Speaker 1: Hello there. This is Brian Alaska, one of the co
producers and the writer of the stories that you hear
on When the Night Comes Out. Thank you for being
patient with us. It's been a while and we're hard
at work on a new season, or at least talking
about it, and we've got some good things that are
going to be coming your way probably later this year
and into twenty twenty six. But we didn't want to
leave you hanging on Halloween. So Ali and I decided
that we would present to you the When the Night
Comes Out Halloween Special for twenty twenty five, a couple
of truly terrifying stories, brand new that you haven't heard
before that we will present to you tonight. So thanks
for being patient, but for now, sit back, relax, prepare
to be scared. Thanks for listening, and Happy Halloween.
Speaker 2: When the Night Comes Out Presents Dips. Carl Newman had
just moved into his new apartment. Finally he had a
place in the city, not far from Wrigley Field, but
not quite in the official borders of Wrigleyville. In short,
it was perfect for him. He was on the lower
floor of the three flat, just above the basement dweller
and beneath a still empty apartment. It had taken years
for him to get up the money to be able
to afford a place in the city, especially a two bedroom,
But here he was, and he planned to enjoy it.
That morning, the forecast was calling for a very large snowstorm.
This was not unusual for Chicago, but his first for
that street outside visible easily from his window, where the
cars parked along the curb. He had a spot too,
but he often parked other places because it seemed there
was was always a car parked in his designated spot,
the same goddamn car. It was an old beater. The
markings had been ripped off, and the entire car appeared
to be more rust than metal. The windows were foggy
all the time, and it appeared to be slowly rotting
away into the pavement. For some reason, the neighbors did
not seem to mind, and he had never seen one
of the infamous orange colored stickers on the window indicating
someone was going to take it away as an abandoned vehicle.
One day before the air started turning bitter cold and
the leaves were changing, Carl asked his downstairs neighbor, who
was also his landlord, what's the deal with that car
that one, Dale asked, hooking his thumb in the direction
of it. I don't know, but I think it just
had dibbs. Dibbs, Carl asked, his face twisted up. That
only happens in the winter, right, You clear out a
space and then get to like put a chair in
it because you have DIBs. In Chicago, when the winter
hit and you spent time shoveling or snow blowing your
space in front of your home, it was common to
essentially called DIBs. What that meant in practicality was people
put out lawn chairs or stolen road cones or chairs
with boards across them. The city discouraged it, and snowplows
often just plowed up the objects into a snow pile,
but that never stopped people from doing it every year.
In this case, however, the dips seemed to involve an
actual car. Well, that car has always been there since
I moved in, Dale replied, not sure who owns it,
But you know it's funny most of the time I
don't even notice it. Well, it's in my spot, Carl protested,
rather weakly. I mean, it's fine now, but when winter hits,
I want that spot. I should have DIBs, not this person.
Dale just laughed, Relax, I'm sure there will be a
spot for you when the snow comes. Hell, you work
from home most of the time anyway. Carl wasn't so sure,
but he kind of let it go, kind of. One night,
during one of those weird Chicago fall days where the
temperature suddenly rockets up to summer levels, he was outside
with some of the other neighbors. They were talking, watching
lightning flash in the distance as a cold fernt approached,
and drinking beers. No one mentioned the car, and Carl
felt doing so would just cause him to be labeled
as the weird one, but he kept casting his eyes
to the thing. It sat there silently like a bulldog
half asleep. It had to have been a Chrysler of
some sort, maybe a GMC. He wished he knew cars more,
but he had never found them to be anything more
than utilitarian. Did it start? Did it run? Could he
use it to get from one place to another? Great?
Then it was a fine automobile in his mind, so
he had no clue. It was like a blank slate
with no markings. When the group broke up as the
storm was almost upon them. Carl hung out a bit longer.
Just as the first fat raindrops began to fall, He
walked off the porch and over to the car. He
studied the windows, no one inside, nothing out of the
ordinary other than the car itself, rusted, but also with
silver patches. There were license plates, but he had no
one he could send them to to find ownership. No
tickets on the windows, nothing to indicate anyone even noticed
the goddamn thing. DIBs, he snorted, Fuck you and your DIBs.
That's for fucking lawn chairs in the winter. Just then,
as a loud rumble of thunder shook the ground, the
engine of the car started. Carl jumped back at least
three feet inside. The light turned on, but it was
dim through the cloudy windows. What the holy fuck, he
asked the car. He reached out and touched the hood.
He felt the vibration of the engine through his fingers.
Did this thing somehow have a remote start installed? Carl
looked around, scanning the apartments as the rain started to
fall in earnest. He was instantly soaked, and the rain
fell so hard it was impossible to see if anyone
was standing at one of the windows with a starter
in his or her hands. Fuck you, he yelled, there's
no DIBs overhead, The sky answered back angrily. He looked
back at the car and leaned close to the window.
Just then a bolt of lightning flashed, and for a
moment he was certain there was someone or something behind
the wheel, a skeleton, a skeleton wearing rotted clothes, and
whose grinning face had turned to look at him. Then
it was gone, and the thunder roared. Carl backed away,
shaking his head. Nope, nope, nope, I did not just
see that. Too many beers. With that, he turned and
ran back to his apartment. By the time he was inside,
leaning against the door, dripping onto the floor and out
of breath, he had almost convinced himself Outside the thunder roared,
Carl did not approach the car again. Although he always
saw it glanced at it, he did not want to
approach it. As the fall wore on and the warm
weather even stretched into December, he began to think he'd
never need to worry about parking spaces, snow and DIBs.
Let the goddamn car stay where it was led. One day,
while he was out for a brisk walk in the
rapidly cooling air. He was walking back to his apartment
with coffee in his hand. The sky was threatening. Although
the weather guessers were saying they would just get flirt
it was a reminder that the mild weather would not last.
Whether it was in December or saving up for January,
the snow would eventually come. As he was just walking
past the car, he saw his neighbor Jane, who sometimes
sat with the rest of them on the porch on
mild nights. Hey Jane, he called and waved. Jane waved back, Hey, Carl,
I think winter might finally be about to arrive. What
do you think? He looked up at the clouds. There
was something about winter clouds that just set them apart
from summer. They appeared more like iron, sometimes silver. Mostly
they just seemed heavy, as if the snow they contained
were too much. Carl wasn't sure if you could really
smell snow, but the air did take on a different
feel when a big storm approached in winter. Yeah, think
we might get some real snow, he replied. Time to
get out the shovels. They paused, both of them looking
at the sky, and then Carl cast his eye down
to the car. That goddamn car. Do you know whose
car that is? He asked? What car? Carl pointed that one.
Jane looked as if she hadn't noticed the thing before
that one. Shit that's been here forever. I heard it
used to belong to a guy who was a real shit.
He was on the street. You know how people call
DIBs when they shovel snow. Supposedly this guy was a
big believer in it, and when he put something in
a spot, he'd defend it. I heard he went after
a guy with a baseball bat once who tried to
move the lawn chair he had put there. I also
heard rumors the guy was into some weird shit. Carl
cocked his head, weird shit. Jane waved her arms. Oh,
people always pin all kinds of things on the cranky
old neighbor. Rumors of rituals and being in league with
Satan and all that crap. I never saw it. Funny
though I don't really remember his face or his name. Shit, yeah,
I thought he had died though. Jane put a hand
to her chin, as if thinking, I can't remember when
or how, not sure why the car is still there?
I mean, that's supposed to be my spot, Carl answered,
at least that was what I was told. But everyone
seems to act like they can't even see the thing.
Can we get it towed away? I've been parking in
front of an old building three blocks away and walking.
I don't want to get frostbite. Hey, he had DIBs,
she said, and laughed. I mean, call the cops, see
what they do. Not sure why they haven't put those
red or orange stickers all over it, declaring it an
abandoned car as it is. Yeah, maybe he had a
sudden flash of the skeleton behind the wheel that weird
night with a thunderstorm where he had had too much
to drink, which he had been sure was just a dream.
He shuddered. Well, I guess a better head and side,
he said, suddenly having a powerful desire to get away
from the car. Take care of yourself, Jane, you two.
Carl headed back to his apartment and somehow forgot about
the car. He did not call the cops, didn't call anyone. Instead,
he sat on his sofa watching television while balancing his
laptop on his legs and doing work. When the storm
started to hit that afternoon, sending first pellets of ice
against his window, and then huge blasts of wind that
shook the same windows in their frames. He finally looked
up from his work. Damn it, he cursed, as he
put the laptop aside. I forgot to call the cops.
He stood at his window and saw the snow falling
sideways across the street. Another neighbor struggled against the wind
and snow to get back to his apartment. Carl noted
the man had a beard and it was covered in
ice and snow. Then he cast his eyes down to
the car, That goddamn car in his fucking spot. Tomorrow
he'd have to walk three blocks to get to his
car and try to shovel it out of the snow.
The weather report on the television just behind him was
already touting this as a blizzard. He'd end up looking
like that guy across the street with the ice on
his beard. Even if his office said no one had
to come in tomorrow, he'd still have to trudge the
three blocks across the ice through piles of snow just
to get to his car. Reluctantly, Carl turned away from
the window and looked at the clock. It was only three.
