Day 1
”Go down to the end of the street. At the end, turn left and walk until the road dead ends.”
I clicked off the old-fashioned microcassette recorder as I stared down the street. How did it know what to tell me? I mean, the plain brown box containing the recorder and the tape inside had been delivered to my job, but I didn’t actually listen to it until I got home. At work, I could have left from four or five different doors, all of which should have thrown off the specific instructions that got me started on this wild goose chase. And from home, where I actually began following the tape’s instructions (before the mistake of not starting at where the tape was delivered dawned on me) I should have gotten wildly off-course almost immediately.
And yet, I didn’t think I was. So far, every turn, every landmark, on the tape had matched what I was seeing. Almost like the instructor had known what I was going to do before it happened.
That did make some sense, of course. The two videos I’d been given did show me things that haven’t happened, at least not yet. In one, I think I kill someone. In the other, I watched myself being beaten to death. Shuddering, I clicked the button again as I reached the dead end.
”Good. Now look to your right, just past the end of the chain-link fence. You see the path there? Follow it into the woods.”
I looked up at the sky and felt a growing unease as I hesitated. It was starting to get dark and I was being stupid. Following some mystery instructions so I could…what?
Well, the odd voice of the instructor had made that very clear at the beginning of the tape, hadn’t he?
”Yesterday, you received a gift in the form of two glimpses into what might be. What actually happens is up to you, of course. The instructions that follow this message are merely giving you a helping hand along the path, and you can choose to listen or not, obey or not. Just understand this:”
”If you do not comply with the instructions, if you do not help fulfill what occurs on the first video you watched, and if you do not take a human life before sunrise, you will die.”
Day -1
I woke up to a banging on my front door. My first panicked, sleepy thought was home invasion, but then the banging stopped, and as I got up and crept to the door, I heard an engine rumble to life as a delivery truck lurched away. Opening the door, I saw a small white box had been left on my porch. No label or address, just a bit of tape to secure the plain paper wrapped around a similarly plain cardboard box. Inside the box were two DVDs, each with a printed label on top.
Disc 1: Drink me.
Disc 2: Eat me.
I figured it was an odd joke from a friend or an ill-conceived marketing scheme from some company desperate for word-of-mouth. And I did consider the idea of a virus, but when I ran my software, it showed just an .mp4 file and nothing else more sinister. So I played “Drink me” first.
It was a grainy video, but of good resolution, and even in the low light of the woods I could make out a person standing at a well. It took only a moment of confused staring for me to realize I was looking at myself. That made no sense—I’d never been at a well like that, with its small pitched roof and twin set of pulleys and ropes. And I’d never stood staring down into that well, clearly hearing the same sound the camera was picking up—the echoing cry of a baby far below.
One of the well ropes trailed down into the dark, while the second ran to a bucket that was on the ground next to the well. As I watched, the video me bent down and hefted the bucket that was on the ground to the lip of the small well. It was obviously very heavy—and once the other me stepped back, I could see why. It was piled high with smooth river rocks.
A small scream escaped me as my video self pushed the bucket of rocks over the edge and down into the well below. There was a large thump as it hit the bottom, and a moment later, the cries of the baby spooled away into nothing.
It was half an hour later before I could make myself watch the “Eat me” disc. It was again a single video file, but this time the scene was immediately recognizable. It was my bedroom. I saw myself in the bed and a figure in a hooded jacket standing next to it, standing and staring down at the bed and holding what looked like the wood axe I bought last year.
Before I could cry out they started chopping me in the bed. At first the sounds were muffled and harder, but with each blow they took on a wetter, softer quality, and with each rising arc of the axe, thick strings of blood and meat began getting slung against the walls even as strips of ruined fabric and comforter filler drifted down like the inside of some macabre snow globe.
I sat back, speechless as the video closed. Had I really just watched myself murder a baby in a well and get butchered by an intruder while I slept?
I was a wreck that day and the next, unsure of what to think or do, if anything. After all, who I could tell or show it to without making myself look crazy or dangerous? But that’s when something new came.
The tape with the instructions.
Day 1
”By now you should have reached the well. Go to it and look into the bucket sitting on the ground.”
Walking over, I felt my stomach tightening. There was no way I could go through with this. Whatever this was, whatever choice they were trying to trick me into making, there was no way I could hurt an innocent baby could I? And if I threw down this bucket of…
The bucket wasn’t full of rocks. It was, in fact, empty except for a small video camera.
