Hey guys, I’ve been writing this in a document as a I go along. You may have read about the upsetting videos I’ve received. If not, then you can find them here . The way things are going this will probably be my last post.
-—–
Amazing Grace. That’s what I used to call her.
Sometimes at least.
She’d always smile and say it was sacrilegious. I guess I’d kinda have to agree, at least part of the time. It is a special song, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t think she was amazing.
So many puns to be had with her name, but I couldn’t help myself sometimes. When she’d get overwhelmed with school or work and felt like she couldn’t go on, I’d remind her of a quote I’d read, years ago.
“You know Ernest Hemingway’s definition of courage?” I’d ask.
“What’s that?” she’d say, the smile already curving across her face, knowing that I would only save this salve for the right time, that I wouldn’t just drop it anywhere.
“Grace under pressure. So you’re totally exhibiting courage right now. You’re literally Grace under pressure,” I’d reply, and then she’d reply “shut up” through her big grin, the grin that was turning into a full blown laugh as she hurled the nearest couch cushion or pillow at my face.
But where did it go wrong?
The final months are a blur. A screaming fight or two. I think I can remember us both being on our knees at one point, pleading with the other.
Was it the cheating I found evidence of? It has to be. It totally wrecked me and then I hit the wall and apparently she died at some point and things went from bad to worse.
Maybe in a fit of anger I told her I wished she was dead and the guilt drove me insane to the point where I had to go away for a while. After that I probably blocked it out with antipsychotic drugs and hypnotherapy and brain damage or something.
It’s the only thing that makes sense.
We were going to get married one day, I think. Had talked about it under the cool bedsheets at our little rental house. Let’s just get finished with college, I’d say. We can get a nice house with a nice big backyard and you can have a garden and we can finally get a dog.
She’d cling me tighter, as if trying to squeeze me into her whole being. It felt like the best place on earth to be, an enveloping warmth that could swallow me up. In those moments, I wanted to disappear into her, because anything else out there just wouldn’t compare. This was as good as it could ever get.
#
Richie takes my phone. “Look, this is for your own good. I will drive you to the Verizon place right now. We’ll change your number. Get you an iPhone. Enough of this Android Google shit.”
“Are you at least gonna tell me how she died?” I ask.
“Dude, seriously? We’ve talked over this a dozen times. If you can’t remember, I think you should talk to somebody, first. Let them know what’s going on and how they wish to proceed. I don’t want to send you spiraling. Who’s your psychiatrist?”
“I don’t even know if she’s a doctor. She’s more like a counselor. It’s some lady I talk to on my computer. I don’t even know what state she lives in. I get my meds from a regular doctor.”
“Fuck.”
“I can just Google her name y’know,” I say.
“Really? Do you even remember her last name?”
“Um.”
Richie’s shaking his head. “God, this is bad dude. Can’t you see it?”
“Alright, alright,” I say. “Let’s go to fucking Verizon.”
#
For a while, I feel strangely at peace. New number, new phone, new me. Without the daily reminders, it’s amazing how easy it is to forget again. I find myself fantasizing about Grace’s videos from time to time, but that’s it.
When I receive the text from the unknown number, I can only give a little nod to whoever’s watching and whisper, “Yep.”
It’s strange how at peace I am with this.
The video is Grace lying lingerie-d in the lamplight across a hotel mattress. Eyelids heavy with makeup. A fake smile, muscles quivering from holding it still for so long. She stares straight at me until the smile disappears. “I don’t want to do this anymore,” she says, voice clear as a bell in the room around me. The screen flickers. Still, images flash across the screen.
There’s her lying across the bed horizontally. She could be asleep were it not for the odd angle her leg is at, the way it hangs off the edge of the mattress. And there’s her scratched up arms. The turned over lamp. The yellow evidence tag by her head. The shiny police boots in the background.
My God, I think. It was me.
It was me.
#
“So you received a link from an unknown number that played a video and now the link is broken?” Richie asks while I pace his living room back and forth.
“Yes. Yes. I know how it sounds.”
“Okay, okay. Just calm down, man. I believe you.”
“You do?”
“I believe you saw something like you described. *But—*and I may not know what the fuck I’m talking about here—maybe, just maybe, this is your subconscious processing your guilt, bringing back all this shit you forgot.”
“Like a guilt thing? It was me. How did I . . .” I’m on my knees now, about to cry, trying everything I can to dredge up the awful memories that I somehow lost.
“You didn’t kill her, dude. She was meeting guys online. Like some sort of nympho. Craigslist even. Met up with the wrong one. They caught him on account of her phone records, security footage from the motel.”
“What?” my voice cracks.
“In fact. You had the perfect alibi. You were out with me that night. Christ, how can you not remember this shit? Things had been rocky with you and Grace, you said. We got smashed. I didn’t know if you knew about the cheating at the time. I didn’t ask. Later, when you found out about the murder, you hit the wall. Hard. Drank a fifth of gin. Tried to burn all your old photos and memories in the oven. Neighbors found you out on the lawn, smoke pouring out of the house.”
