Strange Perceptions (12 page)

The Death Gerbil

Dean Weathers pulled the string for the overhead light in his darkroom and examined the still wet prints. The latest photos also had the anomaly. Not good.

He grabbed the dry prints, leaving the wet ones hanging, and pulled aside the black curtain over the darkroom’s entrance, an empty door frame with oversize curtains both inside and outside the frame. He reached through the entrance, pulled aside the outer curtain, and stepped from the darkroom into the spare bedroom. He went down the hallway to the kitchen.

He slapped the photos onto the kitchen table. “Carol, take a look at these.”

His wife, back to him, stirred a pot on the stove. She didn’t turn. “Just a minute.”

He snatched up the photos, marched across the room, and thrust them into her face. “Look.”

She ducked under his hand. “Keep your pants on. I’m almost done.”

He glared at her for a moment, went back to the table, yanked the chair out and sat. “You’d think after thirty-three years of marriage—”

“Thirty four.”

“Thirty four—whatever. This is important but you won’t give me two minutes.”

“I can’t just stop, Dean, or the sugar will clump and ruin the whole batch.”

“I don’t give a damn about your stupid candies. It’s a picture of the gerbil again.”

She stopped stirring and turned. White goo dripped from the wooden spoon now clenched tight in her hand. “From that old camera?”

“Yep. The Brownie.”

“Let me get my glasses.” She turned off the stove’s burner and disappeared to the living room, in a few moments returned, and took the seat next to him.

Dean pointed to the top photo. “This is where I first noticed it. Behind the dog on the left. The little dark spot.”

“Oh my God. It’s Champ.”

“Yep. Weekend before he died, in the park with James and the kids. I got a good roll, but only a couple with Champ.” He moved the top photo aside, revealing the next one in the stack. “Now the dark spot is on the right.”

He moved to the next photo. “That’s the two shots I have with Champ, but here I’ve enlarged the dark spot.”

Carol gasped. Dean nodded gravely. The blurry photo showed a black gerbil and, although the picture was black and white, Dean imagined the eyes as fiery red.

“My God. It’s just—”

“Like the cat. I know.”

Carol picked up the photo. “It has to be a coincidence. Maybe it’s a field mouse.”

“No, look at the tail. Gerbils have a little tuft of hair on their tails, mice don’t. It’s clearer in the next one.” He pulled out the last photo. The gerbil stood in profile, tail extended.

“What does it mean?”

“Think about it. I take Fluffy’s picture and this weird gerbil shows up in the frame. Two days later Fluffy’s dead. I get Champ in a shot, same gerbil, and a few days later he’s dead. It’s got to be a death gerbil.”

“Ridiculous. What’s a death gerbil?”

“Okay, Miss I-Know-Everything, you tell me what it is.”

“Maybe it’s the camera. Oh wait. I took some pictures at the park, too.” She rose and went to the living room.

Dean followed, leaving the photos splayed across the kitchen table. He stood behind her, arms across chest, while she rummaged through her purse. She produced a small digital camera.

He looked up to the sky, raising hands in mock supplication. “Lord help me.”

She scrolled through pictures on the camera. “Sorry, I know you hate gadgets.”

“I don’t hate gadgets. I hate digital cameras. They got no heart. They’re tacky. People who use them have no respect for the medium.”

“Found one.” She showed him.

“I don’t see anything.” He squinted. “Can you make it bigger?”

“I don’t know. Maybe James can.”

“I don’t think there’s anything there and I don’t want to bother James. Doesn’t matter anyway. Come with me. I’ve got something worse to show you.”

She followed him down the hall to the spare bedroom. Inside, he ripped the outer curtain off the darkroom’s entrance, tearing it from the curtain rod, and tossed it behind him. He reached through the hole in the wall, pulled down the inner curtain, and threw it on the floor on top of the other one.

“Calm down,” she said. “What on earth has gotten into you?”

“Doesn’t matter. I won’t be using this room again.” He stepped into the darkroom. “Come on.”

She followed him, crowding close in the small space. She wrinkled her nose. “You need better ventilation in here. The chemicals smell awful.”

He pointed to a drying print hanging on the drip line.

“Oh my God,” she said.

The picture showed Dean taking a picture of himself in the mirror. It was a reflection of him, head bent down, looking into his Brownie box camera. In front of his chest, inches away from the camera, hovered the black gerbil.

Dean had almost accepted his fate—a death sentence—but Carol hadn’t.

“Maybe it’s just a fluke,” she said. “We don’t know this foretells anything.”

“Maybe, but I got an appointment with Jason just in case.”

