Upon my father and I moving into our new house, I was searching around the attic, as we were going to clear it out and make it my new room. I really enjoyed the idea of having this attic as a bedroom; I would have two windows, one in the front, the other in the back. I would be able to look down over the entire front and back yard in just a few steps! I know this isn’t something most people would be necessarily excited for, but I was 13 and thought it was really cool.
I examined the uncleared room imagining where I would keep all my furniture, but that was kind of difficult to do with all of the boxes and debris in the way. It was a small rural home in Colorado that had been abandoned for some reason many years prior. While my father was occupied moving our own old furniture from the moving truck, I opted to begin cleaning out the attic. after all I was a teenager now, I could absolutely clean out the entire thing by myself. I was wrong. I decided I would get all the boxes down and emptied out first, before getting my dad to help me move the old shelves and such.
I began excitedly rifling through the boxes to see if there was anything worth keeping, like old Pokémon cards or something. To my dismay, none of it was really interesting, mostly just seasonal decorations. I had gone through nearly every box in about an hour when something finally caught my eye: a tape. It was extremely dusted and whatever was written on it had been scribbled out. I imagined it must be something spooky and thought I would watch it when we got my room set up. I tucked it into my bag with all of my personal belongings and made my way down to help my dad finish unloading the truck.
After a few days living there I was able to deduct that something felt strange about the house, I liked my room though, so I was being optimistic about it. The age of the house became apparent, with chipped and scratched paint covering the walls, and the structure settled frequently, I believed I could get used to it though. The worn paint, while a noticeable flaw, seemed to be an easy fix through a simple application of fresh coats. I had entirely forgotten about the tape at this point, as I was more focused on helping my dad tidy up the downstairs areas. It was a cheap home, given that it was abandoned and had a ton of old furniture in it. I never understood why the previous owners would abandon the home without any of their belongings. After about a week and half of cleaning and moving the downstairs was finally looking like a sustainable living area. Now it was time for my room, which my father told me we would work on the next day. I was upset about this, but understood, we’d been working for almost two weeks. We didn’t have a lot of money, so we just cleared everything out on our own; those freshly painted walls would more than likely have to wait awhile. The next day we finished preparing my room and I began getting my books, DVDs, and games out of boxes. I sat the tape on my bookshelf with everything else, not thinking much about it yet, I was more excited to take a break and finally play my Xbox again. And so came my first night sleeping in my new bedroom.
My bed had been placed next to the window near the front of the house, I was enjoying being able to look down at the cars driving by on the highway, identifying which of them had mean faces and which of them had nice faces. On the other side of the road was another house, a much nicer one than ours, it was also probably the only other house for a few miles. I could tell someone lived there; there were two cars parked outside of it, I just hadn’t ever seen anyone come out to this point. That was strange to me as well, but I brushed it off as nothing, this was around the time Covid-19 was dying down, but quarantines still lasted two weeks, so that was more than likely the cause. I stopped thinking about it for the night and continued to judge the cars until I fell asleep.
The next day I awoke to the smell of bacon and quickly made my way downstairs. I loved bacon, my dad would cook it every Saturday morning; we would always eat it and watch tv together as a family when my mom was still alive. We kept up that tradition even now, he and I would watch whatever cartoons were on in the morning.
“Hey kiddo! You sleep alright?” His smile radiated towards me.
“Yeah, I really like my new room!” I matched his smile with an even bigger one.
I loved my dad; he was a really great guy. While I didn’t share most of his outdoorsy interests, we were both big nerds. Before we moved, he would take me out to the theater every month or so to watch remasters of old horror films. I thought maybe at this time I should tell him about the tape, but I decided not to. I was very intrigued by it, and I didn’t think he would want me to watch a mysterious tape. Reasonably so in my opinion, but I was very eager. I would just have to wait for him to leave the house for a prolonged amount of time so I could go get the VCR from his closet. I had no idea when the day would come, but I was excited.
“Whatcha thinking about bud?” I was clearly deep in thought. I didn’t mean to make it so obvious.
“Oh, nothing, I’m sorry. I was just concentrated on the TV.” I lied.
