I worked for a small event company for a while, mostly setting up and taking down photo booths. Weddings, birthday parties, office stuff, that kind of thing. Nothing interesting really happened, which was why I noticed this in the first place.
It was after a company party somewhere downtown. I was going through the photos at home because I had to sort them before uploading everything.
There was a man in the background.
I didn’t remember seeing him there.
He was wearing a dark suit and standing behind three different groups of people. Same expression every time. Just looking straight into the camera.
I thought maybe he was one of the employees.
I checked the guest list.
Nothing.
I asked someone at work the next morning and nobody knew who I was talking about.
I joked that maybe we’d accidentally made a horror story with pictures, which sounded funny at the time. I had been reading stories to tell at night too, so I probably wasn’t helping myself by thinking about that stuff while looking through photos at two in the morning.
I forgot about him after that.
Then we did another event.
Different building. Different part of town.
He was there again.
I noticed him in the first photo and thought I was seeing things, so I checked another one.
There he was.
Then another.
Same suit.
Same face.
Same position behind people who apparently hadn’t noticed him.
That part was weird because I asked one of the women in the photo later if she remembered anyone standing behind her.
She said no.
She actually laughed when I showed her the picture.
I didn’t.
I took the photos home that night.
I put all the strips on my kitchen table and counted them because I didn’t know what else to do.
Six.
He was in six pictures.
Not six pictures in a row either. Some were taken almost an hour apart.
I started thinking maybe somebody had access to the booth software and was putting him into the pictures as a joke.
That made more sense than anything else.
So I called work the next morning.
IT checked the original files.
There was nothing.
No editing.
No extra layers.
Just the original pictures from the camera.
The guy was actually there.
That answer bothered me more than if they’d told me someone was messing with the files.
I went to work that night anyway.
I probably shouldn’t have.
When I finished my shift, I walked outside and saw him across the parking lot.
I stopped.
He stopped too.
It was the same man from the photos.
Same suit.
Same expression.
He wasn’t doing anything.
Just standing there under a broken light.
I got into my car and locked the doors.
I watched him through the windshield while I started the engine.
He didn’t move.
When I drove away, his head turned as I passed.
That’s the part I remember most.
Not because it was dramatic.
Just because he followed the car with his eyes until I couldn’t see him anymore.
I went to the police the next day.
I brought some of the pictures with me and explained what had happened.
The officer looked at them for a while.
He asked if I knew the man.
I said no.
He asked if I had any reason to think he was following me.
I said I didn’t know.
They took a report.
Nothing really came of it.
Three nights later I saw him again.
He was outside my apartment.
I was looking through the window because I’d heard someone talking on the sidewalk.
There he was.
Just standing there.
Looking up.
I moved away from the window.
I don’t know how he knew which apartment was mine.
Maybe he didn’t.
There were plenty of windows facing the street.
I kept telling myself that.
I sat on the floor for most of the night because I didn’t want him to see me through the curtains.
At some point I looked again.
He was gone.
The next morning I checked the building camera with the landlord.
There was nothing.
Apparently the camera didn’t cover that part of the sidewalk.
Which was convenient.
I quit the job a few days later.
I also stopped looking through the old photos, although I still have them somewhere. I moved apartments after that too.
I don’t really talk about it much because it sounds like something from one of those horror story with pictures posts where somebody finds a creepy face hidden in an old photograph and then the comments all say they would move immediately.
I understand the comments now.
The strange thing is that I still see him sometimes.
Not close.
Usually across a street or behind people somewhere.
Once I thought I saw him on a train platform, but I couldn’t be sure.
Maybe it wasn’t him.
Honestly, I hope it wasn’t.
Because if it was, then I have no idea why he’s still doing it.
He never comes closer.
He never says anything.
He just stands somewhere I can see him and looks directly at me.
I don’t take pictures anymore.
I don’t even like having my picture taken.
And sometimes, when I see someone standing in the background of a photo, I zoom in before I look at anything else.
I know that’s probably stupid.
I still do it.
