“You think I’m seeing things because I died and came back to life?”
Ch-ch.
My ears perk up, as my heart races out of control. I know that sound. That’s the sound, the one I tried to tell the doctor about.
Ch-ch-ch.
“What is it, Ms. Beck?” the doctor asks, his eyes wide with concern.
“I… I…” I can’t get the words out quite the way I want. “I think I hear…”
Ch-ch. Ch-ch-ch. Ch-ch.
Whatever makes the sound, it’s getting closer. “Quick!” I tug my restraints up, trying to let the doctor know we’re in danger. “Get me out of here! It’s coming!”
He doesn’t move, apparently not understanding that the creature will be here soon. “What’s coming?”
A shadow forms on the wall behind him, and a familiar form emerges. “No, no, no, no! Please! Let me up!”
“I’m afraid I can’t do that, Ms. Beck. You’re restrained for your own good.”
The monster takes shape and clicks its way until it looms over the doctor. The color from the room fades away into the stark black and white from my dream… yes! That was the color of my dream. And, the monster, it was there, too!
“Turn around!” I shout at the doctor, but he doesn’t seem to hear me. Why isn’t he moving? Doesn’t he know the monster is about to attack?
“To answer your question, I don’t think you’re seeing things because you died and came back to life.”
What is he talking about? Can’t he feel the hot, rancid breath of the creature?
“You aren’t seeing things because you attempted suicide,” he says.
A lump catches in my throat, and my stomach bottoms out. The monster melds with him, becoming a strange hybrid between the two in the chair where the doctor sat.
“You’re seeing them because you succeeded.”
Sluuuuurrrr.
Reflection
“Thanks again!” Jackie Hernandez said. She held her smile until her client climbed into her car before closing the door to her studio.
Another photography session done, the last of the day. She yawned, and her arms stretched toward the ceiling. She had worked nonstop today and wanted nothing more than to go home and relax. This last shoot, however, had her eager to skim the pictures before taking off for the day.
She’d never done a shoot quite like this one, and it would end up in her portfolio to show potential clients. The young woman had come to her last week with a simple request: recreate an antique photograph of her grandmother. The woman was prepared for the shoot, with beautiful props that had been passed down from generation to generation for the sole purpose of taking this picture. Her client wore the same long, off-white, lace gown as her grandmother, and her dark hair and stark facial features rendered her almost a dead-ringer for her grandmother, with only subtle differences.
The full-length mirror and hairbrush took Jackie’s breath away when she first saw them. Mesmerizing jewels inlaid on the back of the brush made Jackie wonder how much the antique was worth. The standing, oval mirror had a delicate pattern etched into the brass around it. The two of them had to carry the mirror in and out of the studio, and they could have used a third pair of hands due to the weight.
It was worth it, though… oh, it was worth it. With the stage set, her client had posed perfectly, as if she practiced just for this day. Jackie made sure the lighting matched the dim tones of the photograph and started the shoot. Though the client only wanted that one photograph, Jackie convinced her to do other poses. There was no need to waste a beautiful set like that.
Throughout the shoot, Jackie bit back the urge to look at the photographs on her laptop. Her camera fed into the computer, allowing clients to watch as the shoot unfolded. Parents especially loved the feature, since they could see their little angels pop up on the screen while Jackie worked.
From experience, she knew the photos of this client would come out the way she intended during the shoot, but, now alone in the studio, she had an insane desire to examine them and feed her ego. If they look as good as she believed, she would have to get a waiver signed by her client to enter the best one into a few contests.
She sat on the stool in front of her laptop and pulled up the thumbnail gallery of photos. While waiting for them to load on the screen, she looked down and noticed the client had left behind the original photo of her grandmother. She would have to call the client in the morning to let her know. Jackie picked up the photo, which, once again, captured her attention. Everything about the photograph was perfect, and the mystery behind the slender woman brushing out her long hair while gazing into the mirror sparked Jackie’s curiosity.
Her client said that every firstborn female child in their family has had the same portrait taken, and it had been like that for several generations. Her grandmother was the first to have it done as a photograph, and the others before her had all been in fine oils on canvas. But, the picture was always the same.
Jackie’s own nana had warned her about taking photographs of mirrors, about the dangers of capturing and locking the soul into one, but they were nothing more than silly stories of a superstitious woman. Jackie imagined that her nana was much like her client’s grandmother, putting too much stock into old lore.
As Jackie examined the original photo of her client’s grandmother, her eyes landed on a glare in the corner of the mirror. She hadn’t noticed that before. The photographer must not have been experienced working with lights and reflection, and Jackie mused that her photograph would turn out even better than this one. To avoid glares or reflections in the mirror, she had been very careful with her lighting throughout the shoot, making sure to readjust whenever she changed the angle of the shot.
She laid the picture down and turned her attention to the monitor. The pictures were in twelve rows of four, and even though not blown up to full-size, she could tell they were fantastic. She scrolled through four pages of thumbnails and stopped as one caught her eye. She double-clicked the mouse to open up the photo. She moved the cursor over her filters and applied several antique looks until she found the perfect one.
