The Conduit Chapter 6: The Wheezing Man

North Bay 2023

Lori shifted in her seat. Rain drizzled against the windshield. She bit her fingernail, picked it out of her mouth, moved on to its neighbour. “Tell me one more time.” she said. Her voice barely holding back the tension she felt inside. 

Dean sighed. “C’mon Lor. What more is there to say? ” 

“There’s a hell of a lot to say Dad, considering I just found out I’m related to a murder victim.” Lori turned her wide eyed stare on him as the silence between them slowly curdled. 

Dean drummed his palm against the steering wheel. He cleared his throat in the exaggerated way he did when he was trying to control his temper. His filled the car with the sound of a kettle on boil. A puff of condensation spread on the windshield before slowly shrinking, struck away by the rhythmic slide of the wipers. “What’s there to tell? Your mom was distantly related to the Miligan family. There. The end.” 

“Don’t.” Lori said. “Don’t take it out on me because I have questions.”

“Three go god damned times I told you the story already.” 

“Guess this is the fourth, then.” Lori slid her phone from her pocket, unlocked it, and swiped a finger against the screen. The scroll flashing briefly against her glasses. 

“Here.” she stuck a finger against the screen with an aggressive tap. “This says it was a local man who was never caught. Never caught dad. Who’s to say that it wasn’t him I saw?” 

“Because that doesn’t make any sense Lori. This happened seventy years ago. So unless the man you saw hobbled after you with a walker, and if  that’s the case and you couldn’t outrun him, then you’ve got bigger problems than I thought.” 

Lorii felt pierced. Seconds ticked by as the urge to learn more morphed into the weight of her father’s words dragging her into despair. She was suddenly thrown forward. The tercel blasted out a nasally wail as a white Hyundai crossed into their lane before moving into the far left lane and picking up speed.

“I need a fucking coffee.” Dean muttered. 

The dead silence between them was given life by three rapid tones from the car speaker as Dean took the next off ramp. Following them was the chipper but insistent voice of the navigation app insisting Dean return to the route. 

Dean continued drumming on the wheel. 

It wasn’t until after they’d crawled through the lineup at Tim Hortons that Dean spoke. He sipped hi coffee and winced at it. “20 minutes fresh my ass.”

Beside him Lori continued to stare into the middle distance. She’d refused anything when he asked her with a simple shrug of her shoulders. He relented as they wound their way through residential streets, passing a sign for rattlesnake falls 

Laura had people near rattlesnake falls. 

He shook the thought off, was he positive about that? He tried to banish the thought completely but it dug in, causing him to mull it over while he told Lori some of her mother’s history. “Rita Miligan was killed. This much we know. She lived in that god damn house down the street that you couldn’t, and can’t, seem to stay out of. When she was killed her husband, you’re great grandfather, was out of town. At the time he stated he was out of town on business, which wasn’t a lie. What he neglected to include was that he was also seeing his second family. I guess great grandpa Frederick was living a second life just north of Moonbeam. When Rita was killed, the only way he could really clear his name was to admit that. A choice which I'm sure cost him his job, and the social standing in the community. That’s partially, again I’m only assuming, why he left town. He relocated and in the summer of nineteen fifty three your grandma Jean. Grandma Jean left as soon as she could. Philandering wasn’t forgiven very easily in the town and, as usual, it’s the kids who bear the brunt of their parents' mistakes.Grandma Jean bounced around a lot before she settled long enough to meet grandpa Sam. They had your mom, she had  you.” 

When he finished talking Dean thought Lori was asleep. She hadn't moved from where she sat curled against the door. Eventually he heard her small voice pipe up. 

“And no one ever thought to solve Rita’s murder?” 

“It wasn’t that simple. a there was a lot of shame even in the family around what Great Grandpa Frederick had done. Rita Miligan became taboo and kind of a dirty little secret to be swept under the rug. After a while people stopped mentioning her at all.

The car filled wit the hum of the road as Lori sifted through what her father told her trying to find new information. It was nothing he hadn’t already said.