That meant he still had at least two more hours
of work to deal with before he could even worry
about the storm. He sat back down, took up his laptop,
gazed at the weather report, which was getting more and
more grim by the minute, and started working again. When
it got to five, he shut down quickly. Sure enough,
his company was telling people to stay home tomorrow too.
Carl felt a bit better about that, but not about
the fact he still had to take a shove for
three blocks, nearly break his neck walking across the icy
sidewalks just to get there and dig his damn car out.
He stood at the window again. It was hard to
see out there now. In fact, he could barely see
the sidewalk, let alone the buildings across the street. However,
he could see the car. It shone silvery now, perhaps
from the street light above. It almost was if it
were mocking him. You fucking car, he hissed at the window.
That's my goddamn spot. It should be me that has
dips there. It was tempting to head out there now
and maybe take a baseball bat to the damn thing.
It would still be in the way but he would
feel like he had done something. Tomorrow his neighbors would
all be out there shoveling out their spots. Of course,
there were rules in the city on most streets about
parking along the curb. Basically you weren't supposed to do
it on many of the busier streets. His street, however,
was a side street, and such rule applied. Had this
been a major round, the snowplows would need room to
clear the roads, and this car would have been towed
ages ago. Maybe for some reason, people seemed to not
even realize how long the car had been there. Carl
wondered how long it had been there. Just because it
looked like an old car didn't mean it had been
sitting there since the seventies. People collected older cars all
the time. The fact there seemed to be no markings
on it was also weird. What make and model was
this car? Something about it was familiar, as if he
had seen it in his youth around the city, but
he couldn't put a finger on it. He had also
seen a license plate and thought he had memorized it
and taken a picture of it, but he couldn't remember it,
and when he called up the image, it was all blurry.
Then there was his dream. He was sure it was
a dream. That night he thought he saw a skeleton
behind the wheel. What the hell would make him dream
of something like that. No one seemed to remember whose
car was. Was only remembered it was there when he
pointed to it, And yet he could see it every
time he looked out the window. However, when he turned
his back to it, he did forget it was the
reason he saw it every time, just because this was
his apartment and it was supposed to be his parking
space when he moved in and his landlord told him
where his space was, he didn't remember noticing the car. Then,
what the fuck was happening around here? He suddenly looked
around his apartment. Had the guy who owned that car
lived in this very apartment? Of course, there was nothing
here to tell him yes or no. Plus, he had
been here for months and not a single creaky door,
strange footstep, let alone the manifestation of a skeleton man.
It nagged at him now. As the snow came down
and down, as the ice got thicker than buried in
the white stuff, his anger grew. It was not fair,
fucking dibbs for an old car that no one remembered.
It didn't matter to him if it was some weird
ass supernatural thing. It wasn't fair to him. He was
a good tenant and he paid his rent. He had
gotten the right parking permit. Damn it, he should have
that space. What the hell could he do about it? Though?
The car had to be locked right in his dream? Yes,
damn it, it was a dream, not real. The engine
had just started on its own. It was too much
to hope that would happen in real life. That meant
he would have to get inside by smashing a window
or something, and that was destruction of property. Plus what
did he do when he got in there? He was
hardly a hot wire kind of guy. Would there be
keys and the visor? It was too intense outside to
go out there and mess around with the car now anyway,
so he forced himself to sit down and watch television.
As the night wore on, the wind got worse, the
sounds outside the window grew more intense, and at one
point there was the under and lightning. Try as he might,
he could not go to sleep. Now every shadow seemed
to show the skeleton man. He was sure The place
wasn't haunted, but the car was haunting his mind. When
he closed his eyes, he saw it there, the engine running,
the lights on, and behind the wheel a shadow that
turned into a skeleton. The closer you got, he would
snap awake and find he was still on the sofa
and that the weather person was still on the air.
Around one in the morning, he got up and walked
to the window again. The entire landscape was like something
out of a sci fi movie set on an ice planet.
The streets were buried in six inches at least of snow.
The cars were all indistinguishable glumps of white. The sidewalk
did not exist. The car was still there. It was
coated in ice and snow, but not buried as much
as the other ones. In fact, the ground around it
appeared not nearly as deep as elsewhere where. What the
hell did that mean? Was this a devil car exuding
heat whenever it needed to in order to keep the
snow off. His mind felt like it was spinning out,
and it being the middle of the night was not helping.
One's imagination could run wild. At one in the morning,
the snow was still intense, but the wind had died
a bit. The wind had been blowing so hard it
had reached blizzard territory, but now perhaps that stage had passed.
He glared at the mystery car. He would be willing
to bet money that people on the street who looked
out their windows would see the snow, but not the car. No,
the car was saved for him alone. Fucking dibbs, fucking
bullshit is what it was. Enough was enough. Carl stepped
away from the window, put on his boots, got his coat,
added a scarf and a winter hat. Then he dug
some ski gloves out of the closet and put those
on two. Now armed for battle, he headed out outside.
His mission was simple, figure out a way to move
that goddamn car. Was there really a reason for it? No?
Not really. His car was still blocks away and he
was going to have to dig it out. However, when
he was done with that task, he wanted the spot
that had been given to him and to be able
to park in front of his own goddamn house. He
also realized he really didn't have anything on him he
could use to smash the windows on the fucking car.
Damn it, he cursed to himself under his breath. He
walked over to the car. It sat there like a lump,
the silver from the pane still shining through the glaze
of ice and snow. The windows were still somehow foggy,
as if ages of dirt had built up on the inside.
Get out of my spot, he yelled at the car,
feeling utterly stupid the moment he did. The last thing
he needed was one of his neighbors opening their blinds
to see who the hell was yelling to just see
him standing there yelling at a car. Carl walked up
to the car and hit the driver's side window with
his hand in the cold, despite his gloves. It hurt
like a son of a bitch. All he ended up
doing was holding his hand and cursing. Another brilliant move,
madder than ever, he kicked the tire. It did nothing
but hurt his toe, But this time he did not scream. Instead,
he looked around on the ground. Fortunately, for reasons he
could not fathom, the ground around the mystery car was
not covered entirely in snow. Just another mystery. He did
not give a shit about. There a rock. Carl reached
down and grabbed a rock just larger than the size
of his closed fist snarling Now, his face already feeling
frozen and numb, he turned to face the car. He
held the rock high in his right hand, ready to
smash the window and deal with the consequences later. The
engine burst into life. Carl jumped backwards, hit the curb
with the back of his heels, and fell over into
the thin layer of snow. He cursed yet again into
the cold night. He looked up at the car, wondering
what kind of trickery this was. It was just like
his dream. It had to have been a dream. He
got to his feet and peered into the window. This
time there was no shape there, no skeletal figure staring
at him. There was a soft amber glow that he
guessed was from a light on the dashboard. What do
you want, he asked the car, What do you want?
The car door opened. The sound made Carl jump, and
when it swung wide, he jumped again. This time he
remembered the curb and stepped back onto the lawn. This
can't be happening, he said to no one. Inside it
somehow looked warm, perhaps that was just an illusion caused
by the soft amber light, but he could hear music
playing softly coming from the speakers in the door. That
meant the radio was on. This is a bad idea,
he whispered to himself. This is a bad idea, because
this cannot be happening. He stepped toward the car door
and then took another step. Nothing jumped out, and the
door did not slamp shut. Carl tried to pull back.
It was like something had snagged his mid section and
pulled him forward. Sweat broke out on his brow despite
the intense cold as he fought the pole. What was
influencing him? It cannot be good, right. He managed to
take one step backwards, but the poll was constant. He
felt fear, but there was something else too. Sure, there
was the burning curiosity of the situation, but it was
more than that. He felt a powerful desire to get
into the car. It made no sense, but nothing, he
told himself, could stop his feet from moving. He sat down,
pulling his legs inside. Then the door shut. Carl looked
to his left and gasped, instinctively, reaching for the door handle,
only to find there was no door handle inside. Then
the lock snapped tight. Carl began to panic and he
pounded at the window. That was when the radio came
on full blast. You shouldn't let it be. Instead, you
had to doush it. The voice was like gravel, without
any rhyme or reason. Carl grabbed the steering wheel, perhaps
thinking he could stomp on the gas and drive away.
The moment he gripped it, an icy cold, unlike anything
he had felt before. In fact, he sat bolt upright
in the seat, watching as frost appeared across the glass,
the dashboard, all over the steering wheel. Then his hands
end up his wrist. No, he whispered, No, I have
to on this spot forever, did you hear me? Forever?
You want dibbs, Fine, you'll have it with me. As
the laughter of something horrible and demonic burbled out of
the radio speakers, Carl watched his arms, elbows, and biceps freeze.
The pain was intense, but then the nerve endings died
as they froze to death as a cold, unlike anything
he had ever felt before, sank into his skin. He
had minutes, maybe seconds, he would become just another forgotten name.
He knew that now people would vaguely remember him sometimes,
but no one would know where he had vanished the car,
wherever it was from would continue to sit here watching
the street. Someday another man or a woman would finally
notice the car and peek inside. That time, two skeletons
would look back at the person and send them screaming.
As the cold washed over his shoes, up his neck,
and then over his head like an ice cold blanket.
