Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-29791712-20150525090340

New story for the readers. Hope you enjoy.

I am the type of person to find and pick up any junk worth taking home, so when I found three cases that contained VCR tapes, I didn’t hesitate to bring them home. The saying goes, “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.” I find this to be completely true. It’s always nice to own something new, and to discover whatever old antique you received.

I found the VCR cases while walking home from a diner. I had just eaten with a friend of mine, and after our meals we went our separate ways. I was out of town from my Urban home, and went to the city with my friend. While walking to the bus stop I happened to glance at the dozens of apartment buildings surrounding my vision. I passed by one specific building containing these large concrete steps. Near those steps were three grey rectangle cases. They laid scattered at the edge of the blocky steps. Parts of the case remained chipped at some corners. The scene appeared as if someone or something had just thrown the three cases like useless trash.

My curiosity took the best of me, so I decided to crouch down to check out what it was. I picked up one dusty and abused case, and opened the lid. What spilled out from the case and out of my hands were multiple VCR tapes. They clattered and skipped on the ground below. I took one of the tapes that fell, and searched if there was any description to what it was. At the front of the case had the words written on it, “Tracy: Part 1.” That one sentence sparked numerous questions to roam inside my mind. I checked out the other tapes, and it seemed as if the tapes were a continuation to this “Tracy” movie. There were a total of four tapes, so it meant that the “Tracy” film had four parts.

I organized the four tapes back into their original case, and opened the second case. This time the front of the VCR tape stated, “Angelica: Part 1.” Again, there were four tapes, which meant there were four parts. I closed the lid of the second case, and was immediately hooked. I had to find out what these movies were, and if they were anything entertaining. Maybe if they were birth videos, or some sort of family recording, I can try to contact the owner of those clips. I just preyed and hoped that they weren’t something foul and ridicule like some psychotic couple’s porno experimentation.

With that in mind I departed from the city, and arrived inside my home at around ten in the night. I had been out the whole evening, and was looking forward to spend the night relaxing on my bed with some tortilla chips. I went inside my room, and dropped the three cases on top of my twin sized bed. I spent the whole bus ride home ruminating whether or not I should watch the videos tonight, and decided that I would. It was a Friday afternoon, and I didn’t have anything in my schedule to conclude.

After a quick shower I went to my basement to search for my old VCR player. I hadn’t use it since I was a child when I used to watch recorded episodes of Goosebumps and SpongeBob SquarePants. My basement was polluted with copious amounts of useless junk, and it was a struggle scavenging through all of my old toys. It took me nearly half an hour to finally find my VCR player. When I removed it from a hidden wardrobe I nearly coughed to death. Dust littered the base of the huge box, and I had to control my nose from not entering into a sneezing fit.

I carried the VCR player all the way to my room, hooked it up, and prepared the proper settings to watch the tapes. I grabbed a plate of tortilla chips from my kitchen, and entered my room with a smile across my lips. I had to watch any type of movie with at least my favorite snack. My room was relatively small, which didn’t bother me so much. I had my bed near the corner of my room, and the TV right across from it.

I snatched the case that contained the videos featuring Tracy, and grabbed the first part of the entire film. I inserted the tape inside my VCR player, and waited patiently to begin. Quickly I turned off the lights from my room, and was left with the TV’s glare to be my only light source. I sat on top of my bed with my chips near reach, and watch the TV with my eyes wide.

The movie started. For the first five seconds it showed nothing but a black screen, but then words materialized. It said “Alabama. July 1st, 2013. Tracy: Part 1.” I had no idea what this video had in stored. It seemed to be some type of homemade film, or something near that category. The screen shook near the corners, and emitted off a low screeching sound. For a film made during 2013 it seemed utterly out-of-date. I bore with the old-school material, and waited for the next part to arrive.

The official movie began with a person driving while filming the road. The driver had one hand on the steering wheel, and the other on the camera. Movement occurred while the person was driving, and the driver was somehow able to balance the camera on his or her shoulder. The first fifteen minutes of the film was nothing spectacular. It just showed the person driving going through an endless highway during the day. The driver eventually made a turn, and entered inside an exit. The person ended up near a high school. At the corner of my TV indicated descriptions of the video, like the time and date. It was three thirteen in the afternoon.

