بگو سیب و بمیر فصل 16

Say Cheese and Die! - Chapter 16

“Yeah. I know Bird’s okay,” Greg said into the phone receiver. “I saw him yesterday, remember? He was lucky. Real lucky. He didn’t have a concussion or anything.”

On the other end of the line—in the house next door—Shari agreed, then repeated her request.

“No, Shari. I really don’t want to,” Greg replied vehemently.

“Bring it,” Shari demanded. “It’s my birthday.”

“I don’t want to bring the camera. It’s not a good idea. Really,” Greg told her.

It was the next weekend. Saturday afternoon. Greg had been nearly out the door, on his way to Shari’s birthday party, when the phone rang.

“Hi, Greg. Why aren’t you on your way to my party?” Shari had asked when he’d run to pick up the receiver.

“Because I’m on the phone with you,” Greg had replied drily.

“Well, bring the camera, okay?”

Greg hadn’t looked at the camera, hadn’t removed it from its hiding place since his father’s accident.

“I don’t want to bring it,” he insisted, despite Shari’s high-pitched demands. “Don’t you understand, Shari? I don’t want anyone else to get hurt.”

“Oh, Greg,” she said, talking to him as if he were a three-year-old. “You don’t really believe that, do you? You don’t really believe that camera can hurt people.”

Greg was silent for a moment. “I don’t know what I believe,” he said finally. “I only know that first, Michael, then, Bird—”

Greg swallowed hard. “And I had a dream, Shari. Last night.”

“Huh? What kind of dream?” Shari asked impatiently.

“It was about the camera. I was taking everyone’s picture. My whole family—Mom, Dad, and Terry. They were barbecuing. In the backyard. I held up the camera. I kept saying, ‘Say cheese, say cheese,’ over and over. And when I looked through the viewfinder, they were smiling back at me—but… they were skeletons. All of them. Their skin was gone, and—and…”

Greg’s voice trailed off.

“What a dumb dream,” Shari said, laughing.

“But that’s why I don’t want to bring the camera,” Greg insisted. “I think—”

“Bring it, Greg,” she interrupted. “It’s not your camera, you know. All four of us were in the Coffman house. It belongs to all four of us. Bring it.”

“But why, Shari?” Greg demanded.

“It’ll be a goof, that’s all. It takes such weird pictures.”

“That’s for sure,” Greg muttered.

“We don’t have anything else to do for my party,” Shari told him. “I wanted to rent a video, but my mom says we have to go outdoors. She doesn’t want her precious house messed up. So I thought we could take everyone’s picture with the weird camera. You know. See what strange things come out.”

“Shari, I really don’t—”

“Bring it,” she ordered. And hung up.

Greg stood for a long time staring at the phone receiver, thinking hard, trying to decide what to do.

Then he replaced the receiver and headed reluctantly up to his room.

With a loud sigh, he pulled the camera from its hiding place in his headboard. “It’s Shari’s birthday, after all,” he said aloud to himself.

His hands were trembling as he picked it up. He realized he was afraid of it.

I shouldn’t be doing this, he thought, feeling a heavy knot of dread in the pit of his stomach.

I know I shouldn’t be doing this.