The Siss

The Siss.
I am not one for the paranormal. The strange and unexplained can always be debunked if given a little rational thought, and whilst I enjoy a convincing story, its always just that... another story.

What I am about to share with you however, will certainly enter the realms of the strange and unexplained. I can find no rational reasons as to how or why these events have occurred, nor do I expect to find any in the days to come. That scares me. I apologise in advance for the length of this, but I feel I must not leave out any details.

I have spent most of my childhood in a town called Malvern. It is a quaint and quiet place full of green rolling hills, yawning open fields, deep dark nights and blankets of glinting stars. A beautiful place to grow up in the English countryside. We have our fair share of local tales in which we would discuss our latest concocted horror stories, designed to scare and excite those of us engaged in the usual teenage activities. I remember many nights in which I would scramble through the country, back to my house in a drunken and smoky haze, paranoia happily rooted in my brain as I dreamt up all the supposed ways in which I might meet my demise. Despite now being older and more sensible and having moved to the bustling city of Bristol, those thoughts are back.

I’ve tried to recall all these events to the best of my ability and log which days they were.

21/07/2001

Radio. It was fantastic. A constant stream of music in which I needed to present no control over, songs would change of their own free will, only to be mildly interrupted for the occasional chatter by the resident DJ. When I was younger it played a very important role in my life, introducing me to a vast array of songs that would ultimately shape the course of my future (more than I should have hoped). My favourite station was a small local one called Soul Funktion FM, the DJ would often play all the Funk, Soul and Disco classics that had missed out on being popular when my parents were young. I’d often tape the station and bring the cassettes to school, one in particular being my most favourite. I still listen to it today.

I bring this up because one day the station made the news. The local DJ had been found dead near his cabin. The police were treating it not as a suspicious death, but rather a strange suicide. It had become apparent that the poor fellow had been slowly losing it. People had logged odd activities of his, disputes with neighbours. When I thought about it, I too had noticed a few odd things whilst listening to his station. I could recall garbled muttering at brief periods that I’d passed off merely as nothing and long pauses of silence when songs should have been played. Nothing stand out shocking, but simply slightly queer.

Now while this might not seem so strange and frightening, it is incredibly relevant as to the rest of the story. How? I’m not entirely sure yet. But I am determined to find out over the next few days.

13/11/14

A few months back I was with my friends playing football. It was winter, so while it was still fairly early the dark had been drawing in around us. Of course, this didn’t matter one bit as the pitch was illuminated by the floodlights, so we could see without any trouble. Almost everyone had deserted the park by now except us, best not to hang around in a dark city park, as everyone knows. There appeared to be one individual that had caught my friend Connors eye on the outskirts of the gloom however. Making a joke of how we now had a fan he pointed them out to us. The individual had been stood unnoticed and silent, watching us for the best part of half an hour before I realised that they weren’t actually watching. Instead they were in fact facing the other way,  with their backs to us, staring out in to nothing. By the time we came to leave the person had left and I thought nothing more of it. That was until a few weeks ago.

04/02/15

Walking back from the shops I decided to take a short cut. It was the middle of the day so I decided to risk taking the route that went through the back alleys. About half way through the journey I came across a figure up ahead, making my mind instantly uneasy. As I drew closer I realised why. It was the shape of a man, one that was quite hard to make out, but also one that was somewhat familiar. It was the person from the park. They were to the far left of the alley, stood under a door arch that created a hard shadow across them from the glaring sun above. I was wearing sunglasses which seemed to make it even darker still. I stole a quick glance at them. It was hard to determine their build as they wore a large black tattered coat that covered most of the body, save for his bald head and dirty bare feet. Stranger still was that they were facing away from me, staring intently on the barred and graffiti scribbled door, seemingly taking no notice of my passing. The face was obscured by his large collar and I picked up my pace, hurrying home as fast as I could.

It wasn’t until I was with my friends that night relaxing that I decided to regale my brief and bemusing story. To my surprise I wasn’t alone in seeing this strange man around the city. Others told me that they too had seen a strange fellow, presumably a crazy homeless man, staring at walls on his lonesome. It became apparent that none of us had seen his face. Why was he always looking at nothing? We ended up laughing it off and deciding there were a lot of strange people around nowadays, suggesting that Jay would be one too if he kept smoking DMT, watching him load up his pipe and pass it around the room. Still, it had me thinking that night in bed... Who was he?

