The hobby roll

Marfa stood in the rain, gazing up the sloping gravel driveway. Ravens cawed starkly in the distance; the echoes rang out across the hillsides. She started up the drive, slowly at first, but gaining speed as she neared the top. The rain trickled beneath her collar and made her shiver. 

----

"You're so weird," Lucia had said the day before, smoking a cigarette out her bedroom window.

"Huh?" replied Marfa.

"You and this whole Sisters Valley serial killer thing. I can't imagine going someplace where a bunch of people were killed."

Marfa shrugged. Lucia wasn't very adventurous. She preferred watching television and smoking, or going to parties on the weekends, if they were inside. Marfa would go by herself on this adventure, she didn't care. The Sisters Valley serial killer was dead by now; his house torn down and his property seized. At least from what she had heard and read, anyway. All she knew herself was that the lot where his house once sat was now an overgrown meadow, except for the driveway. 

----

It was an odd feeling to be standing in a spot where four bodies were found. The cracked concrete slab and tall grass hanging heavily in the damp air might have otherwise looked peaceful. But it just looked vile. As she stood in the center of the old slab, her mind ticked off the details of the book she had read. She shivered again. 

Turning, Marfa noticed a thin path worn into the hillside above, rising diagonally up the slope and disappearing over the top. She started off along the path, though soon she realized it was much steeper than it looked, and a few times her boots slipped backward on the wet ground. She paused halfway up, looked down the hill and across the valley which was mostly obscured by grey clouds. When she reached the top, though, she was disappointed to see that the path dwindled to nothing at all. 

----

"I remember that guy," Marfa's father said, seeing the cover of her book as she read at the dinner table. Marfa paused, glancing over the top of the page. "He killed those four girls in 1974. It's all anyone could talk about around here," he said between sips of coffee. Marfa looked at him a moment before returning to her page. "They tore the house down nine months after the bodies were found, all the way down to the slab," he continued. "It's still up there on Skyline Drive. The slab, I mean."

----

The rain was heavier now. From the hilltop, Marfa could see down the backside, to a couple of stands of old fir trees in a ravine below. The tall grass buckled beneath her feet as she stomped down the side of the hill, her eyes fixed on the closest stand of trees. Several ravens scattered as she approached, winging noisily away across the grey sky.  

               Among the tree trunks, Marfa could make out a structure. With a few cautious steps, she worked her way closer to it, noticing it was an old lean-to: a very rotten and dilapidated one. Most of the roof now lay on the floor in a splintered mess. A couple walls drooped over sadly, and the whole thing was covered in moss.

               Amid the broken, splintered portions of the roof, a few pieces of old refuse sat in a pile. Marfa poked the toe of her boot at it, spreading the trash out before her. It was the rusted coffee can which caught her eye, laying on its side with a dingy plastic lid on it. She stooped over and lifted it up, pulling the lid back and spotting something resting at the bottom.

               In the palm of her hand, it took her a moment to realize that it was a roll of film.

----

Marfa laid the roll of film on the glass counter. The clerk glanced at it, raising his eyebrows as he whistled softly through a gap in his teeth.

“Haven’t seen one of these in a while,” he chuckled. He picked it up and looked it over. “It’s seen better days, that’s for sure.”

Marfa’s heart sunk. After finding the film, she had fled from the hillside. It had taken her three days to decide what to do with it: three days of fretting and bargaining with herself. Surely it didn’t matter, taking the film like that. The case was closed. Every inch of property had been picked over by the FBI. For all she knew, the film had belonged to someone else completely. Whatever was on it would make no difference. But now, it may turn out to be unsavable.

“So you can’t do anything with it?” Marfa asked, forlornly.

The clerk smiled stiffly. “Well, I’ll tell you this much, I’ll do my best. Where did you come across this, anyway?”

Marfa felt a pang of anxiousness. “I just…came across it,” she stated.

The clerk looked quickly beneath the counter. “Well, I don’t have any more processing sleeves,” he said. “It’s been a long time since anyone has come in with a roll of film.” He pulled a scrap of paper from a drawer and laid it in front of her. “Name and date and a good phone number.”

Marfa glanced at him and then back at the slip of paper. She jotted a name and number and slid it back to him.

“Alright miss…Jane Doe,” he said, reading from the paper. Then without missing a beat, he followed up: “Give me a couple days and I’ll give you a call. Maybe don’t expect too much, though.”

----

The vibrating phone in her back pocket caused Marfa to nearly drive off the road. She awkwardly fished the phone from her back pocket as she steered.

“Yes hello?” she practically yelled.

“Uh hi, this is Madison calling from the Photo Stop. I’m calling for…Jane Doe?”

“This is she,” said Marfa, a bit embarrassed with herself for using an alias.

“I’m calling to let you know Edmond finished developing your photos. They’re ready for you to pick up.”

Marfa’s heart raced. “Oh, okay, thanks so much. I’ll be right down for them.”

Heading for town, Marfa imagined what she would find. For the last three days, she had imagined gruesome images of slain girls, or grainy, washed-out pictures of a torturous basement dungeon. The possibilities made the hair on the back of her neck stand up. How would see explain these photos to the processing clerk? It wasn’t her film; she had only found it. And they didn’t know her real name, anyway.  

Marfa didn’t get a sense anything was amiss from the young girl working the counter, other than her curious glance which Marfa assumed was because she had used the name Jane Doe. Taking the envelope in her hand, she composed herself, walking casually out the front door. But inside her car, she quickly ripped the top off the envelop and pulled out a small pile of photos.

The first photo was grainy, indeed. But it was a simple photo of a flower. A type of rose, Marfa recognized. The color was faded and the whole picture looked a pale white.

The next photo was not much better. In the center was another flower, and again, the color was poor. The third and fourth photos were more of the same. Marfa’s brow furrowed. Perplexed, she glanced out the window a moment.

“Oh my god,” she thought dejectedly, “this is just someone’s hobby roll.”

The next picture was a little different. Several green hills sat bathed in golden sunlight. It was a serene picture, in keeping with the theme of the others so far. Marfa felt there was something vaguely familiar about that scene, like she had been there before.

The following pictures were almost completely white, overexposed and probably damaged from being in the elements for so long, she assumed. Marfa sighed, slowly flipping through them searching for any clue to what they might be. It looked more and more like she had stumbled across the work of some novice shutterbug: flowers, landscapes.

Coming to the final photograph, Marfa felt her blood chill. The other pictures fell into her lap, but she held the last one in both hands, staring intensely with her mouth agape. In the middle of the photo was the lean-to, but intact and graceful among the trees. It was far away; the picture had been taken from up on the hillside, looking down on it. The sky beyond glowed orange from a sun that had set some time before. And a short distance from the lean-to, caught in mid-stride, was a man. Marfa pulled the picture closer, straining to make out the details. The shadow of the valley made it difficult to see much, but he was tall and lean, with shaggy hair.

She grabbed the book from the passenger’s seat and hurriedly flipped through the pages until she found a photo of the serial killer. She put the photo down on the page; it was hard to deny that there was a strong similarity. But Marfa was almost incredulous. That could be anyone in the photo, really. He was too far away to tell. But something gnawed at her, making her anxious. The longer she sat with the two pictures in her lap, the worse she felt.

Turning to the chapter on the victims, she reread the part about the first girl.

Julie Tremblay disappeared when she was 19. She was reported missing when she failed to return from a photography outing on her own.

Marfa slammed the book shut and tossed it back on the passenger’s seat in apprehension. She stared at it for a long time, and glancing down at the pictures again, she felt like vomiting. Fighting off the nausea, tears began to run down her cheeks, but all she could do was start her car and head for home.