When you were a kid, did you have a movie or TV show that you absolutely loved? Something that you could watch over and over again? Did you ever wish that you could walk through the screen and be with those characters, in that world?
For my brother Seth and I, that dream quickly turned into a nightmare.
It started when he was nine and I was ten. We’d begged our parents for weeks to let us have a TV in our room. Finally, for Christmas, our parents got us a used TV for our room. It was archaic by today’s standards (it had buttons on it), but we were ecstatic.
The night after Christmas, we hooked it up and sat on our beds. We planned to stay up all night watching cartoons and stupid movies. But, as we quickly found out, our new TV didn’t get cable.
Disappointed as we were, we started flipping through local channels, hoping to find something we wanted to watch. Finally, we landed on a TV show that neither of us had seen or heard of before.
It was called Space Scares, and was basically an episodic sci-fi/horror show about a team of astronauts that got killed every episode by a different space monster. It was always the same cast of characters in the same space ship set, but each episode they were on a different space mission on a different set, being attacked by a new monster.
The cast was made up of four characters: the Captain (a guy named Antonio with a goatee and a tattoo of a skull on his lower arm), the Lieutenant (a woman named Kathryn who wore dark eye shadow), the Science Officer (a woman named Ruth who wore her hair in cornrows), and the Private (a guy named Sanjay who blew something up every episode). They all wore matching short-sleeved red jumpsuits with a blue insignia on the right shoulder. The monster was different every episode: sometimes it was something kind of stupid, like a space vampire (seriously, it was just someone in a vampire cape with a space helmet), but other times it was something cool, like a space kaiju, or an octopus-like alien that could turn people to ice.
We thought the show was awesome, something like if Star Trek met Goosebumps. We quickly got addicted, watching every episode we could catch. It seemed to always be on, so we could watch basically any time we wanted. A couple times, we even fell asleep watching that show. The jokes were hilarious, Kathryn and Ruth were pretty, and there were some awesome kill scenes.
We eventually told a couple of our friends about the show, but they’d never heard of it. We brought them over to see it, but for some reason, we couldn’t find it when we turned our TV on. All that came up on the show’s usual station was cheap kid’s programming. Our friends left, thinking we were messing with them. The second they were gone, though, the show came on as usual.
This is when I started to feel a little weird about Space Scares. The next few times we watched it, I started to notice a few unusual things. For one, the actors never seemed to be acting when the monster came on screen. They always seemed horrified at what they were seeing. What’s more, in the scenes when they weren’t under attack by a monster, they all seemed really anxious. Even in scenes where they were supposed to be happy or relaxed, they always looked like they were waiting for something bad to happen. Another weird thing was that (aside from the space vampire), the monster never looked fake. Usually with TV shows, you can at least tell if the monster is a puppet or a costume or something. But these monsters….I couldn’t tell if they were fake. After a while, I started to think that maybe they weren’t.
What finally ended my love for the show was the kills. I mentioned that the main cast died every episode. At first, they seemed fake. We’ve all seen people shot, stabbed, poisoned or whatever on TV a hundred times. But, after a while, I started to realize that it didn’t look like the crew was pretending to die. There was always blood, too much blood, after someone was shot by a space criminal, gored by a Martian rhino, or disemboweled by a monster with Freddy Krueger hands. And the screams the victims let out…after a while, I couldn’t believe that they were just acting.
It took a few weeks, but I eventually grew so uneasy that I stopped watching the show. Anytime I saw Seth watching it in our room, I’d leave and go do something else. I always made him turn it off if I had to be in the room, and I tried multiple times to get him to stop watching the show. He never listened. As my obsession with the show weakened, his grew stronger.
I didn’t realize it at first, but eventually I noticed that Seth rarely left our room. He’d leave the house for school and come down for dinner, but he always had a far away look and rarely participated in anything. He’d just do his schoolwork (often getting answers wrong in the name of working faster) or wolf down his food, then get back to our room, back to Space Scares, as fast as he could. His grades plummeted, our friends stopped inviting him over, and I overheard Mom and Dad whispering about him a lot.
