Authors: Darcy Coates
Ghost Camera (8 page)
Bree didn’t see. Couldn’t see. Kept driving.
“No,” Jenine choked. “Stop.”
If anything, Bree pressed harder on the accelerator.
Jenine felt as if time were playing in slow motion. The car got closer to the woman, then closer, too close for Bree to stop even if she had wanted to, and at the last second, Bree saw her. She let out a shriek, applied the brake and swerved. The car clipped the ghost, sending it bouncing off the bonnet and pavement in a way that made Jenine recoil as though it had been a real person. Then the car hit the railing and barrelled through it, and they were falling down the side of the mountain.
The next few moments were all motion, noise, blinding pain and a light that refused to stop. Bree screamed but was abruptly cut off. Jenine tried to lift her hands to protect her face but found she could barely move them. Her seatbelt locked and jerked her body back with it, whipping her head forward and sending bright light shooting across her vision. Pain sliced into her face and arms as the windshield shattered. Tree branches, dirt and underbrush poured into the car.
After a final, agonizing jolt, the motion stopped. The car was tipped at an angle, nearly on its side, wheels stuck in the brush of the side of the mountain. Jenine’s door was jammed against the tree that had stopped the car’s descent.
Jenine gasped, trying to draw breath into her burning lungs. Tears mingled with the sweat coursing down her face.
“Bree,” she whispered, trying to turn her head against the strain of gravity. “Bree?”
No answer. She managed to twist her head around far enough to see Bree slumped in her seat, as loose as a ragdoll. Blood dripped from the tip of her nose and landed on the clutch.
“Bree!”
She didn’t respond. Jenine tried to unhook her seatbelt or reach across to feel for her friend’s pulse, but her muscles had stopped obeying her commands. Slowly, gruellingly, against her will, her head flopped back down to rest against the strained seatbelt.
Each inhale felt like lifting a weight, and the more she did it, the weaker her muscles became.
Then she saw the camera. Bree had put it back in the car, after all; she’d probably hidden it in the backseat somewhere, and it had been thrown forward during the crash. It balanced precariously on the dash beside the crushed windshield. Beyond it, a shape was moving.
A pale, ghostly being was picking its way through the underbrush towards her. She tried, and failed, to close her eyes. She didn’t want to watch it as it came for her, but her muscles refused her bidding. Her eyelids stayed open, her body stayed still, and for a moment, she thought she wasn’t going to be able to breathe, but then she managed a thin drag of air.
As the ghost stretched its hand through the windshield, reaching towards her, she saw that it was the little boy who’d owned the camera. He extended a long and slender finger, but stopped just short of grazing her skin.
Her pain was fading as darkness began to creep into the edge of her vision. The boy looked down at the camera. He picked it up, examining it like a child inspecting a lost toy. Then he looked back at Jenine. He placed his fingers into the crevices around the lens and strained. There was a pop and a crackle, and the camera broke into three pieces.
Jenine felt as if a heavy cloth had been lifted from her body. She suddenly had energy again—not much, but enough to draw in a deep, long, hungry gasp of air. The motion jarred her body and pain returned in waves, washing over her and making her writhe. It wasn’t the sluggish, cold pain, though; it was sharp and bright and told her that she was very much alive.
The boy only glanced at her briefly before returning to his work on the camera. Bit by bit, he picked it apart, pulling out the blank film, smashing the lenses, pulling chips of plastic off the case and emptying the insides. With each snap and break he became fainter, until he faded to just a pale outline, a hint of a person. Then he dropped the camera and was gone.
Jenine lay in shock. Pain roared through her, jarring her neck, head, and ribs, making her whimper. Voices reached her, floating down from the road far above, then she heard a siren. She blacked out just as the first rescue worker reached Bree’s car.
Carrying a bouquet of vivid-red tulips, Jenine entered the hospital room and approached Bree’s bed. It was a quiet Tuesday afternoon, just after lunch, and warm sunlight dripped through the window. Travis was sleeping in a chair next to Bree, snoring quietly. Jenine stepped closer and cleared her throat.
“Did you bring me chocolates?” Bree asked, not even bothering to look up from her laptop.
Jenine shuffled her feet. “Um. No. Flowers.”
“Dammit, Jenny.” Bree rolled her eyes in an exaggerated fashion. “Honestly, I don’t know what goes through your head sometimes. I’m a florist. Bringing me flowers is like giving an Eskimo a snow cone.”
Jenine flushed bright red. “Sorry.”
Bree glanced up from her laptop long enough to flash a wicked smile. “I’m kidding with you, babe. I love them. Put ’em in a vase somewhere and pull up a seat.”
