My mom calls out for dinner. I shut the LCD monitor to the camera, ashamed. I put the camera down on the carpet, consider taking the tape out, think better of it, but wash my hands anyway. I turn off the lights in my room, arm wrapped around the doorframe to avoid looking into the darkness. I shut the door behind me as I head upstairs to the dining room.
No burnt food this time, but it’s still a disappointment. I frown when Mom shoves a plate of stir-fry in my hands. Cooking used to be her passion. She used to impress me and Brian with Eggplant Parmesan, sautéed tilapia, or cranberry-marinated pork chops before she only had one son to impress. Now we have pasta, tacos, meatloaf and stir-fry on a rotating basis. She spends less time in the kitchen, and we spend more time eating in front of the television. My parents eat on the couch, and I eat on the floor.
We watch the local news. The news anchor asks an old guy questions about the missing children. The old guy doesn’t have any idea what’s going on.
At the commercial break, my dad mutes the television. Without the sound, the commercial’s editing looks manic and illogical. I become hypnotized by the fast cuts.
Dad tells me that mom is going away on a vacation. She’s going to her sister’s, my aunt, who lives over a thousand miles away from Silver Creek.
“How come?” I ask between bites of broccoli. I don’t turn around to face him, but watch him in the reflection of the television. He shifts in his seat. Mom puts her hand on his knee for support. I shovel more vegetables in my mouth.
“Your mother thinks—and I agree—that she needs a little time off,” he says. “Things have been stressful here.” He removes my mother’s hand from his knee. “And you know … .” He trails off, and we all become sidetracked by an over-stylized mattress commercial.
“You guys will be able to have some quality boy time,” my mom says, after the commercial’s finished. “Two bachelors. Party time.” My dad laughs, an over-eager laugh that sounds hysterical.
I poke around at the food on my plate; it has been arranged into some unintentional smiley face. “But school’s just started.” It’s all I can think of to say. Most kids relish the thought of their parents leaving, but Mom has been gone more or less for the past year already. The thought of her physical absence, however, fills me with a nameless dread.
“Yes,” my father says. He watches an advertisement for the new aquarium in our town: Grand Opening soon! “We’ll have fun. Just you and me. Like Mom said: two bachelors. Bachelor pad. Bachelor living.”
It sounds like a threat.
“But, Mom.”
“That aquarium looks fun,” Mom says, distant again. Dad shushes everyone because the news is back on.
I get up and clear my place—clear the floor, I guess—and put my plate in the sink. In the other room, my dad turns the volume of the TV up to, in my opinion, ear-splitting levels. The baritone of the newscaster explodes through our subwoofer. I say goodnight as I head downstairs. They don’t hear me.
The voice of the newscaster follows me downstairs: “Due to recent events, the curfew is still in effect. Sheriff Lancaster has issued an advisory … .”
I lie on my bed and the movie posters in my room watch me toss.
What’s wrong? Suspiria asks.
Yeah, Nightmare on Elm Street 3 says. Your mom gone. It’ll be fun.
It’ll be even easier to sneak out, continues the zombie from Zombie, maggots where its eyes should be. It could open up some time in your busy schedule to get in Ally’s pants.
I try to smile, but that nameless dread comes back.
Toughen up. It’s John Carpenter’s The Thing. What could be the worst that will happen without your mommy?
Jason. The vintage poster of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, its voice distant amidst all the horror chatter. I sit up to hear better.
Someone else is in your room.
Gooseflesh crawls up my arm.
Who left the door open? Who turned on the light?
I should have reached around the doorframe to turn on the lights.
This is not how I left my room when I went to dinner.
My eyes move down from the Caligari poster to the floor beneath it, falling on the video camera. The lens points at me, and the recording indicator light flashes red.
Bingo, says Caligari.
I reach out for the camera, careful. My fingers brush it. The light clicks off and there’s a faint whir that makes me jump back. Just the tape rewinding itself. I fight the urge to run upstairs to my parents. The volume is so loud they probably wouldn’t hear me scream. My lip trembles. I grab the camera, handling it like a dangerous creature.
