Warehouse

I.

The engine’s roar hushed to a purr before the car sputtered to a stop just outside a warehouse. It was three in the morning so, technically, it was already Halloween. The couple inside the car was young, naïve, and far from sober. Dim orange light emanated from the street lamps. A sickly blue light buzzed from the halogen bulbs sticking out from the warehouse they parked behind.

Their hands were all over each other as the windows steamed as a direct result of their uncontrollable hormones. Unfortunate, since it prevented them from seeing the masked figure approaching the car. There was a gentle rapping on the driver’s window. The young man, confused and irritated, wiped it down and saw the mask staring at him.

“What the hell are you looking at?” the young man asked. No response.

“Who is it?” the girl asked.

“Just some pervert,” his voice was dripping with arrogance, “I’ll take care of him.” He stepped out of the car. The figure was at least a foot taller than he was. “I don’t know who you think you are but--” The figure raised his hand and cut him off, pointing to something towards the rear of the car. He had a flat tire.

“Did you do this?” the young man yelled demanding an answer. The young girl was frightened; all she saw was the figure’s body. She was too scared to crawl over to see whom her date was arguing with. The boyfriend had knelt at the flat tire. The figure raised his other hand, which held a crowbar. With one swift swing to the young man’s head, there was a wet cracking sound and he was out cold.

The girl wanted to scream but couldn’t even breathe after seeing the blood splatter on the window. Secretly, she had hoped that the figure had no idea that she was there. The figure walked away from the man’s limp, lifeless body. They girl crawled over to see the body. Breath struggled to get in and out of the man’s lungs but he was still alive… barely. It scared her back inside the car. She covered her mouth to keep herself from screaming out. “At least that thing’s gone,” she told herself.

A shadow crept up behind her. She saw it crawling over her as her eyes widened in realization that there was someone behind her. The tears began to stream down her face, her mouth agape in a silent cry for help. The glass of the window behind her shattered, raining shards into the girl’s blonde hair. Two arms grabbed her from behind and by the time she managed to let a scream out, it was too late.

II.

It was morning. Jim drove to the warehouse to work a few extra hours only to find the entire place covered in police tape. Jim had to park in the other lot. He began to walk towards one of the uniformed officer when he was approached by a man in a nice suit covered by bulky a bulky overcoat. The man had a gun holstered to his hip that was exposed when the breeze flapped his coat open. A shiny badge was hanging around his neck from a loose chain.

“Do you work here, sir?” the man in the suit asked.

“Yes. What happened?” Jim inquired.

“There was a murder here. I’m Detective Carpenter,” the man in the suit answered, “We’re just about done here. Are you and that Mike kid the only ones working here?”

“No,” Jim stuttered, “Well, yes. How do you know Mike?”

“He was the one who called us here. Which is it? Yes or no?”

“For today, it’s just us two. The manager is out of town on vacation.”

“Where were you this morning between the hours of one in the morning to 4 in the morning, sir?”

“I was at home sleeping.”

“Can you confirm that?”

“No. I live alone.”

“Here’s my card. I’ll be in touch.” Detective Carpenter held out the card to Jim who nervously plucked it from the detective’s calloused fingers.

“Thank you, officer.” Jim walked into the warehouse and found Mike coming into the office from the warehouse door.

“There’s a guy coming in later about the telephone. It’s been down all morning,” Mike greeted Jim. Mike reached into his pockets and pulled out what looked to be a photo. He scoffed at it and tossed it into the wastebasket.

“I take it your date last night with the girlfriend didn’t go so well,” Jim asked.

“I found out the bitch was cheating on me.”

“I’m sorry man. I guess I won’t be meeting her anytime soon”

“I guess not.” Mike nodded his head at the wastebasket.

“This has been one crazy Halloween so far, eh?”

“Aside from the break up, not really,” Mike commented.

“Well, I was talking about the murder scene.”

“Yeah, well if you ask me, it was the highway ghost.”

“The highway ghost?”

“You don’t know?”

“Obviously not.”

“Well about fifty years ago there was a little neighborhood just up the road. Little kids would walk up this highway, which used to be a small road, to go trick or treating. One day, these teens thought it would be funny to get high and go to the houses spooking the residents popping out of trash cans and crap like that.”

“What happened? Did they get caught?”

“They never made it to the little town. One of them got run over by an 18-wheeler. His ‘friends’ left him there to die. When they finally worked up the courage to approach his bloody corpse, they freaked out. They buried his body in a shallow grave in that field just outside the warehouse.”

“So his ghost comes by every Halloween, killing people?” Jim asked with a hint of sarcasm in his voice.

“Well it was just a story to tell little kids. But then when I found out about what happened this morning and it you’ve got to admit, it makes you think.” Mike took the keys to the company truck and was headed to the door. “I’ve got deliveries to make. I’ll be back in a few hours. Try not to go into the warehouse.”

“Why not?”

“The ghost might get you,” Mike chuckled. Jim nodded at him smiling and waved him goodbye as he walked out the door. The EMT was taking a corpse into the ambulance as Mike was pulling out of the driveway. Jim saw some uniformed police officers taking down the tape.