05/02/15

The next night our suggestion started to become a reality. It was the weekend and a few of us were listening to one of my Disco recordings and getting high on trips, remarking on how great the music sounded and what great taste the DJ must have had. It was at this point that Jay took a big hit on his pipe, sat opposite me staring out the room and in to whatever magical reality he could now perceive. Suddenly he started to get very agitated. His body started thrashing wildly and his stare stayed fixed in position. We worried that he might be having some kind of bad reaction and were about to call for an ambulance, before he came back to reality and the DMT wore off. His face was pale and his eyes watered as he broke his glance away from out of the door and back to me. I’ll never forget his next words.

“His face” he gasped.

A few hours later we managed to discern that Jay thought he had seen the homeless man in our hallway, only he had turned around to stare at him. When we questioned him about his face he could give us no answer, he could not remember. We decided that this was a perfectly reasonable reaction considering the discussions we had been having recently and the dose of the trip. Not to mention we were also tripping and trying to stay on the positive side of things. Later as we left our local club, the Black Swan, we headed back home after a hard night of partying. We were looking forward to bed and resting our aching body and tired minds. Jay was back to his usual self and complaining of tinnitus on the walk home, probably from standing next to a heavy dub rig all night.

We put on my favourite mix and wound down the night, most of us asleep by the time the mix reached its usual 4 minute pause, before it jumped back in to Cool And The Gang. It was at this point Jay complained that the speakers had become unplugged, making their familiar hissing sound. I remember him going to plug them back in, only to find that they were in. Looking at my laptop I knew there were still a few minutes of silence left. I told him he should sleep, turning off the music and noticing his nosebleed as he turned back to face me. He was becoming a nuisance and getting to be quite the handful. More so than usual. How little I knew.

12/02/15

One week later we met for a kick around in Eastville park, a few beers and to listen to some music in the warm weather. And there he was. He was stood next to the edge of the park, staring in to the trees behind with his back to us. Jay was the first to spot him and quite rightly freaked out, covering his ears and looking to the floor. I won’t lie, we were all a little spooked by him now and hoped he’d wander off and leave us in peace. After a good ten minutes of discussing him we found out that a few of our other friends had spotted him lately and still, he stayed right where he was, perfectly still.

It was at this point Mike got frustrated. He stood up, declared that he was going to go talk to the man and find out what he was doing, so he strode away. As he approached the man we all went quiet, eager to see whether it would escalate in to a conflict and if we’d be needed to rush over and intervene. Mike could be seen arriving at the man, who was still stood in place, and judging from his hand gestures began talking rather wildly. He reached out to grab the man, but just before doing so the man turned to face him. Mikes body slightly obscured our view but we could see that Mike had calmed down from his lack of gestures and likewise stillness. A moment later the man turned back around and walked away, head bowed low, leaving Mike stood still looking like he was his double. When he finally decided to turn around and come back we asked him what the man had said.

“Nothing” he told us.

“Well what did he look like” I asked.

“I don’t remember” he answered bluntly. And that was that.

We didn’t see the homeless man for a while afterwards. We had other pressing matters to attend to. Jay had started to lose his head a bit and we were all concerned for his well being. It was clear that he hadn’t been sleeping much and he complained of headaches and a ringing in his ears. To make matters worse his sleep deprivation was starting to make him hallucinate both visually (he’d often get flashbacks) and musically. He’d complain that sometimes he could hear things in the ringing and would always be looking over his shoulder. The doctors prescribed him medicine. As usual he overdid it, abusing the opiates and becoming a zombie of the group. Sometimes he would sit with us and black out, finding it hard to recall what it was that he was doing. Not that he’d ever really be doing much anyway. I wasn’t sure if I preferred the agitated Jay or the mindless Jay more.

16/02/15

It wasn’t until I got a call from the police asking me to come and pick up my friend that things got noticeably weirder. I was told that they had found Jay in a nearby wood. He had injured his hands breaking a shop window and presumably run away before blacking out from overdosing and being picked up by the police. The remains of a fox were with him, although it was said that an animal had killed it and dismissed as evidence. Jay was insistent that he hadn’t done anything wrong and profusely accused me and the police for not listening to him. He told me that he had proof, in a state of paranoia he now recorded his life on a phone, pleading for me to listen to what it was that he had captured.

I have the recording. It features Jay mumbling to himself as he plodded along the street and then going quiet. I told him the same as the police had, that it proved nothing. He urged me to listen again, confused as to why I could not hear whatever proof it was he thought he had captured. I reiterated that there was nothing on it other than the sound of his walking, stopping and starting. Leaving him with his parents back in Malvern I returned, stressed and worried for my friend.

