Cracked Lenses

by L J McIntyre

  A massive silhouette is standing at my window, leaning in. He only has one arm. The petrol station man. He paces from side to side and stops sometimes to watch through the thin gap where the curtains meet.

  My heart is thudding in my ears.

  “Hey, what you doing?” I shout, shocked by my own voice.

  He still watches me through the gap.

  I turn on the light, quickly pull my pants on and open the door to the motel. My fists are clenched. I’m terrified and have no idea what I’m going to do or what the hell is waiting for me. I just know I need to act, and when the door creeks open, no one is there. I look left along the balcony but it’s empty. I lean over and scan the ground: nothing. There’s no way he could have gotten away that quickly.

  I stand there a few seconds, listening to the absolute silence of rurality, before going into my room and back to bed, my heart still pumping. Am I hallucinating? Is this what happens if I miss my medication? But what if he was really there? What does he want?

  I look at my watch: 00:02 am.

  My mind spins and spins for hours, and I unknowingly sink back into sleep, only to wake up to a noise outside. A head and shoulders are hovering just above the windowsill. The little man from the bar; he’s on his toes, peering through the curtains as the petrol man did moments before. I turn the light on again and spring out of bed, this time not needing to lose any seconds putting my pants on as I never took them off. I unlatch the lock on the door and tear the door open. No one’s there. Emptiness.

  “What the hell do you want?” I ask almost in a shout, and no answer comes back.

  Maybe it was the IPA, revenge for not liking his ale.

  “I liked your ale. It was great,” I speak into the silence.

  Or maybe the dog’s bowl I smashed. It might have been a tribute to a dead dog or something weird like that.

  But how could he have disappeared so quickly?

  I go back into my room and close the door, this time wedging the desk chair under the handle in the hopes of adding more protection than an old, rusted door lock.

  I check my watch: 03:01 am.

  I remind myself why I’m in this town. I visualise the photo in my mind, imagine the likes and comments rolling in. Determination: that is what makes a great photographer.

  I stack the pillows so I’m almost in a sitting position and facing the window more comfortably. The goal is to stay awake, which means I will certainly fall asleep, because why would my mind make things easy for me?

  My alarm is due to go off in two hours: I’m destined for sleep deprivation no matter what happens.

  To distract myself, I open up my laptop and google inspirational quotes. I read through a few hundred on different sites until I find one I like:

  The gladdest moment in human life, methinks, is a departure into unknown lands. – Sir Richard Burton

  I bring up an image I took from the top of mount Merapi in Yogyakarta at sunrise three months back, and write Burton’s quote across the sky in Photoshop in a nice font, one that complements the mood of the scene.

  I post my inspirational message across social media, wait for the likes, comments and shares to start coming in. I keep refreshing Facebook on my laptop. I need the distraction. I need the tiny hits of endorphins. I need people to know that I’m not afraid and miserable right now. My life on the road is amazing.

  Chapter Seven

  There’s a screaming noise, a horrible piercing yell, that yanks my eyes open, jerks my body up before I remember where I am. The alarm next to the bed is giving off an awful shriek. I bang it into silence with my fist and rub my aching back. It’s night outside. The vending machine still forces its light through the curtains of my room. A few groggy seconds pass before flashing memories of one arm and little man, last night’s creeps, remind me that I hate this town.

  Well, I made it through the night.

  I get up and splash cold water on my face, say a little prayer to the weather gods, ask for a beautiful sunrise so I can scarper out of here as soon as humanly possible. I grab my gear, slip my long boots on, and leave the room.

  The town is eerily quiet, windless, motionless, in almost perfect darkness: all the streetlights are now turned off. My loud footsteps shimmy me down to the ground floor, past the dark reception and into Betsy, where I put my bag in the backseat and quietly close the door when I get in.

  On the drive out of town, Betsy’s high-beam lights slicing a path through the night, I try to get my head around what happened last night, what was real and what was conjured by an over-active mind. I was tired, had a few drinks, started feeling paranoid. It’s possible some of it never happened, I suppose, but I can’t blame the missing medication. It was too soon for full-blown hallucination-level withdrawal, if that’s even a possibility.

