Speaker 1: Hello, I'm welcined stories all the time. Glad you are here.
Let's get into it. The knocking wouldn't stop. Three hard knocks, pause,
three hard knocks again from Unit twelve, and I keied
the radio with one hand while the other fumbled the
flashlight strap. Suspicion pushed against my teeth. I said the
word allowed into the mic before I could stop myself.
Nis Alvarez, Unit twelve, there are some one knocking inside.
The knock answered me through the corridor, steady and exactly timed.
I could feel suspicion altering. How I moved, every check slower,
every metal surface given a deliberate tap. I had taken
the night job because I needed rent and quiet eyes
to study for my licensing class. I learned rules the
first night. Laminated paper twelve points staples through the corkboard
and the security office to sheet was thin, but the
rolls would not. I slave my thumbel on the rusted
keeping the keys jangled likely's teeth. Whenever I moved. I
checked the lock on Unit twelve, then the corridor light,
the flick above it, then to keep it by the
main gate. Small exact actions to prove I was careful.
Suspicion can apped me from SHRUGGI away anything that might
be wrong. Ethan holds your position, Mizalvarez through the tinney radio.
Her voice carried the practice calm as someone who had
handled lake coals for years. Do not open any unit alone,
record it, dag it, wait for back up. Rule eight. Runemmeh,
I remember rule eight, Misalvarez. It's just it's been knocking
for a minute. Now record it and wait. Backup is
on the way. Done to make a decision alone. Her
words landed like a command. I kept the radio pressed
to my mouth while I crouched in the concrete and
trained the flashlight beam milon the rippled face of Unit
twelve roll up door. The metal showed for a scratches
near the hasp. The padlock hung on a broken chain
of brass teeth and metal filings collected at the base,
as if some one had tried and failed to force
it open. I tapped the padlock with my flashlight. The
sound run hollow and hungry. I pressed record on the
little body camera we used for nightly checks, the red
dot blinking. I spoke into it because my Salvaez insisted
on a recorded timeline Unit twelve thirty two minutes past midnight. Knock,
her padlock, inspected, scatch mark's present. The knocks continued. They
never changed for them. Three knocks, paus, three knocks. They
did not ask for help. They announced their presence. Someone's
headlets came down the lot. Marcus stepped out of his
truck with his hands jammed in his jacket pockets. You
called me, he said. He has the practical voice of
someone who did not like being awakened for nonsense. Marcus,
it's Unit twelve knocking from inside. He frowned and walked
the corridor with long quick steps. Marcus moved like he
believed the momentum. If you kept moving, nothing caught you.
He checked the padlock, then the scratches, then the roll updoors.
Seen with his flashlight. Word, man, can t see anyone.
We checked the keearing together. The twelve tags clattered across
my palm. One number tag was gone. I counted a
lot because my mouth had gone dry. One missing twelve
tags now show eleven. Tag twelve is gone, Marcus, that's
not possible. I checked the ring before I left. I
checked it again when I got here. He his name
in the same set entents, like reminding himself he was
the one speaking, not the night. Where did you last
have it? I checked the metal teeth in the ring
with my lamp. The gap where a tag should have
been scraped skin into the powder of my thumb on
the ring. I did tea lose it. The tag's gone now.
We walked to the office and pulled the scatter feed.
Marcus sat heavy in the swovel chair and hit lay
back with a practice slap. The screen showed the row
viewed its like a lawn stain in his mouth. Time
stamps crawled across the bottom digital numbers. I promised a
definitive answer two minutes before the knocking started. Everything looked normal.
Then thirty seconds blinked out the frame bleppt the static.
When the picture returned, a smear moved down the corridor
low and blurred, like a smear of wet paint. The
smith stopped at unit twelve and dissolved against the door
that stated or glitched Marcus, but his voice did not
have the surety of belief. He scrowled back and forward.
The thirty second gap repeated no matter which playdock he selected,
reveed hiccops but not like that, I said, play it again.
I watched the smear and then the padlock in the frame.
The padlock looked and touched in the footage, but outside
the framescrotches on our actual padlock were fresh and raw.
Lieutenant from Unit eleven, Missess Kessar, came down the lot
with a chemical smell of cigarette and waxed hair. She
shoved her hand into her purse and led out a
worry that sounded like a question. Someone's been banging on
twell for the past few minutes. Are you going to
open it? That's my neighbor's unit. Missess Kesso's face was
small and lined. Her voice made a habit of clipping
the ends of sentences. I dropped off a boxer earlier.
It was empty. I swear it was empty when I left.
An officer arrived because of a neighbor's nine hundred eleven
coal officer grant. He checked his badge, then his watch,
and then the corridor. He knocked on Unit twelve himself
and frowned. I can hear a knocking from inside, he
told us. But there's no record of entry on the
gave lock, and the camera shows a gap. Marcus so
how did whatever sinder get in? Officer Grant looked at Marcus,
That's what I'm asking. The three of them argued in
short bursts while I stood at the door with the
keyring heavy in my palm. Mister Varrow's voice circkled in
my ear, reminding me of rule it again, exactly as
she had said, record wait, do not open alone. The
roll felt rigid in the concrete way of a fence,
but the fence was a suggestion if someone needed help,
Missess Kessler insisted. Ad Officer Grant tapped his pen against
his holster and said they couldn't leave a person banning.
