The Girl in the Video (ARC)

by Michael David Wilson

  A gift.

  Was that what it was? A joke seemed likelier. Some dickhead from uni or my schooldays. Yes, a joke was most probable.

  And yet there was something about that final line: “Reply and tell me what you like. It’s important.”

  ***

  WEDNESDAY JANUARY 27, 2016

  I’d wanted to hurl my phone out of the fucking window when the alarm blared out at 6 a.m., but seeing as I’d made a promise to myself the night before to up my exercise game and get a workout in before nine o’clock, I turned off the alarm, kissed Rachel on the forehead, and got out of bed.

  I prepared a strong coffee in the French press and sat on an old deckchair in the almost-but-not-quite-patio outside, rubbing my cold hands together and looking up at the clear blue sky. I may have been exercising early, but I wasn’t a total masochist—I’d ease into the day: caffeine and reading, then exercise. My sportswear was laid out on the exercise bench, my workout routine printed, and my playlist curated on Spotify. Matter of fact, I’d been so well organised I figured if I left it at that I’d already done 80% of the work and wasn’t that what minimum effective dose was all about?

  The morning started well enough. Up in my home office, with the portable heater on full blast, I dipped into David Lynch’s Catching The Big Fish: Meditation, Consciousness, and Creativity. Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t much of a creative person but I was a failing meditator. And besides, I had this hunch that if I read enough books on creativity I might one day become a creative. Now I’ll hold my hands up and admit that ten years in it hadn’t worked, but I was also an optimist and enjoyed reading about the creative process. That way I got to experience the high points vicariously without enduring many of the lows.

  As soon as I turned the Wi-Fi on, the messages started flooding in, and the morning went to shit. Pro tip: if you want a chilled morning don’t turn the fucking Wi-Fi on.

  First it was Instagram, a comment on my most recent photograph, a well-lit shot of the burger I’d had at Shake Tree: “Tell me what you like.”

  Then it was a direct message via Twitter: “Tell me what you like.”

  Next it was a Facebook inbox message, which surprised me the most as I’d thought my privacy settings were maxed out, but whatever. “Tell me what you like.”

  Line: “Tell me what you like.”

  WhatsApp: “Tell me what you like.”

  Skype: “Tell me what you like.”

  Pinterest: “Tell me what you like.”

  Each message identical, each profile with that same Hello Kitty picture.

  Now sometimes when I turn the Wi-Fi on I’ll open a shitty message, get involved in an online spat, or read a depressing newspaper article that affects my focus and stalls the morning’s progress and with it my sense of calm. Though given I sometimes get angry at the alarm clock, or some prick queue jumping in the supermarket, I use ‘sense of calm’ pretty lightly. But all those simultaneous messages more than stalled progress. They were a full-on fucking assault and I was unable to focus on anything else.

  Perhaps I’d clicked a link that had given away all my passwords and login details, infected my computer and smartphone with the ‘tell me what you like’ virus. It seemed like the logical explanation. Or at least as logical as I could muster so god damn early in the morning.

  But a quick Google search returned nothing of interest.

  I was still quick to change all my passwords and even set up a password management app—something I’d been meaning to do for months. Nothing like a near miss with a computer virus to kick some sense into me.

  I scanned my various social accounts, making a point of checking outgoing messages, comments, statuses, etc. to ensure nothing untoward had been written on my behalf. Everything seemed in order. The only weird messages present had been sent consciously and of my own volition. Satisfied, I tweeted the following:

  “Anyone know anything about this ‘tell me what you like’ spam that’s doing the rounds?”

  I hoped that would be enough for someone to shed light on what was happening. Feign more knowledge than you have and often people will confirm your suspicions and then some. Works great with bullshitters, too. Catching them out at their own game.

  I drank more coffee, listened to the latest Clutch album, and waited for the replies to flood in.

