The Camera Man

by Amy Cross

  “You've ruined my whole life,” I whisper, as I hear the camera man bumping around in his kitchen. “You've made me think I'm insane. You've made me question everything I see.”

  I pause for a moment, but there's an undeniable sense of anger starting to bubble up through my chest.

  “I've been in and out of psychiatric hospitals,” I continue, “I've lost friends, I've taken so many different types of pill, I don't even remember their names. And all because you've been manipulating me this whole time.”

  “I know,” he says, standing behind me. “Everything you're saying is true, and I have no defense. I know now that there's only one way I can atone for my sins. One way I can put things right.”

  “You've destroyed my life!” I say firmly, before turning to him. “You've -”

  Suddenly he grabs my arm and slams my wrist against the table. Crying out, I drop the scissors as a crack of pain runs up into my chest, and a fraction of a second later my face is pulled back and then cracked against the edge of the door-frame. I try to pull away, but he hits my head against the frame again and again before letting me drop to the ground.

  “I'm sorry,” he says breathlessly, towering over me, “but I have to do this. I just wish I'd done it long ago.”

  Looking up at him, I see that he's holding a carving knife.

  “Wait,” I whisper, “please...”

  “I'm saving you,” he continues. “I know that might be hard for you to believe right now, but trust me, I'm saving you from going through the horrors that I had to endure. I don't know what his plans are for you, but they won't be good. Even if he's trying to be kind, he'll end up tearing you apart.”

  Before I can reply, he grabs the hair on the back of my head and pulls me around, and a moment later I feel the blade of the knife pressing against my bare throat. I try to pull away, but he twists my hair tighter and tilts the blade until I can feel it starting to cut through my skin.

  “I'm saving you,” he whispers, leaning down toward my right ear. “I'm taking pity on you. And as soon as I'm done, I'll do the same thing to myself. I'm just -”

  Suddenly I slam my elbow into his leg, causing him to let out a howl of pain. The knife slips from my throat and I slip free, crawling toward the doorway. Before I can get out of the room, however, I feel a hand grabbing my leg, and I turn just in time to see the camera man slicing the knife down toward my ankle. I cry out in pain, and a fraction of a second later I feel an agonizing jolt as the blade cuts into my leg and scrapes against bone.

  “No!” I scream, kicking him in the face with my uninjured leg.

  He slumps back and I turn, stumbling to my feet as I head toward the door.

  After just a couple of steps, however, the camera man grabs me by the waist and hauls me down, wrestling me to the floor and quickly wrapping his hands around my throat.

  “It's natural for you not to understand!” he sneers, leaning closer. “You want to live, but trust me, any life you have now will be filled with the most unimaginable pain! I'm saving you from him! I only wish someone had given me the same kindness all those years ago!”

  Struggling to get free, I try to kick him in the crotch, but he has my legs pinned down. A moment later he reaches over and picks up the knife, which must have fallen to the floor.

  “This gives me no pleasure,” he continues, adjusting his grip on the knife and then pressing the tip against one side of my throat, just below the ear. “I will weep for you, Jessica. I'll write a letter and leave it behind, so that people know what really happened. Maybe they won't believe me, at least not at first, but that's really all I can do.”

  He twists the knife, and I feel the tip starting to slice into my neck.

  “I'm so sorry,” he adds, with tears in his eyes. “There was nothing else I could do...”

  Reaching out, I try to find something I can use as a weapon. My right hand brushes against something hard, and I quickly pull it closer and swing it at the man's head. He lets out a pained cry and falls back, but this time he doesn't drop the knife.

  Finding that I'm holding a camera tripod, I twist it around in my hands and try to get up, but suddenly the man lunges at me again.

  “No!” I scream, slamming one of the tripod's legs against him and hitting him in the throat.

  He gasps, and I watch as his eyes widen even further. For a few seconds he seems frozen in place, and then the knife falls from his hand. It takes a couple more seconds before I realize that the legs of the tripod are fitted with metal spikes, one of which has sliced straight into the man's throat. Blood is starting to dribble down onto the floor, and I quickly let go of the tripod. As it clatters down, I crawl out of the way and slump against the wall, and then I turn to look back at the man.

  He's on the floor, desperately trying to pull the tripod leg out of his neck as he struggles for air. There's blood running from his mouth, but the tripod seems stuck.

  “I tried!” he groans, spraying more blood from his lips. “Just because I'm gone, that doesn't mean he'll leave you alone. He'll still want you and...”

  He hesitates for a moment, before slumping down against the tripod and falling still.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  “You were right about his name,” Detective Carter says as he takes a seat opposite me. He's holding a print-out, and after a moment he turns the sheet so that I can see a familiar face. “Patrick Duggan, fifty-two years old. By all accounts an accomplished photographer until he basically went off the grid about twenty years ago.”

  He slides a folder toward me, and I see a photo of a twenty-something guy standing a little nervously, a little proudly in front of a photo that seems to be part of some kind of exhibition. As soon as I see the guy's enlarged eyes, I recognize him.

