I hadn’t been in the job for just more than a week or two before they pulled me into the office to talk about shift changes. Apparently corporate were cutting back after the buyout and there were layoffs across the board, I wasn’t one of them but it sucked. The night shift team had gone from 6 guys, 2 in the office and 4 on patrol, to only 3. What was worse was they had staggered our starting times due to an incident last week where our area manager had caught us still smoking and sitting around fifteen minutes after the start of our shift. That meant I was the first one on site until 2am.
Three hours alone kind of seemed a bit freeing at first but the place kind of gave me the heebie-jeebies towards the eastern portion of the patrol route where I would be going. There were little to no lights over there and the entrance to Eddie’s Tunnel was like a gaping abyss. It was named that after one of our members of staff on the excavation team was found crushed into unconsciousness between two of the support rigs in there and subsequently closed until deemed safe. I always found it a bit strange how the steel supports could snap in the way that the guys had told me they had. But what the hell did I know I was just a dumb kid.
I unlocked my locker in the changing room in the on-site security office. It was one of those portable modular buildings with two stories that were connected by an external staircase. Upstairs was the CCTV monitoring room, break room and manager’s office. Downstairs we had a toilet, changing room and another office. I pulled off my clothes and got into my uniform. The plain black top, black cargo pants, boots, fleece with security printed across the back and patrol belt were on in minutes. It wasn’t exactly warm in the autumn months that was for sure.
Slipping one last cigarette into my mouth and lighting it, I closed the door and began to walk. The light from the massive floodlights seemed to cut through the 10pm darkness like a knife through butter until you hit the trail. I hated the trail when it had rained during the day as I always found a way to slip over. But tonight I was in luck, I shone the torch onto the ground highlighting where to step and made my way towards the East fence. I almost lost my footing but regained it coming back onto the gravelled path.
I passed the broken excavator with the missing track and flicked the butt of my cigarette into the bucket as per usual. Then I heard what sounded like someone talking softly, my head snapped around as I called out “Security! Who’s there? This site is closed and you are trespassing!” but no one showed themselves and the noise stopped immediately. I had heard that prolonged exposure to the darkness could make you hallucinate audio visually so I shrugged my shoulders after two minutes of shining the light into the obvious hiding places and carried on my patrol.
Checking my watch it was 12.30am now and I had covered almost half of the route as I was nearing Eddie’s tunnel. The western portion had CCTV and movement-triggered alarms so we only patrolled this side of the site unless we had three consecutive false alarms. Then I heard it again, it was coming from the direction of Eddie’s tunnel. I ran up to the flat area at its entrance and listened. It sounded like someone in a very soft conversational tone was saying “Help me, please help me” something which I found extremely unsettling. The hairs on my arms stood directly on end as I peered into the tunnel but there was nothing in there as the light bounced off of the back wall. Then the voice stopped all of a sudden when I shone the light on the remnants of the pillar that crushed the tunnel’s namesake. The sound of metal crashing deeper inside made me turn and run like a coward. My heart pounded in my chest and my legs pumped faster than I’d ever moved them before.
I hit the trail and immediately slipped. I scrambled back to my feet again and took off running. There was something on site with me and whatever it was, was not friendly. That much I could assume by it wanting to lure me into a place no one, not even the day crew, dared go. It was then I began to see shapes creeping alongside the fence off to my right. I could see the light spilling down from the floodlights just up ahead. I was almost there and I could stay there until the next guy arrived, fuck the rules and corporate bullshit. I slowed slightly as I reached the lit area and neared the relative safety that the temporary building would afford me.
Mounting the stairs I did not look behind me and pulled on the handrail for extra propulsion. The door was almost ripped off by my almighty pull and I locked both the deadbolt and regular lock. I found the corner of the room in the darkness and sat. It was now 1am, there was only 45 minutes until Craig, who I knew enjoyed a coffee and cigarette before his shift too, arrived on site. I heard the steel stairs creaking and I closed my eyes tight like a frightened child watching a suspense horror. Whatever was out there couldn’t scare me as much if I couldn’t see it break down the door. The door handle rattled and the door banged in the frame, but the locks held. I pissed my pants right there on the spot. Then the stairs creaked again as whatever was out there descended them. Then I heard the downstairs door slam. I could hear it tearing up the office below as the unmistakable sound of boxes being knocked over and their contents clattering on linoleum made me quiver. What really shook me was the sound again of someone calling nonchalantly for help. Was it mocking Eddie? Surely it was someone playing a prank.
I almost called out that I was calling the police as my hand fell to my pocket. My phone wasn’t inside. I checked my watch again. 1.39am. Craig would be on site in roughly 5 minutes. Craig, who was an ex-marine, would see whoever or whatever was downstairs off. But he needed not, another door slammed. This time it was on the side where the changing room was. Then I could hear the unmistakable sound of boots marching off on the gravel outside.
When Craig arrived he radioed me from his car. We had to take our radios home as the day shift kept taking them off of charge. “Olympus, I’m here. How long until you get back for your break?” He said over the radio, “I’m already back mate” I replied shakily. “Are you okay mate? You sound like you’ve been crying” he laughed in return, “Craig can you come upstairs to the office?”, I unlocked the door and let him in. “What the fuck is going on?” He asked. I told him everything but he didn’t believe me fully yet. “Yeah? Lets go see then”, we left the safety of the office and went downstairs.
The downstairs office was destroyed. The fluorescent lighting tube was hanging down by its wires and boxes of paperwork had been flung across the room. It looked like a small bomb had gone off in the changing room but the toilet was fine. Interestingly there were muddy dust prints all over the floor that weren’t there earlier. “What the fuck…” Craig breathed “Yeah whoever it was, they were waiting for me like some sort of deranged lunatic”, Craig looked at me with serious eyes and nodded to the ceiling indicating to go upstairs with him.
We checked the CCTV and saw nothing. Absolutely nothing. Me running at a full sprint from the trail and into the office. Then nothing again. Then Craig arriving and us exiting the office, me with piss stained pants. When our new shift supervisor, Bill, rolled in at 4am we told him too. He was physically enraged that someone dared threaten the safety of one of his team. He was even more infuriated that corporate had changed our shift pattern putting a young member of staff alone at such a vulnerable time period.
In an uncharacteristic move by Bill, he went against the rules that night. He told us, as we were cleaning up the office and reattaching the light, that we would be starting tomorrow’s shift together. An unprecedented move on his part as he had seemed like such a stickler for procedure in our previous encounters but an extremely welcome one in my eyes.
We finished the patrol and sat together in the break room as the first of the day shift came in. My coffee had gone cold but I did not feel like drinking it after what I had experienced. Craig drove me back to his flat and let me shower in his bathroom. I crashed on his couch after that and we ordered dinner for myself, him and his girlfriend. I ate it at his encouragement. I was so shaken up but I knew that I had to eat something before the next shift. His girlfriend went to bed and we sat smoking on the steps of the flat. He told me stories of his time in the marines and I told him about my time in school and how I got the job through a family friend. But before long it was time to go to work.