Lori stretched an arm behind her, the sleeve of her sweater crept up her arm as she threaded her fingers through the handles of the reusable bag housing the camera. She shimmied the bag down around the hunk of metal. The black void of the lens regarded that of her cell phone as she opened the photos app and centrered it in frame. Beside her Dean’s eyes bounced from the road to what she was doing. Lori snapped two photos. Dean rolled to a stop behind a Kia as the GPS informed him the destination would be on the left beyond them. He craned his neck to see what she was doing. 

Lori fought the urge to shield her phone from him while she pulled up the AI lens and analysed the photos. Maybe google could tell her more about the camera’s history. A pit of anger boiling inside her gut. His words clinging to the space in her memory. Since they developed the photo of PJ. he became more withdrawn. Reading Week began and Lori couldn’t bring herself to leave the trailer. Her dad wasn’t a big eater unless he’d smoked earlier in the day, but how he was surviving on the mixture of black coffee and Snickers, she had no idea. They decided to get rid of the photo. They buried it in the small barbeque on Dean’s porch. Lori wondered if having a small funeral for it would be appropriate, but her dad said he just wanted it gone. She didn’t know if he meant physically or mentally. Probably both. She stuck her legs further under the dash trying to warm her feet. The morning dawned grey. A thin drizzle collected soundlessly on the windshield. Lori thought of this as book weather. The kind where you could lose yourself for a day under a blanket reading. She’d have to settle for getting lost in the ‘Escaflowne’ crew neck she’d heat pressed herself. The image had flaked off in the wash. Now it just said ‘flow’ in faded tan letters above the namesake organic mech suit. She glanced at her dad. 

Dean stared out of the windshield. The wrinkles under his eyes were deep set grooves and he’d take non a slight tremor that worked through his hand as he brought the Tim Horton’s coffee to his lips, sipped, grimacing. The Tercel eased to a stop on a pile of fallen leaves. Dean clicked the column shift into park. 

When they googled the coordinates, the house itself was a non assuming semi, a single car garage door hung unevenly in it’s frame. The curtains were drawn. It was an hour and a half down the highway. Stuck between Parry Sound and Pointe Au Baril. Lori felt a chill as she navigated the map past RattleSnake Falls and toward Shawanaga First Nations. 

“Are you coming too?” Lori asked. A group of high school age kids walked by the car. They shoved and goaded each other with the ease of those who don’t know life and all it’s responsibilities waited just beyond the graduation podium. 

“What I want.” Dean said, “is to get this thing the hell out of our lives for good.” he adjusted the rear view mirror and eyed the reusable bag in the back seat as if it were a caged tiger rather than an antique camera. 

“No, I'm going to stay here. No telling what these shitheads are gong to do if we both leave the car.” 

“Cool. I’ll try to scream if it turns out to be a murderer.” 

“Oh relax it’s probably some grandma with a houseful of cats.” 

Lori yanked the door handle and threw herself out into the drizzle. The pack of high schoolers glanced at the awkward girl shambling out of the shitbox toyota. 

In the distance the dog exploded into sound again. 

Husky singing, probably at a bird. 

She ripped an errant thread from her sleeve. Leaves slid by her on the pale  pavement. She approached the townhouse It seemed to jut toward the sky at awkward angles. A sign jammed in a second story window was sun faded but Lori could still make out the picture of a security camera over the word ‘Smile.”  From a basement window a tabby cat glared at her with emerald eyes before disappearing into the darkness. A stack of pepsi flats shuddered from her departure. Lori glanced back at the car. Dean sat hunched forward, chin to chest. Had he picked now to power off? Lori puzzled over this as she climbed the crumbling cement stairs that led to the front alcove. Manoeuvring around a bike with two flat tires and a chain rusted stiff she stood on tiptoes to press the doorbell. 

She heard the chime muffled beyond the scratched door. It made her think of dead ringers. A thought that always unsettled her. Imagine visiting a lost loved one when that graveside bell started clattering. 

