The Photographer

Here is another one! I forgot about all these short stories I did for school… ha

Anyways, enjoy!

David looked at his picture one more time, then went to put the camera in the box. He wanted Nasim to get it as soon as possible so that she would contact him. He paused, about to drop the camera in then decided that he wanted to look at the pictures one more time. He wanted to remind himself what Nasim looked like so he could keep her face in his mind. A small smile spread across his face as he saw her different pictures: her selfies, her cake, and her good luck picture. The smile became a little wider as he saw the first picture of himself. When he had first seen that picture, he knew he had to find her. The mutual attraction was there and he thought it could be more. David continued to scroll through the pictures then hit the menu button, wanting to look at the dates of these pictures, curiosity getting the better of him. He noticed that there were more pictures on the camera than he thought and hesitated before clicking on the very beginning. ‘Well... I already looked at the other ones… I might as well keep going’. David selected the first picture and started the scroll.

            The first few pictures were nothing extraordinary, just more selfies and random nature shots. David’s smile started to slip, however, as he saw his face looking back at him. ‘What the hell… I didn’t see this picture before’. David continued scrolling and saw more and more pictures of himself. There was one of him in front of his job at Suncoast bank, and then inside the branch at his desk. There was another one of him with his family during their Christmas dinner. And yet another one of him in the bathroom at the Target right down the street from his house in Culver City. The last one he saw of himself was at law school, studying at one of the tables. This Nasim girl had followed him for a while and had taken pictures of him at every aspect of his life. The smile was wiped completely from his face as this revelation came to light. He dropped the camera and backed away, as if it had turned into a bug and had stung him. David wasn’t sure what to do with what he had just seen. It’s true that he had tried to find where she had lived, but that was mostly to return the camera to her. And if they had hit it off, that would have been even better. But he hadn’t stalked her and this was before he had found out that she was a bit crazy.  Nasim had gone too far, she had stalked him.

David heard a noise and turned around, afraid it was Nasim waiting in the shadows for him. There was no one there but David felt as if one day, she would be there. He had to move and move somewhere she couldn’t find him; he couldn’t go to his parent’s place, she knew where that was. David thought of where he could go and then an idea formed: a hotel. That would be the perfect place to go. She didn’t have any pictures of him at hotels so there was no way she could find him. Looking around the room, David started packing anything that was necessary to live in a hotel: deodorant, shampoo, body wash, iPhone charger, and clothes. He looked around his small apartment again and didn’t think he needed anything else and headed for the door. She could be anywhere and David wanted to be out of his house as soon as possible. He paused when he saw the camera lying on the floor. He didn’t want to touch it but he had to get rid of it, get rid of the evidence. He picked it up by strap, touching as little of it as possible and thought of throwing it into the trash. Before he did, however, using only his fingertips, he scrolled through and deleted all the pictures of him. Once everything was deleted, he threw the camera into the trash, smiling as he heard it crack. There. Now, for sure, she wouldn’t have any more pictures of him. Satisfied, David headed for the door. Looking behind his shoulder to make sure he hadn’t forgotten anything, he didn’t see Nasim standing in the doorway as he opened the door.

“Hello David…”

David screamed, whipping his head around and tried to slam the door in her face. She stopped it before he could, forcing her way into his room. She reached into her bag and he screamed again, waiting for the knife but saw it was a camera. He sighed with relief.

“Now David… Don’t be scared. I have so many more pictures of you to take…” She advanced on him and shoved him until he tripped over his own feet and fell down. She sat on top of him and pulled something else from her bag; this time it was a straight razor.

“I can paint such beautiful pictures with your blood, David… I knew it from the moment I first saw you…” The sound of the camera turning on was the last thing David heard before he fainted from the pain. 

Out of the Dark

Wow… I just realized I have not posted in here since last year! Sorry about that! School has been really keeping me busy! But I will try and get my latest short stories posted here soon! Here is one I wrote just a couple of months ago! I enjoy it, so I hope you do too!

Sherry didn’t want to put the book down, even though it was three o’clock in the morning and she had to get up in four hours for school. She was reading The Dark Half by Stephen King and it was scaring the hell out of her. She was only half way through but she didn’t want to stop until she finished it. Sherry stretched, rubbed her eyes and snuggled in a little deeper in her bed. The circle of light from the book light was so bright that it blacked the rest of the room out but Sherry was fine with that. When she read she wanted the whole world to disappear; she wanted to get lost in the words on the pages and join the world of the characters in the books, ignoring the real world around her. Stephen King was her favorite author so when she read his books it was even worse for the outside world. She was so engrossed in this current one that she didn’t hear the scratching noise at first. The scratching continued, as did her reading for a few more minutes until Sherry finally heard the noise. Her head jerked up and the noise stopped. She blinked rapidly, her eyes adjusting to the darkness.

‘What the hell?’ She thought to herself, her heart beating a little faster as she peered into the darkness of her room. She didn’t scare easily, but reading Stephen King always brought fear to the forefront. Sherry squinted, as if that would help her see better in the dark, waiting to hear the noise again. When she didn’t hear it again she returned her focus back to the book. She continued to read the same sentence over and over again, however, as her concentration had waivered. She waited, expecting to hear the noise again at any second. A few minutes later, her wish was granted. Her head snapped in the direction of the noise, but once again it stopped the moment she looked in its direction. She stared into the darkness, waiting for some creature to come out of the darkness and attack her. Her heart was still beating fast and sweat had broken out on her forehead. She sat up a little straighter and then didn’t move; afraid that if she moved it would bring attention to herself, making her a target to whatever or whoever was in her room. She turned off her book light, not wanting a spotlight, albeit a small one, shining on her. She waited in silence a few minutes longer, the room seeming to darken by the second, waiting for something to reach for her. She jumped when a pair of glowing eyes appeared at the foot of the bed. Then she hit herself on her forehead. ‘It’s just the stupid cat… of course it is.’ She gave off a little laugh, looked at the clock and decided that a few hours of sleep were better than none. ‘I should stop reading Stephen King before bed’, were her last thoughts as she drifted off to sleep.

