I know this is a little unusual, just look at how long the post is!? I felt that since it IS a holiday, I would share a freebie with you guys. This is a piece titled "The Photographer". It's a short story about a photographer who discovers that his new camera lens may have a bit more "sharpness" than he intended. Please enjoy.
The Photographer
A Short Story by
James O. Cannon
Glen
Ramos eyed the counter with an intense determination. He knew what he was
looking for and didn’t care that he looked crazy. The jacket and jeans he wore were dirty,
indicative of the “struggling artist” lifestyle that he had been living. The
archaic cameras and lenses stared back at him from behind the glass. He’d been
searching pawnshops all around the Tampa Bay area for weeks and now he had
finally found the object of his obsession. It was a Nikon telephoto lens that
was in perfect condition.
He
couldn’t honestly describe why he wanted the lens so badly, but he knew that he
needed to have it. He made a steady living bussing tables at a restaurant by
the beach and selling any of the photos he could. He’d been lucky enough to get
several of his pictures in the St. Petersburg Times and a few in magazines
advertising the beaches of Pinellas County as great tourist spots. Glen never
imagined that he would find it so close to home, he’d dismissed local pawnshop
from the get-go, not expecting any modern camera equipment to be in Largo. He
loved the city he lived in, being minuets from the beach and right down the road
from work, but people out here didn’t really have that artistic flare that he
wanted. Once he gathered enough money he planned to move to New York or Los
Angeles, where he could focus on his photography as an art.
He pointed out the Nikon lens he
wanted and checked out. When it was new it would have run in the high hundreds,
but it was now his for the low price of fifty dollars. Smiling with glee, he
left the store.
At home he polished every inch of
the lens that he could reach. It was beautiful, and somehow familiar. It was
manufactured in the mid-ninety’s and it was not implausible that his father
could have owned something similar before he died. Proud of himself, Glen held
the cylinder to the light. If it weren’t for a bit touch-up paint covering someone’s
engraved initials, the lens would appear to be brand new.
Glen found himself wondering who had
owned the lens before him. He pondered some unknown photographer trudging
through the amazon, clicking off photos at everything that moved. He pictured the
photographer, clad in a pair khaki shorts and a matching vest, with roll after
roll of film stashed in the many pockets. He concentrated on the image in his
mind, trying to see the photographer’s face. The fog began to lift and he saw
himself as a much older man with a weathered face and several scars. Glen tried
to open his eyes but found them glued shut. He started to panic as the man that
may or may not be him smiled wide, revealing a mouth full of razorblades that
had been jammed into his gums where his teeth used to be.
In
a cold sweat, Glen woke to the sound of his alarm clock in the next room. It
had been a dream. Franticly he sat up and looked between cushions and under the
sofa. He was relieved when his hand found the black cylinder. With a smile he
set the new lens next to his camera on the kitchen counter and ran to the
shower, quickly washing himself before donning some comfortable beach clothes,
it was Saturday and he needed to take some photos.
Christine
was a regular model of his. They were acquaintances in high school and had both
done pretty much nothing with their dreams. About six months before, they had
met at the little restaurant and recognized each other; she had been waiting
tables since graduation, trying to get into modeling. That was the moment Glen
realized that they could launch their dream careers together. Since then, they
have been meeting every Saturday morning at Indian Rocks beach to do some shots
and hope one of them was good enough to catch an agent’s attention. So far they’d
taken several great pictures, but most of the envelopes and emails were
returned with a two line apology about how they wouldn’t “fit in” with their
staff. The most recent one had actually come back with a request for
Christine’s portfolio, so they were going to shoot the last few photos to
finish it off.
Christine
was waiting on the bench next to the yellow bungalow when Glen pulled up in his
white Honda Civic that was just about done in years. She waived at him with a
smile and as he stepped out of the car he did the same. He pulled the courier
bag out of the trunk, along with a matte black tripod. She jogged over to help
him with whatever he would let her carry.
“Christine,”
Glen said, smiling, “When we’re finished here today, you will have a full professional
portfolio to send to that agent who likes you.” He was happy to see that she
was smiling, “Just put in a good word for me when you get to the top, okay?”
“Shut-up,
Glen,” She laughed, “You know you’re gonna get there ages before I do.”
They
walked down the weathered wooden bridge from the parking lot to the sand of the
beach. Christine was bursting with excitement to have a shot at her dream and
Glen was happy to try out his new lens. As he attached the heavy cylinder to
his expensive camera, all he could think of was the nightmare he’d had the
night before. Somehow he’d managed to keep the images away all morning, but now
the picture of himself with razors for teeth came back and made him uneasy.