The house seemed to hold it’s breath with her as she counted the silent seconds down. It was a long few moments before she heard slow, heavy footfalls approaching. She let out a shaky breath and muttered the cover story her and her dad threw together, making sure it sounded legit. She wasn’t convinced. She watched the door handle depress on her side of the door. Pausing briefly as it encountered a stack of flyers jammed in the handle. She heard a grunt of excretion followed by a wheeze. The door began to open. In Lori’s mind that graveside bell went on ringing.  

Grey material seemed to bulge through the crack in the door as a goliath of a man filled the doorway. His grey T-shirt was flecked with dark crumbs at the neck and his teeth were small brown nubs, as if they were sinking back within the pale gums they sprouted from. His hair was a fuzzy horseshoe that draped to his thick, rolled neck in greasy strands. His deep set eyes were made even beadier in the square frames they occupied. Oxygen tubing ran from his nose to a tank trailing behind him like an attentive servant.  A clear oxygen hose running from both nostrils to a tank he towed in his wake like some bizarre cylindrical pet. He took in the frail wisp of a girl on his doorstep before the massive man licked his lips and coughed. 

“May I help you?” he wheezed.  

Lori’s chest heaved. Her rehearsed story evaporated momentarily as she regarded the massive man. 

At least I don’t have to worry about him trying to murder me. He can barely stand. The thought emboldened her and her words returned. 

“Hi there.” she started, trying on her best impression of Jayla: bubbly in a so-sweet-you’d-get-a-toothache way. “My name is Lori Sellers. I’m a University student from North Bay. Photography, actually. And I’ve come across an old camera that might have belonged to you. It’s a Speed Graphic, really old, like the press used to have in movies?” Lori held her hands on either side of her face pantomiming taking a picture. The gesture conjured images of that crisp afternoon, PJ caught in the viewfinder like a mouse trapped in a cat’s gaze. She shut her eyes against the image. Guilt building a lump in her throat before she swallowed it down. 

Don’t fuck this up. This guy’s going to think you’re a nut job. 

Silence hung between them punctuated by the rhythmic intake of oxygen and his steady, watery breath. He stared, uncomprehending, for a beat. Lori saw something in his eyes. A distant dawning of recognition that finally seemed to animate the massive man. His head lolled on his shoulders as he began to nod, the tubing from his oxygen tank slapping against his chest. 

“I’d almost,” He started “It’s been so long I’d almost forgotten.” 

“Would you happen to have a few moments? I’d just like to talk to you about it.” 

The man was still nodding. “I carved my address into it?” 

“Coordinates. Map coordinates. Basically the same thing. Could we?” Lori looked beyond the man into the darkness beyond as a gust of autumn air seemed to find every hole in her sweater.  

He moved aside with considerable effort. In miniscule movements he managed to turn himself around. His ever attentive tank trailed behind him as he moved aside enough for Lori to get in. 

Lori stepped over the threshold. Her thoughts whispered all sorts of bad things about forensic files and bodies found in basements. 

Then the stench hit her. Not decaying bodies but old food. The air in Billy’s house was a stale mix of cigarette smoke and cat piss underscored by greasy food and garbage that needed to get to the curb two days ago. A stairway led up to her right but the landing was choked with newspapers bundled in twine. Some of the piles were yellowing with age, at least Lori hoped that yellowing was age. Billy saw her eyes and followed them. 

“Back issues.” He said as he shuffled down the hall passed a mirror hanging crooked on the wall. “I’ve been meaning to run them to the recycling centre.” He wheezed as he wormed his way further into the house. Lori heard a grunt of effort as he shuffled something from the kitchen table and moved it to the countertop. She slipped her shoes off, untying them enough that if she needed to leave in a hurry they’d slip on without costing her time. She walked by an arched doorway where a dining room table sat buried under piles of mail. A box of adult diapers sat in the corner beside a doorway leading to the greying linoleum pattern of the kitchen floor. An errant flap from the box seemed to wave to her as it caught in the blowing fan that ocelated the stench from one room to another. Its blades were covered in a grey fur from years without cleaning. 

A space in the grime was cleared for Lori at a small table no different in clutter from its big sibling in the dining room. A fine square of crumbs outlined where the clutter moved to the counter to join the food crusted plates. 