He opened his mouth to scream, but he found himself
unable to. Fucking Dibbs was all he could whisper. When
the night comes out presents the basement game. Tommy was
a good kid. That was what his father and mother
always said, Tommy, you're a good kid, one or both
of them would say, and then ruffle their fingers through
his hair. It wasn't all that hard for him, because
he just mostly wanted to keep to himself and stay
out of trouble. He was also very capable of finding
ways to amuse himself and not bug his parents about things.
This was especially true now his family had just moved
into a newer, much bigger house than the apartment they
had been using before. Although not a mansion, the house
contained an attic easily adaptable as a bedroom. The main
floor had a living room, dining room, kitchen, family room,
and two bedrooms. Then there was the basement. His parents,
particularly his mom, were focused on unpacking and setting things up.
Tommy knew that, of course, and he had already unpacked
all of his stuff. It was not allowed since he
was just eight years old, and it had taken him
one afternoon to get his bedroom set up, So now
he was free to explore the house. In fact, his
parents encouraged him to You should go explore the house,
his dad had said. Then go explore the neighborhood. Now
is a good time to make some friends. Definitely explore
the house, but be careful, his mother added the very
next day. The basement one is not finished and might
still have some old things down there. I know there
was a room full of tools from the prior owner,
and there might be nails and stuff. We have some
boxes down there, too, So, trying not to disturb anything
to ensure he stayed a good kid, he explored the
attic first. It was hot as hell up there, but
mostly just an open room with a hardwood floor, two windows,
one overlooking one side of the house and the other
over the driveway. Two doors resembling closets were there. However,
the slanted roof left little room in one. The other
was just insulation with two small boards that led to
a window that overlooked the front lawn. That one creeped
him out for reasons he couldn't exactly articulate. He found books,
lots and lots of books on an old, dusty bookshelf
in one corner. They were paperbacks, and many of them
horror books. A pleasant feeling washed over him as he
made a mental note to return today. His mom was
in the kitchen. She had carefully wrapped each and every glass,
every plate in brown paper, and then into each box.
Now she was carefully unwrapping each piece and placing them
on the shelves and in the cabinets. I'm bored, he
had told her just that morning. Have you tried wandering
around the neighborhood a bit? Maybe there are other kids here.
I'm pretty sure there are. Tommy kicked at the floor.
I don't want to do that. Have you explored the
whole house? Tommy thought about that, not the basement. Well
there you go, she said, her back turned as she
unwrapped another glass. Just be careful. It's sturdy down there,
and there might be rusty nails and stuff. Just stay
out of the newer boxes too. That was all the
conversation he had. The door to the basement was just
to the right of the kitchen and down an old,
rickety set of wooden stairs. It smelled instantly musty, but
not in a way that worried him. He expected basements
to smell that way. He grabbed the handrail and walked
down the stairs, and once there at the bottom, he
found a light switch. To his surprise, a light came
on in the middle of the basement. To his left
there were boxes, all labeled with stuff from their prior house.
He could see the wall and the old wooden door
that led into the other workshop. From the stairs. To
his right was a lot of old junk, and immediately
to his right was actually a dusty and cobwebbed bar
with old bottles of liquor still on the shelves. His
dad was excited about that part of it too, and
hoped to finish the whole place and hold parties down here. Okay,
time to play the basement game, he said, and rubbed
his hands together. All that really meant was to explore everything. Intrigued,
he wondered what creepy crawleys might be hiding. He was
particularly interested in the stuff at the far end of
the basement. There were old wooden pathslets there, leaning against
each other and against the wall. However, as he descended
the stairs and got closer to that pile, he saw
what appeared to be a door. Just beyond it, he
could only see the top. It was wood, just like
the door to his immediate left that led into the
old workshop, a hidden door that was perfect for the
basement game. Pretending now he was an ancient explorer about
to visit an uncharted island, Tommy moved the pallets around.
The palettes were old, and a few of them rotted.
They broke apart in his hands and nearly crumbled to
dust as he moved them. He also got splinters, and
those really hurt. He had to pause several times and
remove bits of wood embedded in his palms. Something about
the stack of pallettes and debris seemed deliberate. Tommy had
no idea how he knew that, but there were just
so many, and they seemed to serve no other purpose
than to try to hide the door. He had only
once seen pallettes like this before, and it had been
in a warehouse what possible need was there for them
in a house's basement. As he moved the heavy pallets
into another section of the basement, stacking them along another wall,
his thoughts turned to ideas about what treasures might be beyond.
Maybe there was a long forgotten box filled with gold, or, honestly,
more valuable to him, a stack of really old comic
books that were still in remarkable shape having been shut
off from the world. Now, that would really be something.
After moving everything, Tommy was sweaty and bleeding in several
places on his palms. His mom would be absolutely livid.
She'd want to cover it with bactine, which would sting
like hell. Before he revealed his find, though, he had
to be a brave explorer and open the door. There
was a padlock on the door. His heart sank, but
then he looked a bit closer. The lock was very old.
It was also very very rusty. Hmm. He reached out
and touched it, and the whole padlock and lock felt
like it was going to fall apart in his hands.
He brushed the rust from his hands, then tugged a
few times at the padlock part and it felt like
it might move, but the screws holding it into the
doorframe did not look as rusted away as the rest
of the padlock. Tommy stood back and pondered. His eyes
turned to the closed workshop door along the wall to
was left. Hmm, he thought again. His mom had told
him not to go in there, but he would be quick.
There had to be an old hammer or something in there.
Maybe if he gave this padlock a few good wax,
it would just fall apart on the floor. Tommy walked
across the basement and opened the wooden door along the wall.
Immediately the smell of ancient sawdust filtered into his nose.
His mouth opened at the site, there was a full
work bench. To his right, there was an old vice,
but there were pegs on the wall above, and a
hammer file, a big saw, a smaller hack saw, and
a hand turned drill. Across from him, stacked along a
wall and into the corner was a big stack of wood.
All the wood pieces were different sizes and shapes, but
cobwebs covered everything, and Tommy warned about brown recluse spiders
stayed far away. Right to his left, with the head
of it balanced between two hooks, was a hammer. The
head looked a bit rusty, but as he picked it
up he could tell it was securely affixed to the
handle and still heavy. Tommy was of an age where
the thought the hammer head might explode into fragments never
crossed his mind. He was young, and as far as
he knew, a mortal. He grabbed the hammer and headed
back across the basement to the mystery door. Now I
got you, he said to the padlock. He tilted the
hammer up over his head and brought it down with
as much force as his little body could. He immediately
missed and dug a dent into the wooden door. Tommy
swore something he only did when he was alone, and
very very quietly, and looked around as if someone might see.
Then he raised the hammer again and tried once more,
after taking a few practice shots. This time he hit
the lock square on. He heard something crack and lifted
the hammer to hit it once more. This time there
was a metallic ting, and the rusted lock blew apart
and fell to the floor. The rest of the padlock
flopped right open and banged against the wood. Yes, he
cried out in triumph. Tommy dropped the hammer, his attention
already gone from that and focused on the door. Then
he ran over, undid the padlock, and grabbed the metal
handle and opened the door. There was just a brief
instance of resistance from the door, and eventually it swung
open toward him. For just a moment, there was a
small breeze at his back, as if the room on
the other side was some sort of vacuum. It was
light and brief, but Tommy did think it was strange.
The next thing he couldn't help but notice is how
dark it was inside the room, Like really dark, like
the light was being eaten as it entered the room
beyond the door, kind of dark. A shiver ran down
Tommy's spine as he faced the darkness of the room,
a fear he'd never known before settling in his gut.
It felt strange. For a moment, it also felt like
there might be something inside the room, which was a
crazy thought to have, and his dad said people who
had crazy thoughts belonged in a special hospital. The light
revealed nothing but maybe a fraction of an inch of
a cement floor. No shelves, not another wall, nothing. Are
you a brave explorer or a total wimp? He asked himself.
He was a brave explorer, damn it, and he was
sure there had to have been a light switch just
inside the door. Once he turned on the light, he
would see the size of the room and whether or
not the place was empty or filled with treasure. He
was hoping for treasure. Tommy took several deep breaths and
then stepped over the threshold and into the room. He
flung his left hand out to feel along the wall
in hope of finding the light switch. He felt cement,
so that was a relief. However, as he took another
step into the room, all lights ceased and it was
like there was a giant hand over his eyes. His
heart immediately rocketed to high speeds and his breath caught
in his throat. Find the switch, Find the switch, he whispered.
His left hand felt along the wall. Cement. More cement,
damn it was it on the other side, cement. Squish.
Tommy gasped and pulled his hand away. What the hell
was that? He tried to look at his hand, but
it was so dark he couldn't even see it when
held up in front of his face. What the he
managed to say. Then something to his left moved, Then
something to his left growled. Tommy opened his mouth, but
no sound came out. He backed up toward the door,
but it suddenly seemed so far away. The thing moved again.
There was a louder growl, and he got the sense
something very large was coming toward him. Something flashed amber,
two of them, and Tommy knew they were eyes. Ma, ma.
He stammered, first as a whisper and then a yell. Finally,
as the wind brushed against his face and he knew
that the creature in here with him had just taken
a swipe at him. The paralysis broke, found his feet
and his voice, and ran out of the doorway. Just
as he crossed back into the basement, he felt claws
brush against his shirt, felt a slight sting as the
claws left small scratches, and heard the tearing of fabric.
