Title: The Prophetic Camera
Author: McGreevey, John
Language: English
As this book started as an ASCII text book there are no pictures available.


*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Prophetic Camera" ***


                        THE PROPHETIC CAMERA

                         By John McGreevey

[Transcriber Note: This etext was produced from Imagination Stories of
Science and Fantasy August 1953. Extensive research did not uncover any
evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]


[Sidenote: Joey knew the old man had somehow faked his pictures; after
all, nobody could photograph the future. But then the future began to
happen!]

Joey Barrett set his camera carefully to one side and swung onto the
edge of the desk. He knew this annoyed Nugent, and, at the moment,
nothing gave him greater satisfaction than his ability to irritate the
editor.

His heels thunked against the highly polished sides of the desk, and he
shook his head very deliberately, in rhythm with the heel-hammering.

"No," he said. "I don't think so, Nugent." He decided the drumming had
lost its impact, so, he crossed his legs and turned to face the balding
man behind the desk. "Why should I? This assignment's out of my line and
you know it."

Nugent nodded. "I know. But this is an unusual story, Joey, and I'd like
to get a photographer's slant on it."

"Want to find out how the other half thinks, huh?"

Nugent referred to a memo. "This is the address." He pushed the slip of
paper toward Joey. "I think you'll find this Jason Ewing most
cooperative."

"He's a crackpot." Joey shied away from the memo and slid off the desk.
"That's why none of your brainy reporters will touch the assignment."

"He's eccentric." Nugent didn't bother to hide his impatience. "What
inventor isn't?"

"He's an inventor?"

"New kind of camera. That's where you come in, Joey." Nugent leaned back
in his swivel chair. "I want a photographer's reactions to it."

"What's so special about his camera?"

Nugent didn't look at Joey. "It photographs another dimension."

There was a moment's silence. Nugent was abruptly preoccupied with his
hands. Joey moved slowly toward the desk.

"Another dimension! You mean stereoptican stuff? With depth?"

Nugent stood. "No. I don't think that's what Ewing means." He moved from
his desk to the window. "I want you to find out what it is. Get all the
information you can."

"Are you sure this doesn't belong on the comic page, Nugent?"

Dusk was settling over the city. Nugent stared out at the darkening
skyline. "I admit it sounds crazy. But, it'll make a good human interest
yarn." He turned back to Joey. "Just bring in the facts and one of the
re-write boys will put them in shape."

Joey Barrett's chin set doggedly. "You've got no right to ask me to...."

But he didn't finish. His editor had abruptly moved in very close.
"You're in no position to quibble, Joey."

"What does that mean?"

Nugent's thin lips were tightly compressed. "The management's not happy
with you." Joey's laugh was brittle. Nugent walked slowly back to his
desk. "I've had more and more complaints about your work."

Joey was close behind him. "I take the assignments you hand me. And
there's no one on the staff gets a sharper shot."

Nugent waved this aside. "It's your manner." He pushed a glossy eight by
ten print toward the photographer. "You play up the grisly, the
macabre."

Joey stared down at the picture. A slow smile narrowed his eyes. "I
photograph what I see. I figure it's what your readers want to see,
too."

Nugent sat heavily. "We had a hundred phone calls about that picture.
Brutal ... sadistic ... morbid."

The print fell face up before Nugent. He turned it over. Joey laughed.
"Sure. It's all those things. And they loved it." He leaned very close
to Nugent. "You didn't have to print it."

"It was the only shot I had. It was print it or be scooped on one of the
big stories of the year."

Joey's outward nonchalance failed to mask entirely his inner tension.
"When I take a picture, they remember it."

"There's a difference between memorable photography and cheap
sensationalism." The editor picked up the memo with Ewing's address.
"All things considered," he said, "I think you'd better get this
interview for me."

Joey stared at Nugent for an insolent second. Then, he took the memo. He
checked the address, jammed the paper into his pocket, and moved quickly
to the door. Hand on the knob, he paused.

