The Girl in Yesterday’s Photograph – Chapter 13
Marcus Flint Tried to Burn It
The storm intensified after midnight.
Rain struck the motel hard enough to vibrate through the walls while distant thunder rolled continuously above Bellmere like something enormous moving slowly across the sky. Inside Room 14, the flashlight beam cast long distorted shadows across the walls covered in victim photographs while Sheriff Mercer sat silently near the broken desk staring at the Minolta camera as though it were an old enemy.
Adrian Vale couldn’t stop looking at the film counter.
Five exposures remaining.
One photograph gone without him touching the shutter.
The realization disturbed him more deeply than anything else so far.
Because it meant the camera acted independently.
Mercer noticed where Adrian’s attention rested.
“It starts doing that after the owner understands too much.”
Adrian looked sharply toward him. “Understands what?”
The sheriff hesitated.
Then slowly answered:
“That the photographs aren’t random.”
Silence settled heavily inside the room.
Outside, lightning briefly illuminated the motel parking lot through torn curtains before darkness swallowed everything again.
Adrian stared down at the Minolta in his hands. “Then what are they?”
Mercer rubbed tiredness across his face before speaking again.
“Marcus believed the camera recorded people the moment they became connected to it.” He paused briefly. “Like it marked them somehow.”
“Connected how?”
“Fear. Curiosity. Obsession.” The sheriff’s eyes lifted toward Adrian carefully. “The deeper someone investigates the disappearances, the stronger the connection becomes.”
Adrian thought about Evelyn.
Then Marcus.
Now himself.
Every owner became obsessed eventually.
Every owner disappeared.
A terrible thought slowly formed inside his head.
“What if the camera wants that?”
Mercer’s expression darkened immediately.
“That’s exactly what Marcus started saying near the end.”
Rainwater dripped steadily from the motel ceiling near the bathroom doorway while the old sheriff reached slowly into his coat pocket again. This time he removed a folded newspaper clipping and handed it toward Adrian.
The article looked badly damaged from age and moisture.
Most of the text had faded unreadably.
But the headline remained clear.
LOCAL PHOTOGRAPHER ATTEMPTS TO DESTROY EVIDENCE ROOM
Adrian’s pulse quickened instantly.
The article described a fire at Bellmere Police Station in October 1998. According to witnesses, Marcus Flint broke into the building late at night carrying gasoline before attempting to burn down the evidence archive connected to the disappearances.
Including the camera.
“He tried destroying everything tied to the victims,” Mercer said quietly. “Photographs. Negatives. Reports.” His eyes shifted toward the Minolta again. “But the fire never touched it.”
Adrian frowned. “What do you mean?”
Mercer leaned back slowly.
“The room burned completely.” Another pause. “Marcus disappeared inside it.” His voice lowered further. “But when we searched the ashes afterward, the camera was sitting untouched in the center of the floor.”
Cold silence filled Room 14.
Adrian looked down at the Minolta again with growing unease. The metal body reflected weak flashlight glow across his hands almost like wet skin.
Marcus tried burning it.
Failed.
Then vanished.
“What happened after that?” Adrian asked quietly.
Mercer looked toward the storm-dark window.
“Bellmere stopped asking questions.”
The sentence carried decades of exhaustion behind it.
Adrian suddenly realized something else too.
The sheriff never once denied covering things up.
Because Bellmere absolutely had buried the truth.
Not to protect a killer.
To protect the town itself from whatever this camera brought with it.
Then another photograph slid slowly from the Minolta.
Neither man touched it.
Adrian physically stepped backward.
The image developed itself gradually beneath the weak flashlight glow while rain hammered against the motel outside.
Mercer’s face visibly paled.
Because the photograph showed Room 14 exactly as it looked now.
Adrian standing beside the wall of victim photographs.
Mercer near the desk.
But behind both of them—
someone else stood near the motel doorway.
Tall.
Blurred.
Watching silently.
And unlike before—
the figure’s face was finally becoming visible.