The Haunted Asda

Residents of a suburb of Gubley are astonished this week with the revelation that their local supermarket is haunted.  The Asda store on Great Fleshy Road has been plagued with a myriad of reportings of ghosty occurances over the last few weeks.  It would seem that ghosts have been seen, heard and even smelt in the warehouse area, the canteen, and the area round the big bins.

Batch Loaf

The first ghostly sighting was in November of last year.  Asda employee Jessie Cake had been hosing down the counters late on a Thursday night when he heard the unmistakable sound of a large unseeded batch loaf falling to the floor.  Cake (24) had rushed to the source of the sound and seen something incredible: “It was just this huge thumb,” he cries.  “It was slowly thumbing through the different loaves of bread, as if it were somehow trying to choose between them.”  Cake had run straight to the boss’s office to report his sighting, but fell foul of his own hose, cracking his skull on the sluice.  He was found the next day, and recounted his story to horrified onlookers.

Managers have stated that ghostly sightings, of thumbs or otherwise, do not fit under normal Health and Safety laws, and that the case with Mr. Cake is still under review.  His store manager assured us that he would be able to return to work as soon as his instep was healed.

Mysterious Cloud

This should have been enough to close the store, but short-sighted bosses demanded that the store remain open to the public.  The second sighting came soon afterwards.  Security guard Andy Hornbill had been watching the rear entrance when he saw a mysterious cloud heading towards him: “It were right weird.  I was standing and looking at the shutters when this cloud of mist came at me like a fox and made me worried.  It had no hands but it seemed to have thumbs that were threatening me.  It came right near the bailer and then disappeared by the gas taps.”  Hornbill (40) had been bewildered by the encounter, but was most shocked by the smell left behind by the entity: “it were like dirty rubber plimsolls” he opined, grimacing at the memory, “but not the right kind – the wrong kind.”

Without So

Clearly there was something nefarious at work here.  The Asda store occupies the site of an old tyre factory and broom warehouse.  These were demolished soon after being sold to the Asda parent company, Walmart, and indeed some employees believe there was something fishy going on here.  Aging coffee shop customer Agnes Pinecone (67) believes that there were plottings afoot: “It just seems strange that as soon as they bought them buildings, they go knocking them down without so much as a second thought.  What were they hiding from us? Then they go building an Asda right on the top of the, no repect or owt for what was there before.  I tell you, it’s no wonder there’s summat going on in that place.”  The mystery has been compounded by the discovery of a broom in a cubby-hole in the gent's changing room.  No-one has as yet explained why it should be there, or why it has such a mucky handle.

Thumbs

The ghostly smell has been smelt several times since Mr. Hornbill experienced it for the first time, and always somewhere around the bailer.  As for the ghostly thumbs, they haven’t been seen since.  Some say they are waiting for the right moment to strike.  Others say they were just thumbs.  All we know, here at the Herald and Jerkin, is that there’s something sinister over on Great Fleshy Road.