A drabble in ten parts: Part X

X.

I have never been able to find my way back to that house, though I can’t say I’ve tried particularly hard. Whenever I feel I’m getting close, I let myself get distracted, and I lose the trail.

And none of my photos from that day came out; the film was overexposed. Well, save for one photograph.

It’s the very last picture I took before fleeing. A jagged line cuts across it—the broken lens—and it’s dark and out of focus. But sometimes I can just make out the figure standing on the stairs, waving at the camera.

Forgiving me.

~~~

Thanks for reading, everyone! I hope it's been fun. For the record, I had this story workshopped today, and will probably post my revisions when they're ironed out.

A drabble in ten parts: Part IX

IX.

“I know you didn’t want to come here, but this isn’t funny. Bill?” The smell from the kitchen is even stronger than before. I can distinctly hear piano music, and laughing voices and the sound of silverware against china.

There is one place I haven’t looked, I realize. But I don’t want to go down into the cellar, don’t want to find what’s there. That something else I sensed when we arrived.

“Bill!” I call one last time into the no longer empty house. As I back out the door, shaking, I hold up my camera for one last shot.

A drabble in ten parts: Part VIII

VIII.

Frantically I race down the corridor, knocking open doors as I go. “Bill!” I call. “Bill, where are you?”

At the end of the hallway is a bathroom. The mirror is fogged up, as if someone was just taking a hot shower, but the room is cold as ice. As I turn to leave I slip on the slick tile floor. I catch myself on the edge of the sink, but my camera falls and I hear the lens crack as it makes contact. Scrambling to my feet, I rush to the staircase.

“Bill,” I plead, “please come back now!”

A drabble in ten parts: Part VII

VII.

The first room we come to must have been the bedroom of a little girl. Pink sheets, now faded, line the bed adorned with dolls and toy animals. I can almost make out my own reflection in their shiny glass eyes as I bend down, peering at them from behind the lens. They disappear momentarily as the shutter clicks.

Beside the bureau is a full-length mirror with a gilded frame. I consider my reflection, picture lace dresses and tiaras. Yeah, right.

Then I realize that I don’t see anyone behind me in the reflection. I spin around.

Bill is gone.

A drabble in ten parts: Part VI

(Sorry I missed a post yesterday! Have two today!)

VI.

“Let’s go upstairs,” I suggest, though I can feel my courage beginning to drain. We climb the stairs one at a time, testing the boards as we go in case they’re structurally unsound. At the top I turn around and shoot a picture down the stairs toward the front door. Through the crack in the door I can see dusk’s rosy hue. “Huh, we must have left it ajar when we came in.”

I turn back to face the corridor, and I take Bill’s hand. It’s warm in mine.

He smiles. “You wanna leave?”

I shake my head. “Not yet.”