by Lizzie Vega
Mikayla looked at Alvin, “I haven’t told her about your text. What the hell happened?”
Kelli gingerly removed her arm from Edward’s continuing inspection, “I’m really fine. Get ahold of yourself, jeez.” It came out sharp and Kelli instantly sought to soothe the clearly agitated engineer. “Edward, thank you for being so concerned. I appreciate it.” She turned to Alvin, “Now, what the hell have you got?”
Mikayla winked at Edward as he hurried his way into the kitchen, “Kelli should get an award for this, just sayin.” He shot a terse look back to his roommate, “Alvin, on the other hand, thinks otherwise.”
“He’s been like this all night,” Alvin sighed, “We all need to have a conversation before this goes any further.” He was quiet as he led them downstairs then pointed to the chairs around the screens, “Have a seat. I’m going to share a little story.”
Edward returned from upstairs and handed both Kelli and Mikayla a beer, “I know it’s a wee early, but they might be helpful,” he said, “He’s had this on his mind since before last night.”
Alvin tried to play down the drama, “I don’t want to make a big deal out of this, but I think it’s important that you know a couple of things.” He took a sip of his beer, “My little sister was killed in a car accident when I was twelve.”
Both Kelli and Mikayla froze mid-sip. “Alvin…”
“Thanks for that. It was an awful time for both myself and my parents but as time passed, it got…easier to understand the randomness of it. An older driver came down the street just after dinner and we were outside playing. The sun was in his eyes and he didn’t see her run into the street.”
Kelli gasped, “You were there.”
“He was there,” Edward said softly.
“A month or so later, I really don’t remember exactly, I was sitting on the curb in front of our house. I’d started doing that.” He rolled his eyes, “It drove my mom crazy, but after a few times, I think she understood that I just needed a few minutes.”
Mikayla swallowed hard, fighting the lump in her throat.
“It’s okay. You come to terms with it after a while.” He looked at Edward, “Good friends help a lot. So, one day I was sitting there and, I swear to God, I heard her laugh. Same little pipsqueak giggle when I did something dumb and she would start to tease me about something.”
“Which was often,” Edward offered.
Both Mikayla and Kelli leaned forward in the chairs.
“I dismissed it as a memory in my head,” he shrugged, “You know, something you’d miss, something you’d will yourself to want to hear. The next day, same time, same damn thing.”
“He freaked out,” Edward interrupted.
“I freaked out.” Alvin smiled softly, “I made the mistake of telling my mom and it was an instant meltdown. It dredged up the whole thing again.”
“So,” Edward took over, “he let it go for a couple of weeks, then told me.”
Alvin grinned, “Then he freaked out.”
“We sat on his curb for hours, days actually. Nothing happened. Then one night as a joke, Ed brought over an old Polaroid camera. We were just screwing around…” Kelli glanced down at the white squares on the arm of his chair, “Oh God,” she whispered.
Edward nodded, “Shot through a whole box of film. It was a whole weeks’ allowance for Alvin. We weren’t serious, just goofing off, but just as I took the last picture, Alvin called out for Annie.”
“Like I’d call her in when it got dark. It was just the right time of night.” He picked up a Polaroid photo from the arm of the chair, “It’s not much, a smudge and a giggle, was all I ever got.” He handed the photo to Kelli.
“Like I said, it’s just a streak and a smudge, but there’s something about the height and the angle that tugged at me a little.”
“More than a little,” Edward added, “Look at his expression, he turned away at the last possible second like something caught his eye. I didn’t hear her laugh, but something definitely happened.”
“It lines up with the streak,” Kelli said examining the picture, then holding it out at arm’s length, “A hand and shoulder maybe? Was there a car driving by?”
“Alvin,” Mikayla whispered, her voice was so quiet, Kelli was instantly silent. “how did you feel about it?”
Edward raised his beer to Alvin, “Called it.”