Sherry woke up the next morning thinking only of her book. She couldn’t wait to finish it that night; she knew that she would stay up all night to finish if she had to. So far it was her favorite book of Kings and she had to know how it ended! She wasn’t a very studious person so the only classes she really paid attention in were her favorite classes: the English classes. School was from nine in the morning until four in the evening, almost as long as a workday. It was exhausting but Sherry was so close to graduating that she stuck with it. The whole day she spent daydreaming about her book, her attention wandering in all of her classes. Finally the last class was over! Sherry ran to her car and drove home as fast as she dared. She did not have a life outside of her books and her cat, so she was always eager to get home and start reading again. She had moved away from her family for school and she was such an introvert that she hadn’t really made any friends at school. There were one or two acquaintances but no one that was nearly as interesting as the characters in her books. Twenty minutes later, finally reaching home, Sherry rushed inside, fed her cat and ate an early dinner. She then grabbed her book, some cookies and milk, her favorite blanket, curled up on the couch and lost herself in the world of Thad Beaumont and Stark.

Once ten o’clock hit, Sherry got ready for bed, grabbed her book light and lay down in her bed to finish The Dark Half. She was a hundred pages away from the end and the story was getting really intense. She was so lost in the book and her heart was racing so fast as she read the climax of the story that she let out a little shriek when she heard the scratching noise again. She looked up expecting to see Stark from the book standing at her bed with his straight razor, ready to slit her throat. She then froze, knowing that the scream had given her position away and knowing that she was going to die. She squinted into the darkness, her heart in her throat, threatening to strangle her if it beat any faster. The noise came again, but she could not pinpoint where it was or what it was. She wanted to use the book light to search the room, but was afraid that any movement would attract whatever it was to her. She stared, unblinking, her eyes becoming dry. The darkness pressed down on her, suffocating her, making her think that every shadow was a person. The brightness of the book light made the dark seem so much darker and Sherry was finally afraid of that darkness.

Sherry heard the scratching again and it sounded as if it were moving around her room. Sherry’s eyes moved around frantically, trying to find the moving shape, trying to locate the noise. Slowly, as slowly as she could so that whatever was out there in the darkness didn’t see her move, Sherry scooted down as far as she dared and moved the blankets over her head. Sherry lay for a couple of seconds, a death grip on her book not sure what to do next. Finally, taking a deep breath, she took her book light and shined it around the room. When she saw nothing around her room, she put the light with the book on the floor; there was no way she was going to turn it off but at least it wasn’t a spotlight on her anymore. The book light only gave off a small circle of light on the floor so the rest of the room was once again shrouded in darkness. Sherry looked around then froze. One spot in her room was darker than the rest of the room; so dark it looked as if no light had ever existed in that spot. Her breathing became heavier as she tried to discern the shape of that dark spot. Was it human, animal, or something else? Sherry couldn’t tell and at this point she didn’t think it was her imagination. Her fear was to real, that spot too dark. Slowly pulling her blanket over her head, Sherry stopped moving knowing it was too late and that the thing in the darkness had seen her. Maybe her blanket would protect her. Sherry lay under her blanket, unmoving, taking shallow breaths and making no noise. Hearing nothing, she worked up a little nerve and peeked at the floor. Her breath halted as a shadow fell across the light, stopping in it’s beam. Sherry still couldn’t tell what it was that was tormenting her and tears started to roll down her cheeks. She felt close to passing out, her heart beating faster and her breath getting harder and harder to get out. Sherry opened her mouth to scream but nothing came out as the light was clicked off.

Sherry went back under the covers, the blankets completely covering her. She lay in the darkness, not sure what to do, the tears still running down her cheeks. Her breathing came faster and faster as she waited for something to happen; for either her heart to explode, for her to suffocate, or for something or someone to grab her. Once again, she felt the darkness pressing down on her, smothering her, threatening to end her life. The blankets felt stifling and she knew she was going to choke on them if she didn’t get out from under them soon. Sherry heard another scratching noise and a meow and started to relax. ‘OK… it is just the cat. I am going crazy. I should really stop reading Stephen King at night…’ As those thoughts passed through her head, Sherry started struggling with the heavy comforter, trying to get it off of her. She then heard a howl and then something started to scratch at her right leg. Ignoring the howl, Sherry started talking to herself, trying to calm herself down. ‘The howl was… it was nothing. It’s just the cat… no big deal… nothing else…’ Sherry swallowed, took a deep breath and dared a glimpse under the covers. What she saw wiped her mind of anything else but fear. There were no more thoughts, just the white noise of a terror filled scream. Looking back at her had just been two bright eyes and a large smile filled with teeth. She started shrieking at the beat of each breath, kicking her feet, all senses lost as she tried to fight whatever it was that belonged to that smile. Sherry shrieked and shrieked until she was out of breath and her eyes rolled to the back of her head. She finally passed out, the last thing in her vision being the vile face.

The only sounds that could be heard in the darkness were chomping, slurping and sucking noises. Eventually the sounds ceased and the darkness pressed in. The last thing that could be heard was the scratching of the cat; all he wanted was to be inside so that he could see his master.