  This morning, though, I’m feeling stronger than ever that river of anxiety which flows in the background of everything I do and think, like an old friend I never wanted. The medication helps to keep that at bay sometimes. Without it, I’m terrified of getting terrified, and that river becomes a whopping-great torrent.

  I come to the end of the narrow road at the beginning of the forest trail, park the car, pick up my gear. I climb outside into the stark reality that is complete and utter solitude in complete and utter darkness, thanks to a moonless sky. The stars are like grains of white sand, millions or billions of them, thrown across a colossal black sheet. The air is fresh with a slight bite that promises winter isn’t far away. Every sound is amplified by heightened senses and the absence of daylight’s white noise.

  I fish my headlamp from my side pocket. It doesn’t have much charge left according to the battery reading, but I’ll only need it to get me to the lake safely, ten minutes tops. I strap it around my head, point it towards the trail ahead, and fire it up. It blazes into life and dozens of red eyes glow back at me from all around. I keep cool having experienced the same thing on different locations. They’ll just be possums, or something similar, and they’ll want nothing to do with me. New Zealand doesn’t have any large predators, I’ve been told.

  The further I walk into the wilderness, the more I cleanse myself of that town or any town. My stride finds its bounce again, my heart rate’s doubled in anticipation of capturing something beautiful.

  I walk down to the lakeside, place my backpack on some rocks, and set my gear up, fixing the camera to the tripod. I breathe in and close my eyes and try to enjoy the tranquillity of these beautiful surroundings before I switch to work mode.

  My right hand trembles slightly: definitely a withdrawal symptom. I wade gently into the lake, knee height, and the water sloshes quietly, ripples growing wider as they sail away from me. I place the tripod on the stony bed.

  And now my internal dialogue starts to whisper to me in broken sentences as if I’m narrating a wildlife documentary. It’s always the same when I’m working in the dark. Keeps me focused.

  Low mist on the lake. Mountains in the background reflecting clearly in the water. Quiet and remote. Occasional bird song and some rustling sounds. I can hear my own breathing. Trees are still. It’s just turned blue hour. That’s what we call it when the sun hasn’t fully risen yet but night has started to fall away. Everything has a cold-blue hue, beautiful and dark. This is exactly what I came here for. Makes staying in that town a bit more bearable.

  Something’s happening—a noise, a movement—behind me or to my left. It’s hard to tell so I stand still and listen carefully.

  I shake my head when I realise I’m going down that well-worn path of paranoia again. My favourite.

  Breathe. This is your job for Christ’s sake.

  I check the camera’s firmly attached to my tripod so it won’t fall into the water, a lesson I learned the hard way: thrice. Cold water is leaking through my long—supposedly waterproof—boots.

  I turn the camera on and the back screen lights up, shines on my face, makes me the brightest thing around now. I don’t move in case I disturb the lake. N
eed that reflection to be perfect.

  I contemplate the black water around my knees, wonder what’s in there. That’s probably not a good idea.

  There’s a different noise now; louder, longer, heavy rustling. I’m out in the open and feel exposed but it’s too dark to see anything. There are no large predators in New Zealand, I remind myself.

  Blue hour doesn’t last long, just a matter of minutes before the sun gets higher and stronger. I need to hurry up. With my wide-angle lens attached, I frame the lake in the centre of the shot, trees left and right. Mist looks great. Snow-capped mountains and their reflections really finish the composition. I focus through the illuminated screen and then adjust the settings for low light.

  I take my shutter release remote from my pocket and fire off a test shot. The sound of my camera clicking travels further than I’d like. I review the photo on the screen, zoom into the mountains and check the sharpness. It’s good. Probably usable. I take a few more at different exposures, just in case.

  A branch snaps behind me and I spin around. The water swirls and ruins that reflection. I turn on the headlamp, aim it at the ground and see red eyes staring up.

  Just another possum.

