"Excuse me, ma'am. May I offer to buy your camera?"
Tella lowered her camera, startled for a moment, before seeing an old man at her side. He was dressed in a shabby black suit with a heavy trench coat over his shoulders. He stood statue-still, complementing the lifeless oak trees and eroded, forgotten gravestones.
“Is there a particular reason why?” she asked.
He frowned wearily, standing closer to her. “You’re Tella Hunton, aren’t you?”
“And you’re Jasper Page.”
“So, you’ve seen me around. Bound to happen, I suppose. I’ve lived in this small town my whole life. Not many places to go.”
She stepped away from him. His brow creased at her reaction and then dissolved immediately into the wrinkles of his forehead.
“I’m sorry, but I’d like to be alone, unless you want to tell me why I should,” she said, lifting the camera and snapping a picture of the cemetery landscape. She continued to snap one picture after another, hoping it would drive the old man away.
“I came here to visit Jane—she's my wife,” he began. “She used to say I was her ‘partner in crime.’ She was quite vicious. It was admirable. We had many fun times together—shared secrets she took to the grave. I, in the meantime, am having a hard time keeping those secrets, well… secret. It’s no fault of my own. The dead should stay dead.”
She lowered her camera. “Please, just leave me--”
“You should look at those photographs, ma’am,” he said. “It’ll do a much better job at explaining why I want your camera.”
She glared at him before pressing the Playback button to review the shots she took. The last picture popped up on the LCD screen. She blinked her eyes quickly, unable to believe what she was seeing. She looked at another photo, and then another photo, and then another photo, but all of them showed the same thing: there were dozens of bloodied, mangled corpses pointing at something off frame.
“She said I was ‘her partner in crime,’” he said, pulling out a knife from inside his trench coat. “And I intend to keep my secrets secret.”
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