“If we’re gonna do this, we’re gonna do it right!” With those words, Adrian dropped four grocery sacks on the table and began pulling things out. “I’ve been planning for this night for a while. We’ve got reserves, bro. The good stuff”
Luke jumped up from the table. “Why do I get the feeling you’ve gone overboard, here?”
“Let’s take inventory, shall we?” Adrian smiled with teeth, and at that moment he looked slightly insane. “Here we go: One case of Energy Drinks. The good kind. IIllegal in most countries but OK in Japan.”
Luke studied the packaging. Six tall cans of liquid held together by a black plastic wrapper. On the front there was an alien sticking his head out of a tiny flying saucer that had a laser protruding from the bottom. The alien was either smiling or screaming and lightning was shooting from the back of the craft.
Luke sat it down. “Do you even know what the stuff is called? Or if it’s going to kill us?”
“I think the site said the rough translations was something like ‘Spaceman Lightning Kapow’ -- does it really matter? And I doubt it will kill us, silly.” Adrian had moved on to pulling frozen items from a second bag. “Here we have an entire sack of Microwaveable Sustenance! I’m talking various pizza-flavored food-product stuck in pockets and/or placed on bagels or in tortilla tubes, you get the idea.”
Luke nodded. “Shit food.”
“Easy queasy!” Adrian smiled and reached for the third bag. “This next one has some equipment I thought we might need. You’ve seen the various ghost shows, so I’m going to spare you the individual description, lets just say if the haunting part is true, we should be able to capture some evidence of that, but I really don't think it’s haunted. The cool thing is we can use a lot of the same equipment to document our findings, so it’s helpful either way.”
Luke lowered his voice to sound mock-ominous. “EVP or Electronic Voice Phenomenon...”
“And this last bag,” Adrian continued. “Is tied shut for a reason. This is our ‘In Case of Emergency’ bag.”
Luke’s eyes went to slits. “So what’s in it?”
Adrian laughed. “Well... Should we get ourselves into an emergency situation, I suppose you’ll find out. For now it remains sealed and classified.”
“Whatever, dude.” Luke surveyed the bounty with a shine of admiration in his eye, and maybe a bit of fear. “You’re really going for it this time, aren’t you, Ahab?”
Adrian smiled. “I’m not sure who’s out there taking the video down, or why. But it’s the internet. You can’t get every copy. You just can’t. It’s out there somewhere and tonight we are going to find it!”
Luke nodded, eyebrows raised. “Bold words, captain. But I agree, man. If it’s out there, we can find it. What I’m wondering is, do we actually want to find it? I mean it’s a cool mystery and all, but is it something we want to see?”
“Of course,” Adrian answered. “The truth. We want the truth.”
Luke leaned forward and cleared a path through the supplies piled on the table to show the ominous printout of the female Adrian had buried during his Show and Tell. He pointed at it without looking directly. “Adrian we keep thinking that’s the last frame of the video, that it’s the scary part, but what if it’s the first? What if it gets so much worse? Once you see something, you can’t take it back.”
Adrian nodded. “I know that, but it’s a risk I’m willing to take to find out the truth.”
YOU ARE READING
drop.avi
Short Story"Have you seen drop.avi?" That's the question. It seems like everyone's heard of this mysterious internet video, but no one has actually seen it. Some say youtube pulled it because it was "doing things to people." Other's say it's all just viral mar...