He nodded putting another piece of bacon into his mouth.
“Have you met the neighbors yet?” he said slightly muffled by his hand while he chewed his bacon.
“No, I haven’t even been sure anyone actually lives there. I haven’t seen anyone out in a couple weeks.”
“Well, why don’t me and you go introduce ourselves after breakfast? Maybe they’ll have a kid your age!”
“Ok, that sounds great actually!”
This filled me with hope. I had a few friends growing up, just never any close ones. I was always considered extremely optimistic and warm; however, I was anything BUT an extrovert. A neighboring child my age would be the perfect candidate for a new friend. This could be a fresh start.
An hour passed, we both took showers and got dressed presentably, and made our way across the road with a large plate of leftover bacon. I stood behind my father as he knocked on the door, we heard footsteps from inside getting closer until the door eventually opened.
“Hello?”
The man pushed the door open to a crack while my father introduced us.
“Hello! I’m Martin and this is my son, Ezra. We’re your new neighbors!” He held the plate out smiling.
The man pushed the door open with an equally polite smile.
“Oh! Nice to meet you! I’m Marvin.” it was a short, stubby man. He had a big bushy mustache and his head seemed to be balding. There was a sign behind him on their wall that read, “Ellsworth,” I assumed this was his last name. I stuck up my hand shyly in a wave. He looked over my father’s shoulder at me.
“Hello Ezra! I am Mr. Ellsworth, it is very nice to meet you!” This confirmed my theory about his last name. He stuck out his hand, prompting me to shake it.
“Nice to meet you too.” I shook his hand, it felt very callused.
Then a woman appeared behind the man, similar in appearance.
“Oh, and this is my wife, Harriet. Come in, come in.” he waved his arms inwards encouraging us to enter. We followed.
My father placed the plate of bacon on their kitchen table, and conversation between the 3 of them ensued. I didn’t contribute anything to the conversation, nor did I mean to stare, but I did. Eventually a girl entered the kitchen, she looked to be my age, I got excited but still said nothing until Mr. Ellsworth broke my silence.
“This is my daughter, Gia. Why don’t you go show our guest around the house?”
Gia agreed and I started following her up the stairs. She was very pretty; she had long blonde hair and blue eyes, nothing like either of her parents. They both had black hair. I couldn’t manage to break the silence; I didn’t know exactly what to say. I was nervous. We continued walking until we reached her room. She sat on her bed while I stood awkwardly beside the door, still silent. I was messing it up and I knew it, it felt awful. She broke the silence.
“So, what’s your name?” she asked this curiously.
“I’m Ezra. I moved here from Wisconsin.”
“What made you move all the way out here? That’s really far.” It seemed like she was having a hard time speaking to me the same way I was with her.
“It was just cheap. We aren’t the most financially stable family. What kind of things do you do for fun around here?” I was attempting to break the awkwardness.
She began to list off her hobbies, we actually had a lot in common. We shared a favorite movie: Saw. We began talking and laughing together as if we had been friends our entire life. It felt like hours had gone by when Mr. Ellsworth and my father walked up stairs and informed me it was time to head back home. It had only been 30 minutes. I waved goodbye to her with a smile, and she reciprocated. I was very happy. I made a friend.
About a week had gone by, Gia and I were hanging out frequently now, both at my house, and hers. My dad had gotten a job, it was still Summer. Things were great. When I was with Gia, I had entirely forgotten about the tape. I had a crush on her at this point, although we were young, I knew I liked her a lot. I think my dad picked up on this, he would tease me about it pretty often. Gia ended up going on a family vacation the following week, they’d be gone for a few days.
This is when things began to become increasingly strange. One night, I had woken up to the sound of the house settling, and it just wouldn’t really stop for a few seconds, but this wasn’t even the weird part, I was hearing something else. Footsteps. I originally brushed this off and tilted over trying to go back to sleep, but then, something caught my attention.
It wasn’t just one set of footsteps.
I heard this going on for about 15 minutes until it eventually stopped. I thought I had just imagined it and fell back asleep.
