the junk yard

The Wrecking Yard
By
Mary Smith

John and Ed work at the local wrecking yard, which in their small town, that’s about the best a high school drop-out can do. Their job is the nightshift and they are supposed to keep an eye on the large storage area where the junked and wrecked vehicles are kept. This is pretty easy since the entire place is guarded with video cameras. The only time either boy has to leave their little office situated in the middle of the enclosure is if they see someone that has somehow managed to get inside the ten-foot-high chain-link fence.

On this particular night, around midnight, both have settled down hoping that the usual prowlers won’t come tonight since there haven’t been any recent accidents or auto repossessions. The only time that people mainly try to get inside the yard after hours is if they are after something left in a wreck or their vehicle has been repossessed and the company has asked the yard to keep it under lock and key until such time as they can come and reclaim it. Since none of these scenarios has occurred the guys are happy to sit in the office and drink coffee or sodas all night and occasionally look at the large television screen that shows the video pictures. Each camera outside, has its own square on the screen of the TV--one screen, all cameras.

John has just established himself in the ancient recliner that the boss usually uses when he’s around, and begins to sip a fresh cup of steaming hot chocolate. As he is about to raise the cup to his lips, his eyes go to the screen located a few feet in front of him. The cup stops mid-way to his mouth and John becomes motionless as he stares at what he sees on the monitor. He hardly noticed the steam from the drink caressing his face.

There, standing several feet off the ground were people; at least what resembles people. John can see right through them to the objects immediately behind them. They appear to be all over the yard and hovering beside the wrecked cars and trucks.

“Hey what ‘cha doing sitting there, John? Something on the screen there?” Ed had come in from the restroom down the hall and he noticed that John was very still and quiet, something that was rare for him. “What’s up dude?” he wasn’t even drinking his chocolate, which was his favorite beverage.

Before John could respond Ed walked up behind him and glanced at the screen too. It’s a joke among the employees about the monitor being an old television screen hooked up to a recorder underneath the desk and nothing can be seen except what the camera outside shows. No favorite television programs for anyone to watch while on duty.

Ed saw what John was seeing and immediately understood why John was so still and quiet. Ed stood behind the recliner with his jaw resting on his chest and gaped wide-eyed at the screen. “What the hell is that?” He finally asked and thumped John on the shoulder who recovered from his shock when his chocolate dribbled from the cup onto his lap. Thank god it had cooled off, he thought.

“I don’t know,” John finally answered when he recouped from Ed’s smack, “but they aren’t on but the one camera, but it looks like they are all over the yard! Figure that one out,” he finished as he turned to look at his friend.

“Yeah,” Ed agreed as he glanced at the other three screens that are on the monitor beside the specter filled one, “you’re right, it looks like they are everywhere but just the one camera picks them up.”

“I’m gonna go out and check it out,” John said and pushed himself up from the recliner, “I’m going just outside the door so you keep an eye on the screen and yell if any of them move.” The cameras were hung so that the signal would overlap one another making it an unbroken picture, more or less, on the screen.

John stepped cautiously out the one and only door to the office and although his feet were on the ground, he held with one hand to the door facing—just in case. “Hey!” he called to Ed, “you can’t see them now!” his voice had the slightest tremor..
“They’re still there!” Ed called back, “I can see them on the screen.” He joined John briefly at the door and then turned back to check the monitor again. “You can’t see them with the naked eye,” he said in a low voice, “the camera is the only thing that picks them up.”

John turned and slowly came back inside and resumed his position in the recliner with Ed still standing behind the chair--closeness giving each some comfort. Each fully expected something to come screeching and screaming at them from outside. For hours, they watched the figures do nothing but float beside the vehicles; not one made a threatening move of any sort. When the sun began to peek over to the east and the spark touched the apparitions, they vanished. They didn’t go quickly, like poof, or anything. It was a gradual ‘erasing’, like chalk from a blackboard. Beginning at the head, they just-went-away.

Although the figures were gone, the boys kept their eyes on the monitor until the morning crew came at eight and relieved them. Neither of them spoke about what they had seen during the night for fear that the others would make fun of them.

As John and Ed clocked out at the door, John noticed the date on the machine and jabbed Ed with his elbow to get his attention. He pointed out that the date the night before had been October thirty-first—Halloween. Now they both understood what had occurred during the night. People who had died in the wrecked vehicles in the yard had briefly come back on the night the dead walk the earth and haunted the machines that had taken their lives. The guys went home and to bed and thanked the lord that something like that can only happen once a year.

As John let Ed off at his house Ed turned and said, “I think next year I’ll take off on Halloween. What about you, dude?”