Got 'Em Read online

  I reply, in shock, “Whoa, okay.”

  As I begin backing away, he whispers, saying, “I didn’t tell you anything boy. Please don’t hate me.” As I keep backing away further, he repeats what he said in the same tone, “I didn’t tell you anything, please don’t hate me.” I make my way back to the car as I come out of my daze. Opening the door, I quickly hop in and start the car and reverse out of the driveway onto the main road, then put my foot down to take off.

  Driving up the main road, I fall deep into thought about what Jervis had told me. It all makes sense. Even though I have no belief in this obnoxious thing, it really did make sense. I pull over to the side of the road before the T-intersection that went either to Sydney or to Lithgow, and rustle through the paperwork that I have brought with me, stuffed in my pocket. I have a look at the map I was given to see where the warehouse is, and memorise its location. Placing the paperwork on to the passenger seat, I pull out onto the road then turn right at the T-intersection towards Lithgow.

  Coming into Lithgow a little while later, I make a left turn onto the second road into Lithgow and follow it up to another T-intersection a couple of kilometres up. Making another left turn I follow it for another 17 kilometres until I come to the location on my left, where there are numbers on the farm fence, ‘one-zero-nine-five-six’. Pulling over I go through the paperwork again, as I see that number there too; there it is, next to ‘property number.’

  Driving my way up to the fence, to enter the property, I stop to get out and open the gate which has a padlock on it. I remember, back at the lawyer’s office, he had said, “Your grandfather said, ‘Put these keys onto your set of house keys, you will know what they are to when you come to it.’” I pull out my house keys and there is one key for the padlock on this gate. I unlock it.

  After unlocking the gate and hopping back into my car, I drive through the opening of the fence and stop just past it, to shut and lock the gate back up. Hopping back in my car, I commence driving. About ten minutes of driving goes by as I approach the first trees. I have to be careful driving this little beast—my car—down the corrugated dirt road.

  Coming up to the first line of trees, I can’t quite see this supposed ‘huge’ shed-warehouse thing, until the road curves off to the right and 300 metres later, off to the left and peering through the tall trees, I start seeing it, and boy is it big!

  Coming up the front part of the warehouse, parking my car and hopping out, I gasp, “Shit, this is secluded! I could get away with murder!” I giggle, bringing my hand up to my mouth in shock of having something so big in my possession. I take a short walk to the side of the warehouse closest to me, and take a look down the side—it is very long! When I imagine 800 metres by 600 metres, I do not think this big!

  I walk up to the door which is closest to me, on the left side of the warehouse. Opening it, I see barely anything as it is quite dark in here; you can see vaguely, but can’t make anything out, like in the evening, before the streetlights are supposed to come on when you can only see a little. Anyhow, to my left is the main switchboard which is on a sheet of metal that comes out from the wall by about 40 centimetres. Finding the switch, I turn on the lights. For about forty seconds, the lights turn on, making a little clanking sound row by row.

  Chapter Five

  The Warehouse

  Watching the florescent lights light up the entire warehouse right down to the last row, where you can hear the last clanking noise from them turning on. I look around and down the entire open-spaced warehouse that obviously has support poles every 100 metres or so—I can’t tell exactly. My jaw drops with every row that lights. It feels like my heart jumped out and did the bolt; I am extremely surprised by the size of it.

  As I start walking away from the power box, I make my way down towards the far end of the warehouse. Turning around after hearing a little zap, I notice a door beside the electricity box; the sound has come from there. So I decide to walk on over to it.

  Opening the door; it is also very dark, but there is a light switch on the left-hand side, on the other side of the sheet of metal that the electricity box is on. I flick the switch, expecting it to be an extremely small room, but boy was I wrong! It is a flight of stairs leading to what seems like a basement to this joint.

  Walking on down the eleven stairs, I come to a corner step that leads down another nine stairs. Just down the bottom, there is a pull switch, kind of like what the old buses have to open the manual doors, but smaller; like the emergency pull button thingies. So, pulling it down, and as so, the lights turn on. Looking around as the lights come on, I think, This is a fair-sized basement, it ought to be about five by five metres. Over to the right of the basement, at the far end to where I am standing at the bottom of these steps, there is another door. I think to myself, Where could this possibly lead to?

  Making my way over to the door, something must be loose or something, because it falls and scares the shit out of me! All you can hear as I try to grab the handle of the door is like the sound of a saucepan dropping onto a tiled kitchen floor. But only here, it is cement. Opening this door, it leads me to an extremely dark area. I can’t see, not even vaguely, and not knowing where the switch is, I yell out, “HELLO!” as I peer into the darkness.

  The echo hints that the room is slightly larger than the one I am currently standing in. I have one hand on the door, and the other on the wall; bringing my hand that is on the wall in front of me, I hit a switch or something, because I begin hearing this buzzing noise. It’s the same buzzing noise that was coming from the electricity box upstairs.

