Strange Perceptions (13 page)

“The ones scheduled to be put to sleep.”

“Oh man, I don’t know. I’m the only one here now and, uh, I don’t know.”

“I talked to a Shirley,” Carol said. “She said it would be quite alright.”

“Well, uh, she’s at lunch and …” He trailed off, staring at the space between Dean and Carol, as if an invisible third person stood between them. After a moment he continued. “Whatever, follow me.”

He grabbed a clipboard and led them through a wooden door with a tiny rectangle window in it, into a large room with a concrete floor. Wire cages lined the left. Each cage spanned floor to ceiling and all but the front cage contained one or more dogs. Along the room’s right side extended a metal wash table merging into large utility sink with overhead cabinets. Stacked next to the sink were several smaller kennels, the plastic kind people use for traveling their pets.

The boy looked at the clipboard. “There’s the sad little dudes. The ones at the end, numbers 348, 349 and 352 need rescuing before tomorrow night or —” He made a motion across his throat like a knife cutting and made a squelching sound.

Several dogs barked. The smaller ones yipped. Dean walked past the boy and examined the dogs. There were labs, black and yellow, and a shepherd and collie, a schnauzer and hound, but most were mutts. Over a dozen dogs of different colors and sizes, each wore a collar with a black number written on a white tag. Most of the dogs seemed somber, with big round sad eyes, as if aware of their fate.

“You want cats they’re through that door.” He pointed to a door next to the sink. “You’re not supposed to be back here without someone present, but I kinda have to hang out in front in case anybody comes in. If Shirley said it’s okay …” He trailed off again.

“She said it was fine. Thanks,” Carol said.

Dean focused his camera on the dogs.

“No prob. Whoa! Awesome camera, man. You build that yourself?”

Dean glared at the boy. “You can’t build these. It’s a classic.”

The boy bobbed his head up and down, goofy grin on his face. “Nice.”

Dean looked back into the camera. “I’ll shoot the dogs here, Carol. Then a few cats. Then you do the same.”

“I gotta go out front in case the warden comes back,” the boy said. “Need anything just holler.” He disappeared through the door.

Carol approached Dean, put a hand on his shoulder. “I’m sorry. I know you’re stressed. I don’t want to fight.”

Dean looked at her. “Me either.” He smiled. He looked past her and his lips curved downward.

“What?” Carol looked around.

The teenage boy stared at them through the small window in the door, nose pressed against the glass, one eye filled up most of the space. When he saw Dean and Carol looking, he removed his face from the window and showed them his fist, giving them the thumbs-up sign.

Dean and Carol photographed the animals and drove back home in silence, both preoccupied with their own thoughts. Once home, Dean rushed to the dark room to develop the film. Carol wanted to join him, but he explained it’d be too crowded. So she waited, sitting on the spare bedroom’s bed, chewing her nails.

After almost an hour, Dean burst through the darkroom curtains, carrying several negative strips in one hand and magnifying glass in the other. “I didn’t do any prints. Thought you’d be curious.”

He sat on the bed next to her, held a negative up to the light, the magnifying glass in front of the second frame. “This is one I took. See the white dot next to this dog?”

Carol squinted. “Not really. I need to get my glasses.”

“It’s there, trust me.” He fished through the negatives, pulled out another one, and held the magnifying glass over the first frame. “This one you took. Same dog. Same white dot.”

“I thought the death gerbil was black.”

Dean sighed. “These are negatives. Point is, it shows up for both you and me.”

“What does it mean?”

“I think I’m safe. The gerbil wasn’t in the last photo you took of me. I want to try another test, in front of the mirror like the first time.”

He grabbed the Brownie off the spare bedroom dresser, stood in front of the full-length mirror, and took several quick shots.

Carol held out her hand for the camera. “Let me.”

“Good idea.” He handed her the camera.

She took pictures of herself in front of the mirror.

He took the camera. “Okay, I’ll make this as quick as I can.” He disappeared into the dark room.

She sat on the bed and laid back. The minutes ticked slowly by. After thirty minutes, which seemed like two hours, she went to the darkroom curtain. “Dean?”

“What?” he hollered from inside.

“How’s it going?”