The squawking of seagulls was enough
to remind him of where he was. He finished setting up the tripod and directed
Christine towards the water. He shot several photos, some sexy, some cute,
others intelligent. After about an hour and a half of shooting Glen checked the
memory cards and decided they had more than enough to sort through and went for
a drink.
The
bar they chose wasn’t special in any way. There was loud island music blaring
from speakers around the building, tourists and locals moving from their tables
to the bar and back, sipping on pretty little beach cocktails, and the smell of
rich seafood drifting from the kitchen. Glen casually sipped on a Heineken
while Christine started on her second margarita.
“So,”
Glen said, almost yelling over the music, “Where do you think they’ll take you
to shoot? Bahamas? Hawaii?”
“I
don’t know,” she replied, “maybe all of them. What about you? You’re losing
your star model to the big dogs in Miami. What’s next for Glen Othello Ramos
the second, master photographer? Feel like taking on the Amazon?” She laughed.
Glen
couldn’t mask the horror on his face, what
are the odds that the Amazon would come up after that dream I had last night?
This can’t be a coincidence…
“Glen?
You okay?”
“I’m
fine, just tired.” He tried to muster up a smile, but it was a pathetic attempt
and he knew that she could see right through it, but she didn’t prod, just gave
him that reassuring smile that he loved so much. The truth was, he liked
Christine, but she was going to Miami and he would stay here, looking at the
world through the viewfinder of his camera, hoping to catch something that the
rest of the world couldn’t see.
“Okay,
why don’t you go home, rest for a while? We’ll meet tomorrow morning to sort
through todays pictures and finish up my portfolio. Okay?”
“That
sounds good to me. Be safe tonight, okay Christine? I don’t want you going
missing or something before you’re big break.”
“Mwah?”
She said sarcastically, “Why, I never get in trouble. I’ll be a good girl, I
promise.”
Glen
couldn’t help but smile, “Okay. See you tomorrow; call me if you need me.”
The
rest of that day passed quickly. Glen tried to busy himself with menial chores
that had piled up over the week, but couldn’t fight the feeling that something
bad was going to happen. The chores passed more quickly than he would have
liked and he found himself board by 4:00. There was nothing good on TV and so
he picked up the controller to his game console and popped in a copy of Call of
Duty. That always seemed to kill time.
Several
hours later he was frustrated and shut the game off after being cursed at and
picked on by twelve-year-olds for having a low kill-to-death ratio. He decided
to have some leftover pizza for dinner. The pizza was gone and he was board
again. He didn’t dare pick up the game again and didn’t feel like watching
anything, so he decided to get a head start on editing the photos from the
shoot earlier.
Glen
booted up his laptop while he ran back out to the car to retrieve his camera.
Outside, the air was chill and dark clouds were rolling in from the Northwest. He
remembered hearing about the cold front and was glad that he had finished up
the shoot with Christine rather than waiting until next weekend.
When
he got back inside, he pulled the memory card from its place on his camera and
jammed it into the appropriate slot on the side of his computer. It took a few
seconds to recognize the SD card, but the green bar started to move along the
bottom of the screen, loading all the pictures of Christine on the beach.
In
the background on most of the pictures people were frolicking in the water,
playing in the sand, and talking amongst one another. A blonde boy in blue
swim-trunks was building a sandcastle as his little sister tried to turn it
into a princess palace. Closer to the water stood an ominous man that Glen didn’t
remember seeing. He was wearing dark denim jeans and black boots. His face was
covered by the hood of a black jacket that had two red stripes down the front.
He had his hands stuffed in his pockets and seemed to be watching Christine.
Chills
ran up his spine as he clicked to the next picture, which was at a different
angel. The man was there too, but he wasn’t watching Christine, he was watching
Glen. He was staring down the lens, into Glen’s soul. He swallowed hard and
clicked to the next picture where the man was suddenly closer. He was more
distinct in this photo and much more threatening. Next, the man was closer,
pulling something from his jacket pocket, Glen couldn’t see what. On the next
several photographs, the man was closer and closer, and the object that he held
appeared to be a sharpened metal bar, or a hilt-less knife of some kind.
