Lights, Camara, Action!

By: Tori  Flores Cortez

As the highschooler walked towards the photo booth at the mall, she noticed something strange. Someone must have left their photos here. Five minutes before the mall closed, she reached for the small strip of paper, and everything seemed normal, until she started observing the contents of the photo. A family of three, a wife, husband, and small child. All standing still, like statues posed in a museum, but the feature that she paid attention to was their faces. More specifically, lack thereof. 

After she stood there, frozen, looking at the picture, she felt the presence of someone behind her. Her short, fluffy hair started to slowly freeze, as if it were being frozen in ice. She was starting to lose sight of who she was, and the last thing she saw before losing consciousness was the tall, faceless man, identical to the one from the photo, looming over her.

…

“Let’s go take a photo together, Skylar!”, I heard my friend say. 

“No, I heard that place steals people’s faces or what not,” I replied.

“Skylar, that’s just a dumb myth. Worst case scenario, the dumb machine is powered off .”

“Fine, let’s go.”

As we approached the photo booth, we noticed a family of three rushing out of the mall and someone left their photo in the machine. Maybe it was that family’s picture. I grabbed the photos and started to call for them, when I saw it. A girl no older than 15, with short, dirty blonde hair and a red bandana. She was wearing a dusty green sweater and jean shorts. But something was wrong about her. Her face looked as if someone had melted wax on her, sealing her face off. Everything about her face was distorted, almost as if it was moving right in front of my eyes. But then, right in front of my eyes, her face smoothed out. No melted areas, no bumps, just a flat surface, just like a statue. I felt a hand grip my shoulder from behind, and I started to feel numb all over. My hair was starting to freeze in place. I tried to scream but I couldn’t feel my mouth. My vision began to fog, but I had noticed one more thing before losing consciousness. The 15 year old girl from the photo, standing right in front of me, waving goodbye. 

The Dorito Thief:  Chapters 1-8