  ***

  By the time Clutch had finished I’d received no replies and only one like. The ‘like’ was from a well-muscled blonde girl by the name of Amber-Marie. She had five followers, followed over 5,000 accounts, and according to her bio she was “look for big fuck NOW” and only posted periodically. Tweets like, “Someone push me on a big dIck please. #ClimateChange” and “I’m a virgin, and you? #JeremyCorbyn”. I decided not to follow-up with Amber-Marie. I might have been working on my optimism but I wasn’t that optimistic. And I didn’t click any of her cloaked URLs either. See? I was learning.

  ***

  It was gone nine a.m. when I started my workout. After a brief warm-up of stretches and bodyweight exercises, I picked up the cast iron kettlebell and started swinging. But I soon stopped—my heart wasn’t in it. My body had already woken up and was unhappy with such a vigorous routine early-doors. I vowed to try again the following day. To wake up earlier and catch my body off-guard. Trick my way to a stronger, fitter, better body.

  I finished work early and Rachel earlier still. When I returned home, I smelt the sweet aroma of the evening’s dinner before putting my key in the door.

  Inside, Rachel was setting the table. Courgette spaghetti and ground beef meatballs in a rich tomato sauce with various herbs, onions, and a smattering of cashew nuts simmered in the pan.

  I undid my tie, rolled it up, and placed it on the coffee table. “Bloody hell, Rach, what a feast. How long did this take you?”

  “Not so long,” she said, serving the food onto large white plates.

  “If you’d have called ahead I’d have got us a nice bottle of wine to go with it. In fact, if you give me five minutes, I can nip out and grab one.”

  “I wanted to surprise you. And besides . . . ” she took a bottle of red from the fridge, a Chianti Classico, “we’re already covered. And don’t worry, it’s not been in there long, just slightly chilled.”

  “You know, you really are an angel. What’s the occasion?”

  Rachel set the plates of food on the table. “Does there need to be one?”

  “I guess not.”

  I opened the wine, poured generous helpings in tall chianti glasses.

  As we ate we shared stories from our day at work and listened to jazz saxophonist, Kamasi Washington. The evening was going wonderfully and the wine had given me the most pleasant of buzzes, that blissful stage between sober and pissed—a warm hug for the brain.

  “What was that status all about then? Tell me what you like.”

  Ugh, if ugly was a phrase that was it. Felt nauseous just hearing it.

  “It’s probably nothing.”I drank some wine, stuffed a big piece of meatball into my mouth, like if I filled it with enough food and drink I couldn’t possibly continue talking. As if the subject might disappear.

  “Hmm . . . probably nothing means perhaps something.”

  There was no getting past her, huh? Though I wasn’t sure I should burden her with the videos and strange messages, I didn’t want to make it into a thing.

  “You can tell me. And if it’s nothing then, hey, no big deal . . . but if it is something then I should know.”

  I scratched my neck, needed to shave my beard line back in. Looked Rachel in the eyes, no point in lying. Might as well come out with it. “So, someone sent me these videos. One the other day, one a few months back . . . they’re pretty strange . . . You know, rather than explaining, it’s best you see for yourself.”

  She nodded. “Well, no time like the present, pop them on.”

  “And spoil this great meal? No way.”

  “They scary?”

  “Not exactly. Though the sec
ond goes a little bit Too Many Cooks towards the end.”

  “Ooh! See, now I’m interested.”

  I waved a hand dismissively. “Please, don’t get your hopes up. It’s not that kind of video—it’s not especially entertaining and the production is . . . Well, let’s just say, it’s probably some dumbass kid fucking around.”

  ***

  Once Rachel had seen the videos, she sat in silence, phone still in hand, staring at its blank screen.

  “Suffice to say, they won’t be winning any Oscars,” I said, trying to make light of the situation, whilst I finished the drying up.

  Rachel sighed. “These are very odd indeed. Though I’m not sure I get it.”

  “I’m not sure there’s anything to get.”

  “How did you say you got these videos again?”

  “They were sent to me. Direct messages on social media.”

  “From?”

  “That’s what I’m trying to figure out. And honestly, your guess is as good as mine. Some anonymous account with a Hello Kitty display picture.”

