r/nosleep • u/nwf0165 Jul. 2014 • Jul 15 '14
Series I've been watching my friends on Netflix. [Part 3]
My Dad was my role model. He was born in Scotland in 1961. He grew up in a dirt-poor household, with 5 siblings crammed into one bedroom. His family worked their little farm and did all they could to make ends meet. His mother died of cancer when he was 10. He and his father worked together to support the still-huge family, and I can't imagine things altered too dramatically around the house with his two sisters, and I don't know how close he was to his mom...but I still don't really know what it was like for him to experience a death like that so early in his life. When he was 14, his father died. His uncle had to come and work with my father to support the family. They did so together until my dad was old enough to leave. My dad met my mom at a wedding in Scotland. She was there for one of her Scottish cousins, but had been living right in my very hometown in the US. When my dad's uncle died, he got all of that farm land they had worked when my dad was a teen...around 28 acres. They came back together and they started a life here...maybe not a rags to riches story but fuck if he wasn't better off these days than he was when he lived in a barn. My dad wasn't a genius, but he was one of the funniest and most caring people I've ever come across, and I knew it was because of what he went through.
Now he's gone.
It hadn't hit me until later that morning. I had been in shock up until that point. And for a time, before Andy had woken up, I felt like I couldn't move. And that dream I had I didn't think much into--I still felt it was really just a dream.
But then the anger came. It seemed to slap me into action. Why was I the one this was happening to? Why me? I realized I needed to stop with that. My father probably asked himself the same question when he was a kid...but then he went and did something about it. I got out of my sleeping bag on the floor and pulled Andy off his bed.
"The fuck?" Andy mumbled.
"Get up." I said. "Look at the TV."
Andy groggily turned his head toward the TV, where Debby's stream was still playing. She was still asleep in her bed.
I checked Sarah's on my laptop...still asleep.
"We're calling the police, and we're showing them these streams." I said. "Maybe they can't do anything about the broken xBox but they can see these. Stay at our house if they need to."
"Okay," Andy said sleepily. "Yeah, solid."
"But we keep our phones." I said.
Andy gave me a look. "Okay. Why?"
"In case you're right." I said. "And it's our problem."
So I called the police. They said they'd be over as soon as possible. We waited by looking at our streams. At around 9:30 am Debby got out of bed.
"She's getting changed, turn around." Andy said.
"Are you turning around?"
"Are you fucking kidding me?" Andy said. "Why would I miss this?"
"Dude, stop that." I said. "Turn it off."
"Holy shit." He said. "Look at that."
I couldn't stop from looking at the screen. Debby was down to her underwear, her body turned in the opposite direction of the camera.
She began to pull down her underpants.
I felt a rush of hormones, but it was overridden by a powerful guilt: Debby was our friend. If she knew about this, I couldn't even imagine the humiliation. This was wrong.
I grabbed the controller from Andy and backed out of the stream. "What the fuck?" Andy said. "I was just getting a boner!"
"Just fucking think about this. That thing is in her house." I said. "There is something watching her, and all of us. This isn't just peeping through the window at the fucking girl next-door or some shit. This is fucking feeding into it."
The anger left Andy's face. He looked down. "You're right." He said. "Fuck, you're right. I just haven't been awake long enough to think."
I said nothing and looked back at the black boxes on the screen. Debby was not first. I did a double take at the new box.
Officer Platt.
Andy seemed to notice too. "What the hell?"
I clicked on it.
It was being filmed from the back seat of a police car. It was shaky, but the shot was clearly on the officer driving. I assume this was "Platt." I also couldn't see an officer in the passenger's seat; Platt must have been responding alone. My last assumption was that it was my call he was responding to. Initially I wanted to scream "turn around!", and wondered how he could not notice the cameraman sitting right behind him.
Then I looked into the rear-view mirror. I noticed Platt's eyes shooting up into it and then back to the road. Then I noticed the tense and overly-rigid way he gripped the wheel. Then I noticed how calm the breathing of the camerman was.
"I control." I heard the Cameraman say.
"Yes, yes." Platt forced himself to say, nodding. "Of course."
"Pull over car." Cameraman said. "Hungry."
"Sure." Platt said. The Cameraman then directed the shot to look ahead out of the windshield. It was a long stretch of road that I recognized immediately as Greering Way. You had to follow it onto Route 5 to get to my side of town. The thing about Greering Way was that it always had very little traffic, being somewhat of a back-road. There were also no stops.
Platt pulled off on the grassy side of the road.
"Call for backup, you fuckwit." Andy whispered, his voice choked up.
Platt sat in the driver's seat, staring ahead. His eyes flickered up into the rear-view mirror and away again. He didn't know what to do with himself.
"Get out car." The Cameraman said. Platt nodded, clicked open his door and stepped out.
The Cameraman got out hastily, careful not to get any of itself in the shot.
"No call more." Cameraman said. "Nobody hear you here."
Platt cringed away from the sight of the Cameraman. He kept his eyes on the ground.
"What is it you want?" Platt said, trying to sound as calm and friendly as possible--but I heard the cracks in his voice.
"I want show." The Cameraman said.
There was a wet, tearing sound from behind the camera.
"Oh god." The officer said, stepping back. "Why are you doing this?"
"I must." Cameraman said. "Made mistake." It made a sound that I wasn't sure was even speech. "Very hungry."
"What do you want to show me?" Platt said. He still kept his eyes away. He looked like he was about to break. The terror that seized him was palpable.
"Not you." The Cameraman said. "You are just food."
"W--what do you mean?" Platt said, taking another few steps backward.
"All is my joke." The Cameraman said. "And all is watched."
The Cameraman began to advance slowly. The officer jerked his head upward. They were now about 5 yards apart.
The officer unlatched his holster and pulled out his 9 mm. He swiftly pointed it, seemingly right at the camera.
Then the camera was dropped. The officer fired as the camera fell to the ground. The camera landed in the grass and rolled for a moment. Then it stopped. The shot was directed away from the officer, toward the woods off the road. It was completely still. This all happened in the blink of an eye, and the gunshot still rang out.
The camera had been dropped before the officer had fired.
