New Recording 16 (12 Jan 2022 - 11:39 PM):
I don’t have anything to report right now. I was just struggling to get to sleep, is all. I’m really… just. Uncomfortable. I don’t have anyone to confide in. No family, no… ‘friends.’ Not even Peter. I can’t… explain this. I simply can’t.
Whatever or whoever this is, they’ve killed someone. For all I know, right this second, there’s another box waiting on my porch. If there isn’t, and I sit there waiting for it… you know. They’ll just get it in another way. I’m just… I dunno.
New Recording 17 (13 Jan 2022 - 8:21 AM):
New box. We know how this goes. It’s so… I can’t find the words. I haven’t opened the box yet, but the bottom is wet. So… yeah. The name is,
‘Isabelle Gill.’
(Mr. Holland remains silent for 10 seconds)
Well, there’s nothing for it. I can’t be reluctant.
(sounds of Mr. Holland opening box)
No. No. I… oh my god, oh my god… oh no…
It’s fingers. 10 of them. And the entire bottom of the box is… is… full of…
(Mr. Holland leaves room. Can be heard retching)
New Recording 18 (13 Jan 2022 - 9:57 AM):
She’s dead, too. They found her out in the woods, some distance away. They reckon her corpse was out the entire night. The wildlife had already made good work of her, too. And all her fingers were gone. Broken off. They say that practically every bone in her body was broken. She was snapped at all these wrong angles. Like she was dropped from an incredible height. No planes or helicopters passed over the area, though. People would’ve heard it.
I’m going nuts. I can feel it. I’m going insane and I’m… I’m just… sorry. I could list off a million different emotions I’m feeling right now. None positive. But I truly feel like I’m going mad. I’ve… I’ve been dealing with these boxes by storing them in the basement. I can’t throw them out, authorities are checking all the bins. Eventually, they’ll come by my place too. Especially because I’m new in town. I threw out the tampons and the hair, but the teeth… the fingers? All the (stammering) blood?
It’s going to start smelling bad. But I’m not really sure what else to do with it. I can’t leave it, but I can’t move it either.
I feel like I’m being watched. I don’t think I am, but what if I am?
Oh god…
New Recording 19 (14 Jan 2022 - 6:48 AM):
I’m not going to open it. I simply can’t. What if it’s something else? Something horrible? Like eyeballs or ears or something? I can’t… but I have to, don’t I? I need to know whether I want to or not. But it could be so… disgusting… so depraved…
I’ve given up recording it. I tried for the third time, but it’s the same result as the first time. Nothing. The box is just sitting there the moment the camera starts rolling. It doesn’t. Make. Sense. And here’s the box.
(Mr. Holland breathes laboredly for 7 seconds)
I’m not going to open it. I don’t care what’s inside. I just don’t want to see the eyeballs of,
‘Rosie Phillip’
Or whatever the hell else might be in here. I simply don’t want to see it. I can’t… the bottom’s wet. I know it’s full of blood. I know… it’s gonna be something awful. I know.
New Recording 20 (14 Jan 2022 - 7:09 AM):
I did some checking. That line, the one I mentioned, it’s still going. Still… continuing. Just getting closer and closer. It’s beyond halfway through the town. Still headed towards me.
And eventually, those cops are gonna figure that out. That it’s this line. Coming towards me. My house. But why, if I was the killer, would I make the line come towards me? Why would I intentionally incriminate myself?
New Recording 21 (14 Jan 2022 - 9:38 AM):
They found her corpse. She was hanging from the outside of her house. Barbed wire was tied around her leg and a rafter in the eaves. No one heard her scream, but it looked like she died in immense… you know. Her entire chest cavity… and her… I can’t.
She was missing her foot. It looks like it was physically pulled off. So. You know, that’s what’s in the box, probably. An entire-ass foot. Just sitting there. Like a disgusting hunk of meat. I can’t bear to look at it. I simply won’t. It’s… I feel so unsafe. This is all so fucked.
And why me? Why has it chosen me? It all feels so wrong…
New Recording 22 (15 Jan 2022 - 7:23 AM):
I don’t know how to stop this. I just don’t. I feel so ridiculous, just recording this all on a dictaphone, but I simply don’t know what else to do. I have no one to confide in. No one. Not even Peter would believe me. He’s tried calling me several times. Just checking in on me. But I don’t… I don’t want to talk to people right now. I don’t know who to trust… I don’t even trust myself…
‘Hayden Brooks.’
That’s the name. So… you know. There you go. Another name on the list. Another person who’s probably been brutally murdered somewhere.
