The Tape Has Eyes

My first Psychological Horror short story!

         I helped my dad clean out his and my mom's garage today. This clean-up had been a long time coming, but it often got delayed due to repeated forgetfulness on either of our parts. Their garage had a jackpot of old items. Old house appliances, books, holiday decorations, tools, you name it, they had it. It was also dustier than the inside of a vacuum cleaner in there, so you bet there was a sizeable amount of coughing involved. I'm just glad the big garage door was open during the cleaning process. I'm almost certain things would have been much worse, otherwise.

         We also made city dump runs every four to six boxes or so. Yeah-there was that much trash in there. However, before our second dump run, I spotted an old VHS tape and a VHS player in the third box I went through. At first, I was a bit intrigued because it had been so long since I last saw something in VHS format. Out of curiosity, I picked the tape up first, looking for a label-nothing.

"Uhh, Dad? Do you remember what this tape was?" I asked. "It doesn't have a label."

I held the tape up so that my dad could see it. He shook his head.

         "I don't remember, Noah," he said, his tone dripping with uncertainty. He dusted off his shirt and adjusted his shorts a little bit, continuing to sort through boxes and miscellaneous items.

         I thought to myself for a couple of seconds before looking again for the VHS player, pulling it out. Since curiosity sparked my interest in what the tape could've been, I set the tape and the VHS player somewhere I wouldn't forget- The shelf next to the small garage door.

"I'll put this here so I don't forget where it is," I thought.

         My dad and I continued to comb through boxes and items in the garage, a lot more trash and old items to be sorted out. Trash-wise, we found broken pieces of furniture and other household appliances, crumpled and ripped papers, as well as some shards of glass. I used a broom and dustpan to deal with those because I wasn't going to handle glass with my bare hands, no way. Old items wise, there were either items that were used so much that they couldn't be anymore, or were missing pieces, were broken, possibly due to being crushed by boxes or other items, or something else.

         My dad and I eventually got the truck loaded up again and we headed out to the city dump. It took a little more time than the last trip to get assigned a spot in the building due to more people coming and going since the last trip, but it wasn't horrible. Now, the actual trash part was kind of a different story. The dump building reeked with trash. While that was a given, considering it's a building for dumping garbage, that wasn't and still isn't something I would want to constantly smell. Not to mention the loud sound of the truck engines, and the somewhat cold air in the building didn't help either.

         Thankfully, though, even with the large number of things we loaded up, it took no time at all to get it all off the bed of my father's truck, and in turn, no time at all to get out of that foul-smelling building.

On the drive back, my dad spoke up again.

"Ok, what do you say, you, your mother I have dinner together tonight, Noah?" My dad asked.

My face lit up.

         "That sounds good. I'll help cook." I responded with a smile. I may be far from a child anymore, being 28 years old and all, but I still like to help my parents cook from time to time.

"Then afterwards, I'll take a look at that VHS tape," I added.

"That didn't go to the dump?" My dad asked.

I shook my head.

         "No, I wanted to see what the tape was before we threw it out, if at all, so I set it aside for when we were done with cleaning the garage for the day," I replied.

         My dad shrugged at my response as we continued to drive. It wasn't in an offensive way, but in more of a you-do-you way. "Fair point, it could be a fond memory of something for all we know," He responded.

         Once my dad and I got back to his house, we got inside, washed up, and prepared to cook dinner. In the next thirty minutes, our cooking sent the smell of a real Italian treat through the air: Spaghetti. Meanwhile, my mom was in the living room watching TV.

         Admittedly, my mouth was watering just helping cook. I had been working so hard today on the garage with my dad that I was ravenous. Not to mention, the warmth of the kitchen caused by the pots and pans cooking the food was heavenly. I think another part of it was that being done working for the day proved to feel like a huge weight lifted off my shoulders, even if just temporarily.

Before long, though, the food was done, and my parents and I sat down to eat.

         We chatted a lot between bites about things going on in our lives that we hadn't really touched on in phone calls, as well as what the game plan was going to be for the next time we got around to working on the garage.

We finished eating in all of about 45 minutes to an hour, and we got up to rinse our plates off.

"Do you want help cleaning up, Dad?" I asked.

         "It's fine, Noah. I'll help your father. You can go look at that VHS tape you set aside, if you want," My mom smiled.

I felt a little bit guilty being told this and thought I should double-check.

"Are you guys sure?" I asked.

Both my mom and my dad nodded.

"Thanks, though, son." My dad said with a smile of his own.

         With that being verified with my parents, I made my way into the garage, grabbing the VHS player and the tape, bringing it inside and hooking it up to an old TV that my parents said was in the guest room.

I turn the TV on and hit play on the VHS player.

So far, so good. It appears to be a video someone in the family got of me on my fourth birthday.

         I smile as I notice a lot of laughter and cheerful chatter in the audio of the tape. However, I least expected what happened next, as my face quickly turned neutral, and even borderline suspicious in reaction to the start of it.

         The picture would static every few seconds or so, and after the fourth or fifth freeze, I noticed family members in the video start to look towards the camera, as if they were looking directly at me.

         This... was beyond unsettling. It felt as though time stopped, and a handful of people in the video continued staring at the camera. It was as though they were staring literal daggers into my very soul. I couldn't tell if any color left my face because there was no mirror in the guest room, but what I did know was that I started to lose a noticeable amount of feeling in multiple areas of my body due to how unsettling this turn of events was.

I then heard and saw someone who looked like my great aunt speak to the camera.

         "Hello, Noah. Twenty-Eight, huh? You've gotten so big," she said. There was obvious positive emotion in her tone, but her face was completely stone-cold. But more importantly, how did she know that? This was recorded nearly two and a half decades before I turned 28. What was even scarier was that my great aunt DIED six years ago, and what happened next added insult to metaphorical injury. The tape went static again, before straightening up and keeping my great aunt's emotionless face on the screen.

         Yep, that did it for me. I quickly shut the tape off and started breathing shakily. I don't even know that it was shaky. I could barely even feel myself breathing anymore after that.

"Who just looks directly at a camera and speaks in a happy tone, but keeps their face completely emotionless, let alone effortlessly and like it's NORMAL? That's unsettling on so many levels." I thought

         I allowed myself to cool down for a second before I shakily turned the VHS player back on to see if it was just a one-off. I wish I were joking when I say everyone was still there, including my great aunt. The only person missing in the footage was four-year-old me, which was even more jarring.

"That was rude, Noah." My great aunt hissed, still staring stone-cold daggers at me through the screen. "Say you're sorry," she ordered, as if I were still four years old.

As if my hand had a mind of its own, I clicked the VHS player off again instantaneously.

Nothing about that was normal. What did I just witness?

         I was very creeped out, but I managed to regain my senses just enough to unhook the VHS player and take that and the tape back out to the garage without my parents seeing. They were still tidying the kitchen up from dinner. That and I didn't want them to possibly see that my face was as pale as a sheet.

"Well, that answers my question about what was on that tape," I thought.

         That VHS tape at the VERY LEAST is going to the dump next run. It can be DEMOLISHED for all I care.