FOOTFALLS IN THE HALLWAY
What unseen presence inhabits the corridors of this former gaol?
Stanley “Mac” Macdiarmid was one of those guys you’d like to have working for you. Experienced and competent, he could figure out almost any problem, and he was faced with a dandy right now. He knew that he had to get the heat on in the old building before he left for the weekend, and that iron pipe fitting just wouldn’t quit dripping—irritating him to no end.
He was working in an awesome, ancient stone structure. It was called the “Historic Gaol” because that’s how the Brits spelled jail in the 1850s. Its stone walls stretched up three stories from the cellar, where he worked on the new boiler, all the way up to the observation tower where guards could view prisoners in the courtyard.
One part of the gaol held the tiny, cold cells. They were cubicles of odd sizes with steel bars and wooden bunks embedded in the ever-present limestone. Barred windows, open to the elements, aorded small glimpses of daylight and patches of the courtyard, where some awful things had transpired. Mac had taken bits of his lunchtime to wander the place and read some of the displays that the county had put up when the gaol became part of the local museum. He had wandered alone along the cavernous domed hallway that all prisoners walked, their footfalls echoing in the emptiness. His imagination allowed him to feel the despair and fear as they trudged to their incarceration.
He often felt as if he were being watched, his neck hairs standing on end. It was as if someone were in the hall with him. He saw no one.
Mac had spent a couple of weeks at the gaol, swapping out an ancient boiler for a new, super-efficient one. He’d shared time and space with several other tradesmen, swapping lies and sharing misadventures they’d had. No one mentioned ghosts.
His job was to plumb the boiler, only replacing a small part of the existing system. He’d been instructed to use a new thread sealing compound to keep the threaded joints from leaking. It didn’t always work. And so he had one joint that was giving him a headache.
Mac fired the boiler to warm the water and had started to “bleed” the air out of the system so that it would work. Just on a hunch he started in the kitchen part of the jail. Its painted wooden floors and plaster walls were closest to the boiler room. He thought he heard something above him.
Mac wouldn’t have noticed it a couple of hours ago, but all of the other people had left, as it was quitting time on a Friday night. The maintenance super had told him to lock up because he would be the last to leave. It had been eerily quiet for an hour or so, until now. He ignored the sound and the creepy feeling it brought and went back into the boiler room to check the temperature and pressure. He heard the noise again. It sounded hollow, a footstep maybe?
Mac wasn’t too sure about ghosts. He’d experienced a couple of events where things
had happened that he couldn’t explain, but he didn’t think about them often. His ancestors believed in fairies and goblins and leprechauns and such; he wasn’t about to say that fairies were real but he wasn’t about to say that ghosts were not real, either. What he did know for certain was that he had to get this job done.
He noticed a small puddle on the floor. The offending fitting was a union. Taking two large pipe wrenches in powerful hands, he quickly exorcised the useless fitting, double sealed the threads and installed a new union. Mac put a great eort into tightening the fitting into place and then he turned the valve to refill the system. He smiled to himself as the water gushed in. No way to hear things now, he thought as the pipes filled.
In a short time he returned to bleeding the system of air. He started in the kitchen once more and he could feel the radiator get warm as the air left and heated water replaced it. Next was the laundry and all went well. He returned to the boiler room and things were fine. He picked up a pipe wrench, just in case someone, rather than something was making the noise. Now he had to climb the main stairs to the part of the great stone structure that was about as incongruous as a top hat in a grub line.
Back in the day, the warden, or gaoler, lived with his family in the east wing of the stone building. The main entrance was opulent and rugged simultaneously in that while the doors were fancy, they were also strong. Beautiful wooden wainscoting lined the papered walls.
Ornate handrails adorned the staircases up to the second floor where several bedrooms were still made up and looking very comfortable. There were radiators in every room, both upstairs and down. Mac stooped and removed his steel toed work boots in order to walk the finished floors without causing dirt or damage.
He went through the main floor, bleeding the radiators one by one. Then he heard distinct, unmistakable footsteps in the hall right above his head. He thought maybe someone was trespassing, so he gripped the heavy pipe wrench as he moved silently to the back stairs and carefully climbed them. His adrenalin was pumping and his fight or flight instinct took over. Mac thought he was too fat to flee and so readied himself for combat.
Slowly, step by step, he climbed the stairs. He wondered in passing why it couldn’t be a Casper-type ghost, just out for a stroll. Before he could open the door to the top floor, he heard footfalls on the carpeted hallway. They came closer, ever closer until they were near to the door that separated Mac from the hall. Chills went up his spine. He flung the door open and stepped out, pipe wrench at the ready. Nothing! His neck hairs stood up again. There was nowhere for any human to go that Mac wouldn’t have seen. There was nothing there.
Mac finished bleeding the radiators as quickly as he could, double-checked that the system was working, gathered his tools, locked the door and went home. He never told anyone about it until he retired. Now he’s told you. ▪