It was just after my parents passed away. I remember that much, cleaning out the house and boxing up anything of sentimental value, tossing out the junk and organizing the remaining stragglers for a yard sale. It was grim work done in silence, the house full of corners and crevices that I hadn’t even thought about in years. I did this alone, for several days, until I had only one room left to go through.
I found it on the shelf in the basement, behind the couch, covered in a layer of greasy dust. Out of all of the tapes in my brother’s ancient VHS collection, only one had lost it’s label to the ravages of time, if there had ever been a label at all.
If the time stamp was trustworthy, the video took place on January twelfth some fifteen years ago. I saw my brother Todd, much younger, and several of his friends waving at and mugging for the camera. They were clothed head to toe in skiing gear, hats pulled low over ruddy faces. The voice behind the camera sounded like Jeff, Todd’s friend from his old Boy Scout troop. I’d had such crush on him back in school, but lost track of him after graduation.
I watched off and on throughout the day. My brother making a jump and missing, rolling down a hill. The group chugging hot cocoa (and what appeared to be a flask of something, possibly stolen from a neighborhood father) and making crude snow sculptures. Several boys slaloming down a hill. This went on until it reached dusk, an evening that had passed in the middle of the last decade, when the camera veered off and into a patch of woods.
I heard zipping, the trickling of water and mumbling as the image lost focus, and then the crisp sound of twigs breaking under the weight of footsteps. The camera was jerked upward and regained clarity, focusing on two rows of sharp, sharklike teeth. A bony white hand reached up and covered the lens, and I heard screams and wet noises in the darkness beyond the muddled picture.
I sat there in the dark of my parents’ basement for several minutes before ejecting the tape and boxing it up with the rest of the things I would be keeping. I wanted to see it again, but not right away.
I only asked about Jeff once, when Todd and I were at separate universities. He said they’d had a falling out and Jeff had left for an out of state school.
My brother has been in therapy for most of his adult life, and takes several medications.
He never opened up to me or to our parents, preferring to attend his scheduled sessions with tight-lipped determination. He never repeated to us what he told his doctor.
Now I know why.
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Copyright Jessica Brown, 2009
Jessica Brown is a thirty-year-old fan of horror and dark fantasy whose work has been featured in Shadow Feast, The Nocturnal Lyric, Bloodfetish, Horrotica and The Harrow. She lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Tags: Jessica Brown
July 27th, 2009 at 7:35 am
Nice story Jessica - you really did well at capturing the emotions of your main character as she went through her parents things, and described the scenes on the tape very vividly. Nice work
July 27th, 2009 at 1:02 pm
I enjoyed this! Very dark and creepy!
July 27th, 2009 at 8:25 pm
I love that the contents of the tape were just as much a shock to the readers as it was to the character. Excellent job.
July 28th, 2009 at 2:57 pm
Yeah, this is a great story. I love the whole mystery aspect of it.