Do you believe in ghosts?
What if I told you that I was once able to verify the existence of a ghost?
Since it's Halloween time, I want to share with you a true ghost story that happened to me a long time ago.
I consider myself a reasonable person, but sometimes there are gaps in the facts that can't be explained by the logic of the world as we know it. The house at the back of the backyard is one of them.
Years ago, I was hired by a company located in a large industrial building that had a house at the back of the yard. The house had been built by the previous owner of the property, intended as his weekend getaway, but he had passed away before finishing it.
The employees referred to him as "The Fat One," and when asked about him, everyone would say, "You'll meet him soon enough."
Everything was going well at my job until strange things started happening. Objects began to mysteriously disappear and reappear days later in the exact spot where I'd left them. My office door often locked itself with me inside. I started seeing silhouettes of people walking behind me in my computer screen when no one was there. I tried to find logical explanations for these experiences, even when I was completely baffled. It wasn't unusual to be working peacefully and suddenly hear the desperate screams of one of the employees. I would always rush from the office to the production floor, fearing the worst—an accident on the production line—but I would always find the person in shock or unconscious on the floor. After calming the victims—or waking them up, as the case may be—I would ask them what had happened, and I always got the same answer. The victims said they went outside—mostly to smoke a cigarette—through the back door of the warehouse that led to the house at the end of the yard. They all confirmed seeing a fat man approach the window of the second-floor master bedroom and call out to them. After recounting what happened, most of them would leave and never return, not even to collect their weekly wages.
Determined to find a logical explanation for what had happened, I assumed the girls might have been influenced by the ghost stories, which had made them susceptible to suggestion. I devised a way to statistically test my hypothesis. Most of the girls working at the company were contractors, with fixed-term contracts depending on the project. This resulted in high staff turnover, and many of the girls were new and unfamiliar with the story, so I began recording their descriptions of the ghost—this fat man—after scaring them. The result was that every description matched 100%. They all described him as a bald, fat, very tall man with white skin, and they specifically mentioned the same horrifying, crooked-toothed smile that matched the descriptions given by neighbors who had known him in life.
My experiment worked, and my hypothesis was statistically validated: there was a ghost living in that house, and it was scaring everyone. I was often the first one to arrive at the warehouse, and I frequently ran into the night guard. One day, I arrived earlier than usual, and as I walked in, I saw the guard's television on and playing loudly. I left my things in my office and went down to the production floor to say hello, but just before I could reach him, the television turned off. It was strange, considering the security booth was empty, and I should clarify that it wasn't a fancy television with a timer, but an old one that required manually turning the knob. I stood in front of the television, stunned, trying to understand what had just happened when someone knocked on the door. It was the guard, who confessed to having been absent the entire night shift because one of his children was sick. On another occasion, I received the most unpleasant call. It was from the company accountant, who worked in a nearby building. He asked me to urgently bring some documents from the inactive files due to an audit, which I agreed to, but then he revealed that the inactive files were stored in… the house at the back of the backyard.
At that time, I was one of the few employees who had never seen Gordo, so, with no other option, I prepared myself to finally meet him. It was pouring rain that afternoon, so I took an umbrella and walked toward the house, my eyes fixed on the window.
When I opened the door and stepped inside, I was overcome by a feeling of being watched by a crowd, as if I were performing for an audience and all eyes were on me. But I was alone, or at least that's what I wanted to believe.
The interior of the house was neglected and dirty. The concrete walls were partially covered with plaster, but unpainted. The place was quiet; only the dripping of water from the numerous leaks in the roof echoed, creating a damp odor.
I hurriedly searched the first floor, trying to find the documents and leave as quickly as possible, but I realized the files were on the second floor. A chill ran down my spine at the thought that the file was in the master bedroom.
I took a deep breath and went upstairs, convinced that everything would be all right. I pushed open the creaking bedroom door, revealing a room crammed with stacks of cardboard boxes of files that stretched up the walls, with no sign of Fatty. I realized that no real person could stand in front of the window, as the girls had described, because the boxes blocked it. But I went over anyway, curious about Fatty's view of the storage room.
Overwhelmed by anxiety, I rummaged through the boxes for the requested files, glancing back occasionally to make sure I was alone. Finally, I found the papers and, ready to leave, I stood up and looked through a window on the opposite wall that framed the backyard, which wasn't visible from the warehouse. Among the weeds, an elm tree with a single thick branch still had a length of rope tied to it.
The neighbors recounted that the property owner, nicknamed "Fat Man," was married and had a thriving business. His wife fell in love with a taxi driver, and the two devised a plan to get rid of her husband: administering daily doses of poison mixed into his food until he finally lost his mind. Eventually, Fat Man discovered his wife's infidelity and, during his final manic episode, hanged himself from that tree. The police cut the rope to recover the body but left the rope tied to the tree. Over time, the branch thickened, consuming the rope, and only a small piece remained hanging until that day. After his suicide, his wife sold the property and left town with her lover, the taxi driver.
Looking at the strange sight of the place where Gordo had died and remembering his story, I felt sorry for him, wondering how much suffering he had endured. Then I left the house with the papers, and when I got to the warehouse door, I looked toward his window, hoping he would appear so I could say, "I'm sorry."
I never went back to that house, and even though he kept scaring people, the Fat Man never scared me again.
Perhaps because she only wanted people to know her story, but more importantly, to empathize with her suffering.
M. Ch. Landa