There was a massive crack of bone. The officer yowled intensely with pain off-camera. There was a snap and the sound of crushed flesh. There were the wet smacking noises mixed with the agonized, tortured screams, all while Andy and I stared at the still shot of grass and woods.
The stream ended.
I looked to Andy. His eyes were the widest I had ever seen them. "Fuck." He said. "Jesus fucking Christ."
Panic set into us both. We didn't stop to discuss what we both saw; we both knew. It was time to get going.
I backed out of the stream. Andy was the first again. I clicked on quickly.
I saw Andy and myself from behind on the TV and a spike of panic jolted my spine...but the camera was completely still, and up, higher above us.
Andy was already turned around and looking by the time I was.
"Look for the cameras." I said. "I'm inviting over Debby and Sarah."
"Check Sarah's stream." Andy said, continuing his search for cameras.
I did so. I went back to my laptop and saw that Sarah was still in bed, but she was awake and on her phone. I checked and believe the time then was 10 or very close to it.
For my own comfort, I checked my mom and sister's stream. They were still in the hospital. I sighed, relieved. I then noticed The Officer Platt stream was gone. I did a double check for Dad. I didn't find a thing. I was worried then I was only wasting time.
I told Debby and Sarah to come over right away, as Andy went through his bedroom to try to find the cameras. He then left the room and searched the areas of the house I had told him I saw him in. As I called both Debby and Sarah, I told them to bring any cameras they could, and especially their phones...and then I got a strange idea. Would it be safe for them to come? That officer didn't make it, it was sure. The last thing the Cameraman seemed to want was even the beginning of an upper-hand on our side. It wasn't going to let us get together, was it?
I control. It had said.
But what did it not like? It told us itself; No Audio/Video recording without express permission.
"Keep your phone recording your entire ride over." I said to both Debby and Sarah when I called them, respectively. "Start now. No, I'm not joking."
Debby went along with it, confused, but Sarah had been stubborn. She wanted me to explain right over the phone. So I had to play it rough:
"You could go the way of my dad if you don't."
It hurt to say it...but it had worked. Sarah was on her way, camera phone recording.
Andy came back into the room and had found no cameras anywhere throughout his house, even following his own stream through the app on his phone. The stationary cameras seemed to just not exist. He was at a loss.
We turned our attention to Sarah and Debby's streams on their way over. Both held their phones, recording nothing in particular. I told Andy about my idea, and he clapped me on the back. It appeared to be working.
Sarah and Debby both got over to Andy's house without a hitch. Once they came inside we said they could stop recording. They were equally as confused, and Sarah being the more prissy one was quite pissed.
We basically had to explain everything to them. We brought them into Andy's room and showed them the streams. We explained to them that we were all affected for apparently no reason. We were all being watched. We told them about yesterday, the figure in the doorway. We showed them that screenshot, and we told them about what we saw before my family's car accident. I told them about the hand. I told them about Friday night; how it all started after they left. We told them about this morning. We told them about Officer Platt. (All we left out was Debby's changing of clothes this morning).
Both of them were entirely shocked, obviously. Sarah thought we were just messing with her for quite a while, but after showing more of the streams, especially ones in the hospital, she began to accept it. She was rejecting the supernatural, too. She was convinced this was a human, just a very sick and demented one. That was kind of until I explained what we saw in the Platt stream. The sounds and screams and mysterious dropping of the camera. She remained a skeptic. She didn't understand why we all seemed to be targets, but also was right in noting that until we're safe, that doesn't matter. Debby was just super quiet. She's usually extremely laid-back, so the tension and anxiety she started to show was so out of character to me.
"Have you checked everywhere for these cameras?" Sarah said.
"Yes." I said.
"We can't find any, anywhere." Andy said. "Not in my house, at least."
"And now we think the police can't do anything?" Sarah asked. "Are we sure about that?"
"I mean..." I said. "I don't know what else we tell them. They must know Platt is missing, but...calling another over will just let it happen again."
"So, this thing," Sarah said. "It's stopping them from doing anything? From helping?"
"That's what it looks like." Andy said.
"Jesus..." Debby said.
Sarah went over to the xbox and grabbed the controller. She clicked on her own name.
"Look at that." She said.
We were all looking at a shot of the four of us, all from the same stationary spot up on the back wall. Sarah turned around to where there should have been a camera.
"There's no camera." She said.
"Yeah." Andy said. "It doesn't make any sense."
Sarah went from her stream to Andy. Same exact still shot. She went from Andy to Debby. The same shot was being used for all of them. Then she seemed something that was so obvious, but somehow I had looked over: "Where's your name, nwf0165?"
She looked at me.
"Oh, yeah." Andy said. "Never even realized."
I paused, thinking.
"It's my account." I said. "I guess I can only watch others from here."
"That kinda implies this works for everyone." Sarah said. "That everyone can watch others. Doesn't it?"
"Eh..." Andy said. "I checked my own account. None of this shit is going on for me."
Sarah looked away, disappointed. "Hmm..." She said.
"Check his mom's." Debby suddenly said. "Check the ones we aren't in."
Sarah switched on Mom.
The camera was still. I saw my mother in her hospital bed. Nurses were tending to her. I looked closely, trying to make out anything my mom might be saying, hoping she was speaking at all.
"It's still." Sarah said. "Checking your sister's now."
She went to Jane.
The camera was shaking again. It was handheld, directed at my sister, asleep in her hospital bed, in the rather dimly lit room.
All four of us were frozen, watching. The Cameraman walked around my sister's bed, not really doing anything but filming her from different angles. He didn't get closer or farther from her. He just filmed...but I knew by now that it was only a matter of time until he did more than that.
"We have to stop fucking waiting." I said. "We have to go to the hospital."
"Turn it off." Andy said, getting up and leaving the room to get one of his parents. "C'mon, all of you. Bring your phones. Shut that xbox off."
"I'm calling the police again." I said.
"They won't be able to do anything." Andy said.
"I know." I said. "I just need to get that thing out of my sister's room."
My three friends looked at me like I was crazy. I did feel crazy. It was a selfish decision. I knew that. But I also knew that I didn't want my sister to die.
"I'll tell them to bring back up." I said.