  Then a florescent light comes on just in front of the door. I can see a little bit, but not the entire room. Though when I shout, it sounds like my echo drops, then comes up as it fades out. Turning around to the wall on the other side of the room, there are what look like controls, and a bunch that look like switches. Making my way over to it, I vaguely make out what they are due to this dim florescent light that lights up bugger all. There is a switch saying ‘one’ above it, ‘on’ to the left and ‘off’ to the right.

  It is now that I hear something slam. As I turn, I can see the door closing, I had forgotten to jam it open. I go back over to the door and re-open it. Thankfully there is no lock, or if there is, it didn’t lock on me. Suddenly the damn florescent light turns off. Now I have a clear mind, but I feel something shonky is going on here. As I proceed to enter the room, the light turns back on.

  I make my way back to what looks like another power board and flick the switch from ‘off’ to ‘on’, then I start hearing a very loud ’CLANK’. I turn around to where the noise is coming from; another seven little clanks follow, similar to the ones upstairs from the other florescent lights.

  The room is probably two, maybe three times the size of the one I just walked out of. It turns out to be a quarter of the size of the warehouse that is sitting on top of it. In all honesty, what in God’s name was my grandfather thinking having something so big?

  The expression on my face is one of awe. I can’t move, I don’t know what to do. I begin walking forward towards a railing that has a two metre drop off to it and a flight of stairs to the left to walk down into the bottom where the drop off leads to. So, from where I am standing, it is like a short porch from the room I walked out from, with a slanted switchboard alongside the wall on the side that I am on. I use it to turn the power on; it comes out about four metres, which I can’t make out at the moment due to the shitty florescent light showing very little. Standing on this porch with both my hands on the railing, flicking my fingers back and forth, I am stunned.

  I take a deep breath and then make my way back into the small room and close the door behind me. As soon as the door is closed, all the lights go out. I think that is nifty and convenient. So, I continue to the stairs and look back at the door in disbelief; before I entered that room, I wasn’t expecting anything like that.

  Continuing up the stairs I hear some male voices saying excitedly, “Dude!
It’s open, there must be someone in here!” Then I hear the same guy yelling, “Oi! Get away from the car!” I stop where I am, standing on the triangle step that leads up the second flight of eleven stairs. He continues to say, “Come in, it’s fucking huge in here, hey!”

  The other person, who sounds like a young bloke, replies back in a rather scared voice, “I don’t think we should be in here. Remember last time we were here and we were trying to get in.”

  The first bloke replies dominantly, “Oh don’t be a pussy, bro, nothings in here.” Just as he says this, all the lights go out with a large CLANK. Scared out of their wits, both of the men—you could say—shit themselves as they scream in fear. “Fuck! Let’s get out of here bro!”

  Running out, I can barely hear their voices as they get further and further away, hearing their footsteps fade until I can’t hear them anymore. I continue up the stairs in the pitch black! I walk out into the warehouse, and turn to the electricity board which has a ten-minute flick switch on it, which is why the lights automatically went out. I turn off the flick switch and turn the lights back on to see a chair facing back towards the warehouse wall—which I didn’t see when I walked in. Probably because I didn’t turn around towards the right side of the entry to the warehouse. Giggling to myself, I walk over to the chair and pull it out a little, then take a seat on it.

  As I sit on the chair, I begin to have flash backs of when I got welcomed, at three years old, into Pops’ house. Then in school, where I first got bullied in kindergarten, then primary school to high school, then my workplace, to imagining my grandfather burning in his house alive. Then hearing about how my parents could have possibly passed away. As I look up into the warehouse, I whisper to myself, I know what do. Getting up, I proceed back to my car just outside the warehouse, and open the passenger door to grab out a piece of paper, then I walk back into the warehouse to draw up the ideas that are going through my head. As for being an architect, I know what I am doing.

  On the other side of the fence, where Andrew and Amanda are conversing about what they want to do as she brings me up and says sympathetically, “I feel so bad for what I did and said to David.”

  Andrew replies absurdly, “Don’t worry about him, he’s old news.”

  Amanda reaches out to her phone and says hesitantly, “No! I’ve got to call him and make sure he’s okay.”

  Andrew replies angrily, “Nah don’t, that’s a bad idea.” As Amanda makes the call, it rings until the voice mail answers. Mr Gritford has changed his voicemail from the polite ‘Hey, it’s David, sorry I can’t make it to the phone at the moment, please leave a message and I’ll get back to you’ to his emotionless ‘Hey, it’s David. Leave a message, I don’t care.’ Straight to the point, Amanda pulls the phone away from her ear and stares at Andrew, lost.

  Meanwhile at the warehouse, I’m drawing up exclusive blueprints for the design of something massive and out of character compared to what I usually design. As I put it together, the designs become more physical and more tormenting, to the point where I have created over twenty different designs that just keep popping into my imagination.

  I stop for a recollecting break, as I look back over my designs and imagine where they would be situated in the warehouse, and how far apart they should be. In saying that, I put to mind, I want walls everywhere, like a maze, where, if I were to walk in, although I have built it, I could still get lost and blindly not know my way back out—that would be it. I stand up from my seat and begin walking out into the middle of the warehouse, skimming around creatively, imagining where the blueprints would best fit and what else I could put with it.