  “Hmm, like the masks in the videos.” She handed my phone back to me. “You think it’s a joke?”

  “Could be. Could be anything.”

  “One of your mates from uni, perhaps?”

  “We were pretty dark, but this is a bit much. Besides, our idea of a joke was changing the desktop background to an extreme image or video. Goatse, lemon party, tubgirl, swap.avi—”

  “All right, all right. Stop listing the websites already, you’re making me picture them, you bastard.”

  “Blue waffle . . . ”

  She arched an eyebrow, her smile gone.

  “Seriously, though, we haven’t played jokes on each other for years.”

  “Which would make it the ultimate joke, you’d never suspect it.”

  “You find it funny then?”

  “Not really. And not extreme enough for the total gross-out either, unless we’re to believe the girl is actually dead, which obviously she isn’t. It’s so blatantly faked. But think about it, this was sent to all your personal accounts, even those with high privacy settings. Whoever sent them knows you. Have you shown the videos to anyone else?”

  I shook my head. “Uh-uh. Apart from that Twitter thread, I haven’t even mentioned it, and that came back blank, so . . . ”

  I huffed out a deep breath, exasperated. Hadn’t mentioned the messages I’d received via Line and WhatsApp. As far as I understood it, you needed someone’s mobile number to send a WhatsApp message and hardly anyone knew mine—hadn’t got around to updating most of my mates since returning to Japan. As for Line, whilst privacy was questionable, I doubted my uni friends had even heard of it. I certainly hadn’t before arriving in Tokyo. Still, I wasn’t gonna burden Rachel with all that, didn’t want to unnecessarily worry her. Not then. I’d do a little more digging and worry her if and when there was something worth worrying about.

  ***

  The evening wound down. We drank more wine and watched Mulholland Drive. Every time the girl or video popped into my head I’d concentrate on my breathing, repeating mantras like “this too shall pass” and “everything is temporary”. Honestly, it didn’t help. I still wasn’t zen enough, whatever the fuck that meant. But I was trying.

  After grabbing a shower, I headed upstairs, stark naked save for the blue towel I’d wrapped around my shoulders like a cape. When Rachel joined me, she wasn’t impressed.

  “Jesus, Freddie! The curtains are open, people can see straight through.”

  “Doubt it,” I said, making my way to the adjacent room which looked out at the residents’ car park.

  “It was a statement, not a question.”

  “Who’s going to be impressed by this, anyway?” I pressed myself up against the window, doing a little jig and rubbing my hair-clad chest against it before closing the curtains. I’d like to say it was because of the alcohol, but that would be dishonest . . .

  “You’re such a goof.” Rachel closed the curtains. “A goof that’s gonna get us deported if people catch you doing that kind of shit. And I don’t know why you insist on wearing the towel like that.”

  “Just giving my fans what they like.”

  “Ha! Fans!” She smiled, turned the heater off, and slipped into bed. “Well, save a little energy for your biggest fan, huh?”

  “Now that, I can do.”

  ***

  TUESDAY FEBRUARY 2, 2016

  I was making a crab mayonnaise salad when I received the WhatsApp message: another unknown number, another Hello Kitty display picture. Every bloody time I’d almost forgotten about this oddball, another message would show up vying for my attention. I took a stand. Not this time—I was hungry, the message could wait.

  After eating lunch and watching an episode of Death Note, my curiosity got the better of me and I loaded the message.

  Always a Hello Kitty display picture, always a cloaked Bitly link, yet always a different account. What was that about? A way to hide their identity and locations perhaps? But, come on, let’s get real—there are ways of concealing your identity online—it’s not like a burner phone that you dispose of after a single use. Perhaps it was all part of the weird mind games. The appeal of it all, for her or him or them. Well, whatever, there was no point overanalysing. I opened the message: text that read, ‘just for you’. I clicked the link and the video buffered.

  A black screen with white text that read, “I know what you like.”