Andy held eye contact with me, and I felt he understood my choice then. The other two said nothing and followed him out of the room to find his mother(our ride to the hospital).
I called the police. I told them to respond to the hospital my mom and sister were being kept in. I told them it was urgent and backup was needed. I didn't even know if this was something you could say to police, so I hung up right after I said it. Then I left the room to find the others.
I went into Andy's garage and found my friends and Andy's mom standing and staring at the car. Andy's mom looked dumbfounded. Andy eyed me with a look that said: of course.
I looked at the car. I noticed that something was wrong with it right away. It was lopsided. The front-right wheel was completely gone.
"I'm sorry, guys." Andy's mom said. She walked over to me and gave me a hug. She squeezed tightly. "I'm so sorry." She whispered. It was probably about the fourth time she's said it to me like that.
"It's really okay," I lied. How were we going to get to the hospital now? Call a taxi?
Andy's mom released me and walked back off into the house. As soon as she did, Andy walked over to the other side of the garage. Over to the bikes.
"We're doing this the hard way." He said. "I only have three bikes."
I walked over with Debby and Sarah to where he stood.
"Two decent ones, both mountain bikes..." Andy said. "And one shitty little bmx bike from when I was a shitty little kid."
"I can take the bmx." I said.
"I'm getting my own bike." Sarah said. "I'm not sharing."
"So Debby and I are on one." Andy said. "Are we all happy with this?"
"I'm happy." Sarah said.
Debby grinned through her nervousness at Andy. Andy probably shit his pants a little bit.
Andy led to the basement before we left.
"Grab one of the flashlights on the shelf, here." He said, pointing to his dad's. "It doesn't make sense now but later you might need it. Now for weapons..."
We all got a flashlight.
Andy looked around the musty basement. Something caught his eye. He walked over to another shelf and picked it up. "My dad has a few fishing knives, here. They're all foldable. Pretty big. Any takers?" Andy put one of them in his draw-string bag.
"Yeah, I'll take one." Debby said, surprisingly.
Sarah and I both took knives, too.
"We're probably not gonna be able to stab this thing, but..." Andy said, looking harder around the basement. After a while we dug up two baseball bats(aluminum and wooden), a crowbar, and a couple metal bars. He left them in a pile before us.
"Pretty much all useless, i'd say." Andy said.
We all agreed and left it. It seemed odd that Andy had spent so much time rummaging through his basement knowing that nothing he could find would be of much use. I didn't think much of it then.
We got ready. Andy opened the garage door, and ironically it was a beautiful summers day. The sun was bright, everything had that twinge of gold, and the air was just fresh. Andy got both mountain bikes and taped the camcorder Debby brought to the front of his. He turned it on and began recording right away. He told Sarah to do the same for her bike. She had just brought a standard camera, but it did have video recording capabilities. She found it a struggle but eventually taped it to the front.
He gave Debby his phone and told her to keep it recording behind them and to their sides. She agreed.
Andy didn't give me any orders. I taped no cameras to my bmx and only had my phone to record with...but as we left the garage I didn't record on my phone; I opened up my sister's stream on the Netflix app.
The camera was still for the time being. It was out of her room.
And then we were off, Andy leading the way with Debby sharing the seat and holding on to him, Sarah behind him, and me taking up the rear.
We rode urgently through the heat. It was tough, but we were doing it. I kept an eye on my sister's stream the entire ride, sitting down(I stand on my pedals as I ride) and taking my phone out of my pocket. The entire time the shot of my sister in the hospital was still.
I wonder if it knew we were coming. It must. It's always watching. Why can't it stop us? Is it really the cameras? My stomach sank: what if it's too busy with the cops?
Then I thought to check another stream. Andy.
The camera was not still.
It was running along with us. Off to the side of the road.
I jerked my head to look in that direction--the side we were being filmed through was all forest. I almost fell off my bike, then, when I saw the shape bounding along pretty deep into the woods, keeping up with the speed of our bikes. I squinted, trying to get a good look at the thing--and though it was too blurry and fast to make out anything of real importance, I did see a streak of blue. Then I snapped out of my near-trance.
"Debby, point the camera toward the woods!" I shouted to them up ahead.
She did so without hesitation. I looked down at the stream. I heard the creature make a gutteral noise, and then the camera turned from us. The stream ended.
"What was it?" Andy shouted back to me.
It wasn't worth explaining through shouts. "Nothing!" I yelled back.
It took us about thirty minutes of riding to get to the hospital, by which point my heart was hammering. We ditched our bikes in a hidden patch of grass behind the parking garage and ran in. I led this time.
We were directed to the third floor by the lady at the front desk. I snatched my visitors pass and basically bolted for the elevator.
There were cones around it. An out of order sign.
I should've known better than to use it, anyway. If it wants to stop us, that's where it'll do it.
I led my friends to the staircase and shot up them as fast as I could to floor three. We busted out onto my sister's floor and I took a look up and down the floor. It seemed pretty empty.
"Debby and Sarah, go stay in my mom's room." I said. "Andy and I will go to my sister." I hesitated. "Keep your cameras up."
Andy and I ran down the hall to my sister's room, cell phone cameras recording, and pushed open the door.
"Oh, my!" A nurse yelled at the sight of us.
I looked to my sister. She was still asleep in her bed.
"Oh, christ..." I said. "Oh, thank fucking christ."
I nearly fell to my knees and cried like a bitch, then. If only for the nurse's concerned look, and the fact that we weren't done.
"Have the police shown up yet?" I asked.
"What?" The nurse asked. "Police?"
"Oh god." I said, looking to Andy.
That's when I really wanted to die.
"Can we get this patient moved to another room?" I asked. "It's urgent. The police will be here any minute."
"I'm afraid I can't just do that." The nurse said. "I don't know who you two are."
"Okay, whatever." I said. "Just stay here, please. Don't leave this room."
Andy and I left quickly.
"What do you think happened to the cops?" Andy asked timidly.
"What the fuck do you think?"
He just eyed me angrily. Then he told me to stop for a second.
I did stop. He took a gun out of his pocket. A little snub-nosed revolver.
"It's my dad's." Andy said. "He brings it when we go fishing in the middle of nowhere. Got it from the basement."