“Sad at first,” he answered nodding, “Then hopeful, wondering if we’d actually seen something. Something from her. We moved not long after, to the opposite side of the school district. My mom and dad really struggled.” When Mikayla quickly handed the photograph back to him, he smiled, “I had this. It’s not much but...”
Again, Mikayla’s voice was quiet, “If it helped you, it’s enough right?”
“So, with that in mind,” he finished, “what Kelli went through is so far beyond my experience, that part of me wants to stop and walk away from all of this. What we have isn’t playful, and it’s certainly not safe.”
“No way,” Kelli shot back instantly, “we’re all in this together. The mystery is too good. I wanna see it play out.” She held up her bruised arm, “I’d like to know what happened to me.”
“Let’s look, then decide,” Mikayla offered making Edward smirk, “That will take about thirty seconds.” He looked at Alvin, “And just so you know, he’s really got a point here. He’s seen stuff and done a shit-ton of research, but he’s never been touched by something. Not like you, Kelli. What if you’d been at the top of those stairs?”
“And my stuff is just colors,” Mikayla sighed, “And some weird music. Now this? I don’t want to be responsible for anyone getting hurt.” She looked at Kelli for a long moment, “You scared the crap outta me.”
Alvin nodded to Edward, “Play through the slideshow. Go slow,” he added, then looked at Kelli, “Walk us back through what you experienced. It’s gonna be really important, especially your feelings.”
“Over the top emotions, you mean?” Kelli asked quietly as she watched Edward open the file, “I’ve had plenty of time to mull that over.” She grinned at Mikayla, “Mik was a big help last night. It got a little rough for a while.”
Alvin nodded, “Then I know you understand. Probably more than we all do, to not let this get out of hand.” He pointed to Edward’s screen, “Go slow through the first fifteen, please.”
After the discussion, even Edward was hesitant, “Okay,” he began and gestured to the lower right corner of the screen, “Timing the shutter speed of the camera, this whole thing plays out over about forty-five seconds.”
“How many shots are there?” Mikayla asked, her eyes glued to the screen.
“Thirty in total, then one at the end. It starts here in the corner and I was confused about this for quite a while last night knowing how big the static signature was on our scanners. This starts to get bigger.”
A dark undefined blob sat at the bottom of the screen. As the digital photos slowly flipped by, the dark shape shifted slightly as it expanded across the screen. Lines of reference from the hallway walls began to blur as the photos progressed.
“I’m guessing by the width of the hallway and the doorways as reference points, that,” Edward stopped at the fifteenth image and looked at a transfixed Kelli, “it’s about ten feet away from you at this point. What did you see?”
“I saw…I thought I saw Mikayla’s flashlight from down the hall, where the Annex connects. But I could sense something rushing at me. Not physically, I mean, more like a feeling just looming up at me.” Kelli looked at the group, then looked away, “I was already scared shitless at this point.” Mikayla saw Alvin glance soberly at Edward, “Run the next group.”
As the shape continued to grow in the frame, Edward motioned to the left of the screen, “Now, watch right here. The battery in this camera is old and it’s running outta juice, the time between frames means the shape is moving closer.”
A second rounded blob jumped into frame as the next slide played. The h
arsh glare of the strobe flash outlined a cylindrical shape coming from the left side. Kelli gasped, “It looks like a baseball bat or something.”
“Give it a second,” Alvin said, “one or two more.”
Two frames later Mikayla gasped as Kelli leaned forward, “It’s a hand. Oh my God. I don’t remember this. I just remember feeling pressure around me. How many pictures left?”
“Seven,” Edward and Alvin answered together.
Mikayla squinted, “what’s that up here?” She glanced at Kelli, “That can’t be your hair,” she held her hand out to indicate where she thought Kelli would be positioned, “You’d be down here by now.”
“Good eye,” Edward said softly, “Ramps up a little from here on out.” He looked at Alvin, “Don’t kid yourself about stopping here and keeping a lid on this. We’ll be famous.”
“Jesus Christ, Alvin,” Kelli shouted, “Play the fucking pictures. If I took one for the team, I’m okay with this. This is fascinating.”