We can tee just leave some one in their thiery
in trouble, Officer Grund. If it's a person, they're re
inside and they might be injured. My instructions a mess, Alvarez,
do not open alone. Wait for back up. Marks is
jaw tightened. We call back up and wait ten fifteen minutes.
That's two hours of ten and shouting and the circuit
board overheating. I'm not getting paid to babysit a door.
We argued for a strain of quick lines. Ethan Dantee
mez Avares began, Ethan, you need to wait for Marcus
in me Marcus, Officer Gren how long for units to
be cleared? Miss Cess Kessler interrupted, I just want to
know if my box is there. Three people talked at once,
and the knox continued as if an answer. The rhythm
stayed the same. I felt pressure building in my throat
and behind my sternum. That pressure translated into movement. I
shined the light along the scene again and felt the
cold of the metal through the flashlight handle. I thought
of the tag. I thought of the missing number. Twelkis
all right? If you think ye need to open it,
do it with me? Mease, Avarez. If Vost said no,
over the radio officer Grant looked at me and nodded
like he had permission to step aside. Missus Cassos had
found my elbow. Dear, what's right, Ethan? If some one's
inside open it? I had two minutes to make a decision.
Suspicion pushed, obligation pushed, Fatigue pushed. I thought of the laminae,
a sheet folded into my wallet with a corner bent
and a faint coffee ring on the lower left. I
thought of Rendy's of the first month that I had
promised myself I'd never miss I thought of the knock
and how the sound matched nothing living ad held in
months of rounds. I unlocked the padlock. The metal made
a small, precise sound. The click felt louder than it
had any right to be. I wrenched the hasp and
pulled the roll up door with my shoulder. The unit
opened on a breath of cold air. The smell inside
hit me first, all carved boards soaked a damp oil
and a metallic tan that reminded me of cut wire.
I stepped inside alone, because by the time the door
cleared and I moved my feet forward, others was still
on the threshold. Marcus voice cut off as the corridor
seemed to hesitate. Officer Grant's radio static chattered. Missessquesso's sentence
died where it started Ethan Marcus, and then something happened
that erased the next stretch of time. I have three
fixed images from inside the unit and nothing that connects
them in sequence. I remember the flasklight being crossing a
stack of boxes and catching on a shoe box with
the dawn label. I remember reaching out and feeling paper
under my fingers that was warm. I remember looking up
in the roll up door, saw meing down with a
finality that deafened me for a fraction. Then there was
nothing I could consciously place for several minutes. When I
breathed again, the unit was re arranged, boxes lay in
new stacks. A chair was in the middle of the
floor that had not been there. My missing tag, tag twelve,
was pinned to a corrugated wall with a rusted nail.
The nails headed a ring of dried residue around it.
I pulled the tag free with shaking fingers. The number
twelve was stamped on brass that still smelled faintly of
oil marks. Cursed in a short string of words, Ethan,
what happened? He demanded, Did you see any one? I
tried to answer, and my voice gousched out of me.
My watch said twenty two minutes later than when I
had spoken to Me's Alvarez Officer Grand checked the door
and the padlock and frowned. The door is closed and
the padlock looks new, he said. Whoever came and left
no record of forced entry on the gate, and the
padlocks were sealed. I lifted my head and pointed at
the wall the tag. It was pinned to the wall.
I found it inside. Missus Kessler put a hand to
her mouth and stepped back. That's my box. Marcus and
Officer Grount argued fast, you had it open, Marcus, you
opened it alone? No ay. I tried to explain Ms Alvezmi.
I began, but my sentence fell apart because the memory
did not have the parts they needed. Marcus kept pacing,
and Officer Grunt kept looking at the security footage, and
Missess Kessel kept repeating she had left the unit empty.
We pulled the footage again. The thirty second gap remained.
This mirror was still there, but when the frame resolved,
the padlock looked sealed and clean, as if nothing had
touched it. The scratches on our physical padlock remained. The
tag sat in my palm. Officer Grant took notes. He
questions in a series of clip lines, who had access,
who else was on side? Is there a maintenance record
for the padlock? He wrote names and times, and then
looked up and said, Ethan, did you enter alone? I
answered with the truth I had. I opened the door
and endered. Then I described the rearranged interior and the
tag on the wall. My voice lost its steady edge
when I named the missing tag. The tag was on
the wall. Officer grant pin nail. He nodded and said
he would log it as an incident. Marcus kept touching
his keys like a nervous habit. Missus Castle kept circling
the lot and muttering about her deliverers. Mess i' viz
me to come in and sit down in the office
while she coordinated a technician to check the lock and
an on call supervisor to come by. She did not show,
but her voice held a line that meant I was
to follow. I sat and folded the laminated rules into
my wallet. The edge was singed, as if someone had
held a flame close to only one corner. The words
on the sheet were still the same, clear, tight, sent
and sciss about safety and liability and never open a
unit alone, but the coroner had been browned and crumbled.
