The Ghost in the Window by Ayse Hafiza

Author:Ayse Hafiza [Hafiza, Ayse]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-06-25T22:00:00+00:00

13

In The Garage

Friday evenings television shows were interrupted by the flickering of electricity. When the lights flicked on and off, Saima moved from sitting on the carpet with Idris up to her mom’s lap, clasping her arms around mom neck.

Her mom knew she was scared, but she needed to find the torch.

“I’ll fix it tomorrow when I can get the tools and check it in the daylight,” promised Rashid.

So they gave up and everyone went to bed, but Saima could feel it, and she wondered if her family could feel it too. A growing sense of the darker corners encroaching on their space, starting to take over. She was only six, but she knew the taps coming on and the electricity flickering was linked. She clung to her older sister as she slept that night, not willing to be separated from a member of her family. Saima hoped and prayed that the old woman wouldn’t appear, she hadn’t seen her for a few days and she was starting to hope that she had just been a figment of her imagination. Besides, Saima knew that her father’s older brother, Uncle Waleed, was coming from Pakistan on his way to America, when he came they needed the house to be free of odd happenings. How would they explain taps coming on or the electricity flickering? She was a little girl, but she had worries too.

Saima had a restless sleep, but at least she slept some. When she woke she played with her brother after they’d watched cartoons in the morning.

Their dad checked the fuse box again after breakfast, he was always trying to do work himself even though his mom wanted him to call an electrician, but Dad didn’t have the money for one. Frustrated that he couldn’t find the right screwdriver, Dad stepped into the garage and rooted around behind the children old bikes and toys to find the tools that had been left there. He wasn’t sure if he would be able to find what he needed. He picked out tools in his hand, and then put them back in the box. The man who left them behind left an assortment of different tools, and Rashid wasn’t sure what he was meant to do with half of them.

The temperature dropped, but because the garage only had one window, it was perpetually in darkness so being cool was to be expected. It was just a prefabricated garage with a corrugated metal roof, not a particularly fancy garage. He pulled out a metal rule and held it in his hands as he wondered if there were any more screwdrivers lower down in the endless metal toolbox. He was particularly focused on finding a slim flathead.

He was so focused he didn’t notice the garage door slowly close itself nor did he notice how his breath turned icy as he continued rummaging among the tools. Had he let someone, maybe a neighbor, borrow his screwdriver set? He was sure he hadn't and that it should be in the box where he had seen it last.

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