned next.
Hunter straightened, shivering. "Do you feel that?"
"The draft?"
"Yeah."
Landon raised his smartphone beam toward the ceiling. "Maybe it's coming from the roof?"
"No, it's behind us." Hunter turned around as he spoke, sweeping his flashlight beam over Ubel—silhouetting the apparition.
Ubel vanished.
Hunter, gawking, turned to flee and plunged into Landon; knocking him sideways into the railing. The disintegrated metal cracked and split with the impact, giving way. Both Landon and his phone fell over the edge. Within the same second, Garrin scaled the railing and grabbed both the grating from below and Landon's ankle—snagging it in the twisted metal of the partly detached railing. The teen dangled in mid-air as his phone hit the cement below and shattered.
Having scrambled back to his feet, Hunter gaped down at his friend; blinking and rubbing his palms on his T-shirt, and swallowing repeatedly. His phone lay glowing on the grating nearby. He hadn't seen Garrin jump the railing, nor did he see him now where he remained positioned beneath the ramp, hanging from the grating himself.
"Help me—" Landon cried, trying without success to pull himself up from the waist only to fall back again, arms flailing. The metal groaned, detaching further.
Hunter dropped to his knees, holding the grating with one hand for support and trying to grab hold of Landon's wrist with the other. "I can't reach you—"
"But I'm going to fall—I'll break my neck—you've got to help me!"
Another section of the metal detached and Landon, screaming, dropped a foot lower.
Garrin knew Hunter didn't have the muscle strength to pull Landon up by the legs. One more snap and the railing would break clean through.
Moving his leg beneath the length of Landon's back, Garrin pushed—folding the teen upward at the waist. Seizing the chance, Hunter grabbed Landon's wrist with both hands and yanked, pulling him up onto the ramp. Landon grabbed onto the grating with his free hand while Hunter pulled him the rest of the way up by the collar of his shirt. His ankle came free and the last bit of railing tore apart; a moment later clanging on the cement below.
Both boys lay crumpled on the grating, gasping for air.
"Someone . . . someone pushed me up," Landon said.
"What? No, I pulled you up. . . . Adrenaline rush, I think."
They sat up, then stood, Hunter collecting his phone and Landon walking with a limp.
"I felt it though," he said, "I was pushed up from behind, right before you grabbed my wrist."
Garrin dropped to the ground silently and remained in a corner while the boys clamoured down the stairs and hurried to get out of the building, glancing back over their shoulders with every little sound. But he needn't follow them too closely now—Ubel was long gone.
A couple years later in the highschool cafeteria, Landon and another young man sat eating together, chatting, and scrolling on their smartphones—when just like that, the blood drained from Landon's face.
He sat upright.
"Hey, Wyatt . . . " He spoke in a pinched, breathless tone. "Do you remember Hunter . . . grade nine math and biology, before he moved away?"
"Hunter. Yeah, yeah, I remember him. The one with the website. Obsessed with ghosts. Always trying to get photos and video footage." A laugh. "Why you ask?"
"He died."
"What—how?" Wyatt leaned over Landon's shoulder to get a look at his phone.
"Says here he was crushed under several hundred pounds of lumber in an old barn, when an upper floor collapsed on him."
"Man . . . "
Landon remained silent.
"Well, look on the bright side. I guess he'll know if ghosts are real now, won't he." Another laugh. "Hey, don't you Christians believe in angels?"
Landon set down his phone and looked at his friend.
"Yes. Yes, I do."
The End.
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If you enjoyed this story, please consider voting, commenting, and sharing. I would love to hear from you. Thanks so much! :)
Years ago I watched a movie called, "The Others" starring Nicole Kidman: a mother and her small children are being haunted by ghosts in a large old house. But there's a twist at the end. We discover that it's the mother and her children who are the ghosts, and the so-called ghosts are actually a living family who is being haunted by THEM. So with that movie in mind, I was inspired to write this short story, with a different twist of my own. (By the way, the name Garrin is German for "guardian.")
I also wanted to convey the idea that we each interpret life through the lens of our individual beliefs. While Landon is convinced that the spirits in the factory were an angel and a demon, Hunter is confirmed in his belief that ghosts (a.k.a. the dearly departed) are indeed real. So, what do YOU think? Let me know in the comments.
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Featured image adapted from photo by Jan Bommes, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution.
Short stories licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike. If you post these stories, please provide credit along with a link back.
Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events, is purely coincidental.