One of my favorite movies growing up was Independence Day. I know there are better movies, but the combination of actors and special effects made it just about perfect in my young brain. I used to drive my parents crazy not only wanting to watch it, but wanting them to bask in the glory of Randy Quaid in a jet with me, so they finally settled on a compromise. We would watch it together every 4th of July if I would shut up about it the rest of the year.
And so we did. During the years I was 8 to 14, we watched it religiously somewhere between afternoon hot dogs and evening fireworks every year. And it was awesome. But as I got older, my interests changed, I was busier, and I just…forgot. Since I was 15, I don’t know that I’ve seen the entire movie more than once, and I’m 29 now.
So when I found a box with old movies in the storage unit of my apartment building, imagine my delight when I spied a blu-ray of Independence Day sitting right on top. I had moved into the apartment six months before, and part of the lease agreement was that each apartment had a little storage unit in the basement for excess stuff. It sounded far more grandiose than it actually was—each “unit” consisted of a small cinderblock room that was the size of a small walk-in closet. Still, it was handy if you had excess stuff. I just didn’t.
I had moved to town for a job, and my furniture initially consisted of my mattress and television from home. Over the past several months I had accrued enough furniture that I didn’t look like a serial killer any more, but I still was living very frugally. My first real splurge had been the week before when I bought myself a new t.v.
I was really pumped about it. 4k, hdr, and obscenely big for my smallish living room. When it got delivered, I started setting it up immediately, but that also meant moving my old t.v. I’ve had since college. It was one of those hulking “flat screen” televisions that had a technically flat screen, but also had a giant two-foot ass that weighed a hundred pounds. It wasn’t awesome, but I admit to being a little sad as I waddle-dropped it to a piece of cardboard and slid it out and down the hall to the elevator. It was going to be my first deposit in the storage unit.
When I opened the door, I saw the box immediately. It was labeled “Private Valuables” in a spidery black marker scrawl, which struck me as slightly odd. But when I opened it up and saw Independence Day, I immediately drug the t.v. in and brought the box back upstairs with me. Feeling a wave of nostalgia fueled by a combination of putting my old t.v. to pasture and the anticipation of seeing evil aliens exterminated with a floppy disk, I pulled out the blu-ray, popped it in my console, and got ready to watch a modern classic.
The video was dark and grainy, and I could tell right away that this wasn’t Independence Day. It looked to be in some kind of old, run-down gymnasium. I could see what looked like the weathered floor of a basketball court at the edge of the illumination provided by twin floodlights set up at the perimeter of the camera’s view. In the center of the light was a thin, stained mattress and clear plastic tarps that covered the bedding and the surrounding floor.
The blackness outside this circle of light combined with the excited breathing of the person holding the camera made the whole thing feel claustrophobic, and the breath only quickened when a large masked man led the naked couple into view. They were bound at their neck and wrists, and it was clear that they had been beaten already. They looked toward the camera as the person holding it approached, and the man let out a terrible, low moan of despair. The woman’s bottom lip trembled, but she said nothing as tears began to run down her cheeks.
I had a brief moment where I thought this was some odd, bootleg horror movie I had never seen before, but it didn’t look right. Aside from no credits or music, the entire thing felt too real, even for a well-done found footage movie. And as the camera had approached the light, the picture had sharpened to an almost painful degree. I could see with agonizing detail the shape these two were in, the emotions they were feeling. They were genuinely terrified.
I won’t describe the details of what happened next on the video. I lack the stomach or the words to properly convey the torture, cruelty, and depravity I saw inflicted on them over the next twenty minutes. I deeply regret continuing to watch it myself, and by the time I came out of my shock and horror enough to turn it off, they were both dying or dead.
I didn’t know what to do. I thought about calling the police, but what could they do? For all I knew, those people had been killed on another continent ten years ago. I could just throw it away or destroy it, but what if it really was evidence of something? There was always the outside chance it really was fake, of course. A low-budget edgy horror movie with wonderful actors and special effects. It sounded dumb as I thought it, but it was what I was hoping for in my heart of hearts.
In the end, I went down the next day to the office of the company that owned my building. They leased several apartments all over town, and the only person I was familiar with there, Vicki, was less a landlord and more a real estate agent with a side gig. Luckily she was in, and within a couple of minutes I was sitting in her office.
I didn’t talk about the movie specifically, but I told her about finding a box of what I assumed was the prior tenant’s belongings in the storage unit. I wondered if she had any information about him so I could contact him about getting his stuff. In truth, I had no intention of contacting him, but I wanted to know more about them before I made my final decision on what to do.
Vicki, a perpetually chipper woman in her mid-fifties with bright blond hair and an unnaturally dark tan, visibly paled as I started talking. Three sentences in, and she was already waiving her hand and shaking her head.
“No, honey. Don’t worry with that. Throw that mess in the trash. No telling what kind of trash she had in there.”
I raised an eyebrow. “So you know who the last tenant was? It was a woman?”