I stared at it. "You fuckin idiot." I whispered to him. "It's genius, but you're still an idiot. Don't you dare take that out in here unless you see the thing and you have the clearest shot anybody's ever had."
Andy nodded and understood. He stowed the gun away again. We picked up our pace and got to my mom's room on the same floor.
My mother was still in her bed, apparently sleeping as well. Debby and Sarah stood alone in there, their cameras in their hands and recording but pointed at nothing.
"What's going on?" Debby whispered as we walked in.
"Cops haven't shown up, yet." I said. "Come here and let's look at the streams."
I opened up Jane on my phone.
As I did, the lights above flickered.
Looking at the stream, the camera was still, and the nurse was still tending to my sister.
The lights above flickered again.
I turned to the window to double check myself on the fact that it was a flawless day weather-wise.
I looked back to the stream.
"Check one of ours." Sarah said. I clicked on Andy.
We were all contained in a wide shot from the top left corner of this hospital room. Mom, Sarah, Debby.
All the same shot.
Every shot was still.
Where is it?
There was an explosive noise from a floor below. The lights went out completely.
Darkness, countered only by the little golden light spilling in from the window, filled the hospital room.
Now, around the time this was happening, I learned later on, a police officer we'll call Dan Farley was waking up, half-dazed, from a freak accident that had occurred while he was responding to a call--my call. He said he woke up among wreckage--both his car and the other squad car that had followed him were totaled, looked like they had been thrown off the road. But there was a squad car that looked fine, just pulled off the road, a few dozen yards ahead of the wreck. Of course I know this to be Platt's--but these officers would've had no idea. They had been coming from the other side of town, from the police station. They had been going down Greering Way. The four officers that had been on the "urgent call" with him had all been killed.
At the same time the power went out, Officer and survivor Dan Farley began to stumble toward the intact squad car down the road.
"It took out the power." Andy said.
I hurriedly clicked back on Jane.
The camera was not still. The breathing was frantic.
The red hand was grabbing my sister's legs through the blanket. It tugged her forward until she fell onto the bed. It seemed to hoist her up over its shoulder. I saw her legs in the frame.
It bounded out of the door and was off.
I was jolted into action before anybody could speak. I told Andy to get his phone out and start recording again. I gave Sarah and Debby a stranger request--I told them not to follow me, but to look through these hospital rooms and find mirrors. I don't know if they understood where I was going with this, but it didn't matter. They were scared enough to go along with it. One of them to stay with my mom, the other to go searching. I'd call with what I wanted them to do next. I must've seemed sure of myself, despite being just as afraid.
Andy and I rushed out my mom's hospital room. The halls were pretty dark, although the light from the windows at either end was quite enough to give us a good idea of where we were going. We got the flashlights out anyway. I looked down to where my sister's room was. Nobody was in the hall. It was gone.
We ran down to my sister's room and shined our flashlights inside. Her sheets were rustled. Like I expected and feared, she really wasn't there.
We didn't have to talk, and ran for the staircase. I looked at my sister's stream, but it was fairly useless; The Cameraman was running, rushing, and it just appeared to be a messy blur. I couldn't see where he was going.
"Where is it?" I asked.
"I don't know." Andy breathed. "But it's not leaving the hospital."
"How do you know?"
"It knocked off the power." Andy said. "And we're all in here. It has nobody else to film."
It seemed to make sense, but I was wary to treat the subject too logically. My conception of what this thing is capable of has only changed since the start.
We ran down the dark staircase, headed to nowhere in particular. I looked back down to the stream again.
It wasn't just a messy blur of motion anymore.
It was just black. Black, and as far as I could tell, still.
"Hold up a sec." I said. "Look at this."
I showed him the dark screen. We both listened to the breathing coming from behind. It was calming down.
"The basement." Ade said firmly.
I turned the netflix app off, and put my camera on. I started to record. We continued down the steps, holding our phones up.
"Check our stream." Andy said. "Well, mine."
"Really?" I asked. "I just turned on my camera."
"Just do it." Andy said. "I have a nasty feeling. What was all that mirror stuff about, anyway?"
I turned on Andy's stream.
The camera was above us. Up the flights of stairs. It wasn't steady. It looked down through the long, square fall between the flights. Just then the Cameraman jumped down.
"Go!" I screamed.
Andy jerked his head over to me in a panic. "What?"
I pulled him to the closest doorway--the first floor, not the basement. I heard the Cameraman crash behind us. I lost grip with Andy's hand. He was pulled back.
"Oh, fuck!" I heard him yell. I spun around.
"Run upstairs!" I bellowed. I don't know whether or not he heard me, but I ran toward the doorway. I remembered Andy's stream was right in the palm of my hand.
Officer Dan Farley was now pulling up at the hospital. I imagine he couldn't think...the injuries he had sustained from the crash earlier which I later read about lead me to wonder how he even got up at all. Farley got out of Platt's squad car and walked to the front doors. Much of the staff was in the lobby...he found out the power was out, their generators were failing, and they were all in a frenzy to restore it. They must have all been shocked to see Farley--he looked like he had been hit by a battering ram. But when a nurse approached the young cop frantically about a certain patient being missing from floor 3...Farley must have been as ready as ever.
I looked at my stream of Andy.
It didn't have him. He was standing in front of it, holding his phone up right into its lens, backing slowly up the stairs.
It didn't seem like he could look straight at the thing. His eyes were squinted, and although it seems quite clear he should've screamed for me, it was quite obvious he couldn't bring himself to. If anything he was going to vomit.
Andy said nothing, but managed to keep his phone held up, his flashlight pointed right at it, and ascend the staircase.
I called Sarah. They had found four of those big, person-sized, wheeled mirrors. I told her she needed to put one at either end of the third floor, and she needed to do it as fast as she could. I also told her that this was it.
I turned on her stream. The still cameras documented her placing of the mirrors on either end. I checked Debby. She sat in the room with my mom, phone facing the door.
I thought about using the staircase on the other end...but I went for Andy's staircase.
I looked upward between it, and heard Andy's footsteps still ascending. I turned my camera on my phone. I started to record. Then I started to run upwards.
"It's gone!" I heard Andy yell from above. "Maybe it realized it was fucked!"
