Camcorder

My name is Henry Goodman. Yes, I am related to John Goodman, the blogger that had a rather unpleasant experience with a file called "1dollar.wav". I am his brother. I am the father of 3 kids and I have a wife whos name is Jenny Goodman. I live in Cincinnati, Ohio. I'm here to tell you about a rather disturbing experience I had involving a used camcorder I got off of e-Bay. It's strange; both me and John's problems happened when we bought something off of e-Bay. Anywho, on with my story.

So, me and my family were planning a vacation, and we wanted to capture our trip on tape, as well as taking some photos. Unfortunately, our video camera was broken, so we would have to either get a new one or just take photos instead. So, I went on e-Bay to see if anybody was selling a camcorder. Well, long story short, I found one, I bid on it, and I won it. A few days later I received a small package which had the camcorder in it. I opened it up and took the camcorder out.

It was your typical camcorder, with the little small screen on it and such. I had some blank Sony camcorder tapes, so I opened up the camcorder to put one inside. To my surprise, however, there was already a tape inside. I assumed it was one that the previous owner forgot to take out (it was a used camcorder). I hoped nothing important was on it, otherwise they'd be pretty upset about losing it. I took the tape out and looked at it. There was a piece of yellow masking tape stuck on the front, labeled with black sharpie: "2006," Just "2006" and nothing else. I decided to play the tape, just to see what was on it. So I put the tape back inside the camcorder and hooked the camcorder up to my TV to watch the tape on the TV. I rewound the tape, but it was already at the beginning. So I did the usual crap to play a tape from your camcorder on the TV.

The tape started with 10 seconds of a blank blue screen. Then it cut to someone filming a school playground on a cloudy day. Kids ran around and played, but whoever was filming seemed to just be interested in one of them; a little girl, probably around 5 years old, with pale skin, brown hair, brown eyes and wearing a yellow coat. Whoever was filming seemed to be following her and watching her play. Sometimes the person filming would talk to the girl, and it was a man's voice. He called the girl, "Alice", and I assumed the person filming was the girl's father. I assumed it must have been some recording of her last day of school or something. So if that was a recording of the camera man's daughter's last day of school, it must have been important to him. I felt bad for him, losing something this precious. But I had little time to ponder that, because suddenly a very loud droning buzzing sound burst from the speakers, scaring the living crap out of me. The scenery had changed: it was now night time, and the school was deserted, except for the girl. All the while that ear-piercing buzz continued to sound from the TV speakers, as I plugged my ears. The girl was turned away from the camera, so I couldn't see her face. She just stood there, motionless. Then she turned to face the camera, and what I saw...well, I didn't see that one coming.

The girl's eyeballs were gone. Just dark, empty sockets where they should have been. There wasn't blood or anything, the eyeballs were literally just gone. Her mouth was drooling some kind of disgusting green slime, and her nose was gone. Not like it was cut off, but just not there. Just plain skin where it should have been. Think of Patrick from Spongebob. You get the idea.

The scene then burst into static. The buzzing noise stopped, but you could hear the sound of knives slicing against flesh, and blood curdling screams. Then the scene returned, and the girl was hung by a swing in a swingset, with several nasty wounds around her body and a bloody knife laying on the ground below her. Her eyeballs were still gone, and her mouth still dripped the weird green slime, and she still had no nose. The tape was silent. No loud buzzing or anything. Just silence as the girl dangled around. Heart pounding so hard it threatened to burst, scared out of my mind because of the sudden buzzing sound and (to a lesser degree) the disturbing footage that accompanied it, I sprinted over to the TV and shut it off. I ejected the tape from the camcorder, shut the camcorder off, and unhooked it from the TV. I took a hammer and smashed the tape to tiny pieces. Breathing heavily, still not sure what the heck just happened, I sat back down on the couch. I just stayed there for a while, staring at the blank TV screen. After I had finally calmed down, Jenny came home from the grocery store. I helped her bring the groceries in. I didn't tell her about the tape, because she'd think I was going insane.

The dream I had that night was not pleasant. I was in a dark hallway. My throat...it felt like someone was repeatedly flicking my Adam's Apple. That loud buzzing from the tape played non-stop. It wasn't coming from any direction. It was just there, in my ears, as if I was wearing headphones and the sound was playing on them. I was scared out of my mind. I wanted desperately to get out, to go home, to be in the comfort of my bed. I tried crying for help, but no matter how hard I tried, no sound would come out. Suddenly I felt the urge to vomit. Not having a bucket or a toilet nearby, I puked on the floor. But instead of puke, I hurled up a small Sony video tape, with masking tape on the front labeled "2006" in black sharpie. Then the tape morphed into a girl - no, not just any girl. It was the girl in the tape. Her eyeballs were gone, her mouth oozed green slime, and she had no nose. She slowly walked down the hallway, and for some reason I followed. All the while that awful buzzing noise kept playing.

She lead me down the hallway, and I realized where I was: I was in an elementary school. Kid's drawings and other art lined the walls. Posters saying "Vote Josh for School President" were everywhere. You get the idea.

She lead me out an open door, and into the playground. It was the very same playground from the tape. And a man was there, holding a camcorder, recording us. But not just any camcorder - it was the very same camcorder that I had gotten off of e-Bay.

He just stood there, recording us. The girl lead me over to a swingset. She pulled a knife out of her pocket. My body then became frozen in place. I couldn't move my eyes. I couldn't move my head. I was forced to watch in horror as the girl sliced herself up with the knife, giving herself the same wounds as in the video, and the buzzing sound stopped, being replaced with the girl's blood curdling screams of agony. Then she put her neck into one of the swings, as if it was a noose. Then the swing pulled up on its own accord, killing the girl.

The girl dangled from the "noose", just like in the video. After a few moments I could move my body again. I sprinted over to the man holding the camcorder. He just looked at me, and smiled.

"That's my girl," he said. "I'm so proud,"

I jolted awake. My heart pounded, my forehead was sweaty, and I was breathing heavily.

Jenny lay next to me, apparently still asleep.

I sat there for a while, and finally calmed down. I lay back down in bed and closed my eyes.

I couldn't fall back to sleep. My tossing and turning finally woke Jenny up, and she got mad and went to sleep on the sofa. She opened the door, but then she froze.

She just stood there, and I could see her hands trembling. I asked her what the matter was.

She just pointed a trembling finger out the door.

I got out of bed and looked where she was pointing. My blood ran cold.

There was a hallway outside the door, going out to the living room, where the TV was. From down the hall, I could see the TV. It was on, and on it was the little girl's face, missing eyeballs and all.

But then I realized that the TV was in a corner of the room I could not see from where I was. My sleep-deprived brain mistook what I saw as the TV. But it wasn't the TV.

It was the window.