A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words

Shyla picked up the album from the table and flipped through the pictures. The rest of the antiques bored her, but something about photos always intrigued her. She had always planned on being a famous photographer, not the kind that shot celebrities, but the one who went to exotic places and captured tiny moments of future history.

Life had other plans for her.

She sighed as she turned the pages, trying to tune out the hustle and bustle of the flea market around her. People were coming and going, shouting bids and offers, and the hum of a crowd in a field, trying to beat each other to the next best deal. The stall where she was, had been untouched, unseen by the masses. The man behind the table looked bored. He had his nose buried in a book and would casually look up, unimpressed with the whole thing.

Shyla turned back to the book. It’s pretty, she thought. Would be a nice album for family photos.

“How much for the album?” she asked. She flipped over the back and saw a small sticker that said “$2.00 –as is”.
The man was ignoring her, clearly not willing to haggle, so she tossed two dollars on the table and walked away with the book in hand.
Rude, she thought. As she walked away she wondered if she should have asked him if he wanted the pictures back.
She smiled to herself as she stepped though the side door of her house. She loved that old Victorian more than the items inside. The rooms were dark, and there were no signs of her husband. Rob and the kids must have gone to the park after all, she thought. She sat on the floor in the living room with her purchase and a box of fresh photos and began the replacement process.

Some of the old pictures were interesting. There were shots of people, in black and white. There were children and adults, laughing and smiling and posing. Shyla smiled. I really should have given these back, she thought.

She was halfway through the book when she began to see a series of photos all with the same woman in them. At first she thought it was a wife, but something was wrong about them. There were no full-on captures, her laughing and smiling and posing, but all seemingly taken from odd angles. One of them had leaves in the foreground, as if the photographer was sitting in a bush.

Shyla turned a page and something odd: the woman was looking at the camera. She was sitting in a chair, almost naked. Her mouth was gagged with a strip of fabric and her hands looked to be bound behind her. Smears of what looked like mud or dirt on her cheeks and thighs.

“Oh my God,” she whispered. The second photo was similar, the third was in color. She could see everything in bright colors, the mess on her face wasn’t dirt, it was blood.

Her hands shook as she grasped the edge of the page and flipped it. Her stomach lurched as she looked into the now vacant eyes of the woman, her throat split open. She was covered in her own blood. Next to the photo there was another, of the woman lying in a dirt hole, partially covered.

Shyla couldn’t stop herself from paging through more. A total of five more women and their deaths were documented in the book, each more grisly than the next.

What do I do with this, she thought. As she got to the last page, a stack of photos were shoved in the last sleeve. He ran out of room. Part of her wanted to close the book and return it to the flea market. Another part of her wanted to call the police and give it to them. Listening to neither, she grabbed the stack of unsorted pictures and began to rifle through them.

It didn’t take her long to notice that everything about these pictures was familiar. The woman in these photos was the same one that stared back at her in the mirror each morning. The same man that was taking photos of these women, capturing and torturing them, had photos of her.

What the hell, she thought. Her pulse began to race, her hands shook as she flipped through the pictures faster and faster. She heard a banging noise in the kitchen, and her breath caught in her throat.

“Who,” she stammered. “Who’s there?” Tears formed in her eyes as she stood. Slowly she stepped towards the kitchen door. She put out her hand, trying to peer through the door crack, wanting to see. Shyla shoved the door open and a mound of hair whisked by her. She followed the small form as it darted out of the kitchen and took pause in the living room to lick itself.

“Oh Farley,” she sighed at their cat. The feline looked up at her and snarled, spitting and hissing. “What the fuck’s your problem?”

On the floor was one last photo, one she hadn’t seen yet. It was her, half buried in dirt. Her face was cut open; bits of her skull revealed and fragmented bone pieces sticking out. Her skin was caked with dried blood and bits of gore. A drop of red fell onto the photo and she touched her face. Her hand came back stained scarlet. Next to her, she saw a large blood stain on the carpet that she had never noticed before.

“Impossible!” She cried out. What the hell is happening to me? Quickly she gathered up the album and all the photos. Shyla shoved them all together, and rushed at the door. As she tried to walk out, she hit an invisible wall and was thrown backwards. Something was keeping her inside. She looked back to the living room and saw her body lying on the floor. Her mind took snapshots of it, knowing she’d never forget the image.

Shyla looked outside. There was no car in the driveway. It was then that she saw the “for-sale” sign out front.

“This is my house,” she whispered. “No! This is my house!”