Windkill

The interior of the factory was pristine. Machinery sat motionless and waiting for human hands to begin the production process. Walking to one of the upright presses, Marilyn reached into a wooden box and pulled out a handful of brass tubes before understanding she was holding the blanks for cartridges.

A puzzled frown stole across her face. “This isn’t right,” she said for the benefit of the camera. “Why would there still be materials here if this plant shut down sixty years ago?”

It was too elaborate to be a hoax; far too many boxes lined the center of the main aisle for the television people to afford to create a visual effect. Marilyn was no fool. She knew what it took to make a business run, and no one had so much excess money that they could use actual materials to dress up a setting.

Far down the aisle, a press started with the motor and belts whining as they strained to bring the flywheel up to speed. One by one, the rest of the machinery came to life, filling the building with a dense noise.

The night vision equipment was useless in a room well lit. Reaching into her pack, Marilyn pulled out a thermal camera and used it to scan the room. All the machines glowed a dull yellow, only their motors reaching a higher temperature. Yet she could see areas of red moving between the machines. Lowering the glasses, she searched for movement and could find none. Looking once more through the thermal camera, she repeated the exercise and reached the same results.

Was it possible there were ghosts moving in the building? Did the ghosts turn on the machinery?

“I see activity with the thermal camera,” she reported. Maybe this show was not as staged as she first suspected. Reaching out, she passed a hand through a red column and felt a chill race across the exposed flesh of her hand.

For the first time since entering the valley, Marilyn felt fear as she jerked her hand away from the cold air. The ghost passed her and headed for a set of overhead offices; the stairs leading to the loft behind a bank of horizontal presses used to sheer steel.

As she watched with the camera, the red column climbed the stairs and passed through a wall on the second floor. Oddly, a piece of the wall glowed yellow from a heat source on the far side.

“Something is in the room upstairs,” she reported and summoned her courage. Slowly, Marilyn walked to the stairs and climbed.