All The Way Down

Chapter 25

I put the lights on in the living room and went out to the garage to retrieve the clothes from the dryer. I brought them inside and dropped them on the sofa. I half-watched an old black-and-white episode of 'The Rifleman’ while I folded clothes. I was too distracted to pay much attention to the show.

I finished folding the clothes and was thinking about going to bed when I noticed a rotting smell coming from the aquarium. A half dozen angel fish and neon tetras floated belly-up in the tank. I went into the kitchen and got the trash can from under the sink. I found a small mesh net in the drawer under the aquarium and lifted the lighting unit from the top of the aquarium. I leaned the lighting unit up against the wall, trying to keep as much moisture as possible off of the carpet. The lid must have been helping to contain the smell because the odor coming from the fish was strong. I used the net to lift the dead fish out one at a time, dropping them into the trash can on top of the scraps from the previous meal. As I pulled the last angel fish from the tank, I noticed a small gray container bobbing on the surface of the tank behind the filtration unit in the back corner.

"What the hell?" I said. I tried getting my fingers around the thing to pull it out, but the space behind the filter was too small. I used the net to retrieve it, and when I rolled the thing from the net into my hand I recognized it immediately: a film container. I went into the kitchen and got a hand towel to wipe it off. Then I washed my hands thoroughly to get the smell of the tank off, and I popped the lid. Inside I found a roll of 35-mm. film with twelve exposures, perfectly dry.

I snapped the lid back on the container and put the film on the kitchen countertop. I stood there for a few seconds thinking about developing the pictures myself in the darkroom, but it had been so long since I had developed any that I didn't trust myself to do it.

It was too late to find a place to develop the pictures that night, but curiosity about what was on the film ate at me. I hadn't forgotten about Brick's house being broken into, or about Bullard wiping down the fingerprints, or about Brick taking a beating before he was murdered. I thought there was a good chance the pictures might hold the key to explaining it all.

I put the lighting unit back on the tank and stuck the foul-smelling trash can out in the garage. I moved the folded clothes onto the floor by the couch. Then I turned off the television, now showing an ancient episode of "Love Boat," shut off the lights and lay down on the sofa.

My mind was buzzing with thoughts about what might be on the film. I finally went to sleep by counting backwards from one hundred. On the third set of one hundred, I was out.

I awoke in the middle of the night and got up to use the restroom. It was totally dark, so I put my hand on the wall to steady myself and slid it along the wall until I reached the bathroom. I flipped the bathroom light switch, bathing the room in deep red light from the bulb. The room seemed to be awash in blood.