Finally, one day, Mom pulled me aside before school.
“Honey, I know that you and your brother like having a TV in your room, but your father and I think that you two are spending too much time in front of it. We’re going to get rid of it today. I’m sorry, but it’s unhealthy for you to–”
“I don’t care. Get rid of it.”
She paused. “Really?”
“That TV’s broken, anyway. It doesn’t get cable, we can’t watch anything good. The TV downstairs works fine, anyway.”
I didn’t mention Space Scares, or that I was relieved to see the TV go. Or the fact that we both knew that it was Seth who was the addict, not me. She hugged me, and thanked me for taking it so well. I smiled at her, grabbed my backpack, and darted out the door. I did NOT want to be there when Mom and Dad told Seth that they were getting rid of our TV.
It was only when Seth and I got home that I realized that they hadn’t told him. The second we were through the door, he flew past me, making a beeline for our room. I didn’t follow him, instead going to the kitchen and grabbing an apple. I had a feeling what was about to happen, but I was not prepared for the shriek that came from our room.
“WHERE IS IT?!?!?!?” It was Seth, obviously, but if I hadn’t known better, I’d have mistaken it for a banshee. He was shrieking at the top of his lungs, and sent my parents running to our room. I was frozen to my chair, both unsure of what to do and deeply unnerved by his shrieking. I sort of heard Mom and Dad comforting him, telling him that it was for his own good, that he needs to stop watching so much TV, etc. He was having none of it, and kept screaming. My parents vacated the room when he started to throw things.
He was grounded that weekend, and spent it moping. He’d begged and yelled for my parents to tell him where they’d put the TV, but they had stood their ground and refused to tell him. He’d tried to find Space Scares on the living room TV, searching through all of the channels twice. He didn’t find anything, and spent most Saturday sitting on his bed, staring at where the TV used to sit and muttering to himself.
My parents and I were understandably freaked out, Mom and Dad even more so because they had no idea why the TV had mattered so much to Seth. I, however, had a feeling I knew what was happening to him. After all, I’d been under Space Scares’ spell, too. I stayed optimistic that, before long, Seth would snap out of it.
By Sunday, he seemed to be back to normal. He picked wildflowers and gave them to Mom, apologizing for acting the way he had and promising that he’d make it up to them. They were sold, and clearly relieved that Seth was behaving himself again.
I, however, wasn’t convinced. It had taken me three weeks to fully break from Space Scares’ spell. I didn’t believe for a second that Seth had broken his addiction that quickly. And that night, I realized that I was right.
Seth shook me awake in the middle of the night. I was groggy, but I was instantly freaked out by the look on my brother’s face. He was grinning from ear to ear, but his eyes weren’t looking at me. They were dull, glazed. The old t-shirt he’d worn to bed was filthy, covered in fresh stains.
“I found it.” He spoke slowly, enunciating carefully, his voice slightly louder than a whisper. He raised his arm and pointed at his bed. The old TV was sitting there, covered in various stains and such from the garbage and smelling like a dump in August. I’d known all along that my parents had put the TV out with the trash. Seth must have come to that conclusion, too. Still, the fact that he had that TV again alarmed me.
“Now.” He kept speaking. “Now we can watch Space Scares.” He grabbed my arm and started to drag me from my bed to his. Even if that TV had been the world’s best flat screen, even if it hadn’t smelled like garbage, I still didn’t want to watch it. While I had no evidence, I had decided that the show was evil, that no good would come from watching it. I only had to look at my brother for evidence. While he had a firm grip, I was the older sibling, and I wrenched my arm out of his.
“I don’t want to watch it.” I told him firmly. His eyes started to burn with rage. For some reason, he wanted me to watch it. He needed me to watch it. I saw his arms coming forward to grab me again.
“If you even try to make me watch it, I’ll wake Mom and Dad and tell them that you got the TV back. And you’ll never watch Space Scares again.”
He froze. I had an advantage, and we both knew it. The fury in his eyes didn’t go away, but he smiled. A fake one, obviously, but still.