“Told ya,” Edward smirked then recovered, “Just for the record, this doesn’t have a thing to do with music and colors in the Union. This is something else entirely. The school’s got something huge going on.” He calmly reached over and set a plastic lined garbage basket in front of the girls, “I had kind of an awkward reaction.”
“From here out, I think this is about a second and a half for each shot. It’s, uh, there and then it’s gone.” As the photos came and then dissolved to the next, out of the overexposed pictures a shape lurched into the viewfinder. First, what looked to be hair, dark and stringy, broken in patches and obscuring part of the photo, the sweeping lines held in crisp relief against a blurred background.
“It’s a face,” Mikayla gasped, “the hair is long…is it?” She sunk back into the sofa, already connecting the pictures to her theater experience.
“You don’t have to guess,” Edward said, “Two more.”
He stopped the slideshow on the screen. Caught from the side as the camera appeared to tilt and point at the ceiling, a solid profile of a head and torso materialized. No one said a word.
“It’s a woman,” Kelli wheezed.
“That can’t all be hair,” Mikayla squeaked out, “It flows out. It just goes forever.”
“She appears out of that mass, is my guess,” Edward said, keeping an eye on Kelli, “If only we had infrared on this, we could get a better view.”
Kelli reached out to the screen, “Look at her face. That’s not skin. It looks like…”
“Dried mud,” Mikayla said, “like from a dried-up old mud puddle. The detail is incredible.”
There was a moment of silence before Alvin spoke, “What feeling comes off that picture?” he asked, “Anybody?” He slowly turned to Kelli seeing her eyes brimming with tears, “Kel?” She didn’t answer him.
“That’s a million in one photo, right?” Mikayla interrupted then saw Edward turn to Alvin, “I get it now. We can’t go back from this.” He looked at Kelli, “This isn’t the one that freaked Alvin out. There’s one more shot.”
Edward hesitated long enough for Alvin to reach past him and advance the slide.
Mikayla shrieked then leaned into the screen before jerking back. Kelli moved slowly forward, shaking her head.
The final image held the woman’s face positioned dead center on the screen. In the brief interval before the strobe fired its final flash, she appeared to turn her head, waves of dark hair spiraling out, filling the frame. She was looking into the camera.
“She knew what it was. She knew we were taking pictures,” Edward said quietly, “I can’t get that image out of my head. Look at her eyes.”
Even with the mud cracked skin, the woman’s eyes were clearly focused on the camera. Kelli raised her hand pointing to the lower part of the screen where a pair of chapped and dirt encrusted lips had a hint of a macabre smile.
“It’s almost a portrait shot,” Mikayla gasped again, “That’s a smile for sure.” Next to her Kelli sat slowly back in her chair. She said something so softly, that Mikayla leaned in close and asked her to repeat it.
“Hate,” she said, her eyes fixed on the woman in the photo, “I felt pure and undiluted hate from her. The rush down the hallway…I was scared to death, but that cut right through my fear.”
“So now that you’ve seen it,” Alvin asked, “It attacked you, Kel. This is your call.”
“No way,” she sobbed suddenly, then wiped her tears away, “No way I can...let this go.” She sat up straight, “This is a story we need to explore. No way am I backing down. The school will freak.”
“Told ya,” Edward teased Alvin with a satisfied smile.
“They can’t sanction anything. The insurance liability alone is an issue,” Edward held up his hands to defend his choice of words, “I know, but seriously, they won’t let us do anything. Mikayla’s situation is already weird enough.”
“We’d need more people for sure,” Kelli added, “Good people, though.”
“Uh, yeah, funny you should mention that,” Alvin said suddenly, scratching his head, “I got an email yesterday from a guy that says he’s interested in this sort of stuff. Says he got some experience.”
“Good timing,” Mikayla smiled, “but that still makes me the rookie. He emailed you?”
“We have a few posters up on the bulletin boards around school. Came from there.” He glanced at Kelli, “Gonna make things real interesting.”
