by Tim Meyer
Arthur became obsessed with the camera. Two years later, on a night of relaxation, while the rest of the crew were out on the town drinking and indulging in promiscuous activities, Arthur sat alone in his room, dissecting the camera. He wanted to know how the tiny device worked. It took him a few hours to figure it all out—that it was all about how light passes through the lens (which looked like a tiny mirror) and is able to trap the image onto a tiny piece of film. He was astonished by this discovery. This, to him, was real magic. Sure the spells and nightly chants from the black book had brought him successes beyond his wildest expectations, but this—this was something very different. It wasn't something out of a book that came from unworldly beings who possessed special powers. The camera had been created by human hands. It had come from this world, a world that was rapidly changing, one Arthur began to lose faith in. The camera, though, had revitalized his faith in humanity. It proved to him that magic existed in this world, and that maybe this world was worth fighting for, rather than abandoning in three years.
“What are you doing, Arthur?” Veronica asked. She had entered the room without Arthur taking notice.
“Look at this,” he said, waving her over. “I figured out how it works. See this tiny little mirror,” he said, holding up the lens. “Light passes through it when the button is pressed, and then the image is captured on this film. Isn't that fabulous?” he asked.
“Yeah, baby.”
She asked him to join her and the others for a drink, that they had good reasons to celebrate tonight. He asked about what they were drinking to and she wouldn't tell him. He said he was too busy with the camera, and that she could fill him in later, when she and the others returned. She left, dejected, wishing he changed his mind.
When she returned, Arthur had finished reassembling the camera.
“Pose for me.”
She looked at him bashfully, and put one finger over her lips, as if she had a secret to tell.
“Perfect,” he said, as light passed through the tiny mirror and captured the image of his lover forever.
11
After he finished carving the name “Denlax” into the camera's hard plastic shell, he sat down on the bed. “So what was it you wanted to celebrate?” he asked.
“I'm pregnant,” she told him.
Two things were decided that night; the child's name (either his father's or his mother's, depending on gender); and that he wanted to find a way out of his deal with Quincy Black, for he didn't want his child to go through the same life he did—without a parent.
12
Nine months later another Denlax was introduced to the world. Only there were complications. Veronica delivered a dead fetus. The umbilical chord had wrapped around the baby's neck hours before it was to be born. This was a common thing nowadays, or so the nurses at the hospital told both would-have-been parents. Arthur cried for the first time since his father passed away.
He promised his wife that they would try again and succeed, that he would make sure of it this time. She said she would have to think about it, that she wasn't sure if she could go through with it again.
He vowed to give her a child.
He also blamed Quincy Black for the death of his first-born.
And vowed to null the deal which would leave him lifeless in two short years.
13
With less than two years left, Arthur moved the Great Denlax Carnival to New Jersey. Permanently. The show had suffered the same losses that other traveling performances had; a lack of an audience and dwindling funds. Arthur Denlax decided to set up a stationary carnival, and with the support of his performers, they were able to buy a nice chunk of land, perfect for housing their nightly presentations. Arthur and Veronica bought a piece of property deep within the woods, in a secluded section of Red River.
They would build a house in the woods, a one of a kind establishment.
Veronica was weary when her husband suggested they build the inside of the house entirely of mirrors. She told him that a house of mirrors would drive her mad. In every room she would see herself and hated the idea. However, Arthur remained adamant. And like most arguments with his wife, Arthur Denlax won.
He forgot to mention that the mirrors were gateways to other worlds, a mirror for each. Arthur feared if he clued her in on this madness, she would leave him.
14
He explained the situation to her like this:
“I don't care if you don't believe me. In less than two years, someone is going to come for me. He's going to try to kill me. But this house, this House of Mirrors, will help us escape. I can't explain everything to you right now, but you have to trust me. Don't you trust me?”
She said she didn't understand, but she trusted him with all her heart and soul.
15
A year later and the Great Denlax Carnival was forced to close, due to financial reasons beyond anyone's control. The real reason why the business had failed was because the magic was running out. The magic made the money come in, you see, and without the magic there was no money. Everybody parted ways, some of them performing in bigger circuses, some of them retiring from the business all together.
Arthur Denlax and his wife Veronica lived inside the house made of mirrors for the remainder of their days. Arthur began to count down the days until Quincy Black would come for him. He practiced for that day. A week before he was due to come, Arthur casted a spell on the camera. The Denlax camera. The spell was old, much older than the world he now resided in. The spell was designed to capture the souls of those whom the object had touched. Simply put, whomever Arthur took a picture of, would now harness that person's soul. He had a plan. A dangerous plan, with many terrible consequences, but a plan nonetheless. He convinced himself that his plan would work.
He was wrong.
16
A day before his date with destiny, Arthur decided he needed to see if his plan was going to work. He asked his wife to pose for a picture. She stood in the middle of the living room, looking at herself from every angle imaginable. Arthur raised the cursed camera to his face. Veronica put one finger over her mouth, as if she had a secret to tell. He pushed the button. A bright light filled the room. It blinded him.
When the light was gone, so was Veronica Denlax.
