by Tim Meyer
“Not a cop, lady,” I assured her.
“You sure?” she asked. “Because I don't know anything.”
“You see that car,” I said, pointing to my piece of shit vehicle. “How many cops you know patrol around in something like that?”
She smirked, then nodded. “So who are you then? A customer? There's gotta be a hundred places that sell cameras and develop film. What's so special about this one?”
The woman was getting on my nerves. She reminded me of my mother. Always sticking her nose in other people's shit, trying to inhale whatever stench she possibly could.
“If you must know, I'm a friend.” I stopped looking inside and turned to her. “I just haven't heard from Chris in a few days and I was starting to worry.” Which was the truth, as close as I could possibly tell it.
She stamped her cigarette out on the sidewalk. Exhaling a huge cloud of smoke, she nodded, then returned to shop without uttering another word, which was fine by me. I got the feeling she didn't really believe me, but I didn't have the time to convince the hair stylist with a bitchy New Jersey attitude that I wasn't casing the joint or whatever it was she was accusing me of.
I decided to check out the back. I moved along the side of the building and before I turned the corner I saw Little Chris's car parked in the small lot designated for employees of the strip mall's stores. His Mustang took up two spots and I couldn't tell if it was intentional or not.
The first thing I tried was the back door. I felt weird about entering without warning, but I really needed to see him. I needed to talk, make things right. I tried the door and it was locked. I knocked. Waited three minutes or so. No answer.
I returned to the front of the store, wondering why I hadn't tried opening the front door to begin with. The place looked closed so I hadn't bothered. But now, knowing Little Chris was inside, I figured I'd give it a try. I turned the knob, pushed open the door, and waited for an alarm to sound. Luckily, none did.
I quickly stepped inside, hoping that Smoke-Face next door didn't see me enter an obviously closed place of business. I didn't turn the lights on for this very reason. It was dark, and I couldn't see too well. The only source of light came in through the glass windows, but the day was cloudy so there was hardly enough of it.
“Chris?” I walked around the store carefully, trying my hardest not to bump into or trip over anything. The place was a mess; most of the stock was in brown moving boxes. Maybe Smoke-Face was right. They were closing the store. I hoped it wasn't so. I also hoped it wasn't because of the peculiar photos I had developed there. Not that it would make sense, but it was a strange coincidence, the two events being days apart.
I moved toward the counter. The cash register was gone. Had they been robbed? That would explain the mess. Was Chris here when it happened? Did the robber shoot him? Tie him up in the back? Is that why he hadn't answered the phone earlier that morning? My mind swam in these dreadful thoughts.
I looked down at the linoleum floor, hoping to find footprints or a trail of blood that would lead me to answers, like I'd seen on television. However, I found nothing. It was dim, so there could have been some clues left on the floor, but I directed my eyes over the counter, toward the back rooms.
As I walked behind the counter, a scary notion popped into my head. What if they were being robbed at this very moment? What if the robber was still in the place? Maybe he was making Chris open the safe in the office?
Just when I thought it might be a good idea to turn around, and possibly phone the police, a shadowy figure emerged from the back room, a pistol in its hand.
“Don't fucking move,” the figure urged. He aimed his gun directly at my chest.
I raised my hands, waiting for the bullet to pierce me.
2
I'd never been shot before. Living a few blocks from the ghetto in my first two years in Atlanta, I'd seen some shit go down. Never had a gun drawn on me though. It was a strange feeling, knowing something so tiny could end your life with one gentle squeeze. My knees went weak and for a second I thought they might buckle and send me to the ground. It took all the strength I had to remain footed. My future was now in the hands of a shadowy figure who came forth from the darkness, and into the gray light the dull sky outside provided.
I felt ill.
“I swear I'll shoot you,” the figure grunted.
I began to recognize the voice. “Chris?” I asked the figure. “Is that you?”