  “Freaky-looking chap, huh?” Carter continues. “Not someone I'd ever want to run into in a dark alley.”

  Pulling the folder closer, I start leafing through its pages. There are more photos, mostly showing Duggan in a variety of newspaper clippings. As I flip to the later pages, I find articles about how he seemed to disappear from the art scene almost overnight, with many of his former colleagues questioning where he'd gone and why he'd seemingly withdrawn. He seems to have become something of a mysterious figure, at least at first, although it's noticeable that the clippings are all from at least two decades ago. I guess eventually the elusive Patrick Duggan was simply forgotten by his former friends.

  “We're in the process of going through his belongings at the moment,” Carter explains. “I don't want to make you feel uncomfortable, Miss Cassidy, but he possessed a significant number of photos and videos that were focused on your day-to-day life. The earliest...”

  He hesitates for a moment, before grabbing a tablet and tapping at the screen. After a few seconds, he tilts the tablet so that I can see a video.

  As the file plays, I see that it's a shot of a motorway, taken from up on a bridge. The shaky, grainy footage focuses on the road as a familiar black car comes rushing closer, and I realize with a shudder that it's the old Skoda my father drove when I was younger. As the car flashes under the bridge, the camera turns and looks over the other side, watching the car as it zooms off into the distance.

  I remember that moment.

  I was just a little girl, sitting in the back seat, but I remember seeing a man on the bridge that day.

  “He's been watching you ever since,” Carter says as the video ends. “It was relentless. I also wanted to show you one other video.”

  He taps at the screen again, this time bringing up a very dark shot that appears to show a parking lot with just one electric light at the far end.

  I recognize the scene immediately.

  It's the lot outside the apartment where I lived many years ago with Kelly and Angela.

  I can't really make much out, although after a moment I see that somebody is climbing up into the old skip that we used for dumping garbage.

  “Of course, I'm going to help you,” I hear my voice
saying suddenly. “On three, okay? I'll help you out on three. One. Two.”

  There's a faint groan on the soundtrack.

  “Three!”

  Staring at the screen in horror, I watch an unfolding situation that I've long since thought was all in my head. That night with the woman in the skip was the first night I truly lost my mind, and years of therapy taught me that none of it actually happened. Now I'm watching it, and I feel tears in my eyes as I realize that I was fooled all this time.

  “I need you to try to help with this, okay?” my voice continues on the recording. “On the count of three, I need you to try lifting yourself up. Ready? One.”

  There's another faint groan.

  “Two.”

  And another.

  “Three!”

  I remember this moment like it was yesterday. As several faint groans play out on the recording, I think back to the moment when I pulled the woman's arm and she began to tear apart.

  “Wait!” I hear myself crying out. “Stop!”

  There's a faint banging sound, and then a scream. I watch the video and see a figure stumbling away from the skip, and a moment later the figure stumbles into the building. I remember getting back to the apartment, sobbing hysterically. As I continue to watch, however, the camera starts wobbling as it hurries toward the skip, and finally the camera man climbs up and reaches down to start pulling the woman's corpse out. I briefly see her again, with the pitch black lenses in her eyes, but finally I have to look away.

  “Stop it,” I whisper.

  The soundtrack continues, and I hear the camera man muttering under his breath.

  “Stop it!” I say firmly.

  The video stops, and I turn to Carter again.

  “We still don't know who she was,” he says solemnly. “We'll be going through reports of missing people from the time, and we should get a match eventually. I might need you to look at some pictures later. For now, though, it's clear that you really did see a woman in the skip that night.”

  “He put the lenses in her eyes so that I'd sound insane,” I reply, as a tear runs down my cheek. “He deliberately made the whole thing look ridiculous, so that nobody would believe me. He wanted to discredit me so that nobody would ever believe anything I said again.”

  “And it worked, Jess. I'm so sorry.”

  “Even I didn't believe it. Not after a while. People dismissed me. They said I was insane.”

  “I know, and again, I'm sorry. I can only promise that we're going to try to put things right.”

  “What about Doug?” I ask.

  “We're still looking into the death of your former co-worker. The circumstances are challenging, and we're onto the fourth autopsy now without much success, but we'll get there eventually. Again, we might need to speak to you several more times, but only as a witness. Not as a suspect.” He looks down at the folder again, at the photo of Patrick Duggan. “We have no doubt whatsoever that you've been the victim of a man who was completely out of his mind. I only wish somebody had believed you sooner.”

  “And the things he told me,” I whisper, “about why he did it, about hearing a voice and about something ordering him to follow me...”

  “The man was insane,” Carter replies. “Nobody can seriously believe what he claims.”

  I stare at the photo for a moment, unable to stop looking at the fear in Patrick Duggan's expression.

  “You know,” I say after a few seconds, “that's exactly what people said about me once.”

  ***

  “I'm so sorry that no-one believed you,” Mum says as I come out of the interview room. Getting to her feet, she rushes over and puts her arms around me. “It all just seemed so improbable!”

  “Don't worry,” I reply. “You did what you could.”

