Say Cheese - and Die Screaming! (3 page)

I rubbed the mosquito bite, thinking hard. The house was gone. But what about
the basement?

What about the basement workshop? I remembered it so well. I remembered the
worktable. And I remembered the hiding place in the wall above it. The small
compartment where the camera lay hidden away.

What about the basement?

Before I even realized it, my feet were carrying me up the hill. My sneakers
slid over the slick, tall grass. I inhaled the fresh dew. I kept my eyes locked
on the trembling silver trees.

I stepped around a pile of rusted nails and bolts. Jumped over a low stack of
rotted shingles. Shingles that had been pulled off the house.

Halfway up the lawn, I could see what else was left of the house. Wooden
doors stacked in a high pile. Broken glass over the ground. Window frames
leaning against a wall of rotting boards. Cracked shingles everywhere. A white
sink on its side against a tree. An old washtub resting beside it.

But what about the basement?

I crept closer. My legs suddenly felt heavy. My whole body felt heavy—as if
some invisible force were pushing me back, pushing me away.

A deep shadow ran along the ground behind the round, old oaks. At first
glance, I thought I was staring at a pool of water. A small lake.

But as I made my way closer, I saw that the deep shadow was a hole. A huge,
square pit in the ground.

The basement.

Nothing but a hole now.

I stopped at the edge, my body feeling even heavier. Heavy with
disappointment. I stopped and stared down into the deep hole.

The trees shut out most of the moonlight. With a trembling hand, I pulled out
my pocket flashlight and clicked it on. I aimed the narrow beam of yellow light
into the hole.

Empty down there. The light slid over the dirt. On one side, thick tree roots
poked into the open square.

I ran the light over the pit walls. Tangles of roots spread over the smooth,
black dirt.

Nothing left. The basement had been completely cleared out. Even the concrete
floor had been broken up and carted away.

And where was the camera?

Where?

Had someone found it? Pulled it out and kept it?

Or had it been crushed when the workers smashed the concrete? Crushed and
destroyed forever?

I moved the beam of light back and forth along the far wall. I’m not sure
what I expected to see.

Did I think I’d find the camera hidden in its square hole in the pit wall?
Did I think I would see it in a corner of the muddy floor?

The light swept over dirt and knots of tree roots.

Nothing else.

I clicked off the flashlight and shoved it into my pocket.

I turned away from the hole, side-stepping a pile of broken shingles.

A strong gust of wind made the old trees groan and creak. I barely noticed
the eerie sounds.

I’m going to get an
F,
I thought unhappily.

The camera is gone forever, and I’m going to get an
F.

My summer is ruined. And the other kids in class will never believe me. They
will laugh at me and click cameras at me forever.

I let out a long, glum sigh.

Angrily, I kicked a broken board out of my path and started down the lawn to
my bike.

I had taken four or five steps when a shrill voice yelled, “Caught you!
You’re not going anywhere!”

The high voice in the night air startled me. Without thinking, I started to
run. Then stopped.

I spun around, my heart heaving against my chest.

And saw a boy. About my age. He had picked up a board from the ground and
held it high, as if ready to swing it.

He wore a black sweatshirt over faded jeans, holes in both knees. His dark
hair was cut very short. He glared at me with dark, tense eyes.

“Dad—I caught him!” he shouted. He had a high, shrill voice that made him
sound like a little kid.

“Whoa. What do you mean?” I cried. “Caught me?”

“Don’t move,” he ordered me, raising the board higher. He took a step closer.
Then another. His eyes burned hard into mine.

“I wasn’t doing anything!” I told him. “I—I was just looking.”

As he stepped up to me, I saw his expression change. The anger faded from his
eyes. His mouth slid open.

“You—you’re not him!” he stammered.

“Huh? Who?” I cried. “I’m not who?”

“Hey—I’m sorry,” he said, shaking his head. “I thought you were someone
else.”

“Well… I’m
not
someone else!” I replied. “I’m me.”

“There’s a kid who lives down the block,” the boy explained, scratching his
dark crew cut. “He’s been sneaking over here at night and stealing stuff from
the yard.”

My eyes wandered over the cluttered lawn. “What was he stealing? There isn’t
much left.”

