The Photographer

    Glen Ramos eyed the counter with an intense determination. He knew what he was looking for and didn’t care that he looked crazy.  The jacket and jeans he wore were dirty, indicative of the “struggling artist” lifestyle that he had been living. The archaic cameras and lenses stared back at him from behind the glass. He’d been searching pawnshops all around the Tampa Bay area for weeks and now he had finally found the object of his obsession. It was a Nikon telephoto lens that was in perfect condition.



    He couldn’t honestly describe why he wanted the lens so badly, but he knew that he needed to have it. He made a steady living bussing tables at a restaurant by the beach and selling any of the photos he could. He’d been lucky enough to get several of his pictures in the St. Petersburg Times and a few in magazines advertising the beaches of Pinellas County as great tourist spots. Glen never imagined that he would find it so close to home, he’d dismissed local pawnshop from the get-go, not expecting any modern camera equipment to be in Largo. He loved the city he lived in, being minuets from the beach and right down the road from work, but people out here didn’t really have that artistic flare that he wanted. Once he gathered enough money he planned to move to New York or Los Angeles, where he could focus on his photography as an art.



    He pointed out the Nikon lens he wanted and checked out. When it was new it would have run in the high hundreds, but it was now his for the low price of fifty dollars. Smiling with glee, he left the store.



    At home he polished every inch of the lens that he could reach. It was beautiful, and somehow familiar. It was manufactured in the mid-ninety’s and it was not implausible that his father could have owned something similar before he died. Proud of himself, Glen held the cylinder to the light. If it weren’t for a bit touch-up paint covering someone’s engraved initials, the lens would appear to be brand new.



    Glen found himself wondering who had owned the lens before him. He pondered some unknown photographer trudging through the amazon, clicking off photos at everything that moved. He pictured the photographer, clad in a pair khaki shorts and a matching vest, with roll after roll of film stashed in the many pockets. He concentrated on the image in his mind, trying to see the photographer’s face. The fog began to lift and he saw himself as a much older man with a weathered face and several scars. Glen tried to open his eyes but found them glued shut. He started to panic as the man that may or may not be him smiled wide, revealing a mouth full of razorblades that had been jammed into his gums where his teeth used to be.



    In a cold sweat, Glen woke to the sound of his alarm clock in the next room. It had been a dream. Franticly he sat up and looked between cushions and under the sofa. He was relieved when his hand found the black cylinder. With a smile he set the new lens next to his camera on the kitchen counter and ran to the shower, quickly washing himself before donning some comfortable beach clothes, it was Saturday and he needed to take some photos.



    Christine was a regular model of his. They were acquaintances in high school and had both done pretty much nothing with their dreams. About six months before, they had met at the little restaurant and recognized each other; she had been waiting tables since graduation, trying to get into modeling. That was the moment Glen realized that they could launch their dream careers together. Since then, they have been meeting every Saturday morning at Indian Rocks beach to do some shots and hope one of them was good enough to catch an agent’s attention. So far they’d taken several great pictures, but most of the envelopes and emails were returned with a two line apology about how they wouldn’t “fit in” with their staff. The most recent one had actually come back with a request for Christine’s portfolio, so they were going to shoot the last few photos to finish it off.



    Christine was waiting on the bench next to the yellow bungalow when Glen pulled up in his white Honda Civic that was just about done in years. She waived at him with a smile and as he stepped out of the car he did the same. He pulled the courier bag out of the trunk, along with a matte black tripod. She jogged over to help him with whatever he would let her carry.



    “Christine,” Glen said, smiling, “When we’re finished here today, you will have a full professional portfolio to send to that agent who likes you.” He was happy to see that she was smiling, “Just put in a good word for me when you get to the top, okay?”



    “Shut-up, Glen,” She laughed, “You know you’re gonna get there ages before I do.”



    They walked down the weathered wooden bridge from the parking lot to the sand of the beach. Christine was bursting with excitement to have a shot at her dream and Glen was happy to try out his new lens. As he attached the heavy cylinder to his expensive camera, all he could think of was the nightmare he’d had the night before. Somehow he’d managed to keep the images away all morning, but now the picture of himself with razors for teeth came back and made him uneasy.



