Short Stories 219 — Writing Prompt 52

Write about a person or object vanishing into thin air.

Wither Away (Part 2)

The setup is complete, yet there is one thing that remains, which he placed on the desk beside the camera, a double-barrel shotgun. As he placed it, he was happy, he did not face a situation where he would have had to use it. The reason he bought such a big gun with him, was to scare any wolves or wildlife, in case it is night, to protect himself.

After an hour of setting up, Tim finally had some time to relax. He cleared the bed and sat on it for few minutes. Apart from the gas-burners muffled noise, nothing could be heard. And right at this moment, he knew it was time, he is actually in this and had nowhere to escape. In complete silence, an animal's roar could be heard from very far away. It was a spine-chilling noise that sounded wicked. After that one scream, nothing was heard.

Now, all Tim had to do is wait for the first move. As he sat there in complete darkness, even switching the torch in his hand. Everyone who has met Tim in his life, always had one thing to say and that is, he is fearless. And he cannot be scared. And Tim, put all his chips on his attribute, when it comes to his career, taking all kinds of jobs, others would refuse. And here he is sitting in complete darkness, in the middle of nowhere, waiting for things that probably don’t even exist.

“This is going to be a long and boring night,” Tim said to himself, and instantly he felt a cold breeze incoming from this left. He looked to his left and the window was closed. He inspected the window, to see if there were any openings. But the glass on the window is intact. “The window is shut, so where did the cold wind come from.”

He got up from the bed, as he had to find where the opening is because if there is an opening the heat won’t be maintained in the room, and it will be freezing cold. He inspected the room with the bed as well as the small passage near the entrance. All the windows are shut, and the one that had a broken window, he had already taped it. “If all the windows are closed, where did the cold breeze come from?” he said to himself.

He looked up to see if there is a hole in the ceiling, but that too seemed intact. And so is the floor. Even though the floor had a couple of cracks and massive gaps between the adjacent wooden planks, the air wasn’t coming from there. “Well, whatever. It did not happen again, so let it be,” he said to himself and sat on the bed. He grabbed his left leg as it ached from all the traveling.

While he proceeded to massage it gently, he once again felt the cold wind. He started to get really confused. He decided to change positions and go and sit on the chair next to the table. And after changing the positions, he did not feel the same cold wind. Tim decided that he had enough rest and now it is time to work. He picked up his voice recorder and started calling out, in an attempt to contact a spirit or a ghost, just for the sake of looking like he is trying.

He knew that whether the ghost appears or not, the money will appear based on the effort he puts in, or the effort he shows he is putting in on the camera. After all, he was working for a Paranormal Investigation team, and his job is to scout places like these beforehand, so the main team doesn’t waste their time. Most of the time, in this business, the majority of the locations are not fraudulent or something working in the environment that makes the owners feel like something suspicious is going on. And these places just felt boring.

And soon he heard something. the entrance door to the room moved slightly. He has been in such situations many times and it has stopped bothering him. In fact, he has gotten used to it. “It is probably the wind, that I noticed earlier,” he said. But he had to investigate for the sake of the camera. And he did it.

“If something is present here, can you give me another signal,” Tim said with a loud voice. As soon as he finished his sentence, he heard a knock on the door. It is more of a thud.

Tim walked to the door with his flashlight to see where the noise came from. Slowly opening the door, to check if something was outside. “Surprisingly there are no footsteps,” he said out loud. And proceeded to look left and right. There is no one there. He came back to the room, shutting the door close, and peeked through the window to see if anything was out there, but nothing is moving.

As he looked around, he once again heard the thud on the door. And this time, he rushed to the door. Once again no one was to be found. And upon coming back he realized, a noise of something falling in the room. He ran back in, to see the dangling cabinet door had fallen on the ground. By now Tim is perplexed. “So the door had to fall when I came to this house, what a coincidence. But what about the thud on the door, and that too twice.”

Before he could think of any excuse, he heard the polaroid in the passage go off. It is attached to a motion sensor, so someone or something must be there, he said to himself. He went to investigate and got the image. After shaking it for a while, the image appeared and nothing was on it. “How did this go off. It must be this freezing temperature, it must be malfunctioning,” he said.