Creepy Stories

Late Night Television

Its a Friday evening. Your parents are away for the weekend,and they left you in charge of looking after your little brother,while they are gone. At the age of seventeen you are more than capable of making sure a nine year old doesn't get himself killed. Even though its a quarter until midnight,neither you have hit the hay yet. At the moment you are in your room catching up on some homework and he is downstairs watching television in the living room.

Your bedroom is directly above the living room,so you can always hear the TV through your thin floors. Every action movie,every reality show,every infomercial comes in loud and clear to you. Ot use to annoy the hell out of you,but you have grown accoustomed to working with the sound in the background. It hardly ever get so clamorous as to be distracting. If it does,you just descend your house set of steps and ask whoever's down there to lower the volume. Or,if you are feeling lazy,you just holler your request at the floor. They can usually hear you.

Although you are focused on your work you're quite aware of what your brother is watching. You think its a vintage crime show or something. At the moment you can hear one character presumably a mob boss or something like that,bragging about how his gang is going to thrash their rivals in an upcoming brawl.

"We're gonna pound them till they look like newspaper:Black,White and Red all over!" Your brother roars with laughter at that one. Only a kid with his level of maturity could somehow milk a chuckle out of that overplayed pun.

"Ya got that right,Lupo!"one of his underlings exclaimed.

Another character says with a timid voice,"I ain't sure if we should go through this.Doesn't really seem nice to me." More laughter from your brother.

"You got a problem with the plan?"the head monster asked. You could say he was ticked.

At this point you are beginning to lose concentration on your work. You are curious as to what this movie or show is about.

The other answers tentatively,"No,I just think we oughta-"His words were cut short by what sounds like a scuffle. There's a shout then a succession of whams like someone is being bludgeoned with a baseball bat. Your brother giggles again. You've no idea what's supposed to be funny.

The reluctant character-whoever's being roughed up-keep begging for mercy,but the one hurting him dies not relent. The strikes just keep coming. The victim let's out one final plea,but falls silent after you hear something snap,like a broken bone. A sickening crunch follows,accompanied by yet another bay of laughter. After clearing his throat,the leader speaks again."Anybody else have any objections?"

No one does. In the silence you can hear your brother snickering.

The boss speaks up again,"Well,glad that's out of the way." He sighs."Aw,jeez now I am all bloody."that got your brother in stitches. He must not get what's happening,if he thinks its funny.

"Give me a towel and a bucket of water Frankie."the boss orders."Then we can toss this piece of crap out on the streets.Even the rats gotta eat,am I right?" Your brother bursts out laughing like he had just heard the funniest joke in history.

This time your brother hysterics continue for a little less than a minute,growing noisier by the second. This is getting weird.

You feel a little sick to your stomach. Your older sibling instincts kick in,and you realize your brother shouldn't be watching some freaky murder flick so late. He shouldn't be watching it at all,really. It will give him nightmares. Heck,if the thing is as brutal as it sounds,it'd probably keep you awake at night too. Yelling at him to come up and go to bed yields no response. Stubborn kid. You try again. No reply. Perhaps he fell asleep on the couch. You decide to go downstairs and carry him up to his bed.

You push away from your desk and leave your room. The noise from the television stops abruptly as you walk down the hall towards the staircase. Downstairs,its dark. The TV's not on. Your brother is not on the couch in front of it. You call out his name,no one answers. He is not in any of the rooms on the ground floor.

Suddenly alarmed you sprint up the stairs to his room and peak in. You found him snoring soundly next to his nightlight. He must have gone to sleep a while ago,since there is no way he could have snuck past you from downstairs undetected. In any case, you are relieved he is all right,and glad he wasn't poisoning his mind with some horrific late night televised drivel. Positively relieved,until you realize that there's no way he could be watching television few moments ago.

An icy chill run down your spine. You hear laughter behind you,its that same laughter from downstairs that you had assumed belonged to your brother. Only now it was much closer....