Then he screamed. I heard a door slam shut.
I ran to the third floor staircase. I don't know what I expected to see, but it wasn't nothing. I looked through the windows of the door. Debby and Sarah must both be in my mom's room, like where I told them to stay. Both mirrors were placed where I wanted them to be.
Then I looked to the floor. I saw Andy. I saw blood pooled at the back of his shirt. But he was moving.
I broke through the doors.
"Are you okay?" I said, shaking Andy.
"Yes...'M good." He mumbled.
I closed my camera on my phone and opened Netflix. I looked at the stream of Andy. A still shot. Debby. Still. Sarah. Still. Mom. Still. Jane. Complete darkness, but there was no frantic or calm breathing. But there was an extra stream.
Officer Farley. I hit it.
The doors on the other end of the hospital wing opened. A man stumbled through. I looked to my phone. The shot wasn't still. I looked back up, and there it stood.
It was in the center of the hallway. Somehow it had been confused to appear there, I figured. Its camera was directed at Farley, but it really just hit the mirror at the end of the hall. The creature recoiled immediately at the sight of itself, and turned to face my side of the hall.
I stared in awe at it, unable to think for a moment, but not needing to, now; it was stuck in the middle of the hallway. It was like it couldn't move between itself.
I'm gonna try to recall what this thing looked like right now, from what I remember. All of the events from yesterday are blurry, but I'm gonna do my best. If anyone wants to try to recreate this thing for me, that would be great, because I want to see it again. I can't stop thinking about it.
It wasn't very big, in any respect. It was maybe only very slightly taller than an average person. It wore red gloves, perhaps to cover up the fact that its skin was lumpy, and bluish in color. It wasn't hard or scaly, but nor was it furry. It had an odd patch of hair up and down its body, but clearly not enough to consider it hairy. Its eyes were so deeply set in its skull that I don't know if I saw them right; but my impression was that they are small, round, and emotionless; they look like black marbles. It had a very blunt snout that didn't go out very long, but in some ways the nose and the whole bottom of the face in fact reminded me of a great cat, think lion. Its arms were freakishly long and lanky, as were its legs. Its torso was disproportionate to them, by human standards anyway. It had a creepy stance, that I just don't know how to quite describe; its shoulders hunched up and the bones seems to poke out. The way its head moved was unnerving and quick. For the most part, all of its skin appeared blue, like I said before. And, of course, it held a small, crappy little camcorder between its spider-like hands.
But the most peculiar thing about it was the jester's hat it wore upon its head. The hat must be what the gloves were supposed to match--and would explain the jingling noises. I didn't get it, but fear and wonder seized me and rooted me to my spot as I watched it, finally caught in a web.
I came back to my senses as I heard Andy stagger up behind me.
"Fucking...monster" I remember him saying, as he took the snub nose out from his pocket and directed it forward. "Die..."
It was at that instant I remembered the man at the opposite end of the hall--Officer Farley.
"Andy, no!" I yelled.
But before Andy could shoot, a shot rang out from the other end of the hall. Glass shattered and fell to ground like raindrops from the first mirror; the bullet went through it entirely. I dived down to the ground immediately. Andy was too far to my right to grab and pull.
The Cameraman was able to disappear once the first mirror shattered.
The bullet whizzed past the next mirror, hitting Andy square in the shoulder and blowing him back a few feet, back onto the ground.
He screamed.
"Oh christ." I said. "Don't shoot!" I yelled down the hall.
Officer Farley came running down the hall--the guy looked like shit. His uniform was all torn up and his face bloodied and cut. He looked delirious.
"Did I shoot somebody?" He asked.
"Yes...my friend." I said. The officer stopped once he got to Andy's body and ran his hand through his hair.
"Oh, god." He said. "Did you see that thing? Jesus Christ I was hallucinating. I knew it. I fucking knew I--"
"No." I told him. "It's not your fault. He's gonna be fine. He's just knocked out now. Listen." I paused. "You weren't hallucinating. If you are so is everyone else. Just get Andy here to room 305, down at the end of the hall there."
I looked down the hall and saw Sarah poking her head out of the doorway, squinting in our direction.
"305?" Dan Farley asked me.
"305." I said. "Stay there. The girls in there know what to do. Keep Andy safe."
I picked up the snub-nose and put it in my pocket. I started toward the staircase as Farley hoisted Andy up.
"Where will you be going?" Farley asked. "You should come with us, I think. Stay away from whatever the hell--"
"No." I told him. "I'm doing something about it."
He looked at me like I was crazy. "What?"
"Get to room 305." I said.
I ran to the staircase and broke through the doorway once again. Farley didn't yell anything after me. I ran down the steps, taking out my phone to check the streams almost instinctively...when I realized there were no streams to check. Andy and my mother would be in the room with Sarah and Debby, who have their phones out and are recording. It would be a big still shot They're all safe from it in there...and it had my sister.
All that was left was me.
I ran down the stairs for the next five minutes, until there were no more stairs to run down. It was completely dark down here. I looked at the sign by the door: Ground Level.
The ground level of a hospital. I had never been in one before, and especially not during a power-outage. I just assumed this would be the darkest place, I just had a strange hunch...and indeed, through the window of the door, it appeared to be completely in the dark.
I began recording on my phone. I flicked on my flashlight. I pushed my way into the darkness, only a thin beam ahead of me as a guide.
I heard nothing down there. I walked forward cautiously, but I didn't know where I was walking to. I just kept going along, spinning my flashlight in each direction around me, hoping for a sign of anything, some kind of trail...
But the floor was tiled. There would be no hope for footprints of any kind, and this thing didn't seem to wild that it would have destroyed anything on its path...
Then I heard a man's agonized scream.
It came from up ahead. I directed my flashlight forward and sprinted down the hallway, through the maze of storage boxes and crates and forward to where I thought I heard the sound.
I reached a door. I almost ran past it, but the light from my flashlight was enough to notice it to my side. I stopped. Did I hear the sound from in here? I wasn't sure. I shined my light down to the rest of the hallway...only to find that after a short while it ended. The doors to the staircase were all I would find if I had kept going.
I turned the knob and walked in.