He tripped over his own feet and fell to the floor.
Immediately flipped on his back and scooted away, eyes wide
and staring at the door. Mom, He screamed, mom. The
doorway was pitch black. He sensed something in there, moving,
maybe watching, but it did not cross the threshold. Perhaps
it couldn't. He heard frantic footsteps run down the stairs.
He kept his eyes locked on the doorway, sure that
at any moment the creature was going to run out
and attack. Only when his mother was standing right near
him did he finally get to his feet and run
to her, clutching at her legs like a drowning man. Mom, Mom, Mom,
he stammered, monster, monster, there's a monster. His mom pushed
him back a bit and knelt down and enfolded him
in her arms. Tommy sobs subsided in his mother's embrace,
and a peaceful quiet settled over him. Tommy, tell me
what happened, she asked, Did you move all of this around? Why? So?
He told her, stammering and having to start over a
few times, he relayed the entire thing. He spun around
to show the tears and his shirt and the small scratches.
When he was done, he started to cry again. Oh Tommy,
she said, and hugged him again. Now, come on, you
know there's no such thing as monsters. Calm down, sh
calm down, now, look at me. Tommy pulled back and
wiped his nose, smearing dirt across his face. His mother
had a sympathetic look on her face, but it was
the same one she gave him when he said something
she knew was wrong. You went in there, got scared
because of the dark, and your mind played tricks on you.
She said. Maybe you tore your shirt on a nail
or something out here, maybe on a ragged edge of
one of the palace. Tommy shook his head. No, Mommy, no,
it wasn't that. I swear there's a monster in there.
He was about to break again, and his mother shook
her head and gave him that look again, and then
she did the most horrible thing Tommy could imagine. She
walked toward the open door. Oh, this looks like maybe
it's an old root cellar. I bet at one time
it was dirt floors and walls or something. People would
keep canned stuff in here so it would stay fresh.
Someone seems to have cemented over all of that. Right now, Mommy, don't,
Tommy cried out, and he ran towards her. She turned
back to him. Tommy, you have to understand there are
no monsters, she said, with a smile on her face.
Now you stay right there, let me show you look
at how dark it is. Tommy tested, of course it's dark.
You just need to turn the light on. His mother replied,
I bet there's a switch on the wall. I tried
that and the monster grabbed me. To his unending horror,
she confidently stepped over the threshold and into the darkness beyond.
She took one, then another step. The oppressive darkness was
so thick Tommy could barely make out the yellow of
her shirt. She turned around, spread her hands out in
front of her see She said, it's just a room,
a dark lun sure, and it's a little creepy, but
it's just a room. Get out, mommy. Tommy yelled, please,
just let me find a light. There has to be one.
There has The growl was so loud that Tommy slapped
both hands over his ears. He opened his mouth and
screamed and screamed. His mother looked surprised. She turned her
head to the right and opened her mouth. She screamed too,
and it mixed with tommy screams. A hand came into view,
green scaly rough the moment the dim light from the
basement touched it, it began to smoke, and the growl
became a roar. It had three fingers and a thumb,
each tipped with a long black claw. As his mother
screams got louder than his own. That clawed hand grabbed
his mother by the shoulders faster than Tommy could blink.
Something lifted her off the ground and yanked her into
the darkness. Tommy saw her legs lifted off the ground,
then a brief glimpse of her jeans and shoes, one
of which went flying and tumbled out of the room.
Tommy just kept screaming and screaming, so did his mother.
But then there was a loud sound that made Tommy sick,
a crunching sound. His mother screams turned into a warbled
sort of gurgle that went on and on before there
was another crunch, then another, then a bunch more. Tommy
found he could not even scream now. He backed away
from the door slowly. Tears ran down his dirt streaked face.
The crunching sounds went on and on, and Tommy put
his hands to his ears and clamped down on either side.
He kept backing away until the back of his legs
hit the steps down into the basement. He sat down
hard on his ass. He sat there for a long
time with his eyes wide and his hands clamped to
the side of his head, but no matter how hard
he tried, he could not fully drown out the sounds
of eating. Eventually, it did get quiet, so quiet. Tommy
couldn't speak. He couldn't say anything, and inside he couldn't
even form a thought. At some point he plodded up
the stairs and into his room. This was where his
father was would find him eventually, when he came home,
he would ask Tommy a lot of questions, only to
find Tommy was unable to speak. He just stared. Tommy
had already arranged his bedroom. He had unpacked, just like
his parents asked. So we sat down on the bed
and stared at the wall. He'd stay there because he
was a good boy. Tommy was always a good boy.
When the Night Comes Out presents the last broadcast, the
first thing you should know is that I did not
steal the television. It was abandoned. The entire fucking town
had been deserted since the sixties for crying out loud anyway.
I'll get more into detail about that later. I run
a unique sort of store where I find things, fix
them up, and sell them. Some call it an antique store,
but I do a lot more than just that. An
average antique store has things that are either already working
or just broken and meant for decoration. So now that
we've established my store Past Perfect is not just an
antique store, let me tell you about the town of
Ravens Rest. Yeah, right out of an Edgar Allan Poe story.
I know it sounds weird, but the entire town is
weird in a way. Maybe some of you out there
remember the story of Ravens Rest, but it happened in
the seventies, and that probably means so many of you
do not. So Raven's Rest was this nice little town
in Pennsylvania, thriving in a way, and most of the
people worked in a nearby quarry. Then one day people
started getting sick and they finally discovered the water was poisoned.
Like it was so much poisoned they all had to
leave right away. All that means is there is an
entire town fenced off, slowly rotting away for decades. I
knew about it. The people around me knew about it.
It was the ghost town, and when you were a kid,
you dared each other to even try to get in
there and look around. I carried the rumor that the
whole place was poisoned until adulthood until a few weeks ago. Actually,
I read that they planned to flatten the town, and
I was shocked. How could they flatten the town and
build something over it when the ground was poisoned. Then
I read that the problem was the water, and they'd
worked hard to fix the town's poisoning. As soon as
that was solved, I knew someone would buy the place,
flatten it, and build condos. All of that to say,
I found the television there in Raven's rest in one
of the houses. Once I knew that the place was
going to be demolished, I called it my friend Mo.
I knew I had to get through there as much
as I could. As I said, people had to abandon
their belongings, so I knew I could find things to grab,
fix and sell. Moe was down for it. So we
got the pickup truck and made sure we had our
weight belts and the straps we used to make carrying
large and heavy things easier, and headed to the town.
There's a lot of things you might find boring when
it comes to this kind of scavenging. I will spare
you those details. We got there, explored some houses. I
found a few things, an old clock, an even older radio,
a record player, and we put them into the truck.
Then we drove on and finally came to the largest
house in the entire town. This was quite the house.
I don't know who lived there, but it was huge,
three floors plus a basement. The lawn surprisingly wasn't as
overgrown as the others. It was kind of freaky, like
maybe ghosts were still out there doing gardening and mowing
the grass. The house's windows were broken, but otherwise it
was in pretty good shape from the outside. Once we
got inside, we found that this was a facade. The
second floor had collapsed into the first and a few
places somehow. There was junk piled up everywhere. I wondered
if kids or other people were using it for doing drugs,
making out, having teen sex, and as a kind of
garbage dump. Most of the trash piled up there didn't
match the house's abandonment date. Fortunately, Mo and I, who
had experienced with this sort of thing, had gloves and masks.
We did not have full hazmat suits, but we did
our best to keep our flesh covered so there was
less likelihood of being scratched or cut. In more than
one instance, we discovered that these homes had been used
as drug dens and remained littered with old used needles.
We found the television in the basement. Mo and I
spent some time upstairs, but the stairs leading to the
second and third floors were very rickety and dangerous, so
we didn't really get up there. Downstairs, on the first floor,
it was just junk. It took a moment to find
the door to the basement and had to clear away
some junk, but once it opened, it was right out
of a haunted house story. Even with the masks on,
we could smell how old and musty it was. Cobwebs
hung from the ceiling, and you could tell that even
from the top of the stairs. This had put most
people off, but my heart started racing and excitement. Maybe
because the place had fallen into disrepair and someone had
blocked the door, or maybe because someone had declared this
place haunted ages ago. It was obvious no one had
entered the darkness. It smelled musty, but also earthy too.
The stairs looked wobbly but also capable of supporting weight,
so Mo and I made our way down slowly. Sure enough,
when we got down there, it was like stepping into
a time capsule someone had once finished the basement. Against
one wall was an old, old oak bar, now covered
in mold. There were still bottles and glasses on the
wall behind it, but the liquor in each had turned
into muck ages ago there was an old rotting sofa
with weeds growing out of holes in the back and
along the arm rests. Then against the wall was my prize.
It was a cabinet television made from wood, and with
the cabinet doors closed at the moment, it looked in
pristine condition. I could not from the stairs see any
mold or wear on it. It was also quite large,
unusual for the time of its manufacturing use. I guessed
it was the fifties, but I wasn't sure if it
was early or late for the time. The screen on
this one must have seemed gigantic. Would you look at that,
I asked excitedly, and ran down the last few steps
and over to the cabinet. I knelt down and slowly
opened the doors. Sure enough, there was a twelve inch screen.
