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The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/BlairDaniels on 2024-07-03 21:15:56+00:00.

Part 4

“He can’t avoid us forever.”

We were parked outside of Ezra Schmidt’s house. Casey stared up at the darkened A-frame, arms crossed over her chest. “He can’t,” she repeated, shaking her head, as if that could will him into existence. 

“Maybe he skipped town,” Maribel said from the backseat.

“He wouldn’t do that,” Casey replied.

“Why not? He gave you a camera he knew would kill you. He doesn’t want to be implicated for murder, does he?”

Casey huffed. “No one would believe him.”

“Okay, look, let’s just try again later,” I cut in, starting the car. “Until then, I think our next best option is to get the camera back. Maybe if we destroy it, it’ll break this whole thing.”

“Or maybe it’ll kill us faster. Like destroying the photo,” Maribel replied.

“They probably already threw it away,” Casey added.

“Do you have a better idea?”

Both of them shook their heads.

The drive back to CVS was completely silent. The three of us walked into the store, Brady’s absence weighing down on us. A quick glance around, but Photo Guy wasn’t there—there was just an older woman standing at the counter.

“We were here on Friday,” Maribel started, “with a disposable camera. Do you by any chance still have it?”

“A disposable camera?”

I nodded.

“I haven’t seen one of those things in years,” she said, shaking her head. “I don’t know. We used to recycle them, I think.”

“Recycle them?” Maribel glanced at me.

“Yeah. I don’t even think they melt ‘em down. The plastic body is just, like, refilled with new film and sold again. It’s how Kodak turned such a big profit on those things. I mean, a whole camera for ten bucks, who could beat that, right? I mean—”

“Is there any chance you still have it somewhere?” I interrupted.

“Uh, maybe. I think we only do the whole recycling thing on Mondays… and those guys that come take the hazardous stuff, like with lithium batteries and whatnot, every other Wednesday…” She continued muttering to herself as she crouched down, scanning the other side of the counter. “What day did you say you came here, again?”

“Friday,” I replied.

“Ah! You’re in luck, I think. Is this it?”

She pulled out the camera.

The three of us stared down at it. The camera stared back at us, lens glistening in the light. My stomach turned.

“Are you gonna take it or not?”

“Sorry.”

I grabbed the camera and the three of us hurried out of the store. “Kids these days, don’t even say ‘thank you,’” the woman muttered behind us.

As I drove us back to my house, my spirits rose. We had the camera. Maybe bashing it to smithereens or throwing it in the fire would be all that it took. Destroy the cursed object, break the curse. It could be that simple. We could be free.

Or maybe it would kill us all.

Somehow, both those options sounded better than waiting for our inevitable deaths over the next few days.

As soon as we got back, I grabbed the camera and made a beeline for the shed. My dad had everything in there: hammers, mallets, a circular saw. Everything we could possibly need to destroy this thing.

Casey and Maribel followed after me. I grabbed a hammer, hefting it in my hands. “I think we should destroy it. That’s my vote.”

Maribel and Casey glanced at each other.

“When you burned the photo, it was burning me,” Maribel said, starting to pace. “This thing… the photos, at least… almost act like some sort of voodoo doll. If you destroy it, how do you know it won’t kill us all instantly?”

“I don’t. But saving us or dying instantly both sound better than waiting around to die.” I turned to Casey. “What about you?”

She chewed on one of her Malibu pink fingernails. “Uhhh… I don’t know. I guess we gotta try destroying it. We’re all gonna die anyway, right?”

“Two to one,” I told Maribel. “Sorry.”

She crossed her arms.

I grabbed three pairs of safety glasses off the wall and handed them out. Casey raised an eyebrow at me. “Safety glasses? Really?”

“If we survive this thing, do you want to be blind?”

“No. But they look so… stupid.” She put them on, grimacing. “Yuck.”

Maribel rolled her eyes, then replaced her own glasses with the safety ones. She gave me a hesitant thumbs-up.

I positioned the camera in the center of the worktable. Then I raised the hammer.

In the lens, I could see my tiny reflection. Distorted by the spherical lens, like a fisheye view. Eyes wide, the hammer raised high above my head. I took a deep breath—and then I brought the hammer down.

Thump!

A direct hit.

And yet—the camera didn’t have the slightest dent in it.

“Shit.” I raised the hammer again. Thump. And again. Thump.

It was like the thing was made of steel.

