He shivered as a tingle of fear shot down his spine, but there was something exciting about it. It was exhilarating as well as frightening, and that extra rush of adrenaline gave him the courage to walk across the last few feet of ground and up to the bathhouse.
He stood in the doorway, aimed the camera. It was too dark inside the building for him to see anything—the scene in the viewfinder was completely black—but he pointed the camera toward where he knew the shadow of the man was and pressed the shutter. There was a blinding overwhelming strobe of light, then darkness once again.
He stepped back. He thought he’d seen something in the flash. Movement. It had been quick, almost too quick to see, but it had been there. He was sure of it. A quick-silver flow of shadow from one place to another.
Heart pounding, he leaned forward, took another picture.
Again, movement.
Movement and flesh.
Yes. This time he’d seen skin. Someone naked, sitting on a bench.
Someone waiting for a steam bath.
He should run, he thought, leave, get the hell out of here. It would take only a few seconds to reach his bike, then he’d be gone, speeding away. He already had two pictures. He’d gotten what he came for.
But he had to know what was in there. He could not leave without seeing this through.
This’ll make a great story at school, a foolishly brave part of him thought.
It gave him the strength to go on.
He took another picture.
Once more, something was illuminated by the flash. Something he could not see on his own. The scene was more complicated this time, and he had the impression that there were several people in there.
People?
No. Not people.
It was completely silent in the bathhouse, and the phrase “the silence of the grave” popped into his mind. He didn’t know where he’d heard it before, but he backed slowly away from the door, peering into the darkness, trying desperately to make out any shapes inside the room, but the light seemed to die immediately after crossing the threshold, and nothing could be made out.
He wanted to take one more photo, give it one last shot, but this time he stayed away from the door and pointed the camera in the general direction, not bothering to look through the viewfinder.
He saw flesh and shadows, movement more fluid than anything on this earth, and, overseeing everything, on the back wall, the figure of the Russian man.
He ran.
He’d reached the end of the film anyway, and the camera’s automatic rewind was whirring. Several long strides brought him to the paloverde tree against which he’d leaned his bike. He hopped on it and took off, not looking back.
I got it! he thought as he pedaled furiously, leaping the ruts and holes in the path. I got it!
He did not slow down until he was off Adam’s road and downtown. He took the film out of the camera and dropped it off at the 1-Hour Photo next to the video store.
He went back home and put the camera away, turning on the television and watching Scooby Doo, trying desperately not to think of what he’d seen and waiting in vain for his fear-accelerated heart rate to slow.
After an hour that seemed like a day and a series of cartoons that seemed to make no linear sense, Scott raided the sock drawer where his dad stored the loose change he collected, snagged five dollars’ worth of quarters, and hoping that would be enough, took off on his bike for the 1-Hour Photo.
He waited until he was outside the store and alone on the sidewalk before ripping open the package and sorting through the pictures. Disneyland… Disneyland… Disneyland… the beach…
The bathhouse.
He stopped, looked at the photo.
The picture began to slide through his suddenly sweaty fingers, but he gripped it tighter as he stared at a scene that did not exist. He recognized the door frame at the top of the photograph, but inside he saw neither the abandoned, neglected wreck that Adam had taken them through nor the creepy world of moving shadows that he’d almost seen in the flash illumination.
He saw a bunch of fat old people sitting naked on benches.
It was nothing he had expected, and he flipped to the next photograph.
Same thing.
The next.
The same.
He frowned at the last picture. The creepy ambiguity of the half-illuminated flash scene was nowhere in evidence. There was nothing remotely mysterious about the shot. About any of them. The scene was clear and well lit—two fat old couples, the men with towels around their waists, the women with towels around their waists and upper bodies. They were all sweating, though the photos showed no steam, and they appeared to be tired, the two women leaning back, eyes closed, the men leaning forward, with grimaces of discomfort on their faces. The back wall, he noticed, was clear. No ghostly shadow.
Maybe these people were ghosts.
Maybe. But somehow that didn’t seem right. They seemed too… real. These people were not spirits. They were flesh and blood. He could see the ugly mole on one man’s thigh, the sagging arm muscles of the heavier woman. It was too concrete, this scene, too specific. It was as if he had taken a photograph of a real event—only that event had not been the one before the camera in real life.
What had happened?
He’d taken pictures of the past!
It was the only logical explanation, and he quickly sorted through the bathhouse photos once again. He saw now the anachronistic hairdos and somehow old-timey faces of the women, the way the men looked more foreign than any Molokan he’d ever seen.
These were not just pictures of a spooky shadow. This was a miracle. These photos were worth way more than he’d ever hoped they could be. He shoved them back into the package and hopped on his bike, pedaling straight home. He was no longer scared. He was excited, tremendously excited, more excited than he had ever been in his life, and the first thing he did was immediately call Adam, but though he let the phone ring twenty times, no one answered.
Could they repeat this? he wondered. If they took more pictures of the inside of the bathhouse, would they get other scenes of other people, other times? He was eager to try it out, and he picked up the package and opened it up again, taking out the photos.
They were different.
His heart jumped, and he suddenly felt like he was back at the bathhouse, the fear in him so strong it was almost overpowering.
The people were seated in different spots, facing different directions. They were the same fat old men and women, but whereas before they’d been sitting together like husband and wife, now the two men were seated next to each other and the two women were on the opposite bench.
One of the women was smiling into the camera.
She no longer had a towel on.
He could see everything and it was gross. She was hairy and disgusting, and there were rolls of fat hanging down almost everywhere.
He dropped the photos, scared.
Even on the floor, the pictures creeped him out. All but one of the bathhouse photos had fallen facedown, but in that one he could still see the old lady’s inappropriate smile. He backed away from them.
He was still clutching the package, and on impulse he opened it and pulled out the negatives, searching quickly through them.
The ones from the bathhouse were blank.
He was having a hard time catching his breath. Something was going on here that he did not understand but that frightened him to the core. The near-euphoria he’d experienced only moments before at his discovery had curdled into terror, and he wanted nothing more than to be through with all this, to be safe and secure back in his normal old life. He would give up money and fame forever if he could just get rid of these pictures.
He considered leaving them where they were and letting his dad take care of them when he came home, but he knew he could not do that. He wanted to protect his parents from this. He did not want them to know anything about it. He wanted to keep it from Adam and Dan, too. He didn’t want anyone to know about what had happened.