Her eyes widened slightly as she realized she’d said more than she meant to, and she leaned forward with a frown. “It was, but no one you want to contact. Look,” she glanced around like she was about to divulge the location for a dead drop in a spy movie as she went on, “that girl was troubled. Very troubled. She had some rich family in another state that would pay her rent like clockwork, and for a couple of years everything was fine. She was some kind of computer something or other, and she kept to herself most of the time. Then she had some episode where a neighbor of hers went to the hospital and she got committed.”
Vicki paused a moment as though gauging if she had said enough to satisfy me, and when she saw she hadn’t, she went on. “She bit the woman, okay? Bit her thumb clean off. The neighbor was okay…mostly, but she moved away soon after, and as for the crazy girl? As far as I know she’s still in a loony bin somewhere. Either way, we terminated her lease immediately and her family came and got her stuff.” She sighed. “Well, except for this crap in the storage area I guess. Still, I’d just throw it out if I were you. She doesn’t have any need for it, whatever it is, and trust me, that’s a friend you don’t want to make.”
I was unnerved by what Vicki had told me, but at least it gave some explanation for that disc and whatever else might be in the box. I decided that I’d leave well enough alone. As soon as I got home, I’d carry the box down to the incinerator and try to put what I’d seen out of my mind.
Except when I got back to my apartment, there was a thick envelope waiting against my door. It had no writing on it, and once I got inside and opened it, I saw it contained a cell phone with no note or explanation. I felt a new wave of unease as I looked at the phone, weighing exploring the phone itself for clues versus throwing it away immediately like some diseased thing. When it suddenly lit up and started vibrating, I let out a high scream. I almost dropped it, and after several seconds of panicked fumbling, I opened it and answered the call it was receiving from a restricted number.
“Hello?”
There was silence, but I could tell someone was on the line.
“Hello? Is anyone there?”
“Did you look inside the box?” The voice was feminine, but with a strange, husky rasp that made it hard to guess the age or accent.
I almost dropped the phone again as my hands went numb. “Um, what? Who is this?”
“Did you watch one of those movies? Did you explore what else is in there?”
“N-no, I didn’t. I didn’t watch anything or even look in the box. It’s not my stuff, and I’ll happily…”
“LIAR.” The phone crackled slightly at the word. “I know you watched one of the discs. It pinged off the server when you started it up. Why do you lie about it?”
My mind was racing. Server? What was she…And then I remembered. Some blu-rays automatically connect to the internet. Usually it’s to upload new movie trailers, but this one had apparently been made to let someone know if the disc was being watched. Was that even possible? It didn’t matter, I needed to deal with the nutjob first.
“Look, I’m sorry. I loaded the disc, but when I realized it wasn’t Independence Day, I cut it off. So I don’t know what you’re talking about, and I think I should go now.” I was edging further into my apartment now, and my hands were starting to tremble from the adrenaline. It seemed like a reasonable lie, but why wouldn’t she just fucking answer?
Then finally, “I don’t believe you.” She drew out the words like she was expressing some kind of corruption from a pregnant boil and savored the smell of doing it. She gave a short laugh, her voice crackling again louder. “But that’s all right, I think. We can work with this…I think, yes?”
By this point I had moved far enough into my apartment that something caught my eye in my bedroom. Turning to look, I saw that the bed, floor, and walls had been draped in clear plastic tarps. I took three unconscious steps toward the room as my mind tried to reconcile what I was seeing with how the room should be. I felt the static buzz of panic rising in my ears, and as I approached I could see that a small black video camera sat perched upon a tripod in the corner of the room, its red recording light glaring at me like a baleful eye.
I was about to back away and leave the apartment when I heard two small creaks. One from the bedroom, and then half a second later, the other from the phone. I saw the plastic tarp on the left side of the room billow as my closet door was pushed open.
I dropped the phone and ran. I didn’t stop running until I was three blocks away and safely under the fluorescent lights of a local pharmacy. I had dropped my own phone as well at some point in all of this, so I asked to use theirs and called the police. Twenty minutes later they pulled up, and after I gave an explanation, they went with me back to the apartment. The two officers went in first, and after they cleared the apartment, they came back out. Their initial expressions of mild interest and concern had been replaced with irritation, and when I went inside with them, I understood why.
The tarps and camera were gone, as was the mystery phone. Even the box of movies, which I had left sitting next to the t.v. in the living room, was missing. And no Independence Day box or snuff film disc. No trace that any of it had happened.
The police weren’t rude, but they clearly thought it was either a dumb prank or I was on something. Either way, they left quickly and I could tell they wouldn’t be writing a report on it. Not that I could blame them.
I spent the next week in a motel as I went through the process of breaking my lease and finding a new place on the other side of town. That was over a month ago, and since then, everything has been fine. Boring even. At first I dreaded every phone call, every visitor at work, every event that could potentially be her making contact again. But I was moving past it, and the new apartment was actually nicer with better security.
So when I walked in today and saw the box sitting on my sofa, I actually had a moment when I was confused. Then I saw the words written on the side in black marker. Private Valuables. I almost left the apartment then, but I saw there was a sticky note above the old labeling. When I was closer, I could see it was in the same handwriting, though this had been written in pencil. It said:
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