_ | \ | \ | | \ __ | |\ \ __ _____________ _/_/ | | \ \ _/_/ _____________ | ___________ _/_/ | | \ \ _/_/ ___________ | | | _/_/_____ | | > > _/_/_____ | | | | /________/ | | / / /________/ | | | | | | / / | | | | | |/ / | | | | | | / | | | | | / | | | | |_/ | | | | | | | | c o m m u n i c a t i o n s | | | |________________________________________________________________| | |____________________________________________________________________| ...presents... The Darkroom by Mark Vaxlov >>> a cDc publication.......1993 <<< -cDc- CULT OF THE DEAD COW -cDc- ____ _ ____ _ ____ _ ____ _ ____ |____digital_media____digital_culture____digital_media____digital_culture____| Prologue I was seventeen, in my fourth year of high school, when it happened. I didn't expect them to react the way they did. I didn't expect fights, and I didn't expect to be continually harassed in class every time the teacher turned his back. Unfortunately, that is what began to happen. Even the teachers contributed to the situation by turning a blind eye to my situation as often as possible. I once thought of bringing a gun to class and killing every one of them, including the teachers, but decided that it would be more "mature" to put up with it. I figured that this situation would die out when I reached high school. For the most part, I was right. However, a certain animosity remained and left me confused and uncertain. Girls liked popular guys and they also liked guys who displayed confidence. I never scored in high school 'till that wonderful night when I got an unfair advantage. Spring It was spring, and I was getting behind on my photography project. It was close to year's end and I figured that if I came in one night and really worked hard at getting the job done, I would raise my grade. I felt it would also help boost an average that was starting to sag because of some other courses I was taking then. I chose a Friday because there was also a dance on that night and I figured it would be better to work on my project at school than to stay at home, listening to music and thinking about how every one else is out having fun (like I usually did). The teacher gave me the keys to the building and warned me that I would be held responsible if any damage was incurred in that section of the building. He knew I was a good kid, but probably just couldn't forget the time I detonated a firecracker during his class. The Big Night It was a bit chilly out that night so I had to wear my maroon jacket. It was a strange looking thing, a hand-me down from my grandpa. The stars twinkled with leering madness as I roamed the streets on my way to school. I felt like a spectre crossing into another place, a place of deserted streets and empty houses. I was a bit shaken by the chill wind and overall quiet, and alternately scanned the streets and sky as I walked. I heard some voices off to one side. Jackalish leering noises, women screaming, shit-faced laughter. Ahhh! I thought, with recognition. The joys of living in a neighborhood infested with student vermin! Actually, something happened after I passed the student's party. A shiver ran up my spine. It was like I accidentally intersected an invisible boundary. To this day I can't account for it. I just had a feeling that I was suddenly in new territory where normal laws no longer apply. I was approaching the school and noticed a noisy line outside the building. I was a bit surprised that they hadn't gone in yet, as it was after eight o'clock and decided to wait off to one side in the field until the lineup was gone. I was wearing a black shirt with dark jeans under my open jacket and was almost invisible as I stood waiting in the shadow of some pine trees. I scanned the waiting teens with some amusement. Up against the school wall I could see chubby, blonde-haired, big-titted Cathy necking with her thirty year old boyfriend. He was a big monster in tattered jeans, with tattoos up his arms. I heard he made a "good" living pumping gas. I watched as he palmed her floppy breasts and pressed her against the wall. Cathy liked to be watched. She knew that screwing an older man would improve her social status a bit at school, and this was her proof of conquest. She conveniently snubbed her friends (huddled together, off to one side) to be with her "man." I could see Cindy and two other girls I couldn't recognize rolling in the grass beside the school wall. They were apparently pissed, or at least thought they were. A few guys I didn't recognize wearing baseball caps came over and slipped them a joint, which they passed around. Then they began to act sillier than ever. When the guys started to paw them, the girls told them to fuck off. One of the guys came up behind Cindy, reached around her neck and held a switchblade to her