A Picture is Worth Two Thousand Words

Short Shot WDC Contest
“A Picture is Worth Two Thousand Words”

     They say a picture is worth a thousand words. My editor wants me to write a story about one that’s about two thousand words. Why does he want me to do that? Because he found it in his son’s locked car. Derek Thomas wants to know how it got there and why it’s so important. It looks just like any other picture to me. Only I do have to admit there is something very strange about this one.

     Maybe I am the right reporter for this assignment after all. Derek knows I do like a good mystery. Especially if it’s a strange one. I am Victoria Wingate and I’m a reporter for the Rivertown Daily.

     I barely get into Derek’s office when he shows me the picture his son, Jasper, has found. Squinting my eyes, I try to get a better look at it. When that doesn’t help I take the picture of Derek’s offering hands. I’m right. It looks like a normal picture to me. It’s a picture of a cement path that has trees on both sides of it with fall leaves on the ground and on that path. I put it up to my glasses for a better look. It looks like there is a pond or river in the back of it.

     Suddenly, I smile. That’s what is wrong with it. I don’t recognize it. I’ve lived here my whole life, and I have never seen this part of Rivertown before. There are only about fifty thousand people in this town. If that picture is from around here I would have seen it before. Derek has lived here a lot longer than me, and he has just admitted he has never seen it before either. That’s why it’s a mystery.

     If that picture isn’t from around here, then where is it from and why has it been left here? Is it an accident or is there another reason? That’s what I want to know. I decided to start my search where it all begins. Maybe Jasper isn’t telling his father the truth about the picture for some reason? What that reason is, if there is one, I don’t know yet.

     At thirty-two, Jasper and his friends are about half my age. If I’m going to get anything out of them I need to know more about them. So, I head for the newspaper archives to see what I can find out about teenagers today. Then I go to the local library to do the same thing.

     After I get done at the library, it’s about time for the High School to be let out for today. I get there just as the students are leaving. Spotting Jasper and three of his friends I approach them. “Jasper Thomas. Can I talk to you for a minute?”

     Jasper and his friends stopped talking and walking to face me. “What do you want?”

     “You don’t need to get mad,” says Victoria is a calm voice. “I just want to talk to you.”

     “Sorry, I didn’t mean for it to sound like that. I’m just upset about a surprise test today. I shouldn’t have taken it out on you.”

     Jasper continues a few seconds later. “You work for my father, don’t you? Did he send you here to drill me too because of that picture I found?”

     “Your father didn’t send me. I don’t think he even knows I am here. He did ask me to do a story on the picture, though.”

     I show Jasper the picture again. “Have you ever seen this picture before? Do you know why it was left in your car?”

     “No to both questions. Until today, I have never seen that picture before and I don’t know how it got in my car.”

     “Do any of the rest of you know anything about this it?” Victoria shows the picture to each one of them. They all shake their heads ‘no’ when I show it to them.

     I return to Jasper. “Is it true your car was locked when the picture appeared? Do you have any idea how it got in there?”

     Jasper looks at his friends. They all nod there heads ‘yes’ at different speeds. “How do I know I can trust you. After all, you do work for my father and a newspaper.”

     “Can I trust you? I don’t know why I should trust you, but I think that I can. I’ll tell you the truth if you keep it from my father and out of your story.”

     “Can’t promise you I can keep it out of my story, but I can from your father. I can guarantee you that I’ll do whatever I can do to keep it out of my story too.”

     I smile. “It all depends on what you have to tell me. What don’t you want your father to know about?”

     It looks like Jasper has changed his mind about talking to me. He turns and starts to walk away. His friends quickly turn him around and push him toward me. “I lied to him about that picture I found.”

     “Not the picture itself. I did find it in my car. Only my car wasn’t locked. If my father finds out about that again, he will take away my driving privileges. Please don’t tell him about that in your story.”

     “I think I can do that. It doesn’t sound like something that I need to put in my story, or to tell your father.”

     Jasper looks relieved. “I do have one other question for you and your friends. Did you also lie about knowing something about this picture?”

     It turns out that isn’t the last question I have for Jasper and his friends after all. I ask them one more. “Maybe you saw it somewhere else?”

     “You might have seen it in one of the towns nearby. I know you kids, I mean teenagers, go to them because there is more to do in them than there is here.”