He smiled, and whispered to the mirrored room, “I'll see you soon, baby.”
17
The day passed too quickly.
Arthur waited for his date with death on the floor of the living room, exactly where he transported his wife to another world less than twenty-four hours ago. He waited for the man to come around, and he didn't have to wait long. The second the clock struck midnight on Arthur's twenty-ninth and a half birthday, the front door to the House of Mirrors opened, and a man dressed in black with a crow perched on his shoulder entered.
“Love what you've done with the place,” Quincy Black said. “You look like shit by the way.”
It was true. Arthur looked the way his father did, the day he died of Tuberculous. “Fuck you,” Arthur spat.
“Now, now. Is that any way to treat an old friend?”
“You tricked me,” Arthur said. “I was young. I was hurting. I was desperate. And you came along and tricked me into... into... selling my soul.” Arthur cried. He did not want to leave this world behind anymore. He wanted to live. He wanted that very badly. But he knew Quincy Black would not allow it. So instead, he planned to live in a different world, one where Quincy Black would not be able to find him.
“You act like I stole it!” Quincy exclaimed. “I merely made a trade. I gave you a perfect ten years! And in return I require your services for eternity. I guess, now that I mention it, it's hardly fair, but hey! You agreed to it.” Quincy laughed. “Are you ready to go, my friend?”
“It wasn't a perfect ten years! Look at me!”
“Okay, so it wasn't exactly perfect. But it was a lot better than it would have been had I not come along. And you know that's the truth, so don't even try
to argue.”
“Fuck you,” Arthur said, bringing the tiny little porthole of his camera to his eye.
“What are you doing?” Quincy asked, his voice shaky.
“Say cheese, you son of a bitch.”
Light filled the room. When it was gone, so was Quincy Black. Arthur walked to the center of the room. He had done it. Quincy was gone. Vanished from this world. He had broken the curse. He was free. Free from—
A sharp pain entered Arthur's back. The excruciating sensation ran up and down his body as he collapsed on the floor.
“You should have read the book a little closer, my friend,” Quincy Black muttered, as he towered over him.
18
Quincy Black's face warped. It no longer resembled anything human. It looked something out of a monster movie, rugged and discolored. Black snarled and displayed two rows of jagged teeth. Even his voice was inhuman. It sounded like a recording being played in slow motion. “HOW DARE YOU DEFY ME! HOW DARE YOU TRY TO SEND ME TO THE NETHERWORLDS! YOU THINK YOUR PUNY LITTLE SPELLS CAN MATCH MINE! YOU DEFIANT LITTLE SHIT! YOU ARE NO LONGER WORTHY TO SERVE UNDER MY COMMAND!” the creature roared.
Suddenly, Quincy Black looked normal again. Human. For the most part. Arthur Denlax could see that he was anything but human. He wore a man's face and man's clothing, but underneath he was a monster beyond standard childhood nightmares. He was something different, something Arthur did not know of, nor would he ever.
“How dare you...” Quincy said, standing over Arthur, who bled out slowly. His body was surrounded in a pool of black fluid. The camera had fallen next to it, unharmed. “I would have made you a general in my army. Now. Well, now I have no use for you. I have no use for defiance.”
“W-what... will... h-happen... to me...” Arthur asked, drawing his last breaths.
“The place you tried to send me to. Impressive. Very dark world. Very old. Did you know that's where you sent your dear Veronica? She's there right now. Scared. All alone. I hope the creatures there don't find her too quickly. They're nasty things. Think of them as dogs, only bigger, with an unquenchable taste for blood. You'll see them soon. Because that's exactly where you're going. And you know what? In that world, you can never die. So you're going to enjoy it for a very, very, very long time. You'll get used to it after the first thousand years or so. I guarantee it.” Quincy picked the camera up off the floor, and brought the tiny porthole to his eye. “Good-bye, Arthur Denlax.”
Light filled the room and when it disappeared, so did Arthur Denlax.
19
Quincy Black took the Denlax and threw it in a Dumpster behind a shopping center. Cameraland would eventually be one of the stores in that strip mall. Quincy Black didn't know this. He also didn't know that after he left the universe that contained Earth, a homeless man would go into that Dumpster and fish out the camera that had the name Denlax etched on it.
That homeless man would take the camera to the closest pawn shop and receive a whopping fifteen dollars for his troubles. That fifteen dollars would help him get to a nearby liquor store and help him buy enough booze to die of alcohol poisoning, which he did later that night.
The guy in the pawn shop sold the camera for thirty dollars a year later, to a man buying a present for his son's twelfth birthday. The twelve-year old would take one picture with it, of his friend Elroy Thicket riding a bicycle down the street, and never use it again. Why? Because the picture came out defective. It had a big black dot over Elroy's face. Elroy would die three months later, after getting hit by a drunk driver while riding his bicycle. The twelve-year old kept the camera in his closet for another six years, until he left for the military. His mother donated the camera to an elementary school in Red River.