”Pick up the video camera from the bucket and put this audio recorder inside. Do not stop the tape from playing and lower it into the well. When that is done, step back ten feet and start recording.”
Frowning, I looked around for a sign of someone else watching me or approaching, but there was no one. What was this? None of it made sense.
Heart pounding, I bent down and snatched the camera out like it was being pulled from the mouth of an alligator. Just seeing the bucket made me sick, even without it being filled with…I let out a gasp as I saw the second bucket further around the well. It was just like from the video, brimming with slick, gray stones from a riverbed somewhere.
I let out a small scream as a baby started crying close by. But no, not a baby. Just the sound of one. A recording coming from the tape on the machine. The tape recorder I was supposed to lower down into the well.
I felt a sense of dreamlike relief as I slipped the crying noise into the bucket and lowered it down into the dark. I still didn’t understand anything, but at least a real baby wasn’t getting hurt.
Day -9,233
It was weird seeing Mom and Dad so young. Like living memories that I didn’t really have except from pictures. My first memory of Dad was him dying of lung cancer, and my last of Mom was a month…well, before all of this started.
But seeing them young and happy, holding me in their arms, so proud and hopeful for all of us…it made it all harder. Harder, but no less necessary.
So I wait until they’ve put me in my crib and turned out the lights, and then I crawl in through the window. Back in the car, I put the bassinet in the passenger floor. I’ll have to drive all night to get to the well, and my hope is that the baby doesn’t wake up for most of the ride.
It doesn’t work out that way, of course. And that’s fine. When I start crying because I’m thirsty and hungry, I don’t stop to find a bottle.
I just hit record.
Day 1
As I hit record on the camera, everything seems to shimmer for a moment. The air is colder now, and the sky seems a bit darker. How late was it? I look at my watch but it’s dead now. So is my phone.
Day -9,232/1/-932##
Putting my phone away again, I look up to see a figure approaching. It…it’s me. Lifting the camera, I make sure I frame it right, catch it all. I have to be able to see everything when I watch “Drink me” after all.
I watch my other lift the bucket of rocks, and wonder who or what he really is. Does he really think he’s about to throw down a bucket of rocks onto a child? Should I tell him it’s okay, that it’s just a recorder? But no, he acts like he doesn’t even see me. Better not to draw his attention.
He shoves the bucket over the edge, and below, the crying stops. Despite myself, I feel my gorge rise a little as I look down at my feet and try to keep my balance. When I look up, the other me has vanished. Hitting the button again, I stop recording as another shimmer goes across my vision. In my right coat pocket, I hear my phone buzz. In my left, a muffled voice. Heart pounding, I reach in and take out the recorder.
”…done what needs to be done here. Now you can go home and rest. You’ve earned it.”
Day 1
I know it’s impossible that I’ll sleep when I get home. I have too many questions. Too many fears.
And yet, despite everything, I’m not back an hour before I climb into bed. I can examine the recorder closer tomorrow. Go back with lights and check the well if…well, if I can’t make myself just forget.
For now, I just need…to…sleep…
Day 2
I’m deep asleep on the bed when I approach. The axe is where I remembered it to be, and it should be sharp enough to make this quick. I’ve done so many terrible things, so many times, and every time I hope that time, that day, will be the last.
I read once that time is a lie.
I think that’s probably true, but it’s only part of the truth. Time is also a web. Nearly invisible, but sticky and strong and binding. It holds us in place and traps us.
I think I remember eating a woman once. But I was not myself at the time.
I think I remember meeting a killer at a bus stop. But I ran away and tried to live.
I think I remember being tricked by a man on a plane. But I lost who I really am.
I don’t know which names and faces and lives are real anymore. The web isn’t sticky enough for me now. And instead of fighting to get free of it, I’m holding on desperately, terrified of what happens if I fall further away than I already have. And if time will no longer adhere to me, I will tangle it, twisting it in knots of paradox and nests of tangled causality until I’m trapped again all the same.
Maybe this time it will work. I don’t feel any different yet, but the body in the bed is already gone and I’m still here. Maybe that means it worked, and I'm the last in the tangled chain I’ve made. Maybe it's finally…
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Credits
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