Shock Totem 9.5: Holiday Tales of the Macabre and Twisted - Halloween 2014 Read online

  But upon review, he’d created a striking effect. The area around the doorway had endured the years passingly well, but damp rot riddled the siding around the window, and the rot looked as if it was spreading toward the door. Like a rash infecting healthy tissue.

  “Jeez,” he muttered, tapping the zoom button. “That’s actually not bad. In fact, it’s...”

  He trailed off.

  In the window, at the very edge of the image’s frame...something. A smudge. A shadow. Of...

  Of what, he couldn’t tell, because his framing had cut off the rest.

  Brian looked over his shoulder back at the old house, thinking. Dimly, he remembered a framing theory they’d studied in class this year, developed by some guy named Deleuze. Something about how a picture was framed...

  He raised the camera and looked at the image again, at the cut-off shadow in the window. Though not word for word, he recalled a snippet from an essay written by Deleuze, assigned to his class early in the semester:

  ...the out of field phenomenon occurs when literal framing of an image leaves elements and actions partly out of frame, implying their continuation past the frame...

  The philosophy part of Photography Philosophy had been rough going. The class was less about how to take pictures, more about why people should take pictures. Brian hadn’t understood much of it. He liked taking pictures of interesting things. Who cared why?

  Like the rest of the philosophy they’d studied the past semester, he’d struggled to understand Deleuze’s ideas. However, something about the guy’s out-of-field-theory had stuck with Brian, even if he hadn’t gotten all of the guy’s philosophies completely.

  Professor Spinella had explained it this way: anything cut off by the framing of a picture didn’t actually end, but rather continued outside the frame somewhere else, because photographing images created another reality, a reality of the image, which wasn’t limited by the artificial framing imposed by the photographic device. He’d thought the whole thing a bunch of mumbo jumbo when they’d first studied it, but...

  He tapped the image on the Nikon’s small screen, his stomach tingling with excitement. Maybe he’d found at least one photo that would pass muster with Spinella and help him earn him a passing grade on his final project. Maybe he could take some more shots of this house and use them for a presentation of Deleuze’s theory.

  He glanced at his watch: 2:00 PM. Plenty of time for him to take some more pictures, maybe even jimmy his way inside, see if he could find something interesting to shoot. And he should be able to get enough pictures before it got dark. Because who wanted to muck around an old house after dark, right?

  He slipped his hand into a small satchel slung over his shoulder, digging for another memory card he could use for the camera, intent on filling the whole thing with pictures of this house. The prospect of actually taking pictures that meant something to him, for a change, was exciting.

  Just so long as he got his ass out of there before dark.

  • • •

  A year ago as a senior in high school, when his entry of a sunset over Blue Mountain Lake won first prize in Old Forge Academy’s Harper Penny Photography Scholarship Contest, Brian never imagined he’d be so desperate to take a “unique” photograph. Everyone liked his pictures back then. His parents had indulged his hobby, sacrificing their meager savings to buy him his Nikon for his 16th birthday. He’d served as president of Old Forge Academy’s Photo Club for three years straight. Was one of the lead photographers for the school journal and yearbook. The summer before and after his senior year, he’d done some freelance work for the Webb County Courier (paid in contributor copies only, but a byline was a byline.) The scholarship he’d won enabled him to attend Webb Community College to study Photography, assuring him (in his mind, anyway) of a successful career behind the viewfinder.

  But only a year into his studies had given Brian a new, depressing perspective. Though he “freelanced” for the campus newspaper, his photos were hardly ever used, apparently not “fresh” or “original” enough. His old spot with the Courier had been handed over to a high school successor. He’d eagerly tramped through the countryside all summer after graduation, taking scenic pictures of waterfalls, creeks, lakes, old cabins, mountains...hell, even sunsets, submitting them to every contest and journal he could find, confident of his success simply because he could now list “Photography Major at Webb Community College” in his bio.

