It was after 10:30 at night. I was surrounded by towers of nondescript apartment complexes over 20 stories high, though the middle courtyard was graced with beautiful trees hiding maze-like walkways ... [+]
Originally published in The Dread Machine
The poltergeists come, one by one, and they do not know one another's faces, only the shapes their bodies etch in the red darkness; the new shapes their bodies carve together, shadow-puppets in the sound-proof chamber. She thinks of the Red Sea as she parts her lips for them, the rains of Mars, the russet soil darkening, soaking as she opens herself up, film clattering, family lives unspooling on the floor. The poltergeists leave the darkroom the way they came: faceless and one by one. Only the photographer remains. She unpins her shirt and skirt, hanging from the taut rope, her underwear pl