I’ve always found old stop motion footage to be quite unsettling. The way the characters would move was so unnerving and abnormal. This didn’t stop me from going to my neighbor’s yard sale and buying a box of old tapes. It was mostly filled with old movie shorts and things of that nature. However, there was one tape that wasn’t labeled.
When I got home, I started popping the tapes in one by one. But, then I got down to that blank tape. I put it in and pressed play. I was met with the scene of a bland dark room, almost resembling a shed, with a chair in the middle. Sat in the chair was a man I didn’t recognize.
He had a blindfold on and he was tied up as well. The tape went black for a minute, I suppose it was damaged somewhat. When it came back on, I looked at the timestamp, my curiosity growing. The timestamp had jumped ahead 20 minutes from where it was before. Now, a dark figure was entering the room on screen.
It was moving in a very strange, disjointed fashion, much the way of old stop motion videos. The rest of the room looked like it belonged in reality, but this thing didn’t. It was somehow separate, different. It didn’t match the space it occupied, it looked like it hopped right off an old reel of film. The screen flashed red, white then black took over again.
When it reappeared, the thing was now standing behind the man, a dead expression on its face as it looked at the camera. A muffled scream could be heard through the static as it slit his throat. Now it looked even closer into the camera, as if looking straight at me. It slowly raised its hand and pointed at me, just before the screen cut too black one final time. I quickly ejected the tape and wasted no time in throwing into our fireplace.
The thing hissed, popped and growled as it melted to nothing more than a heap of plastic. Later that night, still badly shaken and unnerved, unable to sleep, I went downstairs to watch T.V. When I got down there, I was shocked to see the T.V. turned on with that thing’s face staring me down. I froze in fear, as it looked me up and down. I was thinking to myself, “This can’t be, I burned you,” yet there it was.
It reached its hand out of the T.V. screen, still making the same, abnormal stop motion movements it was before. The things face morphed into an array of different expressions as it crawled out, all the while looking very jittery. I watched in disgust as it fully entered my world. This thing was definitely not from any kids show.
It had four very long arms, and that face which contorted in ways that were unspeakable to see. It’s fingers dripped bits of static as it moved slowly through the living room. The droplets of static seemed to have their own consciousness as they pooled on both sides of the looming figure between them. The house went, almost as if this thing was draining it of it’s power. Soon, the only light left was the light coming from the two static portals.
Something was now moving from within the portals. There were two more sets of four hands now coming out of each one, each bearing the same, creepy, stop motion nature. I began to realise, once they came fully into view, these new editions were different. They were bipedal, on all fours, they had faces like angry rams, jaws and teeth like dogs and hands instead of paws, which had sharp claws. Each one of these things tracked my every move, I couldn’t escape their deathly stare.
I could do nothing as they blocked my only exit. They just kept staring, moving that same ,unsettling, old animation movement. This went on for some time until one of those bipedal creatures began to move towards me. Words cannot describe the wave of terror that washed over me at this point. It locked eyes with me, as its face morphed into a grimace with it’s eyes beginning to glow a deep red.
It’s slow movement quickly changed pace. The thing grabbed me with all of it’s might. I tried to break free, but there was no getting out of it’s grasp. It dragged me, with my nails scraping the wood floors all the way, to one of those wretched portals. The last thing I remember before waking up in a chair, is seeing them all smiling back at me as I fell down through the static. Now, let’s just say, I hope someone somewhere has a copy of that tape waiting to be played again. Maybe that’ll be my chance to get out.