The Prodder of Bay 17

The floor of the Meridian Cannery swallowed sound, every clang and hiss of machinery muffled by thick layers of grime and the constant drone of conveyor belts. I’d been working there for three weeks, and the place still felt like a drowning dream, the air heavy with the smell of brine and old oil. My name is Elias, and I ran the labeling machine in Bay 17, a hulking iron beast from the ’60s that shuddered and wheezed like a dying whale.

It started on a Tuesday. I was feeding a fresh roll of labels into the feed tray when I felt a tap on my lower back, gentle, almost polite. I turned, expecting one of the guys from the floor to be messing with me, but there was no one there. The nearest worker, old Sal, was hunched over his station fifty feet away, earplugs in, eyes fixed on his own machine. I shook it off, blaming a loose strap on my overalls.

But it happened again the next day, and the day after. Always the same spot, just above my kidney, a little firmer each time. I started to dread it, that small, insistent pressure. I’d spin around, heart hammering, and see nothing but the shifting steam and the endless rows of pallets. It was maddening, and I began to question my own mind.

Then I heard my name. I was crouched down, adjusting the tension on a belt, when a voice, clear as a bell, said, “Elias!” It was a woman’s voice, or a child’s, high and sweet. I yanked my head up, and there was no one. But the voice had come from right beside my ear, so close I felt a faint warmth on my neck. My blood went cold, and I nearly jammed my hand in the gears.

Over the next week, the voice grew bolder. It would whisper, “Elias, turn around!” and I’d whirl, only to see the empty aisle. Then it started shouting, “WHAT ARE YOU DOING!” in a mock-serious tone, followed by a high, tinkling laugh that left me feeling foolish and unnerved. I told my supervisor, a gruff old man named Roy, but he just shrugged and said, “Machines make noises, kid. Get used to it.”

But this was no machine. I began to see things from the corner of my eye, a quick, wispy shape, maybe a man in a cap, maybe a woman in a flowing dress, always gone when I turned. I started to feel like I was going crazy, but I couldn’t quit. The pay was too good, and I needed the job.

Then came the day of the old machine. The labeler’s main drive belt had snapped, and I was deep inside its guts, trying to free a jammed roller. The work was dirty and frustrating, and I was sweating and swearing under my breath. I felt the poke again, right in the middle of my back. I ignored it, thinking, Not now, not when I’m elbow-deep in grease. But it came again, harder, almost an insistent shove. I snapped, whirling around to yell, “What?!”

And that’s when I saw it. A flicker of light, just a shimmer in the air, like a heat haze, but it was cold. It formed into a shape, a blurred outline of a figure, and it was pointing urgently at something behind me. I turned slowly, and my breath caught. The labeler’s heavy steel guard had come loose, and it was swinging on one hinge, directly above where my head would have been if I’d stayed crouched. If I hadn’t turned, it would have bashed my skull in.

I stood there, trembling, as the guard fell with a deafening clang, missing me by inches. The shimmer faded, and I heard a soft sigh, almost like relief. Then it was gone. I stumbled back, my heart racing, and I knew. This wasn’t a prank. It was a warning.

I never told anyone else about it. Some things are too strange to share, and I didn’t want to be labeled a lunatic. But now, when I feel that gentle poke, I don’t ignore it. I listen. I turn when it tells me to. Because I know that somewhere in the forgotten corners of the cannery, a kind soul is watching over me, nudging me away from the dangers that lurk in the shadows of Bay 17.