Frames Per Second. Part 2

The door creaked as David pushed his way into the Imaging Department, and he breathed a sigh of relief as he spotted a cone of yellow light near the back of the department. He fumbled for the light switches, and after a few seconds, the fluorescent lights flickered on, bathing the lab in sterile flat tones.

He walked towards Gavin’s desk, passing by the myriad of metal tables and scattered equipment you’d find in any college lab that housed chemicals. His steps echoed throughout the room, and he shivered, getting that feeling of uneasiness you get when you’re in a large, unfamiliar building after hours; much like stepping out onto a stage in the middle of an empty auditorium.

He approached Gavin, who was hunched over his keyboard, staring intently at his monitor. His desk looked as if it had been caught in a whirlwind of deadlines and stress. Open books stacked upon other open books, discarded Styrofoam cups, with their caffeine remnants, and even a few cigarette butts, even though Gavin had stopped smoking years prior.

“Gavin,” David said softly, as he reached out to touch his shoulder, “Jenny called and I-“

As David’s hand touched his shoulder, Gavin jumped, and an animalistic, guttural shout of terror emanated from him. He turned quickly, keyboard clutched in his hands, knuckles white with grip and tearing the cord from the computer.

“Jesus Christ, David!” Gavin shouted, as he finally realized what was happening, “Why the hell would you sneak up on me like that?”

David slowly lowered his hands from a defensive position. Nothing like getting hit in the face with a keyboard at 2 AM on a Thursday night. “I didn’t sneak up on you, I even turned on the lights, and walked all the way over here.”

Gavin looked about the room, and gingerly put his keyboard back on his desk. “Sorry,” he said, exhaustion dripping in his voice, “I’ve just been busy, and you know I get a bit obsessive.”

“No shit,” David replied, pulling a stool over from one of the lab tables, and dropping onto it unceremoniously, “I haven’t heard from you since the coffee shop, and Jenny finally called me after you didn’t come home for the second night in a row.”

“I know, I know,” Gavin said, rubbing his hands over his face, his stubble making scratching sounds, “but things have been happening.”

“Like the things in the camera?” David asked.

Gavin looked at him pointedly, “They’re not in the camera David. They’re everywhere, they exist all around us, we just can’t see or touch them.”

“So what does it matter then?” He asked a bit exasperated, “If they can’t touch me, or see me, they are just as dangerous as an imaginary friend. Even if they do exist… somehow… they can’t affect me, or you.”

Gavin pulled himself back up from under the computer, from where he was reattaching his keyboard after his earlier scare. “No David, it’s different now. They CAN see us now, and they know we exist, just like we know they exist.”

David was about to protest, but Gavin continued, “Look, I know it all sounds really implausible, and shit, even my own lab partners don’t believe me. They think I’m messing with them, or photoshopping their faces in the pictures I showed them. “ A look of realization crossed Gavin’s face and he stopped talking and turned toward his monitor. “You haven’t seen them yet, have you?”

“No,” David said, inching his stool forward, and leaning in towards the desk.

Gavin, clicked through a few folders, and then finally on a video file. It opened, and David saw one of the lab tables in the lab, with a large ruler sticking up from one side.

“So, this is what our experiment was, just to see if the camera was working correctly.” He said, as he fast forwarded through the video, and loads of multicolored bouncy balls fell in from out of frame and bounced and collided on the table. “I could slow the video down, zoom in on one of the balls near the ruler, and we could go through hundreds of thousands of frames and barely see the thing move.”

David nodded, and Gavin continued, “This is where I stumbled across the black frames, one in every five hundred thousand or so, and I decided to do my own little experiment that I told you about. Here’s what I found,” He minimized the video, and double clicked an image file.

The image opened, and it was a much darker version of the image, and Gavin commented on how that was from the ‘lack of light’ from these strange frames.

“Looks the same,” David said.

“You’re right,” Gavin replied, “But there are some small differences.” He opened the regular video, and placed them side by side. “See here, the tables in the background are separated differently, or look there, the posters on the far wall are in different positions.”

David thought for a moment, “Since they’re from the same source, everything should be exactly the same, right?”

“Yes,” Gavin replied, “Which is why I decided to pan around the room, a very slow pan, where I left the camera running in each direction for roughly thirty minutes.”

