36 EXPOSURES.
A small tab of orange celluloid jutted from the side of the roll. Kyla wasn’t a professional photographer, but she was pretty sure that meant there was raw film inside. Maybe even a full roll.
“Do you think this is from Sarah’s camera?” Ethan said.
“I can’t think of anywhere else it would have come from,” Kyla said, though her mind was suddenly moving too quickly for her to really consider such a statement. “Sarah had a bathtub full of development chemicals in her room. Fernanda knows how to expose film.”
Ethan looked at his watch. “I hope she can work fast. It’s already eleven thirty.”
ETHAN
He almost collided with Hunter as he rounded the corner of the back porch. The man looked strange, both furtive and weirdly triumphant, like he’d learned something he wasn’t eager to share. Before Ethan could say a word, Hunter wrapped a hand around his arm. “You ready?”
Ethan said, “We found something.”
Kyla raised the yellow roll of film. “It was in the supply room. Ryan Phan hid it there—he’s the only person whose boots would fit the tracks on the floor.”
Fernanda came up behind Hunter, her hair flying in the hard wind, her face pale. “The mountain. Look.”
Ethan followed her finger. It was easy to see what had her so spooked.
The silhouette of the mountain had grown larger since Ethan had seen it last. He didn’t know how it was possible, didn’t know what new laws of physics this corner of the desert was subject to, but there was no mistaking it: the mountain had blacked out most of the night sky. It looked like it had devoured the stars.
And there, in the upstairs window of the distant house, Ethan saw a silver light blazing in the dark.
That light sent a strange sensation running through him, from his eyes to his toes.
Without thinking, he said, “Something wants us to go there.”
“Good luck with that,” Hunter said. “It’s a twenty-yard dash through the dark. You wouldn’t make it ten feet.”
Kyla pushed the roll of film they’d discovered into Fernanda’s hand. “How long would it take you to develop this with the chemicals in Sarah’s room?”
Fernanda tilted the canister toward the light. “It would be an hour at least. And with time running so strangely, the exposure to the chemicals would be difficult to gauge. Easy to ruin whatever is here.”
“You’ve got to be shitting me,” Kyla said. “We have one lucky break, and we can’t do anything with it?”
Hunter hadn’t released Ethan’s arm. He tried pulling Ethan down the porch, in the direction of their room. “We gave it our best shot. Time for plan B.”
Ethan held firm. “No.”
“No?”
“No.”
Ethan wrenched himself free. He looked, again, at the silver light spilling through the window of the old house. He could finally name the strange sensation the light gave him.
Déjà vu. Ethan had seen that light before. It had passed over the sky at four o’clock sharp, and nothing had ever felt the same since. The moment Ethan realized this, a million fragmentary observations suddenly clicked into place. He thought about the labels on the bottles in the maintenance closet and the liquor behind the bar, the furniture of the rooms, the switches of the bulbs. He thought of the story the gabardine man had told him in Turner. He thought about nine empty rooms. Twelve cold beds.
Y’all have done this before?
Yes, Mister Cross. Many, many times.
Ethan understood what was going on here. It had been staring at him from the moment they arrived.
A gas pump like this—it’s from the fifties.
He turned toward the office. He started back down the porch. Another of those awful, bellowing moans—part stone, part animal—rolled down from the mountain, shaking the earth under their feet. Ethan just kept walking.