“Maid’s day off,” The man said. His wheezing went up an octave and Lori took that for a laugh. She smiled and pushed a bark of laughter through her teeth. “Don’t worry. I’ve been ro rez, this is nothing.” Billy let out another sigh of laughter as he made a swath past a sliding glass door that looked into the back yard. A fence swayed one way or the other bordered the yard. Beyond it a housing co-op sat lined in sentinel stillness as if regarding the both of them with a cold stare. Each of the tiny yards was a window into the lives of its occupants. One littered with kids' toys sat beside a chain link fence protecting three potten weed plants that swayed in the grey stillness of the autumn afternoon. The Wheezing Man’s hands travelled from one kitchen chair to the next and Lori found herself imagining a trail of slime coming from each point of contact he made with the back of the chair. She shook her head slightly. He opened the single drawer of a nearby table with a landline phone parked on top of it. His splayed fingers groping inside of it while he struggled for his next breath. He brought out a small knit mouse with bits of catnip clinging to the yarn, a pad of paper, a pen he clicked three times before laying it on the paper, and a key chain of a small grill cook grinning from under a chef's hat that was two sizes too big. The name had been worn off the apron but Lori could only make out the checkered pants the little man was wearing. When he withdrew his hand he was clutching a manilla envelope. He laid it between them. His eyes suddenly snapping to meet hers. 

“By god I’m so sorry. Living alone for so long all my manners have flown the coop.” He said. He touched a splayed hand to his chest. 

  “Billy Creech.” He introduced. Lori held her hand to shake, unsure if she should re-introduce herself or not. Billy’s hand moved from his chest through the air with impossible slowness, and when it enveloped her fingers it was moist. Lori gave it a single pump before sliding her hand free from it. 

Billy eyed the envelope between them. His mouth was a thin line separating cracked lips. He scratched his chest. “That camera. Boy that’s a lifetime ago girlie.” His eyes flashed to her, oddly pained. “I made my bones with that thing, if you’ll pardon the expression.” When he saw Lori was lost he shuffled in his seat. Under the table he itched one leg clad in blue flannel pajama bottoms. “I made a name for myself with it, is what I mean. I was a freelance reporter. In those days you lived and died by how fast you could sell a story. I figured with my own camera I could get the jump on the next guy. Good quality too.” 

“Where did it come from?” Lori asked. She leaned forward, caught herself, and folded her hands in front of her within the safety of the grime free square her hands were quarantined to. 

I picked it up from a police auction. One of those things you hear about in the movies and television, but never get to see. I thought it would make for a good first date. Lucky for me Petunia was the kind of chick that went in for that kind of thing. 

Lori perked up at the name. That same shard of guilt slicing through her gut as the name of a dead woman tumbled from her lips. “Petunia Jane?” she said. 

“The very same.” Billy’s face lit up and his cavernous mouth gaped open giving Lori another view of the neglected teeth. “You met her then?” 

Lori felt like she was outside of her body watching someone else interact with the man. She willed herself to keep her voice level. “I have. I-I did. She’s passed, unfortunately.” Across from her Billy was bug eyed. “That right? Ah god that’s a damn shame. Silence rolled through him then. Creech became almost morose, his wispy brows knit together above his glasses. “When?” The word settled over the two like a stone thrown from the lakeside to the centre of a body of water. Ripples of grief reverberated from the centre of his solitary question. Lori couldn’t hold his gaze. 

“About a week ago, I think.” she said to the sliding door behind him. “Gas leak.” 

“Gas leak.” Billy repeated, then again, “damn shame.” He let it hang for a moment longer before shaking the contents from the manilla envelope. He sniffled in the silence. From the next room Lori could hear the Price is Right return from a commercial break.

  Billy suddenly smiled at her from across the table. It was as if his eyes shined beneath his comb over. Three errant hairs stood straight up on his head as if they too had information to volunteer. “I bet you both got on well. She would have eaten you up. Probably reminded her of her. Tell me Laura, she give you a deal on that camera?” 

Lori smiled despite his flub of her name. “Gave me an offer I couldn’t refuse.” This sent Billy into another screeching fit of laughter. Lori let it pass. It was her turn to feel morose. She fixed Billy with a stare. 