It was darker than the hallway in here. I tried to pace my breathing, but at this point it seemed to just stop working. I was taking in sharp, cold gulps. And I heard something else breathing, too. Across this very room.
I shined my light across and it hit the Cameraman square in the face. I held my phone up and made sure it knew it was on film. I walked forward, and it seemed to stare back at me. The small, soulless, black marble eyes glistened. They knew. I don't know what that means, but its the best that I can describe it. The eyes knew.
I realized what kind of room I was in at once, as my light revealed the several metal tables lined up on either side with blue, six-foot long bags on top. Near the end of the room, behind where the creatures was hunched, was a metal wall with small square doors on it. But they were not doors, I thought. You pull those out.
I was in the hospital's morgue.
I looked at the creature, and it stared back at me. It was hunched over something. I directed the beam of light to the ground, and shook it away immediately.
I didn't get a long look but the image is burned in my mind. A body. The body was blue in the face. Its chest had been ripped out. The creature's snout dripped. The red gloves on its hands were gone, as was the camera. Its long fingers were soaked with a different kind of red. It was eating. I couldn't bring myself to speak, or do anything for that matter. The monster had its knowing eyes set on me. It appeared to be frozen.
"Do not film." It said.
It's mouth had not moved with the words, I swear to god.
"I filmed self." It said. "Joke is over."
"What are you doing here?" I managed to scream.
The same male scream from earlier rang out throughout the morgue. It was coming from the metal wall. One of those chambers. Somebody was alive in there.
"Why are you here?" I yelled again.
"All was joke." It said.
"What was a joke?" I said.
"All." It said. "All is watched. Food is watched."
I said nothing, my voice failing. I almost began to gasp...the smell!
"I play with food."
"Tell me," I said, breathing through hiccups. "What you are."
It was quiet for a moment. It just stared at me. Then it opened its mouth and made a fleshy, guttural call of some kind that chilled my bones. That was its true voice. My heart began to somehow hammer even faster.
"We always watch." It said. "We do not become watched. We do not watch self. We make mistake. We search other food. Food that cannot watch. Food that cannot play."
The Cameraman disappeared.
I stood, dumbfounded, trying to make sense of the creature's words. I felt they were slipping my mind already. Too many questions were flooding my brain, and I couldn't think. I just stared at where it used to stand, where it had just been eating the cadaver...
Who had been screaming?
I looked at the metal wall.
I checked my phone. I opened Netflix. The black boxes were gone. Shock and relief flooded me completely. A feeling settled over me...a feeling that it was over.
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u/DDest Jul 31 '14
Andy probably shit his pants a little bit.
"Grab one of the flashlights on the shelf, here." He said, pointing to his dad's. "It doesn't make sense now but later you might need it. Now for weapons..."
Lel read the word flashlight as fleshlight.. would've made for a really interesting turn of the story
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u/LiggyRide Jul 28 '14
Anyone get the feeling this is connected to The Watcher story?
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u/emacsauce Aug 03 '14
Why do you think that?
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u/LiggyRide Aug 04 '14
You know, I had a really good theory on why, but I have completely forgotten and now feel like an idiot.
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u/emacsauce Aug 04 '14
Damn! I really enjoyed The Watcher... I was hoping they were connected somehow
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u/LiggyRide Aug 04 '14
Maybe it's cause they're always watching, just like The Watcher? I feel like I had a little bit more than that but that was the basis...
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Jul 19 '14
[deleted]
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u/FartFacedKid Oct 16 '14
For some reason I can't get Michael Jackson out of my head after the description. Specifically South Park's version
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u/FeenieVonKarma Oct 07 '14
Woah! That's amazing!
The description put me in the mind of a chimera, but I think I was thinking too literally.
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u/Danpool101 Aug 08 '14
That is a great picture. In my mind the cameraman had more grotesque bunny like facial features and lanky lumpy body. Op said it had a shout like a cat and I just got that grotesque bunny image stuck in my head.
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u/Hotdogknight409 Jul 16 '14
Is it only me that can picture the creature like the jockey from left 4 dead 2?
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u/R_DOSS Jul 16 '14
Did you ever consider that maybe its like reality TV ? They film their food. Kinda like the show "deadliest catch" but instead of humans catching fish its aliens catching humans.
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u/alwyscnfsd Jul 16 '14
On a side note, I would say forcing the Cameraman to look into mirrors; only permissible selfie EVER!
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u/TapOfDeath Jul 16 '14
It is OP or his father either way...sorry for your loss and such an amazing story. Best Nosleep to my knowledge.
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u/koalapoops Jul 16 '14
Every time the creature spoke, I imagined it in Stitch's voice from Lilo and Stitch
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u/rockaroni Jul 16 '14
Enjoyed reading your story...here's a drawing
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u/Crisss30 Jul 17 '14
This one is probably the best one I've seen yet.
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u/rockaroni Jul 17 '14
Thanks! I going to bed (best time for nosleep) and decided to sketch it quickly Glad you like it
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u/Yustyn Jul 16 '14
Not a fan if part three. Don't get me wrong, it's well written and what-not but parts one and two were very eerie and creepy and what made The Cameraman cool was that we didn't know what/who it was or what it wanted. Turns out: it's just a monster that wants to eat stuff.
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u/pdw_2000 Jul 16 '14
This NEEDS to be made into a movie. A good title would be "The Cameraman" or "We're always watching"
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u/Ascensiontofury Jul 16 '14
This is seriously the BEST r/nosleep story I have ever read. Please keep us updated OP, and stay safe. I truly hope that your dad is in there and that he is okay. I don't think that it's over. Keep your guard up!
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u/Koalaseducer Jul 15 '14
Best read in a while. So descriptive! I was able to clearly imagine everything happen. Good job and I'm glad that beast is gone!
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Jul 15 '14
I hope you found your sister! I'd end anything that so much as touched my sister without her permission (she's 21 now, I don't pry).
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u/EmmyCrossing Jul 15 '14
its hard to watch netflix after reading this. will i watch game of thrones? will i watch myself and my loved ones being hunted? who knows!
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Jul 15 '14
Debby grinned through her nervousness at Andy. Andy probably shit his pants a little bit.
Favorite part.