Glen’s
breathing increased rapidly as he went from one picture to the next. The man
was in every single picture, moving steadily closer to Christine. On the last picture
of the shoot, the man was inches away from Christine, his knife poised to stab
her in the neck. There was something wrong, Glen knew he felt something at the
beach. He ran to the phone and dialed Christine’s cell. She didn’t answer.
He
dialed Christine’s apartment and a groggy voice came on the line, “Hello?”
“Hey,
Beck, is Christine there?” The panic was obvious in his voice, “I couldn’t get
her on her cell.”
“Christ,
Glen… It’s too late for this shit, don’t you think?” Beck sighed heavily on the
other line, “Let me check her room for you, be right back.”
“Thanks
Rebecca.”
After
several long minutes of waiting she came back to the line, “Huh… She’s not
here. Is something wrong?”
Glen
didn’t answer; he hung up and dialed 911. He explained what was going on,
excluding the pictures, and was told that with an adult, a missing persons
report couldn’t be filed yet. He hung up and threw on his hoodie, then grabbed
his keys as we walked out the door. It was 11:00, just starting to sprinkle and
he knew that the bar was closed, but needed to go back to the last place he’d
seen her, he took the camera with him.
Christina’s
car was still in the lot near the yellow bungalow, where they’d met earlier.
With a complete and utter feeling of dread, Glen stepped out of his car and
walked across the wood pathway, looking for any sign of life. He moved slowly,
his breath coming out in ragged gasps. He moved across the midway point and
then he saw her. The limp body of Christine was laying on the ground where
she’d posed for the final picture earlier. Glen’s gut twisted into knots and he
vomited onto the pure, white sand. The white sand that was now stained with the
blood of the only woman he’d ever loved.
After
he cleared his throat he pulled his phone out and dialed the police again, this
time they listened. Within ten minutes, the Largo PD and the Pinellas County
Sheriff’s department had roped of the area with yellow tape.
Glen
was confused. How had something like this even happened? Was it some kind of
ghost? He knew one thing for sure. The police couldn’t find the pictures. It
could prove his innocence, or condemn him. Pictures like those could just be
written off as elaborately doctored photos.
The
only thing that changed was the lens. That had to be it, but how? He had to
find out who owned it before.
The
next morning he went back to the pawnshop he’d bought it from and asked the
owner of the store if he knew anything about the previous owner of that lens.
He declined any additional information and asked Glen to leave. He was upset
and didn’t know where to go for answers, but oddly, he wasn’t as upset as he
expected to be, which made him mad at himself. As if it weren’t enough, things
got more complicated. Glen pulled the camera out and aimed it up to the store,
finding the shop keeper and clicking off two pictures.
He
flipped the camera over to “review” mode and looked through the viewfinder,
shocked. The man was in these photos too, knife poised to kill. Glen sat in
shock for a moment and was pulled from his daze by a bloodcurdling scream. He
repositioned the camera and looked into the store. He saw blood splattered all
over the windows and took another picture. The dark man had his hands back in
his pockets and watched Glen, waiting for the next order to kill.
It
was odd, there was this mixture of disgust and pleasure running through his
veins, of course pleasure won. Never had he felt so powerful, so alive.
He
called his mother later that day, after getting a few hours of sleep and asked
about his father. He wasn’t sure why he wanted to know now, but he had to know.
There was no control now. They talked for a few hours and he discovered that
his father had been a professional photographer that went missing in Peru when
Glen was just a child. His expensive camera equipment was stolen and the people
who took it said that he was a murderer. They said that he was using his camera
to kill people and that there was a demon trapped inside. A few weeks after he
went missing, she said she received a package from Peru.
Inside
the box was an expensive camera lens that she kept for many years, but needed
money and sold it to a pawnshop in Largo. Glen’s stomach knotted once again as
he hung up with his mother.
Using
a razorblade, Glen carefully scraped the touch-up paint from the lens and
revealed the engraving of the previous owners initials. It was his father’s
initials, G.O.R. sr.
Glen’s
head began to spin and his stomach did cartwheels. His father’s camera killed
people. Thoughts that weren’t his began to flood his mind as he held the
camera. The world began to spin, moving faster and faster like a top. He
blacked out.
When
the world stopped spinning, his head and stomach quelled, and he awoke the next
morning, it was as if nothing had ever happened, yet it had. Glen was not just
himself anymore; there was something else, something darker, lurking within the
depths of his evil soul, turning his happy thoughts into angry thoughts and
toying with his other emotions. It was going to be a long day and Glen needed
some photographs, he was a Photographer after all.