    The squawking of seagulls was enough to remind him of where he was. He finished setting up the tripod and directed Christine towards the water. He shot several photos, some sexy, some cute, others intelligent. After about an hour and a half of shooting Glen checked the memory cards and decided they had more than enough to sort through and went for a drink.



    The bar they chose wasn’t special in any way. There was loud island music blaring from speakers around the building, tourists and locals moving from their tables to the bar and back, sipping on pretty little beach cocktails, and the smell of rich seafood drifting from the kitchen. Glen casually sipped on a Heineken while Christine started on her second margarita.



    “So,” Glen said, almost yelling over the music, “Where do you think they’ll take you to shoot? Bahamas? Hawaii?”



    “I don’t know,” she replied, “maybe all of them. What about you? You’re losing your star model to the big dogs in Miami. What’s next for Glen Othello Ramos the second, master photographer? Feel like taking on the Amazon?” She laughed.



    Glen couldn’t mask the horror on his face, what are the odds that the Amazon would come up after that dream I had last night? This can’t be a coincidence…

   

    “Glen? You okay?”



    “I’m fine, just tired.” He tried to muster up a smile, but it was a pathetic attempt and he knew that she could see right through it, but she didn’t prod, just gave him that reassuring smile that he loved so much. The truth was, he liked Christine, but she was going to Miami and he would stay here, looking at the world through the viewfinder of his camera, hoping to catch something that the rest of the world couldn’t see.



    “Okay, why don’t you go home, rest for a while? We’ll meet tomorrow morning to sort through todays pictures and finish up my portfolio. Okay?”



    “That sounds good to me. Be safe tonight, okay Christine? I don’t want you going missing or something before you’re big break.”



    “Mwah?” She said sarcastically, “Why, I never get in trouble. I’ll be a good girl, I promise.”



    Glen couldn’t help but smile, “Okay. See you tomorrow; call me if you need me.”



    The rest of that day passed quickly. Glen tried to busy himself with menial chores that had piled up over the week, but couldn’t fight the feeling that something bad was going to happen. The chores passed more quickly than he would have liked and he found himself board by 4:00. There was nothing good on TV and so he picked up the controller to his game console and popped in a copy of Call of Duty. That always seemed to kill time.



    Several hours later he was frustrated and shut the game off after being cursed at and picked on by twelve-year-olds for having a low kill-to-death ratio. He decided to have some leftover pizza for dinner. The pizza was gone and he was board again. He didn’t dare pick up the game again and didn’t feel like watching anything, so he decided to get a head start on editing the photos from the shoot earlier.



    Glen booted up his laptop while he ran back out to the car to retrieve his camera. Outside, the air was chill and dark clouds were rolling in from the Northwest. He remembered hearing about the cold front and was glad that he had finished up the shoot with Christine rather than waiting until next weekend.

When he got back inside, he pulled the memory card from its place on his camera and jammed it into the appropriate slot on the side of his computer. It took a few seconds to recognize the SD card, but the green bar started to move along the bottom of the screen, loading all the pictures of Christine on the beach.



    In the background on most of the pictures people were frolicking in the water, playing in the sand, and talking amongst one another. A blonde boy in blue swim-trunks was building a sandcastle as his little sister tried to turn it into a princess palace. Closer to the water stood an ominous man that Glen didn’t remember seeing. He was wearing dark denim jeans and black boots. His face was covered by the hood of a black jacket that had two red stripes down the front. He had his hands stuffed in his pockets and seemed to be watching Christine.



    Chills ran up his spine as he clicked to the next picture, which was at a different angel. The man was there too, but he wasn’t watching Christine, he was watching Glen. He was staring down the lens, into Glen’s soul. He swallowed hard and clicked to the next picture where the man was suddenly closer. He was more distinct in this photo and much more threatening. Next, the man was closer, pulling something from his jacket pocket, Glen couldn’t see what. On the next several photographs, the man was closer and closer, and the object that he held appeared to be a sharpened metal bar, or a hilt-less knife of some kind.



    Glen’s breathing increased rapidly as he went from one picture to the next. The man was in every single picture, moving steadily closer to Christine. On the last picture of the shoot, the man was inches away from Christine, his knife poised to stab her in the neck. There was something wrong, Glen knew he felt something at the beach. He ran to the phone and dialed Christine’s cell. She didn’t answer.