The car stopped, and parked itself near the high school. The driver turned off the car, and removed the camera from his or her shoulder. The person placed the camera on top of the dashboard, and had it directly aimed at the entrance of the high school. Nothing out of the ordinary occurred for the first five minutes, but then a lady strolled out of the school. She appeared as a student attending the high school. She had light-brown hair that flowed all the way to the back of her neck. She was wearing a short black skirt that reached her upper thighs, and was accompany with a white crop-top. The lady held two books with her right arm, and walked near the school’s parking lot, which was in front of the high school. There wasn’t much sound during the whole video except for the chirping birds coming outside of the car. As the woman kept on walking deeper into the parking lot I heard a deep murmur coming from the driver. The person’s voice was brusque, and he said under his breath: “There goes Tracy.”

The cameraman zoomed closer to Tracy’s position. The camera caught perfect view of Tracy entering inside a blue car. The screen showed the woman turning on her car, and exiting from the school’s property. Once the vehicle drove onto the street parallel to the high school, the driver zoomed away from her view. The man started his own car, and followed Tracy’s vehicle. The cameraman set the camera right on top of his shoulder once more.

I found the sudden stalker vibe of the recording rather disturbing. My mind always try to find a reasonable solution to anything out of the ordinary. Maybe this man knew the girl named Tracy, and was pulling a wicked prank on her for the fun of it. As the man continued to tailgate Tracy’s car I kept that peaceful thought in mind. For ten minutes the man followed Tracy all the way to her neighborhood. Tracy’s vehicle made a sudden left turn, but the man didn’t followed her. He instead kept on driving until reaching another point where he can make a left turn. The driver went down a hill, and then proceeded to make another left turn. The car passed through a couple of houses until it made a sharp left turn once more. The man parked the car on the corner of one block, and turned off the vehicle. He then left his car while locking it. The cameraman went up the block with the camera still on his shoulder.

He passed by a few more houses until he eventually reached a single white house with Tracy near the entrance door. When the cameraman spotted her, he snuck behind one car with the lens aimed at Tracy. He zoomed in once more at her face, and watched while breathing heavily. Tracy appeared to be talking to another guy who was most likely a local flirt. They kissed and hugged while rubbing against each other. The cameraman kept on breathing through the microphone. I heard his raspy voice coming out from my TV. Eventually Tracy went inside her home, and left the man holding the camera nothing to watch.

For the next half hour the man spent the whole time glaring at the house with his camera. He didn’t separate himself from his position, but instead remained there while looking at Tracy’s house. I fast-forward all the way to the end, and the video ended with the last image being a picture of Tracy in her high school graduation photo.

I removed the VCR tape, and stared at my ceiling with a sense of unease. I had no clue just what the fuck I had just witness. I felt my hands shake with surrealism, and a sense of something ominous. It was a feeling of something dreadful, or a vision of dismay. To put it in simple terms I felt uncomfortable. I questioned whether or not to play the second video, but my curiosity took the best of me. I grabbed a handful of chips from my bowl, picked up the second part of Tracy’s film, and inserted it in the VCR player.

The film started, and it stated that this was part two of the Tracy movie. The video began off with Tracy’s house during the ending of the day. The sun hadn’t completely set itself yet, but it still shone off its red and orange shade. The camera aimed directly inside Tracy’s living room from outside the house. Tracy’s house contained a window that revealed the entire dining and living room if the curtains were open. At that moment they were, and the camera was able to receive a perfect image of Tracy having dinner with her family. It displayed her conversing with her mother and father. It seemed zoomed in on Tracy’s face and body, since the picture blurred a bit. I wondered where exactly the cameraman was this time, and came to the answer that he was inside his car.

I fast-forward once more on the entire time the camera showed Tracy talking with her family while eating. There was no audio worth listening over, and nothing climatic was enduring itself on the TV. After a while the video cut from Tracy’s dining room to right in front of her house’s door. This time it was the middle of the night. The film indicated it was two forty-five in the morning.

