My mom (54) called me (37) on Monday saying she needed help clearing out her garage. She said there was a bunch of jewellery and family heirlooms dotted around the place so I decided to take a look. About 10 minutes in, I found a tape in my moms garage. Unnamed and without a date on it. As for its physical properties, nothing looked like it was out of the ordinary minus the fact it was a bit busted around the edges and other
I remembered my mom had a VCR inside a box nearby so I spent some time looking for it. After spending about half an hour in plenty of boxes, I finally found the player and brought it upstairs.
“What’s that you found Nina?” My mom asked me as I was carrying a plastic bag.
“I found the VCR we used to have back in the late 90s, it looks a bit busted but it should work perfectly after I’m done with it” I replied to, hoping she would leave me to watch some memories on my own.
“Oh ok, you enjoy that” She said with her massive smile. No further questions or anything. I’m not a mommy’s girl or anything but I never really liked lying to her and I very rarely do it. Feeling dismissed and slightly guilty, I walked into my room where I had all the necessary tools to try and fix the VCR.
After about an hour or two, I managed to get it back up and running and connected it to my new TV. No tape was in and I could already feel the memories rushing back. The exhilaration was great. I felt like a teenager again. But now the most important part of this restoration journey, to finally find out what was on that tape.
This is where it began…
It started with a commercial for Ken Griffey Jr.’s Slugfest back in ‘99. I remember myself wanting that game for the Nintendo 64. Weird, my mom rarely records adverts and hates whenever adverts come on. Maybe the next thing might’ve been a movie she lost a while ago? Anyway, the advert continued up until 16 seconds in when it just came to an abrupt stop.
I have never seen this happen. I would’ve remembered it when I was 15 but for some odd reason, no recollection of any abrupt halts to any adverts I’ve seen.
All of a sudden, an emergency broadcast was up on my screen. I thought it was genuine until I focused on the capture lines at the bottom. The reason behind the broadcast appeared:
“An EAS Participant has issued a Local Area Emergency for the following counties/areas: Wagoner, OK. Effective until further notice. COMCAST_”
As it came across the screen again, I thought how I could miss a broadcast like this. I get it was now 23 years ago but I have no memory of any tragedy back then. It makes no sense how I would forget this. Eitherway, the beauty of recording it.
Then all of a sudden, the tape acted as if it was just snatched by the devil. An almost evil sound came blasting out of the speakers either side of my tv.
After Satan himself decided to curse my ears, a break in transmission appeared over my screen, all still on the tape. At this point, I was getting ever so slightly disturbed as if this was ‘99 and it was real. It was only 4pm and still light outside, shows how much of a scaredy-cat I am.
Another message popped up on the screen reading the following:
“NO SIGNAL. TUNE TO A DIFFERENT CHANNEL.”
I rushed for the remote again thinking that this was active for today but as I remembered it wasn’t, I just let it play. The urge to turn this off and destroy it was filling my head but curiosity was developing inside me.
I jumped back as I continued watching, the break in transmission disappeared and 2 images of the woods flashed up across the television. 2 disturbing faces kept appearing followed by a photo of a dead body.
Static filled the screen after the body was shown… I thought it was over so I went to eject the tape just as some black and white footage of a water fountain near some buildings was displayed. The date was marked on the footage: March 1st 1986. Disturbing music started to play and the following red text appeared on the screen:
“WE HOPE YOU ENJOY YOUR GIFT.
:)”
Absolutely shitting myself as the footage kept playing, a photo of a man with an abnormally large and creepy smile flashed on the screen before it cut to a different change in scenery.
Still in a strong black and white, dash-cam footage then played with a cryptic text in the top left corner:
“HE WANTS TO BE YOUR FRIEND”
Who is “he”? Was it referring to the dead man or the creepy faces dotted throughout the tape?
The drive seemed perfectly normal until as soon as it went down what seemed to be a side road, static filled the screen. New words appeared at the bottom of the TV.
“DO NOT FEAR HIM”
With constant references to “him”, I felt as if a demon had hijacked this tape. Nothing made sense and with the cult summonings that were over the news back in ‘99, it could well have been something supernatural.
Another text replaced the most recent one:
“HE IS OUTSIDE MY ROOM”
I turn around hoping there was no one looking in. Thankfully there was no one, but regardless of that, someone was in trouble. Even on the off chance they didn’t die from this creature, no abductions of any sort were on the news recently…
But then, a creepy figure that could’ve only belonged to a mutated animal filled what looked to be a doorway. The dash-cam footage disappeared and all that was left now was this dark creature.
Some of the dash-cam footage played in reverse and then it cut back to that creepy man with that inhumane smile that appeared for no less than a split second earlier in the tape.
The image kept disappearing and reappearing over and over with the text above his head.
“I SEE YOU”
These words are then replaced:
“HE IS WATCHING ME”
The image then stops reappearing and is replaced by 2 doors. Text appearing at the bottom of the screen one last time:
“HE IS HERE”
A loud banging is present but then comes to an abrupt end.
I am a fully grown woman and that scared me. I’ve seen beheadings and I’ve seen real disturbing shit but this… it’s something else. Something fucked…
On a whim, I have posted the video to Youtube to see if anyone can identify the creature or if anyone can link it to a story in their area.
Link: https://youtu.be/MhllmERFKyM
Thank you for reading this
NINA H.