Here goes nothing 

“She- at least I got the impression from her, that she thought maybe it was the- the camera that was somehow, well somehow- i guess cursed?” 

Billy reached instinctively for something on the tabletop. His pudgy hand grasping at air before he looked over and snickered. “That’s right. It’s supposed to be out of sight out of mind.” There was a knit bag with a button pinned to it hanging over the back of his chair. The button had a picture of a crochet needle underneath the words support your local hooker. He fished around in it blindly while his left hand unwound the oxygen from his nose. He swiped a finger under his nose back and forth as his right hand came out with what  looked to Lori like a milk bag filled with loose cigarettes. He rolled the oxygen tank away before grabbing for a glass ashtray that was in the same drawer as the manilla envelope. 

“I know I should quit smoking. I did. I will. It’s just. Old memories bring back old habits. Do you know what I mean?” He didn’t wait for Lori to answer. Instead he massaged his hand over his neck. The aftermath of a third degree burn leaving the skin puckered and shiny. His nails left small white tracks in it that disappeared as quickly as he scratched his nails across it. 

Billy shook a cigarette loose from the bag. It rolled to the kitchen table in a spray of loose drown tobacco that reminded Lori of a tea reader. 

Is that what I'm doing here? Having my fortune told to me.

The flash of a lighter drew her eye to the proximity of his oxygen tank, but Billy Creech was an old hand at feeding the monkey on his back. He’d pushed the thing far enough away that it stood regarding his actions like a matronly attendant tutting at it’s younger ward’s filthy habit. He shook the contents of the envelope across the table. Photographs, some black and white, some in colour grainy an saturated from exposure, came to rest among the loose bits of tobacco. 

“I worked for the paper. Freelance. I think I tld you that already.” he said between puffs. 

Lori tried not to wrinkle her nose. Billy’s smoke hung in the air despite him waving a hand toward the fan after each puff. 

“Right, right. The camera. The camera we got at the police auction. I remember thinking it could be a cool piece for the mantle. A wall hanger, that sort of thing. But when we got it back to my apartment, shit we realized this thing was still in working order. A buddy of mine did boudoir photography. He lived in the same building. So PJ and I take this thing to him. He figures out how to get the photo panel off, don’t ask me how, the damn thing was like a chinese puzzle box to me.” He smashed the spent cigarette butt into the ashtray as his other hand repeated the smoke bag shimmy to get another loosie in a sea of dried leaves. Lori’s stomach began to flip. 

“When we developed the photo,” Billy said, “We thought something was wrong with the thing. Figured it was just teh signs of age, wear and tear on the thirty year old camera. The photo was blurred bad, but the thing that struck me was how clear the features were. It was a woman. I can tel you that much. Blonde. But the face.” He leaned back in his chair, casting a weary eye at the oxygen tank as the kitchen chair did its best to accommodate his shifting bulk. Billy leaned forward. He jabbed a photo with one finger. 

Lori craned her neck to get a better look. She recognized teh clothing before the man. That thick, brown material that just looked like it stank of mothballs and mildew. She took in the wilted flower on his lapel; the dark marbles of his eyes. It was him. She was positive. The same gnarled hands that reached for her from the swirling darkness of the Miligan house clutched the very same camera she had stashed in the car. 

Across the table Billy stared at her from his curtain of blue smoke that was lazily drifting across the ceiling. A small smile bent the corners of his mouth in it’s direction. 

“Oh yeah. You’ve seen him too, huh? I can tell.” Billy’s mouth crinkled to one side as he blew the final breath of his second cigarette out before reaching for the bag again.

“Oh what? No I, It’s just kind of hot in here.” Lori offered weakly. She brushed her sleeves off her arms as if that would give validity to her claim. 