18/02/15

Two days afterwards I received a call from his parents. Jay was in hospital and in a bad way. He had returned to Bristol on his own and gone back to the same spot in which the police had picked him up earlier. A dog walker had heard his cries for help and found him lying on the floor, passed out from shock. I went to visit him the following evening and was appalled by what I saw. Jay had lost the lower part of his arm and the remaining stump was bandaged up. He was lucky to be alive. He looked gaunt and fragile and rather lifeless behind the eyes. Pressing him for details he could tell me nothing, he could not recall a thing. Another black out. His story made the paper the next day, they called him dangerous and described the event as the work of a crazy man, thanking that nobody else was hurt. Apparently he had burgled the shop from earlier, hiding a hand saw out in the woods and upon returning, proceeded to saw through his flesh and cut his own arm off. The arm has not been found.

Understandably worried, his parents confronted me at the hospital and asked me what had been going on with their son, to which I decided to tell them the truth. They deserved it. I told them how he had been overdoing it a little with the partying lifestyle and how we had all been concerned before his health started to decline. I explained that the doctor had prescribed medication and that Jays addictive personality had led to him abusing that too, often causing black outs. My experience with opiates had often resulted in the same thing. His parents knew he was hooked on drugs and told me that they had purposefully removed them from him on his return home. This had me intrigued, he couldn’t remember the event. How could he have blacked out if he had not taken anything? Further to this they told me that he had been locked in his room, admitting to their despair in looking after him, waiting for him to be sectioned or recover on his own. How had he got out in such a state?

19/02/15

Distressed I returned home to friends and broke the news. Expectedly, everyone was greatly upset. It had been a long time coming but nobody had anticipated anything quite like this. We puzzled over the events that had lead to this as I suddenly realised the recording that Jay had shown me. I decided that someone else might have a better idea of what to make of it. Playing the recording out to the room we all sat in silence, listening intently for any clues that we might find. I played it several times over. At the end of the last play through I leant back.

“It was at least worth a try” I exclaimed

I couldn’t find anything odd about it. All but one of us agreed. Mike declared we were all deaf and that we should listen more carefully, could we not hear the static noise growing louder and louder? He grew increasingly impatient as we all told him there was nothing to be heard. I turned the volume up, only to hear more silence. That was when Mike got a nosebleed and had to leave the room due to his dizzy state. It was then I noticed the dark rings around his eyes and asked him if he was ill. He hadn’t been sleeping, he told me that he had an ear infection but that the damned doctor wouldn’t prescribe him anything.

Having seen similar problems in Jay my concerns grew for Mike. Out of curiosity I asked him to listen to the old mix I had recorded long ago. It played out to the middle part where the 4 minute silence began, only Mike contended this, stating that it wasn’t silence. Seeing that he was being examined by me and starting to look a little crazy he left abruptly.

I was completely caught up in this strange phenomenon and decided to google in to the death of the DJ from those years past. The cabin had been discovered with the remains of dead sheep in it. It looked like an animal had mauled them, but there were no records of the man owning a dog. It turns out he had committed suicide in there by taking a bread knife to his own ankles and proceeding to cut his own feet off. He had then crawled out of his cabin and half way across a field before dying of blood loss, he was found the next day. There was no sign of a struggle and the knife was confirmed as his own. The feet were never found.

20/02/15

The incident sounded all too familiar. I am now worried for Mikes safety. I am frightened for the safety of others. I am disturbed by the actions Jay has committed. I am tormented by the past events I uncovered. I am fearful of what else I may find.

I am now only lead to presume that the homeless man is in some way connected to all this. Mike and Jay are the only people to have seen him properly. Did he say something to them? Did he say something to the DJ years before?

If anyone else has seen this man or heard similar stories, please get in touch with me. I will continue to search for answers and will update this post when I am able to do so. I must get to the bottom of this!

--UPDATE--22/02/15--

I was passing through the park today and noticed a poster asking for information on a stranger who had been hanging around nearby. Apparently several dogs have gone missing and he is wanted in connection. After asking around some kids told me that they had seen him on the edge of the park, maybe he was living in those trees? A few other homeless are known to sleep there. I ventured in and there are certainly places that have been slept in, nobody was around however. What I did find was more disturbing though. Several animal bodies had been  strewn around further inside in a sickening manner, this explains where the missing dogs have disappeared to.

--UPDATE--23/02/15--

The first thing I did this morning was notify the police as to the missing dogs whereabouts. I said I had more information than I actually do, they have asked me to come down to the station in a few days and look at some CCTV to help identify the suspect. Hopefully I’ll be able to catch a glimpse of the homeless man.

