Before getting the job, and even after almost a year had past, no one ever mentioned to me about a guy that shot his brains out at the shop. When I eventually did find out that my fellow workers knew about the suicide, I was a bit bothered, and I thought that it was very strange for them to have kept this tragic information to themselves. It didn’t help that most of the guys didn’t speak much English either. But they were cool. I had to find out about this guy the hard way, by having to see his ghost for myself!
The first time I began to suspect that there was something strange going on was when I was working in the back of the garage one morning, where we have a large metal barrel of solvent. I was cleaning off the oil from a few metal engine parts. I wasn’t thinking about anything except getting these parts ready to replace into a car I was working on. My hands were covered with solvent and oil, when suddenly I heard the footsteps of someone walking on the gravel behind me. I thought it was a fellow worker, so without turning around I said, “Hey, can you hand me that rag that’s hanging on the bar by the chair?”
Then I heard the sound of someone laughing. I turned around and saw no one. This kind of freaked me out at first, but I thought it must have been the radio that was playing in the garage. So, I didn’t think anymore about it. But with regularity, stranger things were beginning to take place. I was a new employee so I didn’t want to give my boss the impression that I was already becoming a problem new hire. I kept these things to myself.
As I was walking back from selecting a part from our inventory, I noticed a very, and I mean a very, cold area, or spot in one of the aisles where the parts were stored. I remember that I even got goosebumps running up and down my arms. It was as if I had stepped inside a freezer. It was that cold.
I left the aisle and walked over to the front desk and asked the receptionists about the cold spot. She responded by saying, “Oh, yeah, I know what you’re talking about, that area is always cold, but the coldness moves around the room. It could be a ghost. I think it’s a ghost but can’t mention it to the supervisor because he’s a born-again Christian. I asked him about it once and he told me I had to pray, etc. He said it all has to do with not believing in God and letting demons take control of my life. Then he started with passages from the Bible, boy was that a mistake.” I then told her that I’d do as she advised. She responded, “But I know what you’re saying, I feel the presence of someone’s eyes following me all around the place. I know it’s not evil, I think it’s just a common, run-of-the-mill ghost. As long as he or she lets me do my job I’m fine with it staying in the back storage room, and not following me home.” Thinking back to that time, I thought it was all interesting, but really just a bunch of crazy talk.
I began to notice that the cold spots were not only in the parts department, but also in the garage itself, and once in the back yard, where the cars needing repair were stored. It was strange to actually walk through a cold spot. In the back yard, there is just the outdoors, without a covering. So even on a bright and sunny day, when I’d walk through one of these cold spots, it would be a little bit of a shock.
The first real incident that got me thinking and even scared took place in the parts department’s storage room. I remember I was searching for a gasket for a 1990 Four-Runner. As I was squatting down and reaching for a box on the lowest shelve, I distinctly heard a man’s loud voice say, “I told you I’d get it for you!” I said, “What?” I quickly stood right up because I knew I was alone in the room. I turned around and looked between the aisles and spotted no one. I knew I was not imagining this, I actually heard a guy speak these forceful words to me.
The second time I experienced something that I can say was a ghost was when I was once again in the back yard. It was during the middle of the day. I had just finished cleaning off a timing chain and had draped it over a drip pan to dry. I noticed that someone, a man about in his early 50s, was standing 10, or 15 feet away from me against the cement wall of the building. Our eyes met and he just stood there glaring at me.
Since I didn’t recognize him, I spoke, “Hey, you need something?” He took a puff of his cigarette, turned his head away from me and fell backward, disappearing into the wall!
I dropped my towel and shot out of there, back inside the garage—I was so scared, I think I almost could have shit myself! I went up to the bathroom and splashed water on my face and when I came out, I approached a fellow worker named Fernando, to tell him about what I had just seen. I couldn’t keep this to my- self, for my own sanity I had to share this with someone.
Fernando looked at me and I’m sure he could see that I was not joking I was as serious as a heart attack. After I told him what I had seen he asked me to describe the ghost. I told him that his clothes were dirty and he was a small guy. His hair was combed back and greasy. He was smoking a cigarette and his eyes were totally black, I couldn’t even tell if there was any white coloring around his pupils. They were totally dark and black. He just stood there staring at me, then turned away and disappeared.
Fernando said, “Hey Frank, don’t worry, you’ve just been visited by Arnold. Sometimes he comes around the shop and visits us. Arnold’s not going to do you any harm. I’ve never seen him, but a few of the office workers and some of the mechanics have mentioned seeing him. I’ve only smelled his cigarette around the shop, but I’ve never seen him. He must really like you if he actually appeared to you.”
I was not comforted by his words in fact I was even more fearful to be standing in the shop knowing this was a ghost that others had seen. I asked, “So Fernando, who is this guy Arnold?” He said, “Arnold was a mechanic who worked here the year before I started working here, that would be about eight years ago. I wasn’t his friend he was a quiet guy and for the most part kept to himself. He was from Mexico and got involved with an Anglo woman in town who he was going to marry. He found out she was messing around with one of the guys who worked at the Baptist Church. It was a typical story of a woman seeing another guy on the side. Arnold took it pretty bad because one morning he was found dead from a self-inflicted shot to the head, he had committed suicide. He shot himself out back, sitting on a chair right against the wall where you actually saw his ghost. Scary stuff, huh?”
I was speechless. I decided I had seen enough of ghosts, and I spent the rest of the day thinking about what had happened and decided not to speak about this to anyone. I asked Fernando if he could keep this information to himself. He said he would. And that was the last we ever spoke about the ghost.
After the Christmas holidays, my wife and I decided to open a mountain bicycle repair shop so I quit my job at the garage. I haven’t had any further ghost sightings and I’m glad for that. Just thinking right now about that experience causes the palms of my hands to sweat. You bet I believe in ghosts. I believe in ghosts after seeing Arnold’s ghost at the garage. Oh yeah, I believe alright.”
CASTLE ROCK
The town of Castle Rock is located 20 minutes south of Denver. Castle Rock is named after a huge rock outcropping that naturally replicates a European fortress. The town’s very visible landmark is difficult indeed not to be noticed. As a natural signpost, it has historically served as a landmark throughout the centuries for both Native Americans and early settlers.
Modern-day travelers gravitate toward Castle Rock’s Factory Outlet Shops that are a