Chapter 3 – Chap 3

I’ve never known the true point to getting a college degree if finding a well paying job isn’t guaranteed. I pushed this thought aside as I drove past the decaying sign with the words, “Error Hill Road” on it. I went to park my car in the apartment’s decaying parking garage, except when I drove through the doorway, the car stopped. There was nothing wrong with it, nor was there anything I had hit. I pushed the pedal, and the tires made crying sounds for help as they turned and went no where.

I stepped out of the car and stuck my hand in the air in front of me. Something stopped it. An invisible wall preventing anything from getting through. I tried punching it, bad idea. I soon later held my fist in pain, and swore I heard a drawling laughter echo through the garage. “Hey screw you!” I yelled at the empty parking spaces.

“Rude.” I heard the voice of a ghostly figure echo back. I got back in my car and attempted to drive forward once more. I guess the ghost got tired and left. Well maybe not left, but it let my car through.

I was tired and hungry and craved anything other than two pieces of bread with expired meat in the middle. So I went to enter my apartment building in hopes I had food left, when I realized the door was locked. I looked up at the many broken windows under the gloomy sky, hoping someone had a window open to hear me. “Hello! Mr. Haywood!” I called out, trying the door once more. It didn’t make any sense. The apartment was never locked until very late at night. And I didn’t have an extra key since my stingy disco landlord wanted me to pay extra for a key to the front door.

“Hey I’m locked out!” I called again, stopping when I heard the sounds of a sickening crunch from the side of me. Curiosity told me to see what it was, while my common sense told me to stay out. For some reason, I walked to the side of the building instead. Was that a good idea? No. Did I do it anyway? Yes. Did I regret it? Double yes. The shadow figure which I normally saw on Friday’s like I mentioned, was standing with its back towards me. I checked my phone and saw it was in fact a Tuesday. “Huh, changing up your schedule are you?” I asked when I realized it was eating something large I didn’t care to see. But before I could retreat back, it snapped it’s head to me. It’s neck made a snapping sound as if it broke, and opened its toothy mouth which was abnormally large. It’s teeth were rotting and dripped with blood. And it’s eyes were a weird yellowing red color that looked the wrong size for it’s face, as if it had some sort of eye disfigurement. I tried to run, but my feet wouldn’t move.

The shadow figure seemed to be pulsating, and I got the strange feeling it was approaching me despite it not even moving. It’s eyes twitched and it slowly raised a clawed hand before dropping the body it was eating. The body hit the ground with a splat sound, whatever was left of it being left in a heap on the ground. The thing that unnerved me the most though was the green ooze spilling from the body.

It pointed a sharpened finger dripping green ooze at me and muttered unintelligible words. I was snapped out of my thoughts when I heard the front door open. “Hey Connor, I heard you yelling. Sorry you got locked out. Come inside, I have to tell you my plans with William.” Sage opened the front door and held out her tiny turtle who gave me a small and innocent smile.

My mouth hung agape and I struggled to make words. I had never seen the shadow figure this close before. Normally he was just a spec in the distance or a blur as it moved around the apartment and street.

I struggled to find words, only responding by bolting to the door and shoving Sage inside. “Connor what’s-” She dropped William Shellspeare and panicked. “William! Are you okay -“

I grabbed the turtle who looked offended and closed the door, locking it. “In my apartment.”

“What?” She looked confused and startled.

“Now.” This time I was the one to drag her to my apartment.

“Hey kids.” Mr Haywood said, but we ignored him. He was sitting behind his desk with a glittery blazer on. “Guess you don’t have time to talk to your old man.” He huffed, going back to reading an outdated magazine.

I slammed my door shut and turned to her. “Shadow.” Was all I said, catching my breath.

“Shadow? You mean that weird figure that lingers around this place?”

“Yes. But I saw it up close, and it looks more like it has a real body than just a run of the mill demon misty body thingy.” The screaming from under my bed started one more and I shouted,“Will your shut up! I’m having an important conversation here!” The screaming whimpered before stopping.

“It was eating a human body.” I didn’t know why I felt so panicked. Maybe it was the fact that I had never seen a body so mutilated before in my life. Or maybe the wall I had put up for ignoring the weird and paranormal things of this road was finally shattering. Whatever it was, I hated it.

“So now you see what I’m saying!” She shrilled in an, ‘I told you so’ tone of voice.

“Oh I see it, but I don’t want to believe it. Why couldn’t I have just moved into a normal apartment with normal neighbors-’ William huffed at me. “No offense.” I said to the turtle. “But why can’t anything on this road be n o r m a l.” I enunciated the word ‘normal’.

“Figuring out why is impossible, but stopping it from progressing is manageable. Here’s what I thought we could do.” She pulled out a small box from a tote bag swung around her shoulder and handed it to me. I opened it to find small black and green colored contraptions that looked like those plastic play kits you would get at Walmart. “You’re giving me a spy kit?”

“No, it’s a paranormal kit I got off of eBay.”

I couldn’t control my eye roll. “That’s not going to hel-“

“Oh stop being so pessimistic. The reviews were five stars and said it works like a charm. Here, I’ll show you what they do.”

“Sage, I appreciate your good efforts, but I don’t think this will-“

“No buts.” She put a hand over my mouth and gave me a cross look. “You promised to help.”

I moved her hand and responded, “I promised to help, not run around with plastic walkie talkies.”

She put William down and let him wander around the table. “Just trust me on this one.” She piced up the different devices. “This device helps us to hear the spirits, and these are to help us communicate with each other.”

“But we have phones to do that with.”

“Stop ruining the fun will ya!”

I raised my hands in surrender. “Sorry geez.”

“And that one can sense the mass of ghosts, then shows it on a small screen so we can see where the ghost is.” She pulled out the last device, only to see William playing with the walkie talkies. “William honey? Please stop.” The turtle grumbled and walked away to my TV remote, to which he pressed a button and began to flick through the channel options.

“You’ll take these and I’ll take the spare pack. What we’re gonna do is start at the basement and work our way up to the roof of the building. After that, we’ll start covering the grounds of the street bit by bit until we uncover everything there is to know about this messed up place. From there well have to figure out how to exorcise the tormented souls.”

“I’m pretty sure some of them are just monsters, not tormented souls. That shadow creature DEFINITELY wasn’t a soul. It was an Eldritch monster, and I’m not gonna get involved with him. Or her….or it. They maybe-”

“Connor.” She put her hand on her hip with an expectant look on her face.

“I promise I’ll help get rid of whatever poltergeist and skinwalker haunts this place with you, but I gotta think twice about that shadow guy. He looks awfully…non sociable.” I said as Willaim settled on the cooking channel.

I knew she would have flipped her crap if she knew what I saw. I couldn’t get the image of the green ooze spouting from the body out of my head. There may been a connection between that and the twenty seven deaths in this apartment building, but I didn’t have the energy to look any further into it than a little ghost buster hunt with plastic night vision goggles. It’s late afternoon right now and Sage and I are going to head down to the basement to start are hunt. I’ll update you tonight or tomorrow morning once our round is done. Farewell Redditors.