Little Chris stepped into the light. He didn't look well, probably hadn't seen the inside of his eyelids for a few days. Black bags circled his eyes. His hair was matted. There were food stains on his collared shirt. There was a faint, unpleasant smell of body odor, and as he got closer it was evident that taking a shower had no longer been on his to-do list since the last time I saw him. The gun trembled in his hands when I started to put my arms down.
“Chris look at me,” I said. “I haven't come here to harm you.”
“What are you!” he screamed, aligning the gun with my head.
“What the hell kind of question is that?” I asked. “I'm just a guy, Chris. I'm a human being. What do you think I am?” I didn't really want to know his answer. It was clear that Little Chris had gone bonkers. He probably thought I was from another planet, or... another world. A world where people can appear and disappear inside photographs.
“Those pictures...” he started to say. His mouth was trembling. The gun wavered in his hand. For a second I thought he would drop it. I contemplated bull rushing him, hoping to hit him with enough force to dislodge the weapon. I had quickness on my side, that was for sure. “They're... not human. Are they? That man... he isn't human. Right? Tell me I'm right...” Tears teetered on the brink of his eyes. “Tell me I'm right!” he screamed, loud enough that Smoke-Face next door might have heard.
“Honestly, I don't know. All I know is that I saw the same thing you did,” I said. The standoff became more and more tense. I could feel something tug at my chest. Then I remembered my medicine, and how I forgot to take it that morning. I guess with everything on my mind concerning the pictures, taking that stupid pill had slipped. “It got to me too, Chris. It freaked me the fuck out. I came here to see you. To see how you were holding up. And maybe... I don't know. Talk things out. I think we need to help each other make sense of this whole thing.” Whatever was tugging at my chest worsened. I felt my heart take off. The beating grew louder and louder, as if my heart had been inside my head. I rubbed my chest, hoping to calm myself.
“Who are you?” Chris asked.
“My name is Ritchie Naughton. And I think my camera is possessed.”
The gun was still trembling in Chris's hand when I started to feel lightheaded. My heart throbbed rapidly. My chest became a chamber my heart no longer wanted to be prisoner of.
“You have to believe me,” I said. I felt my lungs tighten. Found it hard to breathe. “I... don't feel... so well...” I said, putting my hands on the counter so I wouldn't lose my balance. Weirdness passed through me. I mumbled something, then lost it. The room twirled four or five times before I completely lost my balance and fell to the floor.
Everything went black.
3
For the second time in the past few months, I awoke in a hospital bed, the constant and steady beep of expensive machinery ringing in my ears. To the right side of my bed, stood Chris Pickens Jr., arms folded across his protruding chest, a grave look on his face. I didn't feel any pain. In fact, I didn't feel anything at all except an uncomfortable stiffness which crept into my arms, legs, and neck. I didn't know how long I had been laying there.
“I feel awful about this Mr. Naughton,” Little Chris said. I could tell by his voice that he'd been crying.
“Where am I?” I asked. I rubbed my eyes and realized I had a pulse sensor wrapped around my fingers, which connected me to the EKG machine, the source of the beeping.
“Doctor said your heart almost stopped,” Little Chris said.
I nodde
d. Without going into great detail, I explained what happened a few months ago.
“Your friend is on her way,” Little Chris told me, after I had finished my abridged story.
“My sister?”
“No. Aurelia.”
I looked at him, confused.
“Did I do something wrong, Mr. Naughton?”
“No... just...” Then it hit me. I still had Aurelia's number in my wallet.
“The nurse said your emergency contact was a Lynne Bradley in Atlanta. There wasn't any answer when they called. They found Aurelia's number in your wallet. I told them I'd call her. So I did,” Chris informed me. “I hope that's all right.”
“She's coming?” I asked anxiously. “Here?”
“That's what she said.” Chris looked me, narrowing his eyes. “Is that okay?”
I smiled. “Yes.”