I touched the charred edge with finger tips that smelled
faintly of the metallic tang from inside Unit twelve. Touch
made the memory of the Unich sharper the way the
nail had caught the beam. The smell of damp car
brought against my knuckles the way the light had come
down in a ribbon. At some point, Marcus an Officer
Grant argued about whether to lock the unit as closed
or to remove the padlock for inspection. They went back
and forth, three to six lines, each quick and clipped voices,
raising and dropping like a drunk curtain. Marcus insisted the
padlock had been tampered with. Officer Grand insisted there was
no proof of forced entry on the gatelock. Missus Kessler
insisted she had been in the earlier mess Alvarez insisted
the protocol matter more than convenience. I felt my control
of road in small physical ways. My hands trembled when
I folded the sheet my jocolate. When I duwed, swallowing air,
I replayed exact phrases in my head and mouthed them
silently while the others spoke aloud. I moved from suspicion
to doubt. When mys Alvarez, finally on sight, put her
hand on my shoulder and said, Ethan, did you follow procedure?
You recorded the knocking? Yes, I recorded it, I said.
My voice was small. I followed the steps I reported.
I waited, but the padlock had s crutches the tagmis
Alvaz's mouth end. She did what supervisors did. She assigned
blame and then made contingency. We log everything and we
submit a report. We'll call the owner. We won tea
make statement until the supervisor reviews footage. Her answer shifted
my feeling from doubt to a different edge. Jame. Shame
for not holding the line, for letting curiosity make me
bend a rule, Shame for being the one who pulled
the type free. Shame that I could not explain the
missing minutes. I did not sleep in the car that morning.
I sat in the driver's seat with the walal out
in my lap and the laminated she folded small. The
parking lot light hummed overhead my wrist, which read five
hundred two. The Knox had stopped. The lot smelled of
wet concrete and cold oil. I turned a radio off
and listened to my breath. I I reward my memory carefully,
like a technician inspecting a damage frame. My hands moved
through the same motions, checking the paddock, tapping the door, scene,
pressing record, radioing me as Alvarez. I tracked the fault
lines where my actions deviated from protocol. I found the
places where responsibility and curiosity crossed. Each decision added weight.
The tag sat heavy in my pocket. Marcus had left
with the tag goodbye and in order to get checked
out if my hands were still shaking. Officer Grant left
his card and told me to call if anything else happened.
Missus Kessler hugged her box like a person and then
took it away. Misalvarez stayed long enough to say two things. One,
write what you remember in the log. TI don t
tell tenants anything you can tea prove. I wrote the
log with short sentences. I described the knox, the scratches,
the gap in the footage, the tag pinned to the wall.
I left no interpretation, only facts. After I wrote, I
folded the sheet into my wallet again and pushed it
under my wrist watch straps so it would not slide out.
The corner still crumbled where the sine had blackened it.
Before I left the lot, I walked back to Unit twelve.
The paddle cong wert belonged. There were no fresh footprints
in the gravel. The corridor light buzz but did not flicker.
I pressed my ear to the metal and did not
hear anything. I took a last look at the seam
of the door, and then I pulled away and walked
to my car. I started the engine and felt the
siak give beneath me. I slid the wallet into my pocket.
My hand still trembled. I told myself to let the
record of footage speak. I told myself I would not
open a unit again with that backup. I told myself
to sleep. The engine turned over. I backed out of
the lot. As I passed the security office window, I
sawmise Alvarus folding the row sheet and stapling a copy
to the corkpoord. She looked up at the lot and
then down at the paper. Besides in the way of
some one who reorders were skin to rules. I slowed
the truck and tapped the horn once, a small sound
that cut the night. She raised her hand and gave
me a single formal nod. I gave one back. I
drove out under the perimeter lights. The beams hot on
the windshield. At the gate, I stopped and reached into
my pocket to feel the tag that had once been
pinned to the wall. My fingers closed on brass that
had been stamped for twelve and worn in places where
I had not scratched it. I drove away with the
tag in my fist and the laminaded sheet folded into
the leather of my wallet. When I parked at my apartment,
I left the tag on the kitchen table and slid
the wallet under a list foreboard. I could not bring
myself to throw the sheet away. I could not bring
myself to tell any one how the minutes had gone missing.
I felt the emotion change inside me, first suspicion, then doubt,
then shame, then a cold, steady vigilance. That vigilance made
me promise, in small, concrete actions that I would warn. However,
took the next night shift. I wrote an email to
the manager a list and did not send it. I
rehearsed the sentence I would say to any new hire,
do not open UNAR twelve alone record. I practiced saying
the words a lot until they slid flat in my mouth.