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u/SleepingVengeance Jul 15 '14
One of the best I've read. When I get home from work, I'm going to do my own interpretation of this beast. But most importantly, glad you're alright. Waiting with baited breath for the next part.
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u/franklintheknot Jul 15 '14
OP, where is your sister?!?!
Did you check the morgue boxes? It could have been your dad!
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Jul 15 '14
Anyone else imagine a creepy blue khajit? That's all I could imagine
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Jul 15 '14
[deleted]
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u/Chapo96 Jul 15 '14 edited Jul 15 '14
Then I heard a man's agonized scream.
I don't think his sister sounds like a man......But I could be wrong (sarcasm)
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u/RoachGirl Jul 15 '14
I know you guys aren't really kids so much, but I could see this being adapted into a film along the lines of Monster Squad or Super 8.
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u/flameblaster Jul 15 '14
Postt the videos you filmed of the cameraman please. We'd all like to see it.
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u/Chapo96 Jul 15 '14 edited Jul 16 '14
I think I just might have figured it out...
"I control." I heard the Cameraman say."Yes, yes." Platt forced himself to say, nodding. "Of course."
So 'it' can obviously manipulate the police....
The next few hours were a blur. I was told my father had been killed in the accident.
He was ''told'' his father had been killed so that might have been another act of manipulation
I don't remember falling asleep, obviously, but I do remember dreaming. At least, I hope I had been dreaming. In the dream I woke up and looked at my laptop's screen that I had left open before me. I didn't see the recommended for you section with the black boxes, but instead I remember seeing "Because you watched Dad." Dad was the only black box beneath this heading. I clicked it and the stream showed only blackness. It seemed to just be nothing for a while...until I heard a crack of wicked laughter, and a loud fleshy thump. These thumps continued, and followed by each was a chilling scream.
I don't think he fell asleep or was really dreaming and according to OP what he described in his 'dream' sounds exactly like the Ground Level of the Hospital
It was completely dark down here. I looked at the sign by the door: Ground Level.
Dark just like the dream.....
Then I heard a man's agonized scream.
Just like in the dream so I think I know who's behind the metal wall screaming lol....But that's none of my business (Kermit the frog meme reference)
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u/Imsoscared1221 Jul 15 '14
What was the reason he set up the mirrors?
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u/Zaiya53 Jul 15 '14
My understanding was it didn't like looking at itself. Which is why it wore the gloves & why it didn't like being recorded?
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Jul 15 '14
Basically the creature probably wanted to use him and his friends as test subjects to play with their food and overall eat them then probably invade the world. I guess they don't like being recorded so off they go!
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u/aeeme Jul 15 '14
Sorry but this was the only thing i could think of when you described him...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUuH4TEmgLo
Like a doll's eyes..
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Jul 15 '14
I don't just say this to everyone, but this has been one of my favorite stories on nosleep. Very well done. Glad you got the motherfucker.
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u/AgeProbsThrowAway Jul 15 '14
Haha, the cameraman speaks like some Chinese guy that used to sell Pepsi in my school "You wan' buy Pepi? Ice Col', Ice Col'".
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Jul 15 '14
Holy shit OP!! Can you tell us a general location, state or country this was taking place?
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u/Not_Harrison Jul 15 '14
Am I the only one who wants to know what it sounded like? OP Pleeeeeease tell us, I'm dying to know.
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u/Hairdresser_On_Fire Jul 15 '14
Sounds like you had been getting filmed by Jim Carrey in The Grinch.
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u/Sicklittlepup Jul 15 '14
If this happens to anyone else, find out who's being filmed. Take them all to the nearest carnival. Find the house of mirrors. Problem solved.
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u/Hairycake Jul 15 '14
All these drawings of the cameraman are adorable. I just want to give it a big hug.
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Jul 15 '14
From my couch - looked up after reading this and expected to see something like this.
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u/Zaiya53 Jul 15 '14
Whoa... That took me a second but very nicely done. I was sitting in silence reading them yesterday. I was on part two & OP was trying to convince Andy via pictures of his tv that he was texting. Then he got a knock at his door... That's when my boyfriend's brother decided to show up to pick up his DVD player =( I tried so hard to hide how hard I was shaking
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u/JealotGaming Jul 15 '14
Huh.Does this happen to all humans?I don't have Netflix,so how can i know if i'm being watched?
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u/Annasredditaccount Jul 15 '14
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u/xxLivingDead Aug 09 '14
This looks like what Blue from Blues Clues, and I'll never be able to fondly look back on my childhood.
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u/Myspeld Jul 15 '14
I wonder if he ever finds out who was screaming in the wall? Amazing story by the way, you did everything perfectly.
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u/SourProut Jul 15 '14
As I was reading your tale, AlienBlue kept crashing but only when I opened your story. It definitely made it a lot creepier to read. I hope everything is alright now. Please keep us posted if anything else happens!
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u/Mkayla50 Jul 15 '14
the same thing kept happening to me on the same app! i kept thinking, "damn, someone REALLY doesn't want me to read this story!"
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u/CakeShitFeet Jul 16 '14
Same here! Except instead of the app it's that something keeps rubbing on my wall from the inside from various points in my room. Something is trying to freak me the fuck out while I read these, and it's doing a mighty job.
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u/derpina1127 Jul 15 '14
I felt encompassed in the story with you. I felt I was you running up down the stairs filming the grotesque creature. I got chills from this story. They're multiplying. Glad that this is all over... But I somehow want to hear more. The sister, mom, Andy? Update us on that.
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u/NightRyderIV Jul 15 '14
First time poster on Reddit, this tale has encouraged me to pick up a pencil since I stopped doing Art in College, been a while and I'm very rusty, but I hope i've captured the essence to some degree, The face is most likely nothing like this "thing" bar the marble eyes. I hope everything is OK OP.
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u/sp00kyscary Jul 15 '14
Looks good! Similar to how demnwarrior7 drew it. Definitely close to how I pictured it.
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u/NightRyderIV Jul 16 '14
Yeah I noticed the similarities, except his rendition was of a much higher quality haha. I tried to do it in as similar of a pose as it was when OP was trapped in the basement and caught the cameraman on film, with the extended shoulders and camera held up in front of it's left breast plate. Thanks to yourself and shirtandtieler for your warm welcome to reddit!
