Synergeist: The Haunted Cubicle by Daniel M. Strickland Read Free Book Online

didn't.
    Martin casually made his way toward R12 by the dim light that remained, stopping here and there to listen for anyone else working late. He made a complete orbit around the place where Millie had breathed her last breath to check the adjacent cubicles for silent residents and to note the approaches.
    With his perimeter check complete and satisfied that there was no one around, Martin entered the late Millicent Able's cubicle. He expected to get an eerie feeling, but he didn't. Instead, he sensed or perhaps imagined, a warm breeze, and he would have sworn he smelled a shy perfume.
    It was too dark in the cubicle to see anything, so Martin turned on one of the lights under a bookshelf attached to the cubicle wall above the desk. The cubicle was empty except for the computer that he assumed was waiting for the next occupant and a box that sat in the standard issue chair. “Millicent Able” had been scrawled on the top of the printer paper box in black felt tip. He hesitated and then opened the box, trying to not make much noise.
    Inside the box he found the usual attendance award plaques and coffee cups. There was also a book on Yoga you could do at your desk, Lisa Randall’s book Knocking of Heavens Door , an origami swan, and two exquisite abstract sculptures. The one done in delicately carved marble reminded Martin of standing on the balcony of his mom's condo in Florida watching the summer breezes blowing through the palm trees. The other consisted of welded brass and iron machine parts. It reminded him of the forest-devouring machines in FernGully and Avatar . Both of them had the initials MA on the bottom.
    At the bottom of the box he found an over-flashed picture of a girl he supposed was Millie. In the photo she sat at what might be this desk with a small party hat on, her face a shy smile. She held a paper plate with a piece of cake on it. For some reason, Martin felt compelled to keep the picture. No one had claimed her stuff anyway. He slipped the picture into his pocket. He had a dead girl's picture in his pocket. Martin was a little worried that it didn't feel creepy.
    He figured he had better get going before he got busted, so he put the lid back on the box, turned off the light, and checked the aisle. Martin felt a touch of disconnected discouragement as he left Millie’s cubicle and made his way back to his desk. He wasn’t sure why he would be disappointed. Maybe he had subconsciously hoped he would find “Millie loves Martin” scrawled in her journal or some other such nonsense.
    He went back to his desk, shut down his computer, and headed for home. As he unwound the path he took to get to The World's Worst Cubicle every morning, he had the niggling suspicion that something he saw should be a clue. He figured he was just tired and that maybe a good night's sleep would bring clarity. He didn’t get it.
    Martin’s dream began on a beach right out of Lost . The ocean breeze rustled the palms, and the surf hissed. He was walking along the shore looking for… something. Dreams were vague that way. At least Martin’s were. As he rounded a point he saw, up the beach, a large structure. It was a warehouse sized chaotic bird’s nest of skewed marble columns, and a mad mess of pipes. At one edge there was a towering crane (the machine) shaped like a crane’s neck and head (the bird), its beak a giant iron clamshell bucket. The boom boomed as it swung out over the edge of the jungle. The bucket bucked when the boom stopped. His dreams were also frequently full of puns.
    The metal jaws dropped on a group of palms that were swaying in the sea breeze, chomped down on them, and then pulled them up out of the sand. The boom boomed once more as it swung around and dropped the uprooted trees into the nest. The crane winked at him and in a rusty voice said, “Shh… It’s gonna be awesome.” Within seconds of the tree disappearing into the nest, a small door opened at the bottom, and a plastic lawn ornament