Trembling With Fear 08/06/2017

Portrait In Blood

Durston stopped momentarily to wipe the perspiration from his face with his sweat-soaked handkerchief that he kept in the palm of his hand. He glanced up at the full white moon that shimmered in the early August sky, then continued on. An eddy of dust skimmed across the road in front of him and bits of blowing plant debris and grit battered his face and collected in his nostrils, ears and on his lips. By the time he reached the concrete pathway leading to the Pfrimmer house, huge sweat stains had formed on his shirt beneath his underarms.  He pushed open the wrought iron gate and stepped through onto a narrow path blanketed with black pebbles.

At the bottom of the steps leading up to the wrap around porch he was able to form just enough spittle in his dry mouth to spit out the dirt. He looked up at the large, weather-beaten two story white house and climbed the stairs, the steps creaking beneath his dust covered shoes.

After knocking on the door he leaned his tripod against the door frame and brushed the dust from his shirt and shifted the strap of his camera bag. The bag wasn’t heavy but in the heat the pressure of the strap on his skin felt as if he were carrying a lead weight. Rivulets of perspiration ran down his face and dripped from his stringy hair.

A little girl with long blonde hair and wearing a white summer dress and white shoes opened the door.

“Who are you?” she asked, her body half hidden in the shadows of the doorway, beyond the shining light of the moon.

“I’m Durston Hansen, the photographer,” he said.

“You’re late,” the little girl said.

“My car broke down a little ways down the road,” he said. “Who are you?”

“I’m Annabella,” she said.

From a room further back in the house, a woman’s voice called out. “Who’s at the door, Annabella?”

Annabella turned and shouted, “The man is here to take our picture.”

Behind Annabella a young woman also with long blonde hair and wearing a white floor length  dress of a gauzy material appeared. She was holding a candle. The light from its flame flickered on her pale face and made her dark eyes glisten like black marbles. “I’m Mrs. Pfrimmer,” she said. “We’ve been waiting on you.”

“I’m so sorry,” Durston said. “My car broke down. It’s practically brand new. It just stopped and I couldn’t get it running again.”

“Walking that road at night can be dangerous,” she said. “Wolves roam the countryside.”

“Wolves?” Durston said with surprise.

“You’re here now,” she said. “Come in.”

Durston lifted the tripod and went into the house and turned to see the door close on its own. He followed the woman and girl into a room with a small settee with red and black cloth upholstery in the middle of the room. Burning candles were on every table and lined the mantle place over a stone fireplace where logs snapped and crackled in an intense blaze. The room smelled of smoke, though none was present, and it was as hot and moist as a sauna.

“We wish to have our family portrait taken of us together on the settee,” Mrs. Pfrimmer said. “Mr. Pfrimmer will be up from the basement momentarily.”

Durston opened the tripod and set it up facing the settee. He took his Pentax 35mm camera from the bag and screwed it onto the tripod.

The woman and little girl were watching him very closely.

“Is that the camera you used to take the portraits in the flier that was left on our porch?” Mrs. Pfrimmer said.

“Yes it is. It’s not fancy but for the kind of portraits I like to take it works great,” he said. “I don’t use digital cameras. I prefer the older models and think of my portraits as art.”

“Ours will be black and white?” she said.

“Yes, just as you requested in your letter,” he said. “I’ve already loaded the film.” He took the flash attachment out of the bag and started to slide it onto the top of the camera.

“What is that?” Mrs. Pfrimmer said.

“It’s the flash unit,” Durston said. “Even when you turn the lights on the flash may be needed. I prefer natural lighting and may not use the flash at all but I have it just in case I need it.”

Mrs. Pfrimmer shook her boney index finger in his face. “Light other than from flames isn’t allowed in this house at night,” she said.

Durston looked around the room. Shadows of the flickering flames danced on every wall. “I guess there’s enough light,” he said. He put the flash attachment back into his bag and wiped his face with his sweat-drenched handkerchief. “Could I get a glass of water?”

“We have no running water,” Mrs. Pfrimmer said.

“No running water?” Durston said.

A door at the end of the room burst open. A cloud of dust and the smell of sulfur billowed out making the candle flames quiver on the wicks. A tall man with a gaunt face and shoulder length black hair and wearing a tuxedo stepped out. He looked at Durston and smiled. “You’re not married, you’re twenty six years of age and you spend many nights at the bar,” he said.

A chill ran up Durston’s spine. “How do you know that?”

“I know everything. I’m Jackson Pfrimmer,” he said, crossing to Durston as if blown there by a breeze. He held out his hand for Durston to shake.

Durston took the man’s hand and immediately pulled it away. He looked at the palm of his hand expecting to see it frozen.

“Shall we have our family portrait taken now?” Jackson said.

“Yes, please, if we can,” Durston said nervously.

The husband and wife sat on the settee with Annabella sitting between them. They stared at the camera, their faces like stone.

“Say cheese,” Durston said as he bent down and put his eye to the viewfinder.

“What is cheese?” Annabella said.

Durston began taking shots.

*

In his photo lab, Durston staggered backward against the enlarger. Clipped to a line above the table with the development trays were the enlargments of the portraits taken of the Pfrimmer family. In the black and white photographs, bright red blood dripped from two fangs bared by each of them. The white dresses of Mrs. Pfrimmer and Annabella were spotted with blood. These weren’t the pictures he remembered taking at all.

He raised his hand and put it on the side of his neck and felt three separate pairs of puncture wounds.

THE END