Harry sighs, “Why, of all days for the extruder to break down, does it have to be the day the other mechanics are sick or on vacation?” He reached down to pick up a wrench from his toolbox. “And why,” he complains, “does it have to be the heating element that breaks? This thing is such a pain to remove!” He reached down for a different sized wrench, only to see a strange ghostly hand already there. He blinks and the hand is gone. “Must be seeing things,” he thinks. Turning back to the machine, he spots a strange apparition from the corner of his eye, looking over it fades away, but not before he realizes it was looking at him.

  “No way this place is haunted,” he thinks, “I’ve been working here over 20 years, someone would’ve seen them by now.” Convincing himself it’s all a result of lack of sleep, he continues working, not failing to notice the apparitions are appearing more frequently and with strange box-like devices. After a couple hours, he gets up to move to the other side of the machine, turning the corner he notices three apparitions around a ghostly box on the floor, the beckon him towards the box, then walk away. Curious, and most definitely not afraid, he tells himself, he inches towards it. As soon as he steps working a couple feet of it the top lights up and the whole thing vanishes. Waiting a minute to see if there is any other activity, he shakes his head and gets back to work. Throughout the day he keeps seeing the apparitions, but decides to ignore them, thinking to himself that he’ll get some extra sleep tonight to make them go away. Finally finished with repairs, Harry reassembles the machine cover and starts the test run. Noticing the apparitions once again looking at him, he tells them, “Once I know the machine is fixed I’ll go ho— He’s cut off by a bright flash of light.

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Meanwhile, a group of three teenagers are having a discussion. “We should help,” the firs says. “And how do you propose we do that?” The second replies, “all we can get is ‘fix machine’! Not even a name to work with.” “Maybe the machine is the extruder that burned the factory down?” The third asks. Their debate continues on, as Harry comes into work to find the extruder broken, with him the only mechanic on the clock, “Great,” he mumbles, “just great.”