The Missing Wall

This is really kind of weird. Today it seemed like everybody in the building came to work. I had a hard time finding a place to park and ended up parking right next to (you guessed it) the old white pickup down in the dark corner of the garage. I completely forgot about checking out the burned out light on the way up to the elevators, but I sure as heck remembered it as I walked back down the slope toward the dark, dead-end corner at the bottom of the lowest level of the parking garage. By 6pm the lower level is almost always empty and it was just me and that stupid white truck. I whistled loudly and fumbled with my phone trying to think of somebody to call because the bogeyman never gets you when you’re talking to someone, right?

Projecting as much bravado as I could muster, I casually tossed my gear into the trunk and started to climb into the car and effect my escape. Just before turning the key I remembered that I’m a grown man and that it would be awfully silly if I didn’t go ahead and look at the lighting fixture. I’ve been working in that building off and on for the last ten years and it’s like a second home to me – there was no reason to be scared.

I was kind of wrong.

I walked over to look up at the stupid lighting fixture. It looked like a ruggedized version of the fluorescent shop lights that you can get at a Home Depot. It was mounted up inside the concrete ribbing of the deck. It was probably then that I realized that if I can’t find time to do chores around the house that I had absolutely no business troubleshooting lighting fixtures for a building that has a paid crew of maintenance workers. As I turned to walk back to my car I heard the rumbling thump of someone’s car rolling toward the exit… k-k-klump, k-k-klump

They were one floor above me, but it sounded like a part of the sound was coming at me from behind the old white truck… a weird booming echo. You know how weird sounds are in parking garages. Without thinking I took a few steps over to look at the wall behind the truck.

It wasn’t there.

No shit.

There is an opening in that dark corner. To say that I was freaked out is an understatement. I half turned toward my car to go get the flashlight off my utility belt before remembering that I haven’t worn my utility belt since the last movie I worked on as a prop guy. It’s permanently coiled up in a chair near my desk, wondering if it’ll ever see action again.

I’d like to tell you that I went over and looked into the opening but I didn’t. I walked back to my car, got in, locked the doors, cranked it up and drove home. Tomorrow I might get Daniel to go down there with me to look around. There’s a flashlight in the office. What gets me is that there are way too many people working in the building for this to be a secret. Jose and Mike and the other maintenance guys have to know about the opening, I’ll ask him if I see him tomorrow.

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