The basic need for curiosity is all thread in human DNA. So, when something strange happens, people tend to be curious or scared. It is why most of us are drawn to horror movies, the more curious we are, the more we want to know more about it. whether it’s a phantom, a legend or a monster . . . curiosity is a powerful motivator and fault we all have.
My best friend had gone missing, the days, weeks, months that followed, there was no leads the police could find. There was nothing on his computer, nothing in his dorm room, and nobody knows what happened. He just disappeared one day, now you’d think he was kidnapped, or he just ran away from all his responsibilities. but it was like he vanished, no evidence of anything foul had happened he simply just disappeared one morning. The police would say that doesn’t happen. But it did.
I volunteered to help clean his dorm room, his parents were in such distraught they couldn’t touch any of his things. So, I bought a bunch of moving boxes and went to his dorm room. slowly I packed his belongings, stuff we’d bought together, others we won at amusement parks. Photos he’d hung on the wall, at one point I had to step away, my tears had stained my cheeks. Adam is—was my best friend since third grade. We had done everything together, we shared memories that would last a lifetime. I’d remember getting the phone call from a Detective Stacy, he’d told me the bad news. At first, I thought it was Adam playing a prank on me.
But once Detective Stacy got through to me, he started questioning me like I was a suspect. Of course, I had no idea where he’d went, where he’d go. the last time we were together was when we were shooting a mini movie for our film studies in the forest. We were shooting a mini movie about a radio tower in the middle of the forest. It was abandoned years ago, there was a horrific legend attached to it. every DJ that worked at that radio station was murdered. We had gotten permission from the owner to make our mini documentary on it for class. it went smoothly, nothing happened to us, the radio tower was well eerily, when we climbed the stairs up to the radio tower there was all the equipment that was abandoned, and there was even a small loft and a kitchen. According to the owner the DJ’s had to stay in the tower all the time.
But after six months or so, the DJs would either be found murdered or simply gone. they’d disappear, we’d even captured some of the dried blood all over the floor where the last body was found. The recent DJ had vanished, I still see their missing posters all over the campus. The police had finally shut down the program for those in media to come and work at the tower. And since then, it had been abandoned, the owner was a bit skeptical about Adam and I wanting to do a documentary, he’d made us both sign a contract that if anything happened to us during our exploration that he wasn’t held responsible for it. of course, we finished our documentary on time.
That’s were it got weird.
Adam had been acting weird since we had done our documentary there. we edited and gotten the mini documentary turned in to our film class on time. but the few weeks that followed, he became obsessed with the radio tower. The last time I saw him, he wanted me to go back to the radio tower with him, but at the time, I had babysitting duties, and had told him no. I was texting him the entire time and then the last text I had received was:
I’m finally home, we have to meet up, I’ll tell you what I saw. But he never did because he had simply vanished.
It felt like a hole in my life since his disappearance, it had been a few months since anyone last saw Adam, his face is now on a missing person’s poster on the campus board right next to so many others. It broke my heart every time I saw his photo hung up on that board, have you seen me? others walk past the board but before I go to my classes I stand there staring at the photo of him. now I’m in his dorm room packing everything so the campus can assign someone else here. I slowly packed everything from clothes to essentials to personal belongings. Like a mug he’d made in pottery class with me in high school, the mug I gave him as a birthday gift.
That’s when I noticed something wrong with the floorboard near his bed, slowly I crouched down and that’s when I found that the wooden panel had been lifted up and poorly put back. I used my keys to pop up the panel, slowly I set the panel out of my way. in the small space I found a hidden compartment, which was big enough for a shoe box. Inside was a small box, slowly I pulled the box up and opened the lid. I found something interesting, cassette tapes, they were old. these tapes had tape on each one, labeled one to thirteen.
I’d remember packing away a portable cassette player, I’d thought it was weird he had it. Adam was in collecting old antiques, he’s aunt owned an antique store, so Adam thought old things were neat. I went through the boxes until I found an old black portable cassette player, I figured out how to open it, when I saw, he was listening to one of the tapes. But this one looked fairly newer than the ones in the box, in fact the handwriting on the tape on the cassette tape was his. it simply read: fourteen.
I should take it to the police but instead I rewind the tape and pushed play, Adam’s voice played over the audio, and I felt my heart ache, but I listened to it anyway.
“I hope this is on, I followed the instructions. Hi, my name is Adam Fowler. I am making this audio because of what I had listened to. to make a long story short, I did a small documentary on the local abandon radio tower in the middle of the forest. My best friend Hallie and I made a small documentary on the legend of the radio tower, now it seemed all normal. I had to come back to the radio station a few days later to investigate further, something just wasn’t adding up. who killed the DJ’s? why did they go missing? There had to be something. That’s when I found these cassette tapes, very old. they were numbered. So naturally I listened with one then to the last one. the last known DJ that had gone missing. I think I know what happened, and why the owner of the property had Hallie and I sign those non reliability contracts.