I was later when the light outside my apartment began
to thin toward morning, as soft knock sounded through my
phone and a look from the facility's sight sensor Unit
twelve had lobbed a minor vibration. I sat very still,
and the pulse at my temper thought in time with
the memory of the Knox. I walked to the window
and looked at the street. There was no car, no figure,
nothing to identify who was there. I reached down and
folded the laminated sheet into my wallet, where I could
feel the cinched edge under my thumb. I set the
wallet on the table next to the brass tag. I waited.
A single knock answered from my kitchen table, not from
the unit of the lot, but a sound against metal
that matched the rhythm I had heard that night. I
did not go to the door. I put the tag pocket,
stood and picked up the wallet. I slid the chart
edge of the raw sheet back under the watch strap
and left the kitchen light on. As I walked out
of the room with the wallet against my chest, the
Knox did not come again. Not then. I drove back
to the facility two nights later, wallet inside my jacket,
the tag on my kearing. I did not go in
until mys Alvarez met me by the entrance. She did
not smile. She only said, Ethan, whatever you tell them,
tell it straight. I nodded. I knew exactly how to
say it now. The knox, the padlock, the missing tag,
the thirty second gap. The rearranged box says the nail.
I knew the record would be the thing that kept
someone from repeating my mistake. I also knew I had
broken Rule eight. I had opened a door alone. That
fall sat in the middle of every answer I gave.
When mis Alvarez pinned a new laminated copy of the
twelve rules to the court board, she left a small
space beneath the stables and slid my folded sheet into
it like a folded note. She did not say the
word safety. She did not need to. The folded corner
showed fresh sooot where they ash had burned. I kept
my eyes in the rules. As she stepped back. Her
posture did not change. She only do your round's record everything.
If un twelve does anything, call us a weight. I
said nothing. I put my hand on the keeying and
felt the tag twelve in my pocket. My mouth made
the words before my head could stop them. I know,
I said. She nodded once and walked away outside under
the flicker of the lot's perimeter lights. I felt the
old part of me that want to prove tens into place.
I tacked the sequence in my head like a ledger.
Knox callwait. Tag returned to me. Padlocks crested thirty second gap.
I set the facts down in a row so I
could check them again and again until the edge is sharpened. Then,
as I walked back to my truck from down the corridor,
there came three knocks pause. Three knocks precise and identical
to the ones that had started everything. I stopped, my
throat closed, I turned slowly towards Unit twelve, and the
sound followed the seam of the doors like a meat
of voice. My hand went to my jacket pocket and
closed in the breast twelve then and the laminated edge
folded beneath my watch. I stepped toward the corridor and
the light of a Unit twelve bus once and stayed bright.
I did not reach the door before the knock stopped.
I did not open it. I stood at the threshold
of choice and felt the roll under my thumb like
a burn up at the wallet back under my watch,
and walked to my truck. I did not drive away fast.
I slid in and sat with the engine idling until
the lock managers van pulled in. Emmy's Alvarez's door opened,
and she came to the window and waved me in.
I took off my jacket, left the keys in the
passenger seat, and walked back to the corkboard, where the
laminated rolls hung and the folded copy of the sheet
sat pinned with a stable. I unrolled it with the
cake I full motion and smoothed the singed edge. The
last thing I wrote in the night's report was a
single line, do not open Unit twelve alone, record and
wait for back up. Then I added, with my hands
steady for the first time since the tag, the tag
was found inside, pinned to the wall, I handed the
report to myse Alvarez and watched her slide into a
drawer labeled incident. She did not look up her muff
moved into a line that meant the shift had ended.
She closed the drawer and turned the key. The key
fell into the metal slot with a small, decisive clink.
I left the office with the knowledge that I had
broken a rule and with the tag back on the ring.
I had also given no warning in concrete words and
a written record that anyone could read. I had traded
my certainty for procedure. Outside the corridor lights hunt, I
stood beneath them and felt the wallet at my wrist.
I listened for the knock until the sound faded into
the normal noise of the lot. Then now walked to
my truck and drove into the pale morning attack, heavy
in my pocket and the folded rool safe under my watch.
The knot did not return while I was on the road,
but when I reached the entrance and looked back, a
small light in unitwel's corridor blinked once more, like a
heartbeat measured by something that did not need permission. I
drove home with the rule sheet folded in my wallet
and the tag twelve clipped to my keys. I kept
my hands on the wheel and my eyes on the road.
I had the record, I had the warning, I had
the burn corner. I had the knowledge that I had
broken Rule eight, and that breaking I had not fixed
anything entirely. I also had a final sound in my mind,
the three Knox Paws free knocks that I could not
translate until was beyond repeating them exactly. The sun kept
me awake for nights, and every time I sat on
a niche if they found myself fingering the tag in
the rule until the edges of the paper fit cleanly
into my palm. That is what I left in the lock,
the facts, the tag, the chart edge, and the warning.
