Through The Lens

4

June 14, 2018 1:46pm

"So, when I was done unpacking, I was putting the empty boxes downstairs, and there were these other boxes down there. So, I got curious and looked through them. Well, I found an old vintage camera, and went outside to take pictures. I stumbled upon a graveyard. The family's name was Parker, right?" Jordan nodded his head, but said nothing. He looked confused and shocked at the same time. "How come the police never found it? I mean it's right out in the woods." Jordan shrugged and said, "Can you show me?" I hesitated, because I knew there was a risk of seeing the dead again, but I had to show Jordan. These people were missing, but I found them. How the police couldn't find them, is beyond me.

Anyway, I took Jordan to the graveyard. I was tempted to tell Jordan that I had seen the dead, but I knew he would think I was crazy. As we walked to the graveyard, down the dirt road, Jordan starred at the ground, and didn't speak a word to me.

"Are you okay?" Jordan finally looked up at me, but quickly looked back away.

"Yeah, it's just that....he killed my sister." I saw a tear fall down Jordan's face, and I grabbed his hand, and held it in mine. He looked up at me, and mouthed thank you. He just felt so much pain that he couldn't find his voice.

I was shocked. How Jordan dealt with someone murdering his sister, I had no idea. He just seemed so happy and normal when I met him, but he was nowhere near normal. The fact that he could put on that charming smile almost all the time, made me admire him.

We arrived at the graveyard still hand in hand. "Ruth, your hands are shaking." He had a concerned look on his face. As we got closer, fear overtook me.

"I...I...I'm fine." letting go of his hand I showed him all the gravestones. We walked to the last one. And suddenly Jordan fell to his knees in front of it. Quickly, I knelt beside him, and tried to comfort him, by just holding him. I knew there was nothing I could say to stop his pain, so I was just there for him.

Her name was Mila. She was beautiful. The only reason I know that is because I remember her. I saw her when I first came here. She was one of the dead, but thinking back to her face, I remembered how much she looked like Jordan. She had long, dark brown hair, and hazel eyes just like him.

"I'm okay now." Jordan sniffled, and I helped him up. I didn't say 'I'm sorry' because everyone knows that does nothing to help the pain of the hurt. So, I hugged him and he said, "Thank you."

 "Hey, I'll be right back, I'm going to look for that camera." I gave him a hopefully reassuring smile while he went back to looking at his sister's gravestone. It was weird that the murderer would bury the people he killed. It just didn't make sense.

I stumbled around the woods, looking for the camera. Finally, I found it, and the sun was just about to set. Making my way back to Jordan, I contemplated on what I should do. Like was I supposed to let him grieve, or was I supposed to wait until he left? Well, I decided to just stay, and be there for him.

Walking up to him, I grabbed his hand in mine, and just stared at the grave, like he was.

*****

June 17, 2018 4:37pm

Throughout the weeks of being with Jordan, our relationship grew. Even though we became friends really fast, we became best friends even faster. Not to mention other feelings that grew too.

As I was sorting through pictures that I had taken with Jordan and of Jordan, I had the urge to take nature pictures outside. Once again, the sun was about to set. I walked outside, towards the backyard, and immediately looked through the lens of the old vintage camera. Over the weeks I had gotten over seeing the dead. That day I must have just been hallucinating. I was probably just tired, and dehydrated from unpacking all of my boxes.

So, as I held the camera and looked through the lens, I froze. This couldn't be happening again. I wasn't even near the graveyard! I put the camera down and saw nothing. I looked through the lens again, but this time the dead were all pointing towards the house. I checked again, surely I was just seeing things. Putting the camera back up, I saw the dead on my front porch. I couldn't believe my eyes. I saw Mila, she had cut her forearm, and painted on my front porch the word 'HURRY'.

Continuing to look through the lens, I walked to my front porch, while the dead people opened my front door, and pointed through it, into the house. So, I kept walking, and ran straight into the door. Apparently, when the dead open something, it doesn't change anything physically. It just looked open, when I looked through the camera. In that moment, I realized that I could only see them through the camera.

I put the camera down and opened the door. Once I lifted the camera back up, the dead were nowhere to be seen. Why would Mila scrawl 'HURRY' on my front porch siding? Why tell me to hurry and then just disappear? It didn't make any sense.

So, since I figured out I could only see them through the lens of the old camera, I decided to examine it. There wasn't anything out of the ordinary. There was just one thing that caught my eye. Scratched at the bottom of the camera, were the initials BTG. I didn't know whose initials those were so I decided to call Jordan. Maybe he would know someone with those initials.

I dialed his phone number, and he picked up after the first ring. "Hey what's up? Are you okay?" I was surprised at his alertness, and it immediately comforted me.

"I'm fine, it's just that I was looking at the old camera, ya know, and it had the initials BTG on it. I was wondering if you knew anybody by those initials?"

"Well, I don't think I....." Jordan went silent, and I got worried, because Jordan doesn't go silent unless he's thinking about something important.

"What is it Jordan?"

"Um...can I just come over to look at the camera...I want to make sure...."

After Jordan trailed off, he hung up the phone, not waiting for me to give him an answer, leaving me confused. I knew this had to be important, because he wouldn't tell me over the phone.

About fifteen minutes later, Jordan showed up. When he came in, he didn't even knock on my door. He literally came in, shut the door, and locked it. He then continued to lock my backdoor, and close the blinds of all my windows.

Once he assured himself that everything was shut and locked, he turned to me and said, "Let me take a look at that camera."

"Um...okay, but why did you just close all the blinds and lock everything?"

"Just get the camera, and I'll explain everything okay?" I rolled my eyes at him, but went to my room to fetch the camera.

After grabbing the camera off my bed, I headed to the living room where Jordan was pacing. "Are you okay? Why are you pacing like that?"

He looked up at me, and his eyes zoomed in on the camera. He speed walked towards me, and grabbed the camera out of my hands. "Well, just take it out of my hands, why don't ya?"I shook my head at him, but sat beside him on the couch, while he examined the camera. He was turning the camera around so fast, he didn't see the initials the first time around. He looked up at me in confusion.

"Uh Ruth I don't see th-"

I interrupted him "There on the bottom of the camera. If you weren't in such a hurry you would have seen them." Without looking at me, he turned the camera upside down, and stared at the initials.

Finally, after looking and examining the camera, and the initials, he looked up at me and said, "Ruth, these initials are for a guy named Ben Thomas Graham, and he's the one who killed my sister."