The cameraman stretched out his arms to reach the home’s doorknob, and turned the metal with gentleness. The door was somehow unlocked, and it creaked open. It made tiny screeching noise, but nothing too booming to alarm the family inside. The man left the door ajar by a few short angles, and entered inside Tracy’s home with camera on hand.

I knew now that something was wrong with what I was seeing. The video seemed like a home invasion, and not some insane prank my mind thought this film would be. The lights were off inside Tracy’s living room and dining room, and it was as silent as the night could become. The cameraman stepped furtively through the living room without making any sound, and found himself inside a small corridor. The man must have had the ability to see in the dark, since I had no idea where he was heading. My TV only showed a faint image of where the cameraman stood. He proceeded to stomp gingerly from the corridor, and found himself facing two doors. They both appeared as if they led into two rooms. The man chose the right door to enter inside.

At that moment I wanted to shut off the entire tape, throw away my VCR player, and try to find my deep sleep. Something was definitely eerier about the whole situation. The worst part was that I couldn’t keep my eyes off the TV. It was just in my mindset to never turn away from something catastrophic or exhilarating. I pulled my pillow close to my mouth, and bit down on the soft cloth.

The cameraman opened the right door with double the calmness he did with the entrance door, and managed to push it with a thin gap. The man must had been really skinny, since he had the weight to slide through the tiny opening he created. The moon light inside the room the man entered in provided sufficient shine to glance around the room without a problem. The setting appeared to be the room of a girl. Posters hung up each and every inch of the wall of boy models and pop singers. The man moved quietly towards the bed of the room with the camera locked on the sheets. It took him just twenty patient seconds to reach the edge of the bed. The man pointed the camera at who was sleeping on top of the bed.

It was Tracy.

He had it aimed at her face for the next hour. The whole entire video just showed Tracy sleeping peacefully without being disturbed. She tossed and turned on occasion during the entire hour, but nothing stirred her to wake up. I stared at my TV with my mouth opened with uncontrollable shock, and I found myself dumbfounded at what was happening. I fast-forward after twenty minutes of just seeing Tracy napping without a worry in the world. Again, the last second of the tape showed a picture of Tracy during her high school graduation photo. This time, however, there was something different about the photo. There was a drip of some white liquid near Tracy’s face. After having the video paused at the exact second the film showed Tracy’s photo, I presumed that the white fluid was in fact a male’s semen.

I approached my VCR case with trepidation, and removed the second part of the Tracy film with my nerves frightened. I sat on top of my bed with my mind fuzzing with millions of thoughts. I knew I shouldn’t continue with the videos. I knew I should just stop what I was doing, and to just try to find sleep. It was near eleven in the night, and I still had two more films to go for that involved Tracy. I didn’t think my heart and mind could take another second of watching the creepy videos. I felt endangered myself, and wondered what exactly was going on. I try to tell myself that none of it was real, and at the end of the forth tape it’s going to show a bunch of dudes laughing at how harshly they pranked me. This was my final thought as I grabbed the third tape featuring Tracy, and played it in my VCR. I just needed to know how it all ended. Maybe if I found out my mind could be put at ease.

The clip started off again by showing it was part three of the film, and it immediately cut right into the scene where Tracy was still sleeping. This time the man’s peach hand was resting right on Tracy’s luscious hair. He toyed and pet it while mumbling to himself. The entire time I kept on glaring away from my TV. The man moaned for a minute straight, and I thought I was going to be sick. The cameraman proceeded to place his index finger on Tracy’s red lips, and rub them in a circle. The moaning increased in pitch, and I hoped that she would wake up to witness the trouble Tracy was bound in. The camera zoomed right onto both of her eyes, and kept the lens there. The next three minutes were nothing but silence, until I heard footsteps coming from my TV. In just under five seconds Tracy’s eyes shifted slightly opened, and gazed at the camera with squinted eyes. Before I could find out what exactly happened the video cut off.