“Don’t you dare try and lie.” Billy’s voice darkened. It was only for a second, and it was only as he stabbed teh second used up butt into the tray to join the first, but it was enough for Lori to take notice. She looked up and he was smiling, as if joking, but if there was any good humour in the man’s words. She was having trouble finding it. He stuck her with that same gaze. Accusation danced among the words he wasn’t saying. He dropped his gaze to the photo again. “That’s Horace Franklin. Little weirdo. Liked to spy on women a little before sticking them with a knife. I don’t know why. I guess that’s why I’m not a serial killer.” He let the joke hang in the air. (there was that gaze again) before a laugh seemed to bubble up from his chest and escape his mouth. 

Lori was struck by the almost sinister difference it had from his other wheezy laugh.

“I always just figured it was something, you know, performance based.” Billy moved his right fist up and down in the air, his eyes locked on Lori’s.  

This was a dumb idea. Forget this. You’ve got a name, you can do the rest with Google. You need to get the hell out of this dump, away from this human explosion waiting to happen. 

But she couldn’t. A twisting desire was forming along with the nausea that wouldn’t let her leave. She was as riveted as she was repulsed. 

“Horace was suspect numero uno when it came to a string of murders in the fifties. The Night Slayer? I’m sure you’ve heard of it. You strike me as a murder podcast fan, such as myself. Thing is he disappeared before anyone could confirm it was him. Anyways he owned the camera before me. That’s how it came to be in the police custody. Story goes when the cops broke his door down all the found was the camera, no Horace. That’s where your curse story came from, which I’m sorry to say, is complete and utter bullshit. The only thing that camera is, is a hunk of metal. It’s nothing more than a reminder of a bygone era I’ll be happy to get back.” 

“Huh?” Lori was sure she misheard him. 

“The camera. My camera. You said it yourself I carved the coordinates into it. I did that strictly so if anyone ever found it they would return it to me. And now here you are.” 

This is it.she thought this is your out. Go get the camera from the car. Be rid of it, let it fade into the rest of the garbage in here. Could she really do that? Would her conscience let her sleep if she walked away right now? Lori wasn’t convinced he wouldn’t start using it himself. The longer she spent with him the more she was sure something was off about him. He’d shown her that burn on purpose, she was sure of it. Some kind of weird threat? A warning? 

No. she wouldn’t leave the camera with him. She wanted to say it was the morally right thing to do, but underneath that White Knight logic there was a child’s schoolyard taunt.

Finders Keepers. 

“I don’t have it.” she said, standing. 

“What?” Billy gaped at her. Beams of sunlight slashed through the rolling smoke around him. 

“I don’t have it.” Lori repeated. 

“Bullshit. I know you do.” 

“Bullshit,” Lori surprised herself as her voice went up an octave in a mocking imitation of Billy’s 

“Give me my camera you arrogant little twat.” Billy’s hand was fast, faster than the fat man had any right to move. It clamped on Lori’s wrist like the moist mouth of a constrictor. He yanked her forward. 

Lori’s hip collided with the table. A red flash of pain clouded her vision as photos and cigarettes toppled from the table. She looked into his eyes and was met with the same beady eyed hunger she’d seen in Horace’s. She slapped Billy, hard. Two concussive cracks filed the tiny kitchen as she slapped him again. Billy grinned at her as blood trailed from a split lip. A laugh escaped him. Lori would remember thinking it was his true laugh. A mixture of the two he’d previewed so far. a n ugly sound, the way she imagined a hyena would laugh as it closed in on a kill. 

“You have no idea what I can do to you. No idea what I want to do to you.” He grabbed her free hand with his before she could slap him again.

Lori watched his intention change. A hunger bloomed in his eyes. One she knew he couldn’t satiate anymore. One he hadn’t satiated in a long time. Her vision seemed to double. She had a sense memory of being back in Toronto. Of Dr. Spears and the hushed tone he spoke to her dad in. She stood on the scale in her uncomfortable hospital gown afraid to look at the numbers. She knew they didn’t think she could hear them, but his words stayed with her long after they left the city. 

She doesn’t see herself the way others do. That can either help or hinder her, what you water will grow.  A crack filled the small kitchen as she slapped him again. Both blows did nothing to remove his sardonic grin. He stood from the table. Slowly edging around it to close the distance between them. His eyes locked on her body. 

The front door burst open. It slammed against the hinges as Dean charged red faced through the hall way and into the small kitchen. 

