Chapter 1

“I will absolutely go Nancy Grace on this fucking kid!!!”

Meagan could practically feel Elise rolling her eyes over the phone. “All he did was call you a troll. And you did sort of disturb shit in his little group...”

“I didn’t disturb anything! I said I didn’t like his web design because it was totally fucking absurdly hideous, and I wasn’t the only person who thought so. Look at all those people who liked my comment!”

“I know, and you were right,” Elise soothed. “But Eric is like the king of those nerds, and somebody came along and embarrassed him in front of his court and he got on his hind legs about it.”

“It’s not my job to feed his ego,” Meagan spat. “He’s narcissistic and unprofessional and you shouldn’t be wasting your time working with him. He’s only going to embarrass you.”

Elise sighed. “I know, but it’s just a little blog project to keep me busy. At least I’m not so bored at work that I’m screaming about some guy deleting me from a Facebook group...”

Meagan tossed the pen she’d been chewing on across her desk. Elise was right. She was getting worked up over this little asshole for no reason because she was bored, and making Eric Beauren look stupid on Facebook wasn’t going to cure her. “I know, you’re right. Beauregard isn’t my problem. I’m just...” she lowered her voice and looked around first, “kind of bored here I guess.”

“You’re a fact checker. That’s boring work.”

“Yeah I know but I don’t think I just mean with my job. I mean with everything. Ever since I moved to Petesborough from the city every day seems to be exactly the same, like they’re just folding in on each other. Every Wednesday I do the laundry. Every Saturday I cut the grass. Every week is the same.”

“So come back to the city. And why do you do your laundry in the middle of the week...?”

“Because it’s more energy efficient or something; I got a flyer in the mail about it.”

“Uh you do realize that they wasted thousands of pieces of paper for—“

“Elise I gotta go,” Meagan cut off. She could see her boss’ office door creaking open above her cubicle wall. “I’ll call you later. Let me know how your date goes tonight!”

She hung up the phone quietly and looked around. Nobody had even moved; most were still using their headphones and probably didn’t hear a single word she said.

But when Meagan looked up at her boss, she noticed that Mr. Wittmore hadn’t noticed her on the phone at all. Or anybody for that matter. Because he was staring out the window that overlooked the parking lot, with an expression Meagan could only describe as sheer horror.

She watched him approach the window slowly, entranced by whatever he was witnessing. The old man placed his hands on the glass and leaned forward, his eyes focused on whatever madness was happening below. And just before he reeled backwards, clutched his chest and succumbed to a massive heart attack, he whispered,

“Giraffes...”