Spooky Summer Job
Drake Ball, CA, USA
September 2002
I was about 14 at the time this story took place.
My family and I had just moved from Miami, Florida to Ringing, Oklahoma. I had enjoyed the first few weeks at my new home. Summer time was now only a day away. I decided to go looking for a summer job. I mean where else would I earn enough money to get the brand new mountain bike that sat in the window of the "local supermarket" which was 30 miles away.
Finally summer came, and I didn't have a job yet. The bike was 100 American dollars. My family had finally got our luggage from the airport, which the airport had mistakenly misplaced. In my bag I discovered a book about summer jobs. I thought back, and remembered buying it. I decided to read it. In it talked about stuff that wouldn't work in the environment I was in, like car-washing and other stuff.
I later asked my dad about any jobs he may know of. He said, "I will get back to you tomorrow, I think Tony, my boss, might have an opening in the warehouse." I decided that it would be the perfect job, so I happily went to sleep.
The next day, when my dad got home, he gave me the good news, that I got the job, and the bad news, that it was in the back of the warehouse, where someone had supposedly fallen into a piece of machinery, and was killed. I was a little shaky about that, but my dad informed me that I wouldn't be operating any machinery, so I decided I could do it, for 10 dollars an hour, I could do it good.
Well the next day I started my new job in the creepy warehouse. When I arrived a spooky, gloomy feeling came upon me. I figured that feeling was just because this was my first real job. So I entered the warehouse, the lights were dim and the sound of machines ringed in my ears.
Later that day, when it came time to leave, I found my job so fun and easy that I decided a little overtime would do some good. So I stayed later, doing my job.
It was creepy in there alone. For some reason, I still heard a machine kind of sound, I figured maybe a clumsy worker had left the machine on. So I followed the sound. It was coming from and old, rusty looking machine that looked like it hadn't been used in a while. As I approached the machine, the sound got very loud. I looked for a switch of some sort to turn it off, finally after searching for it I did find the power switch. I shut the machine off, and started to walk away, when the sound boomed once again. I turned around, wondering why the machine had switched itself on. I also was kind of freaked out by this, so I decided to hurry home.
When I got home, I told my dad about the strange happenings, he said, "Sometimes machines do that kind of stuff, don't worry about it." I took his advice and went to sleep. I dreamed about the warehouse, and the bike, and I don't know why, but also about the accident that had supposedly happened in the warehouse. When I woke, I got ready for work and my dad and I drove away.
When we arrived, the same feeling as before fell over me. I wanted to show my dad the machine that had so mysteriously turned on. I showed him, and he looked amazed, and said, "That old piece of junk hasn't worked for a long time." The other workers had told him that, and also rumored that was the machine that the dreadful accident had happened on. He seemed not to believe my story, so I just let him not believe it. I decided to investigate the machine again that night, so when everyone left, I once again stayed.
This time the machine did not turn on but, there were many different strange sounds, like that of someone coughing, or grunting, or just working. And suddenly I went blank, and fell to the hard concrete floor, and I imagined the accident over and over in my mind. It was like the ghost of the person who had died had put the vision in my mind, I was scared and couldn't move. I just sat there shaking and passed out.
The next day my dad and some other workers found me. I decided to quit that job, although I hadn't earned any money because they weren't going to pay me until after I had worked for a week.
I eventually found a new job, at the graveyard.