So, I guess I’m gonna just… open this one too. And then I’m gonna see something awful, I’m gonna freak out, store it in the basement, get more paranoid than before - repeat. Day after day. The police are crawling all over the place like ants. People are quickly moving to friend’s places, or amping up their security. There’s a county-wide curfew now. Everyone needs to be indoors by 9.
And I’m just going to have to open this shit, aren’t I? Christ…
(sounds of Mr. Holland opening box)
Oh, Jesus fucking christ. Okay… gimme a second.
Oh my god, this just keeps happening. How do I make this stop? How do I make this fucking stop? I don’t know what I did, but for the love of God, I’m so sorry. Oh my God, oh my God…
An arm. Shoulder to fingers. And the… the stump… oh, so help me God. It’s awful. Everything about it is so vile. It’s got a tattoo on it. A mermaid or something, I dunno. Oh, god. What do I do? What do I fucking do?
New Recording 23 (15 Jan 2022 - 11:52 AM):
His upper half, missing an arm, was upstairs, propped up in front of a window on the windowsill. Like he was a wheelchair-bound patient who’d been allowed to look out the window at the garden. His–
(Mr. Holland gags)
His… guts… were all shredded apart. The remains trailed downstairs, to the living room, where his legs were set up in front of the TV. The TV was playing nothing but static. But the worst part? And this just… I mean, it’s sick. It’s so sick.
He had a daughter. Young. She’s the one who found him. She found his upper half, then had to follow the entrails downstairs to find the lower half. Sitting there. Blood. Still. Pooling. And I just… I feel so awful for her. I mean, how does a person feel seeing that?
Well, I would know now, wouldn’t I? I would know. I know what human remains look like, and I wish like hell that I didn’t.
I truly feel like I’m going insane. That I’m spiraling. That I’m just a helpless… puppet… fated to experience this sick fucking madness. And I can’t do anything about it. I’m defenseless. And it knows. Do you know that? It knows. I bet it’s listening to me, right now. This very second. I have my gun beside me, and if it dares approach me, so help me God, I will shoot it until it’s pulp. I have multiple magazines for it. I’ll reload, and I’ll keep shooting, and reloading. And when the chamber is empty and I’ve spent every last bullet, I’ll grab whatever object is closest and bludgeon it beyond death with that too. I’ll keep bludgeoning it until my arms are totally dead. Because they deserve it. That’s the thing, they really, really deserve it. This thing, and it is a thing… it’s so evil. And it’s… winning. Whatever game you would call this, it’s winning at it.
And I don’t know what to tell the police either. If I were to come to them, they’d arrest me. I’m sure of it. They’d arrest me, the killer would wisely stop killing to prove my guilt, then go somewhere else, settle in, and keep on killing. And that assumes it’s a person.
And what would I tell the police? ‘Officer, it’s a monster that’s been delivering me mysterious packages, for no apparent reason, as well as body parts of the victims. It can tamper with camera footage, and I trust that you’ll believe me just because.’
And from the police’s perspective? ‘He’s an outsider who just entered town, started stealing objects, then got bold enough to kill once he knew he wouldn’t be caught. He took trophies of his victims (like many serial killers do), then got cold feet, and created a crackpot tale about monsters and anonymous box deliveries as an excuse for all the evidence in his house.’
(Mr. Holland remains silent for 18 seconds)
And, you know, I can’t think of a single outcome that works in my favor. I really can’t.
New Recording 24 (15 Jan 2022 - 12:16 PM):
(Mr. Holland groans) Sorry about my voice. I sound pretty deflated right now. I– I don’t even know why I’m apologizing to my dictaphone, but… here we are. Me apologizing to a hunk of technology.
I was… just checking google maps again. And it’s still getting closer. The locations. Only a couple of blocks away in distance. So… yeah. That’s all.
New Recording 25 (16 Jan 2022 - 6:25 AM):
It’s good at driving me nuts. It’s like they’ve done all this before. Like this is some old routine that they’ve mastered down to the last detail. And it’s so… effective. You know, I really feel trapped. That there’s simply no way out of any of this. I know I keep saying those things over and over, but… it’s just how I feel. Trapped. In a loop. I can break the loop, I know how, but… what if breaking the loop has an outcome that’s arguably even worse? (Sighs) I dunno, I just… I’m not even ‘surprised’ by this anymore. I mean, I am, but… it’s nothing I didn’t expect. I’ve actually been expecting way worse, in terms of future deliveries.
In this case, it came from,
‘Elias Richards.’
