A Chill in the Air

[YanYanGanaffi]

*Author's note: The events in this story; though fictionalized heavily, are based on true occurances at my place of work. Sam Hunter is a fictional version of myself. The series of adventures are taken from my few years as an amature ghost hunter and practicing student of the occult. I hope you enjoy. Jason*

 

 

Sam was riding his motorized double jack loaded down with two pallets of stacked frozen food items to be loaded onto a tracker trailer. He was a selector for a large supermarket chain centered in the southeastern United States. His job involved retrieving items from the warehouse he worked in to ship to the stores in the area. Though he was normally working in the dairy department of the warehouse, today he found himself in the freezer selecting frozen foodstock because that department was short handed. His older brother, Danny, used to work in this department for years. On the night shift, he said that he and the six other selectors occasionally saw odd happenings on their shift.

 

Sam could remember seeing on the news of an assistant contractor who killed his wife and buried her somewhere on the warehouse property. No one knew where she was buried; some speculated that he buried her in a spot that was set up to have several tons of concrete poured over it the next day, or the drainage pond behind the warehouse. From what he heard, the guy had been the first person in the state of Florida to be convicted of murder without a body. Danny believed her ghost haunted the warehouse.

 

While stacking some frozen hashbrown boxes, Sam thought back on the ghost kit he had prepared for the upcoming Halloween. Two of his fellow ghost hunters had come across a possibly violent haunting. It seemed that a large vortex of energy was opened up inside an old Spanish graveyard near St. Augustine by some idiot teenagers that had the brilliant idea of calling some astral nasty to see if anything would happen. The resulting mess wasn't pretty, leaving two of the kids in the I.C.U. at St. Vincent's Hospital and one in police custody. As the old saying goes,' Don't call up what you can't put down.'

 

Sam was looking at the item list when he heard the screaming coming from the icecream room. This was the coldest area of the warehouse and the center of most of the paranormal activity his brother spoke of. His head snapped to the direction of the screaming to see Fred Daniels running as fast as a three hundred pound man could run out of the icecream room. His screams where high pitched due to the panic in his voice. Crashing could be heard as several other workers stopped what they were doing to investigate. As one of them peeked in, a fifteen pound box of icecream bars smacked him in the head, knocking him out cold. The others that were there swore, dodging icecream boxes while attempting to carry the downed man out of there. Sam said a brief prayer, casting a quick protection spell before seeing what was going on.

 

Creeping up to the doorway, he did a quick turkey peek around the corner. The aisle was a complete mess. Many boxes were busted open and icecream scattered everywhere. He didn't see what caused the mess, but felt an overwhelming, hateful presence. He had dealt with enough ghosts and spirits to know that if this was the woman that was brutally murdered then buried out here, trying to communicate with the spirit wasn't going to go well. Besides, he had to neutralize the ghost because it had already injured someone. On the floor, he drew an invisiable sigil in the doorway to prevent the ghost from escaping. As he got up, he was struck in the chest by a plastic gallon bucket of icecream. The force of the blow knocked him on his rear. Quickly, he rolled out from the front of the doorway, seeing another bucket that was meant for him sail past where he had just been. This ghost wasn't playing game, so neither was Sam.

 

He got up and ran to the front dock area. Security had been called already. Sam knew that was just going to get more people hurt. Ignoring his supervisor's questions as to what he had seen or where he was going, the ghost hunter walked out to his van to get a large black gym bag. Inside it was his ghost hunting equipment and paranormal weaponry. The most noted of these was a short barrelled Mossberg 88 pump shotgun with shortened stock. It was loaded with modified shotgun shells specificly used for spiritual combat. Instead of the lead pellets that a normal shotgun had, these had iron filings that created a dust cloud. Ghosts and spirits are made of energy that can be disrupted and dispersed when in contact with iron or salt. Unfortunately, unless a spirit was full manifested, it was in the form of an orb; a small ball of energy the size of a tennis ball. In that form, they were extremely hard to hit. Sam came up with the idea for the dust shells some time ago, using them effectively to clean house in an abandoned school that Satanists used for animal sacrifices. The only flaw is that they were very short ranged.

 

Sam headed back to the freezer room. Before he got inside the building, he heard sirens in the distance. It sounded like at least one ambulance and maybe a couple of police cruisers. Everyone was gathered around the enterance to the freezer. One to the security guys was lying on the floor with a big cut on his head just above his right eye. Dropping the bag, Sam took out his first aid kit and handed it to one of the frozen food selectors. The selector opened it was Sam took out the short pump shotgun, loading it with iron dust shells. Many of the worker's eyes got wide upon seeing the weapon. Before anyone could say anything, he picked up the bag, going into the freezer. Before getting to the enterance of the icecream room, he dropped the bag, taking out some holy water to anoint himself. Taking a deep breath with shotgun at the ready, he crossed the threshold.

 

Immediately, he was set upon by the ghost in a full manifestation. Jerking the triiger in suprize, he fired at the spirit of the woman. She reeled from the hit, but it wasn't enough to discorperate her. Floating up to the ceiling near the cooling vents, Sam got a good look at her for the first time. Her head was disfigured from where her former husband had beat her to death with a hammer. The rest of her body looked as though it had been submerged in water. 'Well,' Sam thought,'that answers the question of where she's buried.'

 

Sam took aim with the shot gun again, but the ghost went into the form of an orb. With the florecent lighting, she was literally invisiable. Thinking quickly, he looked for the power box for the lights. If he could shut it down, he could she her. As his eyes scanned the area, a huge pallet of icecream was pulled down from one of the racks above Sam. The only thing that warned him was a slight creak of wood as the wooden pallet was being forced from the metal rack twenty feet above him. It was just enough of a warning for him to leap out of the way. he fired a shot into the rack after the pallet of heavy frozen icecream; which wieghed nearly two tons, crashed to the concrete floor. Sam was hit by a few of the pint sized containers of icecream, angering him more then hurting him. By luck, he spotted the power box. Turning the shotgun toward it, he opened the casing on it. The lever to turn the power off was secured with a time out key lock. Sam didn't have time to get the key, so he blasted it at close range with the shotgun. the force of the blast shorted out the power, which shut off the lights. Quickly fishing out a few more rounds, he scanned the area as he reloaded. A high pitched shriek sounded as the ghost came into contact with the protection spell he had cast on himself earlier. The ghost tried to back peddle out of range of the shotgun, but didn't make it this time. Pumping a shell into the chamber, Sam fired a direct hit into the fully manifested ghost. With a hellish wail, she discorperated into harmless mist.

 

Sam smiled as he unloaded the weapon. Walking back to the freezer, he collected the bag on his way out. Thankfully, he was able to walk away from this confrontation, this time...

 

The End

Edited November 25, 2004 by YanYanGanaffi

[YanYanGanaffi]

By the way, I feel I'm getting better with my writing skills, so feel free to set my cloths on fire over this story.