At least that was her hope. 

In reality the door stayed closed. Creech came closer. Lori was alone. 

A stack of pizza boxes teetered on the countertop beside her. White mold clung to the leftover cheese and bits of meat left in a wasteland of grease puddles and crumbs. In a flash of panicked strength Lori wrenched her hand free from Billy’s clammy grasp. In a flash she had the cutter and was pressing it’s blade to Billy’s throat. His eyes bulged. He tried to reach for it. Lori laced her fingers into his wrists and wrenched his arms above his head. Her strength. She pressed forward as if Billy weighed nothing, his slippers barely touching the floor as if he was an insolent child being punished by a frustrated parent. 

He collided with the sliding door hard enough to cause a massive white dent in it. Tendrils of cracks spiderwebbed out from the centre as his breath leaked from him in a great sighing gasp. calico cat rocketed from the living room and zipped through a kitty door at the end of the hall. Lori absently heard it pounding down basement stairs giving the house the sound of a massive heart beat. 

A thread of blood slid from where the blade cut into his neck. It thread through the strange puckered flesh of his burns until saturating the collar of his shirt.  

She imagined, only for a moment, opening Billy’s chest, running the metal wheel over the grey t-shirt to slice it open and spill the blood of his heart, so red it was almost black. It would be a fate less than he deserved, this fat pervert who’d turned to gluttony when his favourite toy went missing. He was weak. He wouldn’t be missed. 

Billy stood, wide eyes locked on those of thegirl in front of him. She twisted her head slowly to meet his gaze. He saw two mini reflections of himself in her eyes that had gone completely white. 

“Enough.” she said. Her voice seemed to resonate with the command. It felt like it shook the small house, drowning out the game show fro mthe other room. It dwarfed the sound of his failing heart slamming in his ears. 

“The condit stays with us. You forfeited your dominion of it when you left it to fate. I should open your heart for the insolence.” 

“I didn’t- I wasn’t” Billy stammered as his breath huffed out of him in shallow puffs. Lori felt like she could hear the heart attack coming as the thunderous beat seemed to fill the home, she could barely hear Drew Carrey telling the tv audience to spay and neuter their pets. She was drawn to his eyes again, his apology he was whimpering out through fat tears that rolled down his face.  

The pizza cutter slipped from her fingers. It clanged to the floor. 

Then she was running. Through the hallway. Passed the dining room stuffed with medical supplies. She scooped up her shoes. She dashed through the door and into the dying light of autumn. 

“It’s mine.” Billy wailed. He collapsed to the floor. His arm pinwheeling trying to grab the wheeled cart of his oxygen tank. He threaded the hose around his bulk as he gasped for a full breath. “I need it.” 

Lori had a terrible moment when she thought the car would be gone, the spot vacant save for a few leaves and litter. Her Dad sat behind the wheel looking at the house. His eyes narrowed in question. His mouth a thin line as if he was trying to puzzle something out. When he saw her he started the engine. Lori crossed the street and was in the car within seconds. 

“Just go.” she over rode Dean’s questions. He tried to start again. Lori began pounding on the dashboard “just go.” she screamed. Her back slammed into the seat and the tires chirped as Dean took off from the curb. Lori watched the misaligned brown door of Billy’s garage, no doubt overflowing with as much shit as his house was, shrink into the distance. She felt heat trickle down her cheek. She wiped the tear absently. When she settled back in her seat Dean tried again. 

“What. happened?” 

“He started creeping out. One second he’s telling me this story of how the camera was for him, what happened to him, then he’s- he’s.” she glanced at Dean knowing how he would take the news. He’s want to go back. He’d want to finish what Lori started with the cutter. 

“He what? What did he do Lor?” Dean glanced from the road to his daughter, annoyed. 

“He just- he flipped out. He started babbling, not making any sense. I guess he used to date Petunia. When he started calling me her name I bolted. It just scared me. The place was an absolute sty, so that didn’t help. He just creeped me out, that’s all.” 

She looked at her dad. He wasn’t buying it. “What  dad, honestly. He was just kind of a weirdo, case closed.” 