It was a warm Friday morning, I woke up expecting to hear my dad walking around, but there was nothing. He was probably watching TV. I got up and walked downstairs, there was a note on the table, I quickly realized he wasn’t home. So, I decided to read the note, it said:
“Hey kiddo! Sorry I left so abruptly, I didn’t want to wake you up, I had to leave early. I got called in for a very short notice business trip. There’s plenty of food in the fridge, so keep yourself well fed while I’m gone! Mr. Ellsworth has offered to burn some of those leftover boxes and furniture from when we first moved, so please set them out front for him to collect them when his family gets back home. I love you.
Dad”
I was kind of sad that I didn’t get to see him before he left, but it was ok. I could manage, I went out and started moving our boxes from the garage to the front of the yard. About halfway through moving all of the boxes, I remembered the tape. This made my work rate increasingly quick as I knew I could watch the tape without being caught now. I had completely forgot, and my curiosity peaked again.
When I got inside, I basically sprinted for my dad’s room and grabbed the VCR from his closet, went upstairs and plugged it into my TV. I picked up the dusty tape from my bookshelf and blew off any dust before carefully pushing it into the VCR. The tape began rolling, and I became increasingly disappointed as I realized it was just footage of someone walking through the woods for what seemed to be five minutes. The person filming was whispering something, but it just sounded like gibberish. Towards the end of the tape, whoever was recording the tape’s pace sped up and a building came into frame as the tape ended but it was too blurry to make out exactly where it was. It was pretty weird; it just didn’t meet my expectations of a spooky tape.
I kept watching the tape over the course of the next few days, I was just still curious as to what it was on the tape. I was failing to make any type of connection, so I gave up, everything was pretty normal other than the tape.
A few days passed and I saw a vehicle pull into the Ellsworth’s driveway. They were home, I finally had someone to talk to again, Gia was home! But first, I had to assist Mr. Ellsworth with transporting the boxes over to his backyard so he could burn them. This took a long time, but eventually we got it done, before I knew it; it was 9 PM. I didn’t have time to talk to Gia today, even if I wanted to, so I just thanked Mr. Ellsworth, told him goodnight, and went back home. My dad would be home a few days later too, I was pretty happy about that. Except, he never returned.
A day became two, two days became three, and I was now increasingly worried. I had stopped talking to Gia I was so anxious. Then, something came in the mail for me. I hoped it was a letter, I didn’t have a phone with service, so this was the only way I’d be able to communicate with my dad. It wasn’t. It was another tape.
I didn’t even want to watch it. I was still too concerned about my dad. This tape was also scribbled out and looked to be pretty old. My curiosity finally got the best of me, and I put the tape in. It began to roll.
A man walked into frame this time, he sat down at a table, then I realized.
This was my house.
The man, very distressed, began to speak.
“If you managed to get ahold of this tape, you need to get out of that house. The people across the street… They… They kill people. They mutilate them and do horrible things with the parts. I’m about to contact the authorities as soon as I finish this recording. While my mom was over to visit, she mysteriously disappeared. I never knew why.”
He paused for about fifteen seconds and took a deep breath.
“I was over at their house, a couple hours ago. I was looking for them because they had gone downstairs, I was just going to let them know I was about to leave. I found a finger while I was down there. It had my mother’s wedding ring. There were several boxes. They know. They have been trying to scare me before they kill me. They’re making me record this to play with me before they kill me…”
He broke out into tears.
A much younger Mr. Ellsworth walked into frame behind the man, and the tape ended.
I was horrified. I didn’t know what to do. Was this why my dad hadn’t arrived home? Boxes? Like the boxes my father had asked me to give to Mr. Ellsworth in his letter? The footsteps I heard a couple weeks ago that I brushed off as nothing? The first tape? Was the building I saw in the first tape my house too? What about Gia? Does she know? I was thrown into a full panic. I knew I had to get out of here and run to the next house I saw as soon as I possibly could. I turned around to begin leaving but I froze.
I saw him. Right out of the corner of my eye, I saw him. He was in my wardrobe staring at me wide eyed through the crack of the door. It was Mr. Ellsworth.