These are the last of the black box ritual logs. I posted the first half here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/1blnsbu/the_black_box_ritual/
For those of you who will start a movie halfway through like me, these are a series of documents my old college roommate emailed me before he passed. It’s got some pretty creepy shit man. I don’t mess with this kinda stuff, but I think he wanted me to share these.
Day 11
It’s undeniable now, this ritual isn’t some god damn game. I have my answer, but I can’t look away. My radio has been silent ever since I laid eyes on that box. I feel a constant aching despair imbued with desperate curiosity. There’s only one option now, wait nineteen days, and let that beast born of my blood die.
Day 12
I woke up to static baby cries. I can only imagine a helpless infant trapped inside my box, left by a desperate young mother in a closet to die. I won’t lie to you, I considered opening it. What if someone really discarded a human baby in that box? Can I live with myself, if I become complicit in a baby’s death? Because of what? A superstition? A few inexplicable radio transmissions? No, I can’t let myself get tempted by this demon. It wants me to open the box.
Day 13
I had to call my parents. With everything this ritual had brought, I had one question clawing to escape my throat. It’s been three years since we’ve spoken about Kyles suicide. I hated what I had to ask my mom, I hated that I forced her to conjure images of his body. I started the call by talking about my classes, my job. My throat went dry when I found a pause in the idle chat.
“Hey mom, I’m really sorry to ask this, do you remember the box under Kyle?”
A long silence followed before she answered in a hushed shaky voice. “Yes honey, I do.”
“What was inside?”
“Oh god honey, why are you asking me about this now?”
I stared at the ground as I grasped for an answer.
“I just need to write about it. It’s for my poetry workshop so I’ve been thinking about it, that’s all.”
My mom let out a contemplative sigh, “god I don’t even know how he got them. It was a walkie talkie and some of his baby teeth?”
“Anything else? Was the box wet?”
“Wet? No honey, why?”
“Oh, it was raining that week, that’s all.”
Day 14
His fucking baby teeth. It could have been any baby teeth, but why would he have someone else’s. Like the whispers before, the crying has gotten louder. I can’t bear listening to it, but I can’t bring myself to turn off the walkie talkie. Something from me is in that box.
Day 15
I decided to stay awake to know when the audio started. As I suspected, it was six seconds past 3:35am. My heart sank with every desperate wail from that abandoned child. It’s not real, it’s not fucking real. I pressed my ear to the closet door. To my relief I only heard the sound emanating from the radio. Thank god, it’s a small relief but it’s all I can hope for.
Day 16
I had a nightmare last night. I was back in my childhood bedroom. Kyle barged in with a soft sympathetic smile and began telling me the story of the faceless woman in the mirror. Despite his friendly demeanor, and both of us being adults, It terrified me the same way it used to as a child. Kyle’s face suddenly snapped into an expressionless lifeless contortion.
“Do you know why the faceless woman appears behind you.”
“No Kyle, but don’t shut off the lights again. That’s really not cool man.”
“She didn’t want anyone to know about him.”
Kyle’s eyes widened. It was almost as if he wasn’t talking to me. I felt him looking at the faceless figure behind me.
“She put her baby in a cardboard box and drowned it in the bathtub.”
“Kyle, stop it. I’m being serious.”
“You heard him drown. You did nothing.”
Our mom creaked the door open and stood at the door frame.
“You three play nice now, you better not be telling your baby brother scary stories again.”
She turned to me, as if to lightly scold me.
“And you mister, you better let that baby out the box.”
Day 17
The baby has grown. It’s now a toddler. It doesn’t cry anymore. It has an innocent playful voice. It sings out, “Daddy daddy look, Kyle climbed the big tree. He’s flying! He’s flying!” I sank into the floor when I heard it. I layed there staring at the white paneled ceiling. “He’s flying, He’s flying! Daddy daddy look!” I couldn’t take it anymore. I turned off my walkie talkie.
Day 18
I woke up again at 3:35am. “Daddy Kyle won’t come down! It’s not fun anymore Kyle!” I know I turned it off. I know it. I grabbed the walkie talkie and yelled into it, “Fuck you!” Tears welled up in my eyes. The sound stopped with my heart. I had never spoken into the radio. Time fell still as the gravity of my transgression bled into my bones. I sat there, in the silent abyss of my room, waiting for the sun to rise.
