A/N: kay so it looks like i'll be publishing the whole thing in one go.
It seemed like hours by the time the four of them—they'd picked up Near along the way—made it Broad Street and the old abandoned warehouse. The story behind the Warehouse was that it was an old shoe factory. That was only the front, however. It had been shut down for 20 years. Supposedly it happened after one of the workers, Rinty Hinojosa, got his hand stuck in one of the machines and was dragged into it until it lacerated his upper extremities. Ever since then, Rinty's ghost haunted the factory, cursing it to never be a successful business. Another story was that the factory owner got haunted by the ghost and was driven insane. He boarded himself up in the basement and died there.
Allegedly.
The inside of the Warehouse was a dump. It was covered in cobwebs and dust. Paint was peeling from every corner and it looked like scalpers had come and stripped bits of materials here and there. Broken machines were at work stations. Near looked around and found a light switch but it didn't work. No one had paid the electricity in many years.
"Hey let's go down here, guys!"
Matt had found a door marked 'Employees Only' and opened it. It lead to a basement.
"What the hell is this stuff?" He asked as he reached the bottom.
The other's followed and looked around. The basement was filled with lots of junk. Spare parts and odds and ends. Here and there though were some really weird looking bits of machinery and blueprints for bizarre mechanisms and inventions. Near picked up a particularly space-age looking device and examined it. It was small and weighed only about two pounds.
"I think this is a camera." He stated after a moment. He turned it over and found an on-switch.
Linda poked him once he'd got it working. "Hey, take my picture with the space age camera."
"Kay. Go stand on the stairs. The lighting's better there."
Linda rolled her eyes but did as instructed, "Get my good side, Near."
Near lifted the camera to his eyes and pressed the button. The sound of the shutter was unlike anything they'd ever heard before. It sounded The flash was almost blinding. It was an instant camera and the film deposited out of the front of the camera. Linda waited a moment for it to develop before inquiring after it.
"So? How do I look?"
Near didn't answer. Instead he just looked wide-eyed at the snapshot. Mello leaned over Near's shoulder and snapped it out of the boy's fingertips. His eyes were equally bug-eyed the moment he saw it.
"What is this?" Mello held it close to his eyes for inspection. "Is this some kind of trick camera?"
"Okay, what's wrong?" It was Linda's turn to see the photo. Was there something in her teeth? What were they making the fuss about?!
Mello handed her the picture. It was the same dingy interior of the warehouse that she expected. The same creaky staircase. With Linda in the middle of it. Only, it wasn't Linda smiling like she'd posed. Rather, her face was contorted in shock and she'd had her hands lifted to her face. They were covered in blood!
"No way!" She looked up at the others, dumbfounded. She handed the picture to Matt who was the last to see it.
They all agreed that it had to be some kind of trick camera. It was just too weird. But how could it manipulate her features like that? If it had just like projected a ghost or something into the phot, that would have been something they could explain. But the blood on her hands? The change in her facial expression? Too weird. Too realistic.
The camera was creepy.
"Guys, why don't we leave?" Linda suggested. The picture was making her feel uneasy. She felt a deep knot in the base of her stomach and a dull ache was spreading across her abdomen. She could feel a headache coming on and the Warehouse wasn't quite as interesting as she'd imagined it to be.
"Yeah. Let's roll."
Linda was the last one to ascend the stairs. When she had touched the second step with her foot, it gave out and she slipped backwards, landing right on her butt.
"Lin, are you alright?" Mello rushed down to her.
She groaned as he extended his hand to her and helped her up. She dusted her butt, but when she brought her hands to the front of her Mello grabbed them.
Linda couldn't believe her eyes.
Exactly as in the photograph, her hands were covered in blood.