A mundane electrical job takes a sinister turn, when the electrician discovers he’s being watched." (3min read)

 

I’m hunkered down in the trenches. The outdated 1944 fuse-board looks like it’s been hit by a 60 millimetre, smoothbore, muzzle-loading, mortar bomb. Wires strewn out all over the place like a disemboweled soldier; I’m frantically trying to stuff them back where they came from. The tight space is suffocating; I feel like John McClane — crawling through a ventilation shaft in the Nakatomi Plaza, on a warm Christmas Eve in 1988. 

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Suddenly my spidey senses start tingling. I can feel a set of piercing eyes burning into the back of my head like Superman’s heat vision. The deep slow breathing makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. I slowly turn my head...”damn”, I have myself a watcher.

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Twenty minutes pass, I reluctantly glance over my shoulder. He’s now moved closer; standing there licking his lips, stalking me like a piece of meat; I’m now perspiring and semi-cooked. The dying light is slowly exiting the room, my silver zippo lighter the only source of inconsistent illumination. It’s now a race against time, I need to finish the job before he finishes me. 

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BOOM! I flick on the circuit breaker. Light enters the room like a saviour from above. I relax, I breath, I slacken off my tool belt. I turn around and to my amazement, he’s gone. I quickly gather my tools, collect my bounty and head for the exit. “Yippee ky-yay mother”...without warning, the lair descends into complete darkness. I hear the faint reverberation of a circuit breaker tripping in the distance...”SHIT!”

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I quickdraw my holstered flashlight and squeeze the trigger — it misfires. A deep sense of dread fills the pit of my stomach as I remember that I hadn’t recharged the battery.

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“Hello...excuse me” I call out.

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But the only reply is the ringing echo of my own trembling voice. I cautiously wade through the gloomy, murky shadows, back towards the fault laden fuse-board. As I inch closer, I notice an eerie silhouette nestled in the doorway. Unexpectedly, the lights flick on to reveal the watcher’s spine-chilling, ominous smile. The light departs and the vantablack void returns with a vengeance. I drop my toolbox and run towards the door — trying to find passage to the place I was before. 

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It’s locked. I’m trapped. I sprint up the stairs and head into a room, slamming the door behind me. I try to catch my breath; gulping down oxygen like a marooned fish out of water. A glimmer of glacial moonlight pierces through the icy window to reveal a large toolbox, some copper pipe and 3 small bottles of propane gas. And then it suddenly dawns on me, this isn’t any random psychopath, I’ve been lured here by my arch-nemesis — a pipe bender, a turd wrangler...A PLUMBER! 

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The watcher calmly enters the room, locking the door behind him. He lights his blowtorch and takes out a pair of rusty pliers from his pocket. He looks me dead in the eye.

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“I’m going to get medieval on your ass” he exclaims in his low gravelly voice. 

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Suddenly a rotating blade starts to cut though the locked wooden door with a blood-curdling squeal. The door is violently kicked through and a mysterious figure enters wielding a circular saw. 

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“Who are you” I ask.

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“I’m the motherfuckin' carpenter”

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(2019)