The boy nodded. He tossed away the board he planned to use as a weapon. It
clattered against a pile of boards beside me. “He was taking lumber and stuff. I
thought you were him.”

“Did your family buy the Coffman house?” I asked. Even though it was such a
cool, windy night, my forehead was all sweaty. I reached up and mopped the sweat
with the back of my hand.

“Yeah. We bought it,” he replied. “But Dad said the house was too wrecked to
fix up. So he had it torn down. We’re going to build a new house.”

The wind made the trees creak again. I glanced down to the street and saw the
back wheel of my bike spinning.

“People told us the Coffman house was haunted,” the boy said. “So I’m glad Dad tore it down.” He kicked at a
shingle on the ground. “My name is Jon. What’s yours?”

“Greg. I—I live down at the bottom of the hill. A few blocks past the
school.”

I gazed to where the house had stood. “My friends and I used to sneak into
the old house,” I told him. “You know. Just for fun. For excitement. I think it
was
haunted. Really.”

He narrowed his eyes at me, studying me. “What were you doing here?” he
demanded. “Why did you come up here tonight?”

I decided to tell him the truth. “I was looking for something,” I said. “A
camera.”

He scratched his short hair again. “An old camera?”

“Yes!” I cried excitedly. “An old camera. It was hidden down in the basement.
Did you see it?”

“Yeah,” Jon replied. “The men dug it up when they pulled out the basement.”

“Oh, wow!” I cried. I couldn’t hide my excitement. “Where is it, Jon? I mean—what did they do with it? Do you know where it is?”

He pointed over my shoulder toward the street. “Probably over there,” he
said. “I don’t think they emptied it yet.”

I spun around and saw a big Dumpster on the other side of the driveway. “They
threw it in there?” I demanded.

I didn’t wait for him to answer. I started running full speed through the tall weeds to the street. I stopped in front of
the big steel Dumpster. I could see all kinds of junk piled over the top.

“Is it okay to look for it?” I called back to Jon.

He came walking slowly down to me, hands shoved in his pockets. “Sure. Go
ahead. Why do you want a stupid old camera, anyway?”

I didn’t answer him. No time for answering questions.

I lifted both hands to the top of the Dumpster. It was pretty high. It took
me three tries to pull myself up and in.

A street lamp across the street cast a glow of dim yellow light over the
Dumpster. My eyes wandered quickly over the trash. All stuff from the basement,
I realized.

I saw rusted old tools from the workshop. Part of an ancient vacuum cleaner.
The spin cylinder from a dryer. Old clothes. Torn suitcases.

Is it here? I asked myself. Is the camera in here?

I pulled away a broken suitcase and tossed it aside. I grabbed stacks of old
magazines and shoved them out of the way.

I’m going to search every inch of this Dumpster till I find it, I told
myself.

I pulled away a torn section of a garden hose. Then I pawed through a pile of
old clothes.

Where is it? Where?

I dropped onto my hands and knees and dug deeper into the garbage. The stale odor of dust and decay floated up to me,
swept over me. I held my breath and kept pawing away.

I had to find it. I
had
to.

I didn’t stop until I saw the two eyes staring up at me.

Two eyes. Yellow in the pale light.

Staring up at me from the trash. Staring up at me without blinking.

I’m not alone in here! I realized.

And then I opened my mouth in a shrill, terrified scream.

The eyes stared up at me without blinking. Yellow and cold.

A chill tightened the back of my neck.

I stared down at them, waiting for them to move. Waiting for something to
jump up at me.

“What’s wrong? Did you find the camera?” Jon called from the sidewalk.

“No. I—uh—I—”

I reached my hand down toward the glassy yellow eyes. And felt bristly fur.

My heart pounding, I pushed some junk aside.

And without thinking, I picked up the staring creature.

Felt its body, stiff and hard beneath bristly brown and black fur.

A dead raccoon.

Its sour odor reached my nostrils. “Oooooh, yuck!” I let out a groan—and
heaved the smelly creature out of the Dumpster.

“Hey, Greg—” Jon called up to me.

“I found a dead raccoon,” I told him, holding my nose. “It smelled so bad, I—”

I stopped when I saw the camera.

