Please Stop Sending Me Tapes
by: @alltheprompts (personal: @fbis-most-unwanted)
This story is also posted on reddit.
     Okay, this has been going on for long enough. I don’t care if this is a prank or, or whatever the fuck this is, it just needs to stop. It’s sick, and I am so, so tired of it. It started about three weeks ago. Every couple of days, I would find a VHS tape in my mailbox. I didn’t know what to think when I saw the first package. I hadn’t ordered anything online, and I sure as hell didn’t expect to find an unlabeled tape in a blank cardboard box.
     Honestly, I threw it on my counter and forgot about it, meaning to get rid of it later but getting distracted with other stuff. When the second one arrived, I started to think that this was more than just a case of a mistaken address. One was an accident, two was something more. My curiosity got the better of me, and I dug out my old VCR from the bottom of my closet. I popped the first tape in, wondering what I was getting into. I can’t explain how stupid that was, and how much I regret that decision.
     There was a dimly lit room, covered in dirt and grime. I think that whoever was filming was holding a flashlight. As the camera moved downward, the beam of the flashlight reflected off a bunch of objects on the floor. They were syringes. In the center of the room, a girl was laying on the floor, crying. Her sobs echoed throughout the room and seemed to penetrate through my TV, sounding like they were coming from the same room I was in.
     She was covered in syringes sticking out of her arms, legs, torso, even her neck and face. My god, I think they were in her eyes and mouth too. The camera did not move away or turn off. It just kept filming this poor girl, who couldn’t have been older than twelve or thirteen, sob on the floor.
     Her crying stopped, and she just started screaming. It was so loud and shrill that I instinctively covered my ears. After a solid thirty seconds, the camera left the room and went through a hallway. There had to be dozens of other people standing just near the edge of the flashlight’s range. Just like the little girl, syringes stuck out of every part of their body. They all started screaming too. And then the tape cut off.
     I really should have stopped right there, thrown out the tapes, forgotten about it, moved on with my life. I had work in the morning anyway, but that second tape drew me in. I grabbed it and hit play.
     The scene started off dark, and I could hear a lot of shuffling in the background. This was clearly a home movie type of video. Suddenly, a light switch was flipped, and there was a sickly man stumbling around in an empty room.
     “Please help me, please help me, please help me.” He held his arms out in front of his face, waving them in front of the camera. The picture quality wasn’t great, but as I looked closer, I could tell that there was something off about him. I saw these…holes all over him. They peppered his arms and hands. They looked just like this, but everywhere.
     The man kept repeating, “Please help me, please help me, please help me.” The holes all over his limbs were starting to creep me out in a way that’s hard to explain. They just made my skin crawl. What’s worse is that, as the video progressed, I could see that more and more holes were appearing on his body. They started to creep up his neck and under his chin. “Please help me, please help me, please help me.”
     The tape stopped abruptly, and I just sat there for a second. Was this real, or just an editing or makeup trick? Either way, it was freaky as hell.
     I was glad when the tape ended, and I’m not ashamed to admit I slept with every light in my house on.
     A few days later, this sick freak mailed me another tape. I was hesitant at first –and I don’t know what compelled me to do so –but I played the tape.
     This one opened with somebody carrying a camera as they sprinted down a city street. “Holy shit, Matt, come on!” He yelled to his friend, who was barely visible as the frame streaked by. The two men ducked into an alley, and their labored breathing overwhelmed the audio. “Oh my god, did you see that?”
      The first guy shakily aimed the camera at the street again, where I could see a mutilated shape running down the road. It looked kind of like a person, but the legs and arms were so long that it made it difficult for this thing to move. The creature just scrambled along, trying to stay upright as it moved.
      Suddenly, it stopped. In fact, it was much better quality than the rest of the video. The camera was sharp and focused, even though it was dark, but even stranger, the creature seemed to be the only thing that was this high def.
      Its eyes were bright and piercing, and spilling out of its mouth were rows and rows of teeth. It made eye contact with the camera, and then silently sprinted toward it. “Shit-shit-shit-shit-shit!” The men tried to run, but the last thing I saw was the camera falling to the ground before the screen went black.
      The last tape came four days later. I really didn’t want to watch it, but at this point, I was in too deep to back out. Â
      This one opened with a wide view of a forest. The camera stayed still for so long that I thought the tape might have been broken. Then I saw something in the trees. Standing just in the shadows was a man. I couldn’t make out any features from that far away, but I could tell that there was nothing that seemed out of the ordinary.
      “Look at him.” The woman’s voice sounded monotone, almost robotic. “He can see you.”
      The shot ended, and another one came on screen. This time, the camera was in the woods, in an area where the foliage was pretty dense. It took me a minute, but I found the man again. He was closer this time, but I still couldn’t see him clearly. The voice sounded more human this time, though not completely convincing, almost like when someone calls you on a crappy phone. You can still who they are, but their voice is just a little bit wrong.
      “Look at him. He can see you.”
      Before this frame cut out, I could see the camera dart down to the side, like someone had been carrying it. It seemed weird that a person could stay still for so long, filming this guy. What was the point?
      Now I was looking at the same forest I think, but from an open second story window. The man had left the trees, and was standing in the middle of someone’s yard. He was looking right at the camera, but I still felt like I couldn’t really see him. “Look at him. He can see you.”
      The camera did not cut away like it had before. Whoever was carrying it ran through hallway and down the stairs. My heart raced as I expected the man to pop into frame in every shadow, around every corner. I saw him pressed up against the sliding glass door. There was no way he could have gotten there so fast. “Look at him. He can see you.”
      Without warning, the camera whipped around, and there he was, standing right in the middle of the fucking living room. How did he get in there? Even though he couldn’t have been more than five feet from the camera, he was still fuzzy. He wasn’t in focus, even though he should have been.
      This time, the voice was crystal clear. “Look at him. He can see you.” The tape ended, and I sat silently, completely rigid, for I don’t know how long.
      I am done. I don’t want to be sent any more tapes. I really don’t care who’s doing this, but please, for the love of god, leave me the fuck alone. I won’t go to the cops. Just, please, please stop sending me tapes.
origamiaround
areudirty
gummygunk
stormborns
dededos