I do not know if anyone listened. But if you
ever wet nights at place with a rule sheet pinned
to a cock board, look at the corner if it singed,
and if your keyring is missing a tag, know that
whatever made those scratches and pinned that brasta walls where
the rule exists, do not open you a twelve alone,
record it, wait for back up, and if you hear
three knocks, pause three knocks, canned them once, and then
put the radior to your mouth and say the name
of the manager. Those are the exact actions I learned
to trust. The last sound I had before mez Alvarez
locked the drawer and the lot went quiet, was not
an explanation. It was a knock from the corridor, as
if the building itself had closed ascendants. I folded the
rule into my wallet and left it there under my watch,
where I could not forget the weight of it. The
roll up door to Unit twelve was a jar. When
I stepped under the flicker of the perimeter armp ands
won my flashlight across a corridor. Suspision tightened my throat.
The moment I saw the wht's mudges in the metal
and the dark crescent where a padlockids grate. I thund
the ring and realized one number tag was missing. Twelve
tags now eleven, and a laminative rule sheet in my
wallets suddenly matted again. My first radio call from the
previous night echoed in my head. A mess Alvarez Unit twelve.
There's someone knocking that memories sat there like a cold fact.
It pushed me into motion before I thought about fear.
I crouched and peered into the gap. The flashlight beam
cut a neat rectangle across the concrete floor. The light
found a single plastic toy damp at the corner and
a trail of scuffs leading to the far wall. The
trail was spaced like some one walking slowly then dragging.
I pressed my gloved hand to the metal and felt
recent warmth, not heat, but the recidue of human touch.
I radioed mise Alvarez with one hand and kept the
other on the flask white strap. Mess Alvarez Unit twelve
stores open tag missing from my kearing, my voice stayed
low because the lot swallowed loud sounds she answered, in
the quick procedural tones that meant she was at the
office and a wick. Do not open it. She said,
follow the rules, call MARKO and wait. Heat the cameras
on Unit twelve, no exceptions. Her voice contained the rule
sheep precize clip lines had folded into my wallet. That afternoon,
I felt two things at once, obligation in an inch
of doubt. The obligation made me steady my hands. The
doubt made the flask white hand tremble. Mako arrived within
minutes in a pick at that scrape gravel too loud
for the ire. He climbed down and muttered, what you
let someone in? He kept walking fast toward the roll
up without waiting for an answer. I held up the
empty tag and then the door. We goes ap to
hold him off. Marco, I said, is I'll raise us
to wait. My sentence cut was static from the radio.
Marco's jaw tightened, and he said, we can tee leave
a unit open. We lock it and log it. It's
someone's messing with tenants. They'll come back. He moved around
the corridor and tried the padlock with the prie bar.
He worked the lock and found only bent metal and
wet smears in the edge. He paused and listened. The
corridor humbered, the building sold fluorescent ballast, and the distant,
low sound of the highway. Then there was a faint scraping,
like finger nails against corrugated metal, and Marco cursed and
said something ess inside. His voice changed. He had that fast,
brittle edge guard's get when a routine turns messy. We
pulled up the security feed at the little alcove by
the office and watched the camera that covered the Unit
twelve doorway. The footage rode in grainy black and white.
At two point thirteen a m. The image went blank
for twenty minutes, the time Stamps skipped with a hard
white frame. I watched the coaster jump and felt heat
rise behind my eyes. Marco, that's not right, that's not right.
He here, Towe sh short hard. Mis Alvarez showed up
with the personnel file for Unit twelve in one hand
and the laminated rule sheet in the adder. She set
the file on the office desk inflict a fast eye
across the paper without meeting mine. There was an incident
here years ago, she said, tenant vanished file redacted. We
never reopened the unit after the claim why is it
open now? She slid her hand to the corkboard and
tapped the printed rules with two fingers. The touch was mechanical, careful.
Her fingers have heard U of rule A printed in
block letters. She didn't say the rule out loud. She
made a short sound and then told Marco and me
to follow the protocol. Marco started arguing, we need to
go in. If it's a tenant or someone stuck. We
have to get evidence. We can call it in later.
He kept the pride bar in his hands like a surgeon,
waiting for permission. Marco, the rules exist because things happened
before mis Alvarez. If we break, then we create messy
paperwork and liability. We follow procedure. Her voice narrowed. She
used names as Anchors, Ethan Macco. Stay where I can
see you. I call Office Viga. We do not open
without a warrant unless there is an immediate threat to life.
The argument pushed me to a different place. My fingers
found the notch where the twelfth tack had once sat.
The notch felt raw. The absence was physical proof that
Rule eight had been violated. That proof moved me from
suspicion into a different feeling compulsion. I wanted to know
what was inside. Compulsion tightened my jaw and I found
I was stepping forward despite orders. Marco saw me and said, Eden, stop,
tante do it. His voice was a short bark. He
planted his boots near the edge of the gap. I
should have stayed back. I did not. I slid a
small pry bar into the seam and pulled with my shoulder.
The metal shrieked, the door scraped up another inch, and
the corridor took another shape. We saw the interior concrete
lined with light dust. A single child's toy half beared
near the far wall, scuff marks in the fall, leading
to a patch of wall that looked recently wiped. At first,
there was nothing else. Then a series of hard, precise
knock started from the dark corner. Three knocks, paws, three
knocks again. My body moved before. I thought the sound
was identical to the memory that had made me keep
the radio the night before, Marco, I said, and the
name left my mouth like a question, Marco, did you hear?