"Oh, Nugent," he called, "if you can't see the story I bring back, just
remember: it's in another dimension."

He slammed the door on Nugent's anger.

       *       *       *       *       *

Early evening traffic was heavy as he pulled into the quiet,
old-fashioned street where Ewing lived.

Sober brownstone houses, their front steps rising steeply to stain-glass
paneled doors; heavily curtained bay windows; weather-stained and
rotting gingerbread; an atmosphere of reluctant decay and genteel
senescence. Ewing's house was like a dozen others in the same block.

Joey was not a man given to hunches, and yet, as he climbed out of his
car and stood staring up at the silent house, he could not repress a
shiver of apprehension.

He looked up the street. Nothing marred the quiet. A middle-aged woman
hurried home with her armload of groceries. A man paraded an ancient dog
on a leash.

Slowly, Joey climbed the steps. His apprehension was no more than the
resentment he felt for the assignment. He yanked the old-fashioned bell
and listened for its echoes dying deep in the house.

He fidgeted impatiently. Perhaps old Ewing wasn't at home. Or, maybe he
was so eccentric he no longer answered the bell. Joey jerked it again.

On the traffic-noisy boulevard a block away, he heard a raw squealing of
brakes.

Joey sighed and turned away. He'd wasted an hour. He started down the
steps. And the door opened.

Jason Ewing was very old. His incredibly blue eyes seemed alien in the
yellow parchment face. His clothing, his manner, even his speech were
archaic.

As Joey shook the bony hand, Ewing was apologizing for the delay.

"I was in my dark-room," he said--the voice strangely resonant to come
from so frail a chest--"and I had to get the developer off my hands."

Joey nodded and stepped inside. The atmosphere of the house was a
curious mixture of chemical and decay. There was a layer of dust on the
bric-a-brac, and as Joey followed the stooped figure from the entry-hall
into the living-room, he saw Ewing as a kind of insubstantial ghost,
moving through the deserted rooms so carefully that the dust was not
disturbed.

Ewing gestured to a chair which looked prim and uncomfortable in its
yellowed antimacassars. "Sit down, please, Mr. Barrett." He switched on
an ornate table lamp. "It's most kind of you to be interested in my
work."

Joey gave him the automatic smile. The room was a combination studio and
parlor. A bulky, antique camera lorded it over the conventional
furnishings. Its unblinking eye regarded Joey coldly.

There was a fireplace, with massive brass andirons cast to resemble
griffon-heads; purple draperies at the window were faded by sun and
time; the heavy furniture was defiantly shabby; even the antique
photograph album with its plush cover and gold-plated clasp and lock was
right for the room. This was Jason Ewing's world and Joey felt himself
to be an alien.

       *       *       *       *       *

Ewing hovered nervously, white fingers clenching and unclenching,
reaching out, now and then, to touch the album on the dusty table-top.
"I know you are a busy man, Mr. Barrett," he said, "so I'll come at once
to the point."

Joey relaxed as much as he could in the old chair. "I should tell you
first, Mr. Ewing, that I'm not a writer. I'm a photographer. My editor
thought maybe you and me would talk the same language."

Ewing bobbed his head up and down. "Excellent. Excellent." He pulled up
a small chair. "Believe me, Mr. Barrett, I hesitated a very long while
before I decided to make my discovery public."

Joey disguised a grin. "What finally decided you?"

Ewing closed his eyes. "I'm not well. Heart. Most unreliable. Doctor
tells me I may ... may die ... at any time."

"I see."

"But, before I die," the old man said, leaning forward again, "I must
share my secret." He seemed to have difficulty in finding the words he
sought. "It's ... it's so extraordinary, Mr. Barrett, that I've been
afraid to divulge it." He gave a sad shake of his head. "People today
are so unwilling to accept the unusual."

Joey writhed inwardly. This was worse than he had thought. He would make
Nugent pay. "Mr. Nugent said something about your photographing another
dimension," he prompted.

