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

flamingo walked out.
    On the edge of nest opposite the crane, rose a spire of twisted metal topped with a crow’s nest. More puns. On top of the crow’s nest sat a girl in a birthday hat eating a piece of cake from a small paper plate. Martin wanted to talk to the girl, so he began to climb up the side. As he climbed he could hear the girl softly singing The Beatles’ Blackbird between bites of the cake.
“… All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to arise.”
    He kept climbing but never seemed to get any closer. When he looked down and saw nothing but the tops of clouds, he lost his grip and fell into his bed.
    Martin was always skeptical when people told him about their prophetic dreams. He figured it was just their way of expressing some fantasy they didn’t want to admit to. After all, they couldn’t be held responsible for their crazy dreams, could they? He did not remember ever having a dream so obviously connected to something happening to him. Thinking about it kept him awake until the wee hours.

5
     

     
    Generally you don't see that kind of behavior in a major appliance.
    — From Ghostbusters, 1984
     
    Patience not being one of her virtues, she fast-forwarded to sunrise and waited for Martin to appear. Two auras she did not recognize came down the aisle by her cubicle, carrying a large flat plane between them. She ignored them until they turned the corner and placed the object in front of the window, blocking the sun. At once, the flow ceased. That got her attention. She watched them; hoping that they’d put it down temporarily, but then they left the building. They were only the delivery guys. Ugh! Just when you thought being dead was the worst thing that could happen to you, first the box and now the window, what next? She didn’t want to think about it. She’d brooded over what was next too much already.
    Martin came down the main aisle and entered his cube. His aura rippled. He had seen the message. Of course he didn’t just run over to her cubicle and move the box. But she could tell that the message at least intrigued him and possibly more than that. More messages were necessary, but how to deliver them without her great power outlet in the sky?
    She sat and brooded while Martin went about his day. She hated being powerless. Pun intended. She wondered if somewhere, someone pulled the strings and made all this happen to force little old Millie into a decision. Stinkin’ thinkin’ is what her mom called dwelling on negative possibilities. Enough of that .
    She let her mind wander down memory lane. Her memories were so much clearer, perfectly complete, and easier to access than when she lived, a high-definition, on-demand, streaming queue of Millie’s greatest and worst moments. The memory she chose first was opening a fresh package of art markers, the scent of them, and the feel of the crisp tips on fine paper. She remembered learning to weld, the white-hot flame melting metal, the smell of burning flux, and the mess she made when she first started. She recalled, in perfect detail, curling up with her cat and a book on a particular rainy Sunday afternoon.
    That’s when it hit her. There were a lot of her personal things in her apartment. Were they still there? Since she now knew that distance wasn’t an object, she would go and see. Maybe she could draw enough from what was there to fill her batteries. Or perhaps someone else lived there already. That’s stinkin’ thinkin’ again.
    Could she navigate so far in this strange shadow of the world? Would she recognize the landmarks? Would she have to stop at the red lights? That was ludicrous. She could just find it with her god-like super vision. Other than her excursion into space, she had not looked around outside the building. Everything was transparent and in the wild unnamed colors of Neverland. But the shapes were familiar: buildings, roads, trees, and cars. They were familiar enough that, when paired with her flawless