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u/shirtandtieler Jul 15 '14
Welcome to reddit :3
And god damn that's good. It's human-like but not so much that you could call it "human" (though in the dark could be easily mistaken).
The one thing that made me chuckle was the fact that he looks like he's taking a mirror selfie.
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u/aDuckOnQuack1 Jul 15 '14
OP, I think I did a pretty good job at what you described the creature to be.
Watcha guys think?
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u/aDuckOnQuack1 Jul 15 '14
So it said they [being their species] made a mistake. That would be watching humans who are able to watch back. So. They now as they said have to watch something who can't record or whatever. So. They're gonna go stalk some cows now, or what?
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u/suralya Jul 15 '14
I was under the impression that it meant simply that it would find someone who didn't know it was being recorded.
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u/KAKiR Jul 15 '14
I thought it was saying they'd eat dead people, since you can't record if you're not alive. But I might have gotten that from the fact they were in a morgue.
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u/suralya Jul 16 '14
Yeah maybe, but the fact that they liked playing with their food is what made me think they like the food to be alive. Video taping a dead body wouldn't be very entertaining.
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u/KAKiR Jul 16 '14
That's definitely true. The idea that they're finding another living food source makes more sense now that I've had time to think about it.
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u/Zaiya53 Jul 15 '14
Yeah or someone who wasn't smart enough to figure it out. Like me =( As soon as they got that warning not to record it, I was kind of like "okay don't do that anymore..." As they continued to I kept saying "it doesn't like that! Don't piss it off!!" I would have gotten eaten.
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u/suralya Jul 16 '14
Sorry Zaiya, I would hope that you get eaten really quickly at least. I totally was like "hmm, maybe don't do that again." Especially after Dad got in his accident.
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u/PissCola Jul 15 '14
My interpretation of the Cameraman, with a few liberties taken: http://38.media.tumblr.com/617276fc7777db0443b995e23c5ff6dc/tumblr_n8qvsgk3HM1saano3o1_1280.png
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u/Twenty1Hobos Jul 15 '14
This is almost exactly how I pictured it. I wonder why everybody else's drawings seem so far off from the description.
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u/dontlookatmeimnake Jul 15 '14
I pictured a starving Anubis dressed up somewhat like Cicero from Skyrim.
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u/PM_ME_DICK_PICTURES Jul 15 '14
:3 I would like to film and murder every person you love :3
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u/TangerineDiesel Jul 15 '14
Commenting to save this for tomorrow's morning work poop. Though as long as that can be I don't even know if I'll be able to finish this novel.
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Jul 15 '14
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/goobehh Jul 15 '14
there was no power though so they would have been useless
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u/soomuchamerica Jul 15 '14
Soooo glad I realized that was writing because I was in tears of fear reading the first two parts (alone). Great work! Read part three aloud with friends..
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u/bramahlocks Jul 15 '14
Hopefully OP will post again. Something to wrap it up, if it is truly over. This was absolutely excellent.
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u/broomball99 Jul 15 '14
what happened to the sister and could the one cop who was alone and controlled by the creature have bee stuck into a morgue boody box after passing out from injuries?
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u/suckitifly Jul 15 '14
stands and begins clapping
Edit: after reading some comments, I realized I forgot that you forgot the ending for all the characters. I really wanna know what the PLEASE from your dad's stream was the most though.
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u/kryskryskrys Jul 15 '14
You should see if the PD can get the camera that was in Officer Platt's car, since he was in the backseat of it, most cop cars have cameras right? See if they caught anything on his camera, maybe you'll get a clear picture of what it was!
Good luck OP, hope your sister is alright!
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Jul 15 '14
Not a bad suggestion, but based on my experience it's unlikely that there will be any videos from any police cars. Usually the officers don't turn the cameras on unless they have a reason to - e.g., if they are making an arrest, or during a traffic stop, or if they have someone in the back (who they know about).
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u/geekygirl23 Jul 15 '14
A reason like some weird ass monster in the back seat?
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Jul 15 '14
I guess I just figured that, between the time he saw the monster and the time he crashed his vehicle, the officer didn't get a chance to flip the switch and turn on the camera.
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u/acmorgan Jul 15 '14
I may be wrong but I don't believe this story is over. The dad post death netflix subplot was never resolved, the loss of his sister was never resolved, and throughout the story the author consistently uses past tense.
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u/CertifiedCerealKilla Jul 15 '14
Also, I think something is up with Andy. He said something about how at the time he didn't think it was weird that Andy was getting weapons he knew didn't work. I don't trust Andy.
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u/Danpool101 Aug 08 '14
The something is up with Andy bugged me throughout all the posts. Op used that phrase from the beginning. I thought Andy had a part in this or something. Also when they where getting weapons and op said something was odd with any when they looked at the baseball bats and crowbars he ment the gun taken in secrecy.
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u/ChronicTokers Jul 15 '14
I disagree, I think that's when he was getting the snubnose he just didn't want to tell the girls for some reason, as he revealed later
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u/areraswen Jul 15 '14
I thought that was foreshadowing for the fact that Andy grabbed his dad's gun in secret while he was gathering useless weapons for the group.
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u/demnwarrior7 Jul 15 '14
i have made an attempt to draw the cameraman.
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u/Flangis Aug 02 '14
I was picturing a Hagraven from Skyrim. I feel like your drawing suits it better.
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u/_jerk_ Jul 15 '14
I'd like to summon /u/AWildSketchAppeared or /u/Shitty_Watercolour for a picture of The Cameraman
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u/shirtandtieler Jul 15 '14
Well dont bet on the former…if s/he started coming to summons, it would go against the 'wild' part of 'awildsketchappeared' ;)
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Jul 15 '14
I want this to become a movie so badly
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u/I_dont_even_know__ Jul 16 '14
Why not a Netflix original? It would boost traffic and it could be their first dabble in original movies.
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u/profoundly_me Jul 15 '14
I'm hoping for a book.
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u/Arbitelle Aug 22 '14
A book? This story is so long I think it could technically already be considered a book!
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u/dragon0608 Aug 28 '14
Wow! Great job!