Chapter 5: The Face in the Photograph

Chapter 5: The Face in the Photograph

Time snapped. The world, which had been a whirlwind of frantic investigation, slammed to a halt. The only things that existed were Leo, the suffocating cold, and the impossible shape in the doorway. It was a hole in reality, a tear in space stuffed with shadow and ill will. The slow, wet exhale—Hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh—still hung in the air, a foul residue coating the back of his throat. His mind, which had been running on a frantic mixture of adrenaline and anger, simply shut down. He was paralyzed, a mouse frozen in the unblinking stare of a serpent.

The silhouette didn’t move. It simply stood there, its head cocked at that broken angle, occupying the only path to survival. The predatory glint where its eyes should be seemed to brighten, feeding on his terror. Leo knew, with a certainty that bypassed all rational thought, that if he stayed there another second, he would be consumed. The thing would flow over him like ink, and he would simply cease to be.

Fight or flight. There was nothing to fight. The room was bare, and the entity before him seemed less physical than it was a law of nature, a localized pocket of pure malevolence. That left flight. But how?

His gaze darted around the cavernous, empty room, and his eyes landed on the flashlight he’d thrown earlier. It lay near the far wall, its beam pointing uselessly at the ceiling. A plan—a desperate, stupid, and utterly suicidal plan—flashed through his mind.

He didn't give himself time to second-guess it. With a strangled cry that was half-yell and half-sob, Leo snatched the shattered photograph from the floor and hurled it with all his strength at the far corner of the room.

The frame hit the wall with a hollow clatter of wood and tinkling glass, a pathetic noise in the crushing silence.

The silhouette reacted.

Its head, the part that was a head, twitched. The entire shadowy form seemed to waver for a fraction of a second, its attention drawn by the sudden sound and movement. It was the barest of openings, a crack in its perfect, predatory focus.

Leo didn't wait. He launched himself forward, a pure explosion of instinct. He aimed for the sliver of space between the entity’s long, distorted arm and the doorframe. As he passed it, a wave of profound cold washed over him, so intense it felt like a physical blow. It was a deep, cellular cold that seemed to suck the warmth from his bones, and with it came the metallic scent of old blood and the ozone tang of raw power. He flinched, expecting a hand of shadow to clamp down on his shoulder, to stop his heart with its touch.

But nothing grabbed him. He burst through the doorway and into the relative safety of the third-floor hall, stumbling and catching his balance on the opposite wall. He didn't look back. He slammed the heavy wooden door shut, the sound a dull thump that was immediately swallowed by the dead air.

The key. He needed the key.

His hands, slick with cold sweat and shaking uncontrollably, fumbled in his pocket. He pulled out the heavy brass key, its ornate head feeling alien and complex in his panicked grip. The thing in the room was silent. Was it waiting? Was it about to smash through the door? He could feel its presence pressing against the wood, a palpable weight of ancient anger.

He jammed the key into the lock. For a horrifying second, he thought he had it upside down, but then it slid home. He turned it. The lock mechanism gave another loud, resonant CLUNK. The sound was different this time. It wasn't the sound of entry; it was the sound of imprisonment.

He didn't wait to see if it would hold. He turned and ran.

He flew down the hallway, his feet kicking up clouds of ancient dust. He practically threw himself down the stairwell, his hand barely grazing the rickety bannister. The warnings from Abernathy seemed like a sick joke now, the pathetic bleatings of a man who knew he was sending lambs to slaughter. Every shadow seemed to reach for him, every creak of the old stairs was the sound of pursuit. The phantom feeling of that soul-deep cold clung to him, a chilling memory burned into his nerves.

He reached the second floor, his floor, and scrambled down the familiar, yellow-lit hall. His apartment door, 2B, looked like the gate to heaven. He fumbled with his own, modern key, his breath coming in ragged, burning gasps. The lock clicked open and he threw himself inside, slamming the door behind him and ramming the deadbolt home. He leaned against the wood, his chest heaving, his heart trying to beat its way out of his ribs.

Safe. He was safe. He had locked it in its room. He had escaped.

For a full minute, he just stood there, listening to the frantic rhythm of his own blood. The silence of his apartment slowly began to push back against the terror. The familiar smell of dust and old linoleum replaced the cloying scent of decay from upstairs. He was back in his fortress. A flimsy fortress, yes, but it was his.

Slowly, the adrenaline began to recede, leaving him shaky and hollowed out. He pushed himself off the door and turned, his eyes scanning the small living area, desperate to reacquaint himself with the mundane, the normal. His sleeping bag in the corner. His box of books. His dented microwave.

His gaze fell upon the small, rickety table he’d dragged into the center of the room.

And his blood froze all over again.

Sitting perfectly centered on the tabletop, catching the dim light from the hallway that bled under the door, was the photograph.

It was impossible. He had dropped it. He had heard the glass shatter on the third floor. He had locked the door behind him. Yet, here it was. He took a hesitant step closer, then another. The simple, dark wood frame was intact. The pane of glass that covered the image was flawlessly smooth, without a single crack or chip, impossibly pristine. It looked brand new.

With a sense of dread that dwarfed anything he had felt upstairs, Leo reached out a trembling hand and picked it up.

The image was no longer murky. The sepia tones were sharp, the shadows deep and defined, as if the photograph had been freshly developed. And the man’s face… it was clear now. The severe, handsome features, the slicked-back hair, the arrogant set of his jaw. It was all there in terrifying detail.

But it was the eyes.

Before, they had been intense. Now, they were alive. They possessed a chilling, sentient clarity. They weren’t looking at a camera from seventy years ago. They were looking at him, right now, in his locked apartment. They held an expression of cold, calculating victory, of supreme amusement. They bored into Leo, pinning him in place, and in their dark, ancient depths, he saw the same predatory glint he had seen in the silhouette.

He had locked the door, but he hadn't trapped the entity. He had only trapped its physical shell. Its power, its consciousness, its gaze—that could go anywhere it wanted. The walls of the Blackwood were not its prison. They were its body. And his apartment was just another room inside its cage. He hadn't escaped at all. He had just run from the monster's claws into its waiting mouth.