October is here. With it comes warm autumn colors, apple picking and ghost stories. As the Greenville Journal and Upstate Business Journal’s graphic designer, this (hopefully fictional!) tale is a summation of my greatest nightmare…
Let us begin this horror story on an evening that is oddly cool and crisp for early autumn, as a Greenville Journal reader is making the trek home from work to spend a quiet evening in. Her weeks have become so hectic that she’s learned to find little things to look forward to. One of those has become the Greenville Journal’s crossword puzzles.
She stops by the grocery store, where she throws a copy of the Greenville Journal on top of her other purchases at the checkout line.
The cashier is humming to herself as she scans the reader’s grocery items, but the melody stops just before her fingers can make contact with the newsprint. There is a noticeable moment of hesitation before the cashier scans the paper, as if she knows something the reader does not.
Brushing off the slightly odd encounter, the reader pays and heads home.
The wind howls as she sits down on the couch in her pajamas. It is hurricane season after all. She reaches for her copy of the Greenville Journal, but she stops short as her ringing phone catches her off guard.
“He…. Hello?” the reader mumbles as she answers the call.
The voice that answers her is odd, distorted. It takes the reader a moment to realize it is her friend on the other line. The reader can’t quite make out what her friend is saying, but she can discern a few key words and a sense of urgency.
“Could you please repeat that?” the reader asks.
“Don’t… it’s so bad… Journal…” the friend seems to reply, sounding agitated. “Don’t… open… Journal…”
Just then, the power abruptly goes out.
The reader is plunged into darkness as she feels her heart sink into the pit of her stomach. She sets down the phone, suddenly realizing how tightly she was gripping it. Her breath grows heavy. Her eyes dart to the spot in the darkness where she left the Journal. What awful news is awaiting her on the inside? Surely it can’t be that bad, can it? Still, she remembers the cashier’s ominous reaction to the very sight of the paper and begins to perspire.
She frantically stumbles through the darkness, trying to get to her emergency candles. The reader lights a match, sets three candles aflame and frantically scans the paper. Lightning strikes and thunder roars the moment she cracks it open. But she sees nothing out of the ordinary. A lovely cover spread. Regular columns such as the Weekly Dish, Upstate Beat… all the usual suspects.
The reader comes to realize she has surely been overreacting. The long work week has left her tense, and the storm isn’t helping. She is starting to calm down a bit. Her shaking hands find the crossword puzzle in the back, her usual source of comfort. She sighs, grabs a pencil and starts working the “down” section first.
She is a few answers in before she notices something is off.
It is a bizarre sensation that seems to start from the back of her skull and works its way forward. It finally hits her as she pencils a six-letter phrase that describes exactly what she is experiencing….
“Déjà vu.”
The reader’s heart skips a beat as another bolt of lightning flashes. She drops her pencil. The sheer horror of the situation finally settles in her bones, and she realizes what has occurred:
The same crossword puzzle was used two weeks in a row!
I don’t know about you, dear reader, but thinking about that definitely keeps me up at night.
Happy Halloween!