And you know what? Regardless of my fears, I still think it’s the worst thing I’ve gotten. At least the other things have been… exterior. Like… the hair, the teeth, the fingers, the foot, the arm… they were things that one could already see. But this? This came from inside the body. Inside the fucking– I mean. It came from properly inside the fucking…
It’s a heart. Yeah. Slick and bloody and disgusting. Just there. A disgusting, purplish-red, and whitish-pink. Plonked at the bottom of the unmarked package brought by the unrevealed deliverer given to the unwitting outsider for unknown reasons.
And you know something else I noticed? I googled all of this, to get a lay of the land from the public’s perspective. But it’s very, very vague. Suspiciously so. Almost as if the primary details were purposefully omitted. Like, the town’s name isn’t provided. The brutality of the murders is glossed right over. People can communicate with those that are outside of the town, and the county, but the media? It’s barely touched this definite goldmine of a story. And I don’t. Know. Why.
New Recording 26 (17 Jan 2022 - 10:23 AM):
They found the body in his bathtub. The bathtub was full of his blood, but they couldn’t find immediate wounds. But then they flipped him over, and his entire back was simply open. Like he had a zipper on his back that’d been pulled down right to the bottom. His ribs were cracked, flesh shredded… heart… gone. Same as all this other shit. Insane brutality for no reason. A thing taken and given to me. Put on my doorstep by a deranged murderer who evades my every attempt to learn their identity. It’s just… it’s like puzzle pieces. I’ve been given all these random puzzle pieces, but no matter which way I put them together, it simply adds up to nothing. It’s all nonsensical.
New Recording 27 (17 Jan 2022 - 4:44 PM):
I think the police are finally suspecting me. They stopped by my house this afternoon. They acted very nice, and we had an acceptable conversation, all while the fingers and teeth and the rest of it rotted in the basement right below us. I can even smell it a tiny bit when I stand near the basement door. The decomposing reek of it. But I don’t– I don’t want to think about that.
The police were nice. They asked some simple questions. ‘Have you seen or heard anything suspicious?’ and things like that. I acted as plain and unassuming as I could. But I feel like they knew. They must’ve. The way they looked at me… or maybe I’m just overthinking it? Maybe I’m just panicking, getting irrational, as I always do… being completely, completely useless…
I checked google maps again, too. And the line is really, really close now. Too close. And I can’t… maybe I should just leave? Just get out of here? Go and never look back? But what with the police and the feds and everything…
(Mr. Holland remains silent for 10 seconds)
I’m looking at it right now. The images. And that line is just… really, really close. Uncomfortably close. Like, only a block away, close. And I can’t do shit about it.
New Recording 28 (18 Jan 2022 - 7:25 AM):
(first 15 seconds remain silent)
I knew something was really wrong when I woke up this morning. I did. Like, when you’re in a dream, and suddenly you just know a thing. No further context is needed. You just… know it, all of the sudden.
I walked up to the porch early this morning. I couldn’t sleep most of the night. I’m not an insomniac or anything, I’ve just been… really struggling, you know? All the spirit has just… kind of left me. I’ve not an ounce of energy or willpower left in me. I’m sure Peter worried about me a fair bit. He called me really early this morning. Said he was just checking in on me. Seeing if I needed anything. I told him that I was fine, and then I thought about the body parts decomposing in my basement, and I wanted to be sick all over again.
Anyway, I, uh…
(Mr. Holland remains silent for 5 seconds)
Sorry. Sorry, it’s… anyway. I walked up to the porch. I opened the door, and… there was no box. The porch was empty. Nothing there. I dreamed, only for a second, that I’d been spared of it. The deliveries. The boxes. But I didn’t really feel safe, not for a bloody second.
And I was right. I turned around to go back inside and I damn near fell over myself. The box was now sitting directly at my feet. Not even an inch away from me. It had done it again. Broken into my house, and delivered the box, and if I had turned around, I would’ve… I would’ve seen it. But I didn’t. I just stared out at the porch. (sniffs) But that’s not what really bothered me.
What really bothered me was the name on the box. And when I saw it, I wanted to scream. Because I knew this wasn’t trickery. I knew the name on the box wasn’t a lie. It wouldn’t be.
‘Peter Franklin.’
That’s what it said. And I. I just stood there. Looking at the name. And I had to open it. I knew that I did. I had to open it because that’s how the game worked. That’s how it worked. Those chills, those nasty chills, were running up and down my body like electrical currents. I looked around my house, but it seemed totally empty. It was just me. Me and the box and whatever the fuck was inside. I clenched my jaw and mustered the nerve, and I…
I opened it.