Holding up the original photograph next to the screen, she couldn’t believe how well they matched. If she didn’t know better, she would have thought they were the same photo, minus the little differences in her client’s facial features as compared to her grandmother. Jackie couldn’t wait to show her client. Though exhausted after her long day, she decided to continue working on the post-processing so she could call her client in the morning.
The little light in the mirror of the original photograph caught her attention again. Based on the lighting in the picture, the glare didn’t appear to have an origin. She moved the photo closer to her eyes, squinting at the light. The shape seemed odd for a glare or a reflection of light.
Jackie jumped off the stool at the crash from the corner of her studio. She dropped the picture and grasped her workbench to avoid falling over backward. Once her heart slowed, her mind wandered to the sound. She walked toward her studio dressing room, from where the commotion came.
She flipped on the light switch and lit up the back of the studio. Nothing appeared out of the ordinary, so she opened the dressing room door. The coat rack that doubled as a place for clients to hang their clothes was tipped over, having landed on the vanity and straight into the now-shattered mirror. Jackie frowned and looked around the dressing room, but found no explanation for how it happened.
Lifting the coat rack to its normal position, she cursed at the ding in the front of the vanity and the broken glass. She just purchased the furniture last week and couldn’t believe it was already damaged. She would have to call her brothers to come by tomorrow and remove it before her first clients came in.
Her mood soured, and she moved back to her computer, flipping off the lights as she crossed the room. Seated on her stool, she decided to shut down for the night and start over tomorrow. With her hand on the mouse, ready to close out the open programs, her eyes traveled
across the screen and landed on the mirror in the photograph. A small light appeared in the mirror. She blinked, but the mirror still held a glare, one that was not there before the coat rack did its damage. She bent over, picked up the original picture off the floor, and held it next to the monitor.
The light was in the exact same location in both photos.
Her eyes shifted to her client in the photo. The little differences in her facial features between her and her grandmother had dissolved, and her client now looked identical to her grandmother. Jackie looked several times between both women, but could not find one single difference.
The hairs on the back of her neck stood up, and her spine tingled. She closed the photo to look at the thumbnail gallery. Every photo displayed the same glare in the mirror, each in the same place.
“That’s impossible,” Jackie whispered. Though it was a small spot in the mirror, she definitely would have noticed it earlier when she looked at the thumbnails.
She lifted her eyes to the light boxes in the studio. They were all angled away from where the mirror had been, just as she had set them. There was simply no way that they would reflect off the glass or cause a glare. She was extremely careful to get the lighting perfect before she started the shoot.
Jackie whipped her head around at a creak behind her. Nothing seemed out of place as her eyes darted around the room. Beyond the studio was the lobby and her office, which were both empty that late at night, but the noise sounded like it was much closer than that.
She swallowed hard. She didn’t believe in ghosts, aliens, Bigfoot, or anything of the paranormal sort. Her feet were firmly planted on the ground, and she always dismissed claims of otherworldly encounters. The noise and the coat rack incident, however, gave her the creeps just enough to make her doubt her convictions.
She turned back around and noticed the pictures on her monitor.
The glare in the mirror was larger.
Her eyes bulged from their sockets, and fear claimed her body. She wanted to shut down her computer and dash to the safety of her house for the night, leaving the strange happenings for the morning. Surely she was seeing and hearing things at this point, probably due to exhaustion. But, something told her she needed to locate a rational explanation to be able to sleep at all. Not only did the glare send shivers through her body, she also feared the entire photo shoot had been destroyed by a careless mistake with lighting.
She called up a random picture toward the top of the thumbnail gallery, and it filled the screen. She dragged it around until the glare was in the center of the monitor. She clicked her mouse and blew up the photo with a 50 percent zoom. What she thought was a glare had a strange darkness of different shades in the middle, with a light glowing around it and shadows cast to the side.
Jackie zoomed in again, and small shapes in the dark center formed in front of her. Her curiosity sparked, she continued blowing up the picture. 400 percent. 600. 1000. Finally, at 1800 percent zoom, the shapes became clear and created a picture.
Within the darkness of the glare was her entire photo studio. The woman she photographed was standing next to the mirror, the antique brush bristles tangled in her hair, just as it had been during the photo shoot. The picture showed Jackie at an angle from behind, with her camera lifted to her face, her finger ready to take the picture.
Jackie closed out the photo and pulled up the one next to it. She slowly zoomed in and again revealed a new picture within the glare, this of her taking a different shot of her client. She continued checking the photos, each one revealing a new scene from her photo shoot.
When she had looked through all but six of the photos, the picture in the glare changed. The photo studio was now empty, the shoot having ended, but Jackie was sitting at her computer, looking at her monitor. She brought up the next photo, and this time it didn’t show the studio, but Jackie standing in her dressing room, staring at the damage the coat rack caused to the vanity.
Jackie took in several jagged breaths, as she opened the fourth to last photo. She blew it up and saw herself sitting back at the computer, just before she heard the creak. The next photo showed her with her head turned toward the noise, and the next one showed her looking at the photographs, with the screen zoomed in on the glare.
