Part 1

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I took a break from looking through the tapes. For some reason, I felt slightly disturbed by the first tape I wrote about. I’m not usually easily scared, but, admittedly, I had a few nightmares after viewing The Department Store video. I mean, I watch tons of scary movies, so it really shouldn’t be an issue. But I think it was the combination of grainy quality mixed with how genuinely terrified Ted and Frank appeared. I know, I know. Obviously, it’s fake. It has to be. Still, it hit me hard. I’m even reluctant to digitize the tape–like it’s almost too spooky to share.

Anyway, today I had some free time after work so I set up in my living room and got back to digging through these tapes. It’s been somewhat laborious because a lot of them are empty or only have a few minutes or even seconds of footage. But I have to scrub through the entire length (120 minutes!) to make sure I’m not missing anything. It takes forever. Some of the tapes are entirely empty. Others have footage but it doesn’t show up until halfway through the tape. What kind of psychopath would start recording in the middle of a tape? It’s absurd.

That’s the case with the tape I’m sharing today, which I’ve labeled below. This one is shorter than the first, but no less puzzling. And, well, it seems clear to me there’s some kind of connection between the two. I’d welcome any thoughts about possible explanations.

***

Tape 2: The Bird with the Hand

The first twenty-two minutes are blank. Just a blue screen with a timestamp. In this case, it reads January 4, 1995. Suddenly, the screen goes black and then white. There’s the distinctive click of a lens cap coming off and then the crunch of snow. The camera’s aimed towards someone’s boot-clad feet, trudging along a sidewalk among dead oak trees.

It’s an overcast day and the person behind the camera is breathing heavily. It must be very cold. The landscape reminds me of the Midwest, leading me to believe this tape was filmed in the same region as the first. How do I know that? Call it a hunch, but Midwesterners can sort of spot their own people and places. The only indication I see in the entire tape of an actual location is a brief clip of a street sign: Honey Hollow Lane. (More on location later.)

The faded green of that sign is in the first few minutes of actual footage, before the person filming veers off a residential road and down a snow-covered gravel path. Eventually this path seems to disappear, the person’s–a woman, I think?--breathing growing more belabored as they break through fresh, deep powder. Aside from the constant hiss endemic to this sort of old tape, there’s an eerie stillness. All you can hear is that steady, deep breathing and the crunching of snow.

Finally, after what feels like an eternity, the videographer finally speaks, “Fucking unreal. I knew Ted was full of shit. There’s fucking nothing out here. Fucking prick.” Her voice is one of clear irritation and at one point she sweeps the camera back in the direction she came from. Her long line of slightly crooked footprints are visible in the deep snow. She seems to be contemplating turning back.

“Fuck, fine. I’ll give it a little longer. There better be something here.”

Twigs snap beneath her heel. She moves her hands into frame to push away thin, black branches. I can almost hear the frustration in her movements as she pushed deeper into the dense forest. But then there’s a gasp.

“Whoa…Holy shit.”

The camera pans upwards and she steps into a circular clearing. It’s all fresh snow, with no signs of human or animal tracks. This makes it all the more strange that a few feet away from our nameless videographer is what appears to be a tape. Interestingly, it’s not covered in snow. It appears to have been very gently laid–in its plastic case–in the dead center of the small glade.

“That’s really fucking weird,” she mutters, “it wasn’t supposed to be a tape.”

Wait. What was it supposed to be? Clearly, there’s a lot of context missing here.

She steps forward, intent on retrieving the tape, but just as she bends down there’s a sound. A high-pitched caw caw. The first evidence of another living thing in those woods.

“Huh…” she moves the camera upwards, scanning the treeline for her avian stalker. The bird–a crow, I think–comes into view, but the camera is out of focus. She zooms in, with the primitive camera slowly auto-focusing as she does.

“What the fuck is that?”

The crow is holding something in its talons.

She takes a few steps forward.

“A…a fucking hand?”

But it’s a pale, porcelain white.

A mannequin’s hand.

She screams.

“What the fuck?!”

But she’s not referring to the crow. The next few seconds of the video are an absolute blur, but I slowed them down, advancing frame by frame so that I could see what happened. She swoops the camera’s focus down towards her ankle–something is grabbing her. Another hand? It’s so white, it nearly blends into the snow.

There’s the sound of a struggle, “Get the FUCK off of me!” She kicks and falls forward, lodging the camera into the snow a few feet from her head. I can only see it for a split-second, but there’s an entire circle of hands around the tape. They’re vibrating, twisting, shaking the snow that surrounds them. Then there’s a high-pitched wailing from somewhere in the distance. I hear scratches. The woman? I can see her in the corner of the frame, moving desperately, facedown, clawing into the densely-packed powder.

Whatever it is keeps getting closer. The wailing growing louder and louder and louder and–

SMASH.

The lens cracks, but through the splintered glass I can still see it. I can see her getting dragged away. Her hands leave desperate trails.

White noise.

The tape ends.

***

It’s clear there are some similarities with the first tape, which leads me to believe they might be pieces of some weird, amateur horror film. Maybe even a school project. Mannequins (or parts of them, at least) feature in both tapes. And the name “Ted” is mentioned by the videographer of this second tape. While that’s a very common name, it’s also the name of one of the urban explorers from the first tape.

Admittedly, even though I think this must be some silly, unfinished film, I can’t help but feel obscenely curious. First, there’s the question of why my parents had these tapes. I imagine they would have been much too old to have a hand in their production during the 90s. Perhaps I’ll need to speak with them about it again. The last time I tried, they were oddly circumspect, refusing to elaborate on how this box of tapes ended up in their home.

But–and here’s the really exciting thing–I think I’ve figured out where Honey Hollow Lane is. I scoured Google Maps, searching out every occurrence of that street name with a particular focus on the Midwest. Using the streetview function, I found a strip of broken asphalt that looks quite similar to the brief view I get in the tape. It’s located in a small town called Bishop Hill, which is only a few hours away from me.

What do you think? Should I make the trip there? I think I could retrace our unnamed videographer’s steps and…Well, if that tape was still in that clearing…Can you imagine? That could mean there’s something more going on here than a homemade movie…