I went wild. I brought the hammer down again and again, arms flailing wildly. Maribel was saying something behind me but I couldn’t hear her over the blood rushing in my ears, the thumps of the hammer against the camera—

“Benny!” Casey shrieked.

And then I saw it. A thick, dark liquid oozing out of the camera. Seeping into the grooves of the wood, dripping off the edge of the table and onto the floor.

My stomach turned.

I flipped the camera over. The wet, sticky substance that looked so much like blood coated my fingertips. Oozing from a seam on the side, where the front and back panels connected.

I raised the hammer and smashed at the back of it. Then the front. I smashed it until I was exhausted and my arms were sore and I couldn’t lift the hammer again.

The camera was still in perfect condition.

“Let’s go back to Ezra,” Maribel said. “Maybe he’s home now.”

I glanced back at the camera.

“Let me try one more thing.”

I reached down and grabbed the extension cord. Plugged it in. Flipped a switch, and the circular saw whirred to life. Casey and Maribel looked at me with wide eyes.

I grabbed the camera, fingers safely on either side, and pushed it towards the blade. The screeching of the saw filled my ears, echoing in the small shed.

“Benny—you’re not really—”

“We have to get rid of this thing!” I shouted over the noise.

“Benny—”

“I can’t keep waiting for us to die!”

I pushed the camera straight into the whirring, spinning blades.

But when the plastic met the metal, it ratcheted and caught. A horrible grinding sound.

What the—

I pushed against the camera harder.

And then my hands slipped.

It happened so fast. One second—hands on the camera, pushing—the next, the camera on the floor, and blood—pain—so much, gushing onto the floor—

Maribel and Casey screaming in my ears—

The blade screeching, spinning red and silver—

Darkness pulsing through my vision—

Nothing.

I woke up in the emergency room, with several stitches on my right ring finger.

I’d apparently sliced the tip of my finger and then fainted. So much blood, for such a small wound. I pictured my own blood, mixing and swirling with the dark, sticky ooze from the camera on the dusty floor of the shed.

“Why didn’t it kill me?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” Casey replied.

“It would’ve been easy. For that saw to kill me. But… it didn’t.”

“I think it’s working in order,” Maribel said.

I turned to her. She looked terrible—her normally brown skin ashen, deep circles under her eyes. “It’s working in order. Brady was the first one photographed, right? And then the first one to die. You didn’t die, because you’re not the next one in line.” She sucked in a breath. “I am.”

I stared at her, my stomach twisting.

We drove back to Ezra’s house. It was still empty… so it was stakeout time.

Maribel napped in the backseat while we picked up Thai food and then settled in front of Ezra’s house, eating for what felt like the first time in days. As it turned out, we didn’t have to wait long; only an hour later, a beat-up green sedan pulled into the driveway.

He was home.

Casey woke Maribel while I wiped my hands and bagged up the trash. “Eugh, what’s that smell?” Maribel asked, waving her hand.

“We got Thai while you were sleeping,” I replied.

She scowled at us.

“Anyway, Ezra’s home. Any ideas how to handle him?” I aksed.

“Well, I think Casey should wait in the car,” she replied. “If he sees her, he’s going to know why we’re here.”

“Good idea.”

“And I think I have an idea of what to say,” she said, swinging her door open. “Follow my lead.”

Maribel and I walked up the steps. The house was in complete disrepair; cracks lined the walkway, and an old wind chime fluttered in the breeze, softly tinkling. However, they weren’t lax about security—a sleek Ring camera had been installed, staring blankly up at us.

Maribel raised her hand to knock.

Muffled footsteps came from inside, and then the door creaked open. A disheveled, short guy with messy dark hair peered up at us. “Can I help you?”

Ezra was only a few years older than us, but he looked like he was a decade older, from the deep circles under his eyes and the stubble on his jaw.

“Yeah,” Maribel replied. “I’m Maribel and he’s Benny. We’re seniors at Lakewood high school… can we come in for a second?”

His eyes darted between us—and then a flicker of recognition as he stared at Maribel. “I’ve seen you before. You’re in marching band, right?”

She nodded, smiling. “Can we come in?”

His eyes narrowed. “Why? You guys Jehovah’s Witnesses now, or something?”

“We’re interviewing alumni,” Maribel cut in, her voice filled with fake confidence. I never knew Maribel had any acting skills, but I guess survival instincts...

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