☰ The Room That Doesn't Exist

[A Have Tools, Will Travel... Story]

So, about an hour or so of fishing in silence, after he'd recounted the Ms. Burgess horror, I finally got Sam to tell me why he retired early. 

You see, Sam is only 51. He's strong as an ox, he's smart, he's still damn good at being a handyman. He loved the job like I do, but we all have our breaking points.

Sam decided to call it quits when he and Paddy came across, and I quote, "a room that didn't exist".

They were roofing a lady named Mrs. Ellis's house when Paddy fell off the roof. Sam heard a crash like Paddy had fallen through something but, he said that Paddy completely disappeared before he ever hit the ground.

As soon as Paddy fell, Sam jumped up from shingling and went to the corner of the house and when he looked to the ground where Paddy should've been, there was nothing.

Sam was stumped. 

He got down from the roof and started looking for Paddy. He called his name a few times until he finally heard something. He heard Paddy trying to say something. After following Paddy’s voice for a few minutes, Sam found himself right under the spot where Paddy fell.

“I’m up here. In a room.” was what Paddy kept saying, but all Sam could see was the side of the house and the empty area beside it. 

Paddy described the room as being a regular looking room, but he said it had no windows or doors. His only light source was from the hole where he had fallen through the roof that shouldn’t have existed. Sam told him to hold on, that he was going to get the ladder and push it over the side of the roof, over the “invisible room” until Paddy could see it through the hole he’d made when he fell. Paddy said okay, but told Sam to hurry, because he was scared. Paddy said he didn’t know what was going on or how something like this could’ve happened.

Sam tried to keep Paddy talking, so that he would know where to point the ladder. After 30 minutes of trying like hell to get the ladder positioned over top of the invisible room so Paddy could climb out, he finally yelled that he could see it. Sam said he had never been so scared, yet so relieved when he saw his friend crawl up that ladder out of thin air. I can’t imagine watching something like that, I think I would have called for help, but Sam, he’s braver than me.

When Paddy was safely out of the room, they collected the ladder and quit the job early. They knew that they would have to go back and finish it the next day, but they were both so terrified at what they’d seen, Sam suggested they take the rest of the day off so Paddy could spend it with his family. Sam said he’d never seen Paddy so happy; so easy with a smile. Paddy was just glad to be alive. 

Sam retired about a week after that. Sam’s been gone for almost a year now and we keep in touch. Paddy works for a different company now, but I think he mainly does small repairs these days. 

Absolutely no roofing jobs whatsoever.

-Conner

☰Want More? I Recommend Reading...#4

What's goin' on creepy readers! Wait... that came out wrong. You guys aren't creepy, you like to read creepy! That being said, I've got another recommendation for you in this short blog series entitled "Recommended Reading", which focuses on weird fiction, short stories and flash fiction collections (with an emphasis on horror and the strange).

This book is one of my favorites because I remember originally reading this author's stories on Reddit and being very impressed. The fourth book in my series of bad ass short story compilations is (drum roll please...)

Tales of the Sinister: Twelve Terrifying Stories by Leo Petracci. The stories in this collection are longer than the bite sized fiction I talked about in the second post in this series, but they are not as long as some of the stories in Nightmare Fuel.

Like Darcy Coates, Leo Petracci is one of my favorite authors because he proves that words are powerful. Just a few of them can do the trick, giving hundreds and thousands of readers something to think about for a long time to come...

Did you read this book? Did you like it? If so, drop me a line in the comments section below and tell me which short story in this collection was your favorite. I'd love to hear from you!

Thanks for reading and until next time,

Avrin

Closet Light

There is something that hangs out in my bedroom closet at night. Yesterday evening, I was dozing off, when I thought I heard something rustle on the other side of the door. I ignored it, and forced myself to close my eyes.

Ms. Burgess's Pets

My name is Sam. I’ve been a handyman for about 25 years now. I retired not too long ago, but I still think of myself as being a man who fixes things for a living. I always will. What I’m about to tell you happened a long time ago, but the thought of it still haunts me to this day.

Have Tools, Will Travel... Again

Huge Claw Marks on Rooftop

It was summer time when I started, hot as hell everyday, and we were roofing houses a lot. We did two big roof jobs back to back. The reason we were there was because (obviously) the woman needed her roof fixed, but why she needed it fixed was the weird part. The roof she had was relatively new, save for three huge gashes going down the front side of her roof. These "gashes" or dig marks would have looked like animal claws if they hadn't been a foot apart from each other and they were so deep, they went through the shingles, the felt paper and the roof decking. If the slashes had been going the opposite way, I think they would have tore right through the rafters as well.

Have Tools, Will Travel…

When I started this job, I was 23. Now I'm 28, and I have a fair amount of experience. I love my job. What I do serves a purpose. It's not like I'm saving the world or anything, but I do think what we do helps the community. It helps people. There's nothing worse than having your already busy life disrupted by an unexpected repair that you can't do yourself. That's where I come in. (My name’s Conner by the way.)