Short Story: The Construction Worker

The Construction Worker 

Newcastle; a city run by the rats and pigeons, a city infested by drunks and populated with construction workers.  

Incident took place on: 

Monday, April 14th 2017,  

10:21am. 

Just off Northumberland street four construction workers were at work, one down a manhole and three standing waiting for their friend to come back. One of the men had called to their friend; wondering where he had gone, they had been waiting a full twenty minutes. A routine check up on the bowls of the city couldn't take this long, could it? The men were not getting worried as such, because the city is safe; no harm could come to anyone here. What the men felt was a growing sense of curiosity. Luckily, the time of day was a quiet one for this particular street, as the manhole in question was both larger than average as well as located in the center of the road. One of the workers often questioned these factors with the frequent visits to this specific manhole, usually he would just get replies such as. "Because it is." Or, "If you ask me anotha question youngin I'll shove my fist up yer arse." From what I gather, the construction worker who asked a lot of questions, was the of the whole group and had only been employed for one week. This was the boy who was send down the manhole. Five minutes of waiting had past; the men on the surface had grown restless and impatient. The leader of the pack flashed a glance at the others, then started to descend. When climbing the ladder he was looking and the dank murky water; he saw a glint from a queer object close to the ladder but just out of the ray of light descending from the manhole. He strained his eyes to point where he could barely see objects that were in the light. His voice quivered, "Hello?" Nothing. He tried again, "Is... anyon..." He was cut off by a faint guttural moan. The man jumped and almost let go of the ladder. A cold sweat was pulled over him as he felt a cold damp hand grip his leg, the queer object was gripping him, He refocused it was the young construction worker. "Help..." Moaned the young construction worker. Without thinking the construction worker shook the boy off and scrambled up the ladder, then collapsed on the pavement. He was gasping for air albeit partly failing. In the back of his mind he can still see the boy's face, covered in dirt and what looked like blood. The construction worker's encounter with the boy was so sudden that he can't quite remember what was actually there and what was conjured up by his imagination. His thought process had been quickly interrupted, the boy's voice could still be heard from the hole however what made the construction worker pay attention was the when his voice became more muffled. He looked over his colleagues where gone and a car had it's wheel stuck in the manhole.* A man's head emerged from the car window to see the construction worker gasping on the floor, still unable to move. The man in the car put his head back in the car to try and force his way out of the hole he got himself into. The construction worker finally managed to force a word out of his chapped lips, "Stop." He had saw the boy dragging himself out of the hole. His words were wasted the man's car finally moved. There was a audible crack then a large splash. The emergency services arrived on the scene later. The construction worker was still paralyzed with fear. The body was discovered, the neck was snapped which corroborated the construction workers story , what was strange however was the teeth marks on the corpse and his Achilles tendon looked like it had been ripped out, my theory is rats however the Doctor claims the wounds were not post mortem, he is convinced the construction worker saw something, which would explain his fear induced paralysis, this line of inquiry proved fruitless however, as the man was last reported heading to the Tyne Bridge late at night after a therapy session but was not seen coming back and has not been since. The psychiatrist has since been admitted into a hospital from a drug induced coma shortly after his session with the construction worker, it is believed his intention was suicide and had no history of drug use. The sewers have been searched multiple times since, the only things being reported are a strange metallic smell with a strong hint of rotting meat, as well as a distant guttural moaning. 

*Report Footnotes: After interviews it was discovered the other construction workers got bored and went for coffee.