Blame

The Camcorder

"Uh... do I know y-you?" Elizabeth asked awkwardly. She really only ever spoke to the people in her troupe, and she was fairly certain that this woman was not one of those people.

She had waist-length messy brown hair and was clad in an ill-fitting green cargo jacket, a dark purple shirt with the logo of some amusement park plastered on the front, and jeans and boots that were caked with a bit of mud.

"No, don't think so. But I just recorded you," she said, her eyes widening a bit in realization afterward. "Wait, no, that sounds creepy. I didn't mean to record you. I was about to investigate an abandoned building and saw something suspicious in that alley," she nodded towards the alleyway, "from the other side. I tried to catch some footage of it with my camcorder before it slunk away and managed to get you in it. I wanted to see if I could talk to you before you left."

It took Elizabeth a moment to completely process all of that. Almost every sentence the woman uttered made it feel like she was being smacked with another wave of unexpectedness.

"Wait... so y-you have that...that th-thing on video?"

"Yeah. Wanna see?" She rewound the footage on her camcorder and got closer so that both Elizabeth and Jesse could see the small screen.

The creature's unpleasant voice became audible immediately after the play button was hit. "...So I'll make sure that anybody who hurts her gets hurt back..." More of that discolored flesh was visible in the recording, as well as its exposed spinal cord and portions of its ribcage.

"Look! L-look! There it is!" Elizabeth shook Jesse a bit.

"No, no...d-don't... that's w-w-wrong."

Elizabeth herself was just barely visible in the space between its torso and one of its thin arms. She started to back away, disappearing into the darkness.

The creature's grating laugh rang out for a third time, sounding even more horribly distorted through the camcorder's microphone.

The tape ended a few seconds before the laugh finished.

"I, uh, ran out of room on the tape after that," the woman explained. "It started leaving and I tried to follow it, but I lost it."

"Wow," Jesse muttered. "Hey, Liz, do you think I could uh, borrow your lighter for a sec?"

Wordlessly, the redhead pulled her lighter out of her pocket and passed it to her friend, who used it to light a cigarette.

After she handed it back, Jesse took a couple of steps off to the side.

"You," one of the woman's Band-Aid covered fingers pointed at Elizabeth, "you got up close and personal with that thing. I only caught the tail end of everything, but it's clear that you were having a conversation with it. That's really strange, you know that, right? They aren't usually big talkers."

Jesse's brows furrowed. "You say that like you know exactly what that thing is."

"Well, not exactly. It's obviously some sort of demon, but I can't get into specifics without more information."

"Obviously, huh? You some kind of expert on demons or something?"

"Not really. But I've seen enough to know a decent amount." The camcorder disappeared into the woman's jacket. "Like, for instance, I know that whatever just happened is really bad. A simple sighting is one thing, getting one of those things to want to speak to you is another thing entirely."

"Oh...g-great."

"Was that the first time you've seen it?"

"No."

"Was that the first time that it's talked to you?"

"N-no."

"What?"

Elizabeth could feel Jesse's gaze on her yet again.

"You didn't tell me that you've already talked to it before." She sounded slightly hurt. And concerned.

"I t-tried to. Multiple times. But I couldn't manage to get myself to t-talk about it. I'm s-sorry."

The woman, who had seemingly stopped listening to them for a moment to inspect the spray paint, decided to speak again before either of them could say anything else. "I've got an idea that's...mutually beneficial, I guess?" She traced one of the letters with her index finger, the fresh paint making her fingertip bright green.

"If you can tell me everything you know about that thing, I'll probably be able to get it to leave you alone."

"How's that mutually beneficial to you?" Jesse asked.

"Looking into paranormal stuff has been my side hobby since I was younger, and my... yeah. I'm trying to learn as much as I can. I'm sure that your friend can help me do that if she shares the details of her encounters and answers a few questions." She drew back from the wall and looked at Elizabeth. "Would you be willing to do that?"

Without really thinking at all, Elizabeth agreed. "Y-yes."

She had managed to force out basic details before.

Maybe that would be enough.

Probably not.

But she would figure something out.

After all, she was sure that Jesse was going to question her again after they were alone again. And she probably wouldn't stop until she got a few answers.

"Alright. Once you get all of your stuff together, you can...um," the woman dug around her coat pockets until she found a napkin and a pen, which she used to scribble something down, "stop by this address. Preferably not during daylight. I'll see what I can do to help you."

Elizabeth took the napkin. "Th-thanks, um..."

"Charlie," she said. "Name's Charlie."

"Charlie," Elizabeth repeated.

Apparently deciding she was done with the conversation, Charlie reached back into coat pockets and pulled out one of those handheld tape recorders, pushing down the record button as she turned away.

"September fifteenth, nineteen ninety-four. Its...uh," she spared a glance at her cracked wristwatch, "9:45 p.m."

Elizabeth and Jesse exchanged looks.

"I've just captured footage of another demon. There are messages spray-painted in the alley I saw it leave. I'll be sure to return and get footage of them later. The handwriting definitely shares some resemblance to that of the shadow creature I dealt with not long ago. However, I doubt it's his work 'cause the signature doesn't match. Instead of the smiling bear head, there's a smiley face with a round nose...a clown, maybe?"

She started to walk down the alleyway.

"I've also found somebody that..." Her voice faded completely as she vanished around the corner at the other end.