A Remarkable Photograph

A Remarkable Picture
By Davin Kimble
Sam Daval awoke in the same dingy hotel room and the same sorry state in which he’d gone to sleep. Waking up in a bed was at least a change, different, if not at all refreshing, from the usual hard concrete or dingy bar room floors where he usually found himself on a morning. The pounding behind his eyes told him that the daily hang over was already in full gear, speeding to pure misery, and he reached over blindly seeking out the bottle he knew would be near. His hand bumped the bottle and knocked it over. From the dull ringing thunk and the sloshing liquid sound, he knew that the bottle was less than half full and he cursed himself for spilling even a single drop. As quickly as his aching muscles would allow him he retrieved the precious elixir and gulped the cheap brown fluid inside. Not even the sharp tang of ashes on his tongue stopped him finishing off the bottle. He’d had worse over the last few months.
Collapsing back onto the filthy mattress, Sam allowed himself to drift back into a semi sleep. The booze helped him relax, but it was not near enough to stave off the dreams. Again, he saw the gallery where his work had been displayed. He could clearly hear the quiet awe of the assembled guests all specially invited to see, and hopefully buy, his greatest works. Photography for Sam had always been more that an art, more than capturing a moment in time, for him it had been a passion that surpassed all others. He’d never been married, never been in even a serious relationship. He’d never finished school, never had friends, never played team sports, never had a job, never watched television or bothered to develop anything other than his skills as a photographer. If he read, he read books about photography. If he went out, he went camera in hand. He heard her voice again in his dream, the blonde woman he’d taken home that night, rather, the woman he’d intended on taking home until the accident.
The gallery was full and near to closing when he’d heard her voice and he followed the sound, his eye to the view finder his finger, clicking the mechanism, working the shutter again and again, as he followed her around the room. She did not notice him at first, but by the time she did, Sam knew every detail of her face and body already. He’d studied her intimately through the lens, as if he’d been her most careful and patient lover. She smiled at him through the eye of the lens, and for the first time since hearing her speak, he lowered the camera. Her smile was the most stunning thing he’d ever seen, and he decided then and there that she would be the subject of his next exhibition. He could already see in his mind’s eye the finished product. With that thought, he approached her, and though she was at first wary of his advances, she soon warmed to the idea of modeling for him and not long after they were speeding towards his home in his ’67 Corvette.
Though he’d started since, Sam didn’t drink back then. His impatience came not from his loins but from his camera urging him on. He could see her even then filling its frame, his vision coming to life in the darkroom he’d built with his own hands. He knew she’d sleep with him of course, they all did, but that was merely a bonus that came along with her captured image. He looked to her as he drove, her smile dazzling even with the naked eye, and his foot unconsciously pressed harder on the accelerator. The car, already zipping along the mostly deserted streets, lurched ahead at his urging and slammed into the side of a school bus.
Sam jerked awake at the memory of that piercing roar of metal meeting metal and the screams of children. It had been a bus load of high school kids, on their way home from a band recital at the local performance hall. He’d never seen them, but in that instant he knew who they were. They had been featured in the lifestyles section of the paper where his gallery exhibit had been featured. He remembered mostly because they had taken the front page over his work and he’d been thoroughly infuriated at that. Sam remembered calling his agent then, giving him a thorough reaming over the fact. Of course his agent had no control over where the paper placed a feature but Sam, lacking as he was, cussed his agent thoroughly none the less and he was sure the agent cussed the paper in turn.
The dream slowly faded from his mind but the memories continued. That day changed Sam in the eyes of his adoring public. The woman and three of the children died in that crash and Sam, emerging unscathed, was found snapping away three rolls of film already exhausted by the time the authorities arrived on the scene. He fought for three months to have those photographs returned to him afterwards. His agent begged him to be more cooperative often telling him that it was a miracle that he was not up on charges. Lucky for Sam, the bus driver was found to be negligent in the case, having turned into Sam’s lane, and Sam was hit with only a speeding ticket. But the effects of his behavior afterward were devastating.
The same critics that had made him famous now turned on him with a vengeance, following the lead of reporters, parents and elected officials, who were furious at his lack of remorse over the deaths of four innocent people, three of which had been children with their whole lives ahead of them. In a matter of days, Sam went from being heralded as the greatest photographer of the time, to being lambasted and portrayed as an uncaring, soulless hack. One critic referred to his work as unremarkable.