“Whatever,” Kelli laughed, “Let’s get him on board.” She pointed back to the monitor, “Play it again, start to finish.”
“Can do,” Edward smiled at Kelli, “You’re such a badass. I mighta had time to put this on a video loop.” He opened the file and pushed play. As the dark shape loomed out of the darkness over and over, she stopped it at the clearest shot, “She’s so pissed about something.” She turned to Mikayla, but she was looking off to the side, her eyes closed, “Mik, c’mon. Isn’t this cool?”
“Ed?” Mikayla asked quietly,” Can you go back through the photos, one at a time, please?” She took a deep breath, “I thought I was losing my mind, I thought I was just worn out.” As the pictures tracked across the screen, she jerked her finger out, pointing, “There. That. I’ve seen that before. It also turned into a figure.”
“Where Mik?”
“The old concert hall,” she said, “I snuck in a few times trying to get comfortable with the school and thinking I’d be ready to do my thing- performance-wise. It came across the stage,” she faded for a second, “I wasn’t supposed to be in there and…I screamed and ran.”
“I get that,” Kelli said with a sigh, “Part of me wishes I had done the same.”
“So, what do we do?” Alvin asked, “I gather you see my point now, that we’re in over our heads?”
“Just chalk it up to experience and bail?” Kelli asked, “Not my style. Let’s just look around a little more.” Edward nodded tentatively, “I’m with her. But if it gets dangerous, we might have to alert the school. Maybe the new guy will have an idea.”
Oddly, Alvin was quick to agree. “I told him to come over on Friday for dinner. We can get to know him and see what he thinks.” He sat back in his chair with a little smile on his face, “I think we’re going to be busy.”
Chapter 16
Ethan recognized her knock. Two quick taps on his dorm door and his heart jumped into his throat. He thought for a moment then smiled, “Occupied,” he called out but still stood up from his desk and moved quickly to his door. As he reached for the knob, there was a tremor of doubt that it might not be her. Still, he opened the door more than a usual crack for a rare visitor and grinned as he startled her.
“Hi,” he said brightly as she stood outside in the little foyer in a t-shirt and sweatpants, “I spooked you for a change. Seems fair.”
She looked up at him shyly, “Yeah. Seems fair somehow. Are you busy?”
“Maybe a little,” he said, “Homework’s done. I played for two solid hours tonight. And I ha
ve an idea to put me out there a little farther than I’m comfortable, which led me to think about you.” He opened the door wide, “So I was busy thinking about you.” He ended his little speech with a happy bobble of his head, “Wanna come in?”
“Wow,” she laughed, “That was smooth. Best flirting ever.” She breezed by him with a quick peck on his cheek, “So very successful as well.” She walked over to Ethan’s bed and sat down. She patted the comforter with her hand giving him a sly grin, “Sit with me?”
“Of course,” he said taking her hand as she reached for him. Even with her never ending smile, he grew concerned, “Is everything okay with you?”
“You’re so sweet to think of me, Yes. I’m fine. I, uh, saw something today,” Her eyes wrinkled up with a cute little smile, but she was having trouble keeping eye contact with him, “A couple over in the other dorm hallway, I just sorta happened by…she was all over him.” Her eyes met up with his, “I want that. I want that with you.”
“Oh,” he said putting his hand on his chest and took a deep breath, “In the hallway?”
She touched his throat at the opening of his oxford shirt and leaned toward him, “They started there.” She traced down his chest until her finger stopped at the second button, “She took him into her room. I could tell he really cares for her. I, uh mighta followed them.”
“You watched them?” he asked somewhat breathlessly, “Like, the whole thing?”
“No. I started to feel strange and I left them before they, uh…I know this is weird for you.”
“Have you done this before?” he asked quietly as she slipped her fingers under his shirt, “Watch couples, I mean?”
She shook her head, her lips inches from his “I never let myself think about it. I see people touching all the time. Holding hands, kissing,” she looked at his lips, “I’d put it out of my mind. I never had any reason to think about it.”
