Journals of Horror: Found Fiction

by Todd Keisling

  The dream’s alive, another night, wonder if I’ll survive…

  Thursday, 10/29/09

  Brian came home early to pack for his "businesses" trip. We fought about it for hours. I was just hoping he'd have the decency to cancel the trip when he had seen how upset I was. At one point he asked me, "So, what do you want from me? Do you want me to cancel the trip? "

  I did, but I wanted him to cancel it because he didn't want to go, not because I forced him. He hopped in the shower, determined to stay on schedule. I debated confronting him with what I suspected, what I knew, but I imagined he'd go anyway and I'd never see him again. I stared into space, at a loss for what I should do. I thought about leaving while he was away but knew I had nowhere to go. My mom had died when I was twenty. My older sister lived in Ohio with her husband and children but we didn't talk anymore. My dad was my last family tie and when he had died, it was difficult for me. If he was still alive, I'm sure he would take me in; he would give me comfort and solace.

  I told Brian about my dreams, about my father and how upset these dreams were making me feel. I told him how alone I felt since my father’s passing and that I couldn't believe that he would leave for this trip while I felt so vulnerable. That is when he exploded.

  “Now? You’re suddenly crying for your father, now?” he hollered. “He was a drunk - he left you and your mother when you were six and never returned. He made no attempt to see you even though he lived across town. Oh, let me correct that - he did return a few times to beat on your mother, violating his restraining order which got him a fast-track ticket to jail.”

  Brian’s face had turned beet red and veins were bulging in his neck.

  “This is the man you’re crying about?” he added.

  Every word he said ripped at my soul. They cut me deeply garnering irregular breathing and tightness in my chest. I tried to hold it in, feeling pressure build in my head, until I finally burst into hysterical wailing.

  “Nooo! Get Out!” I screamed at him. “Go on your business trip and leave me alone.”

  I collapsed on the bed and wept uncontrollably. Brian picked up his suitcase and headed for the door. I didn’t care anymore; I wanted him to go.

  “We’ll talk about this when I get home,” he said and walked out. I heard the trunk and car doors slam then the car pulling away. I heard the car rumble all the way down the street and onto the next street. I was half expecting to hear the car turn around and come back. It didn’t. It made a turn and continued onto Jericho Turnpike. I cursed the quiet afternoon that allowed me to hear his car leaving for what seemed like an eternity. I imagined that I’d be able to hear it all the way to the airport.

  Friday, 10/30/09

  The dream lives…

  I didn't know there was a hierarchy of these beings, but last night I talked to the head being. Well, talked is not the right word. It showed me pictures, in my mind, pictures of its world. I don't know if its world exists in the known universe or on some other plane or dimension. The world I was seeing reminded me of the work of fantasy artists, perhaps Roger Dean, who did the album covers for Yes. It had a strange alien beauty. I saw a castle of some sort, not like our real castles but one of fantasy with twisted spires and spikes that stretch into the air like frozen flames. It was a cool pale green, like the Emerald City in the Land of Oz. Then I saw a room. It was draped with a fine silk that shimmered with its own rainbow light. It was so soft and shiny, I wanted to reach out and caress it, to feel it against my skin. Center of the room was a structure like a bed, empty, a curved wafer mattress surrounded by strands of silk, so fine, you could see through them. I could see outside a window, into a courtyard. A large being stood at the center of the yard with many underlings attending its every need. It was insectile, like a mantis or an emerald ant, but standing upright and donning a robe of dark shaded purple silk. The being twisted its head to one side and regarded me with its large insect eyes. Its antennae twitched a silent moss code, casting a spell upon me. Before I had a chance to ask why I was being shown this, the images withdrew from my mind in rapid succession causing me to become dizzy. The entity and its entourage faded into shadow.

  This was an invitation by this being, to be with the king, to go with him and live, to be a queen by his side, to finally be a mother and birth his children. How many? Hundreds, perhaps thousands. To start a new life in a new land and leave my former sadness behind. It is not an easy decision to leave behind familiarity, to uproot one’s life so drastically...