  All his photos had been rejected by form letters stating: “Thank you for your interest but at this time, your photos don’t meet our needs. Please submit again in the future.”

  Soon as his classes started and the semester wore on, his studies and various class projects ate into his free time, cutting his own personal photography into a third of what it was. Complicating matters: his scholarship paid for tuition, room and board, and a limited meal plan. Gas money, grocery money, laundromat money, book money, photo supplies...he was on his own. His father worked construction, his mother was a part-time nurse. They just met their own needs, so he expected little to no extra money from home.

  So, he reluctantly found work as a checkout-bagger at The Great American Grocery down the road from campus. Working nearly twenty-five hours a week there, on top of his schoolwork, left very little time to actually take pictures for himself.

  Brian stopped about five feet from the old house’s front door, wrestling as always with his future, his dreams, and their slow, painful death this past year. It would be incredibly convenient to claim that his brand of traditional photography wasn’t accepted in a digital world in which images could be so easily enhanced. He could blame his mediocre grades on how tight his schedule was. He always felt so tired, unable to focus. All the ideas in his head seemed breathtaking when day-dreaming at work, but when he had the rare moment to actually get behind his camera, the results seldom matched his expectations anymore.

  His professors, so far, had felt the same way. Best he’d managed in any of his classes the past year was a B. He could say that was because of work, or not having enough time to develop his technique. The truth of the matter? In his gut knew that none of his excuses were valid. Several of his classmates were only carrying B averages, but their photos possessed something his lacked.

  His fellow students’ photos had a kind of shine, a vitality, while his photos looked like flat, lifeless things, even to his eyes.

  He supposed it was the same with acting and writing. A really bad actor, you could see how hard they were acting. A bad writer, all you saw were words strung together that tried too hard to tell a story, not capture a reader in a story.

  Everything he’d shot over the last year had been the same. You could see all the different angles and focuses and lighting techniques he’d learned, like a goddamn checklist. But, when viewed at as a whole...

  His photos fell flat. Didn’t at all match the visions in his head. They had no life of their own.

  The truth of the matter, then, was far simpler, and a lot more depressing. He had just enough talent to turn photography into a nice hobby, if he pursued it...and that was it.

  That picture he’d taken, however.

  Something different about it. A vibe, a tenor he’d not sensed in his work thus far. If the image he’d just shot of this old house hadn’t be a fluke, if he could take more like that...maybe his dreams weren’t dead, after all.

  He paused before stepping forward, checking the batteries on his Nikon, wondering about the history of the place. He wasn’t a Clifton Heights native. His cousin Rich lived here, had suggested a month ago that Clifton Heights would be a good place to take pictures. Said it was a “unique” town, “kinda scenic’n shit.” When he saw Rich again, he’d have to ask him about the history of this old place.

  Satisfied with the camera’s battery levels, Brian approached the front door. Whatever its history, the house felt long abandoned. Like no one had lived in it for years. Decades, maybe.

  Brian stopped several paces from t
he crumbling remains of the house’s front porch. There it stood, tottering, like every abandoned house he’d ever seen. Paint largely peeled away, several windows without glass, roof sagging in places. He imagined it had once been a stately old home, almost like a manor or something.

  His gaze traveled over the decayed face of the house. As he settled on the window and door he’d snapped a picture of, an uneasy thought occurred to him: that shadow. In his excitement over the picture’s resonance he’d never considered what had thrown the shadow.

  A brief chill passed through him.

  He shivered, but shook it off. There hadn’t been a real shadow there, of course. An angle of the light was all, something formed in the “reality” created by his camera, nothing more. In fact...that sounded like an excellent lead-in for his project, that the shadow had been created by his framing, created by the reality he had created in his taking the picture.

  Bolstered by this idea, he strode forward. As he neared the front door, he saw (with just the faintest relief) that indeed, no shadow loomed in the window. C’mon. You want to be a photographer? For real? Suck it up, Nancy.

