A Search For The Unknown

The Meeting

Asher pushed the door open and saw before himself a large room with champagne colored silk curtains and dark chocolate colored wood walls with only a fireplace to light the room. In front of the fireplace sat three large emerald green armchairs and in the middle armchair sat a tall skinny man. The man was very pale with greasy black hair. The man motioned for Asher and Eric to come sit down.

“Come sit down gentlemen, I am Thomas Winters. I am the one who contacted you, let’s begin discussing the job at hand.”

Asher and Eric sat down on either side of Thomas.

“Before we get down to business would either of you gentlemen like some tea? I made some just before you got here in hopes of having fresh tea ready for you.”

 Thomas waved his hand at a tea pot in front of him on a round stand in front of the fireplace. Asher walked over to the tea pot and picked it up, it is a dark red color with pictures painted on it of bats flying. Sitting next to where it sat are three cups with similar designs.

“Please pour me a cup of tea as well Asher, I was waiting for the two of you to come before I had my cup. I thought it would be terribly rude of me to have my cup before you two have your cups.”

Asher poured the tea cups full of tea and watched steam rise up out of the cups. He thought he smelt cinnamon, but wasn’t for sure. He then handed a cup of tea to both his father and Thomas before sitting back down with his own cup of tea. Asher took a sip of his tea and tasted hints of cinnamon and hints of something earthy. 

“What type of tea is this?” Asher asked Thomas.

“It’s my special blend I call it fall forest. I like to blend tea as a hobby, do you like it?”

“Yes it is a very nice blend.”

Asher takes another sip of the tea and stairs at the fire in the fireplace, feeling some of his anxiety fade away. 

“ I want to state first that I think it is a vengeful spirit but I want to tell you the whole story and let you decide for yourselves. So let me begin with the construction of this facility, even the construction of the facility was plagued with problems, we had a lot of trouble with the locals. We bought the lot with no trouble, but the moment we started trying to build on it the locals started freaking out saying it was sacred and that there was an ancient burial ground on the site. They started protesting outside of the build site, they held many town hall meetings in hope of getting awareness of the construction and to come up with ways to stop it. They also filed a Petition to get our building permits revoked. They failed, but they continued to try to stop us from building there.”

Thomas stopped and took a sip of his tea and stared at the fire focusing on the flames like he was trying to remember or trying to decide how to phrase what he was going to say next. Asher cleared his voice to voice a question.

“If the land was sacred and had a burial site on it how were you able to buy the land in the first place wouldn’t it be marked as such and protected from being bought for commercial use?”

Thomas looked at Asher and smiled knowingly.

“Your right if it was truly sacred land it wouldn’t have been up for sale and we wouldn’t have been able to buy it, plus if there was really a burial ground there it wouldn’t have been legally allowed to be sold to anyone. Our country has very strict laws about disturbing the resting place of the dead. After all, zombies and vengeful spirits have caused a lot of problems and deaths before the laws were enacted.”

Eric looked up from his tea and spoke up.

“So what happened next, why do you think it is a vengeful spirit then if it wasn’t sacred land?”

Thomas again stared intently at the fire, it was obvious that he was thinking hard about how to say the next part as if he doesn’t believe it or doesn’t know how to say it. He takes a large drink from his tea to steady his nerves. 

“Well you see once we started building weird things started happening. Like we had machines that work fine one day not work the next and when we would take them away to get fixed are mechanic would find nothing to be wrong with them. And the surveillance cameras we put up started to have malfunctions.”

Thomas started to rub his chin worried about saying the next part considering what would Asher and Eric think of him for what he was going to say next.

“And one morning when the builders got to the site they found traces of a ritual having taken place in the northern corner of the construction site. After that happened everything got more intense with the strange events. One builder got thrown fifty feet without anything touching him. Another got very ill and started vomiting everywhere. Some had strange marks and scratch marks appeared on their body without any explanation.”

Thomas took another long drink of his tea and got up to pour some more tea in his cup he then turned to face Asher and Eric.

“Then two of the builders disappeared.”

Thomas sighed and then turned away from them to look at the fire again.

“We found them about a week later but they couldn’t remember anything, where they had been or even who they were and they were very pale and dehydrated. It was a dreadful thing to see. I wanted to stop there an move the location to somewhere that we were more excepted and people would be fine with us building there but my older brother disagreed and believed that once we had the site and town completed the locals would be happy that we were adding a boost to their economy and giving them good jobs and affordable living.”

Thomas turned back slowly to face Eric and Asher once again with sorrow in his eyes. He took a long drink from his cup, as Eric cleared his throat.

“You never mentioned a brother before, is he the one on site that we will be talking with during the job or will it be you?” 

“You will be working for both me and my two older brothers we will all be at the site. We hope with all of us there we can get the matter taken care of quickly and efficiently. We will also be there to take care of our workers' concerns and to minimize the public's knowledge of the events. The Winters International Corporation doesn’t need any more bad publicity.”

Asher stared at the fire wondering why the people would try so hard to stop them from building there as to summon one of their ancestors to cause problems at the construction site. Did the locals have something hidden there that they didn’t tell the country or do they know something about the Winters International Corporation. What would cause the locals to take such drastic measures to try and stop them, summoning an ancestor would be the only kind of vengeful spirit they could get to wreak that level of havoc without there being a sacred spot or a graveyard near the construction site. 

“So what is happening at the facility now? What are you hoping for us to do?” Eric asked as he leaned forward putting his elbows on his knees.

“Well things around the factory have been destroyed, some have exploded, others have parts going missing, and we have had fences ripped out of the ground and some buildings and machines have had large scratch marks on them. And some of the workers have said they seen a shadowy being near the areas where these incidents have occurred.”  

Thomas leaned back in his chair and took a sip of his tea.

“So what do you gentlemen think? Is it a job you think you could handle? If you take the job we will pay to fly you out to the town and pay for your stay at our hotel in the town and we will pay you upfront half of the payment and the other half once the job is completed.”

Asher stock his hand out to his dad before he could answer Thomas.

“May I have a moment alone with my father to discuss with him about the job before we give you an answer?”

“Of course I need to step out for a moment anyways, I will be back in a few moments, but take as much time as you need to talk it over. Oh and I got the two of you a room for the night so you don’t have to drive back home so late at night.”

Thomas stood up, sat his cup next to the tea pot and went to walk out of the room.

“Thank you for getting us a room but that isn’t necessary. We will be okay and what if we decide not to take the job?” Eric asked as he stood up from his chair to look at Thomas.

“Even if you don’t take the job, I would feel better if you stay the night. I feel bad for making you come so late at night and keeping you here for so long after all it is almost midnight and it is well over a two hour drive home for you.”

As Thomas said this, the clock in the corner told midnight.

“Consider it a thank you gift for coming on such short notice.”