Day 19
I wasn’t safe. I packed up my bags for a local motel, any motel. I could leave my walkie talkie and stay eleven days there. I couldn’t bear to sleep with my sins in this room any longer. The consequences of my transgression rendered vividly over the radio. I gave the box my blood, and now my voice. I summoned this beast of torment and provoked it. It spoke to me in my own voice. “It’s left.” I grabbed the walkie talkie with trembling hands.
I heard Kyle yell “Right!”
“That is right!” my voice echoed
I know this conversation. The bastard is taunting me with unburied memories of my brother. I heard my static sobs from years ago emanate from the radio.
“You can’t leave me.”
It was true. I could hear my brother’s voice again. The box has been drawing me in. I could see Kyle in my dreams. It knows why I started this ritual. I could have thrown that walkie talkie away a long time ago. I would have done it then, if I didn’t hear what it sang to me. If I didn’t hear what Kyle said to me. “I love you, stay safe.”
Day 20
I’ve stayed up all night with the radio. I skip my morning lectures now, and I’ve quit fried heaven. My life now, lies in the center of that black box. I dutifully change the batteries and wait. Kyle spoke to me this morning. It was a conversation from our childhood.
“Do you want to know what happens inside the black box?”
“No Kyle, I don’t wanna know!”
“Fine then, I’m not going to tell you. You’ll have to see for yourself if you’re not a coward.”
“I’m not doing that Kyle.”
The radio went silent. Kyle softly began to whisper.
“Help, help, help.”
Day 21
There was no audio this morning. The cease of intrusion unsettled me. It’s a routine I’ve become so accustomed to, I’ve canceled all of my daily routines to witness these transmissions. While contemplating the silence a thought occurred to me. Anyone could access the closet. While it seems abandoned, I’ve never monitored it or ensured no one enters. It’s possible the cryptic black box enthralled a curious victim.
Day 22
With the continued silence, I decided to open the closet door. The box was in the center of the room. This is about two feet from where I put it, in the back left corner. It wasn’t a choice I made deliberately. I suppose my weakened mental state enabled my compelling curiosity to overwhelm my restraint. I stepped into the closet. After I saw the box remained closed, another oddity occurred to me. The box was bone dry and fully shaped. The once soggy collapsed corners looked completely unaffected. I wondered if I somehow hallucinated the blood last time. No, it was such a vivid memory.
I’m not confident that I broke the rules of the ritual. While entering the closet doesn’t sit right with me, the wording of the ritual is somewhat ambiguous. “Store the box in an unoccupied room.” An unoccupied house is still unoccupied, even if someone steps in for a moment, right? I don’t know anymore. What’s done is done.
Day 23
I know I violated this fucking ritual. I did something this demon forbade me of and it’s here to fucking punish me. Fuck god damn it. I heard Kyle today. I fucking heard him. It wasn’t on the radio. He knocked on my fucking door. It was 3:35, when the radio usually starts, but I was so panicked about the closet I forgot to change the batteries. How the fuck did I forget about the batteries? I got up because my roommate must have forgotten his key, that’s when Kyle spoke to me.
“I’m not walking the dog again just because you’re too scared of the man on north street.”
I was petrified, too scared to move so I just stood frozen.
“Mom said it’s your turn to walk him!”
I wanted to see him. I wanted to hug him. I wanted to kick him. I wanted to demand answers out of him. Why did he do this to me? To our family. Fuck, come home.
Day 24
I didn’t finish the log from yesterday. That’s all Kyle said before he left. I’m tired. I can’t do this anymore.
Day 25
I opened the black box today. That’s it. It’s done. It was exactly as I left it. No pools of blood, no baby teeth. Just a dead walkie talkie, a piece of paper, and a blood stain. I don’t know what will happen now. I don’t know what to call this, relief, fear, torment, guilt? It doesn’t matter now. It’s the same as when I started this ritual. There’s nothing to do but wait.
That’s the end of the logs folks. I suppose I should tell you all what happened to the poor guy. He was found hanging from a tree in Raymond Park. The cops don’t suspect foul play of course, but they still asked folks in the area that night if they saw anything suspicious. Most accounts say he was in the park with a small child, maybe five or six years old.