throat. He pulled her up and faced her away from the lineup so no one else could see. It happened too suddenly, and her friends were too shitfaced to notice. The guys led her off, alone and frightened to a secluded corner behind the big blue garbage bin. We never saw her again. I saw Jane standing by the doorway with a bunch of her friends. They were talking excitedly about something, gum-popping, staring at boys, all dressed in those idiotic bermuda shorts, showing off their abnormally thin legs. I remember my sister telling me about how she caught one of them throwing up in the bathroom at school; purging her lunch, keeping skinny. Watching them made ME feel like tossing my cookies. "Cover those legs!" I felt like shouting. Their figures looked like the figures of little boys. I heard some rustling, whispering, and giggles off to my left. There was something white moving on the grass about fifteen feet away. I cautiously approached. To my surprise the white "sheet" resolved itself into two interlocked partially-dressed human forms. They were wildly rutting, lost in their own little world. They didn't notice me as I stood watching less than six feet away. I recognized them both. The guy was Rob, a pretty-boy senior jerk who treated women like shit but who nevertheless always had a girlfriend. "If you want me, you'll get down on all fours!" he yelled to Tula in a crowded hallway once. She was a cute junior who gave herself to him at a party one night, thinking that he'd respect the sacrifice. Tula was sobbing. We were horrified. She dropped to her knees, crying, falling forward onto her hands - to the correct position. He picked her up gently, after calling her a "good doggie" and walked her out of the hall. He dumped her the next week. Now he was with another. This girl's name was Mira and she was a cute fifteen year old cheerleader. I left them to their fucking when a loud disturbance by the school doors diverted my attention. Two guys were fighting over some girl - hunched forward, switchblades drawn, circling, looking for openings. The girl was standing disinterested in the background, popping gum, with a vacant stare in her eyes. Now and then I would see a flash of light off one of the blades as a thrust was made. It vaguely reminded me of a fist-fight I had seen a year ago. It was between two older guys reducing each other's faces to unrecog- nizable bloody masks. But this was different; the other fight took hours... this would take only a few minutes. A cop car pulled into the yard, probably for some other reason, and both guys disappeared into the lineup. The doors opened and people began filing in. When the line was gone a lone figure lay where the crowd had been. It was one of the boys, stabbed in the back. The cop car just missed seeing him on its way out of the yard but I had to go by him on my way into the building. Inside the School As I passed by the gym, I had to wade through a noisy sea of teenage "excreta," smoking and giving me condescending glances outside the dance area. It was like those first few sunny days of spring on campus. The arts and business students would suddenly appear out of nowhere, sunning their pale bodies, smoking, listening to ghetto-blasters on the patio outside the building. There were hundreds of them. They wore 60's style clothes... jeans with multiple patches, John Lennon glasses, all that crap. They gave me the same look. "Did you see all those girls outside?," a friend asked. Girls? I was confused. I thought the sewer had backed up. The voices and music faded in the distance as I walked up the ramp and entered through the fire-doors that led into the North wing of the building. This was where all the technical courses were taught: graphic arts, auto-body, shop, electronics, etc. There was also a room that doubled as a photography classroom. Up ahead I could hear the janitors laughing, exchanging dirty jokes. They had a room off on a wing to one side. Their loud talk reverberated around the dark halls. "A bit tight, but what do you expect from a twelve year old!" one of them said. Raucous laughter followed. I remembered the day I discovered that the boiler room was above the girl's washroom. I couldn't believe it! Now I understood why the washrooms on the second floor were reversed from the ones on the first. I could just imagine them up there, peeping through holes at girls squatting on toilets, jacking off into dirty clenched fists. Laughter. Maybe occasionally, they would come down and scoop a girl from below, drag her screaming and kicking into the darkness above, never to be heard from again. I still wonder what happened to Lynda. She disappeared like that: without a trace. I was surprised to find the door of the photography classroom unlocked. There was a puddle of vomit on