  “We should have listened to you more,” she sobs, hugging me so tight it almost hurts. “Oh Jess, when I think about all the times people thought you were talking nonsense, all the times we doubted you!” She pulls back for a moment and peers at the stitches on the side of my head. “My poor girl, look what that monster did to you! I'm only sorry he's not around to pay for his crimes. He didn't deserve to get out of it so easily, he should have spent the rest of his life locked away.”

  “He wasn't evil,” I point out. “He was... confused.”

  “Of course he was evil!” she spits. “He was a beast!”

  “He believed he was being used by someone else,” I continue. “He believed in all these things that sounded crazy, things nobody else could accept were true. I kind of know how that feels.”

  “Well, he's gone now, and you can start getting on with your life again.” She kisses me on the cheek, but it's clear that she's having some kind of mini-meltdown and that she doesn't really know what to do next. “Oh Jess, you've got your whole life ahead of you now. You're finally free of this madness and you can go back to being a happy, normal girl!”

  I open my mouth to reply, but suddenly I hear one of the nearby doors opening. I glance toward the entrance, expecting to see that Dad has come to tell us that the car's ready, but then I freeze as I see a familiar, smiling face.

  “There you are!” Chrissie says, beaming at me as she comes over and gives me a huge hug. “Finally I get to set my eyes on you again! It's been too long, Jess! Where have you been hiding yourself?”

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  “So I'm texting this guy,” Chrissie says as we sit in the back garden at my parents' house, “and he's like hot one minute and cold the next, and I don't know where I stand at all.”

  “Wait a minute,” I reply, feeling a little dazed, “you still haven't told me where you went. You were gone for six months!”

  “Huh?”

  She taps at her phone for a moment longer, before glancing at me with a smile.

  “Oh,” she continues, “that. Yeah, don't worry. I was just very busy, you know?”

  “Too busy to even show up once?”

  “You know how it is.”

  “For six months?”

  “What can I say? I'm a popular girl!”

  I watch as she fidgets with her phone, and I can't help feeling that she seems a little tense. I must have asked a dozen times now about those missing six months, and she still hasn't told me exactly where she went. Each time, she just makes some vague reference to being busy and then she either changes the subject or she pretends to be absorbed by her phone. Sure, Chrissie has always been a little scatter-brained, but I almost feel as if she's deliberately avoiding answering my questions.

  And there's something else she hasn't mentioned, too.

  “You didn't come to Kelly's funeral,” I point out.

  “Didn't I?”

  “I thought you'd be there.”

  “Well, you know how it is, sometimes life is more important than death.”

  I wait for her to explain, but she's still tapping furiously at her phone.

  “What does that mean?” I ask finally.

  “Huh?”

  “Life is more important than death. What do you mean by that?”

  “Oh, I don't even remember,” she continues with a sigh. “You're asking a lot of questions lately, honey. Honestly, I feel a little like I'm being interrogated. I appreciate the interest and attention, but you could give me a slightly easier time.”

  I try to force a smile, to make myself believe her, but at the same time something definitely seems a little off. She's all surface and no depth, and I feel like there's something she's keeping from me.

  “I bet you're glad it's all over now, huh?” she says after a moment.

  “All over?”

  “You can get back to normal. Your mother told me you've still got that apartment over on the other side of town. When are you moving back in?”

  “I hadn't thought about it.”

  “You should go back soon,” she continues. “There's no point faffing about. Aren't you going crazy, living here with your parents?”

  “It's a little weird,” I adm
it.

  “Weird? I don't get how you haven't been driven completely out of your mind! Seriously, Jess, just say the word and I'll help you move your things. I've still got the car, remember? How about this afternoon?”

  “That'd be a little soon.”

  “Tomorrow, then?”

  “I'll let you know.”

  “You need to get on with your old life,” she says with another sigh. “There's no point hiding away like this.”

  “I'm not hiding.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  I watch as she continues to play with her phone, and I still can't shake the feeling that something isn't right here. For a moment, I consider asking her yet again about those missing six months, but I guess she'll just claim they were nothing and insist that I'm making an unnecessary fuss. It's good to have her back, but at the same time I can't stop thinking that in some way I haven't got all of her back. Then again, maybe I'm just being unrealistic. Maybe, in the six months she was off doing whatever she was doing, she changed a little.

  Maybe I changed too.

  “Come on,” she says suddenly, slipping her phone away as she gets to her feet, “there's no time like the present. Let's get you started.”

  “Started?”

  “With your new life. By which I mean, your old life. I'm worried about you, Jess. If you just sit around here at your parents' house, you're going to become dependent. Everything's fine now, but you'll slip a little each day and after a few months you'll be scared to poke your nose out the front door.”

  She reaches a hand toward me.

  “Let's roll.”

  “I'm not sure I -”

  “Jess, you'll thank me later!” she says firmly, before grabbing my hand and trying to pull me out of the chair. “I'm not joking, it's time for you to get off your butt. The monster has been slain, Jess, and there's nothing to be scared of. The only danger now comes from within.”

  “I think I'd rather just take a few more weeks off first.”

  “No way.”