The Watch – Part 98:

Looking at the abandoned station during the morning with fresh eyes made it look different in some way. It didn’t look as scary as it did yesterday. I mean, sure it still has all the features that are present in a spooky house and the interior is still dark enough for you to need a torch, but I didn’t get that strange feeling that I got last night. To put this in context: Imagine you’re watching a really scary horror film that is making you jump out of your skin every few seconds – everything is taking place during the night, making it even more atmospheric – but when it cuts to the morning shot, there’s birds singing, the sun is shining and you feel relaxed that it’s finally over. That’s what I’m getting here, and it does feel good to experience that emotion in an actual situation, not just in front of a TV. I looked over to where Amy was standing and noticed that she had adopted a relaxed posture as well. Her shoulders weren’t so upright as they were before. I think we’re going to get a lot done today.

‘See anything new?’ Amy asked.

‘Not at the moment,’ I said.

‘Do you want to have another good look around the perimeter or do you want to just get stuck in and go exploring inside?’ she asked.

‘What do you feel like doing?’ I asked her.

‘I feel like we should go inside,’ Amy said after a couple of seconds of deep thought as she straightened her instincts out.

‘Then inside we shall go,’ I said. The front door was closed.

‘Do you remember closing it?’ I asked.

‘Now you’ve said that, I don’t. Maybe he did?’

‘I can’t see why there would be another explanation,’ I said.

‘Shall we,’ Amy said, stepping up to the door and grasping the rusty handle with her left hand.

‘After you,’ I said.

Amy opened the door. The sun’s rays entered first, knocking the darkness to one side, lighting up a path that we could navigate round easily, however we will need the torches for rooms branching off the main corridor that extended to the main ticket office and back door. We could see where we walked last night as the dust hadn’t had a chance to fill up the holes left by our footprints. Some were overlapping as we walked from room to room and then back towards the front door before we exited for the night. As well as seeing the thick dust on the floor and floating through the air, there was that distinct smell of rotten wood greeting our noses once more, and when we stepped inside, that same tingling sensation inside our noses started up again, trying with all its might to make us sneeze. With the sun’s light, there were features that we didn’t see last night, such as the walls didn’t just have holes in or peeling paint, but they were practically disintegrated as the woodlice feasted upon it over the years, and the floorboards were sticking upwards, waiting patiently for one of us to trip over it – I was astonished that we didn’t catch our feet on that the first time round when the visibility was vastly reduced. Now that I’ve seen that piece of wood sticking up, it’s hard to not see it and I’ll most likely trip over it at some point during our investigation, knowing my luck. I pointed this out to Amy who nodded and took a mental note to try and avoid it as best she could.

‘This place is vastly different to what it looked like in the dark,’ Amy said. ‘It’s like the interior has changed or something, even though we know it hasn’t.’

‘I was thinking the same thing,’ I agreed. I gave in to the tingling in my nose and sneezed twice with little success of getting the dust particles out of my nose.

‘Bless you.’

‘Thank you,’ I said to Amy before realising that it was a man’s voice who said it. I spun on the spot to try and find that guy we saw last night, and sure enough, he was there, with his own torch, standing in the middle of the doorway, looking excited.

Amy and I shared a subtle look towards each other that told each other we need to keep an eye on him from now on before greeting him with a friendly handshake, which he took gratefully.

‘I was going to ask how long you’ve been here for,’ Oliver said, ‘but I think we got here at the same time. So, I was thinking, if you are willing to that is, that we help each other with our tasks that way we’re not getting in each other’s way and we can pass certain pieces of information from one another. If someone finds out something that the other one hasn’t, maybe?’ he suggested. Amy and I looked at each other again with the same expression.

‘I think that is a good idea,’ I said.

‘Excellent,’ Oliver beamed enthusiastically. ‘Now, I figured that I, now that it’s during the day and there’s plenty of light to be going along with,’ and he pulled out a high-tech looking camera, ‘that I’m going to take a couple of pictures of the outside because that’s going to really help with my project.’ I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I know it’s a camera, not a video camera, but it’s a high-tech camera, meaning it’s obviously capable of video recording as well, meaning there’s a high possibility of him being the one who takes the video. My mouth was aghast with shock as to how simple things are being. I was expecting something so much more complicated, but Oliver is just handing us the answer on a plate, which is why I’m getting that thought of it being too good to be true. Maybe, just maybe, the answer is going to be this simple. Amy was in a state of shock when she saw the camera; she had connected the dots as well.

‘Did I say something wrong?’ Oliver asked worriedly.

‘What?’ I said, snapping out of my train of thought. ‘No, no, you didn’t say anything wrong. I just… lost myself in a long train of thought, that’s all.’ I don’t think I nailed that explanation as well as I could have done. He didn’t look too convinced, but he carried on as if it were all normal anyway.

‘Well, I’m heading outside. If you see anything, call me in.’

‘Will do,’ Amy said smiling as best as she could, considering she was still in a state of shock.

‘See you in a bit, then,’ and Oliver walked away, leaving us standing inside the station, looking at each other with incomprehension.

‘I don’t believe it,’ Amy said.

‘No, me neither,’ I said, chuckling at the complete unpredictability of it all. ‘Of all the things I had predicted and expected, that wasn’t it at all, and I mean I came up with a lot of theories.’

‘So what do we do now?’ Amy asked.

‘We have to re-enact what we saw in the video. Well, you do, anyway,’ I said.

‘Shouldn’t we make sure that he’s taking a video first, I don’t want to go through all that trouble for nothing,’ she said.