And there it was. Something small. Something thin. Not a leg, not a kidney, or something like that. No. Instead, it was a face. An entire face. Not the head. Just… the face. A thin, mask-like face. Covered in flecks of blackish-red blood. Just splattered around. Like a fucked up art-piece. And it was his. I could tell. I could tell because of that slightly crooked nose, because of those loose strands of ridiculously curly hair. It was him.
(Mr. Holland breathes laboredly for 8 seconds)
And I looked to my right. And, you see, to my right is a guest bedroom. And the bedroom door was open, so I could see right across the room to a window that faces Peter’s house. And… and his window was simply smeared in blood. Painted all around the glass. Like something that a kid does. And he was there. At least, the rest of him was. He was propped up–
(Mr. Holland starts breathing heavily while speaking)
He was propped up in an office chair. Turned towards the window. And his face was gone. It was just this… lumpy mass of red. I’m sorry, it’s awful, it’s sick… and his eyes. His eyes were looking at me. All widened and bloodshot and clearly terrified. I mean, he was dead, definitely dead, but those eyes showed… absolute horror. But the worst part?
The blood was still going. It hadn’t settled. It wasn’t just light drops or anything. The corpse looked like it’d been set up only a minute ago, maybe less. The blood was still freshly… (exclaims) seeping… all over his shirt. Just… oh god. Oh god, oh god, oh god. It had just happened. He’s just been murdered. Only dead seconds ago.
And I fucking panicked. I started to run for my phone, which was still in my bedroom. And I damn near tore the room apart trying to find it too, but my phone was gone. And I kept searching and searching and finally, I got the idea to go for the gun instead. Because they were here. I knew that. They were here. Now. In my house, lurking… waiting… the line was complete. The hunt was now.
But the gun was gone. That’s the thing, the gun was gone too. And I felt so fucking frightened. Everything I thought of doing to defend myself just seemed hopeless. Every time I turned a corner, or simply spun around, I expected it to be there. But it wasn’t. I mean, it was there, but it was still hiding. Somewhere. I could feel its eyes, constantly, locked on the back of my neck. I’m sure it was there.
And then I heard it. Ringing. My phone was ringing somewhere in the house. I had no choice. I needed to follow the noise and find my phone. I needed that phone. I didn’t care if I went to jail. I didn’t care. I needed to call the police. I needed to call them now because if I tried to run for it, it would catch me. It’s not ‘could,’ it would.
It was sitting on the coffee table in my living room. Ringing away. And with it were two other things, in a line: my gun, and the dictaphone. My phone sat on the left. My dictaphone in the middle. My gun on the right. And I made the biggest mistake in my fucking life.
I sat down in front of the table. In a plush armchair. I sat down because my knees were tired and I just needed a moment, but… if only I hadn’t. If only I hadn’t sat down. Oh god…
I picked up the phone. The number was Peter’s. And with a great deal of trepidation, I answered the fucking thing. At first, I heard nothing. There was just silence. And then I heard the most disgusting giggle I’ve ever heard in my entire life. Like, this sick, broken, garbled laugh. It sounded like they had razors in their throat. And the voice was almost ‘soggy’ too, like… I don’t know… it had a ‘liquidy’ sound to it, almost. I can’t… I can’t really describe it.
And at that moment, the exact same moment that it giggled over the phone, I heard something else. I heard the front door distinctly lock. And before I could even process what that meant, not even a full second later– I heard the back door lock too. And… and…
(Mr. Holland starts weeping for duration of recording)
Then I heard a floorboard creak. Right behind me. Right behind the armchair. And I was just… frozen. I had the phone in my hand, but I knew I’d never dial 911 in time. It knew that too. So I… I slowly set down the phone. And I looked at the gun, but… it had no magazine in it. It’d thought ahead and it’d removed the magazine from my gun. Just to mock me. Just to mock me.
(Mr. Holland remains mostly silent for 10 seconds. Weeping still continues)
I’ve been sitting here for 20 minutes now. 20 fucking minutes. I wasn’t sure if I even should’ve picked up the dictaphone at first, but… there’s nothing else I can do. If I try to run, it’s going to kill me. If I turn around, it’s going to kill me. If I scream… it’s going to kill me.
I can see glimpses of it in the reflection of the dictaphone’s screen. Standing behind me. Listening to me. Watching. Reveling in… this. And I know what’s going to happen. I’m going to stop this dictaphone recording and it’s going to kill me. It’s going to kill me. It’s just toying with its prey because it knows it has me. And it’s going to fucking kill me.
(Mr. Holland continues weeping for 30 seconds)
I am so… so… scared.
Recording ends.