The Haunted Camera

Thanksgiving Day, Thursday, November 25

Alone, alone, John Starlight retreated into his fortress. Another gray Thanksgiving Day. His forty-seventh on earth to be exact. His fortress, the Mansion, had seen one hundred and sixteen Thanksgivings, its occupants for the most part as lonely and out of place as the current owner.

John walked slowly up to the Mansion’s third floor; originally designed as a ballroom its expanse now housed his collection of photographic equipment ranging from primitive, to antique, to collectable, to state of the art. He picked up the reel of 16 mm. movie film, he knew it had to be old. Part of his hobby, now his life, included collecting pre-1950 home movies.

When he started his 1930s vintage movie projector the silent pictures of yet another family party took him back several decades away from his loneliness. He settled back in his viewing chair. A pleasant family scene, it might have been his own grandparents’. A dozen similar ones resided in his collection and in none of them did he know a single person, or place, or date. Ah! Surprise guests at the party. Nice. Two men in funny masks entered the room.

John’s eyes focused on the screen. Something wrong. The people at the party, the expression on their faces changed from amusement to shock. The camera turned toward the door through which the men had just entered. They pull firearms out from under their topcoats and are shooting at the people in the party. John can almost hear the cries and screams even though the voices have been silent for over six decades. Now the camera tilts and jumps, reflecting the shock of the person holding the camera. Bodies fell to the floor writhing, then still. When the last foot of film had traveled through the projector John ran to the bathroom and threw up.

The day before, on Wednesday, November 24, at 4:15 p.m., John had paused a moment before he entered the store, "Fred Listman’s Cameras, New and Used," on Oak Street. If he listened to himself better he would have detected a premonition, a for-no-reason unease. Inside the store, Fred stood behind the counter. "Hi John," he said. "Good thing we decided to sent this out to the lab. Some of the chemicals had reacted a bit to time, and they could adjust for it."

"I knew I shouldn’t touch it myself. Did the film come out OK?"

Fred nodded. "That’s a nice camera you brought yourself. Kodak made that model in the late twenties. Great set of lenses and filters. Fast film too, for those days." Fred took a brown envelope from a file drawer, removed a reel of movie film, and handed it to John. "The processor checked out the first few frames. They came out fine, clearer than a VCR by far."

John said, "I’m phasing out of home movies but I couldn’t resist that old Kodak. Then, when I opened it and saw the reel of exposed film, I couldn’t resist that either."

"Well, have fun," Fred said. "I’m going to close now. Waited for you. Nobody’ll be along today."

"Thanks, Fred. Have a nice Thanksgiving."

"You got company"? Fred asked.

John shrugged, "Who’d it be?" He turned to leave. "Put that on the tab, Fred."

"Course," Fred sighed as he watched his best and many days his only customer walk out the door. Who but John, he thought, would pay forty dollars to develop a seventy-year old film?