‘Good point,’ I said, heading towards the window and standing by the window watching Oliver take his series of photos of the building. I didn’t want to get too close to the window as that might make him suspicious if he finds me watching him, and because it doesn’t seem like it’s the best place to stand if you don’t want to fall through the floor. It had nearly completely rotten away. From the look of his movements, he likes to get the perfect picture every time to save retaking it over and over again. He spent ages getting into the right position before he took a photo.

‘What’s he doing?’ Amy asked nervously.

‘Taking a load of photos,’ I said.

‘How will we know when he’s about to take the video?’ she asked.

‘When he turns his back,’ I said.

‘Oh, yeah, of course,’ Amy said remembering the video. ‘But how will you be sure that when he turns is back, he will be taking a video?’ she asked after a couple of seconds of silence.

‘How often do you turn your back to take a picture of the thing you’ve just turned your back towards?’ I asked rhetorically. ‘That sentence could have come out better.’

‘Good point,’ Amy said, ‘and yes, it could have.’

‘Just remember,’ I turned towards Amy. ‘If you’re trying too hard, you could mess it up. From the research that we have gathered…’ and the experience that I have gained, ‘… I know that if you are about to do something that you’ve already done, you don’t have to worry about doing it wrong for you will naturally do it right anyway. It’s only when you do worry and try too hard that you will get things wrong and disrupt the entire plan. Is that understandable?’

‘I think so,’ Amy said.

‘That was the best way that I could explain that in the time we’ve got,’ I said.

‘I know, and you did a good job.’ She was properly nervous now. I’ve never seen her this nervous since we first met each other for the first time. I turned my attention back towards Oliver, who was still taking photos. Either he has taken many, or he has only taken a few. My guess, with his broad movements, it’s the latter. Oliver lowered his camera to look through the many photos he’s taken, and when he was satisfied, he stood there looking at the building as if he was working something out.

‘What is he doing now?’ Amy asked.

‘Just standing there as if he’s thinking about something,’ I said.

‘Do you think he’s about to do it?’

‘I don’t know.’

He studied the building some more. Then, as if he was following some kind of script, he turned his back and activated the video recording setting on his camera, holding it up towards the building.

‘OK, he’s about to turn around,’ I said to Amy, who was now shaking with nerves. ‘Remember what I told you and everything will be fine,’ I said as we both headed towards the front door.

‘Ok,’ Amy took a deep breath and exhaling slowly in an attempt to calm herself down but with little success. ‘Tell me when to go,’ she said.

‘He’s turning around now,’ I called through. ‘Still turning. Still turning. He’s stopped turning and is now facing the building. You had better go now.’

‘Wish me luck,’ Amy called.

‘Good luck.’ Amy opened the front door and walked out, making sure she copied the exact movements she saw herself doing in the video, by pulling her hood over her head so to try and not be spotted. Amy walked passed my window, clearly looking very nervous about not wanting to mess it up. Oliver spotted Amy walking through his shot and immediately ended the recording. Amy’s job was done. Now we have to figure out what we need to do so that Amy’s past-self could see it and come rushing over to my house to make me see it and start this very adventure off. But for now, we can relax and take our time.

Oliver came back over the road. I went out to meet him.

‘Is Amy alright?’ he asked worriedly, ‘she looked a little nervous about something.’

‘I’m fine,’ Amy answered coming back around the video, noticeably calmer. ‘I thought I saw something and I went to investigate, but it turned out to be nothing of importance,’ she said making it up on the spot, but in such a way that convinced Oliver that she was telling the truth – thanks to her now relaxed state.

‘Did you get everything that you wanted?’ I asked him.

‘I did, actually,’ he said sounding pleased. ‘How about you. Find anything?’

‘Nothing more than we found last night,’ I said even though we weren’t looking at all.

‘Well,’ Oliver was bouncing up and down on the balls of his heels, ‘shall we re-enter and go exploring one more time, then,’ he said. I looked at Amy, who looked at me. We have no idea what to do from this point onward. We’ve completed what we set out to do and now we have another task to complete and I’m pretty sure that we’re not going to upload a video and send it into the past from here. We might be able to do that back at home. I’m secretly glad that we were able to do this without the help of my watch.

‘Um,’ I said, unable to come up with anything.

‘I need to make a phone call,’ Amy pulled out her phone.

‘And I need to… help her with that,’ I knew immediately that was easily the worst excuse in the world. Oliver was a bit surprised by our sudden actions and just stood there, watching us walk away.

‘OK,’ he said, trying to process everything. ‘I’ll meet you inside, then,’ he said.

‘You know what question I’m going to ask now,’ Amy said.

‘And I have no idea how to answer it,’ I said. ‘We’ve completed what we came out here to do so I see no reason why we need to stay.

‘I wasn’t talking about leaving or staying,’ Amy said. ‘I was talking about how we are going to get the video from Oliver’s camera so that we can figure out a way of sending it into the past,’ Amy explained.

‘Oh,’ I said. ‘Well, I still don’t know how to answer that.’

‘Maybe we can ask if we can take a copy of it for our project or something along those lines,’ Amy said.

‘That’s better than what I had,’ I said.

‘Oh, and that was?’ she asked unconvinced that I had come up with anything, and she was right to think that.

‘Stealing the camera.’

‘You weren’t thinking anything was you,’ she said.

‘No,’ I said simply.

‘Come on you,’ she said, pushing me back around. ‘Let’s get this over and done with. And because you’re being so cheeky, you get to be the one who asks.’

I knew that was coming.

TO BE CONTINUED…

Thanks for reading

Antony Hudson

(TonyHadNouns)