At the junkyard

When you think of junkyards, what kind of image pops up in your head?

I am reminded of the loud sounds from the machines. There must be a pile of waste resources. And the cars that have been crushed by huge automobile hydraulic presses. Junkyards remind us of crime scenes from movies. But it's creepier in actual junkyards.

Among the cars that get sent to the junkyards, some of them are covered in blood. They were broken down and crushed. You could only see its frame. How should I say it? Especially at night, it was spooky.

How do I know a lot about junkyards?

It's because my father ran a big junkyard in the suburbs. I am going to tell you a crazy story that took place at the junkyard in 2003.

I was working in my father's junkyard as a part-timer. My job was to patrol the junkyard at night. Sometimes, thieves came to the junkyard to steal the parts from the cars.

Whenever I was in the office at night, I was always with my close friend who was a bit older than me. He was a mechanic who lived at the junkyard. He always volunteered to be on night duty to get paid extra.

I was making jokes with him that night as usual.

"Gosh. This is so bland. You can drink it. This is awful."

"It's good. Why are you so picky?"

"What? How dare you talk to the son of the owner like that?"

'HAHAHA'

Bright headlights flashed toward the entrance of the junkyard.

"Hey. That looks like a tow truck. Are we expecting any tow trucks?" He asked.

"No. None."

"What is this about? Let's go and check."

That was the first time a tow truck showed up without any notice.

When we went outside, it was a familiar face who frequented to the junkyard with his tow truck.

"Hey, what are you doing here at this time without a notice?"

"Hey."

"It's a rush job. This car was in an accident."

"Are there any parts we can salvage?" I asked him.

"You should salvage anything you can," he replied.

"I see. Really?"

My friend walked towards the car and said, "This must have been a big accident."

"What happened to the driver?" I was curious about the driver.

The tow truck driver replied, "The driver died at the scene."

The accident must have been horrible, the totaled car was covered in blood. My friend was inspecting the car's inside when some kind of thick liquid fell into his eye.

"What?" He exclaimed getting out.

"Hey, that's blood."

"Come on. You didn't clean the car thoroughly." I told the tow truck driver.

Suddenly, my friend picked up something from the ground that had dropped when he rushed back from the car.

The thing that fell into his eye was a piece of someone's scalp. Seeing splattered blood in the accident cars was common. But this was rare even for him who had been working at a junkyard for a long time.

I tried to calm myself down when my body was shaking in horror. We took over the vehicle.

But a few days later...

"Hey, do you want to hear something crazy?" My friend said with a bit of a hesitation.

"What is it?"

He didn't say anything for a second or so then said, "Don't laugh after hearing it, okay."

"What is it?"

"I saw a ghost."

"You saw a ghost?.. Where? In your dream?"

'HAHAHA'

I broke out in a fit of a laugh.

"I told you not to laugh."

I stopped myself from laughing and tried to seriously ask him, "Okay. Where?"

"Here."

I thought it was ridiculous. It had been ten years since he started to work at my dad's junkyard. Forget about ghost stories, we never talked about horror stories to begin with. But he suddenly started to talk about ghosts. And this is the story that he told me.

(Check out my original story. Its title is 'The Reddest Red.')