Good afternoon, House of Madness residents:
Have you ever screwed up so bad, that you're almost surely going to have to pay the piper at some point down the road? Today's tale deals with just that, and then some. As always, I hope you enjoy and most of all, thanks for reading!
The entire short car ride home, Ian couldn't wait to take a better look at his newest acquisition, and the butterflies in his stomach were seemingly starving for the anxious nectar that resided within him. When he pulled in his driveway, Ian didn't even bother getting out of his vehicle, instead he grabbed the camera and started examining it as he turned and twisted its casing in his hands, studying its every corner and orifice. "Where does the damn film go?" Ian asked the gentle breeze that was currently occupying his airspace. As Ian searched and pressed, poked, and prodded, he couldn't find a lever or button for a film compartment, but he didn't get discouraged; instead, he got out of his vehicle and headed towards the empty field across the street with his newfound treasure in tow. Just as Ian was about to attempt his first picture, he noticed the number '5' right next to the viewfinder, and although clearly intrigued by what its meaning was, pointed the camera at a group of trees and heard an audible "CLICK!", followed by a whirring sound as a result of some kind of mechanical happenings going on within the camera. After about ten seconds, a cardboard square popped up through a small crevice on top of the camera with a loud "DING!" following its arrival. Before Ian pulled out the item, he noticed that now the number beside the viewfinder read '4' instead of '5', but his anticipation for what he was about to see overrode his care of such small details. Ian plucked the cardboard out of the top of the camera, and just as he had suspected, the picture that looked back at him was of the field and trees he had pointed the camera at; after all, isn't that how cameras work? Just as Ian was about to tuck the picture into his shirt pocket, he noticed something strange; was that a faceless little boy standing in the trees, just barely visible? Ian's eyes quickly scanned the tree line where the photo had been taken, but there was nobody there. "I'm losing it" Ian said to himself, and walked back across the street to make himself some dinner.
Instead of watching the news after dinner and drinking himself into oblivion as was his nightly ritual, Ian examined the camera and was inspired to go outside and take another picture. To satisfy his mind that the first picture was simply of a small child who happened to be playing in the woods just as he snapped the picture and not anything supernatural, Ian headed across the street to duplicate the photo he took earlier. As he pointed the camera in the same general vicinity of the first photo, Ian felt a sense of dread engulf his entire body, but he took the photo all the same. "CLICK!" the camera screamed back at him, and a few seconds later the camera's innards were whirring again as it spoke its "DING!" once more. Much more apprehensively than the first time, Ian lifted the cardboard from the camera casing, he slowly brought it up to his face. To his horror, the faceless child was even closer this time, seemingly closing the distance between himself and the camera. Ian jolted backwards, dropping the camera in the process, and heard another "CLICK!" as the impact of the camera hitting the ground caused it to take another photo. Ian picked it up, and his eyes immediately went to the number beside the viewfinder, and to his horror, he saw the number '2'. As Ian tried to gather himself, he was startled by a "DING!" and the whirring in his hands seemed to feel like an inner earthquake that was made especially for him. Ian didn't want to look at the latest photo, but something inside of him knew that he had to, it was just that simple.
As Ian stared at the photo of tall grass with a seemingly giant faceless boy just over the arcs of foliage because of the upwards angle the camera landed on, he was running towards his front door in order to escape the invisible entity that seemed to be almost right on top of him. As he got inside his sanctuary and locked the front door, Ian let out a sigh of relief, and almost mustered the courage to laugh into the empty air. "What the fuck is the matter with me!?" he said instead of laughing, and no matter how hard he tried, Ian couldn't stop looking at the camera, especially the number '2' which seemed to be taunting him at every moment. After drinking countless beer after beer while watching "Wheel of Fortune" and "Jeopardy!", Ian's nerves calmed, and he once again became curious as to what exactly was going on with his latest afternoon treasure. Ian caressed and squeezed the camera between his fingers until the liquid courage he'd heartily drank inspired him to point the camera out his front window and at the poorly lit street between his lawn and the empty field. As his hand trembled and hovered above the action button, something came over Ian and he heard a voice in his head telling him how silly he was being, and the audible "CLICK!" happened twice before he could even decipher what he had just done. As his hands trembled worse than a Parkinson's patient on a bad day, Ian stared at the photo return with disdain and hatred. "I just won't look!" Ian said to his living room, and as the air was filled with a whirring "DING!", he knew he had to. As he ever so slowly brought the picture towards his face, Ian slammed his eyes shut for fear of what he might see, and rightfully so; as he inched his eyelids open, he saw a mangled, faceless bloody corpse lying in the street in front of his house, and it was reaching out towards him. "OH MY FUCKING GOD!" Ian screamed as he tried to remove the vision from his brain, and as he sobbed, he heard another "DING!" followed by the evil whirring that always chased it. This time Ian didn't need to look at the picture, as his dead son stood before him, covered in blood, smiling while he rubbed his hands together, ready for revenge.
NB