My screen showed nothing but a black image for the next three minutes. I stared at the TV with my entire body soaked in sweat, and my feet trembling against my bed. My heart thumped harder and harder as I waited for something to happen. This was not the conclusion I wanted to see. I expected something worthwhile, but I also wanted something that can just state to me it was all a huge and nasty prank. I actually felt my eyes swell with the dawn of tears. I felt horrified for whatever was going to happen next. If this was attentional of the creator of this film, then I curse him for making me endure such unstable predictions.

My screen flared with light out of the blue, and I jumped with fear and excitement mixed together. Screams escaped from the speaker of my TV, and they roared loud enough to cause my room to vibrate. I searched for my remote controller to try to lower the volume, but couldn’t find it. I was left to deal with the yelling coming from my TV. The image showed a basement with blood embellishing each corner of the walls. There weren’t any decorations to make the room seem more appealing. It just showed a darkened room with a single chair in the middle of it.

The screen cut off again with the last sounds being the echoing of a woman screaming. There was another minute of just a black screen, until the video revived itself with another film. This time the Tracy woman was sitting on the chair, and her limbs and body remained strapped on the legs and base of the chair with duct tape. It was her yowling voice that screeched out from the recording. The camera aimed right on her figure, and Tracy appeared to be staring directly in front of her. “Please don’t hurt them!” Tracy screamed with all the air in her lungs. “Please! Rape me, kill me, molest me, I don’t care! Don’t hurt them, please!” The woman’s eyes fluttered with tears, and her cries of agony caused me to bite off a piece of my pillow. My body was paralyzed by the trance the video kept me trapped in. I couldn’t move a single muscle by how much shock I was hit with. Tracy yelled louder when the sound of a chainsaw ripped through the microphone. It sounded lively and menacing. “NO! DON’T! PLESE DON’T”

I couldn’t see it happening, but the chainsaw made contact with something thick and mushy. The video only recorded Tracy’s reactions to whatever the weapon sliced through. I heard the sound of blades spinning and cutting through something meaty. Tracy’s eyes flared with horrific dread, and her cries died with a sharp end. All of her misery and torture omitted itself by all the tears that leaked out of her eyes. She was left to only stare at the massacre happening in front of her.

The video cut off once more, but this time transition itself directly into the next part. The next thing I saw made me vomit the chips I had consumed earlier. Tracy’s mother and father were butchered in pieces of their skin ripped apart. Their limbs were thrown all over the basement floor, and parts of their bodies contained lacerations that were unable to ever recovery. Their faces were washed with so much blood it was almost impossible to see how they looked at their last seconds of being alive before being murdered by a chainsaw. The video ended with once more a picture of Tracy’s graduation photo. There seemed to be more semen from the previous tape, and there was a new edition to the photo. Pieces of red hair laid near Tracy’s photo and the semen.

My body moved in autopilot as I took away the cassette from my VCR player. I wasn’t proud of what I did next, but I had to know what happened after. With frantic fingers I snatched the fourth and last part of the Tracy movie, popped in inside my VCR player, and expected the worst.

The first second of the film once again stated it was part four, but this time the background color was red instead of black. The video transitioned itself right into the scene of the basement. The camera aimed at a laying and broken figure crawling against the basement floor. The figure dragged its knees and palms on the cement ground, and left a trail of blood from the figure’s bleeding skin. The camera lens cleared itself from its blurriness, and I saw who it was. Tracy groaned with agony as each inch she moved caused pain to shoot at her limbs. She was wearing her pajamas from the night she was sleeping. Blood appeared to be leaking out from the top of her pants, where most likely her vagina was. It dripped out from her legs, and onto her bare feet.

The camera sat on some blunt object or table, which contained the perfect shot of Tracy’s struggle to escape. A man walked behind Tracy from behind the camera. His shirtless body was washed with blood and nail scratches. The man’s back contained formidable muscles, and he approached Tracy with not a single hint of remorse. He pulled Tracy’s hair up, and I heard her shout as the man kissed her cheek with force. The man proceeded to slam the woman’s face against the rough ground, and look for something near the corner of the basement. He found the item he was searching for, and strolled back to Tracy. The man raised the jackhammer he was carrying, and hovered the object above him for a long time, building the suspense. With one last protest coming from Tracy’s bruised lips, the hammer fell down on top of her head. The video showed her brain and skull shatter with the powerful blow. Blood exploded from her head, and the video cut itself off. It showed a black and white shaky screen for the next thirty seconds. For the last time I saw Tracy’s graduation photo. It was covered with semen, more pieces of her hair, and now there was blood mixed in with everything else.