His reply was cut off by the sound of his
own name called from inside the unit. In his voice,
the tone matched in Sinkadin's same breath. Marko's shoulders dropped
and he took a slow step forward. The Unich called
his name again in his voice, but deeper hollowed. Marko
blinked and said, who the hell. The next beat was
a hand closing on his jacket, on his sleeve, as
her fingers had come out of the dark and held him.
He didn't shout, he didn't have time. Something pulled him forward,
passed the threshold, and then he was gone. I lunged,
I growled at the jacket and felt faber tear. My
flushlight hit a smear on the concrete where his jacket
had been. There was a rancid smell of burned cloth
and a wetness that smeared under my fingers. I keyed
the radio with my name. Found eyes Alvarez's voice again
through static. Marko Mako. She shouted her voice, stood up
from the office and turned in Ethan. What happened? She
came running now Ethan stayed back. Officer Vigue is on
the way, Do not go in alone. Her orders came
out in a pattern I had heard from her for years.
She was procedural and scared in the same breath. Officer
Viga pulled into the lot in a cruiser with its
dumb light off. He took in the scene with a single,
flat look and asked shop useful questions. Wes Marco, He demanded,
who are you? Mys Olverarez, identified as Ince, said he
slipped in something. Her sentence stopped. The officer stepped at
the threshold and called for back upon his radio. They
searched the unit and found only the childs toy and
scuff marks. They found no blood other than the smeyrror
near the doorway. Officer Viga ran a gloved hand over
the floor and said, no body, no sign that some
one has been dragged out. This looks like a fight,
but there's no dinner yet. He took fortgrass and lock time.
He the words professionals say to make chaos into a record.
We have a gap in evidence in a missing person
take statements. He kept calling names for notes. Hethan you
were with Marco, he asked. I told him what I
could remember in short sentences. My hands wouldn't to stop moving.
I kept checking my pocket and the key ring, as
if acting would fix the absence. We pried the door.
There were knocks. Something called his name. I said it
and heard how paper. Then it sounded in the quiet.
We pulled the Cara footage and watched it again in
the office. The hole in the time sum remained, doubt
of sink Soulwett returned and the monitor for a single
jump of frames. The figure's movement didn't t match what
we remembered in the footage. Marko's shadow fell on the floor,
and then he was alone walking with me to Unit twelve.
When I knew he had been beside me the whole time,
Officer Vigan nothing for a moment and then wrote time
stamp anomenally noted. He underlined the line with a pent mise.
Alvarez sat at the desk and oven the personnel viial
for Unit twelve, A yellowing note with a stamp red
bar read tenant disappeared file redacted. She tapped the redaction
with her finger nail and said, we closed that unit
after the insurance claim. We should tea have tenants in there.
Now I done tea. She stopped, folded the paper and
looked at me with her chim braced on her fist.
I felt the ground change under my feet. Doubt slid
into me like cold water. Did I actually see Marco
step forward? Did the footage lie? My actions began to
fracture into two accounts. One account had Marco beside me,
pushing the pry bar, the other had him walking alone
in the grainy tape, I said aloud, I remember Marco
next to me. He was right there, But the tape
and the room contradicted that memory. Officer Viga for written statement.
I wrote what I could and signed with the hand
that tremble mese. Alvarez insisted I fold the laminated roll
sheet and handed her. She smelled of coffee and sheep
hand soap. She took the sheet and opened it, as
if to refron that paper could still be authority. The
sheet edge was singed, a thin brown line that hadn't
been there the day before. She looked at me and said, Ethan,
you are sure he followed rule twelve. She named it
in a tone that meant she suspected our breach had consequences.
I pressed my palm against my wall and thought of
the missing tag. Felt arrived, like a physical thing that
sat in my chest and ship my voice. I couldn't
he make the sentence finish without the metallic taste rising
in my mouth. We ran another sweep of the lot
with flashlights while Officer Vika coordinated a formal search. We
called the tenants on record. No one answered. The camera
showed nothing living in the unit beyond the toy and
the scratches. Each we prevealed small details, fresh scuff marks
with the light switch outside the unit, a faint smerror
on the latch that looked like a child's hand, and
a damned footprint on the interior concrete that stopped abruptly
two feet from the wall. Marco's truck stail set where
he'd a left it. The cabs smelled of motor oil
and sugar packets. I drove my hand along the seat,
as if that would offer proof he had been there.
My hand came away with a gray smear of dust.
I said, Marco would Tea have gone alone? He witty
offers of a girl. People do dumb things at night, Ethan.
I know night shifts, but this time stamp gap concerns me.
