A Short Story - THE VIDEO CAMERA – A Short Story
A couple of years ago, there was a young fellow named Bryan who went to college. He detested the idea of living in the campus , so he had to rent an apartment on his own in the city.
After he had been living there alone for some time, he started to see some odd things happening. Frequently, when he returned from school, the window ornaments in his room would be drawn, when he unmistakably had abandoned them open when he exited that morning. At different circumstances, some of his effects appeared to have been moved and different posessions were mysteriously absent. These unusual occurrances began to crawl Bryan out, so the young man decided to talk to his friends, Trisha and Alex, about the circumstance. They met him at a nearby burger joint and, over coffee, he told them all about the strange things he had noticed.
“Maybe I’m just being paranoid”, said Bryan. “But I just get the sneaking suspicion that someone is breaking into my apartment during the day, while I’m at university and…”
“And what?”, interrupted Alex.
“Rearranging your curtains and moving your stuff around? Who in their right mind would bother doing that?”
“It sounds crazy, but you might have a stalker”, said Trisha. “It’s a possibility. If it’s true, I think the best thing to do is contact the police”.
“What can the police do?”, asked Alex.
“They’re not going to spend their time keeping your apartment under surveillance. Besides, there’s no damage to any of your things. There’s no sign of a break-in. In short, there’s no evidence.”
“So what options then?”, pleaded Bryan. “I can’t just do nothing.”
“I know how you can put your mind at ease”, said Trisha. “It’s easy. Just get a video camera, set it up in your bedroom and leave it running when you go to college. If you really do have a stalker, you can show the tape to the police as evidence.”
“You know, that’s a great idea”, said Bryan.
“And if you’re really just paranoid and crazy, you can show the tape to your psychiatrist”, joked Alex.
That night, Bryan borrowed Trisha's video camera and brought it home. The precise next morning, he concealed it circumspectly under a few envelopes around his desk. Before he went to college, he pressed the record button and left it running. During the day, while he sat taking notes in lectured, the young man forgot all about the video camera. It was not until the point when he arrived home and went into his room that he recalled his arrangement. Taking the video camera out of its hiding place, he pressed the stop button. Then he took out his mobile phone and called his friend.
“Hey, Trisha”, he said. “I just got
home. I’m going to watch the video.”
“Cool”, said Trisha. “Don’t hang up. Tell me if you see anything.”
He pressed play and watched the recording on the video camera’s minor screen. He saw himself leaving for college toward the beginning of the day and shutting the room entryway. At that point, there was nothing. He squeezed quick forward and looked over the video. The room was empty.
“Still nothing”, he said.
“I can wait”, replied Trisha. “Anyway,
there’s nothing worth watching on TV at the moment”.
“OMG!”, cried Bryan as he pressed play on the camera.
“What? What?”, Trisha begged excitedly.
“The door’s opening!”, said Bryan.
“It’s a woman…”
“What’s she doing?”, asked Trisha.
“Just standing there… Closing the
door… Walking around…”
“OMG! SO weird! What does she look like?”
“Can’t see her face… Long, black,
stringy hair… Tattered dress…”
“Do you know her?”
“No, i don’t recognize her at all… She’s carrying a knife… A big kitchen knife… She’s going through my trash… Now, she’s picking up my clothes and sniffing them.”
“Ugh! Gross! What’s wrong with her?”
“She’s going over to the closet. She just got into the closet.”
“Fast Forward and see if she does anything else.”
He scanned through the video for a while, but the room was empty.
“You know what this means”, said Bryan. “I have the evidence now. I can go to the police and they’ll take me seriously.”
“I know”, said Trisha. “They’ll have to”.
“Alex is totally going to freak when he sees this”.
“No doubt. He didn’t believe you, but I did.”
“I know. You’re a good friend…OMG!”
“What? What?”
Bryan pressed play again.
“The door’s opening again”, said Bryan.
“Who is it?”, asked Trisha.
“Oh, it’s OK”, said Bryan. “It’s just me coming home from college.”
He watched himself on the screen, shutting off the camera.
“Let’s go to the police now”, said Trisha. “I’ll go with you. We can show them the tape.”
“OK. I’ll meet you at the diner in 15 minutes”, said Bryan as he grabbed the video camera.
“OK… Wait a minute”, said Trisha.
“You said she got into the closet. Did she ever leave? Bryan, did she ever get out of the closet?”
A chill ran down Bryan’s spine. Behind him, he heard the closet door creak open.
“Bryan! Get out of there!”, screamed Trisha, but it was too late. The phone went dead. When she tried to call him again, there was no answer.
Later that evening, the police found the body of the 18-year old college student lying in a pool of blood. He had been stabbed 21 times. The video camera was clutched in his cold, dead hands. When the police examined the camera, they discovered that the memory card was missing.
No trace of the woman was ever
found.
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Right now, she could be hiding in your closet.