the floor in the darkened hall, which I saw only after I turned on the classroom light. I felt uneasy because of it and nervously looked around the room for some sign of occupation. There was none, so I went in, locking the door behind me. Developing the Negatives I had my camera with me, as it contained some exposed film. I partly brought it because it was safer to take the film out in the complete darkness of the lab and partly because it would make it easier to explain my presence in this part of the building (should someone stop me on my way to the room). I also had my bag with some other exposed rolls, and some photographic paper that my dad had got from somewhere at a discount price. After setting up the necessary chemicals on one of the benches and getting out the plastic developing tanks, I turned out the light and groped my way back to the bench. About half an hour later after fumbling in the dark to get the negatives in and finding the light switch, I turned on the light. Everything was perfect. I now began to measure out the chemicals into graduated cylinders. I wanted to do all three spools immediately. I hit the timer after pouring the first one, distributing it almost evenly among the three tanks. I repeated the process for the other stages of developing negatives. Later, I opened the containers and hung the negatives to dry. Rick's Sister I used a hand blower to dry the negatives, occasionally looking closely at some more memorable shots. One roll fascinated me to no end. This was the one that contained pictures of Rick's sister. Rick was a pretty good guy and his sister was really attractive. She was a wispy blonde-haired junior. We managed to get her to pose naked for us, although Rick was reluctant to persuade her. I still remember those moments in the room with her. She was all nervous, her face flushed and red. Rick excused himself from the whole thing. "Do you want me to do this?" she said, laying on the bed in some imitation of a pose she may have seen in a men's magazine once. She looked really unnatural doing that. "Sure," I said from behind the camera, madly clicking away at anything she did. I was so nervous that I could hardly stop my hands from shaking. My heart was pounding wildly, and I clutched the camera: afraid that I would drop it and make an ass out of myself. Less than five minutes later I had exhausted all 36 exposures, winding up with 36 pictures that roughly looked the same. I bolted from the room in wild confusion with my prize, running, frightened by my lack of control, all the way home. Naturally, I had to make up a story about suddenly feeling sick to explain my odd behavior. I am still haunted by the thought that I may have hurt her by leaving like that. "Such a sweet kid," I thought sadly to myself as I perused the pictures. The last one seemed different, and it bothered my conscience. She seemed to have an odd expression on her face: an expression of stark terror - as if in that instant she realized what I was about to do. The Dark Room I sat there for a moment, my head in my hands, before going into the darkroom to make some prints. I didn't want to print any of the ones of Rick's sister. Something really bothered me about them. I decided to concentrate on the ones related to my projects. A glance at the clock showed that I had already been there several hours. I cut the rolls into proper-sized strips and headed into the darkroom. The darkroom was a small office-like enclosure off to one side of the classroom with black paper covering all the glass windows on its front face. To further reduce light, the interior had been painted a flat black color. It had all the equipment needed for printing negatives: an enlarger, timer, developing trays, and chemicals. I quickly set up the negatives by the enlarger and closed the door. It was pitch black inside, and I flicked on the red light. I placed one of the strips into the enlarger and began perusing my pictures, trying to decide which ones would be printed. I had just set up the photographic paper and was making a test strip in the dim red light when something happened. A chill passed through me, causing me to shudder and the hair stood up on the back of my neck. A sense of horror riveted me to the spot, my mind telling me in no uncertain terms that something was terribly wrong here. I was horrified. Even before I realized what had set me off, I knew that I was NOT ALONE IN THIS ROOM. It took me minutes before I could force myself to turn around - to stare into the recesses of the far corner where the faint sound of breathing emanated. The Doll It looked like a doll, a mere caricature of a human, but closer inspection showed that it was the genuine article. Her name was Lisa and she was also in my photography class. She looked