004

I headed back to the office after finishing my interviews for the day. I could have written up the second story and emailed it in, but for some reason I was craving the structure of the office. Maybe the brush with the possible ghost had shaken me more than I realised. I pulled into the parking lot in front of the dingy brick building that housed the Cobbett Chronicle. There were only two other cars here. In a small town like ours, the newspaper business was not very lucrative, and certainly didn't lend itself to a large staff. Apart from Nadine, the admin and advertising lady, Morgan, the social writer, photographer and graphics guy, and myself, the general slave, there were only the managers and editors, the husband and wife team Troy and Kayleen. Troy was a great-great-grandchild of the founder of the newspaper, and definitely felt that that gave him a special status in town, as well as the right to abuse his staff and generally act like a bit of a tosser. I must've been really out of my mind to actually want to come back here to sit at my crumby desk in our crumby building with my crumby boss leering over my shoulder.

I sighed and got out of the car. Morgan wasn't even in today, so there wouldn't even be his frivolous chitter chatter to warm up the atmosphere.

"Hi Nadine," I said as I passed the older woman's spot at the reception desk. It was an unwritten rule that you must always greet the receptionist, even if it was the fourth or fifth time you'd entered that day. Even if all you got in return was a grunt.

A grunt was indeed all I got as I slipped by her desk to my own a little further back. Morgan's desk was colourful and ridiculously organised. Mine was drab and covered in sticky notes, paperclipped slips of information and piles of things I'd been supposedly getting around to for the last four months. I slumped into my chair and immediately booted up my computer, knowing that the old relic would take at least a minute or two to start. I laid out my notes and voice recorder, and plugged my camera in ready to upload the photos I'd taken earlier, then walked over to the little coffee room, stocked with the cheapest instant tea and coffee that money could buy, along with little bottles of UHT milk, just to discourage us from trying to take advantage of our bosses' generosity. The kettle pinged a few moments later, and I poured the boiling water into my cup, enjoying the warm bubbling sound it made. I stirred in the milk and coffee, and took the cup, which said "Cobbett Golf Club" in a wildly outdated font, back to my desk. The computer had finally rumbled to life like a hibernating bear awakening at the end of winter. I started to upload the photos, and opened the word processing software Troy refused to update or replace because it did the job, even if just barely.

I typed up the shire story quickly, mostly from memory, pausing only to listen to the recording and ensure I got the quotes correct. I read it through a couple of times and tweaked the first paragraph a little, trying to improve the hook, as if my careful phrasing would actually make any difference to the old folk down at the home as they flicked past all my articles and headed straight to the comics and puzzles pages. After a final check, I sent it through to Troy, who would probably nitpick needlessly at it in order to look like he was actually working. I opened up the folder where my photos had just been imported. I sent through the best photo for the shire story, though it was unlikely to be printed unless they needed to fill space. Nobody really wanted to see another photo of our smarmy CEO grimacing in front of the ugly shire building. After filing away the CEO photos according to our archiving process, I moved on to the gallery photos. One one, or possibly two, would be printed with the story, but I'd have to send a selection through to Troy because his overwhelming control complex meant that he had to choose which photo to print. There was a good one of the manager standing in the gallery, holding an old photo of the artist. It had all the important parts: a human face, the modern setting, and the old photo, connecting the story. There were also a few others of the front of the building, and several of different parts of the gallery. I noticed the wrens in one photo, and was reminded of the morning's strange events. I peered in closer, and skipped through the photos, eyes scanning over them rapidly. To my surprise, I found what I was looking for quickly, just a few photos later.

There, in the corner of a photo, half out of the frame, was the young man from the morning. It was definitely him. I recognised the outfit - blue jeans and a plain white t-shirt - and, although it was slightly blurred and partly out of the frame, I easily recognised his youthful good looks in his face. I puffed out a sigh of relief. At least I knew more that I want going completely insane. This was proof that he was real, that I hadn't imagined him. I hadn't wanted to admit it, but I had begun to doubt my own mind for a while.

I zoomed in on his face, examining the image for anything unusual. There was one odd thing that stood out. His eyes seemed to be reflecting strangely, with a bright white spot in each eye. I wasn't a professional photographer, so I didn't understand the technicalities of how photos turn out. This was probably just a glitch of the light. His face was quite blurred, after all. It was probably just a dodgy shot. Probably.

I leaned back in my chair, contemplating. I couldn't tell if the photo was actually strange, or if I was projecting my uneasy feeling onto it. The longer I looked at it, the more it looked like a photo from an internet list of "Top 10 Creepy Photos of Paranormal Beings". The white specks in his eyes were very clear and crisp. Too much so compared to the blurred face around it. The whole image just gave off a strange vibe.

I remembered my poor neglected coffee, and gulped down the last few tepid mouthfuls. I heard Troy's door open, so quickly opened up my email and began tapping away furiously, looking as busy and productive as I could. I felt him lean over my shoulder for a few seconds, wordlessly reading what I was typing without so much as a greeting. My skin crawled at him being so close. I didn't feel threatened or unsafe with him, exactly. It was more that I just really, really didn't like him and didn't want him anywhere near my personal space. I continued tapping away, and he finished overseeing my work, sauntering into the tea room.

Honestly, I felt a bit sorry for Troy. He had once been a local star footy player, and I had to admit, very good looking, in a blonde surfer way. Now he was slightly overweight, his hair was always greasy, and his beloved newspaper was quickly going out of business. He still kept a photo of himself at around age twenty up on the wall, which seemed rather tragic, to me.

My fingers froze on the keyboard. Silence filled the room after the mad clacking I'd been making. A young Troy -the thought had triggered something in my mind. Something important. I'd seen the gallery guy before. I'd known he looked familiar. But where? My hands clenched into fists and I leaned down and banged my forehead against them. What was it? The feeling was infuriating, like when a word is on the tip of your tongue. It was like searching for a twig in a forest. I lifted my head. That was it! That's where I'd seen him before.

This morning, at the park, staring at me with a bizarre intensity. The middle aged man at the park. I was sure of it - their face shape, their eyes, it was all the same. They must have been father and son, or some other very close relation. Brothers maybe? I realised with surprise that even their outfits had been the same. Could it have been the same person? I pondered briefly before discarding the idea. They were definitely at least fifteen or so years apart in age. The gallery guy had been barely twenty, but the man in the park could have easily been in his forties. What were the chances of this happening? Bumping into both of them in one day, within hours of each other. Thinking about it, both had exhibited strange behaviour too. I felt nervous for the first time, wondering if there was something really off with these guys. Were they following me? Stalking me?

I shuddered and sent off the email with the gallery photos to Troy's address, then quickly filed away the photos and closed down the browser, not wanting to look at them for a second longer. My phone buzzed, and I checked it in case it was work related. It was a text from Lena.

"I'm buying Vietnamese tonight, don't cook xx".

I knew there was a reason I kept her around.