Family Reunion (In the works. Please give feedback.)

[Reptile-Queen-Daisy]

As I pulled into the empty parking lot and came to a silent halt, I leaned forward and my eyes raised as I peered through the windshield at the towering structures of the abandoned cement factory. I had wanted to go ghost hunting for years now and, after hearing numerous reports of paranormal activity here, it hadn't been difficult at all to decide on where to conduct my first investigation. In the fifty years that this place had been in operation, there had been 12 major accidents. Supposedly, the most tragic one, involving a flood in the basement, claimed the lives of nine workers.

There was something personal though as well that had brought me here, and that was the discovery that the spirit of the actor, and my cousin, Dennis Hopper, was rumored to be haunting this location as well. I wasn't exactly sure why he would choose to stick around in this particular location, but I had found out that a large part of the Mario Brothers movie, in which he had played the role of the evil dictator, Koopa, had been filmed here. Perhaps, it was that he had fond memories of the time he had shared with the other cast members here, or maybe, while many disliked his portrayal of Mario and Luigi's arch-rival, he had always considered that one of his favorite roles. Whatever the reason, I prayed we'd bump into one another, figuring that, unlike encounters with the ghost of a worker who'd been severely disfigured from the tragic accident that took his life, that I'd not be frightened by the sight of the cousin I sadly never got to meet before cancer had claimed his life.

After turning off the ignition with a flick of my wrist, I stretched an arm back to grab the backpack full of various types of paranormal investigation equipment, such as an EMF reader, all of which I was pretty much a virgin to using. I was never one to follow directions well. Sure, I had no problem reading them, but it was keeping them locked in my memory that was the difficult part. I stepped out of the car and secured the backpack straps over my shoulder, then shut the door and locked the car with a press of a button, hearing it beep loudly in response. 'Well," I said to myself, shoving my keys into my pocket and moving towards the doors of the main building, "...you've come this far, Charity, and you'll never forgive yourself if you turn around and risk missing out on your little quest. He's waiting for you."

Pressing my hands against one of the dirty glass doors, I said a silent prayer that it would be unlocked somehow and God seemed to immediately answer my prayer, as it gave in to my weight and pushed open with ease. I found myself in a lobby with a few brown leather couches with tears in them here and there. I shook my head some at the sight of pop bottles, candy bar wrappers, chip bags and other trash littering the floor, thinking to myself '...it may be nothing but an old factory to some, but it's also a place where people lost their lives and disrespecting it is like disrespecting them.' From what I could remember of the newspaper article, the bodies of the drowned had never been recovered, the basement instead going undisturbed...meant to be a watery mass grave till the earth was no more.

Exiting the lobby and moving down through a wide hallway off to my right, I passed by several doors, trying the metal knobs of a few but discovering they were locked, then up ahead I noticed one that was opened on the left side, right before the end of the hallway that opened into a room that seemed to be full of large machinery. Approaching the doorway, I noticed a wooden label on the wall beside it that read in white letters 'Richard C. Riggs: Manager.' Wondering what relics of the factory's working days I might find inside, I passed through into the room, seeing a marble top desk covered in dust and scattered with papers. A wooden chair rested between the desk and a tall file cabinet. Touching one of the chair's armrests and soon taking a seat, I wondered what it would have been like to run such a massive place, imagining how hectic it must have been with so many workers running around. With all the things to be done, the loud noise of the machinery and the voices of the employees, it would have been easy for the screams or sighting of those in peril to go unnoticed, until it was too late.

Suddenly, a unexplained giant burst of freezing cold air blew in from the hallway, and exploded in my face, along with the papers and dust that it had carried along with it from the surface of the desk, then the wind ceased immediately and all was completely still around me once more. I went into a sneezing fit that seemed to last forever, after the dust had blown up deep into my nostrils, then once I had calmed down and wiped my dripping nose with my sleeve, I looked around as panic filled my heart . The air had been extremely humid outside and only seemed worse in here, which made me grateful I'd brought along several bottles of water in my backpack, and there could only be one reason for the frigid surprise...The rumors of hauntings were true, but which of the poltergeists had been responsible for that? Could it be?

Since I had forgotten to bring along my camera, I knew there were only two ways to find out if this had indeed been my first personal encounter with my famous late cousin. Hoping to get some evidence of whether or not my suspicions were right before whoever this was disappeared, I hurried to pull my backpack off and laid it on the desk, unzipping it and pulling out the audio recorder and pushing the power button on then setting it to tape my session. "Dennis Hopper, was that you? We...never got to meet but...you see...I found out recently that we're c..." I stopped for a second, feeling like I was suddenly being watched from out in the hall, like someone was peeking around and looking in the doorway at me, and I couldn't help but cry, thinking that it might be him and that he had sensed my sadness and wondered what was wrong.

