The dead have always spoken to me. Ever since I can remember, I’ve been able to see and hear the spirits of the former living. It’s never scared me. Actually, it’s been a comfort to me at times. Getting to experience the past, and the lives of people who I never would have met otherwise. My interactions with them are just like any interaction I might have with ordinary people. Well, that had always been the case until one fall when I was 13 years old.
I remember once as a young boy, visiting my grandparents in the middle of the sweltering summer. As I sat out on the front porch with my grandpa, him rocking away in his rocking chair with a glass of iced tea gripped in his hand, he turned to me and leaned in close. “Ya know what they say about cameras, boy?” His voice was lowered and serious. I shook my head. “They say that if you snap a picture of someone the moment they die, you can capture their soul in it.” Silence. The only sound coming from the rhythmic creaking of the rocking chair swaying forward and back, because I was too scared to choke out any response. My grandpa looked at me, noticed the nervous expression on my face, and threw his head back laughing. His laughs were loud and raspy, decades of smoking ringing out with each guffaw. His big, calloused hand smacked me across the back as he managed to catch his breath long enough to say, “Oh c’mon don’t be so serious. It’s just an old tale!” But just the thought of it was enough to horrify me.
Over the years, what my grandpa told me stuck with me. My experience with spirits was a pleasant one. I couldn’t bear to think that somehow they could be captured during the moment of their death. Most of them just wanted to have a peaceful “life” after death, and be able to keep an eye on their loved ones. I tried to put the old tale out of my mind as much as I could, and was somewhat successful with that. Until my grandpa died.
It was a chill October day. My family had gone to my grandparents house to clean out my grandpa’s belongings. Grandma was too old to go through everything, and with grandpa gone my mom thought it was best for her to move in with us so she wasn’t in that big, empty house all alone. While everyone else was downstairs, I made my way up to the attic. It was one of those attics that’s opening is just a square hatch in the ceiling, so no one had been up here in quite some time. Cobwebs decorated the rafters, and an old, itchy smell filled my lungs from the layer of dust on everything. But one thing caught my eye pretty quick - a small wooden chest tucked away in the corner. It had a tower of other boxes stacked on top, but I could see small scratch marks in the wooden floor, where it had been dragged out continuously over the years. And something about it just called to me.
After a good few minutes of struggling, I managed to move the stack of heavy boxes off the chest and was finally ready to see what secrets it held. My hand reached for the latch, and a sense of dread washed over me. I paused there for a moment, my hand slightly shaking from the sudden omen. But I was still curious, and so I shook the feeling off.
Inside was a scattering of polaroid pictures. Most of them decades old. In the dim lighting of the attic, I couldn’t immediately make out any of the subjects. Fumbling from my still trembling hand, I managed to pull out my phone and turn on the flashlight. Just as I did, I heard a gurgling sound somewhere behind me. I slammed the lid of the chest and quickly spun around, canvasing the dingy attic with the light from my phone. But there was nothing. I was no stranger to hearing odd noises, ones that other people couldn’t hear. This time felt different.
I turned back to the chest and lifted the lid once again. This time the cast of light revealing the morbid secrets kept inside. I picked up a handful of the polaroids and started rifling through them in horror. Every single one was of someone being murdered. Dozens of them, almost all of them women. My stomach dropped and I felt the sudden urge to vomit. I dropped the pictures and started scrambling backwards when I heard that same gurgling noise. My heart racing, pounding in my ears, I whipped around and saw it. The distinct familiarity of a ghost. Only this one was different from all the others I had seen countless other times in my life. It was a younger woman, maybe late 20s, long blonde hair, dressed in ‘70s garb. She was grasping at her throat, her eyes wide and full of fear as if something was choking her. She slowly lost the energy to fight back though, as her arms went limp and her eyes dulled. And then she vanished.
“What the hell was that?” I was gasping for air myself now, trying to make sense of what I had just witnessed. This had never happened before. None of the spirits I’ve seen have been anything other than just your normal, everyday person going about their usual business. But as I sat there stunned, the apparition of the woman appeared again, and repeated the exact same thing that happened before. The choking, the life leaving her body, the disappearing. It was like she was stuck in a loop. Then it dawned on me. That day years ago when my grandpa had said something that had stayed in the back of my mind. “They say that if you snap a picture of someone the moment they die, you can capture their soul in it.”
