The cameras were set up and it was time to retire. The little raccoons would be out after dark, and she was hoping to get some good footage of them. Their habits had changed so drastically in the past few days, she was anxious to get the overnight on tape and find out what was going on with them.
They had gone from happy little orphans living in a den below the hollow tree in her back yard to a trio of shivering arboreal skeletons. They refused to come out of the tree to forage on the ground and she had to feed them baby food out of a spoon. They were so skittish, it was becoming increasingly difficult for her to get close enough to them to actually feed them.
She was concerned that her little cubs would die if the mystery as to why they had suddenly become so afraid to leave the highest branches of the tree was not soon solved.
Midnight came and she went to bed, thinking that in the morning she would have some ordinary predator footage and something like a fox or a coyote would be on the film. It would be easy to set a humane trap and have the game warden take it off her property, and hopefully then the babies would resume their normal behavior.
She slept well, but awoke feeling vaguely disturbed, as if she’d had a bad dream. The feeling was quickly forgotten and the tape from the night before became the focus of her attention.
While waiting for the files from the cameras to download into her computer, she went out to the tree to see if the babies could be coaxed into eating something. They looked worse than ever, barely able to hold on to the branches and mewling pitifully. They were so hungry, but they were too afraid to climb down to be fed. It was becoming unbearable to watch them starve to death while she could do nothing about it.
Inside at the computer, she started reviewing the eight or so hours of recorded data. The night-vision lenses on the camera produced a weird photo-negative look: the cubs’ eyes were visible, and the little bunch huddled together as high up as they could safely climb without bending or breaking branches. She scrolled through, not having eight hours to wait for the appearance of whatever was hunting them, and certain that she would soon see the image of the culprit below the tree. There was only faint audio because she placed one of the cameras on the side of the house with the air conditioner compressor. The hum of the cooling fan had degraded all of the sound documented.
About six hours into the footage, the babies began crying out pitifully and scrabbling to find higher purchase in the tree. Nothing was visible from any of the angles she had filmed on the ground. She slowed the file down and went through it frame by frame. Thirty-six frames in after the babies reacted; she finally saw what was making them scream out in fear, because she did the same thing.
In twenty years of amateur wildlife observation, she had never seen anything like it. It was unreal in every way and thoughts of a hoax were immediate. The color of the creature wasn’t discernible because of the quality of the night lens. It looked to be smooth-skinned and was completely hairless and naked. It walked upright on two legs and had a very large head. What it appeared to be was a tiny full-grown man, the size of a toddler, with a misshapen head and jaw. She knew that this was impossible, and yet she was looking right at it. As the frame by frame continued, she became more and more horrified and the vague feeling of dread that she woke up with returned full force.
The little monster circled the tree and began to scratch at the trunk, making the poor babies scream louder. He turned suddenly, as if he had heard a noise and ran straight for the camera that she had set up behind the tree. The first full-on shot of the face of the creature made her break into a cold sweat. The misshapen jaw was crowded with needle-like teeth and the pupils of the eyes were elongated. The tiny beast leered directly into the camera lens and snapped the horrible jaws together. It appeared to be smiling, making the display even more sickening. It acted as if it knew exactly what the camera was and continued to clack the terrible teeth together and mug for the lens.
She screamed when it darted to the other camera that had been set up a hundred feet over. It stood at an angle that caused the frame to be crowded with his tiny but completely formed penis. He thrust his hips back and forth and grunted lewdly, flipping the little member around in the air until it was solid and sticking straight out.
Jolted, she screamed again when he almost instantly appeared in front of the camera installed beside the house. And nearly fainted when he picked the camera up and started filming his own progress towards her back door. He captured himself reaching up and jiggling the doorknob, finding it unlocked, and walking into her kitchen.
The angle of the shot was from about three feet off the ground. The wee monster navigated his way through the house as if he knew exactly what he was looking for. When he got to her bedroom door, he turned the camera towards his face and clacked the awful teeth together before sitting the camera on the floor, opening the door and closing it behind him.
According to the frame counter, thirteen minutes later he opened the door and retrieved the camera. He recorded his progress out of the house and returned the equipment back to its former position. He then raced over to the tree trunk, shook his tiny fist at the raccoons, and snapped the appalling jaws a few more times, just to make them scream in terror. The last frame on the recording revealed the only sound he uttered, other than grunts and squeals. Looking directly into the lens, he said very clearly, “Have a nice day.”
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©2010 Wendy Parker
Wendy is a practicing LPN in rural Ohio. She writes in her spare time and has been published in such works as The Flash Fiction Offensive, Funny Times Magazine and The Clockwise Cat.
Tags: Wendy Parker
January 19th, 2010 at 7:37 am
This scared me. To hell with that, time to pack up and move. Have a nice day, indeed…in another part of the world.
February 2nd, 2010 at 5:56 pm
I’ve really enjoyed reading your articles. You obviously know what you are talking about! Your site is so easy to navigate too, I’ve bookmarked it in my favourites