So, I continue my quest to combine two prompts, one from WordPress (WP), and the other from The Writer’s Block (WB).  The intent is to create an interesting challenge that will entertain the minds of my readers.

This is the equation of today’s combination:

 

[WP = Brilliant] + [WB = Write a story about the images on a roll of film] =

The Face Behind a Broken Window

 

Amy’s heart beat loud against her chest, and her hands trembled as she handed the clerk a twenty dollar bill.  The clerk noticed, and looked questioningly at Amy, but said nothing during the exchange.

Mindlessly, Amy thanked the clerk, and grabbed the envelope which contained the photos developed from the roll of 35 mm film, she had submitted earlier.  Automatic doors opened, and she stepped into the howling of winter’s wind.  She was oblivious to the cold, for her mind could think of nothing but what she held within her hand.

Amy opened the door of of car, and slid into the driver’s seat.  Not willing to wait until she got home, she ripped open the envelope and begin to rifle through the photos.  There were many pictures of Sky and Rudy, and on any other day, she would have paused to gush over the images of the two loves of her life; however, today was different…

Today she searched for the face of her stalker.

Finally, she came to the photos of the old abandoned farm house and barn.  Amy, an artist at heart, had taken these with the intent of putting them to canvas.

She had been alone the day she took the pictures.  With Sky at work, and Rudy at the groomers, she had, had time to kill, so, she grabbed her camera, and drove deep into the loneliness of rural Virginia.

She had spent over half an hour snapping shots, of the abandoned structure.    Wondering what it had been like in it’s heyday,  Amy felt nostalgic, and her hand itched to hold a paintbrush.

Later that night her phone rang.  She picked it up and put it to her ear.

Amy listened to the silence from the other side of the connection.  Finally, she heard her stalker’s breath waxing and waning in an almost poetic rhythm.

Amy felt her knees buckle, and she reached for the counter to keep from falling to the floor.   Abruptly, the breathing from the other side stopped, and after a long pause a raspy voice whispered…

“…I watched you today.  Paint for me…paint for me, Amy…”  He held her name for a long while, and then the line went dead.

Now, as she sat in her car, she searched the photos of the dilapidated barn, and could find nothing out of the ordinary, until she rested her eyes on the small broken window, surrounded by planks of rotted wood.

From the window a face stared back at her.

She quickly put on her glasses, hoping for a better view, but the exposure of the photograph was too dark.  She looked at the next photo, to find it bathed with brilliant rays of sun, that had escaped the grays of the clouds overhead.

There was just enough light to capture a perfect image of the face looking at her.

The face was cloaked in burlap, and could pass for any scarecrow strung up to frighten birds of the field.  The mask was stitched with what looked like leather twine, and its cutout eyes were black.

Amy stared at the face behind the broken window, and her blood ran cold.