The knobs and buttons were all there, and no animal
jumped out at me for disturbing their nest. I gently
touched the screen, which had a green tinge to it,
and then the controls. No remote control for this one.
I was dying to dig into the guts in the
back and see if there were any working vacuum tubes
and if all of the wires were there. We have
to take this, I said. MO just nodded. I don't
think it's going to work. Well, no, but that's kind
of my thing, I replied. I take these old things
and mess with them until they work in some fashion.
I mean, all of the TV signals went digital years ago,
so even if it worked, it wouldn't pick up any broadcasts. Hey,
whatever you want to do, Mo said already of fixing
the straps underneath the television, just be careful with this,
I said, whispering and reverence. I haven't seen one of
these in this kind of condition in ages. It's going
to be heavy as fuck and brittle in a lot
of ways. Let's try not to ding it. We got
the straps under it, and the fucker was really heavy.
I mean this felt like two ton weights, and getting
it up the stairs was a chore I would not recommend. Also,
given how fragile it was, we had to carry it
up those stairs. And through that chaotic house like it
was a bomb. Somehow we got it to the truck
and strapped it down. I had completed my work for
the day, but spent a little more time exploring other houses.
There wasn't much worthwhile anywhere else. I was dying to
get the television at home and start poking around to
see what worked and what didn't. See there was a
market for stuff like this. Many people had taken old
TVs and updated the interior to accept the digital broadcasts
of today, and even install the kind of flat screen
in there while maintaining that bubble like screen that the
old TVs had. It was a real conversation starter for
most people, and I was dying to dig in. I
got back to my shop and had Mo help me
lift the television onto my work bench. I adjusted the
chair so I could look right into the screen. MO
hovered for a moment until I paid him for the help,
and then I went back to my work bench. I
gathered at my tools and went back to the TV set.
I studied the front, did some cursory cleaning on places
that needed it. Then I opened the back. I was
half expecting this to be the time some animal would
jump out at me. But instead I gasped for a
whole different reason. I gasped because the interior of this
television looked almost brand new. I had expected the vacuum
tubes to be black and burned out ages ago. I
had a basket filled with tubes next to me. Sure
I had one that would work, But these were all pristine.
The wiring I expected to have corroded and broken apart
into a million pieces. But other than some slight yellowing
on parts of the wiring that would have normally been white,
it was all perfect. I'll be goddamned, I whispered. I
did some checks of the wiring and found that a
current could run through it. It would not burst into
flames if I plugged it in and turned it on.
I studied the chord that ran to the wall, expecting
to find parts where rodents had chewed through it. Nope,
all perfect. Now I felt excited. I plugged the cord
into the wall. I walked back to the TV set
with anticipation. The world of TV went all digital in
two thousand and nine. However, I had heard there were
still some pirate TV stations out there using lower power
analog TV to put out shows and whatnot. It was
still illegal, but there were only a few analog TVs
left anymore, and most of those had purchased converter boxes
ages ago. In short, I was not expecting to get much. Also,
this damn set was from the time when people had
huge antennas on their rooftops, so there weren't even a
pair of rabbit ears. My plan wasn't to sell this
for standard TV use or its intended purpose. I had
planned to rip most of the guts out, save most
of that for spare parts, add a digital screen and
put a domelike piece of glass over it disguised the
flat screen, and then bingo. It would be an interesting
conversation for some die hard for their next party. I
sat down with the eager shaking hands in front of
the set and I turned the on off knob. There
was a satisfying click, and then the sound high pitched
right into the ears as the tubes and wires kicked
into life. I lingered, poised to react if things went wrong.
That did not happen. Those old tubes take a long
time to fire up, but they did. I watched the
screen while waiting, questioning the picture tube's functionality, age and condition. However,
to my delight, the screen did pop to life and
began to glow right in my face. Ha ha ha,
I yelled. I even clapped my hands. Unbelievable. It was static,
of course, as I thought it might be. Still it
was working. I rummaged around in my room and found
an old pair of rabbit ear antennas. I managed to
hook it up to the ancient TV and set them
atop the cabinet. Then I began turning the channels static static,
static static. All of the major VHF channels were just static.
That made sense, as those would likely be owned by
the big broadcast company, so I flicked over to the
UHF channels. I began flipping through those static static static static,
but with an image. Well hello there, I said, the
smile on my face as wide as possible. Did I
just find me a pirate station? I could just barely
make out an image. It was a static image, if
you can pardon that weird pun, and I couldn't make
much out. I immediately began adjusting the gain and the
set itself. Those old over the air TV sets allowed
you to try and fine tune the signal so you
could get them in clearer. To my amazement, the image
did get clearer the more I adjusted. It was like
diffusing a bomb, at least to me. I moved those
knobs so slowly, and whenever I went too far and
the image went sideways, I adjusted them back the other
way slowly. The image took shape. When it did, I
sat back and stared. Huh was my brilliant reaction. It
was in black and white, of course, but it was
also what appeared to be a living room. There was
the sofa, the easy chair, the coffee table in the
background was a dining room table. There was an oval
carpet on the floor of the living room, and a
bookshelf off to the left. The ankle of the image
was high up, just above the heads of the people. Yes,
there were people there too. They all were clothing reminiscent
of nineteen fifties mannikins. The dad read a newspaper and
had a pipe in his mouth in the easy chair.
The mom, her hair piled quite high on her head,
was in a perfect dress, complete with apron, and doing
what appeared to be knitting on the sofa, sitting on
the floor across legged, as if watching this very television
was a young boy with a white shirt hard to
tell on a black and white TV, I know, and
a crew cut. He had a big smile on his face. Finally,
sitting on the floor beside the coffee table was a
young girl with her hair and pigtails and also wearing
a dress. She held a doll in her hand. It
was so stereotypical. I nearly laughed. I leaned closer to
the screen. Was this a painting? A photograph just held
up in front of a camera from somewhere? There was
something off, something about the people there just seemed weird.
I shivered and adjusted the image a bit more. I
was trying to discern more of the image, something else,
but there was nothing. I decided it was a pirate
broadcast and this was some kind of placeholder. Maybe at
different times this vanished and an actual TV show appeared.
I wished at that time I knew the schedule for that,
because I would have liked to have seen it. I
decided that it must have been an old photograph or
a drawing or painting, and that was why it was
somehow just weird. The proportions or something seem off. I
whispered it just looks weird, damn it. I wish I
could describe it better. My test was done, and since
it was creepy, I turned the dial and shut off
the TV. The image vanished into a tiny white dot
and then disappeared. I felt much better about the whole
thing instantly, and set about cleaning up the rest of
the TV. I got lost in the task and was
soon whistling. The next day, I was excited to get
back to work. I had spent a lot of time
with the TV the night before, so I looked at
some of the other things I had picked up. A
few of them turned out to be junk, broken and
battered beyond repair. However, a few of the items I
felt I could salvage, maybe turn into something else, like
a planter or some kind of walalart. One never knew
what people who like to buy these things would think
or do with the stuff they bought. It was just
after lunch when I finally returned to my prize. I
was so excited I wondered if maybe the pirate station
might have some actual programming on. I sat down on
my bench, opened the door and turned the knob once again.
It took a few moments. But then the screen came
to life. It was the same image as I had
seen the night before. I admit something instantly creeped me out,
and I was more than a little disappointed. However, it
just just like the night before. Something about it grabbed
my attention, seemed to force me to look closer, deeper.
Something was different. I could now see more of the house.
I could see the dining room table more clearly. I
could see a window back there, and the flowers growing
in a box beneath those windows. Just beyond, I could
see the archway on the right side and into the kitchen.
Now the old nineteen fifties appliances partially visible. Hmm, I
said to no one. Maybe they had done a broadcast
the night before, and now the image, the photo or painting,
was back in front of the camera, but closer or
focused better. I leaned down and studied it a bit closer.
Of course, with most TV sets, especially once this old,
the closer you got, the less you could see. I
leaned back and studied the image again. Yes, I could
definitely see more of the house. The family was still
in the same spot they had been waite. No, that
wasn't quite the case. I leaned forward again, losing the definition.
I adjusted myself so I could be as close as
possible and still see the daughter's head had moved just slightly.
She was no longer looking at the doll in her hand. Instead,
she had tilted her head a bit, and her eyes well,
we're looking right at me. Well, of course they were
looking at whatever camera I had taken that image, but
it appeared like she was looking straight at me. I
felt a chill run down my spine and then back
up again. I shivered. You're crazy, I said, once again
to no one. I cleaned off the screen again, then
spent a little more time just making sure everything was working.