As much as I hated it, I turned back to the polaroids. I quickly searched for the older ones, looking for that specific ghostly visage. Sure enough she was there. The woman I kept seeing appear before me, the same lifeless look on her face, and a hand still wrapped around her neck. A hand I knew all too well. That old bastard hadn’t just told me a silly old tale. He admitted straight up to his sick crimes. Multiple pictures taken at the moment of death for those poor victims. Capturing their souls, keeping them stuck in a grisly loop of experiencing their own murders over and over.
The anger overwhelmed me. How could he do this to them? He stole their lives, and their afterlives too! I was beginning to shake with rage, when I felt a presence behind me. Then that laugh I heard that day, raspy and loud echoed through the attic. “Well I’ll be. The boy can see ghosts. Guess it runs in the family.” He let out another hearty laugh.
“WHAT DID YOU DO? HOW COULD YOU-”
“Look kid, you’re not the only one with this “gift”. I had it my whole life too. Never told a soul. I hated it. I didn’t want to see all these people that no one else could. They disgusted me. So weak, wandering around after their lives were up because they cared so much about their families or friends. I didn’t understand how someone could want to live such a pathetic afterlife.”
“Of course they wanted that. Everyone wants to know how the ones they loved are doing without them.”
“Not me. I could barely stand the bunch of ya while I was alive. Thankfully I had my outlet here. Something that actually did give me pleasure.” He chuckled and glanced towards the chest of pictures. “And it wasn’t long before I stumbled across something even better. I loved seeing the life leave their eyes. Hearing them take that last breath. And so I wanted to relive that moment over and over. That’s how those came to be. The first time I just took the picture so I could look at it whenever I wanted. But it just took the one. When I went back to look at it later, she appeared before me. Pretty little thing she was. Even prettier gasping for breath. And there she was, experiencing it again right before my very eyes. I couldn’t believe it! And that’s when I realized that I had discovered something wonderful. If I just took a picture of them the moment they died, their souls would be stuck in that moment for eternity. I could revisit their deaths any time I wanted, and much better than just some old image.”
I wanted to scream. I couldn’t believe this was the man I called grandpa all my life. Sure we were never the closest, but I never expected he was this twisted. That he could see all these spirits and choose to do what he did. It wasn’t right. “You’re a monster.” My voice was trembling and I was holding back tears.
“I guess you’re right.” His grin was disgusting. “At least I’ll have an exciting afterlife. Unlike these miserable old things. I took matters into my own hands and created the life after death that I wanted. Now I get to really experience all these murders over and over again, just like I used to.”
Once again the woman from before manifested in front of me. This time with that monster’s hand clenching her throat. He had a look of pure joy in his eyes. This is how he wanted to spend his afterlife. Still having that power he had when he was alive. Using this gift he had, that I inherited from him, for the sickest of reasons.
Without hesitation, I took the photo of the woman, still clenched in my sweaty fingers, and ripped it straight in half. Within an instant her spirit vanished from his clutches before he could get the satisfaction of draining her life once again.
“What did you just do, you son of a-”
But before he could stop me, I had grabbed another handful of pictures and began destroying those as well. With each one he grew more and more furious. He tried swiping them out of my hands, forgetting in the moment that spirits can’t interact with the living. Stumbling and spitting in fury, he fell before me on his knees as I kept tearing one after another. Until I came to the last picture. A girl, late teens, short black hair, and wearing a punk outfit was imprinted on the polaroid.
“Please, just leave me one. You can’t do this to me. I set this all up for my afterlife, and I don’t even get to enjoy it!”
He kneeled before me, powerless like he had made so many others. Begging for just one thing to hang onto in this hellish afterlife he hated so much. And with glee, my fingers pinched the top of the photo and slowly ripped it in half, the pieces falling to the ground in front of him. I turned my back on the pathetic old man, groveling before me, ready to leave this awful place. But before I could, I saw a quick flash as a spirit appeared once again. It was the punk girl in the last photo. Except this time she wasn’t having to experience that dreadful moment again. She gave me a slight smile, one that was present in the picture, but was beautiful to see now, and a knowing nod. Then she left. Off to live the peaceful afterlife that was stolen from her before.