Jason Phillips was the attorney who had drawn up their wills.

“Let me use the camera and take a picture of you,” Carol said. “Just to make sure.”

Dean didn’t want to, but the faster Carol accepted his death, the better. Then they could plan things out, spend some time with James and the grandkids. God, why did this have to happen now. Dean wasn’t old, not even sixty. When you were a kid, fifty was ancient, but in your fifties you weren’t old until you hit eighty, maybe ninety.

He explained how to use the Brownie. “Hold the camera at waist level. Hold your breath while you take the picture.” She took several shots of him, exposing just a few frames on the roll of 620 film, but it didn’t matter. He’d develop what he had, wasting the extra.

Dean put the darkroom curtains back up. The brace holding the inside curtain rod had ripped from the wall, leaving a hole in the sheetrock. He attached it a couple inches above the original spot. Then he developed the film, setting the empty spool aside to wind fresh film onto. Why? Just habit.

An hour later, after the negative had dried, Dean examined the film with a magnifying glass. He couldn’t see any anomalies in the negative so went through the process of producing prints. Once complete, he grabbed the wet prints, still dripping, and left the darkroom.

Carol sat on the bed in the spare bedroom. She stood as Dean approached.

“Nothing.” He handed her the prints.

She took the photos, examined them, then looked at him, eyes questioning.

“I don’t know what it means,” he said. “Maybe I have to be the one to take the photos?”

She took his hand in hers. “I think this is a good sign.”

They sat on the bed together, still holding hands. Quiet for a moment.

“I have an idea,” she said. “Let’s go to the animal shelter. Both of us take photographs of animals about to be put down. If this gerbil is going to appear again, it’ll be on those pictures. We’ll see if it shows up for both of us.”

He flung her hand from him and stood. “Would you give it a rest? I’m as good as dead. The quicker you accept it, the better.” He stormed from the room.

In retrospect, Carol’s idea hadn’t been bad. Especially if it shut her up and got her to accept things. But Dean didn’t want to drive anywhere. What if he died in a car accident? He was a great driver, but you can’t control the other guy on the road.

She called the dog pound and made some excuse about doing a flyer for the Humane Society. “To raise neighborhood awareness,” Carol had said. The Animal Shelter said they’d be glad to have them.

“You sure you don’t want me to drive?” Carol asked, as they went into the garage to leave.

“Hell no.” Behind the wheel he’d have
some
control.

Dean triple-head-checked while backing out of the driveway. He planned on driving as safely as possible.

“How do you want to work it?” she asked.

“What?”

“Taking the pictures. Maybe if we alternate, you take one then I take one.”

“That’s got to be the stupidest idea you’ve ever had. I don’t have all day to switch off and on with you. I’ll take the first half of the roll, you take the second half.”

“Well you don’t have to get all huffy.”

He glared at her, realized his eyes were off the road, and focused forward again.

“Maybe afterward we can grab a bite to eat,” she said. “Sylvia Bennet said that new steak place, Shenanigans, has the tastiest prime rib she’s ever had.”

Dean grunted. Would she ever stop talking? He tuned her out.

There was so much he still wanted to do. Run a marathon for instance. Funny, since he was so out of shape a flight of stairs made him breathe hard, but the idea had been in the back of his mind for years. Someday he’d get fit, maybe run a marathon.

Dean never had made a bucket list. He should have. He should have done lots of things.

A cigarette sounded good. He pulled into a 7-11.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

He got out of the car, ignoring her. Inside, he asked for a pack of Marlboro Reds and snagged a disposable lighter.

“That’ll be $9.72,” the cashier said.

“You’ve got to be kidding,” Dean said.

The cashier shrugged. Dean tossed a ten on the counter and didn’t wait for change. The pack was open, a lit cigarette in his mouth, before he got back to the car.

He stood in front of the car and inhaled deeply. Lightheadedness washed over him. Smoking was a friend who never let you down. Carol glowered at him through the windshield.

He got into the car and cracked the window to let the smoke out.

“Dean Alan Weathers, you should not be smoking. Put that out now.”

He ignored her and backed out of the parking space.

“What has it been, fifteen years since you quit?”

He ignored her and merged into traffic.

“It’s a dirty habit and not very healthy!”

He looked at her, squinting one eye in the curling smoke. “Maybe I’ll get lucky and die of cancer.”

That shut her up.

Behind the counter at the animal shelter a teen-age boy with a mop of greasy hair, looked up from a Rolling Stone magazine.

“We’re here to take some pictures of your animals,” Dean said.

“Cool. Ah, which ones?”