text — The Abandoment King.
Here is another short story I wrote for ye, hope you all like it …
The Abandonment King had died peacefully in his sleep.
The funeral was over and Jeff, a former employee of the King, was driving around aimlessly and hoping to get lost despite the GPS navigation system in his hybrid. Jeff was a Social Networking Expert fresh out of college and swimming in a sea of other SNEs when the King had hired him. And now that the King had passed, there was no more job.
The King had made a small fortune creating children’s place-mats for restaurants. His most popular place-mat featured giant robots attacking a city. It was the job of the child to use his crayons to navigate around the maze of the destroyed city and escape the wrath of evil robots. Jeff still remembered that place-mat from the diner his family had frequented. But by the time Jeff had met the King the place-mat business was in the hands of his sons.
The Abandonment King got his name by buying dilapidated properties. He made no money from this venture and it was supposed to be a “hobby” for his retirement. But The Abandonment King thought this “hobby” was his life’s most important work. His main purpose in buying these broken down properties was to give the kid’s in the surrounding towns their legends back.
The King felt that the modern world was moving so fast that adults had no time to pass on the legends of their youth and kids had no time to make up their own. The King thought these stories were an important part of a kid’s life and a building block of the communities they lived in.
Where The King grew up their were dozens of modern ruins and each had a story attached to it. Like the old Miller barn that some said was haunted by the ghost of a rabid dog. Or the abandoned Creager house that was supposedly occupied by an insane half-man, half-owl creature that waited to swoop down on any trespassers. He had fond memories of these places and their monsters and he wanted to make sure that youth continued to enjoy the excitement of a collective scary story. And that is where Jeff and the other SNEs came in.
Once a property was purchased and saved from development the SNEs would descend on the forums, blogs, and other social sites of the kid’s in the area. They would pose as local kids and start rumors of strange beasts or horrible spirits that lived in the abandoned property. Most times it only took a little nudging to ignite a rash of headless specter sightings at an abandoned warehouse. And so the viral ghost stories spread through the virtual hang outs of the town.
Now that Jeff was jobless he started contemplating which corporation would hire him to pose as a sixteen year old girl that totally loved the new [insert widget name here] on various websites. He was lost in these depressing thoughts when he saw an old building with an e-sign out front. Jeff stopped his car and found himself looking up at an old mill. He got out to get a better look and as he approached the mill the e-sign detected his motion and sprang to life. The monitor started showing a video of the realtor giving his spiel about the place.
As he walked around the building he instinctively started to create its legend. The old mill was haunted by the ghost of a worker who had lost his arms in a tragic accident. The angry ghost was waiting for some unsuspecting interlopers to cross his path so he could snatch their appendages and make them his own. The kids would love it.
He pointed his iPhone² at the e-sign and captured the real estates agent’s contact info. He then sent the realtor an email letting him know he was interested in the old mill. The realtor’s image on the sign smiled and let Jeff know he would return his message ASAP.
Jeff jumped back in his car and pulled away from the mill. His phone started ringing; the realtor was already returning his message. The Abandonment King was back in business.