  I turn back to the lake and wait for the water to settle. Headlamp off.

  Possums aren’t heavy enough to break large branches.

  I should turn around again but something is stopping me.

  I disobey the building worry, flick my headlamp on and slowly turn around.

  A man’s face, grey hair, grey beard, no expression, stares at me from the bushes.

  “Need help?” I ask without thinking.

  He bares his teeth at me.

  My heart smashes against my ribs and I lose my breath. I step back into the lake. The tripod knocks over and the camera falls into the water. I grab it but keep staring at the man.

  His teeth are still bare, face frozen.

  Is this real?

  What the hell’s going on?

  My headlamp dies. Now there’s darkness and noise, and water is coming over the top of my boots. I feel safer in the lake so I stand there clutching the tripod and camera. My backpack is over by the rocks somewhere. I want to say something threatening but don’t feel very threatening. I just stand there transfixed at the silhouetted trees.

  Someone shouts “Yeep, yeep” or something like that, and it echoes all around. It was a high-pitched male voice. Then I hear it again, “Yeep, yeep” but this time it comes from a different direction, hard to tell which, and the voice is deeper.

  I’m breathing quickly, adrenaline flooding everything. The atmosphere crackles with a fear I’ve never known before, a fear that something dangerous is finally out there, a fear that something from the black abyss could reach out and grab me, push me under the surface, drown me, shoot me.

  Minutes of silence.

  More silence.

  My body is trembling.

  Blue hour’s fading now and it’s getting brighter, but everything is covered in a dark grey film. Sun’s not quite over the mountains. I look around and can’t see the face anywhere. I can now make out my backpack on the rocks. It’s been opened and moved.

  Bloody hell, I can’t stand here all day.

  I wade out the lake, boots full of water, and snatch my backpack. I eye the trail back to my car. I’m a good runner, fast, but that’ll be loud. Gets more attention. Maybe slower is more discreet.

  I tear across the rocks and onto the trail. My footsteps thud on dried leaves, stones and twigs. I don’t look back.

  Down the path a tree moves, branches up and down. I stop and wait.

  “Piss off.” My voice shakes when I shout.

  Branches move more.

  A large bird flies out from the tree, and the branches stop moving. I break out into a sprint again.

  It’s quiet. My breathing is panicked and wheezy.

  Down below, at the end of the path, I see the car where I left it. Jesus, I hope no one is waiting for me.

  I keep running and wait for someone to swipe away my feet or lunge at me from the path. My eyes are wide open and it feels like visual information overload, but everything seems to be happening so fucking slowly.

  Come on, legs, move faster.

  I hear “Yeep, yeep” again, but the voice comes from the direction I am running toward. It’s the only way I can go now. I grit my teeth and get ready to use my tripod as a weapon.

  I leave the path at full speed and keep going full speed until I get to the car. The driver’s door is open and the keys are in the ignition. Must have been taken from my backpack.

  I check the back seat. Empty.

  I throw my gear in there and jump in the car. I kick the engine into life, roll forward, but need to turn the car around on this little road. I spin the wheel full-lock left and drive towards the trees.

  There’s a face in there. A grey face, I think. In the shadows.

  Concentrate on driving, Jack.

  I turn the wheel full-lock right and reverse. One more left turn of the wheel and I’ll be free. I’m not looking at him but he’s there. My peripheral vision knows it. No expression. Grey eyes.

  I slam the accelerator down and speed away, checking the back seat again, just in case I missed something. I didn’t check the trunk.

  Chapter Eight

  When I hit the main road, I race past the rabbit corpse from yesterday, and I barely slow down on the gravel road. I’m gripping the steering wheel as if I were hanging off a cliff edge. Betsy bangs and cracks as she struggles to deal with the potted surface.

  After I swing into the motel car park, kill the car, I put my head on the steering wheel and practice breathing exercises to calm the swirling tide, and as my breathing finds a slower, more regular pattern, I sit up and start injecting logic into my scattered thoughts.

  Okay, I don’t know what happened, but I’m safe.