I had plans to rip some of the guts out
very carefully and put in more modern stuff, but something
just would not let me do that. I was now
fascinated by the possibility that there was a pirate TV
station nearby, something that would show something. I debated whether
to keep the TV on. The set was so old
I didn't want to burn out the tubes or anything,
but I also was hoping to catch something happening on
the pirate station. I decided to leave it on while
I worked, but that I would stay nearby and make
sure it wasn't overheating. I turned my attention to an
old radio I had found. I took out the guts,
added some bluetooth stuff I had around, and soon it
was an antique looking radio with the Bluetooth capabilities so
someone could use it at their next party. My next
object was the really old record player. Adding some bluetooth
to that was also a popular thing these days. You
could also add a USB port and make it so
you could convert old vinyl records into MP three's. This
was going to take some doing and a lot more work,
so I was quickly involved with all of that. At
some point, I leaned back and cracked my back, removed
the magnifying glasses I had been wearing to do some
soldering and wire work, and rubbed my eyes. I turned
around and gasped. The image had changed again. It wasn't
a lot just like before. If you didn't know what
to look for, you can miss it. However, I could
distinctly see that the little girl in the image was
definitely now staring straight into the camera. At the same
time her brother, I was assuming it was her brother,
had also turned his head and was casting a sideways
glance upwards toward the camera as well. Meanwhile, the mom
had put her knitting down a bit and appeared to
be looking at her daughter. If there had been a
pirate broadcast, it had not made any noise. I checked
the volume and saw that it was up yesterday. The
speakers had exploded with white noise from the static, so
I knew they worked. I suddenly got the very distinct
feeling that the people in the image knew I I
was there, and they were looking at me. You are
losing it in Jesus, stop trying to scare yourself, idiot. Still,
I got closer to the TV. I got as close
as I could without it becoming all pixels and nonsense. Yeah,
there was no doubt about the fact the figures in
the image had moved. It was creepy as fuck. I
gotta tell you. The sister's eyes bore right into the camera.
It made no sense, of course, that there would be
a camera unless this was a static image someone had
in front of a goddamn camera. Her eyes bore right
into mine, and she did not look happy. In fact,
she looked rather pissed off. I shivered from my head
to my toe. I walked over and turned the TV off.
Fuck this thing, I would not let it creep me out.
In fact, damn it, I was going to rip its
guts out now, use what I could for spare parts,
and start modifying it. I walked over to my tool
bench and grabbed the tools I would need, turned toward
the TV. When I looked up, I was sitting on
the stool, open mouthed. The TV was on again, and
the tools I had grabbed were on the table. The
creepy image was there, only this time. Now the son
and daughter were both looking at me, and the wife
had turned her head too. The dad had also lowered
his newspaper, but he appeared to be looking at his
family and not me. What the fuck my head was buzzing.
I felt as if I had been on a bit
of a bender. I stood up and immediately almost fell over.
I cast another glance at that creepy image and once
again shivered. I grabbed my tools again and this time
started walking around the table to the back of the TV.
When I came to it was three hours later. In fact,
the sun had gone down and my shop was very
dark save for the light of the television's The buzzing
in my head was very loud. Now, it felt as
if a radio inside my skull was tuned between stations.
Sure enough, the scene on the screen had changed. Now
all four family members had turned their heads and were
looking straight at me at the camera. Fuck it was me,
I knew it as sure as I was standing there.
They were somehow looking at me. I had no memory
of anything that had happened in the intervening hours. All
I knew was that it seemed as if I was
unable to take the thing apart. There was a desire
to do it, but I simply would not be allowed
to destroy this thing. Oh fuck this right off, I said, no, no, no,
I do not believe in haunted fucking objects like this.
I decided to unplug the thing and get rid of it.
I know, I said I loved it, and I did,
but apparently there was something really wrong with it. I
unplugged it and got one of the straps to help
me lift the damn thing. It was hugely heavy, and
it took me half an hour just to get it
up the stairs. I kept having to stop and catch
my breath, let my heart rate get back to normal.
I finally got it out into the alley and left
it beside the dumpster. The earlier rain had wet the ground,
and I figured that would start rotting the wood as
soon as I had it there. A thought erupted into
my brain, like fireworks, burn it. It was tempting. I
could put it into the dumpster and douse it with
any number of things that would light. I would leave
it burning in the dumpster, a literal dumpster fire. No, No,
that was too much. The garbage guys would come tomorrow
and toss it into a truck and it would end
up at a dump The rats could eat it for
all I cared. I brushed the dirt off my hands
and marched back into my house. Up to my room.
I crawled into bed and fell asleep, almost instantly, relieved
I had gotten rid of the weirdness. I would money
on the other things I had brought back from the town.
I awoke with a start at three in the morning
on the button. The light in my room confused me.
I always make sure my room is completely dark. For
a moment, I was unsure where I was, and then
I looked at the foot of my bed. I screamed.
The TV was there, and the cabinet was open. The
plug snaked to the outlet on the wall. The image
of the family was there, and all of them now
looked right at me, and they had shifted their positions.
It looked like the daughter and son were getting to
their feet, and the dad had put down his newspaper.
He also looked furious. The pipe clenched in his teeth. No,
I cried out, and then I realized my sheets were wet.
A moment after that, I realized my hands and feet
were the cause of the wetness. I looked down at
my hands. They were scraped, cut and wet. My feet
were muddy. I had gone outside and grabbed the set
and brought it back inside in my goddamn sleep, Fuck you,
I screamed at the set. The image of the family,
still in black and white, did not move. However, I
soon realized what else about the image had probably set
me off. It was the house, the goddamn house. I
realized the house they sat in was the same fucking
house where I had found the TV set in the basement.
I sat there, paralyzed with fear. I had no idea
what to do. If this thing had some power over me.
That prevented me from destroying it and also prevented me
from throwing it away. Then what could I do? Sure
I could try to burn it, but I feared I
would black out and wake up to find my room
on fire and my own clothes catching while that goddamn
television sat there, untouched, with the family grinning at me.
I slowly got up and out of bed. I grabbed
a blame get in a pillow. I decided I needed
to sleep the rest of the night and try to
figure something out in the morning. I shut my bedroom
door and set up a makeshift bed on my sofa.
I made absolutely sure my television in there was off,
and then laid back down. I woke up to sunlight
on my face. I startled awake with a terrible dream
of grinning faces with sharpened teeth. I was at least
still on my sofa and in my living room. I
felt a sense of relief at that. I got up
and poured myself some cereal in the kitchen. I kept
looking back at the doorway that led to my bedroom.
I didn't live in a particularly large apartment, so it
wasn't too far out of sight. I could almost feel
this tugging at the back of my brain, as if
the people within the television were talking to me, trying
to get me to walk in there, sit on the
floor and just stare at the image. I ate my
cereal and sat at the kitchen table. I was delaying
the I had to go back into my bedroom. At
some point I got up, walked slowly down the hall,
grabbed the doorknob, and slowly turned in and opened the door.
Sure enough, there was a glow from the TV. I mean,
I hadn't turned it off, but my wish that the
Bulbard tubes would burn out had not come true. As
soon as I opened the door, I gasped for a moment,
just a fraction of a fraction of a second, I
was sure that the entire family from within the image
on the TV was in my room, all four of
them there staring at me, their teeth bared. It was
just a flash, quicker than lightning, and that it was gone.
It was, however, enough to set my heart racing. With
that terror gone. Now came the next I could feel
this pole, a pole inside my head, like a hand
was in there controlling me, telling me to come sit down,
watch the TV, watch the TV. My feet started to move,
and I did not recall consciously asking them to do so.
Before long, I was in front of the end of
the bed. I sat down, crossing my legs like I
used to do when I was a kid. I stared
wide eyed into the screen. Sure enough, the entire family
was on their feet, all of them in a tight group,
hands out slightly, fingers curled into claws. They all had
smiles on their faces, but it did not give off
anything close to happiness. The smiles were outright evil. They
were all in front of the coffee table, looking up
at the camera. A black bar came down from the
top of the screen, something that happened a lot with
these old TVs. This time it seemed to wipe the
image clean. When it was gone, they had all moved closer,
and now their lips were parted. Their teeth were like daggers. No,
I said. I tried to get up, but my legs
would not move. Instead, I reached for my phone in
my pocket and I started recording this. I can't move,
my legs have cramped up and I can't straighten them.
Every few moments, one of those black bars comes down
and they get closer the family gets closer, and the
closer they get, the less they look like people and
more like demons. There's no answers here. I am just
a guy who found an old TV in an old house.
I don't know if this thing is cursed or demonic
or what. In the real world, there are no easy answers.
I do know, somehow, with increasing certainty, that they will
get closer enough to fill the screen with their faces,
and then they'll reach right out at me with their
claw like hands. What happens then, I don't know. I
just wanted to find something special. Instead I found this.
I hope someone listens to this. I am so scared.
Months later, after not paying his rent in just as
many months, his landlord used his key to enter the apartment.
He found it sterile, as if his resident had just
picked up and left without notice and in a hurry.
He never thought this guy would be a deadbeat. He
wandered through the living room, then the kitchen food had
gone bad in the fridge, and he wrinkled his nose
before checking out the bathroom. Then finally he stepped into
the bedroom. It was empty. There was, however, a really
really old television up against the wall it was on,
but from this angle he could not see the image. Weird,
He didn't think these old TVs worked anymore. There was
a cell phone on the floor and some small stains
near it. He stepped closer and saw that maybe the
stains were blood. He bent down and grabbed the It
still had a bit of a charge, and when he
swiped it it opened without a password request. It appeared
his former resident had recorded a video. As his face
was frozen there on the screen. His eyes looked terrified, puzzled.
