Free Synergeist: The Haunted Cubicle by Daniel M. Strickland Page A

very artfully done one. He found himself wondering if he could get the image onto something that lasted longer than cheap copy paper and toner. After studying the image, he became more convinced that this was not a prank. He felt something more, something deeper than should be evoked by a black and white selfie of someone he never met.
    He placed the original copy into the leather briefcase he kept in his bottom desk drawer. It was for those rare occasions when he needed to take home hard copies of stuff otherwise only available from inside the corporate firewall to read. He wanted to tack one up on his cubicle wall, but he wasn’t sure what he’d say if anyone asked about it. He slipped the rest of the copies into his top desk drawer, under the pile of Dilbert cartoons and other humorous things he had collected over the years.
    Putting the image out of sight didn’t help much. Thoughts stormed through his brain as he started up his computer. What now? Wait for another message? He wanted to reply, but he couldn’t think how. He wanted to tell someone, everyone. They would think he was crazy. For the moment, he kept it to himself.
    He tried to get work done, but the image and the girl in the image kept interrupting his concentration. Millie, the girl he did not know, sending him messages from… From where? He thought about taking the rest of the day off since he wasn’t getting any work done. Yesterday’s message that there would be a big announcement today kept him from it. He wanted to do research, but the corporate Internet Nazis might not consider research on ghosts to be work related. He could use his phone, but he hated reading very much on the small screen. And unlike some people, he felt that if he was at work, he should at least make an effort to work. He found a bit of troublesome code that needed attention and buried himself in it until Wesley came and broke the trance.
    “ Martin, check this out.”
    “ What?”
    “ Stand up.”
    Martin stood up and looked around but didn’t see anything worth noting. “What?”
    “ Just watch,” said Wesley. He crouched until his head was beneath the top of the cubicle and crept around the corner to the coffee zone. Then, in a loud, Brooklyn accent he said, “Hey, who brought all these freakin’ doughnuts?”
    Heads began to pop up from all across the sea of beige boxes like the whack-a-mole arcade game, and then the migration began. Martin ducked and snorted. Wesley poked his head around the file cabinet and said, “Let’s hit it.”
    Martin didn’t want to be there when the hoard realized they had been duped. He hastily followed Wesley as he led them down a side aisle on a roundabout path to the exit to avoid the main corridor.
     
    ☼
     
    Avoiding crowds in the local restaurants on Friday was nearly impossible. Wesley and Martin’s ongoing quest was to find the best place for lunch that nobody went to or a creative alternative. Their search had led them to truly dreadful places: a deli in the back of a furniture store which didn’t last very long, gas station hot dogs, and the roach coach at a construction site. It was fun but not very good for the digestion. Today’s lunch was probably the best yet. Wesley’s aunt had made him a big pot of soup, and he brought enough to share. They sat in the break room after warming the heavenly concoction in the microwave and ate.
    Wesley crumbled saltines into his bowl. “What you got planned for the weekend?”
    Martin mumbled, “Nothing,” into his soup. He didn’t have any plans for the weekend. He almost never did. He had friends that played cards and sometimes they had a game, but as they got married and kids came, this occurred less and less. He understood that he should find an activity or hobby that spurred social interaction, but he never found anything that appealed to him. His sister in Florida thought he should get himself checked out for depression. He would never admit it to her, but he had done