“Unremarkable.” Sam muttered to himself as he pealed his aching body from the flea ridden mattress. At firs,t the words had meant nothing to him but soon the effect of that one line of text struck him as a smiting from God. His agent dropped him and no other would touch him, his gallery showing went from a major city event to nothing in a matter of days and he could not even pay to have his work displayed. Soon afterward he found some of his best works for sale on E-bay for pennies on the dollar and the biddings were less than remarkable themselves. Soon, the money began to dry up, Sam found an eviction notice in his mailbox, topping a stack of past due bills. Life from there, for Sam, became truly less than remarkable.

Soon after making his way around the darkroom equipment in the hotel room bathroom, and washing the alcohol stink from his skin as best he was able, Sam took up his camera and stepped into the glaring summer sunlight beyond the threshold. The glare brought the pounding in his head back full force, and Sam squinted against the glare and the pain, looking for the signs of an open bar near by. Seeing only a narrow strip of highway before him and a small convenience store at the far end of the hotel parking lot Sam made his way toward the latter. The dust under his feet and the sweat that soaked through his shirt told him that he had landed in some desert town somewhere. How long ago he couldn’t remember, but the cheerful greeting from the girl behind the counter told him that it had been a few days at least.
“Morning Mr. Daval,” the girl said to him as he stepped into the small room. The air inside was frigid, in comparison to the stifling heat outside and Sam shivered.
“Uh, morning…”
“Shirley,” the girl said reminding him in a tone that told him that she’d been reminding him every day. “Too early for me to sell you a bottle,” she continued.
Sam looked her over, noting the large nipples pressing against the thin fabric of her blouse and the gentle pink of her tongue as she worked it over a Popsicle. She was a pretty girl but plain and a bit thin. Sam felt a small twinge in his jeans, for which he was glad, but he only smiled and turned for the medicinal aisle. Finding aspirin there he then turned for the cooler pulling out two cool cokes. Opening one immediately, Sam took three aspirin, chewing them slightly before taking down half of one coke in a single swallow. On his way to the counter, he looked over the pastry and chip selection but the rolling of his gut told him he would never keep anything down; so, he took only the cokes and aspirin.
“Going out to take more pictures?” Shirley asked him as she expertly worked the register.
She pronounced the work Pit-shures and that brought a small smile to Sam’s face. Up close, Shirley was cuter than he’d originally thought but obviously young. The twinge in his jeans insisted that she was old enough but a slight twinge did nothing to convince him he’d be able to please even her; so he set the thought of asking her to his room aside. Besides, it was a pig sty not exactly conducive to seduction. Maybe he’d clean it up some, catch her later.
“Yeah,” he said in reply, “Going to get something remarkable today.”
“That would be great,” she said, as she counted out his change. “You really should check out the old Mills mine. We used to go up there as kids, pretty neat place. I could give you directions, or if you want to I could show you the way later.” She smiled at him then and he had a sudden sharp flash of the blonde smiling at him through the lens finder, her face mostly smashed her soft flesh studded with bits of windshield glass.
“Uh, just the directions for now,” he said stuffing the wadded bills and coins into his pocket.
A small pout creased her pretty lips but she dutifully produced a pen and a scrap of paper and jotted the directions down. Sam took them from her with thanks and headed back out into the stifling heat.
“See you later Mr. Daval.” He heard her say as the door jangled shut behind him.
Sam swallowed the last of his first coke tossing the empty into a nearby trash can and opened the second before heading across the lot to his waiting vehicle. The camera was a comfortable, reassuring weight at his side as he walked, and he drew strength from it. By the time he’d reached the old Chevrolet, he’d begun to feel better, and he could feel the familiar urgency to be snapping away coming over him. He crawled behind the wheel of the car, barely noticing the hot leather of the seats, and glanced down at the scrap of paper Shirley had given him. He noted the phone number at the bottom, and the little smiley face she’d signed it with, the twinge in his pants returned. Maybe he’d call her after all he thought, starting the engine.

While not a Corvette, the old car served him well, and he soon found himself speeding down the two lane black top looking for the turnoff that would lead him out to the old mine. The directions were clear, and though it took more than an hour to reach his destination, Sam had no trouble finding the place. It had obviously been closed for sometime the fencing, while not open to vehicle traffic, had a gap in it large enough for him to squeeze through. Parking the car, Sam followed the dirt track through the gap in the fence, and over to the edge of an open pit mine. In the bottom stood a few rusted out pieces of machinery and some trailers, which had likely been offices when the mine was in business. Sam took a few shots from the lip and then followed the track down into the bottom. As he went he snapped away, changing the roll once as he descended.