I sob into my fist, bite my knuckles to try and choke back the awful embarrassing sounds. “I just thought,
“What did you find out about the shrink?”
I sniff. “My appointment with a real psychiatrist is three weeks out. I got an emergency appointment with the online lady. Don’t know what the hell good that’s gonna do.”
“Well stay on top of this shit, and remember: if you run into any trouble you know where to find me. In the meantime, I’ll be on your ass. So you better answer any text in a thirty minute time frame. Else I’ll be busting down your door.”
#
If my online therapist was any colder, I’d need to defrost my laptop screen. I think she’s gotten to the point where she no longer believes me, that she thinks I’m playing some sort of game with her, that maybe I’m getting off on this somehow.
With my latest revelations she goes quiet. There’s been a lot to fill her in on, the escalating nature of the videos, the revelation of Grace’s death.
She’s staring at her papers, talking to herself, telling me “Jus one sec.” She looks up and says, “Look, I think it would be a good idea if I could peek at some of your previous medical records. You’ll need to sign a release. It’s on the website. Fill it out and fax it.”
“So you want to verify if I’m full of shit or not? Is that it? This is definitely real. I can show you the videos.”
“Please don’t share pornographic material with me.”
I duck my head in shame.
“But no, I don’t think you’re full of it. This is just an extension of care. I can gain greater insight into your situation with your previous records. You said yourself that all of the events were a fog, that you’d forgotten a lot. Right?”
“Whatever,” I say and I know we’re done here, that we’re done for good. I’m not going to fill out the release form.
Nothing to do now but wait for the other appointment, see if the psychiatrist can prescribe me a miracle pill. Because right now, a miracle is exactly what I need.
#
The next message drop is an audio file. A male and a female voice having a conversation. The female voice is unmistakably Grace and in a turn of events from what I’ve received thus far, I have my first starring role.
“Tell me about that guy at the student union again.”
“The guy that hit on me? I told you everything.”
“Yeah, but what was he like? Like he just hit you up out of the blue? Pretty ballsy.”
“Are you jealous?”
“Definitely not.”“You’re totally jealous. Babe, you know I’d never do anything. I shut that shit down.”
“Did he give you your number?”
“He tried.”
“What did he look like? Was he good looking? Was he tall? Muscular?”
“I mean, he was tall. Fit. Well dressed. I’m not going to compare the two of you. Nobody compares to you.”
“Thanks. What did he smell like?”
“Smell like? Are you serious?”
“He got close to you, yeah? Did he like touch your arm? Okay. Say that you and I aren’t together. Say we’re not dating. Would you take his number?”
“I don’t want to imagine us not dating.”
“What if he was like really forward. Really aggressive. Wanted to go back to his place right then and there.”
“Is this . . .is this turning you on?”
“I . . .I dunno.”
“This is turning you on. I could see that bulge from space, haha.”
“Well.”
“I like this. Let me think . . .if we weren’t together, huh? Then maybe I’d entertain his offer to go out to lunch. I’d be nervous. I’d have a drink or two. I’d relax. He’d ask me to come back to his place. I’d start touching him in the car. Kiss his neck and breathe in his ear. Both of us dying to get to his apartment.”
“Then what? Keep going.”
I could continue to transcribe everything from the anonymous audio file*,* the details she made up about the panty sniffing, the dick sucking, the drenched bedsheets, but I think you get the gist. I could tell you how, in spite of everything, it turns me on now like it no doubt did back then.
But I think you get the idea. I think you can deduce, like I have, the escalation that was bound to follow.
#
“What happened to the killer? Did he get convicted?”
“Never made it to trial,” Richie says. “Killed himself in his cell.”
#
The next video I receive looks like security cam footage. The vantage point is the corner of a hallway. Off-white cinderblock walls on one side, darkened jail cells on the other. The footage cycles through two viewpoints, the hallway and a front on shot of one of the middle cells.A figure walks down the hallway. It’s Grace. She’s in her normal clothes. She looks healthy and alive. No ghostly glitching here. No stuttering gait or twisted limbs or long black hair obscuring her face.
She stops in the middle of the hall. Turns to one of the cells. The footage changes to the end-on view of the middle cell. Its interior light turns on, a singular glow amidst the row of darkened confinements.
A prisoner gets out of the bunk, stands in the middle of the cell, stares at Grace. He’s a wiry guy, buzzed head and facial tats. Grace gives a come hither motion with her finger. He zombie walks toward the rectangular grid patterned bars. Gripping vertical bars on either side of his head, he presses his face forward.
Grace nods.
Through a defiance of logic—since everything about this whole video is a defiance of logic—the camera zooms in on his face, the details impossibly clear. Here I can clearly see the teardrop tattoos by his left eye, the scar on his forehead, the blood running down his temples.