I fumbled back from my bed, and dropped onto my room’s floor. All the air vanished from my lungs, and I felt as if I was choking. I couldn’t maintain a normal breathing pattern. Tears streamed down from my eyes, and I laid on my floor for five minutes quietly weeping to myself. I pulled the covers from my bed over me, and heard the two remaining VCR cases fall. The VCR tapes that were inside the cases stumbled on my floor. I crawled out from my covers, and went to pick up the tapes.

My mind was shot from the incident I just witness and became a part of. The entire film didn’t look in any way spurious. I glimpse at the TV expecting something else to happen. I wanted a different ending. This had to be fake somehow. It couldn’t be real, it just couldn’t! I fumbled with one of the tapes, and let my hear sink deep into the pits of my stomach. I saw the name of one of the tapes. It wasn’t Tracy or Rebecca. It was Johanna. Johanna Guzman, the friend who I had eaten at the diner with.

It was part three of her film with her name on it. My cries increased as I realized the situation I had dived into. No. No, it couldn’t be. He couldn’t have reached Johanna. It’s impossible! No. NO. The man was in Alabama last time, so how in the WORLD was he in New Jersey. I searched with hysteria for part four of Johana’s film. It couldn’t be true. She shouldn’t be dead. I was just eating with her nearly four hours ago. I couldn’t find a part four. The man must have stopped at part three.

But what was part three? I approached my VCR box with my tears still stinging my eyes. In Tracy’s part three it showed her family being killed alive. I hoped Johana’s parents weren’t murdered yet. I threw away Tracy’s last part, and inserted Johana’s part three video. I pressed play with my finger clammy from how much I was sweating, and didn’t even return to my bed. I just stood in front of the TV with the screen only inches away from my face.

The beginning text showed “Johana: Part 3. New Jersey.” My stomach turned at the words in front of me. The video began with showing Johana showering naked by herself. The cameraman must have placed the camera inside her bathroom in a secretive spot. I felt as if I had just violated my own damn friend, and I turned away from the screen in disgust. Johana was like a sister to me, so it felt wrong to look at her nude. I heard the sound of the shower’s water drizzling on the bathtub, and the faint whistling tune coming from Johana’s mouth. I fast-forward the video until it reached a new scene.

This time it was Johana’s room that was shown on my screen. I recognize the place like the back of my hand. The camera pointed at Johana sleeping soundlessly on her pink and black bed with her rose-colored sheets on top of her body. The cameraman placed his hands underneath the sheets, and rubbed against Johana’s body. I had the urge to throw something at my TV. My eyes flared with anger and rage, and I nearly became deaf at how brutally mad I was becoming. This man had no right to do such a thing to my best friend. The rest of the film showed the cameraman leaving Johana’s room. I checked the date the film was made. It said April 19th, 2015. That was yesterday.

I didn’t see the rest of the film, since at that moment I dug around my room to find my cell phone. It laid on my one night stand. I nearly tumbled to the floor just by flinging myself to grab it. I dialed Johana’s number by heart to try to call her, and to warn her there was an intruder inside her home. I pressed called, and heard the intimidating ringing of me trying to reach her. It felt as if each rung lingered in space, and mocked me with its sardonic beep. I knew it was late, and that she was most likely not awake. But I prayed to heaven she would just pick up.

My phone stop ringing. Somebody picked up. “Hello?!” I didn’t even pause to let Johana on the other line say the first greeting. “Johana, you have to get the fuck out of your house! There’s somebody there, he’s gunna kill you and your family!”

“Too late,” was all I heard the man said, before I listened to the sound of his jackhammer slamming against somebody’s head. 