  I rolled onto my side and began to fall asleep. I felt calm and relaxed.

  ***

  This was the last entry in the journal. No additional writings were found.

  Missing Persons Report

  Subject: Andrea Sachem

  Evidence: Item #17

  Case status:

  Cold case - still missing as of 1/15/2014

  Author bio: Michael Thomas-Knight is a horror-fiction author who haunts the local coffee shops of Long Island, NY, somewhere between a famous house in Amityville and Joel Rifkin’s lovely home. Michael's style ranges from classic ghost stories with violent conclusions to atmospheric Eldritch tales steeped in mysticism, cynicism, and irony. His stories have been published in publications, Dark Eclipse, Infernal Ink, SNM Horror Magazine, Fiction Terrifica, and Microhorror.com. His work has also appeared in numerous anthologies, Terror Train, From Beyond the Grave, Shadow Masters, Cellar Door II, O Little Town of Deathlehem and others. You can find Michael at his blog, Parlor of Horror, which deals with all things horror: movies, books, and articles for the horror enthusiast. http://parlorofhorror.wordpress.com https://www.amazon.com/author/michaelthomasknight

  https://www.facebook.com/michael.thomasknight.9

  FINDERS KEEPERS

  By Paul D. Marks

  Case #BF5988025897

  Journal transcribed from a series of videos on a discarded cell phone.

  Day 1

  If you find this phone and are looking at this video right now, this is how it started. Amanda and I drove up into the Hollywood Hills to smoke a jay and watch the lights of the city dance below us. The brush is dry. It hasn't rained all year. Everything's ready to burn and the dry brush is perfect kindling.

  We're driving up the road and I remember saying, "Goddamn fog, I can hardly see where I'm going."

  So, as we wind our way up the roads above Sunset Boulevard, Amanda says, "I don't know why we have to come up here anyway. We can smoke anywhere, nobody cares."

  "This place is special," I say, turning onto Blue Jay Way. "The Beatles wrote about it–"

  "The Beatles? Who cares, man? They're like yesterday. My mom listens to them, no my grandmother."

  "L-G-H," I say in text lingo, smiling at her.

  "Yeah, 4-2-0," she responds with another text code for "let's get high".

  We park, walk into the bushes. It's not as wildernessy as when George Harrison wrote the song. We settle in on a large flattened cardboard box that someone was nice enough to leave behind. I light up, take a hit, pass the joint to Amanda. The city spreads out below us, so many all-important busy ants, hustling here and there.

  "Hey, what's that?" Amanda says.

  "Somebody lost their cell phone." I pick up the shiny glowing rectangle in my hand.

  "It's still on. Videoing us."

  We did a little twerking for the phone's pleasure. We broke out laughing, just about rolling on the ground – ROFL. Hey, we were stoned.

  "Maybe we should figure out whose it is and return it," Amanda says, taking a hit.

  "Fuck that shit. Finders keepers."

  Amanda passes the joint back to me.

  "Let's see what's on it?" I say, turning the camera on Amanda.

  "You shouldn't be videoing us smoking dope," she says.

  "Nobody cares anymore. Have another hit."

  So I play back the owner's photos. Selfies and smiling faces. Family shit.

  Now I play back their video. A face stares up at us – a video selfie. Y
oung dude, maybe twenty, twenty-five, I don't know.

  "My name is Kevin," he says. "I found this phone over by the Jamba Juice. Now it's yours. And everything in it is yours too." He glares into the camera. Looking stoned.

  "See, babe, he says we can keep it."

  "I guess so," Amanda says. "Is there anymore?"

  "No, don't think so."

  "This is weird," she says. "I think we should erase the video of us and throw the phone away."

  "No way, this is just too cool."

  Day 2

  I'm videoing everything with the phone. Why not, it's mine now? And I didn’t even have to pay for it. Amanda and I hang in my studio apartment over the garage behind my landlord's house. I do a 360 pan of the room, X-Box, couple-a rock posters, the requisite poster of Ché on the wall, my laptop on the desk. All the usual shit that a job as a night stocker at Walmart can pay for with the employee discount.

