Last Ghost of The Terra Nova

I wasn’t sure when the last day of school was. I could have asked my mum or a teacher, but they either didn’t know or didn’t care. Learning all I could about Picasso and his masterpiece Guernica with a mid-level art grade seemed enough. Either way, those grades weren’t required for my first job as a warehouse assistant.

Warner Solomans was a family business on the edge of the city centre. It was a labyrinth of exported rejects, an Aladdin’s cave of unicorn figurines, lampshades, kitchen gadgets, and cheap clothing. I worked on the second floor of the building, which really stood out among the council houses nearby. It was old and tired-looking. Parts of the wall were so loose you could push the bricks out and let them fall to the pavement below. Rows and rows of makeshift shelving wobbled together whenever you climbed to fetch items from the top.

Some parts of the attic were completely inaccessible, sealed off with haphazard planks of wood and shelving. Shelves and boxes filled every possible corner of the space. The owner, Warner, had built the business 40 years ago and often told me stories about a wild cat that used to live in the floorboards and hiss at passersby. Stories like that didn’t help because a place like this had a vibe. Some places have it strong; others have none.

At the end of my shift, I hated turning off the lights. I was only 18 but had an overactive imagination. I always felt like something terrible lived at the back of the darkest aisle in the cheap clothing section. Its proportions were all wrong, and I knew it couldn’t be reasoned with. It was always there, always watching, waiting for the lights to go out. When they did, I imagined it moving slowly toward me.

To keep calm, I propped the old, heavy door open with a box to let in some sunlight. The main light switch, awkwardly far from the door, was one aisle over—right by the cheap clothing section. Once I flipped the switch, I would move hastily toward the exit, always scrambling past a ladder and boxes that seemed placed there just to slow me down.

One day, the door came loose and slammed shut just as I was halfway to the exit. In moments like that, your imagination goes into hyperdrive. Instantly, I could feel it moving out of the cheap clothing section, rushing to cut me off at the corner. The darkness was absolute; all my orientation was lost. My panic rose to a frenzy as I kicked fragile boxes of ceramic wares out of the way.

I made it to the door, but in my heart, I knew this thing had already arrived. Its presence was impossibly dense. I could just make out its long, tall silhouette against the exit. Its eyes, like twin glass beads, caught the faintest glint of light, reflecting it back with a dead, unblinking intensity. I walked into its shadow, and for a few seconds of pure terror, we merged. Then, I opened the exit door.

This happened almost every shift, and I never really got used to it. It would all be over, however, on the day I arrived at work to find the place had burned down overnight. The once-beautiful building had toppled into the street.

It wasn’t until many years later that I found some information online about the building and what it used to be. Built in 1860 as a furniture factory, it later became a prominent shoe repair business called Parsons. Frederick Parson, the owner, had been on the Terra Nova—one of the ships that took Captain Scott and his team to the South Pole. He was the last survivor of the expedition and was awarded many medals.

It seems the explorers at camp would shoot emperor penguins and bring them home as souvenirs. Fred displayed a stuffed emperor penguin in the store window.