“never combat the supernatural and meet it without fear, and it will not trouble you.”- Lord Leith
Alongside a river, a local news station grew its roots on cursed soil. I had just replaced the previous operator who had left for unknown reasons. I was in charge of the night shift. (The job was to maintain the signals of the network and local programming.) After the nervousness of being new at a job position and alone, I thought I was just having anxiety. (Switching from a day shift to a night shift is not easy on the mind and body.) But I know that this wasn’t the case.
The low, gray clouds scaffolding the moon in the black sky reflected upon the river. A fortress of steel and cement lay nestled alongside the river inbetween hundreds of mangroves and large mossy oak trees, the same lands that has grown Dead Man’s Oak tree, a haunted tree with apparitions of a headless horseman riding a white horse. I rode in from the west, over a bridge, raised enough that a sailboat could fit its mast underneath without a worry of the tides. At the crown of the bridge, where visibility was the best, I could make out some of the satellites lining the roof of the news station.
I opened the gate with my new identification badge and parked my car in the lot along side the river. I walked through the building as the T.V monitors displayed the meteorologist going on and on about a severe thunderstorm in our surrounding viewing areas. I felt the beginning of the storm as a few drops of rain caught me on the way into the building. After passing through a few workrooms I made it to the control room. The room has no windows and the only way to view the outside world is from the security cameras that remain still because how lifeless (or so I thought) the building is. The hundreds of T.V monitors all stacked up in a grid. Computers lining a long desk, and control switchers, not to mention walking above a sea of cable wires radiate a loud constant humming noise. My senses completely overloaded, I continued to drink coffee and fight the urge to sleep.
After a while I became hyper-focused from the sensory overload of the flashing monitors, and the constant hum of the machines working in unison. I scanned the room every second in my spare time from maintaining the computers. I was being pulled from each side of the room. My attention started to focus on what was pulling me from one side to the other. I felt as if I was being watched. I was not only being watched but I was being persuaded by each side to come closer. I pushed my self as far back against the wall as I could go so I would not have to be in the middle of this situation. It helped, but I could still feel them calling me to join. It was inevitable, the more I tried to resist the more I would feel their presence. I checked the two spots where I felt the presence coming from. On one side, to my left, a wall of recievers and cable boxes; On the other side, to my right, an archway of cable wires against a wall. I found myself with no reasonable explanation.
I finished the shift, forgetting about what had happened that night. After getting a good days sleep from sunrise to sunset, I awoke. The clouds were the same as the fortnights, low, gray clouds scafffolding the moon in the black sky. The river reflected the cloudy, moonlit sky. Yesterdays storm had finished and as I walked across the building again the meteorologist was expecting another one of similar strength. At a certain point in the nightime during my work I felt the same tugging of both sides of the room. I felt I was being pulled to one side, and then pulled to the other side simultaneously. I stayed silent. My mind raced as the questions kept piling up. Each noise, each tick, each creek, sent my head twitching in the direction where it was coming from. I was under attack. I felt each imperfect, out of place sound, a bullet, being shot in my direction. I could tell because of the steady humming from the machines which sound was not perfect. My ears started to adapt to the surroundings. My eyes started to travel rapid amongst the quick movements from all of the monitors that were projecting in the background of the computers.
A woman! It is a woman! The one from the right. I see her. She is just standing there and she will not go away.
