In the House of Mirrors by Tim Meyer

then I wondered where the pictures of Boone's house were. I looked around. They were hanging in the same fashion Olberstad's were, only on the other side of the room. I crept over to them.
    “ They freaked me out, man,” Chris admitted.
    I looked at the first one. Normal. The second one appeared normal as well. Only the little black spot that tried to cover Olberstad's face was now on the front door. It was very noticeable, about the size of a nickel. The third one looked a little different than the other two. Yes, the black spot was still there; this time it was about the size of a poker chip and covered the front door completely. The picture was awfully hazy, as if someone had blown smoke in front of the camera when I snapped the picture. I knew that wasn't the case.
    Suddenly the tiny hairs on my neck and arms became erect. A feverish chill ran throughout my body. An uncontrollable quiver attacked my body in short bursts.
    “ Look in the window,” Chris uttered from the other side of the room, keeping the maximum distance between him and the photos.
    I saw what he meant. In the second-story window, there was a shadow. It looked like a person pulling the curtains back to have a peak outside. Little Chris urged me to look closer. I did. I noticed the figure's hand pulling apart the curtain, a hand that in no way resembled anything human; its nails were the size of a hawk's talons and its skin was a sickly green color.
    “The hell...”
    “ Weird right? Look at the next two.”
    I did. They were completely blank. It looked as if I had taken the pictures from inside a cloud. “I don't get it,” I told him. “What happened to these two?”
    “I don't know. That's what was on the negatives,” Little Chris said. “I'm guessing those were pictures of the same house.”
    I nodded.
    “Look at the last one,” he said. “It's going to blow your mind.”
    I moved over to the sixth and final picture. I almost didn't recognize it as my own work. Boone's house looked the same but also very different. Structurally, it was identical. The huge discrepancy was that Boone's house now appeared as if it were under construction. The dirt lawn was still there, but the color of it was battleship gray rather than the peachy sand I had parked my car on. The second-story window was there, only the shadow and the claw-like hand was missing. Instead, the glass was broken, as if someone had been thrown through it. The balcony on the second story remained, only it was severely damaged. Someone had kicked the spindles, reducing them to splinters. The front door was there, and there was no black mark to speak of. There were, however, several two-by-fours barricading the entrance.
    As if the picture wasn't bizarre enough, the quality of it was something that really irked me. It looked distorted, like an old television that was on the fritz, the kind you'd have to use your fist to make it viewable again. Also, instead of the house being a midnight blue color, it was a deep purple. There were pieces of siding missing, revealing a black emptiness where concrete or plywood should have been. The shed—which I really hadn't noticed when I originally snapped the picture—in the backyard was completely demolished.
    “ I don't understand,” I said to Little Chris. “How did this happen?”
    “ I didn't believe it at first. So I did them over again,” he said. “I called all of my customers and pushed their orders back a day, just so I could do these over again.”
    I nodded.
    “They all came out the same. The ones with that dude getting into his car, all had the same black dots on his face. So I thought it was just some freak thing I'd never be able to explain. Right?”
    “ Sure.”
    “ Until I did those over again,” he said, nodding to the pictures of Boone's house. The fear was back into his voice. He opened his mouth to speak, but didn't. He took the envelope that was sitting on his desk and held it out in front of him. He looked down