It had been hidden beneath the raccoon’s body. The glow from the street lamp
spilled over it. The glass of the camera lens reflected the light like a single,
shining eye.

I grabbed it. Pulled it up from the trash.

Then I climbed to my feet. Leaning over the Dumpster, I held it up to Jon. “I
found it!” I cried happily. “Here it is. I can’t believe I found it!”

Jon wrinkled his face up at me. “Great,” he said, without enthusiasm.

I strapped the camera around my neck. Then, holding on to the top of the
Dumpster, I lowered myself to the ground.

My shirt and jeans were covered with dust and sticky grease. But I didn’t
care. I had the camera in my hands.

“What’s so great about it?” Jon demanded. He squinted down at it. Rubbed a
hand over the top. “Does it work?”

I didn’t want to tell him the story of the camera. I knew he wouldn’t believe
it, anyway. I didn’t want to scare him. And mainly, I wanted to get home with it
as fast as I could.

“Yeah. It works,” I replied, dusting off the back with my hand. “It takes
pretty good pictures.”

“But why do you want it so much?” Jon asked, studying it as I worked to clean
the dust off.

“Oh… well. I promised to show it to someone. In school,” I told him. “I
kind of need it for a project.”

Jon scratched his short, dark hair. “Maybe I should show the camera to my
dad,” he said, motioning behind him. “He might not want you to take it.”

“But you threw it in the trash!” I cried. I held the camera tightly in both
hands, afraid he was going to try to grab it away.

“But we didn’t know it works,” Jon replied in his high, shrill voice. “Is it
valuable? Maybe it’s valuable. An antique or something.”

“No way. It’s not valuable,” I insisted. “Please, Jon. I—”

“We’d better show it to Dad,” Jon said. He reached for the camera.

I pulled away.

I grabbed the camera tighter.

Heard a click.

A white flash of light startled us both.

“Oh, noooo!” I let out a cry, realizing I had pushed the shutter.

And snapped a picture of Jon.

“Hey—why did you do that?” Jon demanded.

“It—it was an accident,” I stammered. I pulled the picture from the slot at
the bottom of the camera. “I didn’t mean to. Really.”

Jon and I both blinked several times, trying to get the flashing lights to
fade from our eyes. “It’s an instant camera?” Jon demanded. “It looks too old to
be an instant camera.”

“Yeah. I know,” I replied. I held up the photo to watch it develop. Silently,
I prayed that the photo wouldn’t show anything terrible.

Please, please—let Jon be okay in the snapshot, I pleaded.

With my free hand, I pulled the little flashlight from my pocket. I beamed it
down on the photo as it slowly developed.

As I stared at the small, square snapshot, I could see Jon’s face come into
view. His eyes were closed. His mouth was open, twisted in a strange expression.

Before I could really see what was going on, Jon grabbed the photo away from
me. He raised it close to his face and studied it.

“Hey—what’s with this camera?” he demanded.

I stepped up behind him to see the snapshot. “Oh, nooooo,” I groaned.

The photo came out very clear and bright. It showed Jon howling in pain. His
eyes shut. His mouth open in a scream.

His leg was raised. He was holding on to his sneaker with both hands.

He was holding on to his sneaker because a huge nail was sticking up from the
top. An enormous carpenter’s nail—nearly as big as a pencil—shoved up
through the center of Jon’s foot!

Jon laughed. He turned to me. “What is this? Some kind of joke camera?”

I swallowed hard. I knew it wasn’t a joke.

The horrifying photos always came true.

How could I keep Jon from having a nail jammed in his foot? What could I do?

I decided I had to warn him. I had to tell him the truth about the camera.

“This is cool!” Jon exclaimed, studying the photo. “It really looks like me.
I wonder how it works.”

“It—it isn’t cool,” I stammered. “It’s really kind of scary, Jon. The
camera is evil. It has a curse on it. The photos always come true.”

He laughed. “For sure!”

I knew he wouldn’t believe me.

“Well, just be careful—okay?” I insisted. “The photo isn’t a joke.”

He laughed again.

A gust of wind sent the tall weeds swaying. Snakes of black cloud slithered
over the moon. Darkness swept over us.