His voice was flat and practical, the kind that shoves
questions into a list. Ac in the office mice Alvarez,
an Officer Vige argued quietly but fiercely about how far
to escalate. Marco had been pulled into the threshold and
then gone. Officer Viga wanted to perimid a search and
to contact homicide. Miss Alvarez wanted a written incident report,
and corporate notified quietly Marco's absence had become political and
that made me angry and scared Meis Alvarez, why not
call them? I asked, why I keep this quiet? My
question was sharp. She folded the sheet and said, because
when you call Cuprate you get lawyers, and when you
get lawyers, you get shutters on the doors. I can
tee lose this place. She spoke like someone balancing rules
and pyerrol. Officer Vigan interrupted, we will follow the report unseen.
We will note a missing person and an evidence gap,
but if there's anything suspicious in the file, it'll go
up the chain. I'm obligated to note it. He had
the conkidance of someone who has handled missing person paperwork
too many times. Miss Alvarez is draw hardened, and she said,
do what YE must keep our tenants names out of
this unless you have to. The two of them move
like two pieces, arguing about aboard. After they left to
coordinate further searches. I sat with Marco's jacket in my lap.
The jacket had a long smear and the sleeve and
a torn seem where someone had grabbed him. I ran
my thumbs along the denim and found a single thread
of red cord under my finger nail. The red looked
like rust in my eye. I could not tell if
it was rust or blood. I kept rubbing it and
telling myself I was doing something useful. That night alone,
for the first time since the incident, I replayed the
events and tried to find a pattern. The missing tag,
the knocks, the call, and Mocho's voice, the sudden pull.
Each detail was tactile. I put my palm flat on
the corkboard in the office and traced the laminated rules
with my finger. Roule eated a line that reef do
not let any one inside Genuit twelve under any circumstances
without signed authorization. The words were black type on white
laminated paper. They meant something because the company had printed
and pinned them. I fell into two emotional shifts. Then
my suspicion shifted into fear when the snapping howl and
the footage refused to a line with my body memory.
Fear then shifted into guelp when I found myself thinking
of the time z id Bin lacks bout rules forgetting
to log a late tenant, letting someone parked save time.
Guilt tasted like metal. It made me check locks twice,
and this and twice. A mid chapter surprise arrived when
the office phone rang. It was a line from the
storage company corporate office. I picked up and held a clip.
Woman say, we have a report of an incident at
Lot twelve. Keep this between management and law enforcement. Do
not discuss the prior closure of Unit twelve. She paused
and then asked Heathan Coal. Is that you my name
in him mouf felt like an accusation. I said yes,
and she told me to leave the site and away
A company investigate her. I refuse on instinct Marco's missing,
I said, I need to be here. The woman repeated
the instruction to leave and wait for corporate. She used
a line about protocol and liability. Her end of the
Coal felt like a hand pulling the scene into a
closed drawer. That was the twist. The company already knew
enough to demand containment. My suspicion turned into anger. I
moved through the building and noticed details I had missed
in the early rush. The scorch mark in the corpoard
corner where the rule sheet had been pinned, a faint
smell of burned paper near the office trash, and a
smear of the same dark residue on the outer edge
of the door frame. Each discovery pressed on the narrative
that something had been repeating here for years. I confronted
my Salvarez, you knew this unit had a history. Why
didn't you tell Officer Viga, I asked, my voice held
quick edges. She looked at me and then at the
sine paper and said, I didn't want panic. We have
tenants who rent by the month. Paperwork scares people and
they leave. We managed risk. Her answer was careful and practical.
She ethan, you shouldn't have pride that door. Three short
lines followed between us that turned into argument, Mese Alvarez,
Marco's missing. Ethan, you broke portocoll if you had told
us earlier, Her reply had across me. If I told
you earlier, we wouldn't have a job this week, Ethan.
The exchange was quick and felt like clyit's catching arm bone.
I spent the next hour was walking the lot, searching
where it could without permission, and arguing intermittently with Officer
Viga on the phone. I found a child's sticker stopped
to the inside of Unit twelve's far wall, stick appealing
at the edge with the cotchin bear. I kept thinking
of the toy on the floor. The sticker suggested some
one had been inside with the child or had brought
in personal things recently that contradicted the company's claim of
an unused close unit. Then a new twist arrived. An
anonymous tenant came to the office and asked her retrieve
possessions from Unit twel. She stood on the doorstep with
a duffel bag and a voice full of tide defensive anger.
I need my stuff, she said, Unit twelve is mine.
I paid for that unit A mess Alvarez and I
turned to her, and she said, I left for three nights.
I came back and my door was open. They me
it was closed. Now some one is missing. The woman
named herself as Teresa, and that name lodged in my
mouth like something I couldn't tea swallow. The conversation flipped
the direction of suspicion. Theresa she had a child and
a job and needed her things. She produced her receipt
with the name that matched Unit twelve's file. Mees Alvarez
paled and said, we had a proclaimed Teresa. They let
someone else in. Some are may they deep in handling
my account? She pointed at the court board and said,
you have a rual sheep pin there. I don't know
what it means. I just know I left my son's
blanket there. Now there's a toy on the floor. Her
hands shook when she said it. Two more motion shifts.
My gilt shifted into protectedness towards Theresa when I saw
the worry in her hands. Protectiveness then slid into purpose.