The old man pushed himself to his feet. "It was accidental. I've dabbled
in amateur photography for years." He limped over to his camera. "Not
only took pictures--developed my own." He paused and looked very
directly at Joey. "About six years ago, I began experimenting with a new
developer."

Ewing's eyes were disturbing. Joey looked away. "You had used commercial
developers before?"

"Yes." Ewing gripped the camera. "I wanted a developer that would give a
more sharply defined image. I tried fifty different formulae--never
quite achieving what I had in mind."

Joey lit a cigarette. "You must have spent a lot of time on it."

"I had retired. I live alone here. No other interests." The phrases came
in little gasps, as if Ewing had to force the words between his lips.
"Made no progress. And then, I tried Formula #53."

The pause indicated Joey was expected to react. "Formula #53?"

Ewing moved back to the light. "My fifty-third experiment. Radical
departure from commercial developers."

"It succeeded?"

"It succeeded, Mr. Barrett, but not in the way I had imagined." The
fish-white hands rested on the photo album. "I developed some film in
Formula #53 and received the shock of my life." His voice was a whisper.
"The pictures on the negative were NOT the pictures I had taken."

He paused to watch the effect on Barrett. Joey scratched his ear. "You
took one set of pictures and the negatives you got were of another set?"

"I know what you're thinking," Ewing said. "What I thought at first:
that I'd gotten hold of the wrong film. But that wasn't the answer. The
same thing happened again and again. Whenever I used Formula #53 as my
developer, I produced a strange set of pictures."

Joey stood up nervously. The old boy was crazier than he had first
guessed. Humoring him seemed the only answer. "That's incredible."

Ewing nodded excitedly. "I thought I was losing my mind. But, slowly, I
began to realize what had happened."

"What?"

The old man sank into the chair by the table. "School of modern
philosophers ... teaches all time is co-existent."

Joey felt almost sorry for the old boy. He was so much in earnest about
his crack-brained discovery. "Time ... co-existent?"

"Past, present, future--all simultaneous. Running along in parallel
dimensions."

       *       *       *       *       *

Joey tried a laugh. "Little rough for me, Mr. Ewing," he apologized.
"Look," he went on quickly, "I've been thinking...."

But Ewing wasn't listening. "Simplify it. At this moment, Caesar
crossing the Rubicon; Columbus is discovering America; you and I are
talking; a man in the twenty-fifth century is rocketing toward Mars."

"I see what you mean."

Ewing was holding the old fashioned photo album in his lap. "Well, I
know now that what I've stumbled into with Formula #53 is another
dimension in time."

"You mean that ... that you can take a picture of what's happening in
another time?"

Ewing nodded. "I know it's difficult to grasp, Mr. Barrett." He held out
the plush-covered album. "But I have proof."

Joey stepped toward the old man. "You've got pictures in there--pictures
of this other dimension?"

"Yes." He fumbled in his vest pocket, found a small key, and with
trembling hand inserted it in the album lock. "I've never shown anyone
these pictures before," he said.

Despite himself, Joey felt excited. Even as he dismissed Ewing as a
hopeless crackpot, he was disturbingly eager to see the pictures in the
old album.

Ewing gestured for him to be seated. Joey sat in the chair near the
table and the old man handed him the open album.

"So far," Ewing said, "I haven't been able to control the process. I
photograph a subject and the picture may be projected ten years into the
future or a hundred years into the past. There must be an infinite
number of dimensions registered on the film, but my developer varies."

Joey's initial eagerness was quickly dissipated. The photographs in the
album were disappointingly ordinary. True, there were some that seemed
to be trick-shots and a few in which the costuming was unfamiliar, but
certainly nothing to document the old boy's claim. Aside from a few
shots that were interesting because of their violence, there was nothing
in the album.

Ewing waited for Joey's reaction--the parchment face even more deeply
wrinkled by excitement--the blue eyes blazing.

"Well, Mr. Barrett?"

