The Man in the Background
November 13th, 2014. My name is Evan Cross. I’m a photographer who works in the dark, isolated town called Greyhaven. I know this sounds weird, but I’m being watched by someone.. Or something..
Click! I finished taking my last photos of Greyhaven, my town. Though as I looked at the results, I saw someone. Or something.. A black figure stood in each photo, looking lifeless. In each photo, its head was tilted weirdly every time. I don’t remember any people in the way when I took these photos though. “Eh whatever,” I said, forgetting about the topic as I walked off to my workplace to turn in my photos. Once I made it there, I handed in the photos to my boss, and as he looked through them I said, “Sorry about that guy standing in the background, I didn’t notice him before.” My boss looked up from the papers, giving me a confused look. “What?” he said as he set down the photos. “If you look in the distance of the photos, you can see a weird, tall person standing there, looking directly at the camera.” “I don’t see anybody..” he said, analyzing the pictures. I stared at my boss for a moment, waiting for him to laugh or tell me he was messing with me. He didn’t. “Maybe it’s just the lighting,” he said, sliding the photographs back toward me. “You should probably get some sleep, Evan.” I picked up the photos and looked at them again. There it was. Tall. Thin. Completely black against the gray streets of Greyhaven. Its head was tilted sharply to the side. I looked up at my boss. “Never mind,” I muttered. I left the building with the photographs tucked underneath my arm. The streets were nearly empty by then. Greyhaven always seemed quieter at night, but that night the silence felt different. As I walked home, I couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was behind me. I turned around. Nothing. Just an empty sidewalk stretching beneath the streetlights. I continued walking. A few minutes later, I passed a store window and caught my reflection in the glass. For a split second, there was something standing behind me. Its head was tilted. I spun around. Nothing. I hurried home.
When I got inside, I locked the door and dropped the photographs onto my desk. I tried convincing myself that I was just tired. Maybe my eyes were playing tricks on me. I made some coffee and sat at my desk, sorting through the rest of the pictures from the day. Then I noticed something strange. The figure wasn’t in every photograph. It was only in the ones I’d taken facing certain parts of the city. I spread the photos across the desk. Street. Bridge. Train station. Park. Downtown. Then I noticed something. The figure wasn’t getting closer. The places were getting closer to my house. I felt my stomach drop. I quickly gathered the photographs and shoved them into a drawer. “Yeah nope.” I didn’t want to think about it anymore. Hours passed. Eventually, I went to bed. I woke up sometime after midnight. The apartment was completely silent. I reached for my phone and checked the time. 2:17 AM. Then I heard it. Click. I froze. My camera. It was sitting on the other side of the room. Click. The shutter went off again. I slowly got out of bed and walked toward it. The camera screen was glowing. I picked it up. There was a new photograph. A picture of my bedroom. I stared at it. The bed. The desk. The window. Everything looked normal. Except for one thing. There was a black figure standing beside my bed. Its head was tilted impossibly far to the side. I slowly looked toward the exact spot where it stood in the photograph. Nothing was there. I let out a shaky breath. Then the camera clicked again. I looked down at the screen. This photograph was different. It showed me standing in my bedroom, holding the camera. But something was wrong. The figure wasn’t in the background anymore. It was standing directly behind me. I slowly turned around. My room was empty. Then I noticed something on the camera screen. The figure’s head wasn’t tilted anymore. It was straight. For the first time, it wasn’t looking at the camera. It was looking at me. The screen suddenly went black. I heard a quiet sound behind me. A camera shutter. Click. I turned around. And the last thing I saw was a tall black figure standing in the doorway, its head slowly tilting to the side. Then everything went dark.