Dean grunted beside her. He stared her down for a few minutes more wondering if his daughter would give up the truth. When she didn’t he moved on. 

When did she get this arrogant? Dean scratched his chest. “Did you at least find out anything about the camera?” 

“Horace Franklin was a murderer. He owned the camera and used it to take sick pictures of his victims. Billy, the guy who just crashed out, got the camera after him. Somehow PJ ended up with it, now us.” Lori listed the facts off mechanically, her voice flat. 

“So it just fucks up whoevers life it touches, this thing?” Dean said. 

“Seems that way.” Lori looked out the window, counting raindrops as they collected and slid down the cool glass. 

The trip passed in agonizing slowness. Lori read as much about Horace Franklin as she could before she got a headache. Dean stopped once to piss and get a coffee. He didn’t ask what Lori wanted, which was weird, but she didn’t want to psh him. He looked exhausted. He kept looking around as if expecting to see something. His eyes, even on the highway, darted rom sign to sign, cars passed and he shot glances first at the passengers, rhen the rear of the car, his mouth moving soundlessly as if he was trying to memorize the license plate. It was during one of these small mutterings that Lori reached her breaking point. She pulled up the picture she took of the camera again and had the AI software analyse it. She got nothing buti vintage camera ads and a facebook link to antique hunters of Ontario. After that her phone froze and she had to do a hard reset. 

###

She stretched as she got out of the car pressing her fingers into the meat of her lower back before reaching high above her head. She stutter-stepped toward the trailer. “I need a shower after that. I feel like my skin is still crawling. Do you want something to eat?” The Tercel engine screamed to life as Dean put his foot to the gas. The car did a lazy, jarring semi-circle that chewed up the small patch of grass he had in front of his trailer, the one both of them always sat on in lawn chairs watching the Canada Day fireworks. When his front tires hit the packed gravel pathway that threaded about the park the car took off, launching stones at anyone close enough. 

“Dad” Lori screamed after him. “Dad what are you doing?” She started running after him. In five steps the Tercel was gone. The screams of the engine falling into the coming night. She took her phone out, stabbing her phone into the call history. She brought up his name. The phone rang seven times before going to voicemail. She tapped the end call button before trying again. Three rings this time and it cut to voicemail. She sobbed. Doorways were starting to fill with lookie-loos hungry for any kind of conflict or gossip to fuel the rumor mill. Lori composed herself as well as she could on her way inside. She tried her dad again. Nothing. He’s shut his phone off. Why was he doing this? Lori wracked her brain for an answer and when one didn’t come she felt herself come untethered from any sort of grounded reality. Her last remaining support just bolted from her life, and it was probably because of something she did. She tried to think it through. To start breathing the way Dr. Spears taught her, but it didn’t last. 

She found some leftovers and last week’s jello in the fridge. Standing there with he cold air rolling out and up her sweater, Lori felt goosebumps race across her flesh. She finished the Jello and most of the Hamburger Helper before her brain conjured an image of Billy Creech. She saw his fat, blackhead filled face in her minds eye. The bulging rolls, the burned skin. It was the smell of the house that did it. She felt her stomach lurch. She dropped the bowl and raced to the bathroom. She hated the start of it, the finger down her throat. That was the worst of it. But the feeling of control that flooded back ot her as she expelled everything she just ate was shamefully grounding. 

When she couldn’t bring up any more, Lori Sellers staggered to the bathroom sink and ran cold water into her hand. She took a few sips from it before bending down and splashing it on her face. She spent a long minute bent over breathing into her hands. When she stood she leapt back from the mirror. A scream tore from her mouth as she snapped her hands back over her eyes. When she removed them he was still there, watching her from the bathroom mirror. Lori picked up the  soap dish. She hesitated. 

Horace Franklin looked out from the bathroom mirror where her reflection should have been. His eyes locked on hers and he seemed to appraise her before uttering two words in a voice that sounded cracked and dry from disuse. 

“Hello mother,” he said. 

Lori screamed once more as she hurled the dish against the mirror. The glass exploded into tiny shards that tinkled to the floor like raindrops.

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