Everyone knew Locker 410 was odd. Not even the maintenance man, who had been with the school since it’s founding, remembered it being assigned to anyone. He got a funny look whenever someone asked about it, mumbled about something needing to be cleaned, and shuffled away as fast as his aging feet would carry him.
For a long time most people just pretended not to notice. A weird sensation if a hand brushed the door, a cold chill in the spine of anyone standing near… those were easy enough to ignore. They might, after all, be figments of an overactive imagination. When all the lockers were repainted ten years ago, ignoring number 410 became a little more problematic.
In a wall of orange, 410 stuck out like a sore thumb in lemon yellow. According to rumors, the painters had tried. After one suffered a seizure, another watched every stroke disappear through the metal, and yet another reported there being no locker there when confronted about his failure, the company firmly refused to try again.
Still, an ugly yellow locker surrounded by spooky rumors did little more than provide seniors with fodder for hazing freshmen. Until last night, that is. An unidentified, dessicated body turning up directly in front of it while the opened lock smoked and hissed tended to be considered significant even by the most hardened skeptics. In the shock, no one thought to look for the mumbling, vague janitor.
The Word Worker 