  "I still think we should try to find the phone's owner, that Kevin guy," Amanda says.

  "Why?"

  "'Cause it's the right thing to do."

  I zoom in on her face. She swats at the camera.

  "I know, I know, finders keepers," she says.

  "Got that right."

  The neighbor's dog barks up a storm in the background.

  "Damn dog," I say.

  "It's only a dog," she says.

  "Look." I nearly shove the phone in her face. She jerks back a foot. "I found another video on the phone." I hit play. Kevin’s face appears on the screen looking fresh and alert.

  "Yo, Kevin here." He holds the phone at arm's length, shooting another video selfie. "Cool phone, man. And it's still connected. Got like a million songs downloaded too."

  "He sounds like you," Amanda says.

  "And guess what, didn't pay a thing for it. Found it. My girlfriend says I should try to find the owner, but fuck that shit. Gotta free phone, finders keepers," Kevin says.

  "See," I say, but I'm not sure Amanda does.

  Day 3

  "I know, you still think I should return it. But that Kevin-dude didn't. Why should I?" I aim the phone's camera at me, then at Amanda.

  "'Even though he said that, I still think you should give it back. It's not yours."

  We're sitting in a Starbucks in Santa Monica. But hey, you've seen one Starbucks you've seen them all. And in L.A. you've seen one schmuck working on a screenplay in a Starbucks, you've seen them all. And if you've read one screenplay, you've read them all too. Hey, I'm working on my own damn script.

  "Yeah, I know, you said that already. But look at it this way, it's sort of paying it forward. Somebody lost it, this Kevin guy finds it, now he loses it and I find it." I sip my Tazo Chai Frappuccino. "Probably five people lost it before he found it and someday I'll lose it and someone else will find it. And everybody gets the benefit of a free phone for a while."

  "Paying it forward?" She laughs. "S-R-Y, Jack, there's no free rides."

  I swing the phone's camera back to Amanda to capture Amanda-Skeptical Look #3. Amanda has a variety of skeptical looks. Number three is my favorite.

  "You sound like your grandmother now. Jeez." I swing the phone back towards me. "It's like this guy never had a smart phone before, look," I say.

  "Cool phone, huh? It even talks back to me," Kevin says into the camera. "Angel, where's the nearest pizza joint?"

  "Marco's, on Melrose," Angel says, in a seductive, electronic voice. At first I wonder who Angel is, then realize she's the phone's intelligent personal assistant, not a real person.

  Kevin laughs. "See. The damn phone talks to me. How cool is that?"

  Day 4

  We're sitting in the drive-thru at McDonald's. I'm scrolling through the phone, looking for more videos.

  "Why are you still watching his home movies? They're boring." Amanda-Skeptical Look #1 – not as severe as Number 3. But she's still cute. The phone likes her, I can tell.

  "No, they're not. Watch!"

  Kevin glares out at us from the phone's screen. "I think the phone is talking to me."

  His eyes bug out. Scared.

  "Of course, it's talking to him," Amanda says. "It's a smart phone. Guy's a dickwad."

  "It's telling me to–"

  "It's telling him where to find a pizza. Turn that stupid thing off."

  I shut down the playback on the phone, but secretly keep recording us. If she knew, she'd be pissed. But I'll watch it back later and enjoy it.

  "That Kevin guy should be wearing a tin foil hat," Amanda says. "I bet he lives in his mom's basement and thinks the TV is talking to him too."

  She laughs it off. But that night I watch another of his selfies. New ones kept showing up on the phone that I hadn’t seen before.

  "I set a car on fire today. I think Angel told me to, but I'm not really sure. I wasn't going to, but what was the harm?" Kevin says. "So I went down Sunset till I found a car that looked ripe for burning. No big deal, right? Besides, don't you get mesmerized when you watch fire burn. The flames entranced me. The crackle of the fire was music. The power of the fire, the absolute power of it all."

  Day 5

  "I'm not gonna see you anymore if you're going to be glued to that phone. You're addicted – like a junkie," Amanda says. This time there's no Skeptical look. Just scorn. The phone captures her expression nicely.