Jim worked the office and Mike worked the warehouse. That was the order of things in the warehouse, but Jim saw a discrepancy in the database and decided to check out something for himself. He went into the warehouse and cut his hand. It was just deep enough to make it look worse than it really was. Jim ran back into the offices and patched it up with the gauze. He walked back into the warehouse to look for the work gloves. It was then he remembered seeing Mike wear them as he drove off, the only pair in the building.

In the dark corner of the warehouse, Jim thought he heard an excruciating groaning. Rather than tempt fate, he locked the warehouse door and walked back into the office. Just then, there was a rustling outside, followed by heavy footsteps. Jim tiptoed his way to the front door; he opened it, stuck his head out, and found nothing. The commotion seemed to be coming from the back of the warehouse.

Jim slowly walked around the corner. A hand grabbed him on the shoulder and he jumped. A heavyset man in overalls and a tool belt was standing behind him. It was the telephone man.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you. I’m here to fix the phone lines.”

“Yeah, don’t worry about it,” Jim was jumpier than usual, “So how bad is it?”

“Bigger of a problem than I thought it was. I don’t have all the parts so I’ll be back in about an hour.” The telephone man got back in his car and drove off. Just then another painful moaning seemed to emanate from the warehouse’s back door. Jim decided to ignore it and go back to the office.

III.

Detective Carpenter arrived to the forensics lab to see what science can reveal that his eyes could not see.

“What do we got?” he asked the forensic scientist.

“We’ve got four pieces of evidence that we didn’t have before.”

“Are they helpful?”

“I think so. The murder occurred near a warehouse, right?”

“Right behind one, actually.”

“On the corpse, it looks like the wounds were made with a box cutter. I also found fibers in the victims mouth along with some glue around her mouth.”

“Fibers and glue? How is that helpful?”

“The glue looks like the type of glue they use for duct tape or that heavy duty tape they use down in storage.”

“Sounds like everything’s pointing to the warehouse, so far.”

“There’s more. There were three sets of prints found in the car.”

“Three?”

“One was the girl’s, and then there were two others. I ran them both through the system and one of them was flagged.” The scientist handed over a piece of paper with a picture on it to Carpenter.

“I know this guy. He’s a low-level drug dealer. He’s not dumb enough to pull this off, definitely not smart enough to keep me guessing this long. Who was the third set of prints?”

“Someone without a record. Have any leads?”

“It may be Jim’s prints.”

“Who the hell is Jim?” But the forensic scientist didn’t get an answer. Detective Carpenter was already on his way to the warehouse.

IV.

There was a loud crash in the back of the warehouse. Jim thought that Mike had arrived early from deliveries. He opened the door and walked inside and as soon as the door clicked shut, Jim realized that he had locked it from the other side. He was locked in the warehouse! Another crash startled him into the corner.

He walked carefully to the back of the warehouse in the hopes of finding Mike. A shadow crept along the side of the warehouse followed by an ominous moan. Then it seemed like the creature was creeping up behind him. He turned in fear and accidentally knocked down a stack of boxes. The shadow disappeared. Jim could hear footsteps slide towards him.

Jim ran behind the large crates in the corner. He saw a figure emerging from the opposite corner. The face was covered with a mask. It walked as if it had been badly injured. It couldn’t possibly be a ghost, Jim whispered to himself. The masked figure seemed to feel Jim’s rapid heartbeat and was headed towards him. Each inch the ghoul crept closer, and sweat would drip down Jim’s back.

A horrible moan squeezed out through the mask and startled Jim. He ran to the door and saw a telephone. He picked it up. It was dead. Jim looked over his shoulder and saw that the creature had disappeared. All of a sudden the gasping moan screamed into his ear and he leapt onto the forklift. He tried to start it but had no idea how to drive it. The creature lunged at him and landed on the throttle. Jim was thrown into a pile of boxes. The forklift crashed through the locked back door of the warehouse.

The monster picked itself off and stumbled into the corner. Jim saw his chance and took off hearing the desperate howl behind him. He jumped out of the backdoor and was met with Detective Carpenter who drew out his gun. It was aimed right between Jim’s eyes.

“Where’s the other body, Jim,” Carpenter yelled, “I know you killed more than one person.”

“Please help me!” Jim pleaded.

“Where’s the other body?” Just then the creature leapt at Jim and took him to the ground. Carpenter’s instincts squeezed off three rounds killing the alleged highway ghost. “Sorry, kid. I guess you’re off the hook. Go around the front into my car and call for an ambulance. I’ll check the warehouse out.” Jim ran to the front and tried to radio for help. Meanwhile, Carpenter bent over the corpse and pulled off the mask to find his drug-dealer’s face, mouth covered up with duct tape. The killer was still at large.

Jim was about to walk back into the office when he found that Mike’s truck was parked around the other corner of the warehouse. He walked into the office looking for Mike. The wastebasket had been kicked over, and the picture of Mike’s girlfriend spilled out. Jim picked it up and saw the pretty face staring back at him not knowing it was that of the victim who had been murdered just hours before.

The door to the warehouse silently swung open. Jim did not see that Detective Carpenter’s lifeless corpse was hanging from it precariously. He heard drops of blood hitting the carpet. As he turned his head to just barely catch a glimpse of the detective’s body when two strong arms wrapped themselves around his neck. They squeezed and squeezed until all life had been wrung out of Jim’s body. In a low whispered grunt, Jim heard Mike’s voice say, “I’m sorry, Jim.”