  He placed a hand on the door, pushed it open, and stepped inside.

  • • •

  A foul odor assaulted his nose as he entered what remained of the home’s foyer. Brittle wallpaper flaked away from the walls. Grit crunched beneath his shoes. For some reason, he hadn’t expected such a rotten smell...but of course it made sense. Empty for years, no one living in it, heating it or taking care of it, everything moldering in the wet and the damp, freezing through winter ice only to thaw into rot again every Spring. Probably nothing here had escaped it. He realized if this house had a basement or even a crawlspace beneath the floor, he’d need to be wary of his footing.

  Also, the dark. Not pitch black, but definitely something he needed to account for. He held up his camera, toggled to “lighting options” on the digital menu and selected “night portrait,” adjusting the flash settings for optimal exposure...

  Something scuttled across the floor, from left to right.

  Brian stiffened, goose-flesh rippling across his skin. Adrenaline surged and his heart pounded...

  And he instantly felt stupid, though his heart still thumped and it took considerable effort to shake off his jangling nerves. A mouse. A squirrel, a chipmunk, or God forbid...even a rat. Only a rodent of some kind that his heavy footsteps had sent scurrying for cover. Place was probably lousy with them, and he didn’t need to be...

  His eyes focused on the hallway before him, which receded to the back of the house. Clearly the main hall, which opened up into a large room in the rear. A den, or perhaps a dining room. Off the hall on both sides, several doors led to other rooms, and as he stared down that hall...something clicked in his head. A switch flipped. Possessed by an inspiration he’d not felt all year, Brian raised his Nikon, focused on the hallway, stepped sideways so that his framing caught the hallway at an angle, partially cutting off its opening...

  He snapped a picture.

  And in the flash, his fancy took over. Replacing the rotten walls with wallpaper, installing polished wooden floors and a stucco ceiling. In the camera’s flash, his mind conjured what this room must’ve looked like years before.

  The image faded.

  Replaced by the damp, moldy reality of now. But a feverish excitement filled him (tinged by the faint worry that, like always, the finished product wouldn’t match his imagination) as he thought how he could use these photos for his final project. Filled with enthusiasm, Brian gave himself over to the camera as he hadn’t since high school, losing himself in the process as he moved and shot, moved and shot, his eye becoming the camera, his mind using the camera’s flash to wash away the decay with images conjured from his imagination of what might have been before time and the elements ravaged the walls of this house.

  • • •

  Sometime later Brian returned to himself. Dazed, breathing heavily, clutching his Nikon as if his life depended on it. He took a deep, steadying breath and blinked his eyes. Suddenly aware of the room’s chill and the sweat gluing his shirt to his chest, he shivered and looked around.

  Sunlight filtered in through a smudged, gritty window. Leftover furniture—recliners, kitchen chairs, end tables—had been stacked carelessly around the room. The fabric of the recliners in tatters, the end tables and kitchen tables in rotten pieces. Also, wooden crates had been stacked against the wall, full of unidentifiable—

  His jumbled thoughts seized as he came upon a yawning black rectangle. A doorway. Whatever door had once been there was long since gone. The walls surrounding the door were made of cinder-block, its gray surface splotched with black-green mold.

  He had no way of knowing, but he didn’t think that door led to another room. The darkness beyond looked thick and absolute. A dank and cold earthen smell wafted from it. Basement, his mind whispered. Maybe root cellar.

  He lowered the Nikon, closed his eyes and rubbed his temples with his fingertips. How long had he been in the zone?

  He’d shot “in the zone” before, of course...though not since high school. He supposed other creative types experienced something similar. At a peak moment of creative excitement, the conscious mind fades while intuition takes over. Used to happen to him a lot. When he was shooting woodland trails, lakes, mountains, sporting events in high school, he’d slipped into the “zone” without noticing, just pointing and shooting, pointing and shooting, almost unconsciously framing shots he thought looked good. And when he reviewed his shots after coming out of the zone, they were good (they’d always looked good back then) and many of them he didn’t remember taking at all, so deeply immersed he’d been.

