The Camera Man

by Amy Cross

  With each and every step, I feel an overwhelming urge to turn back.

  Instead, however, I keep going until I'm up on the landing and I can see the door to the camera man's apartment.

  I step closer, not daring to make a sound.

  There's a TV running on the other side of the door, and as I stop on the mat I realize I can hear some kind of comedy show. Every few seconds, there's a faint rumble of audience laughter, and it's difficult to believe that the camera man is not only real, but that he seems to be watching a sitcom. I reach down, daring myself to turn the handle, but at the last moment I hold back. Even if I get inside, what will I do then? How exactly am I supposed to confront this guy?

  Finally, realizing that I can't turn back when I've come so far, I try the handle and find that it turns. A moment later I'm able to push the door, and I hear a faint clicking sound as it slips open. Now the sound of the TV seems much louder, which I guess will make it easier for me to step into the apartment without being heard. I can barely believe that I'm doing something this dumb for a second time, but at the same time I know that if I turn and run I'll only end up with the same doubts and fears.

  I have to face the truth, no matter the consequences.

  Stepping forward, I realize that the air inside the apartment's hallway is much warmer.

  Suddenly I hear a bumping sound over my shoulder, and I turn to see that the camera man is right behind me. He's holding the camera in front of his face, aiming the lens straight at me. He's so close, I can see my own reflection in the glass, and I instinctively reach out, grabbing the camera from his hands and throwing it to the floor.

  Gasping in horror, I find myself staring into a pair of grotesquely large, bulging black eyes.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  “Get away from me!” I scream, pushing him back, only for him to grab my shoulders. “Help! Somebody help me!”

  “Be quiet!” he hisses, shoving me through the doorway until I trip and fall.

  As I land hard on the carpet, the man kicks his camera through and then steps into the hallway and slams the door shut. He takes a moment to slide some bolts across, before turning and looking down at me.

  “Help” I shout. “Call the police!”

  “Are you crazy?” he asks, stepping around me and reaching down to put a hand over my mouth.

  “Keep away!”

  I kick him hard in the leg, hard enough to make him let out a brief gasp as he steps back. Stumbling to my feet, I rush toward the door, only for the camera man to grab my arm and pull me away. I try to slip free, but he quickly throws me against the wall and pins me in place. As I struggle to pull away, I twist this way and that before suddenly freezing as I find myself staring into the camera man's hideously large eyes.

  “You have to stop and listen to me!” he groans, raising a finger and placing it against his lips, as if he means to shush me. “You're in terrible danger!”

  “People know I'm here,” I stammer, hoping he'll believe the lie. “The police are on their way!”

  “No, they're not,” he replies with a sigh. “I know who you are, Jessica Cassidy, and I know you haven't called the police. I also know that even if you had, they most likely wouldn't come running. After all, you've got a bad track-record when it comes to crying wolf. Or at least, that's what they think.”

  “I can still scream,” I tell him.

  “You can,” he says, before letting go of my arm and taking a step back, “but how would that really help? Have the police ever managed to do anything for you?”

  He pauses, before crouching down and starting to gather up the pieces of his broken camera. His hands are trembling and he seems to be in a little pain, but I can't help noticing that he's making no attempt to hold me here. Glancing at the front door, I realize I could easily slide the bolts aside and get out of here, although I hesitate for a moment and look down at the man as he finishes picking up the camera's pieces.

  “A Woolnecker 75,” he says with a sigh. “Quite rare these days. The company went out of business a long time ago, but they made good cameras. Reliable, dependable things. Don't worry, though, I think I should be able to repair it. I hope so, anyway. A Woolnecker should never be simply tossed away.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” I ask. “Why have you been following me?”

  He looks up at me.

  “I've seen you,” I continue, shuddering at the sight of his large, swollen eyes. “I've seen you so many times, always with a camera covering your face.”

  “I know,” he replies. “I was always aware that you'd seen me.”

  “You were stalking me!”

  “That's a matter of interpretation.” He gets to his feet, although he winces a little and I hear his legs crack slightly. He's an old man. “I was certainly following you, and I certainly did not have your permission, so I can only apologize. For that, and for other things.”

  “Give me one good reason,” I reply, poised to fight back in case he tries anything, “why I shouldn't knock you out and bring the police here.”

  “You want answers, don't you?”

  He pauses, before stepping over to the front door and sliding the bolts across. Once he's pulled the door open, he turns and starts walking through to the front room.

  “You can leave if you want,” he explains. “I won't be here if you bring any police back. The whole place can be packed up in five minutes straight, and my dear friend Bernie won't mind lying for me. But please, if it makes you feel any better, run along.”

  He disappears from view, leaving me standing all alone in the hallway with the open front door just a few meters away. I desperately want to get out of here, but at the same time the camera man suddenly seems very talkative and I feel as if running isn't going to help. I'm still not convinced that any of this is real, but finally I swing the door shut and make my way over cautiously to the front room, where I see that the man is busy closing the curtains in order to block out the light of a nearby streetlamp.