  I have a photo of the lake that could be good enough to publish on social media.

  I can check out and leave town now.

  It doesn’t matter what just happened. Once I’m in Queenstown, everything will be fine.

  And in Queenstown I can pick up medication.

  The trunk, I remember. I need to check it before I do anything else.

  I get out of the car, walk around to the back and reach down to the handle. I take a breath.

  Nope, I can’t do it.

  I circle the car in an attempt to find some bravery from somewhere, psyche myself up.

  Come on, Jack. You can do it mate.

  I open a backdoor and grab my tripod, extend it a little bit, make it more lethal. I go back to the trunk, grab the handle, count to three and yank it open.

  I try to understand what it is I’m seeing.

  There are bits of brown cord. Cut-up cord scattered around. And knots, thick knots.

  Like a messy jigsaw, it starts to come into focus. All of this used to be a long and thick length of rope with a noose tied at the end. But now it’s been cut to pieces, only the knots are left intact.

  Shoved in the corner is a pair of black leather gloves, and on the other side is a sharp metal bar of some sort.

  What’s this doing in my car? It wasn’t there yesterday.

  I’ve seen too many crime scene T.V. series to touch it. I close the trunk, grab my bag and discover that the reception is still closed. Across the street, the cosy light of the café is calling for me to come in and enjoy a warm drink with other souls, and besides, it’s the only open establishment in town at this hour.

  Before I know it, my feet are ushering me to the café. The door creaks open and a bell rings. It’s a small room, counter to the left, an empty glass display case where pastries should be, light pink walls all around, and everything smells of instant coffee.

  The two customers and the server briefly lift their eyes in my direction. When I get to the counter, the server, a lad of about nineteen—all smiles and cheek bones—asks, “What can I get you, mate?”

  “Cof
fee and toast, please.” I say when I realise coffee and toast is all they have.

  “Listen,” I continue, “something strange just happened to me down by the lake—”

  He eyes me as he picks up a mug and cuts me off. “Sorry, mate, I don’t know them.”

  He pours my coffee stiffly, a visible tremble in his lower lip. I notice him glancing toward a customer on my right, a woman in her thirties. She’s hunched over her coffee, stirring the black liquid slowly with a spoon.

  “Them? How did you know I was talking about multiple people, or any people for that matter? I just said something strange happened.”

  “Yeah, nah. Do you like your toast well done or nice and goldeny?”

  “Nice and goldeny. So? Why did you say ‘them’?”

  “That’ll be four bucks.” He smiles but averts eye contact, looks at the woman again.

  Jesus Christ, is everyone here a lunatic?

  I pay the fella, sit down at a little circle table which is rusting around the edges, and drink my coffee. When the barista brings me the toast, I try to look into his eyes, see if he knows something or wants to say something, but he keeps his gaze down like a scolded child.

  You know what? Fuck this.

  I’m fine.

  I never have to go back to that lake again.

  To distract myself, I pull my laptop from my bag, take my memory card from the camera—which survived the fall in the lake—and I transfer this morning’s images onto my hard drive. I open the first photo I took. It’s not a bad shot, beautiful reflection, very tranquil. Shame I had to dash out of there and miss sunrise. It would have made a much better image.

  I play with a few sliders in Lightroom to brighten up the scene, give it more colour and contrast. I’m happy with the final result, but not exactly thrilled. I create a Wi-Fi hotspot with my phone, connect my laptop to the internet and upload the photo to Facebook with the text, “Beautiful conditions this morning in the town of Nesgrove, NZ.”

  Little red notifications, little red doses of relaxation and validation, appear on the screen as the Likes on Facebook start rolling in. After three minutes I’ve received three hundred Likes, and a familiar sinking feeling engulfs my guts, starts sucking my confidence away. I’d normally have double that by now. My online followers don’t like this image. The poor response from them encourages a shiver of self-doubt and self-loathing in me. I’m a crap photographer. A pretender who deserves to be found out. I close Facebook and regret ever coming to this shit hole.