    He dialed Christine’s apartment and a groggy voice came on the line, “Hello?”



    “Hey, Beck, is Christine there?” The panic was obvious in his voice, “I couldn’t get her on her cell.”



    “Christ, Glen… It’s too late for this shit, don’t you think?” Beck sighed heavily on the other line, “Let me check her room for you, be right back.”



    “Thanks Rebecca.”



    After several long minutes of waiting she came back to the line, “Huh… She’s not here. Is something wrong?”



    Glen didn’t answer; he hung up and dialed 911. He explained what was going on, excluding the pictures, and was told that with an adult, a missing persons report couldn’t be filed yet. He hung up and threw on his hoodie, then grabbed his keys as we walked out the door. It was 11:00, just starting to sprinkle and he knew that the bar was closed, but needed to go back to the last place he’d seen her, he took the camera with him.



    Christina’s car was still in the lot near the yellow bungalow, where they’d met earlier. With a complete and utter feeling of dread, Glen stepped out of his car and walked across the wood pathway, looking for any sign of life. He moved slowly, his breath coming out in ragged gasps. He moved across the midway point and then he saw her. The limp body of Christine was laying on the ground where she’d posed for the final picture earlier. Glen’s gut twisted into knots and he vomited onto the pure, white sand. The white sand that was now stained with the blood of the only woman he’d ever loved.



    After he cleared his throat he pulled his phone out and dialed the police again, this time they listened. Within ten minutes, the Largo PD and the Pinellas County Sheriff’s department had roped of the area with yellow tape.

Glen was confused. How had something like this even happened? Was it some kind of ghost? He knew one thing for sure. The police couldn’t find the pictures. It could prove his innocence, or condemn him. Pictures like those could just be written off as elaborately doctored photos.



    The only thing that changed was the lens. That had to be it, but how? He had to find out who owned it before.



    The next morning he went back to the pawnshop he’d bought it from and asked the owner of the store if he knew anything about the previous owner of that lens. He declined any additional information and asked Glen to leave. He was upset and didn’t know where to go for answers, but oddly, he wasn’t as upset as he expected to be, which made him mad at himself. As if it weren’t enough, things got more complicated. Glen pulled the camera out and aimed it up to the store, finding the shop keeper and clicking off two pictures.



    He flipped the camera over to “review” mode and looked through the viewfinder, shocked. The man was in these photos too, knife poised to kill. Glen sat in shock for a moment and was pulled from his daze by a bloodcurdling scream. He repositioned the camera and looked into the store. He saw blood splattered all over the windows and took another picture. The dark man had his hands back in his pockets and watched Glen, waiting for the next order to kill.



    It was odd, there was this mixture of disgust and pleasure running through his veins, of course pleasure won. Never had he felt so powerful, so alive.

He called his mother later that day, after getting a few hours of sleep and asked about his father. He wasn’t sure why he wanted to know now, but he had to know. There was no control now. They talked for a few hours and he discovered that his father had been a professional photographer that went missing in Peru when Glen was just a child. His expensive camera equipment was stolen and the people who took it said that he was a murderer. They said that he was using his camera to kill people and that there was a demon trapped inside. A few weeks after he went missing, she said she received a package from Peru.



    Inside the box was an expensive camera lens that she kept for many years, but needed money and sold it to a pawnshop in Largo. Glen’s stomach knotted once again as he hung up with his mother.

Using a razorblade, Glen carefully scraped the touch-up paint from the lens and revealed the engraving of the previous owners initials. It was his father’s initials, G.O.R. sr.



    Glen’s head began to spin and his stomach did cartwheels. His father’s camera killed people. Thoughts that weren’t his began to flood his mind as he held the camera. The world began to spin, moving faster and faster like a top. He blacked out.



    When the world stopped spinning, his head and stomach quelled, and he awoke the next morning, it was as if nothing had ever happened, yet it had. Glen was not just himself anymore; there was something else, something darker, lurking within the depths of his evil soul, turning his happy thoughts into angry thoughts and toying with his other emotions. It was going to be a long day and Glen needed some photographs, he was a Photographer after all.