Tuesday, April 28, 2009

The scariest thing like, ever

After the Northridge earthquake which pretty much destroyed the office, Activision moved next door to the World Savings monolith on the corner of Wilshire and San Vicente. Parking extended several floors underground. The gigantic beams that held up the skyscraper defined two-car-deep niches in the concrete walls -- if you parked in front of someone else, you left your keys with the attendant so they could move your car to let the other person out. If you stayed late, you'd go collect your keys in the evening. If you parked back against the wall, you kept them. I'd usually go a floor or two deeper than necessary so I could just hang on to my keys, because I always stayed late and didn't want to fiddle with retrieving them.

You had to sign in and out after hours. There was 24-hour security you had to pass before you got to the elevators that would take you down to parking. One fine Tuesday night / Wednesday morning about 1:30 AM, I left work to go home. My car was on the 6th level underground. I signed out and took the elevator down.

I can't rationally explain what I did next beyond saying it was for fun. I like navigating in the dark. You could hit a switch that would give you five minutes of light (or something) but I knew where my car was -- second niche over, all the way at the back -- and for some idiot reason I didn't turn on the lights, but ambled off into the darkness, keeping one hand on the wall.

It was dark. Dark as a cave. Dark as the black basalt columns of Hell. Far too dark to see your hand in front of your face. Dark dark dark dark dark. I realized this was probably a really dumb idea.

And then, in the Stygian blackness of the sixth underground parking level of this deserted building at one thirty Wednesday morning on Tuesday night

somebody laughed

and somebody else

shusshed them

and then there was some snickering

and I used the button on my keychain to trip my car alarm -- the car's lights and siren went off so I knew exactly where it was, and I jumped in and hauled ass out of there, hair on my neck standing up the whole way out. Didn't see another car, person, or anything else in that deserted garage.

In retrospect? Probably a couple of security guards down there getting high or something and laughing at the idiot bumbling around in the dark. At the time, a very, very, creepy experience. I always turned the dang lights on, after that.