sinister in the red light, dressed in a black frilly party dress, with black stockings and dark top. Her eye makeup was smeared down her cheeks and her dark hair was in complete disarray. She smelled of puke and at first I thought she was asleep, but I was wrong. Her eyes were open and dilated. She was staring sightless up at the ceiling, irregularly breathing, her forehead beaded with a cold sweat. I didn't really notice it before, but the room must have gotten cold. It was cold enough that I could see her breath rising from her parted lips, even under the dim red light. I kept expecting her to move or something, but she didn't. She looked like a corpse or a rag doll, propped up spread-eagled in the corner. All she did was breathe. It was like I wasn't there. I stepped back, noticing a puddle on the floor. She must have pissed herself. Lisa was a real "popular" girl in our school. I fell madly in lust with her the first day I saw her. Back then, I used to believe that women should be placed on pedestals and admired. Her snobbish ways and interesting attire only helped re-enforce my delusion that women were somehow special and remote. I remember that day at Rick's house. I was nervously pushing the buttons to call her up. Rick was on the extension. I kept hanging up while dialing, afraid that I had gotten the number wrong. Rick was getting pissed off. I wanted this call to be perfect. "Hello?" she answered. IT WAS HER! My voice was suddenly hoarse and I could barely force the words out. I really didn't have anything planned and said the first thing that came to mind. "Uh... you don't know me but I was wondering if you'd like to go out with me tomorrow?" My mind was reeling. I didn't realize how idiotic that must have sounded on the other end. Only one thought kept repeating itself in my mind: SAY YES, SAY YES, SAY YES. She said something about how she had to wash her hair tomorrow night, and wasn't able to go out. My own inexperience must account for the fact that I believed her. Rick told me that he saw her at the dance the next night. I felt like a complete fool. I knew another guy that did go out with her (Rodney). He was one of my best friends that year. They went to the dance together, but she didn't dance with him. Instead, she began hanging around with some tall guy from another school, kissing up to him something fierce. My friend recognized him as a major drug dealer he'd seen doing business here before. She left with him. They fucked in a van right outside the school doors. My friend was heartbroken, crying, contemplating suicide. He'd introduced her to his parents and everything. It was his first attempt at dating. Now he was humiliated. Not just in front of the school, but in front of his parents as well. Taking Pictures Now here she was, dressed like a slut and mired in her own filth. It was a truly disgraceful sight and I didn't feel sorry for her. I turned on the lights and got my camera, loading up another roll of film. I wasn't going to use the pics to blackmail her. Instead, I was going to print them out, photocopy them, and distribute them to any interested guy in the entire school. Not just pictures of her with her clothes on either. These were going to feature full frontal nudity; anything I could get away with. I had to use my flash as the fluorescent lighting in the room was insufficient and took a while hooking it onto my camera. I almost freaked out when I discovered that I didn't have any batteries in the thing. The whole situation had me tense enough as it was. Luckily, I managed to find some in a shelf in another part of the room. I was testing the flash attachment when a funny thing happened. I heard a soft groan from the corner. I watched in horror as her body began to shake, almost as if she was being electrocuted. It was violent and surprisingly regular. Her eyes rolled into her head as she jerked slowly downward against the wall until she was sponging up the piss on the floor. She lay there, eyelids fluttering, her back arching a number of times before the strange vibrations subsided. With a start, I realized that the whole thing could have been initiated by the flashes. I decided to get this over with as soon as possible and took a few preliminary pictures of her with her clothes on, adjusting the focus and angle. She didn't move at all as I snapped away. I began removing her soiled clothes, undressing her. I put her into various poses, took pictures, then undressed her more. Soon she was completely naked and I had exhausted the whole roll. I got another one from a drawer and filled it up as well. I began to relax and took more time with the final pictures. The last roll had some of the best. Towards the end, I began to get horny. "Why not?" I figured, rolling her over onto her stomach and