  "No more than you're addicted to Facebook, or Pinterest or Twitter. Instagram, Vine, anything new that comes along." I say. "Watch this, Mand."

  "No. Let's go somewhere. I wanna go out. All you want to do now is watch those videos."

  "C'mon." I slide down the futon, closer to her.

  But she ends up fixated on the screen, on which Kevin stares into the camera's lens.

  "He has freaky eyes," Amanda says.

  "What do you mean?"

  "The whites of his eyes show above his iris. They call it Yang Sanpaku. They say it means someone's mentally imbalanced. And he sure as hell looks demented. I guess I did learn something in school." Laughing.

  "C-R-Z. You look demented. " I want to jump her bones, but instead keep watching the video. She pulls out her smart phone. "What're you doing?"

  She snaps a picture of Kevin's face.

  "I thought you didn't like the way he looks."

  "I don't."

  "Then why do you want his picture?"

  "Just run the video," she says.

  "I think I'm possessed," Kevin says. "The phone talks to me."

  "Of course it does," Amanda says. "People call him, they talk and he thinks he's hearing voices..."

  Kevin stares straight into the camera, agitated. Excited. Scared shitless all at once. "Am I crazy? I don't think so. Is it a demon? The Devil? Or am I just nuts? I feel pretty good though. Feel alive."

  "Definitely needs a tinfoil hat. Next thing you know he'll say his dog talks to him," Amanda says. She isn't smiling.

  "Ssh," I want her to shut up – shut the fuck up. I want to watch the damn video. Maybe she should go home.

  "Gotta run," Kevin says. "Angel says I have to–"

  The video cuts off before Kevin says what he's going to do. "Damn!"

  Day 6

  "I tried looking up this Kevin dude," Amanda says. We're hangin' in my crib again.

  "His last name's not in the phone, I've looked."

  "I did a 'search by image'," she says.

  "Find him?"

  "No."

  "All that means is that he's not famous," I say.

  "All that means is that this whole thing is a hoax. I think you're being punk'd – we're probably gonna end up on TV. That's probably not even the photo of the phone's real owner. And that guy, whoever he–"

  "–or she–"

  "–is is probably watching us right now through the camera's lens." Amanda makes a face into the camera, then flips it the bird. "Turn that thing off."

  I do what she asks this time, but learn later that the phone's camera kept videoing us anyway.

  She goes on, "What it mean
s is that he's a fake. And this is a hoax. Don't you think the person that started the car fire would have his picture in the news?"

  "Not if they didn't catch him," I say.

  Her eyes flare with anger.

  "Gotcha."

  I turn the camera back on, play the next video. Kevin gazes into the screen, the whites of his eyes showing over his irises. It does make him look creepy, for sure.

  "Okay," he says. "It was a joke, a hoax. I wouldn't really start a fire."

  "See." Amanda glows with victory.

  "I'm not really possessed," Kevin says.

  "Turn it off, Jack."

  "Why?"

  "He gives me the creeps."

  "He says it's all a hoax. So why let it scare you?"

  "Just turn it off."

  I look at her. She turns away. Leaves a few minutes later.

  Day 7

  "Jack, I don't want to watch anymore of this. Hoax, no hoax, the guy's crazy either way." Amanda is insistent. "I'm sick of this. I'm bored and I'm tired of your little apartment. Let's go out."

  But I can't take my eyes off the screen.

  "Come with me," Kevin says. The camera shakily moves out of his bedroom, down the stairs. "This is the house I used to live in – I snuck in. It's an old house in a crummy neighborhood, but it used to be nice – a long time ago. Now it's filled with frat brats. The whole neighborhood is filled with frat brats."

  He's outside now, shooting back at his old house. Then the camera trundles down the steps at the front of the house. He swings around, shooting across the street to another old Victorian, with broken gingerbread everywhere.

  "The college, uh, university, is a few blocks away," Kevin says. "These bastards won't even look at me. Think they're better than me. Look down at me because I actually work."