I flip out the LCD screen and hit the play button, stopping at timecode 00.19.54. The screen flares up.
My real breathing matches the heavy breathing on the soundtrack.
At 00.20.27, I expect the eerie, muffled sound of the wind and then the abrupt stop of the image going black. It doesn’t stop. The scene continues: my brother and Ally keep making out. I’ve never seen this before. Brian keeps copping a feel and Ally doesn’t stop him. They’re lying next to each other—she lets him put his hand up her shirt. The camera zooms in, and he isn’t being gentle with her, pinching and tugging. She writhes. She doesn’t do anything to stop him; she’s lost in the passionate kiss. He climbs on top, straddling her now with both hands up her shirt, violently kneading what’s underneath. Her hips gyrate in the air. Suddenly his shirt and hair are different—spiked up like how I like to wear it. As soon as I notice this, Brian stops making out and looks at me. He gets off Ally and starts walking towards my voyeur spot.
There’s a glitch in the tape and he’s in front of the camera. His face takes up the whole screen.
He’s looking straight through the screen at me.
His eyes are deep black. He cries dark tears.
His teeth are large and sharp.
He shouts something at me, but there’s no noise except the muffled sound of wind.
The camera rises high above him, up over the park, above the rolling mountains surrounding our town, above the graveyard, until finally pointing right at the sun and cutting to static.
The timecode remains at 00.20.28.
The image cuts from the static to the interior of my room. The angle is low and slanted—the original resting place before I picked it up. It’s hard to see because the room’s so dark. Everything looks muted, flat and brown.
Then, from behind the camera, the sound of a door opening. The lights click on. Someone giggles.
Feet step over the camera and stand in front of the lens. They’re bare and filthy, with black dirt caked under the toenails. A pair of jeans comes down and covers the heels, dragging threads from where the cuffs have been stepped on. I can’t see up past the knee, but whoever it is keeps wiggling their filthy toes. Because of the camera angle, I never see above their knees.
The feet move to the bed and then to one of my dressers. I hear the sound of drawers opening and closing and things on top of the dresser being pushed around. The feet go to my bookshelf, and a couple of the books fall on the floor. I look up from the LCD monitor and see the Stephen King books on the floor. The cymbal-banging monkey on the cover of Skeleton Crew stares at me with red eyes. I turn my attention back to the video. The feet step away from the bookcase and hesitate, the toes pointing back at the camera. Finally, as if coming to some sort of conclusion, they turn and walk to my closet. The door opens, the feet go in and the door closes behind them. I still hear muffled giggling behind the closet door. Then static.
The static lasts a couple seconds before clicking back on to the scene when I enter my room. I know how it goes from here. The image cuts to black when I jump back, startled.
I shut the LCD screen, make sure the lens cap is on tight, and place the cursed machine under my bed. While my arm’s under the bed, I probe around for something heavy and blunt, something that can take care of—
That’s right, Caligari says.
Whatever it is, is still in the closet.
All the poster monsters break out into a hellish chorus of laughter.
My hand falls on a baseball bat, a present from my parents a couple years ago as an effort to lure me away from the video camera, which they thought I was spending too much time with. It didn’t work, but right now, at this instant, I’m thankful enough that I would consider trying out for the team if they asked me. The bat has good weight to it, and there are black lightning bolts down the side. Outside my window, the wind blows dead leaves against my window.
Bat raised, I open the closet door.
Nothing.
Only the faint scent of dirt.
And restrained laughter.
I shove the bat into the hanging clothes. Shirts fall off their hangers while I thrash around until I’m swinging at nothing but air. Still reeling from the adrenaline, I reach for the light’s pull-string. I find it and yank so hard that it rips out of the socket and the illuminated bulb dances, throwing shadows that mock my fright.
Shadows. Nothing more. The broken pull-string hangs out of my hand. I unscrew the bulb before closing the door, shutting in the darkness.
I sleep with the light on and a pillow wrapped around my head to block out the overpowering volume from my parents shouting upstairs. It’s also easier to ignore the monstrous posters this way; their terrible laughter lasts long into the night.