Joey left the album open at the picture of a gruesome accident.
Apparently, two cars had met head-on. The one had been a sleek
convertible. The other was an old sedan. Both were terribly crumpled.
Glass littered the street. Steam spewed from the twisted radiator of the
old wreck.

A man sprawled from the front seat of the sedan--an elderly man, with a
white beard--a beard spattered with blood. His sightless eyes stared
accusingly at the small cluster of onlookers who surrounded the wreck.
Nearby, thrown from the crushed convertible by the impact, lay a woman.
She wore an extreme evening dress, and a fur cape had fallen not far
from her body. All around her were pearls ... spilled from the broken
strand at her throat.

Joey looked up at Ewing. He shook his head. "You've got some interesting
pictures, but I can't see that they prove your theory. They could have
been taken any time." He pointed to the photo of the wreck. "This one,
for instance." He smiled up at the old man. "That looks like a shot I
might have made."

Ewing's entire body seemed shaken by his eagerness to prove his point.
"Mr. Barrett ... that picture is of an accident that hasn't occurred.
One evening, I took a picture of the street out there ... at the corner
... where our street joins the Boulevard." His voice was low, urgent.
"When I snapped that photo, the street was deserted. There were no
cars--no people."

       *       *       *       *       *

Joey took another look at the wreck. He closed the album with finality.
"Mr. Ewing," he said, "I'm not questioning your sincerity. I can see
that you're convinced your developer has extraordinary powers."

"But you don't believe me." There was despair in the old man's voice.
"What can I say to make you believe that you've just looked at the
picture of an accident that's yet to happen."

Joey laid the album on the table. "It's an interesting theory."

Ewing moved to his camera. "It's more than a theory. I can prove it." He
ducked behind the camera. "Let me take your picture, Mr. Barrett, and
I'll prove it."

"Wait a minute!" Joey half rose from the chair in protest, and then,
with a shrug subsided. "Sure," he said. "Why not?"

"Thank you," Ewing answered. He focused the camera, cut on extra lights,
posed Joey, took his picture.

The ordeal over, Joey moved toward the door.

"You'll see, Mr. Barrett. This picture will convince you."

Joey nodded. "Sure, sure. You give me a call."

They were in the entry-hall. "As I said," Ewing continued, "I haven't
much time. That's why I'm very anxious to pass on my discovery. It could
do great good--in the right hands."

Joey opened the door. "I understand," he said. "You give me a call."

"I will."

Joey was outside--the door between him and Ewing's pathetic eagerness.
As he bounded down the steps, he was devising a revenge extreme enough
for Nugent.

He slipped in behind the wheel. It was surprising that anyone as near
psycho as Ewing should be loose. The old boy had lived too long alone in
the empty house.

Just as he drew away from the curb, Joey heard the crash. Squealing
rubber, splintering glass, rending metal, perhaps a human scream ...
compounded into an awful discord that ricocheted against the quiet
brownstone fronts, building to a crescendo of metallic anguish.

After the first moment of surprise, Joey experienced the curious
exaltation he always felt at a scene of violence. The trip wasn't a
waste after all. He'd get a picture, and from the sound of the crash, it
would be a good one.

As he clambered out of his car, camera ready, people were running down
steps, cars were swinging off the boulevard--the first cluster of the
curious was collecting.

With professional assurance, Joey brushed people aside and moved in. One
car had been stopped at the intersection and the other had careened off
the boulevard and smashed head-on into it.

Joey stopped on the crowd's inner edge and stared.

It was impossible. One car was an old sedan. The other, a sleek
convertible. An old man with blood-spattered white beard half-spilled
from the sedan and on the glistening pavement lay a woman in evening
dress, surrounded by dozens of pearls.

       *       *       *       *       *

From habit, Joey took the picture of the accident and delivered it to
Nugent. By the time he had developed his picture, he was beginning to
enjoy the knowledge that it was an exact duplicate of the photograph in
Ewing's album.