  Electronic music kicked in, something familiar—more upbeat and mainstream than Ulver. I’d listened to it whilst marking papers. Then I recalled—Deadmau5, W:/2016ALBUM/. Not the catchiest of album titles but damn good background music.

  The black screen faded out, the inside of a train faded in. A number of passengers sat on green fabric chairs with grey plastic backs. They faced away from the camera. I couldn’t be certain, but I reckoned it was England, possibly a London Midland train, like countless trains I’d taken before.

  The next shot confirmed my suspicion: a cloudy overcast day outside the Bull Ring in Birmingham. The camera zoomed in on the eyes of the iconic bronze bull statue. Lingered, then cut away.

  The scene switched from day to night. Rain beat down outside Scruffy Murphy’s, a rock and heavy metal pub I’d visited often as a student. Rockers gathered outside—smoking cigarettes and drinking beers under the shelter—shielded from the rain. In the far-left corner, next to a display of posters and promos, a gangly goth with lank black hair and a long leather trench-coat made out with a pink-haired punk who was so much shorter than him she had to stand on tip-toes.

  Another cut. The lens fixed towards a bright blue sky. Clear, cloudless, and definitely not Birmingham. The camera jerked down awkwardly and focused on a statue, much as it had before. But this was different. A man on a horse—not simply a man, but a king. Underneath the king lay fallen snakes. Conquered.

  The camera zoomed out to reveal the full scene—a bustling square in a European city. Another place I knew intimately: the Praça do Comércio in Lisbon. Rachel and I had spent many evenings nearby, drinking red wine until the sun went down as we looked out onto the Rio Tejo.

  Lisbon faded.

  A new scene in a dark room: the silhouette of a girl—the girl?—rocking in a chair, high-pitched feminine laughter.

  Almost as quickly as the girl appeared, she flashed away, replaced by Yamato Station in Kanagawa, Japan. Nota video but a still shot, taken from the train platform and looking towards the ticket barriers.

  A second still photograph focussed on a set of stairs that led to the first floor of an old building. A place I used to work. It had been a couple of years and I wasn’t there for long, but it was definitely the school I’d taught at in Yamato. Though school was generous for a rented room in a block of other rented rooms. A remote place, away from the town proper.

  Back to the previous scene: the girl in the rocking chair. “I know what you like, I know what you liiiike.” She held the last sylla
ble, taunting me, voice filled with glee, child-like. “I know what you liiiike.”

  A flash of white and red that lasted less than a second, too quick to comprehend.

  Laughter as she see-sawed back-and-forth in the rocking chair.

  The image died.

  The laughter reverberating longer than the video.

  “What The Fuck was that?” I said to the empty living room.

  Technically it had been the most normal of the three videos I’d received. Banal even. And yet I was most unsettled. Each location, each place, was somewhere I’d been and was intimately familiar with. And not just places I’d been recently but over the years. Was that the point? Was that what the sender was trying to say? That this wasn’t generic, wasn’t viral. This was ‘just for me’. He, she, or they knew where I’d been and perhaps even where I was . . .

  I knocked back an L-Theanine capsule with a glass of water to calm my nerves. I was getting ahead of myself, letting my imagination run wild with neither evidence nor substance. There was no proof anyone knew where I was. Furthermore, all the places in the video had been recorded on social media. Public posts on Twitter and Instagram, other people’s public posts on Facebook. Anyone could have accessed them. I really would have to tighten up my security. Or, at the rate things were going, delete the bloody lot and be done with them.

  I paused, sick at the realisation.

  Anyone could have accessed them wasn’t necessarily true. Yamato station, the school I’d worked at . . . I hadn’t taken any photos or videos there, so . . .

  My mouth was dry, heart thudding. I poured a large glass of water and glugged it down in one motion, held the glass tight, knuckles white.

  Think.

  Breathe.

  Stay Calm.

  So, there was a possible explanation. Perhaps I’d inadvertently given away my connection to the school. All I’d have had to do was send out a public message with location services enabled. With the right know-how and determination, someone bothered enough could no doubt pinpoint my exact whereabouts.