Pete's Folly

Pete's Folly Part 2

“So what do you think Barnes? Creepy shit, huh?” The officer stood over Detective Barnes in the middle of a busy police precinct. Phones were ringing in the background and suspects were being processed for holding. They were both staring at the suggested playlist which appeared at the end of Pete’s video; which was uploaded by another user. Barnes leaned back into his chair and said, “How did this guy get the video?”

“According to the video description, the Pete guy was streaming his session live and the viewer recorded the stream onto his computer.”

Barnes rubbed his bearded chin while staring at the screen. “I dunno, Chippy. Yes, it’s very creepy. But you can do anything with computers these days.”

“I hate when you call me that.”

“Well get that chipped tooth fixed and then maybe I’ll call you Bob.”

“That’s, not my name either.”

“Wow this is awkward.”

“Enough fooling around, it’s Eric and you know it. Anyway, you think the video is fake?”

“You’re asking me to believe that a youtube video is real. I checked out the guys official youtube channel and it says, right there in the profile, ‘I’m an amateur horror film maker hoping to make the scariest videos you’ve ever seen.’”

“I guess you really are a detective eh, Barnes? There’s only one problem with your theory,” Chippy said with a smug look to his face.

“What’s that?”

“His family and friends filed a missing person’s report 48 hours after this video was posted.”

Barnes quirked his eyebrow and looked at the officer staring down at him. “Wipe that smirk off your face, you haven’t proved anything yet. There could be a million different reasons why he’s vanished. Did we send someone to investigate his apartment?”

The officer lowered his head, as if sensing an impending defeat. “Yes.”

“And?”

“They didn’t find anything.”

“Oh really?” Barnes replied with a cocky arrogance to his voice. “So there wasn’t a single item of evidence found in the apartment, correct?”

“Right,” Chippy said in a low voice.

“Did anyone live there at all?”

“His clothes were there and so were most of his personal effects. The bed was still messy and his clothes were neatly folded.”

“Wait, stop,” Barnes said while raising his hand. “His bed was still a mess and his clothes were folded?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you not realize that, that does not make any sense? Why would he leave his clothes?”

“He could just buy new clothes and change his identity, maybe run off to be homeless.”

Barnes rubbed his index finger on his chin as if he were lost in thought. “I don’t buy that. That would be a huge waste of money.”

“Like you said, there’s a million different reasons why he could have run off. There’s probably nothing to this case, I only brought it to your attention because you studied some of that weird shit back in the day.”

Barnes gave Chippy a hard look and said, “We’ve all done weird shit in college. Tell you what, I’ll go check out the apartment and take a look for myself.”

“Why? You just destroyed all of my proof!”

“Well, the guy is still missing. Best place to start is his apartment.”