Why does the paper run obituaries for people who are still seen walking around town, and what's behind those back issues that disappear from the archives whenever certain topics are researched? Which stories get rewritten between the first and final editions without any official corrections, and why does the printing press operate during hours when no staff is present? What happened to those missing editorial files from the month when three reporters left town simultaneously?
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If you don’t read the newspaper, you’re uninformed. If you read the newspaper, you’re mis-informed.
― Mark Twain
The Clarkston Gazette: where the truth is printed, and sometimes, buried. Gilda Novak knew this when she took the junior reporter position, her typewriter positioned strategically near the window overlooking the town square. The morning sun illuminated her workspace, casting elongated shadows across the worn hardwood floor.
The newsroom smelled perpetually of ink, coffee, and cigarettes — a fragrance Gilda had come to associate with truth-seeking. But lately, another scent had crept in, something metallic and wrong that seemed to emanate from the archives room. Editor-in-Chief Harmon brushed off her concerns with a dismissive wave. “Old papers, old building,” he’d say, never meeting her eyes.
It started with the obituaries. Gilda noticed them first — death notices appearing in the morning edition for people still very much alive. By afternoon, however, those same people would be discovered dead, circumstances matching the printed columns with unsettling precision. A typesetting error, Harmon insisted. A terrible coincidence.
The ancient printing press in the back room had been with the paper since its founding. Gilda found herself drawn to it after hours, watching its gears and mechanisms. Sometimes, when she was alone in the building, she swore it whispered — not with a human voice, but with the rustling of papers and the soft click of metal type arranging itself.
When Gilda began investigating the pattern of deaths, she discovered forgotten archives showing it had happened before — every forty years, like clockwork. Her predecessor who’d noticed had his final article cut short, his byline appearing one last time — in the obituaries. Now Gilda’s name has appeared in tomorrow’s layout, and the printing press is running itself tonight, metal type clicking into place, ink flowing black as blood.
