Speaker 1: Fast Food Horror is an Abbey normal production. Hey guys,
it's EJ. Fast Food Horror is all about short stories,
bite size if you will. The Shaft, though, is going
to be a little different. The Shaft is going to
be told every two weeks until it's completion. We're envisioning
about an eight chapter series. So I hope you guys
are ready for a very very spooky good time. I
go take it away.
Speaker 2: Welcome listeners to Fast Food Horror. This week we have
for you The Shaft, Chapter two.
Speaker 1: I gasped for breath as I awoke, like a drowning man,
breaking the surface of the water, searching for air. As
my eyes opened, they focused, and I saw the gray
gloom of the daytime I remembered was gone, replaced by
a curtain of night. The only illumination was from the
surrounding factories and street lights. Thank God for light pollution.
I was faced down on the ground. I could feel
earthly material pressing against my cheeks, gravel and stone and
the unforgiving icy hardness of the pavement, and my clothes
soaked as the mist had continued to coat the area
as it was pushed by the cold winter wind. I
got myself to my feet. I saw I was still
at the testing site for the road test. In a panic,
I checked my watch. Eleven thirty three pm. What the hell?
Almost eight hours had passed. I was out for eight hours?
Where was the bus? Did they leave me? How did
my trainee even get back to the terminal without me?
Speaker 2: Crap?
Speaker 1: What do I tell my boss she was going to
be pissed? And what do I tell my wife she
was going to be more than pissed? Crap?
Speaker 2: Crap?
Speaker 1: I needed to call both. Where the hell was my phone?
I patted myself down, looking for my rectangular friend, and
then I remembered. Everything came rushing back. I was hanging
over the shaft well, everything above the shoulders was lowering
my phone by a string into the inky darkness, and
then everything went black, and there was a sound just
before I passed out. I think a cry of something,
something angry. Wait. I remember being over the shaft before
the darkness came over me. But when I woke up
a few seconds ago, my face was on the ground.
I did a slow rotation of my area and found
the shaft opening five feet behind me, five feet from
where I just woke up with my head facing in
the wrong direction from where it should have been, or
at least from what I remembered. How did I get here?
That's a mystery for another day. More importantly, where was
and how do I get my phone? I started to
walk over to the shaft opening and saw the spool
of twine resting on the ground, the twine itself leading
down the shaft. Well, I guess I know where my
phone is. I started to pull on the twine and
felt a light weight at the end of it. I
pulled and pulled ten feet, twenty feet, thirty feet, forty feet,
and after eight more minutes phone it was still recording,
flashlight still on. I closed both apps, the main screen
now staring back at me. My eyes went to the bottom.
The phone began to pulse as sixty eight new text
messages began to popul forty three new phone calls registered
in the bottom counter with voicemails. Apparently the phone was
so deep it was out of range until now. Well,
this was not going to be good. I opened up
the text app, multiple messages from my boss. I started
to glance through them all. They started with the general
questions about how the trainee did or was doing to
why I was not answering, which then led to more
of a boss like tone, wondering how I could be
so unprofessional leaving my trainee. I then went to my
wife's text messages, again where was I, Why was I
not answering? Some playfulness and flirty texting followed by concern,
then some heartbreaking messages wondering what she did wrong and
was I mad? Then just a series of texts asking
me to please let her know I was okay, well
that the decision process easy. I immediately called my wife.
She picked up even before the first ring was over.
As you can imagine, it took me a while to
get a word in edgewise. She had been presuming the
worst for the last few hours. I told her exactly
what happened, or at least as much as I had
an understanding of what happened and was willing to admit
to without sounding crazy, that I was still at the
testing site, and I shared my location for my phone.
As soon as I did so I could hear the
keys in her hand. I asked her if she could
bring me at least a blanket, that I was cold
and soaked. I then went into as much detail as
I could remember, as she drove the forty five minutes
or so to me, starting with trying to find shelter
and ending with waking up on the ground eight hours later.
All in all, she took it well, well, not really,
because I'm forty nine years old and had lost consciousness
for a few hours and had been out in the elements.
She was intent on taking me straight to the hospital.
I was not going to argue. I saw my phone
was almost out of battery. A quick glance at her
GPS location told me she was less than ten minutes away,
so we ended the call. I'd see her shortly, after all,
What could happen in ten minutes? I know, famous last words, right?
I paced around the perimeter of the Jersey barriers, trying
to wrap my head around this shaft. What was it?
Where did it lead? What was its purpose? And what
was that sound that cry? In my distracted, thoughtful pacing.
I stumbled over the answer to the question I didn't ask,
and fell to the ground hard. What the hell did
I stumble over? I got back to my feet and
walked back three steps and saw it was a handle,
A door handle, maybe brass, definitely not contemporary. It was older,
way older. I went to go pick it up. It
was not moving. Maybe it was stuck, so I gave
it a good kick again. It didn't budge. Then on
closer inspection saw it was still attached to what appeared
to be a large door. I started to use my
foot to clear off debris and dirt from the door's surface.
Nothing special, just a flat oaken door five feet by
five feet with a handle on the side. I walked
to the opposite side and found two broken hinges along
its edge. Was this the door that should have been
over the shaft? I glanced at the shaft opening, then
the door. It was the right size. How the hell, though,
did something so heavy get over here? It had to
be at least twelve inches thick and made of solid wood,
actually timber. They really don't make doors like this anymore.
I worked my flashlight over the door and continued using
my foot to clear the leaves and dirt that covered it.
On the surface of the door, starting on each side,
etched into it, I could make out letters that formed words.
Each side was in a different language. I positioned myself
at the bottom of the door. Along the top of
the door, the letters I recognized, but having markings above
and next to some of the letters, not a language
I recognized. I moved to the left side of the
door and saw along the right side of the door
was lines in English, but a vast dated form of English.
It was like something out of a Shakespearean sonnet, lots
of thousand these. I didn't like Shakespeare when I was
in high school. I doubt i'd like it now. I
made my way to the top of the door and
looked down to the bottom. Along the bottom side were
lines in French. I could recognize that since I drove
in Canada regularly. It's a bilingual country. Yet that didn't
make me bilingual. I couldn't read it, but it was
definitely French. I then made my way to the right
side of the door and looked across my Catholicism kicking in.
My grandmother would be so proud. The lines I was
looking at appeared to be in Latin etched along the side,
but again I couldn't read a word. I went back
to the left side and read the etching on the
right the Shakespearean English. The first line read, taketh heed
a serpent here dwells my curiosity piqued, I engaged the
camera on my phone and started taking pictures, taking care
to get the entire door, and then the different language groupings.
And then a sound broke the silence, not a roar,
not a cry, but a followed by my wife's voice
calling my name. My wife had arrived. I could see
her silhouette backlit by the car's headlights as she ran
towards me. I turned from the door and started jogging
to my wife, but my mind couldn't turn away from
the mystery of the shaft, as a new set of
questions joined the others
Speaker 2: Attent