A doctor popped in about ten minutes after I woke up. We had a brief conversation about my last experience. He told me I need to be more conscious about taking my medicine, or I might not be so lucky next time. I told him I would and he told me to relax, that I'd be ready to go home in a few hours.
I waited until I thought most of the doctors and nurses were out of earshot before I turned to Chris. “Where's my bag?” I asked.
“I think it's still at the shop. I don't remember taking it with us in the ambulance. I don't know. It all happened so fast,” he replied.
“Find it. Inside you'll find two cameras,” I told him. “One is a disposable. One is the camera I've been using to take my pictures. It's the Denlax.”
“Denlax?” he asked. “Never heard of it. Is that a brand name?”
I know he had seen the camera before, back when I first started coming to Cameraland, but he must have forgotten. “Your guess is as good as mine,” I said. “In any case, I think it's the camera that caused those pictures to... well, whatever is going on with them. I think it's the camera's fault.”
“How is that possible?”
“I don't know. But we have to find out if it's definitely the camera. That's why I took the same pictures with two different cameras. To compare.”
“Wait,” Chris said, “hold up. What's this we stuff?”
He was right. It was unfair to drag him into this. “I need you, Chris. You saw what that camera is capable of. I mean, shit, you discovered it! Aren't you at least curious as to what it can do. Or what it can show us?”
I saw in his eyes that he was indeed curious. “Yeah, but at the same time... the possibilities scare the shit out of me.”
“Me too. But we can do this together. Take the film and develop them. See if there is anything different between the pictures from the Denlax and the ones from the disposable. When I get out of here—which will be soon—we'll look at them together.”
It took a minute for Chris to respond. Fear made him reluctant to help me. But like me, curiosity would soon get the better of him, and he would say yes. Curiosity is a cruel bastard sometimes.
“Okay, I'll do it. But only because I feel bad for pulling a gun on you.”
I nodded.
A knock on the painted molding came from outside of the room. I turned my head and saw Aurelia, standing in the open doorway. She looked prettier than previous occasions. Her appearance seemed intentional. I noticed she was wearing makeup, which was new. I wasn't huge on makeup, but it definitely enhanced her looks. Her hair was curly at the ends, looking professionally done. Even Little Chris was enamored. He was practically drooling as she walked by, heading to the foot of my bed.
“So. Is this where you take all girls on the first date?” she asked, with a smile I came to adore.
4
Chris left shortly after Aurelia's arrival. She sat in the empty chair in the corner of the room, as she listened to my explanation of how she came to be here. She laughed, telling me that it was okay, she wasn't doing anything before work anyway.
“If you wanted to ask me out, you didn't have to give yourself a heart attack to do it,” she said, still smiling.
I chuckled. “It wasn't a heart attack. But I see your point.”
“So what is it exactly?” she asked.
“I developed some sort of arrhythmia. First started a few months back when—” Flashes of Lynne being bent over by Buster quickly needled my mind, “something happened. If I don't take my medicine, it gets worse. I get dizzy. Pass out. End up in hospitals.”
“You forgot to take your meds.” She shook her head. “Silly boy. The nurse in me wants to kick your ass right now.”
“Please don't.”
She laughed. Then silence fell over us. The awkwardness of the way our last conversation ended returned. I wanted to address it, but she beat me to it.
“I want to apologize for how I reacted at the park. It wasn't right,” she said.
I shook my head. “No, it's fine. Really. I shouldn't have pried.”
“Anyway, you handled it nicely. I appreciate it.”
I told her it was no big deal. Whatever family secrets she didn't want to tell me, was fine by me. I had enough on my plate. When the time was right, if she felt comfortable enough, then she'd tell me. If things get that far, I told myself. One step at a time, lover-boy.
“Well, I appreciate you coming to save me. Sorry, again, for the mix-up.”