Reaching the floor of the mine, Sam suddenly wondered what he was doing out here in the middle of nowhere. The greatest unremarkable photographer of our time, taking pictures of a long abandoned mine with nothing more remarkable than some abandoned pieces of rusted junk to shoot. He should be somewhere else, anywhere else, shooting something that might bring him back into prominence as a photographer. He should be shooting the plain girl behind the counter of the store, or some tropical beach somewhere exotic. The feeling that he shouldn’t be here overwhelmed him for a moment, and his feet had turned to leave before he realized what he was doing. Then he heard the voice.
At first it was faint, something that could have blown in from some distance on the wind, had there been one. He stood still, his head cocked to one side listening, his camera in one hand, the other wiping itself on his jeans. The feeling of needing to be gone from this place came over him again and just as he decided he’d imagined the noise and turned to leave, he heard the voice again.
“Sam,” it said clearly as if standing directly behind him. He turned with a start and had the cameras strap not been around his neck, he would have dropped his most precious possession. He looked around and saw nothing he’d not already seen. The feeling that he should not be here was suddenly joined by the feeling that he was being watched. The feeling was so strong, that he backed away a few steps and tripped over a piece of pipe lying on the ground behind him.
“Sam, help me Sam,” the voice came again, from somewhere near the closest trailer.
“Hello,” Sam said picking himself up from the ground.
Quickly checking over the camera he walked slowly towards the trailer, the camera held out before him like a pistol, lot of good it would do him if there were some danger out here, but he could not release his hold on it. He inched his way to the back of the building and tried to peer inside one of the dusty windows. He could see only faint out lines and hazy shapes beyond the thick layer of grime. Taking a deep breath he continued around the side creeping to the edge of the trailer. Peering around the corner, he saw only the three worn wooden steps leading up to the door. Having been so long in the dry climate, the steps were weathered to hard wood and looked stable enough to hold his weight. Again, the feeling that he should flee washed over him, this time with such force he froze dead his eyes on the door before him. He fully expected to see some horror burst from the trailer, some monster from the nightmares of mad men, intent on devouring much more than his flesh.
“Hello,” Sam called again inching up the stairs, one hand holding the camera out before him the other reaching for the door handle. No answer, just more of that same feeling that he should not be here, that he should be anywhere in the wide world but here.
“I am coming in,” he called, reaching out at the extent of his arm for the door. He pulled, hard, and the door banged open, slamming into the side of the trailer before slamming back into place. In that instant he heard a piercing scream from within, and a stench so horrible assaulted his senses that he fell over backwards off the stairs and onto the hard ground. As he went, he could hear the shutter of his camera clicking away. He felt as if something were on top of him battering at his head and shoulders. The smell covered him like a physical weight, he thrashed about attempting to free himself from both the unseen weight and the pressure of the smell. He flailed, screaming at the top of his lungs, lunging this way and that in his frenzy to escape this unseen horror. The screaming voice he’d heard earlier rang in his ears.
“Sam, Sam, help me Sam! They have me and soon they will have you too!”
Sam screamed again, as darkness overcame him, he could hear clearly over the screaming his cameras shutter doing its work.

“These images are the last photo’s ever taken by the late Sam Daval,” the gallery curator said, leading the small group to the display. “No one really knows what happened to Sam, but these images are what were found in a makeshift darkroom he’d set up in a hotel room in the middle of the desert in Nevada.”
The group crowded up to the photographs, awe obvious on their enraptured features. The curator gave them a moment to look before continuing.
“As you can see, though the scene is a desert it is obviously no where we have ever seen before. I know you are all thinking that they could have been done digitally, but let me assure you, they are all original, pure photographs, developed in a darkroom. From our understanding of the story, Sam took these in daylight hours although they are quite obviously night photos. And, if you look here,” he pointed to one photo in particular, “you can clearly see a figure that appears to be our Sam himself.”
“He looks terrified,” A woman in the back of the group said.
The curator noted the woman’s nipples showed prominently through her thin blouse and the gentle pink of her tongue as she worked it over the rim of her glass. She was a pretty girl but plain and a bit thin.
“Indeed he does Miss…”
“Shirley,” she replied as if she’d told him before. “They are remarkable pictures.” She pronounced the word Pit-shures.
Yes, remarkable indeed.