I’ve also found an interesting story on Google. A man from my home town was arrested on January 1st last year. Apparently he was accused of killing the neighbours cat and his wife called the police, worried by his apparent attempts at self harm. They decided to let him go as he was suffering from dementia. Two days later the police were called to his house by a concerned neighbour. The man had gone round asking for help and said that his wife could not wake from her chair. He was in a state of confusion. Police found his wife dead at the bottom of the stairs with over 60 injuries. The man himself had bruised hands and deep self inflicted wounds to his upper body. He seemed to have no knowledge of her death and was declared mentally ill.

Several other stories have cropped up in the Midlands area, maybe one every couple of years. Could these be in connection? Why the animals? Why the self inflicted wounds? I’ll look further in to it.

--UPDATE--24/02/15--

Mike rang me. He sounded in a bad way and told me he was starting to forget parts of the day. It’s Freds birthday so I suggested that he come out with us, that way I can keep an eye on him and make sure he doesn’t do anything unusual. We had been out at a busy pub and so far Mike had seem tired, but otherwise OK. It  wasn’t until we were making our way back that it all started to go wrong for us. Mike started to get a headache and was complaining of the noise, so we picked up our pace. As we made our way through the underpass we spotted him. Dressed in black and blocking our path. I told them to run but Mike wouldn’t move. Fred had hold of him and was trying to drag him back when Mike suddenly came to life, grabbing hold of Fred and pinning him to the spot. I noticed the man turning around just in time but could do nothing for them. I closed my eyes, turned and ran. I left them there. I left my friends to whatever he is. I feel awful.

--UPDATE--25/02/15--

I arrived at the police station this morning to look through the CCTV archives. We found several parts where the homeless man was in the picture but he was always looking at the floor or away out of the park. That’s when I remembered the first time we’d seen him. I asked them to find the tapes from 13/11/14 and after a patient wait they showed me what they had. There it was. A still of him, standing tall and proud, right in front of the camera. It was pretty dark but officer Cartwright manipulated it and printed off a zoomed in picture. The homeless man looked about 50, round features, a flat nose and no hair. He looked like a typical thug off of some TV shows I’ve watched, only his eyes seemed to be covered by the dark still. Or else they were the dark.

Stranger still, I noted that my friends had gone missing after our run in with this man. The police looked in to it for me. It turns out that they are at home and not missing at all. Why hadn’t they rang me? They told them that they don’t remember ever being attacked, which made for an awkward conversation with the police. I can’t tell them what’s going on, they’ll think I’m crazy. I don’t even know what’s going on anyway. I’m glad that they are safe and well but I can’t help wonder why? He could have had us.

--UPDATE--28/02/15--

I was listening to my favourite mix whilst I ate my tea. I almost choked on my food. The 4 minute silence isn’t silence at all. It sounds like I have tinnitus, but it happens each time I play it. There’s a high pitched buzz of white noise, almost like a hissing, all the way through and loudest where there was silence. I don’t understand. Why? I can only think that it must have been the image at the police station, it has been my only interaction with him since. I don’t want to go crazy. I can’t go crazy, I’m trying to solve this. I must solve this.

--UPDATE--02/03/15--

I passed through the park today and was horrified to see that face on the information board. The police must have put it up. How many people have looked at that face? How many people have I unknowingly affected? I tore it down and looked for others but it seems to be the only one.

--UPDATE--05/03/15--

This can’t be happening. I’ve been listening to the mix every day. Each day it sounds different, less like white noise. This hissing, it sounds like a voice. I haven’t been outside in days, no interaction with anyone. Occasionally I can hear the sound with no recording or music, it’s my own ears doing it. It’s hardly noticeable. When I’m in bed, fear prevents me from sleeping most the night. This morning I woke up with dried blood on my face, it must have been a nosebleed. Other nights I’m simply searching on the internet the whole time, trying to find out more about what this could be.

I found a story about a man who killed himself through decapitation in Herefordshire. He’d been accused of killing livestock on his own farm. He was out on bail when they found him still lying in a make-shift guillotine. Suicide they said. They never recovered his head.

Well I have. It’s him. It’s the same man. This is the man who has been haunting us all this time. There’s no mistaking his face, its so recognisable. That round bald head with a wide flat nose. Only this time his eyes were distinguishable, small and sunken, a sad pale blue.

--UPDATE--07/03/15--

I had to get out. I went to the shop to buy some provisions, as I’d almost ran out of food. I felt nauseated by what I saw there. Front page of the newspaper was an image of Mike. How had I not heard of this? He’d hung himself from Bristol suspension bridge at low tide where they’d found him sticking out of the mud. The height of the drop had wrenched his head from his body. The police were still looking for the rest, they believe it has been carried further downstream. They said he had been battling with depression. He wasn’t. He’d stopped going outside. So have I. He refused to talk to his friends and shut himself away. It sounded a lot like me. It could’ve been me.