When I decided to go back into Unit twelve with
a plant to search properly, I told Officer Viga I
was stand by with him and helped coordinate a lawful entry.
He agreed in the condition he led the entry in
that we waited for four more back up. Officer Viga
returned with two uniformed officers and a canine that knows
the threshold, and then recoiled. The dog strained at the
leash and mind not barking, as if it detected something
in the scent. Piager radioed for backup and for forensics.
He spoke to me in the brief phrases of a
manishing orders, Ethan, stay here. Heap traffic controlled. Miss Alvarez,
you will remain on site. Theresa, you will wait in
the cruiser. No one touches the unit until we clear it.
He had the authority I had wanted earlier. They opened
the unit properly, this time with the glove lights and
a flashlight that cut a cleaner edge than mine had.
Forensics photographed everything. The dog castated at a shadow behind
a stack of plastic bins and then jumped back, leaving
a scrape on the concrete where its foot had tapped.
The searchers called names and checks spaces methodically. They found nothing.
In the far wall, they found a small bed mark
on the inner door frame and a child's stick, a
stuck high enough to suggest a child had been carried.
Then the knocks darted again. Three sharp knocks, paused, three more.
Everyone froze Officer Viga, who called Marco's name. He scanned
the group and asked, Ethan, did you call? I said no.
Theresa covered her mouth and whispered, it sounded like Marco.
The dog whined and backed away. The unit's voice changed.
Then the mimicry wasn't perfect the match Marko's cadence, but
had a gap where brats should be. Officer Viga took
one stepped toward the corner, and the shadow in side
the unit seemed to move in counterintuitive ways. He reached
the light switch near the threshold and the bulb exploded
in a shower of sparks. The light died entirely. The
room became a bowl of black pole tight in that blackness,
something grabbed at the air near the doorway, and then
at a leg I heard the fabric of a pant
legged here. Officer Viga shouted back up, acup. We retreated instinctively.
The caymanists nine wind and lunged, then barked once hard.
At a corner. We saw nothing except the movement of
a dust cloud in the flashlight beans. When the lights
came back, the floor had afresh with smear where a
shoe had been dragged. There was no one there. The
forensics officer knelt and collected a sample, then looked up
at Mize Alvarez and asked for a list of anyone
with access. Miz Avauz produced the laminated sheet with her
hands pressed together. She the axis workerd shows only staff
and prayer registered tenants. Marcus signed out to Night on
his rounds. Her voice was low. She tapped the entry
with one finger. The forensics officer frowned and said the
S unit's log show tampering with camera time code. He
motioned to the monitor to show the jump. We have
a twenty minute gap. We have a missing person, we
have a smear in a burn. We need a warrant
to search beyond the unit statements. He disliked chicking boxes.
I wanted to smash the boxes. I wanted to grab
the laminated rules and teer them in half. Instead, I
put my hands in the edge of the desk and
felt them tremble. I had one last move I hadn't
he played yet. I walked to the cork board and
took the folded roll sheet out of ims Alvarez's hand
when she wasn't he looking the edge where it had
been cined matched to new burns in the unit. The
sheet had a faint imprint on the back where something
had been pressed into it and then burned away. Officer Vigamy,
what I was doing, I said, I am in taking
this to evidence. It belongs with the report. He nodded.
I slid the sheet into an envelope and stamped it
with my name as the witness. My hands were steady
enough to write legibly. We closed the site for the night.
Theresa left crying into her jacket. Mys Alvarez stood with
her arms cross and refused to answer questions about the
reducted file, beyond saying Culprit would handle it. Officer Viger
drove me to the edge of the property and said
he did the right things for as long as he
did them, he heard, in a voice that tried to
be kind. I looked back at the dark line of
Unit twelve and felt my guilt titan and then loosen
into a brittle thread. At home, I unfolded the raw
sheet again. The cinched edge was sharper in the kitchen light.
On the back in a coroner I hadn't noticed. Some
one had scrawled a short note and then tried to
block it out. Under the scorched paper inning were three
letters I could still make out m R. The letters
could be the start of Marco's name. They could also
be an attempt to write something else. I turned the
page and found a small smear of the same Roust
red card in the crease. I called my Dalvarroze and
asked for the file. She refused. I called off Sir
Viga to ask whether the investigators had found anything further.
He couldn't tea share details beyond their official report. Both
of them circled the facts like guards around a wound.
That made my anger find a shot point. I decided
I would not let a file at a cover note
be the last word for marker. The chapter closes with
a concrete movement. I folded the cinchral sheet carefully, slid
it into my wallet, and slid the wallet into my
back pocket. As I stood in the dark of my kitchen,
a faint knocking ste arted against the window pane. Three knocks, paws,
three knocks, and then the sound cut off. I placed
my hand on my pocket and felt the corner of
the folded paper press into my palm. I thought of
rules and missing tags and a door left open, and
then I went back to sleep with a curing eny
under my pillow. And that is the end. Thank you
for listening, and I will see you in the next one.