  “Who are you?” I ask after a moment.

  “You want a name?”

  “I want to know who the hell you are,” I continue, “and why you've been plaguing me for so long.”

  “That's reasonable,” he replies, before turning to me. “My name is Patrick Duggan. Pat, to my friends, but I suppose I can't count you among their number. Not that many of my friends are still around these days.”

  “Why have you been following me?” I ask, feeling a surge of anger in my chest.

  He takes a step toward me.

  “Don't come any closer!” I yell, grabbing a pair of scissors from the nearby counter and holding them up. “I'll use them if I have to! I swear!”

  “I believe you.”

  I jab the scissors toward him and he takes a step back. As much as I still want to hear what this maniac has to say, I'm starting to panic.

  “It's very brave of you to follow me in here,” he continues. “Not just once, but twice. I never expected that, Jessica. Not in a million years. You have my respect.”

  “I don't need your respect!” I sneer.

  “I've been following you because I had no choice,” he explains. “He got into my head a long time ago. Maybe if I'd been less of a coward, I could have resisted and let him kill me, but he'd just have moved on and used somebody else.”

  He steps over to a table on the far side of the room, where various boxes contains a whole load of cameras. Picking one up, he examines it for a moment before holding it out for me to see.

  “A 1969 Sennenhauser,” he continues. “One of the first cameras I ever owned. I've always been fascinated by them, for as long as I can remember. Of course, I think my disability had something to do with that. As you've no doubt noticed, I was born with excessively sized pupils and retinas. It's a miracle I can see at all, but in some regards I've been extremely lucky. In other regards, however, my luck has run out. My obsession with cameras, I must assume, is what made him notice me in the first place.”
/>
  “Who are you talking about?” I ask, with the scissors still raised.

  “I don't think you'll believe me.”

  “Try me!”

  “I don't -”

  He pauses for a moment, before setting the camera down and picking up another. It's almost as if he has a nervous tic, as if he can't help himself and he needs to be constantly fiddling with one piece of equipment or another.

  “I don't know exactly who or what he is,” he says finally. “I tried asking him once, but I didn't understand the answer. At first, I thought I was being dense, but then I realize he wasn't able to explain himself at all. He himself doesn't fully understand where he came from, and I think that's because he's too new. There was a lightning strike one night, and I went out to get some pictures. I was hit, and after that I found my mind was opened to this... entity. This new god.”

  I wait for him to continue, but now he seems content to simply fidget with the camera.

  “New?” I ask after a moment. “What do you mean, new?”

  “Perhaps young would be a better word. He's too young. He's immensely powerful, he sees all and he can reach out and influence the world, but I don't think he's been around for long. I'm not a religious man, but the best way I can describe him is to say that he seems like some kind of newborn god. I also believe that time runs differently for him. From my perspective, it's been more than twenty years since I first encountered him, but from his point of view it has been... hours, maybe. A day or two, at most.”

  “You're not making any sense,” I point out.

  He nods. “I know. I'm trying my best to explain. In truth, I've never had to describe him to anyone else before. From the start, he was my secret, and I was – to the best of my knowledge – the only one with whom he communicated.”

  Staring at him, I realize that he means every word that he's saying. I think he might be completely insane.

  “A camera is a way of seeing things,” he explains, holding up the camera that's in his hands. “He told me once that he was born with all these eyes, looking out at the world. I know it sounds crazy, but I think all those cameras created a void, a kind of vacuum. Billions of eyes all over the world, but nobody looking out through them. Eventually, by some process that I can't begin to understand, some kind of consciousness formed in that vacuum and began to look out. Some kind of new god came into being, to fill the vacuum. That, I believe, is the intelligence with which I have been communicating. That is the intelligence that tasked me with...”

  He hesitates, watching me with a hint of caution.

  “That tasked me,” he continues finally, “with following and filming you.”

  Again, I wait for him to explain, but it's almost as if he think I should understand by now.

  “All the time,” he adds. “Day in and day out, he was relentless. He wanted me to film you, so that he could watch.”

  “Why?” I ask. “Why me?”

  He shrugs. “I have never been able to work that out.”

  “There's nothing special about me,” I continue, before realizing that this entire conversation is getting out of hand. “Even if I believed you, which I don't, but even if I did... There are billions of people on this planet. Why would anyone choose me?”

  “I don't know. You'd have to ask him. Maybe you'll get that chance.”

  “No,” I reply, shaking my head again, “this is just your way of justifying all the crazy things you've been doing.”

  “I'm exhausted,” he says with a sigh. “I've been following you for twenty years, Jessica. Not out of my own interest, you understand, but because he forced me. You have no idea how much pain he sent coursing through my body any time I tried to stop.”

  “You're delusional.”

  “Do you remember the body in the skip?”

  I open my mouth to tell him he's nuts, but suddenly I realize that he's the first person who has ever even suggested that the body in the skip all those years ago was real.