spreading her legs. I pulled down my pants and began humping away at her inert form. It was hard at first, because she didn't provide any lubrication but it got much better. I was impressed by how hot she was. I never imagined a woman could generate such an intense heat. It was like sticking my cock into an oven. I was so excited that I didn't notice her piss soaking through my pants at the knees. I just pumped away, grunting like a pig, my exhalation visible in the red light. I couldn't believe that anything could feel this good. It felt so good that even after I climaxed, my body kept pumping away on its own volition for several minutes, even though I wanted it to stop. Afterwards, I sat there panting and shivering in the cold red darkness. A trillion thoughts passing through my mind as I lay there on my side. It was like my whole world had been turned upside down. On the one hand, I actually felt (believe it or not) that I loved her or something like that, but on the other I just wanted to get the hell out of there, as far away from her as possible. I stood up, noticing the piss on my knees and began picking up my stuff, nervously shoving it into my bag. I turned on the regular light, exposing most of my developing paper. I didn't care. I just wanted to be able to see what I was doing. In a few minutes, I had cleared up most of my stuff from the darkroom. Cleaning Up I put her clothes back on, paying attention to small details. I was getting really worried because she seemed to be stirring, tossing and turning, eyes squinting, coming back to life. After the last article of clothing was tossed on her, I dragged her out of the room by her feet. I deposited her just outside the door, probably right into the puddle of vomit although I was too distracted to notice it then. I ducked back in and shut and locked the door behind me. I also turned out the main classroom lights and shoved my jacket under the door, as I didn't want her to see them if she woke up out there. Working by the light coming out of the darkroom, I cleaned up the chemicals and stuff from the bench. I also used paper towels to clean up all the piss she had left around the place. I was very careful in erasing traces of my presence from this room, even though I wasn't sure whether I intended to say I came here tonight or not. Everything was still uncertain. I did this so that all my options would be open when the moment of "truth" came. About an hour later, I had all my stuff and was ready to go. I checked the classroom and darkroom for about the hundredth time before walking out the door. Lisa was gone. Epilogue Obviously, I didn't get much work done that night. I did develop the negatives for my projects and it didn't take much longer to print them up, so it was to some benefit. There was no ruckus about a rape the next day (Monday). But then again, maybe the ruckus about the stabbing death outside the dance overshadowed this "minor" incident. Lisa showed up to homeroom just like she did any day, and didn't look funny at me or anything. I developed the negatives at another after-school session and was impressed by the results. I carefully cropped out any parts of the picture that contained any suggestion of where they were taken; for example, the corner of the darkroom cupboard that protruded into the upper left of most of the views. I also had to do a bit of matting with a piece of cardboard to get rid of the floor tile pattern that was characteristic of our school. I began experimenting with composites. For example, cutting out a print of her and placing it onto a picture of *my* bed. It was hilarious! The resulting pictures were fantastic. One morning, bright and early, I tacked them to bulletin boards around the school, after having copied them on the school office photocopier. I also shoved them under empty classroom doors, placed them in washroom stalls, you name it. I was going to send some to her parents, but figured this would be enough. I was right. After about three weeks of continual harassment, she disappeared, storming red-faced out of math class in a flurry of tears. We never saw her again. Many of us were grateful. _______ __________________________________________________________________ / _ _ \|Demon Roach Undrgrnd.806/794-4362|Kingdom of Shit.....806/794-1842| ((___)) |Cool Beans!..........510/THE-COOL|Polka AE {PW:KILL}..806/794-4362| [ x x ] |Metalland Southwest..713/468-5802|Lunatic Labs........213/655-0691| \ / |The Works............617/861-8976|Ripco ][............312/528-5020| (' ') |ftp - zero.cypher.com in pub/cdc |ftp - ftp.eff.org in pub/cud/cdc| (U) |==================================================================| .ooM |1993 cDc communications by Mark Vaxlov 12/30/93-#242| \_______/| Save yourself! Go outside! DO SOMETHING! |