  Taking a deep breath, I walk back towards the entrance of the warehouse, and walk out to my car. Dumbly enough, I left the keys in the ignition, and those men that were here at the warehouse earlier didn’t even realise it. I hop into the driver side of the car, with the designs in hand. Putting them onto the passenger seat, I see one of the blokes has dropped his wallet on the seat. I begin smiling as I start up my car.

  Performing a three-point turn, I make my way back to the main road, up the corrugated dirt road. Coming to the gate—which is suspiciously left open—I pass through and park up just in front of the property to close the gate. Noticing that the lock had been cut off, I close the gate aggressively knowing someone has broken in. Hopping back into my car, I take off anxiously.

  A while passes as I drive back home. Pulling up into my driveway, I hop out of my car, taking out my phone to check the time; 6.27 p.m. I also notice a missed call from Amanda. My face scrunches as I begin to hiss and say under my breath, “Fuck her,” Walking towards the front door and putting the key into the door, I open it to the rudest shock.

  The house is a mess: things are thrown everywhere, smashed crockery, the couch is torn to pieces, the TV is smashed and there are a few holes in the walls. I take in what I can see, shocked and completely clueless of what the damn hell I am looking at. What happened? Why? And who? With no conclusion, I grab one of the ripped cushions off the ground on the left side of the couch, as it faces where the TV is, and frustratingly throw it on the couch as I angrily sit myself onto it.

  Running my fingers through my hair out of frustration, grabbing it, I begin ripping it out and growling in a burst of anger, “FUCK!” Continuing on as I get back up, my blood is boiling, “FUCK! FUUCK! WHAT THE FUCK?” I storm towards the wall that follows to the front door and bang my head and fists against it, crying in anger, throwing my fists at the wall, harder and harder until I create more holes. Turning to look at the kitchen, sighing in anger, I pace myself in frustration to my bedroom. Smacking open the door, I head to my chest of drawers. In the top drawer, I keep paper to draw ideas on. Opening the left top drawer, I grab out my paper. On the top piece it shows where the supplier is for all of metal and construction material the contractors use to create and make my blueprints into the buildings and warehouses we all see today.

  Memorising the address and where it is, I grunt as it turns to a strange, weird giggle as I pace myself out of my room; the giggle turns into a desperate, creepy laugh of horror. Heading out of my house, my neighbour asks in concern, “Hey, buddy, is everything okay?” I look at my neighbour with bad intention as I hop into the driver seat desperately. Starting the car, I take off like a hoon.

  The neighbour looks at my fleeting car with concern that I may be in danger or in need of help, and says to himself under his breath, “That kid needs help. God knows what he could be up to.” He turns back to finish rubbing his car with a cloth, shaking his head.

  I drive to the address of the supplier where I gained special permission years ago to access their site to see what material they were using to create and make my blueprints come to life. As I was leading in the blueprints and special materials, I normally went in to make sure everything was suitable for the designs.

  Entering the site, I unlock the door to the room where the keys to their trucks are, and of course, I grab the key to the largest one. After taking the key, I pace myself to the office where the camera control room is. Turning off the cameras, I proceed to walk on up to the loading room where everything is cut and tied down. Sussing out the metals, I select all that I believe I want.

  After my selection, I drag and tie a rope to what I chose and lift it with the forklift and load it onto a pallet. I then use the forklift to pick up and load the pallet onto the truck.

  After about seven hours of heavy lifting and continuous loading, at about 8:30 a.m., I hop into the big tipper truck and drive it out of the gates of the place and park it on the side of the road. Hopping out of the truck, I make my way to the office. Entering the office and going to the security cameras, I reactivate them. Yes, I’m good with computers as well.

  Leaving the office, I make my way across the road, to where I have parked my car to grab out the papers I brought with me. Walking back to the truck I hop in, placing the papers on the dash of the truck. I get comfortable as I buckle myself in, put it into gear, a
nd begin taking off.

  ---

  Andrew receives a private number phone call and takes it. As he walks outside his place, the man on the other side of the phone says in a deep voice, “It’s done.” Andrew replies defensively, “Okay, but I can’t talk right now. I’ll see you soon,” and hangs up abruptly.

  Before I returned home, Andrew had made a phone call to an old friend and used the words, “Fix him up.” On that account, Andrew’s old friend requested my address and used my spare house key, which I had forgotten about, to enter my home. The one I gave to Amanda, which Andrew stole from her to give to his villain mate who went through my house and destroyed my personal belongings, personal paperwork and stole jewellery and a PS3 that was in my bedroom—of which I hadn’t had a clue about because I had lost my temper and just wasn’t with it.

  Andrew ends the phone call and makes his way back inside to Amanda. She is curious about where he went briefly and who he was on the phone to. She asks, “You just went outside for a call? Who was it?”