"C...cousins," I finally choked out with warm tears streaming down my cheeks now. I ran a hand through my hair, brushing back the many strands that had blown in my eyes, as I tried to keep it together, knowing he was famous not only for acting like a tough guy in movies but also for being one in real life and I didn't want him to think of me as some sort of sissy. So I rubbed my eyes and cheeks with my sleeve, clearing them of the wetness as I sniffed. Just then, the sensation of being observed was gone and I stood up, stopping the recorder for now and stuffing it back into it's place before walking towards the door as I slid the straps of my backpack over my shoulders again. My journey had still pretty much just begun, and there were many other places here to find the answers to this mystery.

SLAM! The sound echoed so loudly that I felt like my ear drums had nearly burst and my head pounded for a bit. Fear moved back in as my hand grabbed the knob and turned it...locked. I latched on with the other hand and started yanking desperately, as if eventually the door would give in, as fear became overpowered by desperation and screams of "...please, let me out whoever you are..," and "...this isn't funny," soon flowed from between my trembling lips. After several minutes of crying, screaming and more pulling, I finally gave up on the chance of being saved, by dead or living, and I let go, curling up into a ball on the floor with my back against the wall and continuing my sobbing fit.

About an hour and a half later, I was awakened by a loud creaking and lifted my head to see that the door, which had been locked tight on me before I had eventually cried myself to sleep, was now slowly opening by itself. It came to an abrupt halt when it had opened a little over half way and everything when silent again, then a low mumbling sound started up and seemed to be singing. The words, as well as the sex of the singer, could not be identified at first, then gradually the noise became clearer until I knew exactly who the voice belonged to and what the song was. Chills started to run down my spine and I moved out into the hallway, curiosity fueling my every move, as Carly Simon sang on through a radio that was hidden somewhere inside the factory. The lyrics echoed eerily throughout the enormous building:

There's always someone haunting someone - haunting someone
And you know who I am....I am...I am...I am...I am...

The song and it's insane skipping stopped at last and music did not return, but yielded to an all too familiar and very agitated voice screaming, "....mammals! I HATE filthy mammals!" The words had seemed to be emitting from every part of the room and as my eyes wandered around and passed by a catwalk, I thought I saw a shadowy figure of a person standing on the part of it that passed over a giant cylinder-shaped machine, which I took to be some sort of rotating grinder. I quickly backtracked my gaze and when my eyes got back to that spot, the shadow was still there, only to dash to the end of the catwalk on my right and vanish before it reached the steps that went down to the level I was on. The next thing I knew, I was face to face with him...Dennis' s version of Koopa, looking in my eyes with fiery rage in his own.

"What the freak were you thinking?!" He started walking around me in circles like a lion about to pounce on a wounded gazelle, eyes never leaving me as they flashed from reptilian to human then reptilian and back again, settling on those like my own, "...well, well well...I think I know EXACTLY who you are now..." My eyes lit up and some joy started to fill my heart as I thought to myself 'he...he recognizes me at last...that I'm family' only for all hope to be shattered when he yelled even more angrily, "....those plumbers sent backup!" He chuckled to himself, then stopped, seeming to be clasping his hands behind his back as he approached me slowly, "...I must say...I don't know what they were thinking sending a girl to do a MAN'S work!" I couldn't believe what I was hearing. It was like he had never finished the Mario movie and had became so fixated on making his character believable that he had forgotten it was all make-believe.

"You've got to listen to me, you're not..." I stopped as soon as I'd began, feeling my forehead becoming moist with drops of sweat as the temperature seemed to rise along with the intensity in his eyes. He looked like he was on the verge of rushing at me and attacking full-on, his body clearly starting to shake like a rocket about to go off, so I tried to think of a way to keep his temper from flaring further out of control. "What I mean to say is that I don't know what plumbers you're talking about, or what these guys did to you, but I am nobody's spy. I just got turned around and wound up right here in the middle of your city. You're the great Koopa right?"

Now, I seemed to have at least flattered him a little and his frightening expression was starting to relax, along with the rage-driven trembling, and before long, he gave me the slightest hint of a smirk. "Y....Yeah, that's right...So, you've heard of me. I just hope it was ah...something good...for your sake and for theirs." His arms crossed over his chest and he snorted some, tilting his head, as I tried to think of another compliment that would gain more trust from him, followed by a slightly agitated, "...out with it, girly." I sought deeper into my mind, before finally exclaiming, "...yes, it was a...uh...big bulky guy with skin that was way too pale and the blackest hair you'll ever see and he said 'that Koopa, he sure has livened up this town.'"