Stepping around Travis, careful not to wake him, Jenine found a vase in one of the cupboards and filled it with water from the sink. “How are you feeling?”
“Looking forward to getting this thing off.” Bree tapped her neck brace. “Doubly so for the leg cast. But the docs say I’ll make a full recovery. How about you?”
Jenine sat down. “The cuts are healing okay. They say I’ll have some scars, but nothing major.”
Bree closed her laptop with a click. It was the first time they’d been able to talk privately since the accident, so Bree’s next question wasn’t a surprise to Jenine. “What happened? I’m guessing that, since you’re still here, things are… okay?”
“Seem to be.” Jenine rubbed her arm, where the marks from the ghost’s teeth were still fading. She briefly explained what had happened after the car crashed, ending with, “And he just disappeared. I haven’t seen or heard any ghosts since, so whatever he did, it must have broken the curse.”
Bree chewed her lip. “Richard said he’d tried breaking a camera, though. It didn’t work.”
“I guess it did this time,” Jenine said. “I think it was because a ghost did it. Like he could break parts of it, the parts that belonged to the ghosts’ realm, that we couldn’t.”
“Why do you think he did it?”
“I can guess,” Jenine said. “He owned the camera when he was alive. He was chased, or pushed, from the top of the lighthouse by the ghosts that were attracted to him. I think he was afraid of the other spirits, or he didn’t like them. That’s why he hid all the time. But he followed me and broke the camera… maybe because he didn’t want the same thing happening to us.”
Bree looked away to gaze out the window. “I guess that makes sense.”
“I wish I could thank him,” Jenine said. “He saved us.”
“Wish he could have saved us a bit sooner,” Bree grumbled. She started suddenly. “Oh, damn, I completely forgot. How’s Richard? Any news?”
“Yeah, he got out of ICU this morning. I went to visit him. He asked you to stop sending flowers. He says he’s in danger of drowning in them.”
Bree grinned. “Oh, good. I asked Nina to send everything we could spare. We owe him big time.”
Jenine nodded in agreement. She would guarantee Richard a lifetime of free legal advice, at the very least.
Travis snorted and shifted in his sleep.
Jenine jabbed a thumb in his direction. “What about—”
“Jerkface? We’re back together.” Bree had a smug, self-congratulatory tone in her voice. “You should have heard him. Couldn’t stop apologising. I’ve got him whipped, poor dove.”
A smile slid across Jenine’s face. “I’m happy.”
“Yeah, so am I. I’m not a fan of the bed rest, but damn if I haven’t had a chance to sort my inventory out.”
Jenine laughed and leaned on the edge of the bed to talk and joke with Bree. Travis’s snoring created a gentle backdrop as they discussed ribbons, their pasts and their futures.
Unseen by the women, the small boy stood at the back of the room, bronze hair drifting about his head as his vacant eyes watched the scene. His slack lips twitched into a smile as he closed his eyes, allowing himself to evaporate into a cloud of invisible dust.
The End
Author’s Note
Hello, gorgeous reader! I hope you enjoyed this story.
Reviews are invaluable for helping new readers find my books. Please consider leaving one on Amazon if you have a moment:
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Looking for something new to read? You can find a complete list of my stories at my Amazon author page:
www.amazon.com/author/darcycoates
Or keep reading for links to some of my favourite stories.
And don’t forget to visit my website for a free short story collection, Eight to Midnight:
www.candlebreak.com
Much love,
Darcy Coates
If you liked Ghost Camera, you’ll love…
The Haunting of Gillespie House
Elle can’t believe her luck; she’s spending a month house-sitting the beautiful Gillespie property. Hidden near the edge of the woods and an hour’s drive from the nearest town, its dark rooms and rich furniture entice her to explore its secrets. There’s even a graveyard hidden behind the house, filled with tombstones that bear an identical year of death.
If only the scratching in the walls would be quiet…
The house’s dark and deadly history quickly becomes tangled with Elle’s life. At the centre of it is Jonathan Gillespie, the tyrannical cult leader and original owner of the house. As Elle soon learns - just because he’s dead, doesn’t mean he’s gone.
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Quarter to Midnight contains nine chilling short stories by award-winning horror author Darcy Coates, including…
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Sub Basement:
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The Mannequin
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Well, nearly perfect.
There’s a mannequin hidden behind some old boxes that gives him the creeps. Sometimes it throws its dust cloth off. Sometimes he feels it watching him when his back is turned. And sometimes it moves while he’s asleep…
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