He pushed the play button. The first thing you should
know is that I did not steal the television. It
was abandoned. The entire fucking town had been abandoned since
the sixties. He lifted his head as his former resident
continued to talk about the television. That was when the
image on the screen caught his eyes. A family father, mother, son, daughter,
and perhaps an uncle, all of them wearing old clothes
and sitting around a coffee table. A black line came
down from the top of the screen and the image
shifted changed. The man he assumed was an uncle had
turned his head was now looking right at him. The
landlord peered closer. Yes, he was sure of it. It
was his former resident. He opened his mouth and screamed,
when the night comes out presents it wears a face.
They came from all around because it was story time. However,
this time it was special. Not only was it Friday
the thirteenth, which made it extra creepy, but Dennis was
going to be there, and everyone knew he was the
one with the best creepy stories. He wasn't always there
during summer camp, but he had been here this year.
His long, lanky frame easy to spot among the smaller campers,
and he was always the most fun. Most importantly, he
was the one everyone knew who did the ghost stories
on the Friday, but for the last weekend of camp,
and told the best stories. The date was a coincidence,
but so many of them had been going around making
the soundtrack sounds from the movie franchise The Woods constantly
echoed with the kill, Kill Kill. It sort of drove
the rest of the camp counselors a bit crazy, but
in the end it was good fun, and even the
more veteran of them still liked to hear the stories,
and of course they all knew Dennis told the best ones.
Dennis was heading into his last few years of being
eligible for the head counselor at the camp. Just another
year after this one, and he had skipped last year,
to the disappointment of that crop of campers. He was back,
and everyone hoped he had a whopper of a story
to tell. Dennis was so special he also got his
own cabin, which put him above everyone. The Storytelling Day
was a tradition that went back as far as Camp
silver Lake had first existed, which was back in the
late fifties. It went co ed in the late seventies,
and it turned out the girls had great stories too.
Counselors gathered campers around the firepit stone amphitheater built by
the camp founders and told scary stories. Some campers also
told stories, and the best storyteller received a ribbon. It
was summer, of course, so it seemed to take more
time for the sun to go down, and everyone knew
the stories would not come until it was suitably dark.
So once the sun went behind the trees, with dinner
in the past and the daily activities put away, they
all came down with their flashlights and began to sit
around the newly formed fire. Margie, the female head counselor
was there, and, like tradition said, she was wearing a
long black robe with a hood and a flashlight beneath
her chin to be extra creepy. Welcome, silver lacers, Please
come in, she said, and her spookiest voice. Have a seat.
They all did this corny as hell? Yes? Would it
be something all of them would make fun of under
any other situation? Hell? Yes? Did any of them care?
Not a single one. I don't even want to waste
another moment, Margie said. Too late, someone called out from
the audience and everyone laughed. Margie smiled and waited. You
all know who's here, Margie credited, it's Dennis. Let's bring
him up now, since none of us can follow him
and none of us want to wait. Margie gave a
dramatic flourish with her hand and robe, and the audience
burst into applause. Dennis seemed to materialize out of the
shadows at the end of the stage. He wore his
own robe, and he spun with it and then bowed dramatically,
thank you, thank you. He unbuttoned the robe and tossed
it into the crowd. It's too damn hot for that,
he said, and there was more laughter. Dennis was quite
the sight in the firelight, all long limbs and wisps
of a beard and mustache. His brown hair was always
a bit of a mess, and his glasses only reflected
the orange of the flames. As he sat down on
the stone stool where the storyteller sat, he clapped his
hands loudly and then spread them as if commanding the fire.
Did the fire seem to grow a little more with that?
Or were they all imagining? Are you ready? Of course
they were, and said so, then buckle up, stay close, lovers,
hold each other close as this darkness enfolds us. Let
me tell you the most terrifying story I've ever yet
come across. It was total silence now Dennis leaned forward
and began to speak. Mattie Davis was a single mom.
Her daughter, Dede, was three and a half and more
than advanced for her age. At times she creeped Maddie
with how much she seemed to know and how she spoke.
Her daughter was also a handful, but Mattie was doing
her best and had a good job, and this allowed
them to live in a nice little house bought in
an up and coming neighborhood. The house was two bedrooms
and needed some work, and Mattie did her best on
weekends to make it more like their home. Dedee did
her best to help too, but mostly she just ran
her mouth, talking about anything and everything. The depths of
her imagination never failed to amaze Maddie. As for the dad, well,
that son of a bitch had run away before Dede
was even born. Mattie had no clue where he was
now and didn't care. She had her daughter, they had
their life, and things were good until the night Dede
woke Maddie up from a deep sleep, screaming, mommy, mommy.
There was very little that could turn a person's blood
to ice and caused them to leap into action from
deep sleep to running than a child's scream. Mattie her
eyes half open, her long t shirt hiked up too high,
and her bare feet scrambling for purchase on the well
worn carpet. Damn it, she needs to replace that sometime.
She ran for the bedroom. Because of the house's layout,
Deete's bedroom was slightly down the hall, and she staggered
into a wall, reaching it in ten seconds. Deeti was
sitting up her blankets and her stuffed rabbit clutched to
her chest, eyes wide, she pointed to the wall across
the way from the bed, but slightly up. Mattie turned
on the lights and Dedee unclutched everything and ran across
her bed and into her mother's arms. Mattie held her tight,
but the little girl was shaking, and the tears quickly
stained her night shirt. What's the matter, Mattie asked, what's
going on, Deedy. Deedy pointed again, and this time Mattie
could follow her finger. It wasn't the wall, but the
vents at the top of the wall near the ceiling.
It was a standard ac vent and there was nothing
there as she could see. There's a man in there.
Dede screamed. He whispered, Mommy, he whispered. Mattie held her
daughter on the edge of the bed and rocked her
the way she had when she was an infant. Shh,
she said, her eyes going to the vent again and
again nothing there that she could see. The whole vent
beyond the grate would be very small anyway. Dede finally
calmed down and was just sniffling. Now, can I come
sleep with you? Her little girl had already been through
that phase, and Maddie almost said no, but her daughter's
expression was too much for her to resist. Of course
you can, baby, I just think you had a nightmare.
What was the man whispering? He said he had something
to show me, Deete said, sussing about a face. Maddie frowned.
Well that was weird and not exactly what she thought
she might hear. Okay, well, we can talk more about
it in the morning, Mattie said, wiping hair out of
her daughter's face and then kissing her forehead. Come on,
come sleep in my bed to night. Okay. Mattie carried
Dee Dee to her bedroom, tucked them both in, and
Dedie fell asleep on her chest. Mattie continued gently stroking
her hair, but she kept staring at the ceiling a
whispering man. That was a new one. Dede had had
an aversion to the dark, hence her night light in
her room. She also disliked thunderstorms, and at one time
believed something was hiding under her bed. She had overcome
all those fears one by one, so this was surprising
and a new topic. It took a while, but eventually
Maddie dozed off. Her dreams troubled, things got back to
normal for a while. Dede was quiet the next morning
and agreed that it was probably a bad dream. Although
she seemed tired and her eyes looked heavy during breakfast.
By the time she was at daycare, it seemed like
all was well. She ran to the playground and was
as energetic as ever. If only I had the stamina
and energy of a three year old, Maddie thought, and
things were normal for a few days. Then suddenly, on
a random Friday, Deete started screaming again. Mattie had a
harder time climbing out of her dream because her dream
absorbed the scream, and when she finally did wake up,
the world was blurry and she was groggy. When she
got out of bed, she staggered her feet, not getting
the message she was awake, Mommy, I'm coming, I'm coming.
She got moving now and was there as quickly as
she could, and Dede was once again, clinging to her
rabbit and the blanket and pointing to the wall. Her
eyes were wide with terror and tears flowed from her face.
He's back, the man, the man. Maddie gathered Dede up
in her arms again and looked at the vent once again,
there was nothing out of the ordinary. Did he whisper again?
Dede just nodded. I saw his eyes, You saw his
eyes wear at the vent? Dede nodded again. Yeah. Maddie
frowned again. The nature of the nightmare was strange. This
wasn't a boogeyman under the bed or ghosts in the closet.
Do you want mommy to check? Dede nodded, Be careful,
he's mean. Maddie gently disengaged from Dede and walked across
the room. Although she knew this was crazy, she couldn't
help but feel dread as she padded across the thick
carpeting to stand just below the vent. She peered up
at it, unable to see directly in, and couldn't see anything,
but there was a weird feeling inside of her. She
stood on her tiptoes and tried to peer in, but
the vent was still above her, and for just a moment,
a fraction of a second, she thought she heard something breathing. Maybe.
Then the ac kicked on and cool air blew into
her face, and she laughed at herself. I don't see anything, sweety,
Mattie said, if he was in there, he's gone. She
turned around to look at her daughter, and Dedie's big
eyes and even bigger tears and frightened face melted her heart.
She had errands to run and could sleep in a bit,
so come on, come sleep in my room, she said.
Dede jumped out of bed and took her hand, and
they were soon asleep under the covers. Mattie once again
had a harder time falling asleep, and at one point
she was sure she heard something walking around in the house.
She managed to convince herself it was all in her mind,
just the house settling, and eventually sleep took her once again.
Things went back to normal for two days. On the third,
about three in the morning, Deete just ran into her
mother's bedroom, screaming the entire way. Mattie woke up slightly irritated.