     Jasper and his friends start mumbling with each other. I cock my head toward them to try to hear what they are talking about, but I can’t hear them. A few words do escape their lips that I can understand. After a couple of minutes of mumbling, Jasper turns toward me again.

     “None of us have seen it anywhere else either. If it is somewhere nearby, we haven’t seen it.”

     “No, I didn’t think that you have, but I was hoping I was wrong.” I sigh. “Thanks for all your help. I guess I will have to find the answers to this picture somewhere else.”

     Jasper looks at his friends, then back at Victoria. “Sorry, we couldn’t help you more. What are you going to do now?”

     “I’m not sure what about that. I guess I will just drive around and think about it. Maybe I’ll check out some of the woods around here. Who knows, maybe I’ll get lucky and I will find my picture.”

     Before Jasper or his friends can say anything, I go back to my car. I sigh as I drive away from the High School. At first, I just drive around Rivertown for a little bit. Going down every street at least once. I’m about to turn down another street when I see some woods a few streets beyond. I might as well start checking them out too.

     I go to those woods, parks my car in the parking lot next to them, and walks through them. Those woods aren’t the ones in the picture. Neither are the next two I check out. I’m almost to another forest when my cell phone begins to ring. After I do a quick glance at it on the passenger seat next to me that I see it’s from my friend at the library. I pull over to the side of the road before I answer it.

     “Hello… What… You have found something about my picture… I’ll be right there.”

     Turning my car at the next intersection into a very tight U-turn, I head back to the library. I sigh as I finally find a place to park a million miles from it. Why are there so many people at the library today? Once inside, Victoria heads to her friend in research.

     “What have you found?” I ask.

     “Hello to you too,” says Robert. “First, you don’t say good-bye and now this.”

     I smile. “Sorry about that. I’m just a little bit excited about what you told me. Hello, Robert.”

     “You said you found something about my picture. What is it that you have found?”

     Robert taps a few keys on his keyboard to bring up the same picture that I have. Only this one has a newspaper article under it. “Come to see for yourself.”

     I walk behind Robert to look at what he has brought up on his computer as he continues talking. “We were wrong about this picture. It has shown up before.”

     “Did you see the date on this newspaper?” Robert points at his computer. “It’s almost a hundred years to the day. In fact, it came out on November the first. 1918.”

     “Every hundred years what is in this picture reappears. It’s not here for very long, but when it disappears it takes about fifty teenagers with it.”

     I reach down and zooms in on the article. Mumbling to myself as I read it. “According to this article this happens every hundred years, and it’s been doing it for at least five thousand years.”

     “How is that possible? Rivertown has only been here for about a hundred and seventy years.”

     “Keep reading. It explains that later.

     I continue reading. Suddenly, I look shocked. “No wonder no one can remember this picture.”

     Still mumbling I continue reading only to stop about a minute later. “According to this article, this picture either comes from the future or another dimension. Either way, there is a time difference between us and them.”

     “For every hundred years for us, it’s only one year for them. Which means they have been coming back here every year for the last fifty years. We just don’t see them each year.”

     I suddenly stop my reading. “We only have a few more days until Halloween. That’s when it appears and takes our teenagers. This picture is an invitation to them of some kind.”

     The police are no help when I go to them with what I know. All the families of teenagers don’t think it’s a threat either. So, I use my newspaper to get the word out. Even that doesn’t help much. The only other thing I can think of to do is use my contacts and informants to keep an eye on every teenage in Rivertown.

     On Halloween just after sunset, the picture appears. Only it’s not in the woods. It’s in a large once vacant lot. In other words, it’s a new forest toward the center of town. Even before sunset, the kids started going Trick or Treating. That included all the teenagers.

     Only after the picture appears do the cops get involved. They surround those woods, and they keep most of the teenagers from going in there. About fifty teenagers do sneak past the cops, though. Not only have the cops responded to the possible threat, but they all have cameras on them to catch any teenagers that have gotten in there.

     I’m watching the camera footage right now. That’s how I know how many teenagers have entered that forest. I stop the recordings on several of the teenagers who have my picture in their hands. “Jasper isn’t the only one who has gotten a picture like this. He’s just the only one I know about.”

     A few minutes after I start watching the cameras, I saw the new forest disappear again. I sigh. “Hopefully, my news story will stop this from happening again in another hundred years.”

Word Count = 1,989