  “I put her there,” he explains. “I knew you were going to start noticing me, so I had to make it so that you wouldn't be believed. I put the body in the skip and I decided to make her seem totally ridiculous, so I took her eyes out and replaced them with the lenses from two old cameras. Then, when you ran back inside and screamed for help, I removed the body and dragged it away. I knew that when you told people that you'd seen such an absurd thing, all your credibility would be ruined. I didn't realize you'd end up in a psychiatric hospital, and I'm sorry about that, but -”

  “Shut up!” I yell, stepping toward him with the scissors in my hand. “You're making all of this up!”

  He shakes his head.

  “I know you are!” I shout. “You can't have been watching me my whole life!”

  “If you don't believe me, I can prove it to you.”

  “With photos and videos?” I sneer. “Is that it? Are you totally sick? Do you have videos of me stored away?”

  “That's not the proof.”

  He looks at the scissors for a moment, before stepping past me and heading over to a computer on a nearby desk.

  “Don't try anything!” I say firmly. “I'll use these if I have to!”

  “I wouldn't blame you,” he replies as he starts bringing up a file on the screen. “In some ways, I'd even welcome it.”

  “What about Kelly?” I ask.

  “Who?”

  “My friend. She died when she jumped off the roof of the hotel.”

  “Oh, yes. Was her name Kelly?” He takes a moment to click some windows open on the computer screen. “He killed her. He threw her off that roof because she'd overheard me talking to him. He can do things like that, you know. He even intervened to save you recently, I believe. A man tried to force himself on you, so he ended up being turned inside out. That was for your benefit.”

  I shake my head, and now there are tears in my eyes.

  “Here is all the footage I have ever shot of you,” he adds, bringing up a window that looks to contain thousands and thousands of files. “I don't have every second of your life, of course, but I have a decent chunk. There's more than fifty thousand hours of footage on these various hard drives, Jessica, covering your life from when you were just a couple of years old, all the way up to the most recent days.”

  “That's not possible,” I whisper, stepping closer to the screen.

  “I arranged every frame in order,” he continues. “Every single frame. The processing power alone was immense, but eventually I got the job done. Fifty thousand hours of footage produced around four and a half billion individual frames. And do you know what happens when you put those in order?”

  He double clicks another file, and I see a new window showing frames in a grid.

  “And when I zoom out,” he adds, dragging a slider, “one gets one's proof.”

  Just as I'm about to tell him this is insane, I see that the frames put together have formed an image. He continues to zoom out, until finally I see that all the frames together have formed a blurred, black and white image that vaguely resembles a human face. There are dark pits for eyes, and another for the mouth, although the face seems very distorted, almost as if the mouth is hanging wide open.

  “This can't be a coincidence,” the camera man explains. “Your life, as I recorded it, just so happens to have created this image? No, there's more to it. Jessica, I believe this to be the face of the creature, or entity, that forced me to observe you for so long.”

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Still holding the scissors, I step closer to the screen, unable to stop staring at the warped, distorted face.

  “I feel his voice in my mind,” the camera man continues. “I don't hear it, exactly. It's more like he takes control of my thoughts and makes me think certain things. I have a very distinct impression of a conscious mind at work, and of him reaching into my thoughts so he can -”

  “No!” I say firmly, turning to him with the scissors raised. “None of this is real!”

  “Jess
ica -”

  “It can't be real!” I scream, backing away until I bump against the wall. “Okay, maybe you're real, but the rest of this is just something kind of nonsense you've made up!”

  “I wish that were the case, Jessica.”

  “You're sick!”

  “You have no idea how sick. All these years, he's been directing me and using me, forcing me to follow you. He could watch you through other cameras, of course, but for some reason he wanted the intimacy of following you in this way. Every time I held a camera, I knew that I wasn't the only one looking through its lens. Wherever he is, he was watching too. Watching and enjoying.”

  I shake my head.

  “He believed he could take your soul through the cameras,” he explains. “I think that's what he wanted, anyway. He was always urging me to get closer, to train more cameras on you. He was trying to reach through and draw your soul from your body, so that he could possess it. Maybe he just wanted you, or maybe he was hoping to take your body. I have no idea, but he certainly believed that if he trained a camera on you, he'd be able to use that camera to take your soul.”

  “You can't seriously expect me to believe this,” I reply.

  “I did awful things,” he continues. “I don't expect forgiveness or understanding. The camera in your shower was me. The cameras hidden in your apartment, the ones you didn't ever find, were me too. The ones in your bedroom, in your bathroom, in your kitchen and your lounge. All me, all because he directed me. I have no doubt that if I'd refused, he would have killed me, but I'm so tired now. I want no more to do with this, and there is only one thing left for me to do.”

  He steps past me, and I can't help staring at the face on the screen. It's as if the features of a man are screaming through a wall of noise, trying to burst through a field of static that holds him back. Still, the features are clear enough, so I can only assume that the camera man has used some kind of software to manipulate the frames until they created this image.