Click

By Neha Badvel

Click.
That’s one.
Click.
Two.
Click.
Three, okay perfect.
I hang my Nikon camera down onto the rusty railing of Solaris’ infamous overpass. For the common onlooker, this highway is nothing special. Regular, old, and battered, the faltering infrastructure of the columns that hold it up could cause concern to them, but for the inhabitants of Solaris, the concern in question goes farther back. The death in Solaris has never gone unheard of among the townsfolk, and with the surge of popularity in the new amusement park a couple of miles down, our small town has been nothing but commotion recently. I scoff pointedly at the thought and looked down at my beat-up loafers, two dollars from Goodwill. The explosion of customers at the amusement park got me laid off from my job at Funland and I had to resort to my side hobby, photography, to keep up with my rent and hopefully keep my apartment. Selling landscape photos has been the only thing keeping me going. I’ve loved photography since I was a kid and it warms my heart knowing that I made it my career. “It doesn’t warm my feet, though,” I mutter to myself, looking down at the big hole near the bottom of my loafers where my pinky toe sat, protruding.
I kick a small pebble over the lines of the highway, bored, and a car races by, pushing the cool wind and rain into my face. Winter is coming soon and although it is my favorite season, I still dread the cold. The rain is pouring harder as the seconds go by, and I feel a thunderstorm coming on. I shove my hands deeper into my pockets and go over to retrieve my camera from where it’s hanging under my umbrella. Walking over to my parked Kia, I swipe through the recent pictures taken of the view beyond the overpass and sigh. Is this going to be the rest of my life? Taking photos of empty dreary landscapes of this cold-hearted town? My thoughts wander to the assumptions of my future and I click the ‘Next’ button repeatedly, waiting for a picture I like to come into view. But as I swipe to the last of the photos, something catches my eye. I squint closer, my eyebrows furrowing, unsure of what I’m seeing. There is something in the photos that wasn’t there before.
I speed home, the Kia going faster than it ever has. My hands grip the steering wheel, my knuckles turning an ashy shade of white that looks unusual on my tan skin. I dodge the speed limit sign by mere inches, the rain battering at the windshield. How is this possible? How could anything like this be overtly natural? My mind is racing with thoughts of the inhuman and I realize, maybe, I think I get it. I know what this is. It’s just a misapprehension, a trick of the eye. It had to be. The things I saw in those photos could not be human. I park hurriedly in the designated parking spot of my apartment complex and rush to my room to avoid the rain, my keys jingling on my carabiner. I slip my way in and slam the door, causing the plates in the cupboard to rattle eerily. My Nikon sits in my bag, soaked, and as I grab it out, I pray that whatever I saw is gone from my camera, gone from my vision, and gone entirely. As I swipe again to the last of my photos, my breath on hold the second I see that overpass, I reach the last photo. And there it is.
That dark shadow of a figure, devoid of all human features, its face stretching over the gaping lack of muscle, the bones jutting out beneath the skin. Its bloodied face looks directly at the camera, the eyes wide and inhuman. Even through the photo, I can tell it emits pure evil. It is standing over a body, an uncannily familiar body. It is my body. My body sitting on that deserted, wet, highway, my limbs cut, my poor body defaced. My skin looked iridescent, the rain shining on my smooth skin that looked dead for far longer than I thought I would be, my arms were cut off at the elbows, the jagged cuts through bone leaving the stubs of whatever was left hanging off by strands of muscle. But the one thing, the one nightmarish thing was my face. The creature standing above me held a glass shard in its hand, two long horrific gashes were carved on either side of my lips, curved upwards into a sinister smile.
I drop the camera, my hands trembling. The Nikon slams on the floor with an unsatisfying crash and my mind starts racing again with questions. The world feels like it’s spinning on its hinges and an utmost terror comes over me. I hear a knock at the door but through my manic state, I can’t seem to realize what is happening. I shake my head to steady myself, my hair sticking to my forehead due to the sweat, and go on up to the door of my apartment. As I turn the knob, an inkling of fear creeps up my spine, tickling the back of my neck and making my hair rise.
“Hello..?” I call cautiously, looking out at the hall before me.
There is nothing to be seen except the patterned carpet of the empty hallway. I step back, making room to close the door when I see the gashes engraved along the wood. A large smile is carved onto the front of my apartment door, the redwood slashed bare. I stumble back and trip over the camera on the floor, landing on the tile with a smash. The door whips open the opposite way, the metal scraping against the ground, and thuds against the wall adjacent to it. There is nobody in the doorway, but I can just feel the presence of something wicked. With my shuddering hands, I bring the camera up to my eye.
Click.
I desperately wait for the picture to load and when it does, it leaves me satisfied. There is nothing in the doorway, only the red-painted chipped wood of my apartment door and the eerie smile engraved into it. I get up from the kitchen tile deliberately and make my way over to close the door. Yet as I stand in the middle of the doorway, the hairs on the back of my neck rise again. I raise the camera to my face and hit the button.
Click.
The screen camera shows the long empty hallway, and at the very end stands a tall dark figure.
I slam the door and run, grabbing the camera as I go, I jump over the sofa and lock myself in the master bedroom. The room is set up so that the door faces the rest of the apartment so I’m left with that creature if anything goes wrong. I can hear from inside the front door lashing open and the scraping of what I could only imagine bone against tile sounds like. I know it’s back to get me, whatever that creature was, it was inherently evil. I push the bed frame towards the door in an attempt to stop it from getting open, but with my luck, the bed doesn’t move. I can hear the scrapes coming closer to my position and I look around for anything that could remotely help. I see nothing, and I kick the bedframe in frustration, I will not die like this, I refuse. The scraping stops right outside the door. I hear a knock.
“If you think I’m gonna let you in, you’re crazy! Get out of my house! Get out!” I yell, my voice is hoarse from the buildup of tears accentuating my eyes.
There is no way this is real. It can’t be. I look back down at the camera hanging around my neck and swipe through the pictures. This thing, whatever it is, has no weaknesses. It is a monster, a figure no man could even imagine. The figure slams at the door, and I jump. I see nothing at the feet of the door under the crack, no black knobs that could resemble the presence of a monster, but I know it’s there. I back away towards the bed frame, and slide down the side, sitting. The tears that were previously accelerating deepen and pour down my cheeks, now red from fear. It’s over for me. The slams against the door increase and I choke on my cries. A boom of thunder shakes the ground from outside and the rain pattering against the thin walls grows louder. The door whips open, one last time, the hinges bursting. There is nothing there. I bring the camera up to my face.
Click.
The figure is standing in the doorway, its eyes wide and strained, looking straight at the camera.
Click.
The figure is closer now, one mangled foot in the air, and its disproportionate head is looking away from the camera this time, instead it’s looking at me.
Click.
The figure is even closer. The features of its face are visible, its bones are protruding from beneath sickly skin. There is blood coming out of its eyes, staining its face.
Click.
The figure is right over me. Its head is tilted mockingly. It has something in its hand, a glass shard. I know my fate now.

–

My name is Neha Badvel. I’m a sophomore attending high school in Virginia. I love horror and like writing short horror stories.