Chapter 13 - Back From The Dead

Back From The Dead

A Novel

By Paul McCann

Chapter 13

The Intruders  

Todd first noticed the others, one day in a crowded restaurant . He somehow had this ability to see them and didn’t know why . They began to appear more often to him , suddenly they came anywhere , anytime with no warning as he was eating  out in restaurants or in shopping malls . Everywhere he saw them they came alone and ghostly in appearance . They were strange and unobtrusive at times sitting alone observing and even  mingling in with the crowd who were unaware of their presence among them . No one else ever saw the intruders as Todd called them .

No one ever approached them or tried to speak to them . The intruders never ordered a meal or spoke to anyone they just sat there silently watching .

Todd was now very aware of their presence among us and observed a number of things about them. They were always alone and sometimes they walked through solid walls and doors. , Then the intruders at time would take a child away with them as their parents ran ina panic looking for their children who had gone missing .

The intruders were unnoticed except for Todd who able to see them .

Previously when he had tried to point them out to people, no one could ever see them and they said Tood was weird and accused him of using drugs .

This made Todd feel angry because he knew what he saw and he knew the intruders were dangerous . He still didn’t know why he was the only one who could see them.

He had tried to take pictures of them with his mobile phone in restaurants and shops when they appeared but each time he did the images were always blurred and hard to see clearly .

He thought he would try something outside the square and wrote a short play called The Intruders which he presented to a local theatre company..

The director liked the script and decided to give it a go. After a few months of rehearsing the play, the theatre company were ready to put on the first performance of The Intruders to the public .

The day before the play was to be staged in town, the theatre hall that was to be used for the play was completely gutted by a fire by an unknown cause.

Todd knew it was no accident and started to get a little worried about his safety .

However he started to put up some posters around town with different messages of awareness about stranger danger and Beware Of Intruders but people again called him weird and removed his posters .

It was too late for Todd to change things when the Intruders took him away one day and in that moment he became one of them an intruder unseen and yet always around observing the lives of everyone , anywhere and anytime .

The theatre company finally put on the performance of The Intruders in another hall . That night after the performance no one left the hall and no one knows where all the missing went . Stories started to surface about ghosts being seen and somehow local people remembered Todd who once tried to tell them about the intruders he saw . A website was built and it published on social media the story of Todd and the intruders but somehow mysteriously the website was blocked and never seem again

More and more empty houses around the town were seen and police and politicians had no idea what was happening .

Eventually the place became a ghosty town of empty restaurants and shops and no one knew where the people had gone .

The were other towns that began to experience people going missing and no one ever knew where they went ..

Where are they now , no one knows .

Will they return , same answer .

Why did this happen ?

Ask Todd if he ever comes back

End Of Chapter 13