Chapter 2
Elias lasted twenty-three minutes.
For the first ten, he genuinely meant to throw the tape away.
He and Clara finished covering Rusty’s grave, packed the loose soil down as best they could, and stood there longer than either of them needed to. By the time they went inside, the light outside had thinned to a dirty gray, and the house had taken on that evening chill they still hadn't figured out how to fix. The heating worked perfectly well everywhere except the living room, where the old windows leaked enough cold air to make Clara complain about their electricity bill at least twice a week.
The VHS came inside with him.
He didn't announce that part.
He left it on the kitchen counter while he washed his hands, watching ribbons of brown water circle the drain. Clara disappeared upstairs to shower, and for a while he busied himself with ordinary things. He put the shovel away. He changed his jeans. He rinsed Rusty's empty water bowl before realizing there was no reason to fill it again.
That nearly sent him back upstairs.
Instead, he made coffee neither of them needed.
And eventually found himself standing in front of the cassette again.
Please don't make my mistake.
The scratched words were much harder to see indoors. Under the kitchen light they almost disappeared among the scuffs in the plastic, which somehow made them worse. He ran his thumb across the letters and wondered what kind of person went through the trouble of carving a warning into a VHS before burying it.
Someone frightened.
Or someone with a flair for theatrics.
He preferred the second explanation.
“Elias.”
He nearly dropped it.
Clara stood in the doorway with damp hair and a towel draped around her shoulders.
Her eyes moved from him to the cassette. “You brought it inside.”
“I was going to clean it before throwing it away.”
She stared at the coffee mug beside him, then at the cloth and cotton swabs he'd apparently gathered for his completely spontaneous cleaning operation.
“Obviously.”
He smiled, laughing awkwardly. She didn't.
“Please don't watch it.” Something in her voice made him stop.
This wasn't Clara refusing to watch one of the horror movies he liked. There was no teasing disgust, no eye roll. She looked tired, mostly, but underneath that was something he couldn't quite place.
He set the cassette down. “Okay.”
She studied him for a second. “Okay?”
“Okay.”
“That was suspiciously easy.”
“My dog died today. I don't particularly feel like fighting with my girlfriend over garbage I dug out of the yard.”
That softened her.
She came over and rested her forehead briefly against his shoulder. “I'm sorry.”
“Stop apologizing.”
“You first.”
He kissed the top of her head.
They ordered Chinese food and ate half of it in front of a sitcom neither of them followed.
Clara fell asleep against him sometime before ten, her feet tucked underneath his thigh for warmth. Elias stayed there until the credits rolled, unwilling to move her.
It was almost eleven when he carried the empty cartons into the kitchen.
The tape was still on the counter.
He looked at it. Then kept walking. He made it three steps.
“Five minutes,” he muttered.
It sounded pathetic even to him. The house had come with an old VCR.
That was the ridiculous part.
They'd found it in a cabinet beneath the television when they moved in, along with tangled cables, two dead remote controls and a stack of coasters from restaurants that no longer existed. Elias had wanted to throw the whole lot away. Clara had convinced him to keep it because, according to her, old technology always became valuable eventually.
Now he crouched in front of the cabinet and pulled it open. The VCR was still there.
Of course it was.
He glanced toward Clara. Still asleep.
Five minutes.
He cleaned the cassette more carefully than necessary before sliding it into the machine.
The VCR swallowed it. Nothing happened.
Elias waited.
The television remained black.
He almost laughed. “Well, there you go.”
He reached for the eject button.
The television flickered. Static filled the screen.
The sudden hiss made Clara jerk awake. “What the—”
Her eyes found the television. Then Elias. “Oh, you asshole.”
“I was literally about to eject it.”
“You said you wouldn't watch it.”
“Technically, nothing's playing.”
“Elias.”
“Okay. Fair.”
The static disappeared.
A room appeared through the telivision.
Elias forgot about the argument.
It was difficult to tell where the recording had been made. The image was colorless and badly degraded, horizontal lines crawling through it every few seconds. A bare wall occupied most of the background. There was no furniture except a wooden chair positioned directly in the center.
A man sat on it.
He appeared to be somewhere in his forties or fifties, although the quality made guessing difficult. His head was completely bald. He wore a plain shirt buttoned almost to the throat, and his hands rested flat against his thighs.
