Short horror stories

1999

Creepypasta.com
Camden Lamont 

"The year is nineteen-ninety-nine."

That sentence brings me back to my senior kindergarten class when I was five years old, where we used to read out the date on the blackboard every single day. The year 1999 exists as a stain in my mind, however, as a memory that will not go away no matter how I try to forget it. 1999 marked the year I lost my first tooth, my first time on a plane, and unfortunately the early loss of my childhood innocence.

That one memory that refuses to be wiped, it all started with that new (or old) TV. At that time Pokémon was the latest fad to hit the school. Pokémon cards, games, stickers, and the most popular, the TV show. So, of course, every time I came home from school, I would stay glued to the TV until Pokémon came on at five. The only problem was that my dad watched the news at 5:30, and Pokémon episodes were back-to-back, which meant I had to miss an episode every day, something I whined on and on about. My dad got tired of hearing me complain every day, that must be why he went and bought another TV. My dad put the TV he bought in my room. Unfortunately, it was just an old, small boob tube, with rabbit ears even. It also only had 20 channels available; not including the channel Pokémon was on. I recall I didn't care, though. I was just thrilled I had my own TV in my room. After surfing through the channels, I came to the conclusion that only channel 2 (TVO kids) was worth watching so I watched that for a while. It wasn't for another few months until I discovered channel 21. One day in April, I was flipping through the channels, trying to see if Pokémon was on. I pressed channel 21 into the remote, hoping there were more channels, and to my delight there was. My dad was surprised too, but he let me watch it because it seemed to have kids programs on. The channel was called Caledon Local 21 and later I found out it was indeed broadcasted from the town of Caledon, Ontario, a town very close to my city.

The shows I saw on Caledon Local 21 looked poorly made, and I never understood what was going on in them half the time. However as I grew up, every time I thought of that channel, I realized more and more how messed up the shows were and I had to ask myself, "What the fuck was I watching?"

The following is a list of shows and episodes I remember seeing on Caledon Local 21, how I remember such detail even disturbs me, but I guess things like this stand out in your mind for a while. The channel only ran a few shows, probably because it was only operational between 4:00 pm and 9:00 pm.

April 1999 Mr. Bear's Cellar – Episode 12: Very sketchy name if you were to look at it nowadays. The show featured a guy wearing a bear mascot costume who would get a new visitor into his cellar every day. (It was always a kid) The show was filmed with a camcorder, and not a very good one either. The police asked me a lot of questions about this show. This episode started with Mr. Bear sitting at a table playing checkers by himself. He sat there playing for a bit until there was a knock on the door. The camera was then looking up the stairs at the door, where there was another knock. Mr. Bear climbed the stairs and opened the door to reveal two young children. One was a boy about my age, and the other was a girl who looked about eight.

Mr. Bear danced in delight, and then started talking to the kids; I couldn't hear any of them that well, I remember. Mr. Bear then led the kids into the cellar, which was quite dark, only lit by a small oil lamp on the table. I can't really remember that much more, except him singing a song which I couldn't hear too well either (Probably because of that large bear mask). The episode ended with them playing hide-and-seek, with the kids hiding in a closet and Mr. Bear counting.

May 1999

Soup and Spoon: I don't think this was even a show, I think it was more of a special movie thing. All I know is I stopped watching Caledon Local 21 for a while because I thought this show was too stupid, especially since Pokémon now came on at 4:30 and 5:00. I don't remember much of this, but it showed a can of soup and a spoon both attached to strings, swinging back and forth, as if someone was holding them and dangling them in front of the camera. Interestingly enough, the show was shot in a basement, which looked just like the one used in Mr. Bear's Cellar. Like I said, I can't remember much, the only thing I can remember clearly was the end.