  But going into the zone had never felt like this. Back then he’d slipped in and out of the zone, smooth as silk. This, with his heart pounding, breathing as if he’d run a marathon, sweating rivers...

  He felt like he’d been sucked into the zone...and almost hadn’t made it back out again.

  He held up his Nikon with trembling fingers. How many pictures had he taken?

  He looked at the digital screen, which showed the looming black doorway to the basement, but also, in the right bottom corner, a little red 15. Fifteen pictures. He’d taken only fifteen pictures, though it felt more like fifty.

  The next question: fifteen pictures of what? Like always, when “in the zone,” he couldn’t really remember what he’d taken pictures of. As his thumb hovered over the review toggle, a strange compulsion gripped him: delete them all. He should go back to the main menu, select Batch Delete, wipe the whole memory card clean, and get the hell out of here.

  On the heels of that thought, rationality kicked in, sneering. Why? It’s only an old, rundown house.

  And with that thought, he pressed review. A spread of thumbnail images replaced the basement door on the Nikon’s screen, the first thumbnail outlined in yellow. He pressed review again, bringing up the first image.

  He had to squint at first to make out anything, because not only was the back room dim...

  Why aren’t you looking at these outside?

  ...but the room in the image was, like much of the rest of the house, badly damaged by damp rot, the wallpaper blackened with water damage. No furniture was readily apparent in this shot...

  There.

  In the corner, mostly out of frame. A head...a horse’s head? With a handle sticking from its cheek. A rocking horse. A child’s room?

  He peered closer. Couldn’t see the rest of the rocking horse because it was mostly out of frame, but he figured it looked like most rocking horses...

  He sucked in a deep breath.

  A shadow.

  Like the one in the window, from his first picture. A shadow above and behind the rocking horse’s head, also mostly cut off by his framing, but from this angle, it looked like...

  The shadow...

  Was riding the rocking horse.

  His sweat-damp t-shirt suddenly felt ice-cold, and he shivered. A
handful of feeble explanations offered themselves, but most of them fell flat, if only because he now dimly recalled the window in that room facing away from the sun. No light streaming through that window, throwing his or some other shadow on the wall behind the rocking horse.

  What was it, then?

  Nothing. An odd coloration of the wall. A smudge on the lens. Nothing. But he quickly dismissed the notion of hitting the zoom and looking closer, to see if the shadow extended over the handle on the rocking horse’s head, forming the barest suggestion of fingers. He toggled to the next picture, instead.

  Why aren’t you looking at these outside?

  The room in the next image was more easily identifiable, if only because of the bookshelves—warped, crooked, several shelves broken—and what looked like an old rocking chair in the far left corner, also mostly cut out of frame. A sitting room of sorts. There was probably more bookshelves out of frame, maybe a table and a few recliners.

  He zoomed in on the bookshelves, a cautious admiration replacing his uneasiness. It was a stirring shot of books—knowledge, understanding, intellect—destroyed by something so basic as time and the elements. Some of the books looked intact, while others looked swollen with damp-rot, pages likely stuck together, ink smudged and unreadable. This was a good picture. He could already imagine the narration for it (a whole bit about time and nature succeeding knowledge) in his final project.

  “Hell yeah,” he whispered as he panned left, “in the zone again, finally...

  “Shit!”

  A streak of ice raced down his back, arrowed straight to his guts. His fingers failed. His precious Nikon tumbled from his fingers and landed with a dull thud at his feet. He blinked, and in a flash, he thought he saw the same thing he’d just seen in the camera floating in the yawning blackness of the basement door.

  His neck tingled. His stomach gurgled, his heart pounding to sudden frantic life in his chest. He closed his eyes and counted to ten, squeezing his hands into fists so tightly his knuckles ached and his fingernails bit into his palms.