“I’m making prints just to be sure.”

“Do you see the gerbil?”

“I said I’m making prints.”

“How long?”

“I don’t know. Maybe twenty minutes.”

“You hungry?” she asked. “We haven’t eaten since breakfast.”

“I could eat.”

“I’ll make us a sandwich.”

Carol had just finished making two sandwiches, ham and swiss on wheat, when she heard the crash. It sounded like a sledge hammer going through a window. She ran down the hallway to the spare bedroom. Halfway there she heard another crash. She stopped just inside the door.

Dean stood panting, hair wild, face red. On the floor in front of the shattered mirror was the Brownie camera. Dean picked up the camera, a broken box now almost in two pieces, and hurled it at the broken mirror.

“What’s wrong?”

Dean looked at her, mouth moving but no sound came out.

“Oh my God, Dean, are you okay?”

He wagged his head back and forth, pointed to the dresser and rasped out one word. “Look.”

Carol went to the dresser. On top of it lay several fresh prints. With mounting horror she looked at the topmost picture. It showed Dean and the camera and a little black gerbil floating in front of Dean’s chest. The next one also showed Dean and the camera and the gerbil. The next photo caused her to gasp. It was her, looking down through the camera, and the gerbil sitting on top of it. The gerbil was in her photos now. The last photo also showed her and the gerbil, but this time gerbil was to the camera’s right.

She looked at Dean, at a loss for something to say.

She looked at the Brownie, laying in pieces on the floor.
Great job Dean
, she thought,
destroying the camera. We’re dead. It’s dead.
She laughed.
The camera is dead.

“What the hell is so funny?” Dean asked.

“We had it wrong,” she said. “We’re not going to die. The gerbil appeared in pictures with the camera, not in the ones of you by yourself. The gerbil wasn’t telling us
we
were going to die, it was indicating
the camera
was going to die.”

The Train Bandits

James Thackeray scooted his chair back from the table. “Interesting, Mr. Bell. Benjamin Franklin said ‘Life is a kind of Chess, with struggle, competition, good and ill events’ but your story about Giuoco Piano really takes things to a whole new level.”

Thackeray stood, using his cane to help himself up. As he spoke, he ambled over to the open window. He stuck his head outside and inhaled, catching a slight whiff from the rose bushes below. He sighed, lamenting the passage of years; the sense of smell is one of many things which diminish with age.

“Before the next story, let me share a small discovery.” He stepped back from the window and, using the cane’s tip, pulled the curtain aside, revealing a boy no older than thirteen. The boy stepped forward, his eyes darting around the room.

Those seated at the table looked as startled as the boy.

Thackeray pointed at the boy with his cane. “You’re Widow Hennessey’s son.”

The boy crossed his arms over his chest. “Billy’s my name.”

Thackeray hobbled back toward the table. “Son, you neglected to note the curtain’s length. Your dirty, scuffed loafers stood out like a beacon, advertising your presence. You also failed to realize any movement made behind the curtain is magnified—you brush the bottom and the entire curtain moves. Had you stayed perched on the stepladder outside the window, you may have remained undetected indefinitely.”

Billy didn’t reply.

Thackeray settled into his chair. “Rogers,” he called out.

Rogers stepped forward, appearing almost magically, and bowed slightly. Perhaps the Majordomo had been there all along, unnoticed until needed.

“Please have our young interloper escorted out.”

“I got a story,” Billy said to save himself.

As one, all heads turned to the boy.

“I been listening to all yours and I got one even better.”

“Very well. But I warn you, should your story be either juvenile or maudlin, I’ll have my man Rogers send you out the window whence you came, headfirst.”

This is the story of the last time I thought I’d ever see my best friend, Duffy.

It was last summer when me and Duffy Jenkins went fishing over to Trundle Creek. This was when I lived in Warner’s Crest. It’s in Washington State. The town’s so small it only gots two buildings. The Sheriff and Post Office share one and Sanfordson’s Mercantile is the other. You can get just about anything you need at Sanfordson’s and if they don’t have it they can order it from Spokane and get it on the next week’s shipment. The sign coming into town says “Welcome to Warner’s Crest” on both sides so you can see it either direction you’re coming from.