Hillside Haunting

A flash of lightning through a tall window revealed a man sitting alone in a dark room. An edgy silence filled the air; the only audible sound was the heavy breathing of the lone man. Shadows danced across the walls as another flash chased the darkness from the room. The man jumped slightly at the sight of his own skulking shadow. A third flash of lightning followed by distant thunder revealed a name stitched onto his black uniform: Ben.

* * *

Ben Moore lived his entire life in a small town called Hillside. About a month ago, he celebrated his twenty-sixth birthday in front of the television eating a bowl of Spaghetti-Oh’s when he decided that it was time to finally get a job. Actually, his age had nothing to do with his sudden interest in employment. His deceased Great Aunt Martha left him a well of money when she passed-on a few years ago and it had recently run dry. For a month, he had been living off of the change he scraped together throughout his small apartment. Besides a pet fish (which has been dead for weeks), Ben lived alone in a one-bedroom apartment just down the street from Hillside’s newly built shopping mall. It was there that he finally found work as the graveyard shift security guard.

* * *

His first night on the job promised to be an easy one. A storm was on its way and the mall was without power, which left him with very little to do. Ben was in the security office sitting in front of ten blank surveillance screens counting the seconds between each flash of light and crash of thunder. Lightning flashed outside, followed by four seconds of silence and a BANG. Somewhere he heard that that is the way to tell how distant a storm is. Each second between lightning and thunder is supposed to be a mile that the storm is from you.

Four miles, he thought, his eyes half closed with anticipation of sleep. I’m sure lightning can’t strike somebody from four miles away. Ben pulled the lever on his chair that allowed him to recline and pushed with his back until his head hit the wall behind him. With his feet set comfortably on his desk, it was finally time to get some shuteye. Suddenly, something pulled him to his senses. In fact, it nearly pulled him from his chair as well. It was maybe a sixth sense that told him that he wasn’t alone there thirty minutes to midnight. Or maybe it was the clattering of iron shovels and picks against the hard cement floors of the gardening goods store next door.

Oh no! He thought. A burglar! What should I do? He considered leaving, running for the exit and not looking back. Instead, he grabbed his flashlight in case things got serious and he needed protection, then he headed out to investigate. A flashlight, he thought, I could use a club or a gun, even pepper spray would be nice, but no, I have a flashlight.

He looked right, towards the red neon ‘EXIT’ sign hanging above the emergency exit door at the end of the hall, but instead he turned left and toward the danger. As he approached the store, he choked-up on the flashlight and entered, it was dark, but he wasn’t about to give up his only protection for light. As he walked through the aisle displaying digging tools he tripped and slid across the concrete floor into a wall, knocking over a shelf of boxed weed-eaters, which landed right on top of him. He swung the flashlight wildly around, at all of the boxes yelling things that should not be repeated. He managed to get to his feet and was confident that his attacker lay unconscious on the floor.

A flash of lightning revealed that the thief had fled. Three seconds later he heard a BOOM, the crashing of thunder, followed by a rush of air going down the potted plants aisle as something brushed against his leg. Ben jumped and began running towards the exit of the shop, swinging the flashlight over his head at the sound of swooshing air that followed only inches behind him. He made it safely out of the store and dove into the fountain in the middle of the courtyard to take cover. It was then, while cowering in a shallow pool of water, that Ben realized that there was no robber. There was a ghost!

“AHHHHHH!!!!” His scream echoed down the hall and back, but nobody was there to hear him. The water was only a few inches deep, but his elbows and knees were completely soaked. When the water began to creep into his shoes, Ben decided to abandon the safety of the fountain for a dryer hiding place. He got up and brushed loose a few pennies that had gotten stuck to his elbows and began to sneak toward his office. Another flash of lightning, then one Mississippi, two Mississippi, BANG. The ghost took advantage of Ben’s momentary fright and sped straight at him, shrieking. Ben turned on heels and fled through the darkness, his wet shoes squeaking noisily as he ran. I should hide in one of these shops he thought as he ran past a t-shirt shop. He began pulling on doors as he went. However they were all locked and his keys were still hanging up in his office. Just as he realized this, he came to a shop that was open about a foot. He paused to think about whether he should go in when he heard the ghost again, pata-pata swoosh, pata-pata swoosh. He ran inside and shut the door. Light filled the mall as the door latched and one-one thousand BANG.

Stumbling, Ben made his way into the darkness of the shop while trying desperately to get the flashlight to work. It took only a few seconds for him to worsen his situation by losing the batteries. Drats!!! He exclaimed to himself and began feeling around in the darkness for them. Instead of the batteries, he came across a half-eaten box of cookies that was lying on the floor. He pondered a little on how and why the box ended up there, but then he realized that he didn’t care. The cookies would hopefully calm his nerves, so he claimed them as his own. These cookies taste pretty good, he thought once he tried a few. The darkness soon got to him though, and he realized that he was trapped. After a few more cookies, he decided to get over his fear and leave. But first I need a plan. He thought for a second or two and came up with the perfect escape: run to the nearest exit… and never come back.

He grabbed the box of cookies and threw the door open. Thunder roared as a flash of lightning illuminated the mall. The storm was right above him now, but the thought of being struck by lightning no longer crossed his mind. He grabbed a few cookies and stuffed them into his mouth as he started to run. Flash-rumble-crash! Something jumped at his leg. He suddenly wished that he had come up with a Plan B, but it was too late, he was just going to have to wing it. He ran faster and tried to scream with a mouthful of cookies, but he started to choke. Crash-rumble-flash. A shadow. He stepped on something, screeeech! Foom-bang, and he fell. Rumble-flash-crash… Silence.

* * *

“What happened here?” asked a shop owner in the mall as she came up to the yellow tape encircling half a dozen officers and paramedics.

“Well it looks like an open-and-shut case,” replied one of the medics as he walked up to the yellow tape. “Apparently the Security Guard got lonely last night. It was his first day on the job, you know, and I’m sure you could imagine how lonely it must get here at night. Anyway, it looks like he took out a couple of the pets from your shop to keep him company and he must have been trying to catch them using a box of cat-nibbles… when this happened.” The officer looked over his shoulder and the shop owner followed his gaze.

Ben laid there on the ground motionless with crumbs on his face and a box of chewy cat snacks in his hand. A cat was silently eating spilled nibbles off the floor around his feet. Swoosh, a canary flew by and the cat limped away chasing it, pata-pata swoosh, pata-pata swoosh.

“Aw Fluffy, he hurt my Fluffy!” The shop owner wailed.