--UPDATE--08/03/15--

I’ve asked Fred and my friend Carla to stay with me. I’m no good on my own, I’m frightened of what may happen to me. To both of us. I think they are pretty worried about us too, but mainly because we must seem to be going crazy. Two webcams have been set up in my room as a security measure. I’ve played the mix to Fred and he agrees it’s definitely not our ears. It’s not a noise, it’s a voice now. I can’t make the words out but Fred tells me he can. It’s asking for help, almost begging persistently.

What’s stranger still is the recording of Jay. The hissing voice is there too. Still I can’t quite make out what it is saying but Fred insists that its almost like a list of commands. That must be it. Jay was telling the truth.

--UPDATE--10/03/15--

We can hear it. The hiss. It’s almost indistinguishable from tinnitus, but its at the same time for us both. Stopping and starting together. I understand why people passed it off as nothing for a long time. It must have been following Fred as I’ve hardly encountered it until now. You can tell it’s nearby from its incessant whining. It must be fairly close.

Carla also found me outside covered in dirt digging earlier.

“That’s twice today” she said. “At least you weren’t talking to yourself this time”.

I told her I don’t remember going outside.

“That’s what you said earlier”.

That’s a lie. I remember the second time. I came to outside, in front of my neighbours dog. Well, what was left of their dog. I promptly began to bury it in the flower bed before Carla found out, I can’t let her think I killed my neighbours dog. I wouldn’t kill their little dog. It killed that little dog. But how did it know it was there? How did it get the dog from inside? With my help?

I know Carla is starting to think that we’re crazy. I saw her texting people. She might be seeking help. I had to steal several minutes away from her just to write this. She just doesn’t seem to understand. She can’t hear. She doesn’t know.

--UPDATE--11/03/15--

We had two visitors today. The first was the neighbour asking if we’d seen their dog. I had, but of course I told them I hadn’t. The second was neighbourhood watch with a letter. Reports had been made of a man in a black coat hanging around the area recently. My heart sank as I thanked them and closed the door. If what I was about to open was that bald empty face staring back at me then the whole neighbourhood was about to fall victim to whatever it was that I had. It wasn’t his face.

It was Jay. There was no mistaking the same figure that had been following us these past few months, but with Jays face. His eyeless face. It wasn’t a great picture, the thing almost looked like it was wearing sunglasses, but I knew better. The rest of the night we spent crying together. I refused to show Carla the image, I can’t let her fall victim to the same fate we have. At the very least I might be able to save someone amongst all this havoc I've wrought.

--UPDATE--12/03/15--

It’s over. The police will be here soon. I called them.

Again, I remember nothing. Waking to the sight of blood was the biggest shock of my life. In it were the bodies of Fred and Carla. I watched the video again and again trying to make sense of it. We’re all in my bedroom sleeping when Fred picks up my pen knife. It’s not even a big knife, I should have moved it out of the house though. It has a small saw blade for cutting twigs off, which he then proceeded to take to his shoulder. The shouting woke both of us up and Carla tried to stop Fred. I just simply stand and watch.

That’s when I watch my own hands grab my friend Carla by the hair and drag her to the desk. The desperation in her voice almost matches the panic in her face. I do it right in front of one of the cameras, her head hits the corner of the desk over and over. She goes limp after the first hit but I don’t stop. In the other camera you can see Fred pick up the knife and resume where he left off, like nothing is even happening, like he does this all the time. The whole while the hiss plays loudly in the background, screaming at Carla in time with myself and praising Fred. It’s messed up. I’m disgusted with myself. I know it wasn’t me but I can’t stop looking at my own hands like I’m to blame.

I could delete the video, try and hide the bodies. Try and get out of this mess. But I won’t. I think the safest place for me will be a prison. I’ll be safer behind thick concrete walls and Iron bars. I explicitly asked for any officer other than Cartwright. Just as well, he’s off duty with some illness. The best I can do now is post this online and hope that someone finds it of interest and can help, while I sit here and wait for them.

I can’t tell you how it came to choose us, only that I’ve inadvertently chosen it many more. I can’t tell you what it is either, or how it travelled distances so quickly and seemingly broke in to houses. I can’t tell you what it will look like, it can change. All I can tell you is that hissing in your ears, that’s it. It’s close.

The police will think I’m dead crazy. You know I’m not. Right?

- Sissop