The Time Capsule

The Time Capsule  

By Paul McCann

The old house sat nestled in the arc of a dead-end street . It was a huge place that screamed at the smaller and more modern homes around where it stood .

Even though it was  surrounded by modern homes it somehow fitted in with the rest .

Over the years the old house had seen many people come and go , it had been bought and sold frequently with owners never staying longer than a year .

The current owner of the property decided to see the old house to invest in a modern home and put it on the market for sale however after there was no one showing any interest in buying the old place he was advised by the real estate to put the old house onto the rental market at lease he would be getting a regular income from the place ‘So he took their advice and listed the house as a rental property  .

Weeks passed by and no one wanted to look at the place so the real estate advised him to lower the weekly rental price .

A young man asked to view the property . ‘He had always lived with his parents but now he was offered a new job as an accountant and needed somewhere to live .

Being much closer to his workplace Tim decided to make an application to rent the old house and his application was approved . He was a single man and never owned any furniture which was perfect ass the old home came fully furnished .

It was a strange coincidence as all the previous owners who bought the home also inherited the furniture . Nothing in the home had changed since it was first lived in and as soon as you walked through the door it was like stepping back in time .

et was quaint with shutters in the windows and long corridors ,The house was really far too big for a single man but the rental price was very cheap for such a big house .

So, Tim moved in that week and felt like Lord of the manor .

After work he liked to pick up some food on the way home and enjoy his readymade food while watching the news on TV . After dinner he liked to read a book and soon found his favourite armchair in the upstairs corridor beside a lampstand near a  window that had a view of the front garden and the street . So, there he would sit and read for hours until he went to bed . One night as he was there reading, he saw a woman run past him down the corridor and then disappear. Tim thought his mind was playing tricks on him so he put the book away and went to bed .

He had a good sleep and went to work the next day . It was walking distance from the home and he enjoyed the early morning walk . That morning the same lady ran past him on the sidewalk . She seemed to be racing frantically to get somewhere and then again, she disappeared . A few days passed without another sighting of the running lady until she came running past him on the front path and then straight through the front door as if it wasn’t even there and into the house .

All that night Tim was on edge and couldn’t relax to read his book .Feeling disturbed he got on his computer and started to do some research about the area where he lived and there was an article about a woman who was found lying dead outside the front door of the house . He sat there and started to think what might have happened .

Then she appeared again running along the corridor as if she was being chased by someone . Tim never felt threatened of frightened when the lady appeared . It was almost like she wanted to tell him something . Tim went to the local historical society and started looking through old newspapers and other iunter3esting facts about the area and then he saw something that intrigued him . There had been a number of women who were murdered and the killer had never been found . To add to the mystery all the women who were killed were wealthy young single girls and reports of their missing jewellery had never been found ,

One night as Tim was getting ready for bed the lady came running along the corridor, she stopped briefly and motioned Tim to follow her . He ran after her along the corridor she went quickly down the stairs and out the front door , Tim followed behind as she ran into the street and down the road until she stopped at girls school  .

She pointed to a slab of concrete on the ground and there was a sign nearby that mentioned about the time capsule that had been buried underneath . Then she went over to the sign and pointed to the name of one of the teachers who had been involved with the project . Then she disappeared .

Tim was astonished because the name of that teacher the lady pointed to,  was the director of the company where he worked .,Suddenly Tim felt a shiver go through him and he realised that maybe his employer could be the killer who had never been found .

Over the next few weeks Tim spoke to some of the people at the school . He pretended to be gathering some information for an article about the time capsule for the newspaper . During his interviews with different people at the school he soon  discovered his boss was at one time the principal at the school but left after some controversy about a few of the teachers who were on the paedophile list . He got a new job in marketing and went on to become director of the company .

Tim would sit at night in his favourite armchair and wait for the lady to run past but she never did . He felt that she was waiting for him to do something .

The next morning when Tim left for work, he saw the running lady lying on the ground at the front door . She was motionless and in her hand was a key with a tag that said  Time capsule box June 10th, 2025.

Tim looked at the calendar on his watch and it was June 9^th, 2025, which meant that tomorrow they would be opening the school time capsule . The lady vanished but the key remained . Tim lifted the key and put it into his pocket .

The next day he made his way to the school and sure enough a large crowd had gathered to be part of the ceremony .

The concrete slab was removed and the seal of the time capsule was broken and a  steel box was removed from a PVC Case , the box was locked and no one had any ideas on how to open it up . Tim noticed his boss was standing there looking very nervous and was just about to take the steel box when Tim stepped forward and placed the key into the keyhole and the lid of the box opened to reveal some jewellery and some photographs and a note .

Tim noticed his boss was about to run away and grabbed him while the note was read out to all the people .

The notes were all handwritten by the girls of the school who mentioned the name of the killer and what he had been doing  the school . All of the jewellery was the property of the girls who had been abused at the school and some of those girls had been murdered , There was a note written some by the girls and those noted were placed in an identical box to the one that was going to be used ., As it turned out every teacher at that school were involved with the abuse .

There were personal testimonies left in the box that was switched at the time when the time capsule had been planted under the ground for a future date.  

The secret had been kept hidden for twenty years due to the girls fear of  the men behind the terrible abuse at the school .

The cold case was reopened and every one of the teaching staff were rounded up and questioned and forensics were called to look for evidence.   

The greatest piece of evidence that was discovered were the remains of a large number of girls that had been buried on the school grounds near the sports oval.

The forensics team had a field day with the mass grave .Charges were laid and a large number of men pleaded guilty sand went to prison for the rest of their lives ,

Time never saw the running lady ever again but he did find some very expensive jewellery around the house and after selling that he had enough money to buy the place and give it a well waited for renovation ..

The End