بگو سیب و بمیر فصل 29

Say Cheese and Die! - Chapter 29

Greg blinked and shook his head, as if he could shake away the image of the figure that stared darkly down at him.

“No!” Shari cried out, and fell back against Greg.

He grabbed for the railing, forgetting that it had fallen under Michael’s weight during their first unfortunate visit to the house. Luckily, Shari regained her balance before toppling them both down the stairs.

Lightning flashed behind them, sending a flash of white light across the stairway. But the unmoving figure on the landing above them remained shrouded in darkness.

“Let us go!” Greg finally managed to cry, finding his voice.

“Yeah. We returned your camera!” Shari added, sounding shrill and frightened.

Spidey didn’t reply. Instead, he took a step toward them, onto the first step. And then he descended another step.

Nearly stumbling again, Greg and Shari backed down to the basement floor.

The wooden stairs squeaked in protest as the dark figure stepped slowly, steadily, down. As he reached the basement floor, a crackling bolt of lightning cast a blue light over him, and Greg and Shari saw his face for the first time.

In the brief flash of color, they saw that he was old, older than they had imagined. That his eyes were small and round like dark marbles. That his mouth was small, too, pursed in a tight, menacing grimace.

“We returned the camera,” Shari said, staring in fear as Spidey crept closer. “Can’t we go now? Please?”

“Let me see,” Spidey said. His voice was younger than his face, warmer than his eyes. “Come.”

They hesitated. But he gave them no choice.

Ushering them back across the cluttered floor to the worktable, he wrapped his large, spidery hand over the vise and turned the handle. The door opened. He pulled out the camera and held it close to his face to examine it.

“You shouldn’t have taken it,” he told them, speaking softly, turning the camera in his hands.

“We’re sorry,” Shari said quickly.

“Can we go now?” Greg asked, edging toward the stairs.

“It’s not an ordinary camera,” Spidey said, raising his small eyes to them.

“We know,” Greg blurted out. “The pictures it took. They—”

Spidey’s eyes grew wide, his expression angry. “You took pictures with it?”

“Just a few,” Greg told him, wishing he had kept his mouth shut. “They didn’t come out. Really.”

“You know about the camera, then,” Spidey said, moving quickly to the center of the floor.

Was he trying to block their escape? Greg wondered.

“It’s broken or something,” Greg said uncertainly, shoving his hands into his jeans pockets.

“It’s not broken,” the tall, dark figure said softly. “It’s evil.” He motioned toward the low plywood table. “Sit there.”

Shari and Greg exchanged glances. Then, reluctantly, they sat down on the edge of the board, sitting stiffly, nervously, their eyes darting toward the stairway, toward escape.

“The camera is evil,” Spidey repeated, standing over them, holding the camera in both hands. “I should know. I helped to create it.”

“You’re an inventor?” Greg asked, glancing at Shari, who was nervously tugging at a strand of her black hair.

“I’m a scientist,” Spidey replied. “Or, I should say, I was a scientist. My name is Fredericks. Dr. Fritz Fredericks.” He transferred the camera from one hand to the other. “My lab partner invented this camera. It was his pride and joy. More than that, it would have made him a fortune. Would have, I say.” He paused, a thoughtful expression sinking over his face.

“What happened to him? Did he die?” Shari asked, still fiddling with the strand of hair.

Dr. Fredericks snickered. “No. Worse. I stole the invention from him. I stole the plans and the camera. I was evil, you see. I was young and greedy. So very greedy. And I wasn’t above stealing to make my fortune.”

He paused, eyeing them both as if waiting for them to say something, to offer their disapproval of him, perhaps. But when Greg and Shari remained silent, staring up at him from the low plywood table, he continued his story.

“When I stole the camera, it caught my partner by surprise. Unfortunately, from then on, all of the surprises were mine.” A strange, sad smile twisted across his aged face. “My partner, you see, was much more evil than I was.”

Dr. Fredericks coughed into his hand, then began to pace in front of Greg and Shari as he talked, speaking softly, slowly, as if remembering the story for the first time in a long while.

“My partner was a true evil one. He dabbled in the dark arts. I should correct myself. He didn’t just dabble. He was quite a master of it all.”

He held up the camera, waving it above his head, then lowering it. “My partner put a curse on the camera. If he couldn’t profit from it, he wanted to make sure that I never would, either. And so he put a curse on it.”

He turned his gaze on Greg, leaning over him. “Do you know about how some primitive peoples fear the camera? They fear the camera because they believe that if it takes their picture, it will steal their soul.” He patted the camera. “Well, this camera really does steal souls.”

Staring up at the camera, Greg shuddered.

The camera had stolen Shari away.

Would it have stolen all of their souls?

“People have died because of this camera,” Dr. Fredericks said, uttering a slow, sad sigh. “People close to me. That is how I came to learn of the curse, to learn of the camera’s evil. And then I learned something just as frightening—the camera cannot be destroyed.”

He coughed, cleared his throat noisily, and began to pace in front of them again. “And so I vowed to keep the camera a secret. To keep it away from people so it cannot do its evil. I lost my job. My family. I lost everything because of it. But I am determined to keep the camera where it can do no harm.”

He stopped pacing, with his back toward them. He stood silently, shoulders hunched, lost in thought.

Greg quickly climbed to his feet and motioned for Shari to do the same. “Well… uh… I guess it’s good we returned it,” he said hesitantly. “Sorry we caused so much trouble.”

“Yeah, we’re very sorry,” Shari repeated sincerely. “Guess it’s back in the right hands.”

“Good-bye,” Greg said, starting toward the steps. “It’s getting late, and we—”

“No!” Dr. Fredericks shouted, startling them both. He moved quickly to block the way. “I’m afraid you can’t go. You know too much.”