The school held the camera in its possession for almost two decades, until 1984 when a student borrowed the camera for a project and never returned it. It was never returned because the father of that child had stolen it, or as he would put it, “forgot to return it.” His name was Trevor Purdy. Trevor used the camera to photograph his older daughter's sweet sixteen party. Most of the pictures came out awful. Black spots all over the place. Most of the girls who were photographed were later diagnosed with Leukemia. The cause was attributed to the town's water supply, which had abnormally high traces of carcinogens. People sued like crazy, and won.
Denlax's camera was once again back in pawn shop circulation. It was passed around to several families and several towns for another decade or so, without causing any newsworthy causalities. There were minor things here and there, but nothing too serious.
In 1995, the Harbringer family bought the camera from a little old man who was selling it at a garage sale. They had the camera for many years, and took many family photos with it. It worked for years, until one day in 1998, the pictures started coming out defective. Black spots covered the Harbringers' faces. They couldn't explain it. They stopped using the camera, eventually sold it at a garage sale themselves, to a young couple in 1999.
In 2000, the Harbringer family died in a house fire.
The young couple who bought the camera from the Harbringer family never used the camera until September 5th of 2001. Jean took a picture of her husband Matt and his golf buddies before the last outing of the year. Matt's face was completely blanked out by a huge black dot, but the others weren't. Matt died six days later when a plane crashed into his office building
Jean gave the camera away to her sister, who never used it. Jean's sister sold it for twenty bucks, enough to buy one oxycotin pill, a small white pill to which she was addicted. The man who bought it off her had no intentions of using the camera. His name was Willis McConely, and Willis liked buying things at a relatively low price and reselling them on the Internet. Willis never got a chance to sell it on the Internet because his daughter took a picture of him unexpectedly one morning. They never got that film developed, but if they had, Willis' face would have been completely blacked out. Less than twenty-four hours later, Willis slipped in the shower when his wife and kids were out to eat, split his head open and bled to death. He was supposed to meet them at a neighborhood bar and grille, but never made it.
The camera exchanged hands for many years after that, without causing too much harm to those who touched it. It never left New Jersey, and stayed mostly within the county that the House of Mirrors had been built in. The camera didn't want to leave. It wanted to stay here.
The key wanted to find the doorway.
In '07, Dustin Market took the camera to his photography class at Red River North High School. He took a picture of his high school sweetheart, Marie Downy. No matter how many times the class developed the film, a big black spot covered Marie's face. The teacher could not explain it. The camera was deemed inoperable, and Dustin decided to take it back to the pawn shop where he purchased it, demanding a refund. The pawn shop owner reluctantly refunded him.
Marie Downy was raped by a football player later that year, and was left to die deep within the woods of Red River. It took a giant search party two and a half days to find her body.
The camera rested in the pawn shop in the same place for nearly two years, until it caught the attention of a photojournalist named Lester Resnick. He purchased it. Lester eventually went mad, and ended up in Benton, and the camera—
This was the Denlax Effect, ladies and gentleman, stretching its shadows across an already gray world.
PART FOUR
IN THE HOUSE
OF MIRRORS
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
“How do you know all of this?” I asked.
“I told you. Someone told me,” Lester said. The smile on his face had vacated. “Look, it's the duty for the predecessor to tell the current owner the story. When Dustin Market told me, I didn't want to believe it either. I thought he was nuts, you know?” I must've looked perplexed. “It's the previous owner's job to tell the tale. Even if you pawn it, your job is to track down that person and tell them the truth. You have to,” he said, almost pleading.
>
“I don't want to pawn it. I want to stop it.”
He looked at me and smirked. “Yeah, I did to. And I was hoping you would say that, but let's face it—look what you're up against.” He lowered his head in shame, like a dog knowing it had done something wrong. “I was like you once. I thought I could stop him from coming through. But, the more I obsessed about it, the more I lost control of myself. He's powerful. And his power, unfortunately, isn't limited to the world he's trapped in. He's weaker in our world, but once he breaks through the plane, he'll be just as influential here as he is over there. There will be no stopping him. Time works differently in other worlds. He's had time over there, a lot of it. He's had centuries to perfect his craft, to master the ways of the Eldurond. He's almighty and powerful, and we... we're just human.” He paused a beat, waiting for me to bombard him with questions. I sat there, waiting for his spiel to end. “You've got to find Boone before he reaches the portal. And then you have to close it forever.”
“And how do you suggest I do that?”
He shrugged his shoulders. “If I knew how to do it, then I would have done it.”
“Right. Well, I think the House of Mirrors has been permanently closed for business. So, actually, I don't think we have much to worry about.”
“What do you mean?” he asked. If I didn't know any better (and I really didn't) I would've said he sounded worried, almost disappointed by the news.
“A friend of mine might have burned the place to the ground, for reasons unrelated to Arthur Denlax.”
He chuckled and rubbed his chin. “I'm almost positive Boone would've had it rebuilt the day after. His father is what we'd call filthy rich. I don't know the details, but it has something to do with his wife's death. In any case, you can rest assured it's been rebuilt. Even if his father hasn't expedited the work, I'm sure Denlax's influence helped Geoffrey get the work done. Geoffrey is very sensitive to Ma-ma—Denlax's power.”