“Whatever you say.” He turned around, and ran to his bed, leaping onto it and immediately turned on the TV. He had the volume way down, but I could still here the familiar sound of the opening to an episode of Space Scares.
I couldn’t watch my brother zombify again, so I flopped back down on my bed, turning so I faced the wall. I would have fallen asleep, if not for what happened next.
I should probably say here that I had no idea this would happen. I knew that Space Scares was evil, yes, but I didn’t know that it would go that far. Had I known, I would have thrown that stupid TV into the river.
There was a sharp gasp from Seth. It surprised me up a little, but it didn’t concern me. After all, we’d both gasped plenty at some of the show’s thrills and chills. I started to fall back asleep…only to realize that I couldn’t. Neither of us had touched the lamp or light switch, but the room was getting brighter.
I looked at the clock. Three in the morning. There was no way that that was the sun coming up. Then I looked over at Seth. And my heart stopped.
The TV was glowing so bright that I could barely look at it. Three long, white, transparent arms had emerged from the screen. One had Seth’s right leg. One had his left arm. The other had him by the face, covering his mouth. And they were pulling him to the TV.
I was frozen. I didn’t know what to do. What could I do? All I could do was stare in wide-eyed horror as my brother was dragged by those…things into the TV.
Seth was staring at me, his eyes wide and begging. Through the see-through arm covering his face, I saw his mouth trying to move, likely trying to scream for help. The sight pulled me back to reality, and I turned away to scream.
“MOM!!!!! DAD!!!!!” I heard muffled sounds of people startled awake, and knew that they were on their way. They were adults, they’d know what to do. Turned back to my brother. Everything would be oka–
Seth was gone. As were the arms. The TV had stopped glowing. It was turned off. I stared at it, trying to comprehend what had happened. Mom and Dad burst into the room two seconds later. They saw the TV and Seth’s empty bed, and quickly concluded that was why I’d screamed. They searched for him, running all throughout the apartment. But he was gone. My mom started to comfort me while Dad ran to call the cops.
They searched for weeks. Seth was no where to be found. I knew they wouldn’t find him. I blamed myself. Why didn’t I tell them about Space Scares? I couldn’t even tell the truth to the cops or my parents. How could I tell them that a possessed TV had kidnapped my little brother? They all agreed that Seth had been addicted to that TV, but for it to actually eat him was a little hard for anyone to swallow. I wouldn’t have believed it either if I hadn’t seen it.
I never forgot what I’d seen. I stopped watching TV altogether. When streaming came along, I couldn’t even bear that. Every time I saw someone staring at their screens, it reminded me too much of Seth, and the obsession that killed him.
After graduating college, I eventually opened my own bookstore. It was fairly successful (it survived COVID-19, at least), and I spent my days among friendly people and good books. I met a nice woman who shared my love of books and we eventually married.
My wife loves to go antiquing, which is how I ended up in that old store, looking for a gift for her upcoming birthday. I had simply been glancing at the shelves, looking for anything that caught my eye, when I saw it.
It wasn’t the same TV. After Seth disappeared, my mom, in a fit of grief, smashed it with my dad’s shovel. But it was a carbon-copy of it. My first instinct told me to run out the door and never look back. But…I needed to know if it had all been a dream. If I had just imagined what had happened to my brother. It had been nearly twenty years. I just…I needed to know.
I took the TV off the shelf and plugged it in. I still remembered the channel number, and turned to it. The second I landed in the channel, there it all was. There was Captain Antonio, with his goatee. There was Lieutenant Kathryn with her dark eye shadow. There was Science Officer Ruth, her hair in the usual cornrows. There was Private Sanjay, fiddling with an explosive device. They were all smiling, but I could see the uneasiness in their eyes as they got ready to face whatever monster was going to kill them.
My heart was racing. It had been real. I hadn’t made it up. I was about to turn the TV off when I saw a new person walk on screen.
Oh no. Oh please, no.
I turned off the TV and bolted out of the store. I haven’t set foot in there since. I pray that I’ll forget what I saw on that screen: Space Scares’ newest cast member: nine-year-old Ensign Seth.