Gavin skipped ahead through quite a few of the images, with comparison ‘normal’ shots next to them. Other than the darkness of the ‘black frame’ shots, there were quite a few differences, tables in different positions, papers in different orientations, doors opened or closed slightly more than what they were in the normal pictures.

With a deep breath Gavin clicked to the next picture. Standing in the middle of the frame, was a young woman, or at least, David figured was a young woman. Her clothes were normal, a lab coat, jeans, nothing out of the ordinary, but her face was blurry and twisted. Large jagged holes where her eyes would have been, as well as dark fluid streaming down its face, the mouth open and elongated, as if it were screaming in horrible pain. David swallowed hard, a pit of fear growing within his stomach. He couldn’t imagine this being some sort of sick joke, or photoshop, not with the horror he felt inside, or the shaking of his fingers as he held onto the desk.

Gavin was silent as he clicked through more images. More of the things came into frame, each one as horrible and disfigured as the last. David could see now, that the camera was pointing towards where Gavin’s desk sat. In the image, there was a large, squat camera sitting on his desk, set up on a bulky tripod, pointing directly at where Gavin’s ‘normal’ camera sat, just a desk away.

Sitting in Gavin’s chair was another one of the ‘things’. David didn’t even know what to call them, demons? Somehow even the word demon didn’t feel as sinister as what he saw on the screen.

There was something different about the thing sitting in Gavin’s chair though, it almost sort of peeked over the camera, and on its face, instead of the long, elongated screaming mouth, there was a long, toothy gash, and there was no doubt in David’s mind. It was a smile.

David slowly pushed his stool back away from the desk, his heart was racing, tendrils of fear pushed their way up from his stomach and into his chest. “Gavin… What the hell are those things?” He asked slowly, trying not to let his fear affect his voice. Now he knew why Gavin was so messed up three days ago.

“I don’t know.” Gavin replied, as he lit a cigarette, obviously not caring about smoking indoors, “but things are different now. They can see us, they are AWARE of us now David. And,” He took a drag from his cigarette and blew it out slowly, “Unlike my colleagues, they seem quite interested in us.”

He turned back to his computer, and opened up a new set of images, this time, the camera was in a different position. David swiveled his neck around, and he saw where the camera sat, in the corner of the room, mounted to the ceiling, and judging by the image, the best place to get a wide angle view.

“After I spoke to you at the coffee shop, I started observing them full-time. Unfortunately, due to how slowly I can peek into their…” He paused, and thought for a moment, “Their dimension? Their reference of time? I don’t know how, but our realities must merge at least a little bit with theirs and with the camera, we can get the smallest of glimpses, just enough to get a snapshot. About 2 pictures an hour.”

Gavin clicked through a few more pictures, now able to see the full room. “They’re interested, very interested in us.” He said, as the images showed the room starting to fill up with more of the monsters. At first, they crowded around Gavin’s, or, Other-Gavin’s desk, pointing at the monitor. Eventually more of them piled in, all types of different clothing styles, from more lab coats, to sharp suits, but every one of their faces pulled and twisted.

“Then they pulled the camera back out,” Gavin said, as he pointed towards the image. The camera was now standing on a taller tripod in the center of the room. David watched as Gavin clicked through the 30 minute increments, and the camera finally pointed in the direction of the ‘normal’ camera, in the corner of the room.

The monsters, through each thirty minute increment, would move quite a bit, some stayed nearby or at their desks, others would pop in and out of the room as they moved about their business. When their camera pointed at Gavin’s, everything stopped. For the next four images, or two hours, the monsters stood stark still, not moving an inch, staring exactly in the direction of Gavin’s camera.

Gavin’s hand shook, as he pushed the dying cigarette out on the corner of his desk. He took a deep breath and calmed his nerves. “David, the last picture I took was a few minutes before you came in.” He said as he clicked the next image button.

David gasped as he stared at the image. They were gone. Not only were they gone, but the whole lab was cleared out, anything that could be moved, was just no longer there. Scrawled on the linoleum in the center of the lab, in what looked to be the same dark fluid which ran from their eyes, was a solitary word: Soon.

“Wha… What the fuck does that mean?” David sputtered, staring at Gavin.

“Exactly that,” Gavin said, fumbling for another cigarette, “I think they’re planning something, and it’s going to be soon.”