He pushes and pushes, the rectangular grid of bars in no shape to allow a human head to fit through. It’s not a birth canal, it can’t accommodate. It’s the unforgiving walls of cold hard steel. No giving here. Adaptation will have to come from the object that is passing, and it does.
His face elongates. The sides of his skull flatten and the top of his head becomes misshapen like that of a newborn. All the while he grits his teeth and pushes and pushes and pushes.
Soon, the top of his head erupts like an inflamed cyst, chunks of pink brain matter flopping over onto his closely cropped scalp. Bloody drool spills out of the open mouth now framed by the agape, deformed jaw. If whatever just happened doesn’t kill him, the cold steel constriction around his neck will finish the job.
He hangs there in space, halfway kneeling. His bare foot kicks once, twice, and then is still.
Grace turns to the camera, gives me a little wave, walks away.
#
“I don’t want to do this anymore.”
“Aw babe, I thought you were good, giving, and game? Y’know?”
“I don’t feel safe. You don’t know what it’s like.”
“We could meet them beforehand. We could rent separate rooms, right by each other. I could listen through the wall. Ooh I kinda like that idea.”
“Jesus, Daniel. Why am I not enough? Why can’t we just have normal sex? I’m willing to do a lot and you can’t say I didn’t try.”
“Excuse me, normal sex? Are you fucking kink shaming me? I didn’t choose this, either.”
“Fuck off.”
A door slams.
Silence.
#
In this recording, she sounds like the Grace I’d always known. At least at the start. As the recording plays back, her voice turns low and scratchy, like she’s been sick. Slowly, it morphs into a throaty growl.
You kept pushing it, she says. A positive feedback loop like I learned in physiology. The more I did, the more you wanted. It was never enough. I had fun at first, the roleplay and teasing, I liked turning you on, because why wouldn’t I? We were partners and you should want to make them happy. But then it was all you wanted.
I stopped participating. You didn’t like that.
You grew cold. Distant. We stopped having sex. Stopped saying goodnight. Passed each other in the hall like travelers to different destinations. I just wanted you back. I wanted it back like it was. Do you remember the long weekends in bed? The midnight junk food runs to 7-11? The laughter? All we had before you became obsessed?
So I thought, one last time. Maybe one last time to buy us some more time. I don’t know. All I know is I didn’t want to lose you.
I can remember how your eyes lit up when I told you my plan and I can remember how those same eyes glimmered with disappointment when I told you it would be one more time only. You told me it would be fine, that we would figure out a way to adapt, that you were grateful that I was giving you one more time to process it.
But in the motel room I had second thoughts. He didn’t like that. I couldn’t reach my phone—it was across the room, set up to record us. I couldn’t scream. Couldn’t break free.
Couldn’t breathe.
One last time.
One last time.
#
When will it come, the fate that’s to come?
I think she is responding to texts for me. I see messages I can’t remember, sent to Richie, my mom, my dad, my boss. Perfect excuses that buy her a day or two of uninterrupted time to torment me.
The messages say, “I’m doing well!”.
Or “I’m not doing so well, I won’t be in today. Got this bad stomach thing.”
It only makes sense she has haunted my cell phone all along. I changed my number and got a new one, but she must have transferred to the router.
From there it was only a matter of time for her vengeful spirit to reach the cell phone towers. From there she could get to the electromagnetic waves, the waves that are flowing right through us from the powerlines.
5G it will kill us all after all haha.
She is messing with my brain, the electrical signals in my head.
Doors open to other doors. I end up back in my room. I cannot leave. I walk in circles. A dog chasing his own tail (or maybe a new tale, clever huh). A dumbass pervert in search of an exit.
I try to send out texts from the real me to my friends and family, but they do not go through.
Their faces on their contact photos have turned into clownish monstrosities. Bulging bloodshot eyes and impossible smiles, massive foreheads, and cracked vinyl lips.
Emails don’t work and phone calls don’t work and 911 doesn’t work and this fucking website is the only place I can post and I don’t know how much longer I have, but I have received a text that simply said, “ONE LAST TIME” and I have seen her hair and blood filled eyes outside my window in the dead of night, seen her breath fog up the glass, and there are footsteps in the hall and I’m not leaving this room and I have admitted everything to you people here, so why isn’t that enough?
CAN YOU SEE THSI GRACE? I”M SORRY I”M SORRY AND IF I POST IT TO THE INTERNET FOR ALL TO SEE WILL YOU BE ABLE TO SEE THAT I”M SORRY FOR CHRISTSAKE I AM ASKING FOR FORGIVENESS
I NEVER WANTED THIS TO HAPPEN
I NEVER ASKED TO LIKE WHAT I LIKE
But I can hear you wheezing out there
and saying my name
and I’m tired of running and I know this is my fault and it’s time to face the music
but maybe after I hit send on this I will turn around and this will somehow all be forgiven and this will all somehow be forgotten.