Another creak came from behind her, but Jackie did not dare turn around. Her shaky hand moved against her will and opened the last photograph. Everything inside of her screamed for her not to zoom in on the glare in the picture, but she couldn’t stop her fingers from clicking the mouse. As she zoomed in over and over, the creaks behind her grew louder and closer. Fear lifted her skin from her body and submerged her in an ice bath.
She clicked the mouse one last time, and the pixels came together to form a picture. While the other photos were all angled from behind her, this one captured her from the front. Sitting in her chair, she had a look of terror on her face.
Jackie heard another creak as her eyes focused on the figure standing over her shoulder in the photo.
Her client’s grandmother stood behind her, the lacy, off-white gown flowing, her long, dark hair blowing in an unseen wind.
Jackie turned around just in time to see the grandmother’s hands descending on her. She screamed.
Isabella Lopez tried to tear her eyes away from the mummified corpse on the floor of the photography studio. She had prepared her entire adult life for this moment – well, really since she was 15 and first told about the family curse – but she didn’t know it would be like this. Gruesome, unsightly, disturbing. Jackie Hernandez, the friendly photographer who unwittingly satiated the ghost of her ancestor for another generation, would haunt Isabella’s nightmares for years to come.
Isabella’s father, Fernando, placed a sturdy hand on her shoulder from behind. “You did well, amada hija,” he said. “You have honored your family well.”
It doesn’t feel like honor, Isabella thought, despite knowing she had no choice.
“One day,” he continued, “you will pass this duty to your daughter, so the curse will continue to rest.” He handed her the photograph of her grandmother.
As she studied her grandmother, she wondered if one day, a future firstborn daughter would find a way to break the chain of evil that hovered over their family. But, it wasn’t for her to worry about. She had done her part; she had saved her family.
She said a silent blessing for the photographer’s soul and followed her father to the exit, the photograph pressed to her chest, over her heart.
Sold
Chapter One
Alice Marcel hung up her phone with a smile on her face, the first one in months. A well-known serial killer’s home had been listed for sale on the real estate market, and there were a barrage of ghostly sightings and unexplained disturbances. The owner now wanted to use the publicity of the ghosts to sell the home at a premium. Would Alice like to visit the home and chat with the owner?
The call was nothing unusual, not in her line of work. As a producer of the reality television show Ghost Explorers, she received calls to scout locations several times a day. More than ninety percent of them never panned out, but this one was unlike any other reported haunting the team of ghost hunters had ever investigated.
Serial killer Bill Farr met his maker one year ago this week, after being executed by lethal injection. The state of Texas and a jury of his peers had been far kinder to him than he had ever been to another human being, or even an animal being. When the FBI finally honed in on their suspect and served a search warrant, they found all manner of depravity in Farr’s basement, things that leaked out onto the Internet for corrupt minds to explore during their swirling descent into darkness. Their festering desire for sadism satisfied with explicit pictures of chains, dried blood, and rotting corpses.
But, now it seemed the women that suffered so horribly in that basement, 31 in all, who slowly died of starvation while being tortured and enduring vile sexual assault for months on end, had returned from the grave to haunt the premises. T
heir tormented souls appeared tied to the location of their trauma. Or, some speculated, maybe Farr himself could not get enough of the home where he lived out his most secret of fantasies and returned there after his much more pleasant death. While some witnesses reported seeing emaciated silhouettes, others had attested to seeing a shadowed, menacing specter, which could not be identified as either male or female.
The call for her show to investigate could not have come at a better time. The network execs had just told her that her currently planned show to air semi-live Halloween night was too trite. For the past three seasons, they had been to an asylum on that October night meant for ghosts and ghouls and, each year, their ratings had dropped. The execs gave her an ultimatum: either do something to get those ratings up, or face cancellation and a blackball of all her future shows. She had lost them far too much money.
The haunted home of a famous serial killer, several witnesses to interview, and a homeowner desperate to do anything to sell her home. Sounded like the perfect solution to her Halloween show dilemma.
Chapter Two
The house did not appear haunted, not from where Alice stood in the driveway, closing her car door. She heaved the strap of her laptop case over her shoulder. The case, heavy with the weight of her computer, slammed into her oversized purse and jolted her tall, slender frame. She recovered her balance and stared at the infamous home of Bill Farr. The home which would return her bank account to a more comfortable position and resuscitate her flailing career.
Dutch colonial with a white picket fence, the house was in great need of new exterior paint. The peeling yellows with white trim warned of the musty smells and possible hoarder conditions to come from the interior. She hoped there would be no lingering scent of Farr’s victims.
Using a wobbly, white railing, Alice stepped onto the rickety, covered porch spanning the width of the home. She studied the rocking chair in the corner of the porch and wondered if it had ever been used. Autumn leaves covered the seat of the chair, which appeared it might splinter and shatter into pieces should anyone attempt to use it. Situated on a small, round table next to the chair, drooping, grayish-black leaves from an almost mummified plant warned newcomers away from the house.