Only he and Ewing realized the power of Formula #53. It couldn't be
coincidence. The details were too exact. Ewing's explanation was the
only one possible. And that meant the old boy wasn't crazy. The formula
was all he insisted.

Such a formula could be a great force for good, the old man had said. In
the right hands. In the hands of Joey Barrett.

Joey decided to keep his secret. This was not a power to be shared with
Leslie Nugent or anyone else. So, when he faced his editor again, he was
careful to dismiss the Ewing interview with just the proper degree of
casualness.

"There's no doubt about it," he said. "Ewing's a crackpot."

Nugent scowled impatiently. "Even so...."

"I tell you, if we run the story he gave me, we'll be laughed out of
business." Joey watched Nugent closely.

"But surely as a human interest yarn," the editor protested, "we'd be
justified."

Joey shook his head. "He's an old crank, trying to build up his ego with
these phony claims."

Nugent leaned back. "There was absolutely no basis for his theory?"

"None." Joey laughed easily. "You should have seen the obvious trick
photos he tried to pass off as evidence. My advice is: forget Jason
Ewing."

There was a long pause. Then, Nugent nodded. "All right. Thanks, Joey."
He picked up a glossy of the accident. "You outdid yourself on this
one."

Joey sauntered to the door. "The master's touch," he called. "I'll hit
you for a raise later."

Satisfied that Nugent considered the Ewing story dead, Joey left the
paper and hurried to a pay-phone.

When Jason Ewing answered, there was a note of near-hysteria in his
voice. He seemed frightened by Joey's interest and was extremely
reluctant to give him another interview.

"I don't blame you for being irritated," Joey said. "I was very rude.
But look, Mr. Ewing, now I see I was wrong. We can't talk about it on
the phone. All I want is a chance to see you again. Maybe tomorrow?"

There was such a long pause that Joey thought Ewing had broken the
connection. Then, he heard the old man sigh.

"I ... I don't know what to say," Ewing faltered. "In the light of ...
of recent developments, I think it would be unwise to involve you, Mr.
Barrett."

Joey laughed. "Listen, this is the break of a lifetime for me. How about
tomorrow morning at nine?"

"Tomorrow." The one word was neither affirmation nor question.

But Joey chose to interpret it as agreement. "See you in the morning at
nine, Mr. Ewing," he said, and hung up quickly.

       *       *       *       *       *

Joey slept little that night. He was up early, gulped a hasty breakfast,
and stood on the steps at Ewing's house at five minutes to nine.

Again, as on the day before, he had to ring the bell twice before the
door opened and the wrinkled face showed itself. He was shocked by the
change in Ewing. The man seemed much older and there was a haunting fear
in the blue eyes.

"It would have been wiser," the old man whispered, "if you had not come
here again--for us not to have met."

Joey was determined to be charming. He put his hand on the thin old arm
and gently pushed Ewing into the entry hall. "I don't blame you for
being bitter," he said, closing the door. "I was a fool yesterday."

Ewing pulled free and moved agitatedly into the living-room. Even the
morning sun made no impression on the shadows there.

The old man didn't look at Joey. "You were right," he said. "It would be
better to forget the formula."

Joey fought down his impatience. He tried to move smoothly, keep his
voice calm. "No. You mustn't think that. You can't be selfish. You said
yourself, Mr. Ewing, that this knowledge could do great good."

The quiet persuasiveness of Joey's approach seemed cause for further
alarm. "I said that, but since then ... I ... I see that it might also
do great harm."

He tottered away from Joey and slumped tiredly into the chair by the
table.

"Mr. Ewing," Joey said, following him, "yesterday I saw one of your
pictures come to life."

Ewing did not look up. "I know. The accident at the corner. I was afraid
you had seen it."

"Afraid!" Joey laughed. "That was the clincher." He leaned over the old
man. "Listen, Mr. Ewing, the second I saw that wreck, I realized what we
have in Formula #53. I want to help you make use of it--the proper use."

The old man shook his head. "I'm afraid," he whimpered.