He wasn't tied down.
At least Elias couldn't see anything restraining him.
He simply sat there.
Clara shifted closer. “Is that it?”
“I guess.”
The timestamp in the corner read 00:00:17. Eighteen. Nineteen.
The man didn't move.
By forty seconds, Elias had begun wondering whether the image had frozen.
Then the man blinked.
Clara saw it too.
Her fingers tightened around Elias's arm. “Turn it off.”
“Why?”
“I don't like this.”
“He's sitting in a chair.”
“Exactly.”
Elias looked at her.
She shook her head, unable or unwilling to explain.
He returned his attention to the television.
The man was still staring somewhere slightly below the camera. There was something odd about his posture that Elias hadn't noticed before. His shoulders were pulled rigidly backward, his fingers spread unnaturally straight against his legs.
Not relaxed. Held.
A minute passed. Then two. Nothing.
Elias reached for the remote.
“Okay. You've successfully won the argument. This is incredibly boring.”
The man's eyes moved. Not his head. Only his eyes.
They lifted slowly until they were looking directly into the camera.
Elias stopped. Clara whispered his name.
A tear slipped from the man's left eye. It traveled down his cheek.
His expression never changed.
Elias felt something cold settle in his stomach.
“Turn it off.”
This time Clara didn't need to ask twice. He pressed Stop.
The screen went black.
Neither spoke. After several seconds, Clara stood. “Take it out.”
“Yeah.”
“Elias.”
“I'm doing it.”
He pressed Eject. Nothing happened. He tried again.
The VCR gave a mechanical click but didn't release the cassette.
“Probably jammed.”
“Then unplug it.”
He reached behind the cabinet and pulled the plug.
The red display vanished.
For half a second, Elias felt foolish.
Then something clicked inside the dead VCR.
The reels began turning. Slowly.
Clara heard it. Her face changed. “Elias.”
“I know.”
“You unplugged it.”
“I know.”
The television switched on. Neither of them had touched it.
Static flashed briefly across the screen before the room returned.
The chair was empty.
Elias stared at it. “No.”
The timestamp continued counting. 03:47. 03:48. 03:49.
The camera shifted.
Not abruptly. Slowly, almost carefully, as though someone had picked it up.
It moved through a doorway into a narrow hall.
Elias felt Clara's nails dig into his wrist. Because they knew that hallway. They had spent three months repainting it.
The camera passed the stain near the baseboard they couldn't remove. It passed the framed photograph Clara's sister had given them. It passed the narrow table where Elias dumped his keys every evening.
Their hallway. Their house.
“This isn't funny,” Clara whispered.
Elias couldn't answer.
The footage turned toward the staircase.
Something stood at the top. A person. He looked tall, broad and he remained motionless. The face was covered by a pale mask.
The features had been molded into the swollen proportions of an infant, except the mouth sagged downward in a grotesque imitation of crying. Dark streaks ran from both eyeholes like dried tears.
The figure tilted its head.
The television speakers crackled.
A voice emerged. Thin. Distorted. “Where... is... he?”
Clara grabbed Elias's arm. “Call the police.”
The figure took one step down. “Where... is... he?”
Elias already had his phone out.
The emergency operator answered almost immediately. “911. What's your emergency?”
Elias struggled to make his thoughts sound sane. “Someone's in our house.”
Clara stared toward the real staircase.
Nothing was there.
“Sir, are you in a safe location?”
“I don't know. We saw someone upstairs.”
“Can you leave the residence?*
Elias looked toward the front door.
On the television, the masked figure descended another stair.
“Yes.”
“Then I need you and anyone else inside to exit immediately. Do not approach the intruder.”
Clara grabbed her coat. Elias stood.
The figure reached the bottom of the televised staircase.
“Where... is... he?”
The dispatcher went silent.
Elias pressed the phone tighter against his ear. “Hello?”
Static whispered through the line.
“Ma'am?”
No answer.
Then the masked figure on the television stopped moving.
Its head turned toward the camera.
The dispatcher inhaled.
When she spoke again, her voice was slower. Wrong.
“Where…”
Elias froze. The figure on the screen leaned closer.
The same voice came from the television and the phone at exactly the same time.
“...is…”
Clara stared at him. Elias couldn't breathe.
“...he?”