I had to come back”—his voice cut off and I heard footsteps not too far from him. he’d stopped talking, his breathing was heavy. As the sound of someone not too far, the crunching of leaves and branches seemed to realize they were being heard and stopped too. it was quiet except for an owl in the background hooting. Adam continued.
“Sorry, I thought I was being followed. So, listening to those tapes, there is something out here. they call it a cryptid. I did more research on it, if anyone else had seen weird things out here. I found a website that indeed had witnesses of weird things happening out here, one of them was that this woman saw a deer walking upright like a human, and when it saw her, it started walking like a normal deer and ran off in the forest. There is something about this radio tower that all the weirdness comes from.”
He paused to catch his breath. Then his voice went lower to a whisper.
“I think their watching me. seeing what I’m going to do, I’m currently walking up into the radio tower, I wish I had my camera, but I know it will not capture anything. See electronics act weird out here, I tried to bring my camera out here during the night and the batteries were just zapped. During the day not so much. Here I am. in the radio tower, I can see out the windows, a clear view of the treetops—what the hell is that? dear god! Its huge! No one will ever believe me! its glowing eyes are looking at me. oh no, its coming straight for me, shit!”
There was fumbling and then him screaming and the tape stopped recording. I nearly dropped the tape. Staring at it in shock. Whatever he found scared him. I looked at the other tapes, and wondered what he heard from them, were they just as horrible, did they find something out there. I know there were a lot of rumors about the radio tower. We were warned by our film professor that our subject should have been on something else, he gave us a D on the project because he didn’t like the fact we were out there and did the documentary.
I nearly dropped the cassette player when Adam’s voice returned.
“I’m almost to the campus, Hallie if you find this, I’m sorry. I’m glad you didn’t come with me. I know what happened to the DJ’s. and why the cops won’t investigate it further. Please don’t be mad at me, I’m going to show you these tapes tomorrow. You’ll believe me, I swear. If you don’t hear or see me by tomorrow, assume I’m dead. And don’t go to that radio tower, stay away from it. I’m sorry, God I am so effing sorry.” And the recording stopped there. the tape hit the end.
I was floored. Tears gathered in my eyes. This was the last time I get to hear his voice. I don’t know what to do, Detective Stacy told me if I find anything that could help them find him, to immediately tell him. but as I stared at the cassette tape, I couldn’t help thinking that was a bad idea. The police refused to investigate the radio tower, why?
Then a tapping noise caught my attention, glancing up I saw a black cat in the windowsill. The cats tail jerked and stared straight at me and let out a shrill meow as it pawed at the window. I got up and went to the window to look at the cat. Its black fur coat seemed to glimmer in the dimming sunlight, its green eyes stared up at me as if it wanted to tell me something, a secret maybe. the cat put its paw on the window, and then jumped off the windowsill and I watched it dart across the campus. Something in my gut told me to follow the cat. I grabbed my backpack and shoved all the tapes into it and the cassette player, and I ran out of the dorm. I ran past a few other students who all yelled at me to watch where I was going.
I burst through the main doors and ran across the campus until I spotted the cat, continuing its run across the huge campus, I followed it until the cat led me to the middle of campus where the event board was posted. Where the missing people posters were posted on the other side of it, I watched as the cat jumped right through solid concrete the board was nailed on. I stopped, breathing hard, trying to catch my breath, slowly I walked around the board to the missing posters. The cat somehow ended up on top of the ten-foot concrete wall and sat on top of it. meowing loudly, its tail jerked near Adam’s missing poster. I wasn’t sure what I just witnessed, if the light was playing tricks on me, but if I didn’t know better, this cat wanted me to find Adam.
Reaching up I grabbed Adam’s missing poster, his picture smiled at me with that knowing grin of his. I glanced up and the cat was gone. I turned around trying to look for it, the sun was now going down, the sky was only a sliver of orange in the sky. I scanned the area, until I saw the cat again, it seemed to shimmer as its body became transparent and ran into the edge of the forest that lined the edge of the campus into the forest. Slowly I took a few steps, I was going to turn back when something caught my eye, on the branches of the trees. Slowly I approached the edge of the forest, and one of the branches was a fabric, a ripped fabric hung on the tree branch barely hanging by a thread. Reaching out and plucking the fabric off the branch. I knew what it was. it was a part of a t-shirt, and not just any, I recognized the writing on the fabric. It was a t-shirt that Adam wore a lot.
I knew it was his.
Then I heard a horrific scream, it sounded like a mix of an animal and human scream, it echoed out into the now dark sky. Backing away from the forest’s edge I headed back to my own dorm. My fear shivered down spine. I had to know what happened to Adam.