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I Own a Tape That Changes Each Time I Watch It

I found it in a box of old VHS tapes I picked up from a flea market. I hunt for deals there, sellers are often just looking to unload the crap that sits around off their hands. I buy in bulk then check the goods—tossing out duds and ensuring items work, are clean and include the necessary pieces—before jacking the price and selling them on eBay.

Videotapes are usually a minimal profit at best, but I’ve found rare items; first releases, black diamond edition Disneys and rare cover versions that collectors eat up. At any rate, I picked up a large box of tapes that looked to be in great condition for $5, and it wasn’t until I got home that I started checking them thoroughly. When I did, I found a standard black video cassette tape missing a box.

Normally, these don’t interest me because they’re usually unsalable. Secondly, this had no standard label so it was likely some home movie. What stopped me from tossing it right then and there was the black strip punch label stuck to the back that read “23/2/11” in blocky white raised numbers. I suspected from the dating system it was European and when it didn’t play on my NTSC VCR, that confirmed it. I huffed as I returned to my closet and fetched the European PAL deck. It was only 6 PM and I had time to kill, so I popped the tape into my old VHS player and pressed play.

The footage was black and white, shot high up from the center of a room where the wall met the ceiling. The camera was pointed down to a thin woman hunched over in a wheelchair. Based on the angle and the stillness of the footage, it was clearly a surveillance feed. The footage was grainy, but I could see the seated woman looked disheveled; her gray, chin-length hair was matted and messy, and she appeared to be dressed in a filthy hospital gown.

The way the woman was positioned looked still and unnatural. I quickly realized her wrists and ankles were bound to the wheelchair with straps. Both the walls and floors were padded with quilted square cushioning, and the door behind her had a slot in it, resembling something out of a mental hospital or a maximum-security prison. Just a second after the recording began, the bound woman raised her head and looked directly into the camera.

I immediately felt a growing sense of dread as the intense stare of the woman burned into my retinas. Some primal part of my brain awoke and implored me to get away, but I just watched as curiosity and fear mingled into an all-encompassing wave of building anxiety. The woman just sat in her chair staring, but I felt my mouth begin to dry and my breath felt abrasive. My sinuses burned, and soon I felt the patter of liquid onto my lap from my nose, but I couldn’t turn away from the screen.

I heard a rapid tapping and it took a few seconds of trying to understand the sound before I realized it was the chattering of my teeth. I was shivering, and my arms and legs trembled as I watched the woman on the screen tilt her head to one side as if observing me through the screen itself. That feeling of impending danger heightened, and I wanted to turn it off at that point, but I just kept watching as the woman began fidgeting in the wheelchair’s restraints. She was becoming progressively more agitated; thrashing until the chair began to rock between the two large wheels. After a few minutes, she opened her mouth and began to scream.

The tape was silent, but I swear I could hear her faintly, though not through the speakers. It was like she was screaming from inside my head, small and muffled from deep under the folds of my brain. I felt my lips crack in stinging slivers. I began to wonder just how long I’d been watching the tape, but I was enthralled by the unsettling footage, unable to stop it.

Eventually, the door to her room opened and two large men in white uniforms entered her padded cell. One was shorter with a shaved head and stocky build, the other taller with a slender frame and face framed by dark bangs. The tall man began holding his head in apparent agony, screaming and then dropping to his knees on the padded floor. He remained there as the shorter guy struggled to remove the cap from a syringe.