Joey ignored the interruption. "We'll work this together. If we play it
smart, the sky's the limit. We can be millionaires. Name our own
prices." He laughed in his excitement. "They'll meet our demands when
they see what we've got to offer."

Ewing had slowly pushed himself to his feet. He regarded Joey with mixed
apprehension and disgust. "You ... you can't commercialize my
discovery," he protested. "I wouldn't permit the formula to be used for
personal gain."

"Not just MY gain. You and me together." Joey looked at the red-plush
photo album and rubbed his hands. "I'll bet we got pictures in that
album worth a hundred grand."

Abruptly, Ewing stepped past Joey and seized the album. He cradled it in
his arms. "That's out of the question." He tottered toward the
fireplace. "Mr. Barrett," he pleaded, "I beg you to go now."

Anger simmered in Joey--anger and frustration. "All right," he said,
forcing himself to be reasonable. "Those are your pictures." He faced
Ewing at the fireplace. "But if I take some, will you give me the
formula so I can develop them?"

Stubbornly, the old man shook his head.

"What IS the formula?" Joey demanded.

"I've never written it down." Ewing clutched the red-plush photo album
with one hand and gestured imploringly with the other. "Mr. Barrett,
every moment you stay here, you jeopardize us both. Leave now. Please.
Forget we ever met ... that you ever heard of Formula #53."

"Forget!" Joey's hands clenched and unclenched in mounting desperation.
"You can't start a guy on a thing like this, Ewing, and then tell him to
forget it!" For a long second, they stared at each other. Ewing was
breathing heavily and perspiration beaded the parchment face.

       *       *       *       *       *

Joey tried another tactic: "Look ... if you don't want to give me the
formula, at least let me have a few of the pictures in that album.
Whatever I get out of them, I'll split with you." He reached out
tentatively.

Ewing shrank back. "Go away. Let me alone. There's nothing in the album.
I burned the pictures."

"You're lying!" The thought of the money the old fool had thrown away
cut into Joey like a knife. "You wouldn't do a crazy thing like that."

"Only two left. Should have burned them."

Panic seized Joey. He grabbed at the red-plush album. "I don't believe
you. Let me see."

Ewing held onto the book with the tenacity of an aged crab. "You
mustn't," he croaked. "You're destroying yourself. Don't."

But the old man's stubborn and futile resistance stoked the smouldering
fires of Joey's anger. He gripped one corner of the coveted trophy with
his left hand, and with his right, gave Ewing a vicious shove.

With a rattling cry, the old man staggered back and fell with a clatter
into the fireplace.

The book was in Joey's hand. He didn't look at Ewing. The clasp was not
locked. Feverishly, he opened the heavy cover. The truth took his breath
away. Ewing hadn't lied. The pages were empty. He had burned the
pictures. The crazy old fool!

But he had said there were two pictures left. Joey thumbed hastily
through the empty album till he reached the first of the remaining
pictures.

He cried out.

It was a self-portrait of Ewing. He lay sprawled on the floor before the
fireplace, blue eyes staring up at the ceiling, blood smearing his
temple and one of the massive brass andirons.

Joey dropped the album on the table and slowly turned. He closed his
eyes. "Oh, God!" he whispered. "No! No!"

Like a sleep-walker, he moved to the silent figure, knelt, searched in
vain for pulse or heart-beat. There was none. Jason Ewing was dead.

Joey stared at the andiron with its tell-tale stain. He pulled himself
up to a half-crouch and looked wildly around the dark living-room. The
camera was an accusing eye. "It was an accident," he murmured. "His
heart. He was an old man."

The photo album still lay open on the table.

Ewing had saved two pictures. One of himself. The other....

There was a heavy knocking at the front door.

Joey went shakily to the album. Gripping the table's edge, he turned to
the second picture:

Joey Barrett sat in a chair. His trousers were slit. His head was shaved
and there were straps and electrodes.

It was the kind of picture that would sell a thousand extra copies.





*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Prophetic Camera" ***

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