Now there are times when a parent has just about
enough of their kids. You love them, of course, but
every human being has their breaking point. Mattie had not
been sleeping well, even on the nights Dede had been sleeping. Dede,
stop screaming, she said, a little too harshly. As she
woke up, Dede looked as if she had been slapped.
She stopped dead, the look of terror on her face
and eyes wide. I'm sorry, mommy, Deete slipping into that
baby talk made her worried. She was always ahead of
the curve on her speech, including using contractions. Mattie scolded
herself as she sat up and hugged her daughter. No, baby,
I'm sorry. I shouldn't have snapped. You just scared me too.
Forgive me. Uh huh? Was it the man again? Uh? Huh?
Did you see his eyes in the vent again? Nuh uh?
Mattie's eyes widened slightly. What did you see? Was he
still whispering? I saw his face now? Mattie pulled Dede
away from her chest to look in her eyes. Dedie,
how did you see his face? He pushed his face
out of the thing, Deetee said, pointing to the corresponding
vent in Maddie's room. Mommy, it wears a face. Maddie
was now totally confused. It and what do you mean?
I don't think it's a man, Dede said, her voice earnest,
that spooky way she had of speaking more like a
woman in her twenties or thirties than someone too young
for kindergarten. It where's a face. It has a face,
but it doesn't belong to it, like a mask. Maddie asked,
like Halloween. Deanie nodded, kinda, but it's real, just not
its own face. Mattie had no idea what her daughter meant,
but it scared her anyway. She picked Dede up and
put her in bed and made sure she was snug. Eventually,
despite the terror and the tears, she fell asleep. Mattie
got out of bed and walked to her daughter's room.
She turned on the light but saw nothing. She once
again patted over to the vent, and this time she
grabbed one of the small chairs her daughter had for
a tiny desk she loved to use for drawing. Now
she was face to face with the vent, and she
stood on her tiptoes once again and peered into the vent.
She saw only darkness. A soft breeze blew Mattie's hair
back a bit, turning her head. She put her ear
by the vent and heard the air from the air conditioner,
and then she heard a very slight sound that to
her resembled a kind of sigh, or perhaps a grunt
of effort, like someone trying to do something that caused
them strain. It was soft, and just for a mere
fraction of a fraction of a second. Mattie pulled back,
but quickly lost her balance on the tiny chair. The
chair tipped over and she tumbled back, hitting the backs
of her knees against Dede's bed, and she fell on it.
She slapped her hand on her mouth so she didn't
cry out, and then her eyes once again cast up
to the vent. Eyes looked back at her, and she
nearly screamed again. Then she blinked and the image was gone.
Mattie rubbed the back of her legs, and when she
was able, she ran out of the room, closed the
door behind her, and climbed back into her own bed.
Deete stirred but did not wake up, the blankets up
to her chin and held her daughter. Everything is okay,
she whispered, and it was more for herself than her daughter.
Everything is okay. Deete slept for the next two nights
in Mattie's room, and she did not complain. Mattie was
having trouble sleeping now. One night, she thought she heard
something coming from her daughter's room, and then what sounded
like footsteps across the floor. For a moment, her eyes
barely open, she thought she saw a white face peeking
around the edge of the door to her own room.
She shut her eyes and counted to ten, and when
she opened them wide, there was nothing. Sleep paralysis, she
told herself. Eventually, Dede did head back into her room,
but the atmosphere within the house changed. Mattie was irritable,
and she snapped more than once than had to cradle
her child in her arms and soothe her. She also said,
snapped at work and had you apologize. Strange images of
creatures with huge things and people hiding behind masks of
human flesh filled her dreams. Finally, Mattie told Dedi she
should sleep in her own bed. Her daughter began to
cry and wail and carry on, and after days of
not sleeping, Maddie had had about enough. You need to
be a big girl and sleep in your own bed,
she barked. You can't let nightmares cause you to sleep
your entire life in bed with your mother. They are
not nightmares. Dedie screamed, there's a thing. It wears a face.
Stop saying that. Mattie said, you have to stop. Dedie
began to cry, and Maddie was too tired to listen.
She picked her up, and she increased her volume and
began kicking. Mattie took her daughter into her bedroom and
put her in the bed. Stay and hear. Mattie said,
if you close your her eyes and relax, you'll go
to sleep. Mom Mommy, stop it. Maddie yelled, her head pounding.
Dede stopped screaming and just cried silently, her eyes wide
like something out of the Japanese anime film. Maddie instantly
felt bad for what she did for yelling, and her
heart broke. Despite her abilities that made her seem older,
even Maddie sometimes forgot, Dedie was just a toddler. Basically
she was young. I'm sorry, Maddie said, I'm sorry, baby, Please,
I just haven't slept and mommy has such a headache.
Can you at least try please. Dedee nodded, but the
hurt on her face was too intense, and Maddie still
felt like the wicked witch. She climbed under her blankets
and grabbed her bunny and turned away from Mattie, and
she felt her heart break yet again. She realized she
had betrayed her baby's trusted her, maybe for the first time,
and she wanted to sit down and wail as well. Instead,
she stayed in Deetie's room until the little girl was
sleeping soundly, her chest rising and falling, soft snores emerging
from her side of the bed. Then Mattie patted down
the hall and climbed into her own bed. She felt
the guilt would overwhelm her and she'd never sleep, but
to her surprise, she fell right down into darkness and
dreams until three in the morning. On the dot, there
was a scream from Deetie's room. Not crying, she did
not call Mattie's name or cry for her mommy. There
was a scream. It was short cut off, and Mattie
was awake, but her brain still hazy. Had she dreamed it? Deetie?
She called out, There was nothing. Mattie swung her legs
over the sand the bed. She stood up and felt
dizzy for a moment. When she was steady, she walked
to her door and peeped her head out into the hallway.
Had she heard something then, yes, soft something coming from
Deetie's room. Deedy, She called out, are you okay? As
she neared her daughter's room, she realized what it was.
Deete was crying. The lump under the blankets faced the wall.
The covers pulled up, and the bunny barely visible over
her shoulder. She was sobbing. Mattie entered the room and
a foul smell hit her, coppery but also sort of
rotten deedy. What happened, Mattie asked. She continued to sob
Mattie walked to her daughter's bed and climbed into it.
She reached out to touch her daughter's shoulder. It was wet.
What the hell? Mattie pulled her hand back and put
it up in front of her face. Her hand was red.
Mattie whipped her head around and now the sound coming
from the form she thought was her daughter was not sobbing. No, no,
it was laughing, terrible, horrible laughing that was far from human.
The figure moved, got longer, extended its legs, and turned
toward Mattie. When its head finally came around so we
can look Maddie in the eye, she felt her sanity
slip within her mind, slip and then fall away. It
wore a face, her daughter's face. Blood covered the creature,
and its face oozed at the edges. Dedie's face was
too small, so the features were all stretched. It was
held on via straps that Maddie thought might have been leather. Mommy, Mommy, mommy.
The thing wearing her daughter's face screamed and then shrieked.
Its mouth opened, and dozens of sharp teeth several rows
showed within a mouth that just kept getting bigger and bigger.
Mattie screamed. She screamed and screamed and screamed. Then she
saw the pile of bloody parts tucked into the corner
beside the bed, and her screams managed to find a
new pitch, and still the thing wearing her daughter's face
kept laughing. No one breathed. Everyone was hooked on Denis's story.
He still sat on the stone, but he had somehow
conveyed everything with his hands. When the neighbors heard her
screaming and called the police, she was still in Deedie's room, screaming.
Her vocal cords had burst ages ago, so the scream
was little more than a harsh whisper. She had gone
completely insane, unable to speak. The creature wearing her d's
face was gone, but there was a pile of severed
limbs next to the bed and her daughter's head, but
missing its face. The police detective said he had never
seen anything like it. Mattie just stared, her face and
hands covered in blood, and to this day she resides
in a hospital for the criminally insane. Dennis paused again.
The eyes bore into him. They say, if you listen
closely to one of those events, you might just hear it.
Hear it whispering telling you it wants to show you
its face because it needs a new one. Another pause,
and just maybe, he said quietly. Then he leaped to
his feet. It might be yours. The kids screamed, a
few of the older ones screamed too, Then they all laughed.
Dennis simply bowed to indicate he was done, and first
one camper started to clap, and then the rest. Eventually
they were all clapping and roaring and stood on their feet, cheering,
but all of them looking over their shoulders. Dennis had
done it again. There were other stories, but no one,
as predicted, matched Dennis's story, And when the campfire session
broke up another Friday, the thirteenth was in the books,
they all headed back to their dorms. They made spooky
sounds and laughed, Good one, Dennis, great job man. Dennis
nodded and smiled and headed back to his cabin. He
smiled as he closed the door, turned on the light,
and got ready for bed. In the bathroom, he stared
at himself in the mirror. Slowly a smile formed. It
spread wider and wider and wider, until it filled his face,
which shifted. Dennis reached down and carefully removed the skin
he had been wearing for a while. Now, the face
beyond would have driven anyone mad, like it had done
with Mattie. Dennis, although his real name was ancient and
long since forgotten, began to laugh. He showed his many
teeth and tilted his head back and laughed and laughed.
So many people here, so many faces,