Harrows blinked in surprise at the flash.
Marks tore the photo from the camera and began shaking it in the air. He smiled a thin, sickly smile at Harrows. “Well, we’ll know in a moment.”
They stood facing each other as Marks fanned the print. When he stopped and turned it over, they both glanced down. Harrows blinked again.
“He’s gone.”
Marks nodded glumly. “So he is.”
“Why, that’s good.” Harrows said in a muted tone. “I think that’s good. Do I have you to thank for this?”
Marks nodded again. “I am afraid so. Thank you, Mr. Harrows. I don’t think I’ll have to trouble you again.”
He squinted at Marks, who just stood there carelessly, numb. “Mr. Marks, what’s wrong?”
Marks shook himself. “Nothing, Mr. Harrows. I’ll bid you good night. I would tell you to keep my number and call me if you need anything else, but I somehow doubt I’ll be around much longer. Keep the camera.”
“Mr. Marks?”
Marks turned and let himself out. Harrows called after him one last time but did not follow.
MARKS headed toward the nearest bar he knew, feeling rusty inside. Half a block away, he noted a convenience store and turned for it impulsively. Inside he bought a pint bottle of bourbon and another thing of film, which he unwrapped while standing there before the bemused, dark-skinned man behind the register. He loaded the film and held the camera up to his eye, stretching a grin across his face.
“Smile!” he hissed. Startled, the dark-skinned man flashed a brief grin. Marks captured it with a bright flash. A motor whirred. A gummy print erupted from the front of the camera. Marks flapped it in the air and then studied it eagerly. His skeletal grin faded.
“Thanks,” he muttered, handing the print to the puzzled man. “I’ll need more film. As many packs as you have.”
Marks made his way up and down the streets, a stiff, permanent smile fixed to his face. He stopped everyone he saw and repeated the same pitch to them:
“Excuse me, let me take your picture? It’s a public service, and it’s free. A few seconds, and you can keep it if you like it.”
Most of the people he approached allowed him to photograph them and posed awkwardly, cheerfully. Marks would snap the photo with a minimum of fuss, would shake the photo out recklessly, would glance at it, and would hand it to his subject wordlessly, his smile more brittle each time, and would move on wordlessly.
He did this hundreds of times, wandering the streets randomly, moving rapidly from person to person. After several hours of this, his voice was rough and cracked, his gait was shuffling, but he persisted, often bullying people into allowing him to photograph them.
At four in the morning there weren’t many people left on the quieted streets, and Marks finally allowed himself to lean against a parked car, slumping in exhaustion.
“Who knows? Could be anything,” he muttered to himself. “No rhyme or reason. None that we would understand.”
He shook his head, trying to clear it. He worked his stiff hands, clawed from clutching the camera.
“Who knows why? Bad luck. Been doing this stuff for too long.”
“Move it on, buddy.”
Marks glanced up sharply and found a uniformed policeman standing across from him, pointing his club at Marks’s chest.
“What?”
The cop waved the club up the sidewalk. “Move it on home, pal. Had a good time, and now you can go sleep it off.”
Marks stared at the cop as if he didn’t understand.
“Now, pal.”
From somewhere, Marks produced a smile, palsied and faint. He held the camera up to his eye and squinted. The cop’s stern face resolved in the lens.
“Just a photo before I go, please.”
The cop frowned sourly when Marks pressed the button and the flash went off tiredly. Marks held up a placating hand as he plucked the print from the camera and began waving it in the air.
“I’ll go. I swear, Officer. And I’ll give you the photo. It’s just a hobby.”
Eagerly, he peered down at the picture. Stood still for a moment, and then slumped back against the car, his eyes closed.
The policeman took a hesitant half step forward. “You okay, buddy?”
Marks opened his eyes and smiled an easy, happy, glintingly predatory grin. The cop blinked in the face of its hard, bright cheeriness.
“I’m fine now, Officer. You have a good night.” Marks pushed away from the car and paused to study the cop for a moment. “Enjoy it.”
Whistling, he turned and walked away.
The Bedroom Door by Elaine Viets
“I saw your partner Angela in my bedroom door,” Grandma said.
“Angela, my interior design partner?” I asked. “That Angela?”
“The skinny one with the red hair,” Grandma said.
“Damn. She’s a good partner,” I said. “I’ll hate to lose her. She’s going to be dead in three days.”
A shrill scream split the air, and I jumped. Then I realized it was the teakettle boiling on Grandma’s Magic Chef stove. She dropped two tea bags in a blue pot, poured in boiling water, and cut me a slab of homemade apple pie.
That gave me time to recover. I’d blurted something horribly selfish. Angela was going to die, and my first thought was how it would inconvenience me.
“I wanted to warn you in case something happened,” Grandma said.
Something bad.
My grandmother had the “second sight,” but it wasn’t a gift anyone would want. She couldn’t say, “Sell your stock this afternoon. The market’s going to tank.” Grandma saw only misery with her second sight.
The doorway to Grandma’s bedroom was a portal to the other side. For ten years, people had appeared in Grandma’s bedroom doorway three days before they died. Some were friends, some were family, but all had a connection to Grandma.
The soon to be dead showed themselves at night bathed in warm light, while Grandma shook and shivered under her chenille spread. They never appeared when she took an afternoon nap or had a sick headache. They never said anything. They were just there, and then they weren’t.
I asked the crucial question. “What was Angela wearing?”
The dead in the doorway always wore whatever they had on when they passed to the other side.
“Not a stitch,” Grandma said, disapproval in her voice. “And let me tell you, she’s not a natural redhead.”
“She’s not a natural anything, Grandma. Angela puts on heels and a suit to take out the trash. This is good pie.”
“Thanks,” Grandma said. “I put up the apples last fall.”
“If you saw Angela naked, maybe she had a heart attack in the shower,” I said.
“I don’t think so,” Grandma said. “I saw your aunt Tillie when she had her stroke in the bathtub. Her hair was wet, and she clutched a bar of Palmolive soap. Tillie was my own sister, but that woman had serious cellulite. Angela was perfectly dry and looked like she’d just gotten out of bed. Her hair was mussed and her lipstick was smeared.”
“Maybe I should say something to her,” I said, taking another bite of pie.
“No!” Grandma said. “You can’t! Remember Bill.”
Her favorite brother had shown up in Grandma’s doorway wearing a green hospital gown. Grandma was so upset, she called Bill at two in the morning about her deadly vision and scared the stuffing out of the man. When Bill had chest pains three days later, he refused to go to the hospital. By the time he collapsed and was taken to St. Mary’s by ambulance, it was too late. Bill died in the ER wearing a hospital gown.
Grandma swore she’d never say anything to anyone again. She kept silent when my father showed up in her doorway minus his head and his wedding ring. Grandma never liked Dad. She knew he cheated on her daughter. Heck, the whole neighborhood knew. Mom always forgave my father and took him back. Grandma thought her daughter would be better off without him. Three days later, when Dad was supposed to be at work, an irate husband blew away my father’s head with a shotgun as he slipped out of a hot-sheet motel. The errant wife locked herself in the bathroom and survived.