“It's perfectly fine. I needed to kill a few hours before work,” she said, that beautiful grin once again caressing the lower part of her face. It was in that moment I wondered why a twenty-six year-old nurse at a mental hospital, who seemed nice as pie, who seemed to genuinely care about people—strangers even—spent her Saturday nights deep within the woods practicing black magic and worshiping the devil. I thought about the ceremony on Saturday night. I thought about the initiation. I did some brief research on Satanic cults and the kind of things that happen during initiations. There's nakedness. There's blood. And yes, there's sometimes sex. And not the passionate kind either. The kind that involves multiple partners. Rough stuff. Violent. The kind that leaves fingernail marks on your back. This of course, was from disreputable sources on the Internet. Certainly if I were writing a newspaper article on the topic, I would not be able to attribute them. Much of what I was going to experience on Saturday was still a mystery. For all I knew, we'd be sitting around the campfire, chanting some mumbo-jumbo and drinking fine wine, although I somehow doubted it.
A few minutes later, a nurse entered the room and told me it was time to go home.
5
Aurelia was kind enough to drive me back to Cameraland. On the way, we talked, dancing around sensitive topics like her family and what a pretty girl like herself was doing becoming an accomplice of the devil. Instead, we asked each other questions about our favorite foods and what colleges we went to. Surprisingly, details about my prior work didn't draw any suspicion about my intentions of joining the Order. I thought she might ask if I were attending masses with the hopes of writing a piece on what was happening deep in the woods of Red River, but she didn't. It was things like that that separated Aurelia from the rest of the Order. She didn't seem very attached to the Order, or protective of its secrecy, where I could see Danica accusing me of having alternative motives. Aurelia didn't seem to take it as seriously as I would have expected. She was different in that way. Almost as if she didn't belong.
We arrived at my car, still parked in the mall lot where I left it. There was an awkward silence that draped over us before we said good-bye and went our separate ways. Normally, it'd be the perfect time for a kiss, but given the circumstances, I decided to hold off. I hoped there would be a better, more romantic opportunity at some point in the near future.
I thanked her for going out of her way to help a stranger.
“I don't think we're strangers any more, Ritchie,” she told me.
“Good to know.” I smiled. “Listen, if you're not doing anything tomorrow night—”
“I'm actually busy the next few days,” she interrupted.
“Oh.”
“It's okay.” I shrugged my what can you do? shrug.
“I'll see you Saturday though. Right?” she asked.
I nodded. Before I opened the door and stepped out, she leaned in and pecked me on the cheek. My heart jumped, but in a good way. Surprised, I found myself staring at her, smiling like a fool.
“What?” she asked.
“Nothing,” I chuckled.
Looking back on that moment, I should have went for it, should have dove in and kissed her back. But, I was dumb. And a little nervous. I hadn't kissed anyone other than Lynne in almost five years.
“What is it?” she asked, giving me that you better fucking tell me face.
My smiled faded. “I'm struggling with something.” I had to be very careful how I expressed my opinions without blowing my cover. If she figured me out, she'd undoubtedly tell Boone, which would spoil any chances of photographing Aunt Danica and Marty Olberstad doing something incriminating. “Why go through with it?” I simply asked.
“Through with what? The initiation?”
“Yeah,” I asked. “I mean. I know how important it is. But... why is it important to you?”
She nodded, bearing that epic smile. “Come Saturday. You'll see.”
6
I strolled into Cameraland casually. I walked past the counter, into the back room where Chris was working on the photographs I had brought with me.
“Hey,” I called from the doorway, hoping not to startle him.
“Hey,” he replied. He was hanging some photographs on the clothesline. Little Chris went to work as soon as he got back from the hospital, only taking breaks for coffee and to relieve his bladder. “I wish you were here,” he said. “I could've showed you how to do this in case... you know.”
“In case what?”
“In case something happens to me.”
“Nothing is going to happen to you, Chris. I promise.”
“Well while we're waiting for these to dry, I'll show you anyway. Here. We'll do these again.” He referred to the images I had captured of the high school kids playing basketball. He summoned me over to the far corner of the room, waving his hand.